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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

As the superpowers establish their fleets in the HIP 22460 system, Azimuth Biotech prepares to deliver a decisive blow against the Thargoids.
A segment from Salvation's briefing to the anti-xeno taskforce admirals was shared by Azimuth:
"The Proteus Wave relies on power sources and components of Guardian origin, which will inevitably draw the Thargoids to HIP 22460. As we know, their hostile reaction to stockpiles of Guardian artefacts is instinctive. They have no defence against the weaponry of their ancient enemies, other than to launch pre-emptive strikes to prevent it being deployed."
"Therefore, the Bright Sentinel must be protected as a priority while delivered artefacts are processed for transport to the Proteus Wave site, with independent pilots who support our endeavour aiding these efforts. I cannot stress enough how vital it is to keep the enemy at bay during this phase of the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

GOG's latest sale has had a good run, but it's quickly coming to a close. The Wing Commander series continues to be marked down by 75%. The price goes back up mid day Monday, so get your last minute purchases in before then!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
A range of mined materials have been delivered to the LHS 157 system to help Azimuth Biotech create new facilities.
Captain Maxim Lagunov, in command of the Glorious Prospect megaship, announced:
"This is the second time in recent weeks that our cargo bays have been stocked with vital supplies to sustain Azimuth's future. These shipments of cobalt, gallite and osmium will be distributed to our manufacturing teams, and we hope to construct new permanent facilities in good time."
"Torben Rademaker has authorised us to release funds to all pilots who mined and delivered these materials. This initiative has played a major role in helping to rebuild the corporation and continue our important work."
"The Glorious Prospect will remain in the LHS 157 system for now. Pilots who have contributed to this initiative will shortly receive a Mbooni system permit, providing

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The prospect of more systems being invaded by Thargoids has placed the Alliance, Empire and Federation on high alert.
Ernesto Rios, field correspondent for Vox Galactica, summarised the situation:
"Following the Battle of HIP 22460, there was anticipation that the Thargoids would expand into neighbouring regions. Swarms of hostile vessels did indeed arrive in the 42 n Persei, Chun Pindit and Tekkeitjal systems, although – in a notable change to their former tactics – no starports suffered a direct attack."
"The Federal Navy quickly responded by deploying Farragut-class battle cruisers. President Zachary Hudson proclaimed that these successfully drove out the invaders, but many observers suspect that the Thargoids' withdrawal when the fighting remained fierce was intentional."
"In the Empire, Senator Denton Patreus considered these events 'an indication that the Thargoids are probing humanity's

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's officially the season of giving now, so here's our annual recap of Wing Commander items to gift to your friends and family - or help round out your own collection! The most popular deal continues to be the discounted digital purchases of Wing Commander games. They're 75% off for the next week at GOG.com.

One new addition this year is the MT-32 Archival Edition of Team Fat's classic Wing Commander 1 audio album. It's a super sized sampling of some stellar WC tunes. I also can't recommend a physical copy of Academy on DVD highly enough. They're dirt cheap and preserve you ability to watch the show forever!

CIC Drink Coasters are also 25% off today!

Games ($1.49 each)
Wing Commander 1&2 Wing Commander 3 Wing Commander 4 DVD Wing Commander Prophecy & Secret Ops	Wing Commander Privateer Wing Commander Privateer 2 Wing Commander Academy Wing Commander Armada

Movies & TV

Academy DVD: Amazon $7.99 | Walmart

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last month, we reported that Supercade was planning to manage a crowd funding campaign for a vinyl release of George Oldziey's Wing Commander Orchestral Recording Project. Now, it seems like the launch is imminent as Supercade author Van Burnham has just tweeted:

Just a heads up that the preorder campaign for Supercade’s first soundtrack release is launching SOON… a deluxe vinyl edition of the Wing Commander orchestral score by composer George Oldziey. So excited to share more details!#wingcommander #videogamesoundtrack #vinylcollector pic.twitter.com/DOWHWtyuZc

— Van Burnham (@supercade71) February 1, 2023

There's no additional information yet but we'll let you know the moment it's available. If you are curious about the promotional screenshot, it's actually from a Wing Commander Academy mod developed by HCl that adds a Hellcat V to the game! Want to try it for yourself? You can download te patch here.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The Kumo Crew is marshalling the defence of the California Nebula by offering rewards for eliminating Thargoid vessels.
The Kumo Council, the syndicate's ruling body, assumed control of several systems that were recently invaded by Thargoid fleets. Independent pilots have been asked to take part in anti-xeno initiatives within the region, which are being coordinated from The Mictlan megaship.
Harrison Gladstone of the Turner Research Group, which represents the Alliance in the California Nebula, made a formal protest:
"We are not happy about defence initiatives being funded by a ruthless criminal gang. These pirates are using the Thargoid attacks to expand their illegal activity, thus jeopardising our faction's scientific and commercial interests. Several of our ports in the area are now under Kumo Crew 'emergency protections', as they've termed it. This is an

