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Wing Commander (computer game)

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Wing Commander is a series of space combat simulation computer games from Origin Systems, Inc.. Created by Chris Roberts and first appearing in 1990, Wing Commander is most noted for its style of cinematic storytelling.

Set in the 27th century, the games tell the story of humanity's war against the Kilrathi, an alien species of large feline bipeds. Humanity is organised in the Terran Confederation and the player is part of the Confederation's space forces. Launching from carrier ships, the player fulfils various missions in starfighters. The games were all notable for their storytelling through extensive cutscenes. Starting with Wing Commander III, all story scenes used live action filming, starring some major Hollywood actors, including John Rhys-Davies, Mark Hamill, and Malcolm McDowell.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

Franchise

Games

Film

Television Series: Wing Commander Academy

Wing Commander Academy was a thirteen-episode animated series that originally aired on the USA Network between September 21 and December 21, 1996. The series is before the events of the first game and features many familiar ships and characters. The cast featured Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson and Malcolm McDowell reprising their Wing Commander game roles.

Novels

Several novels based on the games have been released by Baen Books. They usually closely adhere to the continuity of the games.

Freedom Flight

The novel describes the Firekka campaign of the Tiger's Claw's, featuring also the defection of Lord Ralgha (known as Hobbes in Wing Commander II).

Freedom Flight was written by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon.

The novel tells the story of a daring Confederation plan to weaken the Kilrathi Imperial family by attacking the planet of Vukar Tag. A strike force led by the TCS Tarawa must head to the heart of the Kilrathi Empire to divert part of the Kilrathi fleet. Set after Special Operations II and before Wing Commander III.

End Run was written by Christopher Stasheff & William R. Forstchen.

The Kilrathi have been severely weakened by the most recent Confederation attacks and their new fleet of secretly built carriers will not be finished for another year. So they try to lure the Confederation into a trap and sue for a false peace.

However, some daring Confed personnel try to prove the existence of the secret Kilrathi fleet and in the end, the fate of humanity is decided in a gigantic battle for Earth. Set after End Run and before Wing Commander III.

Fleet Action was written by William R. Forstchen.

Heart of the Tiger

Novelization of Wing Commander III, written by Andrew Keith & William R. Forstchen. Though it ignores a number of the games more trivial missions, it adds a great deal more personality to the crew of TCS Victory, and includes a scene that was cut from the actual game: an explanation from a traitor, explaining their otherwise-incomprehensible behavior (the game itself was criticized for excluding this vital scene, although the later PlayStation version of the game *did* include it along with other scenes that were originally shot yet not added in the PC version).

The Price of Freedom

Novelization of Wing Commander IV, written by Ben Ohlander & William R. Forstchen. It departs significantly from the plot of the video game: it trivializes several significant characters and plot developments, and totally rewrites game-established Border Worlds technology.

Action Stations

The novel tells the story of the beginnings of the war, twenty years before the first game.

An interesting detail about this story is that it is presented as a historical drama, from the point of view of an author writing about the beginning of the war many years after the fact.

Action Stations was written by William R. Forstchen.

After the end of the Kilrathi war, powerful Kilrathi warlords are not satisfied with the peace and remain aggressive towards the Confederation and other organizations like the Landreich. Operatives of the Landreich try to salvage a Kilrathi supercarrier left over from the war to prevent a warlord from starting a second human-Kilrathi war. Set after Wing Commander III and before Wing Commander IV, False Colors was intended as the first part of a trilogy, but author Andrew Keith died before he could begin on the other books.

False Colors was written by Andrew Keith & William R. Forstchen. (Keith's brother, William H. Keith, was incorrectly credited on the cover).

Wing Commander

Novelization of the original movie script, including a traitor subplot filmed but cut from the final release.

Wing Commander was written by Peter Telep.

Pilgrim Stars

The second part of the movie novelization trilogy, Pilgrim Stars deals with a Pilgrim rebellion against the ruling Confederation.

Pilgrim Stars was written by Peter Telep.

Pilgrim Truth

The conclusion to the movie novel trilogy, Pilgrim Truth was never released due to (what publisher HarperCollins believed) was dwindling interest in the Wing Commander universe. For those interested, a synopsis of the book can be found [here].

Pilgrim Truth was written by Peter Telep.

Universe

See also:

WC Universe Timeline

States

Races

Major Battles, Campaigns and Operations

Characters

Main article: List of Wing Commander characters

Games

Books

Technology and vehicles

Main article: Technology and Vehicles

Wing Commander is a franchise based on fighter combat and dog fighting, with the understandable result that the games' fighters receive the most attention. Every Wing Commander installment has featured at least four flyable ships, each with its own unique purpose, armament and combat behavior, and five types of enemy fighters. Enemy and allied capital ships make a close second, with at least four each on either side of the war. Wing Commander spacecraft maneuver similar to airplanes, as opposed to more realistic physics-based forms of space travel.

