Canon, timeline and complete WC playthrough

I

Inquirer

Veteran Spaceman
Hi fellow WC lovers. I just subscribed to this forum hoping to find WC experts or gurus that could help me with a question.

I have visited the WC world in the past now and then but recently it came to me if anyone could be able to browse the whole WC universe from the beginning to the end. First there are the games, and then there is the 1999 movie and the cartoon series, and some novels.

Let's say that I am a "prequel-first" person. Whenever I dive in the Star Wars universe, I always watch the new movies first and then the originals. In every fiction I choose to do the same: first determine the supposed date of each media and then follow it, and no, I don't care about spoilers or resulting retcons and inconsistencies :)

So I wonder if something like this is possible for the WC saga. Sure we have the games from 1 to 5 and then there is Privateer some decades after the saga, but what about fiction before and between each part?

I understand the WCA cartoon series (Blair's academy years) comes first, followed by the live action movie (Blair comes to Tiger's Claw). Then, do we proceed to the 1st game? Or is there some prequel novel happening just before it? Do we follow the games from 1 to 5, or are there any intermediate novels?

And of course the games allow you different courses of action, but has there been determined an optimal or canonical one? Did Blair succeed in all his missions, or not? Is any novel referring to events resulting from a failed game mission?


I hope this is not too confusing or demanding and you can understand the worries of a fellow fan. I also hope there is an answer to all this :)
 
It's early in the morning but here's a rough timeline of the products...I'm sure I'll forget something, so wingnuts please help out.

Action Stations - 2634 - novel
WC Academy - 2654 - tv
If I remember correctly some of the game comes first then the movie then the rest of the game. Or it could be the other way around. WC1 - 2654 / WCM - 2654
The movie novels fall in here as well
- Movie Novelization
- Pilgrim Stars
- Pilgrim Truth - which can be read directly from the CIC after years of campaigning to get it released
Secret Missions 2 - 2655 / Freedom Flight - novel - 2655 - these happen at the same time
WC2 - 2665
SO2 - ~2666-67
End Run - 2667 - novel
Fleet Action - 2668 - novel
Privateer/RF - 2669
Armada - 2669
WC3 - 2669
Heart of the Tiger - 2669 - WC3 novelization
False Colors - 2670-71 - novel
WC4 - 2673
The Price of Freedom - 2673 - novel
WCP - 2681
WC SO - 2681
Arena - 2701
Star*Soldier - 2701
P2 - I'm spacing the year at the moment.

The game novelizations do provide a canonical chain of events regarding Blair's actions. He doesn't succeed everywhere. As an example, in the novel Locanda IV is destroyed by Kilrathi bio weapons.

Hopefully that list is mostly accurate. I haven't had coffee yet, so I don't put a lot of trust in myself at this moment. :D
 
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Durandal: IIRC, somewhere there was a time-stream created that put the first episode(Red and Blue) of the cartoon first, then the movie, then the rest of the cartoon.. that also takes place during the events of Wing commander1+secret missions disks(The dolos standing in for the firekkans at the sivar ceremony).
 
Mace said:
Durandal: IIRC, somewhere there was a time-stream created that put the first episode(Red and Blue) of the cartoon first, then the movie, then the rest of the cartoon.. that also takes place during the events of Wing commander1+secret missions disks(The dolos standing in for the firekkans at the sivar ceremony).
Click to expand...

That would be Star*Soldier - pages 42 through 44. They have Red and Blue in 2653, the Movie on 2654.074, the Fall of Venice on 2654.287 (end of WC1), the action at Dolos (the last episode of Academy) on 2654.293 and the attack on Goddard on 2654.326 (SO1), with the rest of the timeline as the games/novels tell it.
 
Thank you for the replies! You have been very enlighting.

I am still muddy about the WCA vs Movie though. Is there a definite date around them?

Also, I don't expect that the Movie was filmed with WCA in mind. Should I expect any discrepancies between the series and the movie?
 
Star*Soldier has the events of the movie specifically taking place on 2654.074. The date of the first academy episode is simply listed as "2653", but the next one - "The Last One Left", I think - is indicated on 2654.131. I'm pretty sure about that; it's been a while since I watched through Academy.

Incidentally the date given for the last novel of the Pilgrim cycle (Pilgrim Truth?) is given as 2654.130. So yes: you can expect a great number of discrepancies between the two (the Movie pretty much ditched all continuity up to that point). The folks who wrote Star*Soldier did their level best to fit everything in to one continuity, and they did about as good a job as could be expected given the circumstances, IMHO.
 
Inquirer said:
Thank you for the replies! You have been very enlighting.

