Display MoreThe ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War is one of the darkest current events in a time that offers no shortage of such things. Escaping into fiction, however, we will find that Wing Commander's lore offers us some good news: the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv still exists in the 27th Century… at least until 2668! Today we're taking a quick look at the surprising numbers of times Wing Commander references the city. Kyiv was founded over 1,500 years ago and today is one of the largest cities in Europe. Since 1991 it has been the capital of an independent Ukraine. Note that the modern spelling of the city name, Kyiv, has only become standard in English in the past five years. When Wing Commander was being developed, the Soviet-era "Kiev" was still the common spelling. Our editorial standard is to use the current spelling for anything newly written and to retain the old one only for quotations.
Kyiv was first mentioned in Wing Commander II by way of a well-worn science fiction trope: human place names that are intended to mirror specific, familiar cultures on Earth. In this case, it's the "Novaya Kiev" star system which was intended to imply that the area had been settled by space-faring Soviets (Wing Commander II shipped three months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union!). The correct name today would be Noviy Kyiv, although our language advisor also notes that it should've been male-gendered "Novvy Kiev" in 1991. The series occurs directly after the final Ghorah Khar missions where you and Hobbes defend Olympus Station. If you win that battle, the Kilrathi retreat and you chase them; if you lose it, they withdraw after destroying the station and the Concordia follows. You fly four missions with Doomsday in Broadswords in either scenario; the winning version has more strikes (including a rare attack on a listening post/supply depot) while the losing one sticks you with escort and patrol missions. Both takes end with a jump to the Talbot System to rendezvous with a courier. Additionally, in the 'reassigned' losing endgame, a damaged TCS Agincourt returns to Gwynedd and informs Blair that the Concordia was lost as the Kilrathi invaded the system. Note that the winning version must be the canon take as Olympus appears intact in Special Operations 1.
The 1991 Wing Commander licensing bible includes a system description which has some fascinating information that never made it into the canon: the system is uninhabited and is intended to become a warhead test site. Note that it doesn't totally square with what we see in the game as at one point it's mentioned that the Concordia's escort, the William Tell, has broken off to defend the system. (The "3 million klicks" is also wrong prima facie; that would be much, much closer to the sun than Earth! This error appears throughout the bible systems for Wing Commander II which were likely sourced from some WC2 development doc.)
NOVAYA KIEV
3 million klicks from Sol. Planet count: 32 (none inhabitable)
Major uses: Former Kilrathi territory that is expected to become a military warhead test station.The original Kyiv shows up in the novel Wing Commander Fleet Action where we learn that it's one of the primary control centers for Earth's European space defenses in 2668. Unfortunately, that makes it the target of a Kilrathi antimatter strike that devastates cities across North America, Europe and North Africa.
Down in the Earth's atmosphere Doomsday could see pinpoint winks of light as point defense systems fought to knock down the incoming wave of more than a hundred missiles. And then there was a flash of light over the center of the North American continent. It looked like Chicago going up, followed seconds later by a dozen more: Pittsburg, Boston, Miami, Quebec, then across in Northern Europe: Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Constantinople and Paris. Other flashes detonated over the primary control centers for Earth's American and European space defenses at Omaha, Rio, Tripoli, and Kiev.But there's one more reference! In the conclusion of the Wing Commander IV novel, Maniac learns that he is to be assigned as wing commander to a light carrier named the TCS Kyiv:
Maniac scanned the sheets. "Command school . . . The Kiev . . ." He looked up. "I'm getting a carrier?"
"A light carrier, actually," Taggart replied. "You'll have the task of policing the border."Blair grinned knowingly at Maniac's beatific smile. Marshall had finally gotten his coveted independent command.
