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It's been a very long week, so we're hosting a hangout tonight on Discord! We'll be watching the Wing Commander Movie starting at 7 pm Pacific / 10 pm Eastern US time. Nothing fancy - just queue up your copy and we'll press play together. You don't even have to watch, if that's not your thing. And if the time doesn't work for you, then stop by earlier or stay later. Just come and chill with fellow fans!
Nov
We know it's a rough day out there for lots of folks. As I mentioned earlier this week, sometimes a good old Wing Commander soundtrack can help transport you to a different place and time, so here's Orion2349's iconic Privateer recording on a Roland Sound Canvas. And if you still need some cheering up, come visit #Wingnut and pass the time with us!
Nov
…With the Thargoid invasion force seemingly on the edge of defeat, political analysts have presented several arguments for what follows.
The potential balance of power across the core systems will be heavily influenced by the ambitions of its primary players – perhaps crucially in the Federation, claims Jean-Daniel Moulin:
"President Winters has finally taken up residence in the White House, ready to face a multitude of challenges. A depressed war economy, mass citizen displacement and a series of late-term policies implemented by the outgoing Zachary Hudson will keep her schedule full for months. Jeremy Archer stands opposite her in Congress, ready to pounce on any signs of weakness and eager to fully emerge from the long shadow of Hudson as the true leader of the Republican party."
On the Imperial front, Cassia Carvalho of the Imperial Herald has provided a summary of those most likely to
Nov
…
Today is the big quadrennial election day in the United States, so I wanted to reshare a magnificent article that LOAF put together a few years back on everything we know about how the human government functions in Wing Commander. The snippet below pertains to the role of the Confederation president, which is fascinating unto itself. You can read the whole piece here!
The Executive BranchThe Terran Confederation is lead by an elected President and Vice President. There is no known term limit; President Harold Rodham held the office for fourteen years. 2634 was a presidential election year.
The President has the ability to order the military to mobilize for emergency action. He may elect to order the military to Defense Level Two, authorizing the putting of ships to space and the cancellation of leaves and mobilizing the active reserve forces, or Defense Level One, which also authorizes cross-border
Nov
…If you're like us, you may be experiencing exorbitant levels of anxiety at the moment. Fortunately, we noticed that Volt Silicon just posted a soothing AdLib / OPL2 recording of the Wing Commander 2 soundtrack. As one of my favorite games in the series, these iconic tunes always take me back. They're a soothing trip down memory lane for when you need something to calm the nerves!
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi is a space combat simulation game developed and published by Origin Systems in 1991. As the sequel to Wing Commander, the game transports you into an interstellar war between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi, a warrior race of feline-like aliens. While maintaining core gameplay from the original, such as space dogfights and managing wingmen, this installment places a greater emphasis on narrative, featuring structured missions and captivating sprite-animated cutscenes.
Nov
The Wing Commander series has a long history of drawing on familiar people and places when it needs to create new names. Some can be pretty unique one-off jokes, references or combinations of things, so when we see something in external media that happens to overlap with WC, it always gives us pause! The manual to Wing Commander Academy mentions Gorath as the site of a major Crossbow action. LOAF recently saw that that's also a the name of a famous 1962 Japanese sci-fi film!
Oooooooh!
Nov
…Warfare isn't all space fighters dogfighting and battleships pummeling each other with plasma weapon. Wing Commander has always imagined a universe with a complex supply chain and support system behind the action with a variety of transports, depots, shuttles and other vehicles that are perhaps less sexy than a Rapier or a Bloodfang. Chief among these is the Kilrathi salvage tug, an impressive design that is only ever seen very briefly. For a better look at the tug than ever before we've recreated two images of it from panning shots (including one originally blocked by text):
On 4 July 2654, a flight Scimitars off the TCS Tiger's Claw commanded by 2nd Lt. Lindsay Price encountered a salvage tug escorted by a pair of Sartha and carrying a derelict human spacecraft. Price ordered her wingmen to attack, with 2nd Lt. Todd Marshall and 2nd Lt. Gwen Bowman each dispatching a Sartha. Despite the loss of their
Nov
…If you've followed these posts for any length of time you probably know that I find it particularly fascinating to look backwards at design documents, demos and unreleased builds of games because it lets you see how many individual elements were adapted and changed during the creative process. But games aren't the only Wing Commander stories that we can 'space telescope' back in time: many of the Wing Commander novels had published preview chapters which ranged from slightly to significantly different from their final forms!
To make a study ot these preview chapters, I collected their text and then diff'd each one with the equivalent chapter in Baen's ebook version of the final text. What I found ranged from many typographical and grammatical changes but in some cases some pretty significant edits to content and meaning. Below we'll look at each of the chapters and point out what changed in them but
Nov
Happy Halloween from the Wing Commander Combat Information Center team! Can you identify all the spooky ships in this festive seasonal collage?
... and of course, if you have kiddos out trick-or-treating tonight you should make sure to check their candy. Some sicko might put a Razor in it:
Oct
…The inauguration ceremony has taken place to formally swear in Felicia Winters as the president of the Federation.
President Winters made a public address from the White House in Olympus Village on Mars:
"I pledge to work for the benefit of each and every individual within our Federation. My administration will redirect funding away from corporations toward improving health, public services and quality of life. Together, we will launch a new era of optimism and opportunity!"
