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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots Federation ALERT*
Conflict has erupted between the Azaladshu Free and Neche Inc factions, as multiple Federal systems declare independence.
This was sparked by Azaladshu Free withdrawing from the Federation, which transformed Azaladshu, LFT 824, LHS 277 and LTT 3919 into independent systems. The faction strenuously opposes government monitoring of Federal citizens' private communications.
Three other Federal factions are on the verge of declaring independence: Coalition of Uteran, Lp 726-6 Free and Gluscap Labour. All are closely monitoring the situation in Azaladshu and considering their next move.
Mayor Constanza Noguera, leader of Azaladshu Free, made this statement:
"We refuse to accept the Federation's draconian surveillance laws. I call upon all supporters of independence to help us fight for our sovereignty!"
The declaration brought a swift reaction from President Zachary Hudson

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Shadow President Felicia Winters has claimed that further systems declaring independence could severely damage the Federation.
Her statement was in response to the conflict in the Kuwembaa system, which resulted in more Federal factions seceding from the superpower. Dozens of others are now openly considering breaking away and becoming independent.
Addressing Congress, Shadow President Winters said:
"We now face the possibility of large-scale rebellion, as more citizens reject intrusion into their private lives. Unless these authoritarian surveillance laws are repealed, we risk many more factions and allies losing their trust in any Federal government."
Vice President Jerome Archer responded:
"The Proactive Detection Bureau provides increased security and decreased crime levels for all Federal systems. I deeply regret that a few have rejected its benefits, but we must concentrate on the bigger

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we're taking a look at the Wing Commander patches being sold by SciFi Geeks. The company specializes in cosplay patches for a very wide range of franchises. I've seen their promotions around in various forms for years, but I don't think we've highlighted them here before. There is a certainly sketchy Web 1.0 quality to their operation, but the fact that they seem to have been around for almost 20 years also lends some amount of credibility. Each of the patches below is listed for $11.99, and there appears to be a 15% coupon with the code "SAVE15." Has anyone ordered any of these before? How did they turn out? Send us your pictures if so!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Symphonic Remakes has made a new set of digital reorchestrations for Wing Commander 2. Today's lineup is the brief scramble clip followed by longer tracks for Prince Thrakhath's Theme and the Victory tune. WC2 has some fabulous music, so it's nice to see another fresh take on it. If you like these, check out their earlier remixes for WC1/2 here!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Docteur J has hosted epic playthroughs of Wing Commander 3 and 4 over the last couple years, so in 2022 he's taking on Prophecy over at Oldies Games TV. He's been streaming Wing Commander for a long time, and his dedication is a fantastic example of how Wing Commander fandom transcends all languages and cultures. At first his content would have been geared towards French speakers, but with YouTube's auto translate feature, anyone can turn on captions in their native language and follow along with the fun! The first few new Prophecy chapters are available now:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last year we mentioned Plywood Fiend's alternative take on a Wing Commander playthrough. Rather than just add typical commentary to the stream, he spices up the episodes with his own animations, supplemental dialogue and unique captions. After winning the Vega Campaign, he's moved on and is now well into the Secret Missions. You can find a few samples below or check out his full Wing Commander playlist on YouTube here.

Woe, calamity and me, for I have returned with more stuff. Specifically I've gone back to do a play through of Secret Missions 1 in my own peculiar fashion; the playlist can be found here (scroll down for the new material, I'm currently up to the Gwenhyvar mission.) Below are a few samples of the added extras I've twisted in, most notably is a pixel art animation I made showing a fateful distress call from the TCS Johann which, suffice it to say, was not the luckiest of vessels, as

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
As the Thargoid presence increases in the HIP 22460 system, Azimuth Biotech and the superpowers call for reinforcements.
An urgent bulletin was transmitted from Commodore Morag Halloran aboard the Bright Sentinel:
"A series of actions by 'Operation Wych Hunt' saboteurs have resulted in delays to Azimuth Biotech's supply infrastructure. As a result of these traitorous acts, we have been forced to amend the construction timetable for the Proteus Wave."
"Salvation informs me that it will be approximately two more weeks until the weapon is fully assembled. This delay increases the Proteus Wave's exposure to Thargoid intervention, potentially undermining the project. But we remain convinced that the majority of pilots are committed to ensuring a human victory."
"After discussions with Admiral Atherton, Admiral Price and Admiral Ziegler, the coalition has agreed to provide

