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I was digging through Google's increasingly limited Usenet archive when I found an interesting series of posts concerning Wing Commander Academy that I thought were worth preserving here. On September 20, 1996, Wing Commander Academy storyboard artist Tim Eldred posted to rec.arts.anime.fandom and rec.arts.anime.models to tell friends that the show he had worked on was starting the next day. At the time, Wing Commander Academy was of interest to the American anime community because it had been animated in Japan by notable studios. The conversation that followed adds a few details to the Wing Commander Academy story and we've included relevant replies from Mr. Eldred below.

The chain also included posts by artist Bruce Lewis who had been hired to storyboard an episode but had his work rejected at the last minute! He has a great sense of humor about this and by all accounts it wasn't indicative of his

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Apollo 13 is essentially a flawless movie, so much so that it almost feels too slick to be real. But breaking it down into component parts–like the score, used in part to temp track Wing Commander–you begin to appreciate the sheer amount of artistry that went into every part of the thing. There's not a lot to share in this report; you can find the music used in the Wing Commander temp score in the initial post.

We were also curious about the scale of the Apollo spacecraft compared to familiar Wing Commander ships. I made this quick-and-dirty chart which mostly just highlights how poorly scaled the Wing Commander III ships are.

Sully can make a round cat fit into a square box like nobody's business.

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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 Dune (1984) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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Here's one from the depths of Google Groups' Usenet archive: a Wing Commander press release we didn't have preserved! This was posted May 30 1996 to announce the release of Wing Commander IV Macintosh's demo. The Macintosh ports of Wing Commander III and IV are largely forgotten today... we aim to change that!

Wing Commander IV to Release on Macintosh -- Demo Now Available!

Los Angeles, Calif. -- The best is about to get even better. The
interactive movie that was called "the most impressive space adventure
game ever produced" by Universal Press Syndicate is preparing for its
next ground-breaking act as a new Power Macintosh(TM) title. ORIGIN's
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom(TM) is slated for release for
the Power Macintosh in June.

Already receiving critical acclaim as a PCCD title, Wing Commander IV
will incorporate several hours of live-action video and will feature
many talented actors from the

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There's a scene in Pilgrim Stars, the first Wing Commander movie tie-in novel, where we see a news broadcast from a hastily-assembled Pilgrim concentration camp. The news chyron identifies the location of the camp as the University of Central Florida. Note that this includes a wonderful example of the 'sci-fi list' trope where one or two future events are included in a list of familiar ones:

Bellegarde now studied the image of a university campus. Ancient brick buildings with signs identifying them as Library, Administration, Biological Sciences, Offworld Sciences, and Humanities and Fine Arts girdled an oval reflection pond about thirty meters across. The caption read: DESIGNATED PILGRIM SAFE ZONE: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA , EARTH. A half dozen rifle-toting young men sprinted along the pond’s perimeter, with an equal number of Marines in pursuit. The men took up flanking positions near the

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If you were afraid you might have to go a whole month without a GOG discount, worry no longer! The summer sale may be long gone, but the Back to School Sale kicks off today. This means the Wing Commander series is 50% off across the board - just $3 each game!

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The Wing Commander movie club greatly enjoyed our trip back to 1970 with Apollo 13; it's a movie that comes together so perfectly it feels preordained rather than directed. This week we'll be traveling further into the future for another outer space adventure… but one that's anything but neutral about its director! The next film will be the 1984 version of Dune by David Lynch. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

A beloved IP meets a director who has his own, distinct vision separate from any of the fans. The results… something no one can quite explain. Am I talking about Wing Commander or Dune? But beyond that similarity, our first in game reference is a pretty clear one: in Privateer when you try to communicate with New Constantinople you can choose a line of Paul's from Dune: "My name is a killing word". Why? It's not entirely clear...

We also recently did a deep dive into

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Crack artist ulimann644 is back with two more extremely cool renderings of Wing Commander ships! The first is a scene which uses his previously shown Fralthi model and adds a brand new Drathi to the mix. The second imagines the cover to a Wing Commander story using his Hornet model.

WING COMMANDER - KILRATHI BATTLEGROUP (DeviantArt)

This is my second WING COMMANDER Wallpaper with my FRALTHI-CLASS MESH and my brandnew (delivered on Tuesday) DRATHI-CLASS mesh.

Hope you like it.

Software:
- Lightwave 2024
- Photoshop
- ImageFX

WING COMMANDER - OPERATION ENYO (DeviantArt)

This is a virtual WING COMMANDER Cover.

Hope you like it

Credits: All Artwork by me.

Software:
- Lightwave 3D
- Photoshop
- ImageFX

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Last month we discovered some fascinating trade ads for some of Baen's Wing Commander novels. Next I thought I'd take a look at how Baen advertised the Wing Commander novels in their own books and I found a couple of fun examples that were repeated in dozens of Baen paperbacks in the early 90s. Publishers--especially pulpy ones like Baen--would often fill out the last few page of a paperback with advertisements for other things they published. I was particularly impressed with this advertisement that attempts to explain their philosophy behind publishing computer game tie-in books. Neat description of Wing Commander, too: "The computer game which supplies the background world for these novels is a current all-time bestseller. Fly with the best the Confederation of Earth has to offer against the ferocious catlike alien Kilrathi!"