I am still muddy about the WCA vs Movie though. Is there a definite date around them?

Also, I don't expect that the Movie was filmed with WCA in mind. Should I expect any discrepancies between the series and the movie?
Click to expand...

I think there maybe an older thread where we did try to map out the dates for WCM/WCA/WC1. I'm trying to search for it...
 
Apart from Star*Soldier itself, there are the "Star*Soldier Gloss" news posts, where the writers explain some of the references.
https://www.wcnews.com/news/search?sortorder_o=0&title=Star*Soldier Gloss

Here are the posts relating to the timeline. Pages 42 and 43 are the most relevant to the question of ordering the movie, TV episodes, novels and games.
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-40-september-21-2008.22660/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-41-september-22-2008.22662/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-42-september-25-2008.22666/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-43-september-25-2008.22676/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-44-september-26-2008.22675/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-45-september-27-2008.22680/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-46-september-28-2008.22694/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-47-september-29-2008.22693/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-48-september-30-2008.22685/
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/star-soldier-gloss-page-49-september-23-2008.22663/
 
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Wow this is quite a reference!

I have a somehow irrelevant question, not worthy to open a new thread about. The wcpedia game guide for WC1 includes all the dialogues and briefings before and after each mission. However the debriefings have two forks: "You Flew Well" and "You Flew Poorly". What mission event triggers the "well" and "poorly"? Has it to do with how much damage you suffered in the mission (and the technician remarks "must have been hot out there").

And how does it affect any game mechanics? Eg. if I keep getting hit, am I sent to the losing path? Or do I miss some medals?

Thanks again. I have a long way to become WC guru but I try! :)
 
Inquirer said:
The wcpedia game guide for WC1 includes all the dialogues and briefings before and after each mission. However the debriefings have two forks: "You Flew Well" and "You Flew Poorly". What mission event triggers the "well" and "poorly"? Has it to do with how much damage you suffered in the mission (and the technician remarks "must have been hot out there").

And how does it affect any game mechanics? Eg. if I keep getting hit, am I sent to the losing path? Or do I miss some medals?
Click to expand...

I've never noticed the debriefing change depending on my damage. Usually it's all about the mission objective. For example, in Gateway Sigma Wing, an escort mission, "Flew Poorly" clearly means that the transport being escorted was destroyed. The woolly case is generally patrols. Indeed, Gateway Delta Wing claims to have a case where you "Flew Poorly" while visiting all nav points.

Incidentally, the "Must have been hot out there" quote is not the worst state your ship can be in. If you really got shredded, you'll see "Glad to see you made it back alive sir". You're unlikely to see this in a Hornet (too little margin between "spotless" and "dead"), but it's the default state of the Scimitar... at least the ones I fly.

It would probably be safer to declare the movie to be non-canon than to claim to know all the answers to the medal system. However, I don't think your damage ever matters - it's about destroying lots of enemy ships, while keeping friendly ships alive. I found that "The Missions of Wing Commander" mostly matched my own experience. There's a Word Document here, and a text version included with WCSav. It's not completely accurate, and there may be a better version of the file the either of the ones I linked to.

If you're running WC1 on DOSBox, I recommend slowing it to 3,000 cycles, which is also suggested over here. The GoG version defaults to 4,000 cycles, which is just a bit too fast for some of us.
 
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I'm back, having discovered a discrepancy and hoping there is a solution to it :)

Years ago when I watched Academy, I noticed that wcnews maintained a timeline order, which can be found at https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Category:Academy_Television#Timeline_Order. I don't know how official it is, but the Star*Soldier gloss mentions that it has been adopted by an official DVD movie release, which he had used as his source. Other than that I have no idea about the series timeline-ing.

And now here is an oddity. The timeline says that "The Last One Left" happens in .094, while the Star*Soldier timeline gives a date of .130. This is way off. Surely Star*Soldier has attempted to make corrections and retcons, but the gloss doesn't mention anything about a retroactive correction here, only that he used the dates seen in a DVD release, which presumably uses the same source as wcnews. What is the reason for this discrepancy?

And let's say we accept this as a retcon. As I said this is still off, pushing the series way later for Academy to be a prequel of the game (as it was originally supposed to be).
For example, the Enyo campaign starts in the game around .110. I don't know if the game dates are canonical, as they pretty much are depended on the player's path, however the Enyo campaign is the only stable campaign, therefore that's when the game starts in canon.
It would make sense that "TLOL" happens 0n .094, before the game, but pushing it to .130 makes less sense.
 
