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Here's something you don't see everyday. You don't really see them much at all anymore now, but long before Tik Tok was a thing, "music video" remixes with random visuals and someone else's music were a pretty popular YouTube pastime. They got extra bonus points if the visuals and the music actually sync'd up and loosely conveyed some narrative. We've got one such video today by Peter Plum. It takes a variety of scenes from the Wing Commander Academy television show and puts them against "This is War" by Thirty Seconds from Mars. It's not a bad combination!

The classic space-shooter Wing Commander spawned a short-lived television series entitled Wing Commander Academy. This video features clips from that cartoon put to Thirty Seconds from Mars' "This is War".

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Federal government has announced plans to extend Zachary Hudson's term as president beyond the legally allotted span.
Every Federation president serves a single term of eight years. President Hudson assumed the role in June 3301, and is therefore due to step down in June 3309 following an election to select his replacement.
Secretary of State Lana Berkovich delivered the proposal to Congress:
"We live in extraordinary times, and all signs point to further challenges in the coming years. Our people deserve a steady hand at the helm rather than being forced to change political course, especially with the tempestuous developments found within our neighbouring superpowers."
"It is therefore in the public interest that we temporarily suspend the arbitrary eight-year limitation, to allow President Hudson to continue steering the Federation through the coming storms."
Shadow President Felicia

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Matt McGuire has posted a short and sweet digital reorchestration of the classic WC1 scramble music. You can hear it take advantage of a much wider ensemble than the MIDI of thirty years ago. Give it a listen below!

Wing Commander Scramble Music

Composed in Cakewalk using the Spitfire BBC Orchestra

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The Reorte Mining Coalition has succeeded in forcing Sirius Corporation to withdraw from the Reorte system.
Despite the megacorp's strategic defence pact with the Alliance, Reorte's controlling faction claimed the Sirius megaship Chariot of Rhea was an illegal intruder. This resulted in open conflict, which has ended with Sirius Corporation's defeat.
Fergus Cassidy, CEO of the Reorte Mining Coalition, transmitted this message:
"With the support of many brave pilots, we have prevented Sirius from sinking its claws into the Reorte system. I hope our victory will convince the Alliance's leaders to think twice about their deal with the devil."
Captain Delfina Dominguez has confirmed that Sirius Corporation has started to withdraw from Reorte. The megaship Chariot of Rhea will leave Reorte and jump to the Leesti system pending further discussions with Allied leaders.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The Affiliated Counter-Terrorism unit has launched an effort to locate and decipher the NMLA's dark-comms network.
The request was sent by Captain Saskia Landau, one of ACT's co-leaders:
"ACT is working to gain access to the Omega Grid version that was provided to the NMLA by its mysterious benefactors. Most of our agents seconded from the IISS have been recalled, and some Senate leaders are blocking our progress. Therefore, we urgently need support from independent pilots, which will contribute to our wider efforts to decrypt the network."
"To begin with, we have triangulated the possible location of an Omega Grid beacon somewhere within the HIP 290 system. If it can be found, this will validate our strategy and quickly lead to further discoveries."
"Messages relayed across this network are likely to be encrypted. Our analysts have put together a partial cipher key

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

elend has taken the next step in creation of his wonderful physical Dralthi model. The spacecraft itself is now complete - it looks fabulous! I could never make something so detailed. The primer coat is now being applied, and a full up brown Dralthi paint scheme is coming soon!

I have started priming! Wooo. Paintjob soon.

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Klavs has posted a very unique take on the glorious universe map from the Wing Commander Movie. He's started with the super high res capture of the actual physical map prop. Then he removed the border and played with the settings to create a visually enhanced image. Items like Scylla, the Charybdis Quasar and arms of the Milky Way really pop. Even the constellations stand out with a nice glow. The results are stunning!

Hi everyone, I've cropped LOAF's incredible Wing Commander movie map image to mostly remove the rusty border and added the numbers on the border into the map interior. I've also adjusted exposure, gamma, contrast to provide a bit more color and contrast and fixed a little bit of distortion here and there. And now I really want to make a metal print of this! Enjoy!

