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A prototype is an initial, representative model of something. Prototype vehicles like ships and aircraft are carefully constructed to test whether or not their designs will function as their engineers intend. Something might have multiple rounds of prototypes as they are tested, modified and perfected on the road to developing the final production model. But in Privateer 2's Tri-System, the word prototype seems to have a distinctly different meaning.

In 2790, the Tri-System military and the Central Intelligence Service (CIS)'s fleets operate an impressive line of battle: the ML4D Salvia-class destroyer, the MCOS Veldor-class carrier, the MDRE Yackard-class dreadnought and the... MCPH Prototype?! It would be unusual for a prototype in the traditional sense to be in active service… and the MCPH is not rare: we see or learn about at least ten of them in the game. What's more, they aren't exclusively

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Air Force One holds up very well! It's a tight, well directed and particularly well dressed action film. You can absolutely understand why Wolfgang Petersen was chosen; his experience creating Das Boot was surely useful in figuring out how to express the cramped quarters on the jumbo jet and his preference for using fast, quick cuts to SFX shots really sets the mood of the movie. It's so incredibly lean, too, with the run time evaporating in front of you. Despite the name there's no ra-ra patriotism and despite the high concept premise it never devolves into a Predator-style battle between superhumans. And there's almost nothing that feels excessive; it's pure drama with no sex and no stopping for philosophy. And of course, Harrison Ford is always great!

We talked about the music from Air Force One that was used to temp track Wing Commander in the intro but maybe the most interesting connection to Wing

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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 THX 1138 (1971) 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 Wing Commander movie club has successfully landed Air Force One! Or maybe we crashed it into the sea. This week's movie will be one everyone knows of but rarely takes the time to watch: THX-1138 (1971). THX 1138 was the first feature film directed by George Lucas who would go on to create Star Wars… so it should already be obvious why it would be of interest to a bunch of Wing Commander fans! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

While it's obviously going to be interesting to see the connection to something so important to Wing Commander as Star Wars, the reason for choosing the movie is a simple in-game reference: one of the characters in Special Operations 2 is credited as Mandarin #1138. This is in keeping with a long tradition of films, especially Lucas' Star Wars ones, hiding the number in various places.

Who is Mandarin #1138? She is the barely-visible character heard

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We introduced you to Tyrel Lohr last month, an artist who has been recreating early Wing Commander ships and offering them for 3D printing through Cults. Now they're hard at work on not just one but two Kamekh-class corvettes!

A Kilrathi Kamekh Corvette from WingCommander WC2. It's not a perfect rendition, but it captures the essence of the original. It's intended to be printed at about 25mm long, which is why some details get exaggerated. The forward nose fins and wings may need to be thicker to make them print better

And here's a quick version of the Privateer Kamekh II WingCommander. Again, a pretty basic model with chunky details, because it's going to be 3dprinted at around 20-25mm, so you have to exaggerate the details quite a bit to make it readable as a gaming miniature.

Some more #3dprinting prototypes... Unfortunately, part of my build plate failed due to temperature issues (65 degrees F, which

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I have never wanted less to write something in this space. Yesterday, we lost a bright star in our universe. Lacey Reid (née Lacey Kumanchik) passed away after the fiercest fight with cancer anyone could ever conceive of. To rip off the bandage, as awkward as it seems: Lacey was the beloved wife of our founder Chris Reid and the mother of their three beautiful children. She was an engineer and an author and the kind of deep, bright soul. She is someone you do not know but who came into our lives in a way that was so important to (among many greater things) this space right here. We will plan to tell you more about her life in the future but I'm going to go ahead and try to tell you the briefest story of how I knew her in the hopes that you might think of her today as dearly as I have and always will. I hope that it's clear that in this incredible pain there is also infinite recompense from how