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Everyone in the Wing Commander movie club seemed to be very excited to watch Mobile Suit Gundam with friends! And that's certainly something to be happy about. For something made from television episodes, the film looked incredible. Colorful and vibrant. And the story holds up maybe better than it ever did as what seems like a teenage fantasy about flying a robot to save the world (and your mom) meets the grim realities of war. Another one of those wonderful anti-war stories that it's too easy to convince yourself isn't.

We talked a lot about the influence Mobile Suit Gundam had on the style of the Wing Commander I concept art. Here's a good look at White Base and the Snakeir whose look it touched!

And here's a quick comparison of our Newtype heroes…

The movie's story opens at a human colony located at an Earth Lagrange point. The Wing Commander IV novel seems to reference this Gundam backstory exactly

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Hard Target (1993) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start at 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

And don't forget our seventh Wing Commander Cartoon party is early tomorrow!

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Here's a great video: gaming news site Polygon recently did a 'Criterion Closet' style video with Matthew Lillard where he poked through a vintage game collection. It's incredibly entertaining on its own because he's very charismatic and seems to be very genuine in his gaming background… but he also tells a wonderful story about the Wing Commander movie that I'd never heard pop up in an interview before.

This is crazy. I literally just saw this as we walked in. This is a movie I did called Wing Commander. Um, it's so funny. It's with Mark Hamill. Oh, that's so funny. So, yeah. So, I was in Wing Commander. I played Todd Maniac Marshall. One of my favorite lines I've ever said in any movie. It's stupid. This isn't going to be that fun for you, but I literally said in the middle of this movie, "I'm on it." As I'm sliding across the bridge of this spaceship and I'm trying to get us into warp speed and I

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Core Dynamics has confirmed the successful conclusion of its Kestrel field trials, with pilots proving its fighter superiority in conflict zones.
A Core Dynamics press statement described the results as "confirmation that the Kestrel is the best small combat ship available." Engineers monitoring combat situational data reported that the Kestrel outperformed every other ship encountered, better than they had anticipated.
CEO Owen McKenna provided this statement:
"We have a long history of producing high-performance combat ships and always wanted to build a successor to the incomparable Eagle Mk II when the time was right. I'm pleased to announce that the Kestrel is that ship having exceeded all our expectations."
With the successful trials now concluded, Core Dynamics predicts that the Kestrel will be adopted by the Federal Navy and independent combat pilots as the small fighter of choice.
The

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Last year sci-fi sandbox game No Man's Sky premiered a new "corvette" mode that allows players to design and construct their own spacecraft. In the past we've shared some great reconstructions of Wing Commander fighters and corvettes... and now a Reddit user named CaptainJayne-05 has created something a little bigger. It's the TCS Tiger's Claw herself, complete with working flight deck! Pretty neat:

This is inspired by one of my favorite space flight games of all time, Wing Commander. My brain wasn't creative enough to make an exact replica, but I think it is a decent homage to, what I consider, a classic game. For those not old as dirt, like myself, the Tiger's Claw was the space carrier that you flew from as a fighter pilot in the original Wing Commander game. Anyhoo, hope you like it. Interior is as yet unfinished.

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Last year we reported on the release of Wing Hard 2.0, a mod created by Sheppard which adds a great deal of customization to the difficulty of Wing Commander I and II! Now Sheppard is back with an updated version, Wing Hard 2.1. Here's what's new:

WINGHARD v2.1 README (1 March 2026)

WHAT'S NEW:

The v2.1 update consists of the following:

New Features:

"Restore Stock Defaults" -- just what it means; one shot restore to defaults instead of having to push '1' over and over.

Bug Fixes:

Game files are now opened ONCE per file per section (not once per write), dramatically speeding up the program.

Memory Leaks and other "shoot foot" situations are fixed, such as a short overflow issue.

In a short overflow issue, the basic SHORT data type only goes up to 32767.

The CONFEDERATION's Front Shields in WC2 have a value of 5000; so if one were to increase the rating of Confed Cap Ships by more than 6.55~ ; the value of the

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A quick March development update for Freelancer Zero Hour, and the announcement of an early open testing release!

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It's time for March's 'cartoon' marathon and this is one a number of folks have been waiting for: we're beginning a study of how Star Trek influenced Wing Commander! The original Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation were both enormous influences on many aspects of Wing Commander and we've planned an event spanning two months to study some of them!