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Transmission Interrupted! I’m taking over your normal Wing Commander feed to wish a very happy birthday to CIC founder Chris Reid! Chris is the reason you’ve seen a new update in the space every single day for the past twenty years. Heck, most of the time you see my byline it’s because he’s taken the time to find something I was fooling with on Discord or Twitter. None of this site would be possible without Chris and he’s also one of the most thoughtful and competent people I’ve ever known. So in the greatest old IRC style, please put down your trouts and raise a virtual mug of Goddard Special to a real legend! Now, back to your regularly scheduled commlinks…

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AtolmAzel is an artist over on DeviantArt who specializes in sci-fi art. Among their many galleries is a special section with sketches inspired by Wing Commander. Check out some of their slick pieces below! The sampling below shows off the Dralthi, K'ha'haf, Rapier, Longbow and a handful of capships. They incorporate some very distinct familiar themes with some smooth artistic license. You can find all of their sketches here!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The race is on to develop technology which can recover humans from Thargoid Titans, reports Vox Galactica journalist Jade Sanderlyn.
"Now we know the stomach-churning truth: the Thargoids are keeping people they abduct alive. The dramatic leak of a high-level conversation within Aegis confirmed that Thargoid tactics had shifted to incorporate the mass abduction of humans. Seo Jin-ae's telepathic connection to the aliens revealed that captives are being stored inside pod-like structures aboard the Titans. She also sensed that the Thargoids considered these captives an important part of their invasion plan."
"Aegis took these visions seriously, releasing an update to the pulse wave xeno scanner that was designed to test her hypothesis. Sure enough, those pilots who dared make a close approach to the Thargoid motherships detected human life-signs beneath their hulls. This is where civilians from

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The star system Hyades Sector FB-N B7-6, which contains Thargoid Titan Taranis, has been surrounded by human forces.
Aden Tanner, special advisor to Aegis, provided the following update:
"Our pilots appear to have pushed Thargoids out of all systems in Titan Taranis's area of control. It's taken a huge effort, one which should rightly be recognised as outstanding. We don't know for certain what will happen next. But for now, the region is back in humanity's control."
"I strongly urge pilots to keep fighting the Thargoid fleet wherever it is encountered. We must not become complacent - the Thargoids have surprised us before, and have demonstrated the ability to respond when defeat seems inevitable. Those who fought in the HIP 22460 campaign and witnessed the Proteus Wave event will testify to the dangers of assuming the war is won."
Systems in the immediate vicinity, such as Hupang, Swahku and

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here are a couple of fun treats from poking through an archive of Computer and Video Games magazines.

This review of Wing Commander SNES has a neat ship identification chart (where they've colored in the ships)!

Here's a June 1994 announcement for a Genesis port of Wing Commander II. It never made it out!

A Wing Commander III preview with some set photography and storyboards. Interesting what they imagined for Angel before Yolanda Jilot was cast!

Some new set photos from Privateer 2 back when it was just 'The Darkening'!

And finally some Wing Commander IV set photos being used to fill out an article about how Windows 95... exists?

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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Origin composer George Oldziey is now counting down the hours to the launch of his second album of live Wing Commander music! What makes now the right time for a sequel? Check out the update below for some of the motivation behind the project.

So, this is a big year for me for round numbers. I turned 70, and 30 years ago I scored my very first video game, Wing Commander 3. And 10 years ago I had the privilege of running a successful Kickstarter campaign, funded by the greatest video game fans in the world, that resulted in the first orchestral recording of 40 minutes of my original music from the three Wing Commander games that I scored for Electronic Arts/Origin (see the link to a video about those sessions 10 years ago).

This Sunday I'm going to launch another KS campaign to record another 40 minutes of music from those games with a large orchestra!