And here's the original for comparison:

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Affiliated Counter-Terrorism unit is actively investigating Imperial Intelligence, despite the Senate ordering it to cease operations.
Inspector Mara Klatt, one of ACT's co-leaders, told the media:
"We are convinced that elements within Imperial Intelligence provided support to the NMLA. Our view is that a modified version of the Omega Grid software was supplied to the terrorists, allowing them to build their own dark-comms network. Thanks to Captain Saskia Landau's inside knowledge, we are learning how to detect a unique identifier associated with the network employed by the NMLA."
"Our actions may have political repercussions, but this taskforce is dedicated to finding and destroying the NMLA. We must follow the trail wherever it leads."
Civil and military leaders in the Empire have reacted with outrage, including Senator Zemina Torval:
"Are we expected to risk our citizens' lives by

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we've got a new poll about your favorite mechanics in the Wing Commander series. There's a number of really good options, so we expect it to be quite competitive! There's just one Kilrathi choice, but we actually have several droid-based selections.

Our annual new year's poll was also interesting this time around. It usually starts pretty positive and then gradually normalizes as the month goes on. However, this time the positive responses had a second surge this past week. As we mentioned a month ago, the general cloud of pessimism over the state of the world is quite understandable, but I'm encouraged by what Wing Commander fans continue to do to keep things moving forward!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Information recovered from the Alexandria has prompted Aegis to insist that it was not responsible for the loss of the megaship's crew and cargo.
The wreckage of the Alexandria was recently located in the Wregoe TC-X B29-0 system. There were no survivors, but fragments of the commanding officer's log were found.
Chief Administrator Carter Armstrong published this statement on behalf of Aegis:
"The logs made by Captain Jacob Morales tell a bleak tale. The Alexandria was deliberately sabotaged to leave it stranded and powerless. They were met by an unidentified group posing as a rescue team, who slaughtered most of the crew and hijacked the Guardian artefacts. The survivors later made a desperate attempt to initiate the hyperdrive, which sadly led to their destruction."
"We can now prove that the Alexandria's loss was not caused by negligence, as claimed by the Baumann Report. In reality, the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Lon Seidman has put together a fun video about Wing Commander Prophecy for the Gameboy Advance. At least that's what he set out to do, but he ended up prefacing that first with a nice ten-minute rundown of the Wing Commander series as an introduction to the franchise. Lon then gives the game a good overview, and he also provides tips on how to get into the series today via GOG. There's even a WCNews.com shout out (thanks!). Prophecy Advance has some definite limitations, but it's massively impressive what Raylight was able to pack into a tiny handheld cartridge. They even added in four player multiplayer!

You can read more about what the game meant to us here and find the story from the developers' perspective here. More of Lon's videos are posted regularly at Lon.TV.

The Modern Vintage Gamer posted a great video about a Tomb Raider port on the GBA from the OpenLara project. It reminded me of

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Votes have been coming in all month, and there's been a clear trend in the results. As January is coming to a close, we're ready to announce the winners! This year the numbers were pretty clear cut. With that being said, every project got a good handful of votes, which shows how there's something for everyone brewing in the community.

The top contender for 2021 was the Wing Commander 4 Fan Remake. While Wingnuts wait for a playable test, the team has provided a steady and informative pace of updates that tell people what they're working on. And these are formatted in short but slick articles with accompanying visuals to help provide a good sense of the state of things.

We have two established runners up this year. The first is ODVS' AI/Neural Net Enhanced Wing Commander Videos. We've seen more and more fans play around with the new WC3 language options lately, and it's been fun to see what may be

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Mac's got a short clip today, but what it lacks in length is more than made up for by its awesome subject matter! He's taken Klavs' glorious Excalibur model and run it through its paces. There's even a rousing soundtrack thanks to George Oldziey's live orchestra recording. Enjoy:

I've become fascinated with 3d Animation from doing the Tarawa Video.

Thanks to Sebastian for the tip!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The infrastructures of six starports have been completed along the travel corridor between Colonia and the core systems.
Brewer Corporation has confirmed that five starport frames were constructed in systems branching out from Alcor, with a sixth closer to the Colonia system. The new stations are:
Zerreiss Station in the Pru Euq WO-D b53-8 system
Helgrind Gateway in the NGC 6530 Sector ZE-X b2-0 system
Vladmir McDoogle's Triumph in the Flyiedge VN-W c4-51 system
Canonn Complex in the Prua Phoe MI-B b17-5 system
Venatores Hub in the Blua Eaec WW-E c14-1293 system
Promium Relay in the Eoch Flyuae QK-E d12-2118 system
At present the starports are not fully operational and only provide rearm, refuel and repair services. Basic commodity trading has also been established to accommodate pilots selling construction materials and to supply tritium fuel.
A fourth phase of the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AD has been on a twenty-three year mission to learn more about all things relating to the Wing Commander Movie, and his latest research is about the "open matte" broadcast of the film. At least Australia was airing this version in 2008, and there may have been other times and places that got it as well. As you can see by the example below, by adjusting where the edge of the frame is, viewers can see detail like the universe map's border and Paladin's journal in the intro. It'd be pretty amazing to see what other visual data might exist out there! If you have a copy or any more detail, please let AD know!

