All About the Fralthra (March 10, 2006)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
You saw Marc's Fralthra the other day... now you can play with it yourself! Marc was kind enough to send along the 3D model in several formats, which you can download here (726k). Here's some background on the Fralthra for those unfamiliar with the ship!

Measuring by gross tonnage, the Fralthra-class is Kilrah's second heaviest cruiser... measuring by force projection alone, they have no equal. Sporting a 40-fighter complement and an array of anti-matter guns, the Fralthra was second only to a true Kilrathi carrier in offensive power. In fact, Fralthra formed the nuclei of the five carrier groups which attacked Ghorah Khar in Special Operations. At the same time, they exist in much smaller numbers than their counterparts. While the Empire produced Fralthi by the thousands, a quote in Fleet Action indicates there were only twenty heavy cruisers in service in at the Battle of Earth.

Several Fralthra appear during the course of Wing Commander II, including two during the game's initial Gwynedd series. The player isn't allowed to kill them, though: because your Ferret lacks torpedoes, you must instead protect the Concordia and her bombers while they destroy the Fralthra. An interesting surprise after being able to gun down the entire Kilrathi Navy yourself in Wing Commander I! The Fralthra's rounded appearance was anathema to the 'irregular blade' look established for Kilrathi ships in Wing Commander Armada and beyond, so it has fallen somewhat by the wayside in terms of canonical appearances. Still, it does boast one unusual sighting: a stylized Fralthra is seen launching a Jalkehi heavy fighter on the cover of the FM Towns port of Wing Commander 2 (seen below).




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Original update published on March 10, 2006
 
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Nice pice. Just a nitpick, how do we know it's launching the fighters? Maybe the fighters are just escorting it.
 
So the Fraltha has two launchbays? That really makes it a force to be reckoned with. Would get those 40 fighters out in no time. It might be a special modification too, sacrificing firepower for an extra hanger and possibly even greater fighter compliment. Shipwise WC 2 was the most exciting WC ever, IMHO.
 
The front facing one on the FM cover, and the one we see in WC2(the hole in the back), or are simply refering to the fact that i mispelled Fralthra.:confused:
 
I'm not even sure how you'd determine that something in Wing Commander II were a hole in the first place.
 
LOAF is right, though, It could be anything... All we know is that it's big and black and on the back of the ship. However, on Marcs fixed original It's *clearly* a hole, so I assume it was on the original model as well. And I don't see any point in having a big hole in the back of a cruiser unless it's a flight deck.
 
It may well be a flight deck (or not a hole at all - who knows!). It just seemed like an odd assumption to make in this context, though, so I was curious if you had some other source.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It just seemed like an odd assumption to make in this context, though, so I was curious if you had some other source.

Nope, nothing except for the model and my own imagination.:)
 
I had never noticed that hole in the original game. The Fralthra in general seemed more like "just an ugly blob" than any of the other sprites, but now that we can really look at it, that's a good assumption to make. Too bad though, I always just assumed the fighters came out from underneath, like in that styalized illustration. Dumping them out the back like that doesn't seem as grand.
 
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