I've been blessed to have had MANY musical

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Users of the Supercruise Overcharge function of Achilles' new Frame Shift Drives have reported that the module puts ships under immense mechanical and thermal stress, often causing severe hull damage. Ship manufacturers throughout the galaxy are now diverting research towards overcoming this issue.
Stent Jackson, a ship engineering and design consultant, spoke to Vox Galactica about this new surge of research:
"Now don't get me wrong, every manufacturer I've spoken to considers Supercruise Overcharge to be a great thing, but it's also ripping our hulls apart. The good with the bad, as always."
"Funny thing is, every manufacturer is realising all at once that there are some crucial things about ship construction that they've all taken for granted. When you get down to brass tacks, we assume certain thresholds, right? Before, we didn't need to worry about exceeding certain temperatures or

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Hey there - my name is Jo, and I'm the UI designer on STO! To say I am passionate about this update is a bit of an understatement. My first goal upon joining the team was to address the Character Creator UI, and when they said I could work on it I literally jumped up and danced. I am ecstatic that my first post gets to be about something I care (maybe too much) about: Player Experience and Space Barbie. Okay, that was two things I care greatly about... The character creator is one of those features you see in games that started out simple, and worked fine when it was made, but as new factions and species were added to the game, it quickly got bloated and overwhelming. My first goal was to clean up the UI and cut down on the visual clutter. We used to just throw every option at you all at once on one page. When I built my first character I was so excited to see all the options, and the LCARS were

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Up tonight is a fantastic piece of art by

tkdrobert

. This one features a pair of Morningstars zooming away from the Concordia or another Confederation class dreadnought set against a colorful backdrop. Although the final results almost look like a painting, the scene was 3D rendered with

Klavs' models

as a starting point. tkdrobert has done some nice retouching to give it a cool stylized look. Check out more of his work

here

.

Rendered in Daz3D (IRAY) with post-work done in Photoshop.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Jan Sandoval, co-founder of the Red Family cartel, has died while in the custody of the Federal Intelligence Agency.

Executive Agent Viola Trask made the following statement:

"I regret to announce that Jan Sandoval has been found dead in the safe house where she was being held. An autopsy revealed traces of a highly sophisticated neurotoxin that our security measures were unable to detect."

"We have yet to determine how the neurotoxin was administered, or how the individual responsible accessed the safe house. Internal investigations are underway, but we suspect that the assassin has already fled the Sol system."

It is believed that surviving elements of the Red Family arranged this second, successful attempt on Sandoval's life in response to her cooperation with the Federal Intelligence Agency. The FIA's operation against the cartel will continue, but the loss of its primary intelligence

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

The Infinity Lock Box, containing prizes from nearly all previously-retired Lock Boxes, will be available again for an appearance beginning on PC on August 8th and on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in September. During this time, enemies defeated on both Ground and Space maps will have a small chance of dropping one of these prize-filled packages. This run of the Infinity Lock Box will feature the addition of the Emperor’s Lockbox contents, Tier 6 versions of the Voth Flight-Deck Cruiser and Voth Science Vessel, and more! Continue reading further on for the full details on these new and updated starships! Updated Prize Lists! Along with the upgraded starships and all of the prizes offered in previous appearances of the Infinity Lock Box, additional prizes originally seen in the Emperor’s Lock Box have been added to the rewards! They now include all of the following: Styx Dreadnought Cruiser

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last month we posted the cool blue cover of the Japanese WC1 Manual, and Christian Klein is back with another neat glimpse into Japanese Wing Commander. Here's a couple shots of WC2 with some pretty cool Japanese subtitles. Andi Green translates Shadow's text as "Requesting permission to attack," and the Sartha says, "We will kill all humans!"

If you find these intriguing and would like to see more, here's a video of the Japanese Super Nintendo Wing Commander courtesy of GameCenter SE. I always find it interesting to find slightly different iterations of Wing Commander, of course, and foreign language translations have the dual benefit of helping you imagine people all over the globe having fun with these games.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

PEACE! On this day in 2669, the Empire of Kilrah offered unconditional surrender to the Terran Confederation following the devastating temblor bombing of their home world. Happy V-K Day!

On September 24, 2669, Colonel Christopher Blair launched his successful Temblor Bomb strike on Kilrah. Its resulting blast wave took out the Emperor and Prince Thrakhath's enormous invasion fleet massing in orbit. The crown prince himself was also bested in combat just prior to Blair's descent to the planet's surface. Faced with this unfathomable loss, Thrakhath's chee'dyachee Melek immediately surrendered. VK Day was patterned after VE and VJ Day celebrated on Earth after World War 2. False Colors was the first to give us a name for the event in the WC universe. Also of note, Star*Soldier mentions VN Day, which strongly suggests that some significant victory over the Nephilim was also achieved by the year