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Out of Print Archive has posted another vintage Wing Commander scan, and this one's a beauty! It dates back to the May 1993 issue of CVG in the UK where they highlight the Super Nintendo release of WC1. The graphics design here is wonderful. It features solid blue tones, "high tech" beveled thumbnails and plenty of caution striping. As was common at the time, we get a cockpit overview, missile rundown and fighter identification chart. I would have loved this as a 13-year old. A really cool review!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Sima Kalhana continues her review of the most significant historical events that occurred during the past year.
"In May 3308, the Thargoid invasions of the Didio, Novas and Sosong systems were completely repelled by the use of Salvation's unique superweapons. This convinced the Alliance, Empire and Federation to support Azimuth Biotech in developing this Guardian-based technology, with Salvation claiming that he could end the Thargoid threat forever."
"Elsewhere that month, the Kumo Crew syndicate faced civil war as pirate rebels tried to replace Archon Delaine. Eventually his loyal forces triumphed, with the Blue Viper Club dredger clan fleeing his reprisals. And in the Federation, trillionaire entrepreneur Zachary Rackham announced his presidential candidacy for the 3309 election."
"June saw the Golconda generation ship repaired and updated by the Artificers Clan. This provided the majority

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Anti-authoritarian protests have surged in the Alliance, Empire and Federation with governments accused of responsibility for Thargoid hostility.
Vox Galactica's political correspondent Conrad Sterling published a special report:
"The xeno-peace movement, which originally advocated diplomatic relations with the Thargoids, lost a lot of momentum following the arrival of the Maelstroms. But some former members are blaming Allied, Federal and Imperial leaders for allowing the war to escalate, with profits from corporate arms deals seen as the motive."
"Timothy Culver, once a spokesperson for the Thargoid Advocacy Project, believes that conflict was always the superpowers' policy. 'They knew the Proteus Wave would trigger an aggressive reaction from the Thargoids,' he claims – without providing evidence, it should be noted. 'Shareholders in the military/industrial complex always make a fortune

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AD has done a little digging and found some interesting new aspects to a wild Wing Commander 3 promotion. We've previously reported about the contest to win a flight aboard a "Russian fighter jet" that was part of the WC3 marketing campaign. It was apparently an even larger event than we knew with French adverts to fly a MiG rather than the Su-27 called out in English fine print (despite them using the same fighter jet image). They do seem to refer to separate trip rewards, however, based on slight differences in what the prize packages entail (different date ranges, mention of spending money, supplemental US trip details, etc). The images below also show how there was a red box sleeve band around certain copies of the game to advertise everything, which is pretty neat. These copies are still listed on eBay for collectors out there! English & French

And here's more detail from our previous posts!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Aegis and Azimuth Biotech have concluded rival campaigns to deliver tissue samples harvested from the Thargoid Titans.
Titan tissue samples were obtained from the surfaces of the Thargoid capital ships using research limpets and brought back to human space by daring pilots.
Dr Maximo Fonseca, the Allied scientific liaison to Aegis, delivered a congratulatory message:
"It takes a special kind of pilot to travel through the Maelstroms and fly across the surfaces of these enormous motherships, but it seems such courage is not in short supply. The samples we received will undergo scientific testing by Allied, Federal and Imperial specialists. We are confident that they will shed light on the Titans' capabilities and the technologies used in their construction."
A parallel campaign by Azimuth Biotech also received deliveries of Titan-based materials, but the number of

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

True to my word, I will play these missions LIVE tonight! Tune in at 8 PM Eastern to talk Academy and fly some Origin-made Wing Commander missions for the first time.

