Flashpack background

[Bandit LOAF]

PS. The Tolwyn's Black Lance, how did he hide all that, and how long was it in the planning? Unless he found something that speeds up aging, gene-altered pilots means the conspiracy must be as old as those pilots to have created them

The original wave of GE pilots were created during the war, as part of a black project to oppose the Kilrathi -- the conspiracy just took them for their needs towards the end of the war.

Tolwyn became involved with the conspiracy in 2669, shortly after the Battle of Earth. He took over after David Whittaker died in mid-late 2670. It's unknown exactly how long it was around... but Confed had found evidence that a more powerful species (the Nephilim, perhaps) on the other side of the galaxy was expanding before the Kilrathi Wars had even started (~2634).

 

[ChrisReid]

Speaking of Capships, am I the only one vaguely irked by the sci-fi tendency for them to explode and vaporise instead of sections blowing out and crippling the ship? I know it wasn't possible on the tech of the time, but like I said, it's just a little pet peeve

Isn't this what happens in Prophecy?

 

[chanman]

Haven't played Prophecy, but it has been the trend up to X-wing Alliance. Don't remember Starlancer, but Freelancer has them explode and leave a couple large chunks

I was just thinking about how nailing something the size of the WC2 Concordia or Agincourt might cripple it (main guns, engines, hanger), but neither completely disable nor kill it.

Speaking of which, did they beef up the cap ship anti-fighter weaponry after WC2/Privateer? They could realy use it, and Starlancer/Freelancer had rather vulnerable capships as well (Starlancer cap ships only had easily destroyed laser turrets. Freelancer cap ships could be hammered down with guns, missiles and mines, especially if you flew into the blindspot of the battleships)

 

[ChrisReid]

Haven't played Prophecy, but it has been the trend up to X-wing Alliance.
I was just thinking about how nailing something the size of the WC2 Concordia or Agincourt might cripple it (main guns, engines, hanger), but neither completely disable nor kill it.

Yeah, in Prophecy you specifically target the bridge, engines, turrets, shield generators and so on. After a sufficient number of components are taken out, the ship suffers some internal explosions, but the entire charred hull remains. A whole hell of a lot of people complained that they wished the game had bigger explosions and the entire ship incinerated itself instead.

 

[lorddarthvik]

It would have been nice if some big parts would have been blown off of the ships. The bugs ships had the shapes to make that an easy task for any 3d modeller... I really think that a big piece of burnt junk shouldn't be "blowing up" every half seconds. And it deosnt stop, so if you keep looking at a ship it will still have the same blows after 2 hours playing the mission. Well, i think that the simple incineration is still better then that, with some big chunks left... BTW, the ships usually blow up, no matter what size, becasue their reactors blow from damage or overcharge and such. That explains fairly wel the incineration.

ABout the FP: why they don't use it agains't the Nephilim?? As seen in the end sequence, they do have oxigen in their bases/ships as far as i can remember. THey do have some kind of atmosphere anyway. Sorry if this was discussed for a million times before, but i don't have any documentation to my Prophecy, and didn't read any books that would mention that.

 

[Death]

ABout the FP: why they don't use it agains't the Nephilim?? As seen in the end sequence, they do have oxigen in their bases/ships as far as i can remember. THey do have some kind of atmosphere anyway. Sorry if this was discussed for a million times before, but i don't have any documentation to my Prophecy, and didn't read any books that would mention that.

Well, besides the fact that it's highly unlikely any FPs still exist in Confed inventory (it was pretty much only a terror weapon, as warship armor advanced beyond where the FP would have any effect, starting around the time of the Vesuvius), there's nothing saying that a weapon designed to lock onto metal hulls would be able to grab onto the organic hulls of bug ships.

Also, the FP required a specific mounting point on the launching fighter, you couldn't just slap it onto any handy "heavy" hardpoint (the torpedo mount used in WC4 was a game engine limitation, since in the game FPs were treated, as noted above, like "super torpedoes"; the intro scene and Pliers' digging around in the captured Lance's belly showed the correct mounts).

Finally, even with the above, there's the fact that the Midway was out on a shakedown cruise, and didn't have everything a fleet-ready Midway would have (hell, it didn't even have its heavies, until Wolfpack came over from the Eisen). It's unlikely that FPs would be included, even if they weren't limited to use against civilian craft.

 

[lorddarthvik]

THanx, that explains it pretty much. I was just curious if it was mentioned in any books, related fan stories, original docs, that what happened to the FP.

 

[Edfilho]

The Flashpak could have been ruled a forbidden weapon, like biological and chemical weapons. It's not canon, of course. But it's plausible.

 

[Aron Figaro]

Quite possible, but what would've kept them from using it against the Bugs? I mean, c'mon, they're the bugs. They probably had plans for anti-Nephilim bioweapons sometime during Prophecy/Secret Ops...