The DVD and Bluray are in 2.35:1 as intended. This screenshot is the only proof that it aired that way I've seen. Anyone else out there happen to catch the film on TV in this format?

The extra map borders - not normally visible in the movie - in that shot match the high quality digitizing of

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The Reorte Mining Coalition has declared its intent to remove the Sirius Corporation presence from its home system.
The megaship Chariot of Rhea arrived in Reorte as part of Sirius Corporation's new role as the Alliance's strategic defence partner. But the system's controlling faction ordered it to withdraw. The megaship's non-compliance has resulted in skirmishes targeting Sirius forces.
Fergus Cassidy, CEO of the Reorte Mining Coalition, announced:
"We fully support Councillor Kaine's position that Sirius Corporation is operating illegally under Alliance law. Therefore, we will defend our territory from this aggressive foreign entity."
A response was broadcast by Captain Delfina Dominguez of the Sirius Navy, who commands the Chariot of Rhea:
"Our presence is authorised by the military contract between Sirius Corporation and the Alliance Defence Force. If local

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

What the Fox Project has posted a pretty impressive speed run of Wing Commander 1. The game features an extensively branching mission structure, so players can experience vastly different games on multiple playthroughs. As we've previously noted, there's some strategy involved here. One short path through the game is to eject through the Enyo, Gateway, Chengdu and Port Hedland systems, then win in Hubble's Star (or Port Hedland) and Rostov, then eject again through Venice and still rout the Kats from the Vega Sector. This shouldn't be seen as cheating - it's its own type of art form to figure out how to legitimately game the game and still see the winning ending in the shortest possible time. The final score here is 23 minutes and 7 seconds, which is amazing! It's also half the time that speed runners were hitting four or five years ago. Check it out below:

Well, it's been a year since I've

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Imperial Senate has shared a personal message from Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval, who has been in a secure location for nearly a year.
The brief statement was broadcast on all public channels:
"Citizens of the Empire, be assured that your Emperor is alive and well. I regret that my temporary seclusion has lasted for so long, but I have remained in contact with the Senate during this time."
"I was advised to depart from Capitol when Imperial Intelligence warned me about a legitimate NMLA assassination attempt, and of Marlinist sympathisers within the highest levels of our government. Once the work of this loyal agency is complete, I will continue my work in leading us toward a prosperous future."
Eye on Achenar reported that this address was "welcomed by a relieved Empire", adding that it was vital to "root out all Marlinist traitors". The Imperial Herald noted that the Emperor seemed to

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FrankyFiggs14 has posted another classic French mag scan, and this one has an interesting take on Wing Commander 4's tagline phrase. It comes from the December 1995 issue of Joystick. After translation, the big caption reads, "The Price of Freedom is Eternal Combat." As LOAF notes, "Eternal combat sounds a little less prestigious than eternal vigilance!" It's also one of the many pieces of copy out there that advertise a December release. After tons of marketing went to print, the game was delayed until February 12 the following year. Pretty neat artifact all around!

A few other pages from the issue for context:

And here are some English versions of the ad for comparison:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

ZOmegaZ has been steadily shipping out batches of challenge coins over the last few weeks, and most people who pledged in his recent Kickstarter should have received theirs. Ours came this past week as well, and they're very snazzy! The pictures don't quite do the material justice. All of the gold outline is very glittery and the colors pop as well. Not bad at all - we'd love to see another Wing Commander design!

Everyone who provided me with shipping information, your coins are now on the way! I'll give everyone else a few weeks, and in the meantime I'll be working on the next round of coin designs.

LOAF: The challenge coins ZOmegaZ’s Kickstarter are here! They turned out pretty neat and now I’ll never have to pay Shotglass for another drink (or ice cream sundae in the SNES version). Yes I also got a Frasier.