"My first act is to order the Federal Intelligence Agency to shut down the Proactive Detection Bureau. The illegal surveillance of all communication ends now. We will propose to Congress that the Domestic Counter-Terrorism Act of 3307 is revoked, allowing our Federal Accord to uphold each citizen's constitutional right to privacy."
The presidential election was held in October 3309, when Felicia Winters eclipsed her rival
Oct
…The first run of Mandalay ships has been delivered to shipyards across the core systems and are now available for purchase.
Zorgon Peterson's Mandalay is the third new vessel to be optimised for Achilles Aerospace's SCO frame shift drive – following the Python Mk. II and the Type-8 - and aims to become the premier medium-sized exploration craft.
Chief Marketing Officer Devin Kaneda sent a press statement to all shipyard outlets:
"The Mandalay allows pilots to achieve a considerable jump range while maintaining the manoeuverability of its size class, expanding the range of future exploration voyages of its size class. Our technicians have ensured that the ship's handling in atmospheric conditions is exceptional, easing the travel down to undiscovered worlds."
"A rethink of structural stress resistance, in cooperation with Achilles engineers, has resulted in the Mandalay taking full advantage of
Oct
Display MoreThings you find in the Privateer 2 surgery fetish bar that *just make sense*:
The Crian demimonde is notorious for its obsession with cosmetic surgery, and this bar is the favoured watering hole of the surgery fetishists. Attracting a hard-core crowd of wilfully mutilated patrons, this is not a suitable venue for the faint hearted, as it really can get rather gruesome of an evening.Cobalt Blue drinks served in Erlenmeyer flasks with dry ice:
The mouth bar complete with uvula:
Dancers with exposed circulatory systems:
Jurgen Prochnow:
The owner, Stumpy (in the red jacket):
Teenage girls with tremendous goggles:
Nurses and people wearing colorful radar dishes betting on a slowly rotating glowing blue torso:
Oct
This Border Worlds outpost is present in Wing Commander IV's files and complete with damage states... but it doesn't appear in the game and it's not clear what it might've been intended for!
Wing Commander IV features a lot of bases -- in fact, it has more space stations than the original game had fighters. What it doesn't have is a Border Worlds base... even when you're ordered to rescue the biochemist from the Border Worlds, you do it by landing marines on a Confederation space lab. It looks like they had originally planned to rectify that, though -- with the Union of Border Worlds Outpost.
Oct
…A prominent figure in the treasure hunting community has gone missing, prompting speculation as to his fate.
Herman Colt, known for recovering several notable historical artefacts across the core systems, departed the Frenis system three weeks ago along with several other pilots. It is believed Colt's latest expedition sought the final treasure hoard of Captain Morrigan, a fearsome pirate active in the mid-3200's.
Rewired spoke to a colleague of Colt's, Natasha Moore, for an insight into Colt's whereabouts:
"It's unlike Colt to maintain radio silence during an expedition. In fact, it's fair to say he loves the attention. Each new expedition generates buzz among the exploration community, with dozens of pilots begging to be taken along for the adventure."
"Colt has a soft spot for Captain Morrigan – I think he's already got some bits and pieces from her life on display at his home. I know he
Oct
…
AllTinker was recently asked how the Confederation project to modify and enhance the original Wing Commander was coming along. As we know, he has a lot of irons in the fire and is working on incredible WC series reverse engineering and exploration on many fronts. Despite these competing demands, he's very close to an updated release for WC1. Here's some more tantalizing information:
I've been working away on a bunch of cool stuff - I'm close to being finished with my first pass at the 3D cockpits, and some further experimentation with 3D ships (from a voxel workflow, but trying to produce non-blocky models). I'm hoping my next update will show some or all of that in actual gameplay, with the first release not far behind.I've been working on some non-Confederation (and non-Originator) stuff too... Which brings me to: So for years before Confederation, and in the meantime since, I've made numerous
Oct
Boxography has posted a fun video where they go through and unbox the contents of the original Wing Commander. We've seen a few of these pop up in recent years, and this one is great because the narrator lovingly examines each piece with such care. He mentions that he's actually a relatively new fan of the series, but the whole clip just highlights what a timeless classic the game is. Check it out below!
Ship specs, blueprints, an in-universe military magazine, some lore sidebars, and more. Origin went all-out on the contents in this box.You can also follow Boxography on Instagram.
Oct
Updates on where the development is at and how it is proceeding
Oct
Oct
Wing Commander Prophecy’s C-9 Pelican transport, from proposal to sketch up to cinematic model to game mesh! Too bad we didn’t get the TRANS CO sign on the tower in the final version! The cine version has some nice detailed cargo pods, too.
The Pelican has a cameo in Wing Commander Arena, too! The Boneyard map has a derelict Pelican (with Centurions spilling out of it!).
Oct
…Titan Raijin in the Pegasi Sector IH-U b3-3 system has been destroyed, leaving only Cocijo still operational.
Aden Tanner, anti-xeno strategist for Aegis, provided a brief statement:
"My heart still soars to hear that another Titan has been taken down. Until very recently, these colossal constructs were seen as indestructible. Aegis was even drawing up long-term strategies based around them being permanently present in human space. The Guardian nanite torpedo, and the hard work of so many pilots, has made that academic."
"Anti-xeno pilots are already travelling to the systems surrounding Col 285 Sector BA-P c6-18, to repeat the process one last time on Titan Cocijo. With such a concentrated effort, it is not expected to last long. However, I must repeat my earlier call for caution and preparedness. We cannot tell how the Thargoids will respond to the loss of their last mothership, and we may