Most fighters are armed with both projectile weapons and missiles, each with their own characteristics. Instead of an overall pool of rounds, fighters are limited by a capacitor in the amount of gunfire they can produce at one time; this capacitor feeds power to the ship's guns, but only recharges at a set rate. This forces players to apply gunfire carefully and discourages the so-called "spray and pray" approach. Fighters are protected with defensive energy shielding, which also regenerates at a set rate, and solid-state durasteel armor, which does not. Fighters are also equipped with afterburners. Finally, internal systems (gun capacitors, shield generators, ejection seat, radar, etc) can also take damage if struck by gunfire; these are repaired automatically at a set rate, unless they have been utterly destroyed.

The player is frequently based on a carrier, which serves as a mobile home base that sometimes must be defended from enemy incursions. Carriers and other capital ships (and some larger fighters) cross intergalactic distances using "jump drives", which utilize pre-existing interstellar phenomena, "jump points," to move from one point to another. Both the Kilrathi and Terrans use jump engines, making the capture and control of jump points an important part of any campaign.

Quotations

"Damn this war." - Capt. Jason Bondarevsky, End Run.

"Tengoku de omachi shite imasu!" (I will wait for you in Heaven) - Tanaka "Spirit" Mariko, Vengeance of the Kilrathi.

"This court can not condemn me! Only history will decide if I'm a villain or a hero. And our history will be written by the Kilrathi!" - Major Zack "Jazz" Colson, Wing Commander II: Special Operations 2.

"This time it shall be different" - Kilrathi fighter captain.

"By God Baron, tell Thrakkath that if he does there'll be a day when we come back. If it takes a hundred years we'll come back and we'll watch Kilrah as it burns to ashes". - Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, Fleet Action.

"Carriers don't fly themselves, Admiral".
"Right. Quite right. It is the men, isn't it?" - Blair and Tolwyn, The Price of Freedom.

"'Space Marshal' Tolwyn believes that our victory over the Kilrathi was a fluke. That we as a race need tinkering with, engineering. If a few billion people die along the way well, they weren't worthy anyway. Why can't we be more like the Kilrathi, addicted to conflict, the only meaning in life being found in death? Tell us all, Admiral! Is that the price of freedom?" - Col. Christopher Blair, Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom.

"The Price of Freedom... is eternal vigilance." - Admiral Tolwyn, Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom.

"I still love Wing Commander. Given the right opportunity, I would definitely revisit it". - Chris Roberts.

Fan Projects

Wing Commander: Unknown Enemy (2003)

A fan created game based on the 'Vision' computer graphics engine introduced in the canon game Wing Commander: Prophecy (1997), Unknown Enemy is set in 2681. It follows the story of Lieutenant Colonel Johann Daniels and the fighter pilots of the Bengal class carrier BWS Dauntless. It chronicles the story of how the Border Worlds fought the initial invasion of the Nephilim into their territory in the early part of that year. The game features many fighters from older Wing Commander games such as the Scimitar medium fighter from the first game, the Epee light fighter from Wing Commander II and the Banshee light fighter from Wing Commander IV. Though comparatively short to other Wing Commander games, it can nonetheless be considered the first complete fan created Wing Commander game with truly original content. Many members of the development team are working on a new game, Wing Commander: Standoff, which will take place between Wing Commander II and the events that take place in the novel Fleet Action. The game can be downloaded for free at the Wing Commander CIC ( http://www.wcnews.com ).

Privateer remakes (2005)

On March 6, 2005, a fan-made remake of Wing Commander: Privateer using the Vega Strike game engine was released, updating Privateer from DOS to modern Windows systems as well as offering it for the first time to Mac and Linux users. Wing Commander has very much of a cult following even now, years after the release of the official game. Fan made games and expansions can be found at the Wing Commander CIC ( http://www.wcnews.com ), including most recently the complete remake of the original Privateer. The Remake itself has spawned forks including:

Wing Commander: Standoff (2004-2006)

Created by the same fan team that built Wing Commander: Unknown Enemy, this game will be released in a number of episodes instead of one complete package in much the same way as the Wing Commander: Secret Ops (1998) add-on was released over the Internet. The game takes place in 2668 and tracks fighter pilot Captain William Bradshaw onboard the TCS Lionheart, a Gilgamesh class destroyer and later the TCS Firekka, an escort carrier of the same class as the TCS Tarawa from End Run. The story takes place during the false peace before the Battle of Earth and during the battle itself. The goal of the game is to bring back the Wing Commander II experience in a modern form. To this end, the designers have greatly enhanced the 'Vision' graphics engine to include cockpits, increased resolutions and other features such as cloaking. An original musical score has been combined with classic music from Wing Commander II and Wing Commander III. All ships represented in the Confederation and Kilrathi fleet are present from the first two games, as well as some vessels which have not previously made an appearance in an official game. There will also be cinematic cutscenes similar to those in Wing Commander II and in-game fiction that will add a complete story around the gameplay. The first episode was released in late December 2004, and the second episode on August 12 2005. Episode 3 was released nearly a year after the first instalment on January 9 2006. A new feature included in this episode is a simulator scoreboard linked to the Internet that allows players all over the world to compare their scores on Standoff's simulator. Currently, only the first two simulator missions are equipped with this feature but more will be released in the future. The three episodes are currently available at the [Wing Commander CIC].

Other fan games

PiArmada (working title) is a remake of Wing Commander Armada, built on the Vegastrike engine, which is in public beta stage at http://sourceforge.net/projects/piarmada/.

Fan made Patches & Tweaks

External links

 

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