Star Trek - The Cage (s1e00): The first connection to Wing Commander is a simple one but since it's a direct call out to the very first Star Trek pilot we thought that was a great place to begin. Secret Ops veterans who played through the actual episodes as they came out may remember that the very first winning password in the game was "Talos IV", a reference to the dangerous planet that Captain Pike and his crew visit in The Cage.

Star Trek - Space Seed (s1e22): The introduction of Star Trek's greatest villain, Khan, has a very literal connection to

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Mobile Suit Gundam proved to be pretty popular as the Wing Commander movie club was busier than ever last week! Next time we're going to see if hard hitting action is as popular: we'll be screening Hard Target (1993) next week. Hard Target is an over the top action movie from the legendary John Woo, his first film made for Hollywood. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Why the interest in John Woo movies? Because the Wing Commander III team loved them! Wing Commander III's executable contains a hidden 'quotes' file from the development team full of in-jokes and shoutouts to what sustained them through a hard development cycle… and John Woo movies are mentioned twice! Hard Target would've been in theaters while Wing Commander III was being made. Below is a reproduction of the entire file; there's a lot of inside baseball here but it also paints a wonderful picture of who these

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Earlier this year we suggested everyone catch up on Majuular's excellent (and lengthy) series of Ultima retrospectives. I hope you took our advice, because it's time for the next one: a three plus hour deep dive into the controversial Ultima VII: Pagan and the history around its development. The story naturally includes quite a bit about Wing Commander and it's all very fascinating.

I even noticed a Wing Commander nod I hadn't before: after summoning Pyros, the Lord of Flame, the Avatar is told "I will feast upon your entrails first, manling!". That's a callback to a common Kilrathi taunt... and it's spoken here by Origin's Ken Demarest, who voiced Bluehair in Wing Commander II. Here's the audio from Ultima:

The taunt first appeared in the original Wing Commander where it was "I shall feast upon your offspring." Secret Missions 2 updated it to "I shall feast upon your entrails!" and a tradition was

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Last time we checked in with Tyrel Lohr they were building the Super Wing Commander Snakeir (aka the Wing Commander Armada Shiraak). Now they've moved on to the rest of Wing Commander Armada's too-rarely-seen... armadas. We've got everything from the hated Phantom to the mighty Goran in the works, which you can see below. You can purchase their models to print yourself through Cults!

Thought I would share the in progress shots of the Wing Commander Armada Kilrathi 3d models. Shiraak and Shok'lar have already been test printed, the rest will test print later this week. Have to do the Goran still.

Kilrathi Wing Commander 3d printed pics of the painted 3d models I did of the Shiraak light fighters and Shok'lar fighters. I still need to do some more touch ups on the Shiraak and paint some more paneling details on the bottom, but they are all pretty much table ready now. (Skeet)

Suffered from a bout of

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War never changes but it's certainly interesting to see how its portrayal in the media does! The Wing Commander movie club found that while Go for Broke! certainly isn't some brilliant film that it was a pretty fascinating look at a war story that we don't know enough. The film itself is by the numbers–lots of shooting and characters learning dramatic moral lessons–but it's not quite like a Dam Busters or a Longest Day. It was fascinating to see actual Japanese-American veterans getting to tell their own story just a few years after it happened. !

Here's the movie's title, which as we noted in the previous post was the real motto of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. One of the movie characters explains that "it's Pidgin English for shoot the works" which… actually feels like a more arcane saying, but who knows! It definitely matches Wing Commander II's history of interestingly-named friendly capital ships.

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Mobile Suit Gundam I (1981) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start at 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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The term "redshirt" comes from the original Star Trek, referring to the inevitably doomed Enterprise crew that would appear in landing parties alongside the main cast. And Wing Commander II has them too: pilots beyond the main group you encounter in the story that adds a level of immersion showing that the Victory has more than just seven or eight people on it. The redshirts all share one 'profile' and set of comms… but they sure add to the universe!

And WC3's redshirts aren't just for immersion. You may have noticed that they appear in all four of the game's scramble missions. That's for a practical design reason: these missions need to have wingmen that the game can guarantee aren't dead. By having a roster of scramble-specific pilots, mission designers don't have to worry about cases where main characters might have been killed in a previous mission. Today we have a quick guide to finding all of

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Sorthak! Doesn't the very (code) name strike terror into your hearts? That's a tradition that goes all the way back to Wing Commander III's manual, Victory Streak, which terrified players with a vague report about a large fighter that had wiped out eighteen Confederation ships in a single attack.