Here's an advertisement that's a sort of "flow chart" that lets you pick

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We were pleased to see that everyone in last week's Wing Commander movie club enjoyed The Exorcist! As the series goes on we're happy for excuses--however flimsy--to show movies that aren't so bent towards space opera. In lieu of any forced commentary, we are instead going to use this space to introduce the other three movies that are coming from Privateer storyboards: Heaven's Gate, Ishtar and The Last Temptation of Christ! (Though of course Heaven's Gate already earned a slot for being referenced as a star system in Wing Commander II).

Sully really wants split pea soup.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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 Exorcist and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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New factions, new system and visual upgrades that push the mod closer to the living, breathing Homeworld-inspired universe I’m building inside Freelancer.

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Here's a story we don't quite know what to do with: we've discovered an interesting "rumor" published in the August 1992 issue of Computer Gaming World. The magazine claims that Dark Horse comics was working on a Wing Commander comic book that would've been written by James Hudnall. Origin certainly wanted to license a Wing Commander comic but this is the first we've ever heard of a publisher or a writer having been involved. Dark Horse still exists today but unfortunately James Hudnall passed way in 2019. We'd certainly love to know more!

Dark Horse Comics, the fast-growing and sometimes iconoclastic comics publisher in the Northwest, is believed to be working with Origin on a Wing Commander comic. James Hudnall, one of the most prolific Dark Horse scripters, will be writing the book.

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Here's a neat memory of Wing Commander III from a celebrity! Elias Toufexis recently tweeted that he remembers playing Wing Commander III as a kid and hoped to act in a game someday… and now he's been in almost one hundred of them!

I played the hell out of the Wing Commander series when I was a kid and I remember specifically thinking to myself “There’s real acting in games now? Maybe I’ll do that one day”

I’ve now acted in or voice directed nearly 100 games. That’s pretty crazy. pic.twitter.com/32GxiZeP9q

— Elias Toufexis (@EliasToufexis) August 10, 2025

He has appeared in everything from Assassin's Creed to the excellent Star Trek: Resurgence. But he's probably best known for his recent role on Star Trek Discovery as Breen prince La'ak.

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Brewer Corporation has confirmed the overwhelming success of its latest initiative to restock Trailblazer megaships, citing it as the largest single delivery effort in its history with independent pilots transporting more than 1,200,000,000 tonnes of materials.
The campaign followed closely on the heels of two community-led operations that saw the Panther Clipper Mk II heavy freighter enter full-scale production.
Brewer's logistical network, already stretched by unprecedented colonisation projects, received a major boost from the resupply drive, whilst pilots also ensured the resupply routes remained safe from pirate interference across Minerva.
Brewer COO Mark Rennik stated "Never before have we seen such a scale of commitment from the pilot community. This historic achievement not only met our needs, but it also far surpassed them."
The Trailblazer colonisation supply ships, which had

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Well last week was certainly pretty Excorciting. No? Well, we had a good time. Next week we'll be honoring the recent passing of astronaut Jim Lovell by watching his story in Ron Howard's 1995 Apollo 13. This should be a fun one! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

It's space history but... how is it Wing Commander? Like Demolition Man, Apollo 13 was a source for temp tracks for the Wing Commander movie. In fact, Chris Roberts used a total of four different tracks from James Horner's score at varying points in the temp score. The first is "Into the LEM" which was used for the moment Paladin presented Tolwyn's ring to Captain Sansky and then again later when Sansky died.

Two tracks, Master Alarm and Manual Burn, were used for the Tiger Claw's big jump scene.

Finally, Re-entry and Splashdown was used for the movie's finale where Blair returns to the Tiger Claw to see Angel rescued.

Where

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We have some sad news to pass along today: the exOrigin Facebook group reports that veteran Wing Commander artist Craig Halverson has passed away. If Mr. Halverson's name sounds familiar it's because his excellent work graced over a dozen Origin games. We've said before but the 'Origin mystique' made it feel like familiar names like that were part of how you experienced the games. Our condolences go out to his friends and family, we will do our best to preserve his work. If you would like to share any memories we would be happy to publish them in this space.

Craig Halverson joined Origin Systems during its heyday in 1991 and quickly made a name for himself in the burgeoning art group where he worked alongside the likes of Chris Douglas, Beverly Garland, Alan Perez and Paul Steed to create some of Origin's most unique and immersive worlds. Mr. Halverson got his start in the crucible of Chris Roberts'

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Thank you once again for all of the support all year long! There are some amazing things coming in the months ahead, and we'll be here to enjoy them with all of you. Stay tuned for breaking news!

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It's time for a new CIC Birthday Poll! Each year we ask how long folks have been visiting. It's wild that some of us have been reporting the Wing Commander news for almost thirty years now!

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The old poll asked about the fabulous sketches in the Kilrathi Saga calendar, which works again for calendar year 2025! December's Strakha art was the clear winner, which is odd, since July's Rigakh is obviously the best!

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FekLeyrTarg once again crafted a fun little scene to help ring in another year of the Wing Commander CIC! The Kilrathi assault is certainly bold, but I think the Paradigm has the definite advantage here. Thank you for all the support over these many years!

This year has been quite intense so unfortunately I didn't have the time for something more ambitious. So I decided to revisit a render I worked on many years ago. It's two Dralthi VIIs ambushing a Paradigm in orbit of a moon. Once again I used the models from the Privateer 3D Archive. The render itself was done in Blender 4.5 with some editing in Adobe Photoshop.