The search for the 'PC Player' Wing Commander Academy missions continues... but it HAS spun off something even more exciting: a set of five demo missions that Origin made in house and posted to their BBS in September 1993?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I've also collected about one hundred fan made missions from old BBSes and Warez CDs during the hunt! Except a feature with downloads soon.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Councillor Nakato Kaine has requested deliveries to the Tionisla system in protest against the anti-xeno defence pact.
Pilots are asked to deliver shipments of hazardous environment suits, micro controllers and titanium to Brett High. The Alliance Rapid-reaction Corps, which is hosting the initiative, will protect participants by redeeming bounty vouchers for the destruction of any wanted ships.
The campaign was personally arranged by Councillor Nakato Kaine, the representative for Tionisla in the Alliance Assembly. Speaking to the Old Worlds Gazette, Kaine stated:
"I aim to prove that the Alliance's military fleet is not as dependent upon Sirius Corporation as many believe. This campaign demonstrates our capability to stockpile vital resources for the Alliance Defence Force. And we have plenty of researchers, mechanics and manufacturers ready to develop our own

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We have an exciting new project to share today! AllTinker, the talented programmer and artist currently working on the Confederation project, has also been working on an intriguing tool that he's dubbed 'Originator'. The program seeks to dig into the guts of a wide range of Wing Commander and Origin games and extract art assets, sound files and videos. A program like this would make many of the CIC's internal projects much easier. It's also very valuable to modders, artists or just fans who are curious about what makes up the games. There's still a lot of debugging going on, but AllTinker has big plans for future enhancements to add in later. If you'd like to try out the first release and read more about the app, visit the CIC Forums!

Hey all, here's an offshoot project I've been working on for the past few months, which has turned into its own monster... It's still very early days, but perhaps

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Dr Alfred Ulyanov, a leading exotheologian and an authority on the Far God cult, has been apprehended as a suspected Thargoid sympathiser.

The arrest took place at Dr Ulyanov's home in the Rana system, where he and his family were taken into custody by the Federal Intelligence Agency. Research materials and computer systems were also removed from the property, according to witnesses.

Professor Siobhan Vogel of the Interstellar Association of Universities registered a formal complaint:

"For Dr Ulyanov's academic studies to be viewed as evidence that he is some kind of Thargoid agent is utterly ridiculous. This violation of his rights sets a dangerous precedent."

Federal Intelligence Agency Senior Agent Micah Whitefield gave the following statement:

"When it comes to possible Thargoid allies, we cannot afford to overlook anything. Dr Ulyanov's involvement with the Far God cult makes him a valid

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a new news feature! Kind of. Thanks to some back end enhancements of our content management system, we can now more easily assemble

News Collections

to package up thematic series of news posts. This will allow us to assemble these stories into an automated type of article for easy consumption or research later. Here are a few examples!

• On This Day in WC News
• CIC Anniversaries
• April Fools!
• Lost Ships

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's exciting news about the next phase of composer George Oldziey's musical works! He's now working through the bidding process to price out what it would take to create a second album of live orchestral recordings. To recap: way back in early 2014, Mr. Oldziey kicked off his

first campaign

to record a live album of his tremendous tracks from Wing Commander 3, 4 and Prophecy. The campaign was successful and the

performance

was recorded in October of 2014. Fast forward to July 2017 and

phase two

was kicked off. The second endeavor digitally reorchestrated another round of classical tracks and also conducted a

live recording of jazz music

from throughout the WC series. Now that those projects have all successfully concluded, he's looking at going back to the full orchestra for another live album. As an extra bonus, he's considering putting a book together that documents this exciting ride - all

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

At long last: the original sources for all four alternate German Wing Commander novel covers! Baen didn't own the Sam Yeates' cover paintings for Wing Commander III and IV so they couldn't license them to the German publisher directly. So instead they used 'slush' art that they already had the rights to reprint starting with Heart of the Tiger!

The Stars at War is by David Weber and Steve White. No author names on the front though?

I was curious about that too; it turns out its an pen-and-paper game sourcebook based on the novel!

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

Delta Patrols Update Now that you’ve had a chance to experience the new updated patrol system, we’re bringing three more patrols on-line! We’ve reworked three of the Delta Quadrant patrols and added them to the new UI. As part of this treatment, they also gain the bonus experience, updated rewards, and improved functionality of the system. In addition, we’ve modified the patrols to make sure that they’re fast and straightforward, with the occasional twist to keep you on your toes. New UI treatments and objective markers make them even easier to understand, too. For this round we’ve updated the following: “Tempting Targets” (Kinbar system patrol): The Hierarchy has a trade outpost in orbit over a resource-rich planet in the Kinbar system, and various Delta Quadrant groups come there to trade. Of course, bolstered trade draws in smugglers, pirates, and brigands, with nobody to