I feel that I should explain my own thoughts on analysing the fictional universe of Wing Commander and how I feel about apparent inconsistencies. I have problems with the thought that the Wing Commander timeline *should* be nice and smooth and non-conflicting. We live in what we consider to be reality, and what we view as our timeline sure as hell isn't smooth. We have sudden changes in political direction, conflicts in records, various factions, competing outlooks, et al. Why isn't a fictional universe allowed to have this? Do all records, people and objects in a fictional universe need to be perfectly consistent in our eyes? If someone says something that contradicts something we've read about, we don't quickly come to the conclusion that either the book, or the person, don't exist. This would be insanity. Instead we look at the sources and determine the credibility or each, and through this, come to a conclusion.
Instead of examining our sources, be they the movie, the games, or any of the other Wing Commander material, and throwing out what we disagree with, we should examine what happens in that material. The official Wing Commander materials are all part of the same universe. These creators have the right to create in this universe. Everything that these products contain are things that exist in the universe and cannot conflict. They are inherently right, in that they exist. However, the things represented within do not have to be correct. Someone in the universe can make a mistake. A magazine, a person, or a sensor reading can be incorrect, misreported or otherwise flawed. The representation of these things is what is always correct. We can examine these in-universe sources and decide, based on their source, what we believe to be true. Of course, just as in historical study, one cannot be completely sure as to which source is correct and in some cases none are.
Things can be improbable. Our own world has huge numbers of things that occur, apparently, by freak chance. These things can occur in Wing Commander as well.
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” – Sherlock Holmes
This is a sentiment that must be taken to heart. One impossibility is that part of the Wing Commander reality does not exist. One must work on the premise that everything that is presented to us by the authors does, indeed, exist. Improbability is always a possibility when explaining something, while impossibility is obviously not.
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