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Inquirer said:
And now here is an oddity. The timeline says that "The Last One Left" happens in .094, while the Star*Soldier timeline gives a date of .130. This is way off. Surely Star*Soldier has attempted to make corrections and retcons, but the gloss doesn't mention anything about a retroactive correction here, only that he used the dates seen in a DVD release, which presumably uses the same source as wcnews. What is the reason for this discrepancy?

And let's say we accept this as a retcon. As I said this is still off, pushing the series way later for Academy to be a prequel of the game (as it was originally supposed to be).
For example, the Enyo campaign starts in the game around .110. I don't know if the game dates are canonical, as they pretty much are depended on the player's path, however the Enyo campaign is the only stable campaign, therefore that's when the game starts in canon.
It would make sense that "TLOL" happens 0n .094, before the game, but pushing it to .130 makes less sense.
Click to expand...

Hey, "The Last One Left" isn't referenced in the Star Soldier timeline. The S*S entry for .130 is referring to the novel Wing Commander Pilgrim Truth! The dates in this case may be a day or two off, because Pilgrim Truth wasn't actually released until 2011, but that's what it is. PT was the third book in the movie novelization trilogy. The author released it online via the CIC here: https://www.wcnews.com/news/2012/11/22/if-the-truth-were-known
 
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Chris, after all this time it's nice to see a reply :). However I was referring to .131 where Thrakhath destroys Tortuga base.

The gloss says.
"2654.131" - describes 'Last One Left'.
The Wing Commander Academy dates come from the Japanese version of the Wing Commander movie DVD, which takes them from the CIC's theoretical timeline.

No explanation why it was changed from .094. Perhaps the Japanese didn't copy well the CIC timeline and S*S took it from them?

But my biggest question remains: why did the CIC date Academy in a manner to suggest that it happens simultaneously to the WC1? It was supposed to be a prequel, not a tie in.
 
Inquirer said:
But my biggest question remains: why did the CIC date Academy in a manner to suggest that it happens simultaneously to the WC1? It was supposed to be a prequel, not a tie in.
Click to expand...

There's just a lot that does tie-in, and then Star*Soldier makes it all official. The first episode of Academy happens, then the movie happens, then the events of the games and cartoon interweave over a few years. What we see in the original games is a small handful of days over 2654-2656, so there's plenty of empty space in there for more adventures.
 
Hi again!! Thanks for the reply Chris. I have some sceptical questions/doubts/objections, and please don't perceive them as a newbie trolling the experts. Some details are a matter of personal perception and can't be changed, but otherwise I really need some answers. :)

As far as I have seen and read, Academy was conceived as an interquel between WCII and III. Then this was changed to be pushed back in time and become a prequel to WCI. So Blair and Maniac are not 2nd Lts but Cadets. According to the creator's minds, WCI happens sometime after Academy.

I believe the creators' intention was to make a prequel, and the overlapping is therefore a retcon. Nobody answered me when I asked the source or the logic behind the overlapping CIC dating. I believe it's an estimation (educated or arbitrary) made by a CIC editor, and therefore is a fanon retcon. Of course S*S canonized it (partially) but it still started as a fanon retcon, far from the creators' original intentions (and perhaps S*S should not have used those dates in the first place?)

Chris, you say that a lot does tie-in, but it is a theoretical tie-in: only because someone dated the episodes in order to tie in. Practically they don't. The cartoon never mentions specific events from the game, so it can't be placed chronologically. There is no tie-in, nor intention for it. Only the dates, which are only theoretical as they aren't seen on-screen or given by an original official source.

In my mind, the film happens after Academy, not between Eps 1 and 2. In the film, Blair is a graduated Lt, in the Academy he is still a cadet. In the film, the captain is that Sansky guy, in the cartoon it's Tolwyn. It makes more sense that Blair left the TC, graduated from the Academy and returned to the TC... than trying to fit these two together.
 
Well, as always with these things, you cannot fit everything together perfectly. If the animated series happens parallel with the games, then Blair manages to be a cadet and a Lieutenant Colonel at the same time. Conversely, if it happened before them, then somehow the entire crew of the Tiger's Claw manages to forget what a Sivar-Eshrad ceremony is in between the end of Academy and Secret Missions 2 (and if you read the series bible, you'll see that originally, the Kilrathi defector was Ralgha nar Hhallas and the race being attacked were the Firekkans). Ultimately, if you want Academy to run parallel to the games, you have to deal with a lot of minor inconsistencies (all the ranks are wrong, some people meet each other at different times or should be in different squadrons when they're flying with each other, and so on. But the Wing Commander universe is full of those minor issues - the design of the Tiger's Claw is probably the most famous one, WC1 can't even agree with itself on that - whereas if you want Academy to be before the games, you struggle mightily to explain precisely why SM2 happens twice.
 
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