INTELL: ENEMY FIGHTER UPDATE
>tcn.victory.intell

Codename: Sorthak

Two weeks ago, a routine naval air transfer ended in the destruction of eighteen fighters, including five Arrows, nine Thunderbolts, and four Longbow bombers. The exact circumstances are unclear, but black box data recovered from the debris indicate that an unusually large Kilrathi fighter attacked the group during its flight to Vega Sector. Apparently equipped with heavy shields and armor, the ship was described on digital tape as “a cross between a Vaktoth and a destroyer, with massive guns protruding from both the front and rear.” Other pilot

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Sometimes I take a risk with a magazine I see on eBay that purports to have a Wing Commander article that isn't available online. This circa 1997 copy of UK-based PlayStation Solutions magazines (Vol. 1, Issue 5 of the US version) seemed like it might have something worthwhile as it has Wing Commander IV as a cover story and promises a complete guide to the game. The actual article ended up being somewhat disappointing, four pages of information taken mostly from the game's then-active official website. But I scanned a copy for posterity anyway, so enjoy!

The magazine also includes a simple two-page spread for something called an "Electronic Arts Competition" which offers, among other prizes, a copy of Wing Commander IV.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Vox Galactica business analyst Marlon Royce has published a feature piece on October Consortium CEO Lexi October:
"Few figures in the Core Systems command as much quiet influence as Lexi October in recent months."
"Known for identifying promising technologies before rivals recognise their value, October has built a portfolio spanning advanced engineering, pharmaceuticals and personal tech. Exobiological research is the next challenge."
"Her hands-on approach came to light in 3305, when the Consortium rescued struggling tech firm Supratech. The investment stabilised the company after poor sales of its Torc computing system and enabled further development of products such as the Artemis exploration suit."
"October's reputation for discretion was reinforced in 3307 when she hosted an exclusive gathering for the secretive Joker's Deck, attended by political and corporate elites including Zachary

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Despite being a mid-century war movie, Go for Broke! was an interesting experience; if nothing else it was fascinating to see how quickly the government can take a stand against bigotry… when it's in the best interests of geopolitics, of course. For this week, we decided to go with something animated… and the channel overwhelmingly voted for a Gundam movie! So we're going to show the very first one, Mobile Suit Gundam I (1981), which was an adaptation of the first section of episodes from the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

If you don't already know Gundam, and it seems like a lot of our members do!, it probably looks like a goofy 1970s cartoon. This week will hopefully prove differently as it's actually a very serious science fiction war story that can sit right up there with things like Starship Troopers. And while it didn't become

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Before their was AI slop there was GOG slop! Here's an odd bit of ephemera we thought it would be good to preserve for future generations: the unusual background graphics that GOG created for their Wing Commander store listings. Some of them are clearly modified from official art... while some of them are totally inexplicable, especially the Wing Commander Academy graphic! But they do look pretty arranged like this...

GOG also created their own logos for most of the games, which we've preserved below. If you look closely at them you'll find they really don't match the real titles at all! Note that Prophecy and Armada don't have their own logo graphics; if you look at their store listings you'll see the space is just empty!

Wing Commander I, Wing Commander II and Secret Ops also have unique titles but they're only visible in thumbnail form since they aren't sold individually. The newly created Secret Ops

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Last year, Mac of Mac's Lore created a series of crossover artwork showing characters from something called Girls Frontline 2: Exilium. And now he's added another one to the series!

Lenna & Leva Steal a Sabre - Wing Commander X Girls Frontline 2: Exilium (ArtStation)

F-57 SABRE by Adam Burch/Hangar B Productions
LENNA/UMP9 & LEVA/UMP45 MMD Models by MICA Team/Girls Frontline 2: Exilium
Rendering by Mac’s Lore

"Nee-San, it's Bear's Sabre from that movie, 'First to Kilrah!'"

Wing Commander ships are my equivalent to comfort food in the realm of 3D rendering. All the more reason to do something with one.

(I don't know who the Girls Frontline 2: Exilium girls are but I suspect they mean DOOMSDAY's Sabre.)