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Here's a fun blast from the past from one of Wing Commander's most dedicated fans! BradMick recently posted some photos the paper ships he used to create as a teenage fan... and they're pretty neat!

Going through some old boxes, found my paper ships I made way back when, these things are easily 30 some odd years old. My poor Centurion has seen better days. I played with these things for hours, cheaper than toys, endless fun. 97 or so should be the rough year. I was really into the Shok’lar for whatever reason, lol. Was probably playing a lot of Armada at the time.

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There's a lot to like about The Transformers. The hand drawn animation is stunning, the music is a wonderful chance of pace from anything you'd expect and the overall effect is of watching an issue of Heavy Metal come to life in front of your eyes. One Wing Commander-relevant debate it brings to the table is: how do you bring a new audience in to an IP? Transformers is an extreme in that it doesn't even try; the movie is unassailable to anyone that doesn't know anything about Transformers and probably has little meaning to anyone that hasn't recently watched two seasons of the Transformers TV show. That makes for a pretty thrilling experience… but one for a pretty small group of people.

Our big Wing Commander connection this week was a simple reference to Optimus Prime (RIP) in Wing Commander Armada… so here's the shape-changing robot truck himself!

Crinkle balls are the right of all sentient beings.

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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 The Stargate (1994) 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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President Felicia Winters held a conference today condemning the continued exclusion of the Federation from ongoing research into Radicoida unica.
Speaking directly from the White House at Olympus Village, Mars, she addressed the press stating that Federal military analysts confirmed the coalition under the October agreement now posed a threat to security.
"The evidence presented to me has concluded that those involved with the October Accords pose a credible threat to the Federation," she said.
"For whatever reason or method, the use of the research into Radicoida unica has solely been focused on weaponising the flora. We can only assume that, as the Federation was left out of the Accords, we are now a target."
Winters ended the press conference with a stern warning against any attempt of aggression.
"The Federation will not tolerate any attack on our sovereign way of life, and any use of

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Today's your last chance to score Wing Commander discounts in GOG's Back to School Sale. Most WC games are 34% off at $3.95 and Privateer ups it to half off at $2.99. As a reminder, WC1/2, WC3, Academy, Privateer and Privateer 2 are part of the preservation program that ensures they're extra ready for modern play!

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Origin founder and Ultima creator Richard Garriott, aka Lord British, went back to his roots to soft launch his new Ultima initiative this weekend: DragonCon! There he held a panel about 'what makes an Ultima' that revealed some of his plans for recovering the rights from Electronic Arts and that negotiations with the publisher have already started! It doesn't seem to have made the mainstream press yet, but luckily the Ultima Dragons are a little more thorough! John Hosie posted a great writeup:

So, excellent panel with Lord British, but also with Starr Long and Chris Spears attending.

The first 20 minutes was RG going through the base Ultima history and his experience, with also touching notably on Starr Long's work leading UO's development originally.

The issue with the Ultima IP falls under the 203 Copyright laws where RG notified EA of his intent to reclaim the Ultima copyrights under the 35 year

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The Transformers: The Movie goes pretty hard… although it's also pretty hard to approach without any background in Transformers nerdery. This week, we're revisiting another science fiction classic from our youths: Stargate (1994)! This is our second Roland Emmerich and basically the one that led to Independence Day. And it's also the James Spader movie that immediately precedes another movie club classic, Crash. Stargate introduces the idea of an ancient device that can transport people instantaneously to another planet, prompting a group of soldiers and scientists to explore a planet whose culture matches that of ancient Egypt. It would go on to form the basis for endless TV spinoffs. Should be fun!

The big Wing Commander connection is, once again, that Chris Roberts used several tracks from David Arnold's Stargate score when temp tracking the Wing Commander movie… and ultimately he scored David

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Intelligent Gamer's Fusion was a short-lived gaming magazine that kicked off in 1995 and closed up shop less than a year later. Luckily, that was exactly the right time to exist for a preview of Wing Commander IV! And this one has a great interview with Chris Roberts that talks about all the amazing projects that sadly never came about... Wing Commander V, Silverheart, Maniac Missions and even an Armada followup! From the March 1996 issue:

Mister Roberts Universe

Creator of the famous Wing Commander series from Origin, Chris Roberts has moved from designing and coding games to positions as a Vice President and Executive Producer for Origin. After some success in the British gaming industry, Roberts joined the company in 1987, and a year later he promptly produced Times of Lore, a number-one seller in 1988. The following year brought the first Wing Commander to gamers, and Roberts has had great success

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It's a rarely remembered fact that one of the first products that Electronic Arts developed after they acquired Origin and the rights to Wing Commander was French and German translations of Wing Commander II, replacing previous 'English with localized manuals' versions that were distributed by Mindscape and Ubisoft. The French Wing Commander II was followed by a French localization of Special Operations 1... but not Special Operations 2! Now Greg14 has corrected that mistake (and some others!) with a complete French version of Wing Commander II! Here are the details:

Voici la traduction finale de Wing Commander II en français.
Cette version inclut :

• la correction de nombreuses fautes d'orthographe ;
• l'amélioration de plusieurs erreurs et imprécisions de traduction ;
• la configuration du jeu pour une utilisation avec la Roland MT-32

This is the final French translation for Wing Commander II.
This release

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Remember Admiral Fluffy, the Kilrathi expert with a cool 3D printed Vaktoth and Dralthi? They're back with something even bigger: a Kamrani-class corvette! That's pretty much the entire Kilrathi fleet as of Wing Commander Prophecy... pretty cool!

It's...uh...Feline Alien Friday! (It'll catch on, I'm sure.) Today, I finished the #Kilrathi Kamrani-class corvette from the Wing Commander series of video games, named the Dor-Chak(Striking Bird in Kilrathi). Even designed a unique clan marking for it!

