On This Date In Wing Commander Future History - 1st Awkwende Jump Drive Test (July 6, 2013)

[Dundradal]

The first humans to create and test a useable "jump drive" based on the 23rd century work of Dr. Shari Akwende was not the Confederation. The Pilgrims, a group of human separatists with genetic mutations that enhanced their ability to navigate in deep space, first tested an Akwende drive on 2501.187. They kept their discovery secret from the Confederation government for eighty-seven years. The Confederation first tested a working drive on the Haile Selassie. She jumped from Sol to Polaris on 2588.315 and returned on .323.






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Original update published on July 6, 2013

 

[Ilanin]

This is one of the relatively few outright contradictions between background sources; the WC Bible states the Akwende Drive was invented in 2416, with the Halie Selassie jumping from Sol to Alpha Centauri on 2416.013 and returning on 2416.187 and explains how Dr. Akwende became the only person two recieve two Nobel Prizes (Physics and Peace) for the same discovery.

Personally, I tend to think the pre-movie explanation makes more sense; quite how Confederation colonisation caught up to and surpassed the Pilgrims despite an eighty-year head start is somewhat unclear.

 

[Ijuin]

Another thing is that a timeline that doesn't have the Confederation possessing jump drive until 2580 starts to come into conflict with the Kilrathi War timeline, since that leaves only fifty-odd years for expansion and colonization before the war begins, and a number of the colony worlds do not seem to be that new. The 2416 timeline on the other hand, allows the core worlds such as Warsaw to be about two hundred years old before the war begins.