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It would be stretching to call Double Impact a classic… but it was a lot of fun, and it delivered well on its promise to have Jean-Claude Van Damme act opposite a second Jean-Claude Van Damme. And maybe that's really all you need! Happy birthday, Dundradal.

We already talked about the music from the Double Impact score used to temp track the Wing Commander movie, so there's not a lot to report. But it did occur to me to ask: has an actor ever acted opposite themselves in Wing Commander? There are plenty of actors with dual roles, but the only 'acting together' I could think of was that in Wing Commander Academy's Expendable, Mark Hamill plays both Maverick and a hallucination of his father!

Sully thinks sharing that bagel would have a double impact on his cat happiness.

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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 The Transformers: The Movie (1986) 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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To test its new deployable mining rig, Wreaken Corporation has called for independent pilots to help complete field trials.
Dr. Ben Curtis, Chief Geologist at Wreaken, stated:
"We're excited to not only test the rig's patented mining laser technology but also verify which materials it can extract from a variety of planetary body types."
"In order to conduct accurate tests, we're also opening up these field trials to pilots willing to laser mine asteroids for comparative yield analysis."
He added that it was a result of the direct cooperation with Vodel for the release of the new SRV Rhino that placed the deployable rig in the hands of intrepid miners so quickly.
"The Rhino is the first of its kind in this new class of SRV. We know buyers are going to have a lot of fun taking this across terrain they found tough before." added Owen McKenna, CEO of Core Dynamics.
All independent pilots willing

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No Man's Sky remains the Little Engine that Could of modern space sims... and since adding player-customizable ship designs it has just gotten bigger. We're always on the lookout for NMS fans trying to recreate Wing Commander ships in the game... so here's one found on Reddit! It's by Active-Marzipan and it's a corvette inspired by Wing Commander's HF-66 Thunderbolt VII heavy fighter. Neat!

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Vodel, the manufacturer of the Scarab and Scorpion surface recon vehicles, has announced its latest addition – the SRV Rhino.
According to press materials received, the Rhino is currently the largest available SRV and comes heavily armoured. As a result of its extra weight, it sacrifices speed for superior grip, allowing it to traverse harsh planetary terrain.
Due to its size, the new vehicle can only be deployed from a Large Vehicle Bay fitted in compatible ships.
"We're also extremely excited to announce a joint venture between Vodel and Wreaken Mining," said Owen McKenna, CEO of Core Dynamics.
"As a result of their recent research and development, the Rhino will come equipped with deployable mining rigs for planetside mining as standard, and an optional refinery module to process materials on site."
The Rhino is now available as an early-release purchase and will later transition to wider

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Adam Savage has posted an excellent interview with designed and illustrator Matthew Cushman, the brilliant artist behind an entire fleet of familiar science fiction spacecraft cutaways showing their imagined interiors. In honor of Star Trek's 60th anniversary, Cushman has revisited his 1995 cutaway poster of the USS Enterprise which is being released as a massive 11-foot long print!

But Mr. Cushman doesn't only design the interiors of ship from the final frontier… he also created a magnificent CS Tiger Claw for the Wing Commander movie in 1999 which was unfortunately never printed. Luckily, the art has survived… and it's a personal favorite!

Matthew Cushman's incredible talent runs in the family; his brother Christopher Cushman is also a cutaway artist who started his career with the famous Enterprise-D cutaway that was everywhere in the early nineties!

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I guess you could say that Double Impact really had… an impact on us! Hah hah no I'm actually writing this before movie night and I still don't even know what Double Impact is about. But I bet we will have loved it by the time you read this. Our next movie is one that's familiar to a lot of us nerds… and it's another birthday choice, this time for Vera! Happy birthday, Vera! She has chosen for her film The Transformers: The Movie (1986)! It's a classic mix of art and commercialism in the very specific combination that only eighties kids can remember. I'm looking forward to it!

While there's a giant crossover between Wing Commander and Transformers fans the actual creative connection is pretty small: there's a planet in the first sector of Wing Commander Armada's campaign named OPTIMUS after the Autobots' heroic leader, Optimus Prime.

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

The

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Last month, Greg14 was kind enough to translate a vintage French Wing Commander article. And now they're back with three more! This is a super cool look at how the original Wing Commander was received in France... and it's full of interesting takes, including a very early realization that Origin was headed for CD-ROM exclusivity with future games. Very cool time capsule--thank you, Greg!

Wing Commander [Joystick]

With this game, Origin clearly favors CD-ROM titles.

Near Vega, a star located some 26 light-years away, a fleet of Kilrathi is waging war against the Confederation's forces. A day never goes by without a pilot ending up scattered across the frozen reaches of space. After a short briefing, you climb into one of the tiny fighters, each equipped with an incredibly sophisticated cockpit. But don't expect to play the lone hero! Destroying enemy ships requires teamwork above all else.

94% (PC)

To

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut event happening on Discord this morning! Join us at noon EST/9 AM PST for a fun filled morning of television... that all connect to Wing Commander somehow! This month we're looking at a two hour block of music videos that all connect back to Wing Commander in some way. You can find details on the videos included as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. You can find the YouTube playlist for the party here.

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We survived Jaws! We probably don't have to spend too many pixels saying that we enjoyed one of the most famous movies ever made but… well, that. It's a film that defined how big blockbuster movies are made today and while it seems that goes off the rails on occasion it has also produced giant amounts of our culture. So, hurray for Jaws!

Our simple connection this time around was Steven Spielberg's star system on the Wing Commander Prophecy map.

And here's how old Bruce compares to a Thunderbolt or a Bloodfang! Funny that Spielberg could get away with using a crummy rubber monster…!

Sully and his sister Lumi are recreating the opening of Jaws.

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