Privateer Day: A Novel Idea (June 3, 2011)

[Bandit LOAF]

There's one other great literary connection to Privateer. Famed author Jerry Pournelle, who was once scheduled to co-author a Wing Commander novel, loved the game and frequently mentioned it in his BYTE column. As late as December, 1998, he still had stories to tell in the Privateer setting:

Early on there was a spinoff game called Privateer which used the original Wing Commander engine and some of the original ships, but had a free form universe you could explore until you stumbled across the story line. That was followed by an ad-on scenario called "Righteous Fire" that was the single most enjoyable action game I have ever played. I loved Privateer and Righteous Fire... I still wish theya??d simply publish the specs for writing ad on scenarios to the original Privateer, though. If they want to improve the graphics levels, fine, but in fact that was about good enough; and it sure was fun. I can think of a number of stories I could write in that universe.

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Original update published on June 3, 2011

 

[st3lt3k]

I can think of a number of stories I could write in that universe.

Any idea what those stories are? It would be awesome if the Privateer engine could be used for other stories!

 

[ChrisReid]

They may just exist in his head at this point. I don't believe we've seen outlines or anything ever surface.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

You could ask him! BYTE may have folded a long time ago, but Mr. Pournelle continues his Tales from Chaos Manor column (complete with Q&A option) in blog form to this day: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/

They had originally wanted him to do the outline for the third Wing Commander novel, tentatively a continuation of Freedom Flight that would have brought Hunter’s story past the destruction of the Tiger’s Claw (similar to the pitch for ‘Alien Commander’; Origin thought the destruction of the Tiger’s Claw was a pretty big deal in 1992!) I reached out a couple years back and he had no memory of that one… but that would have predated his love of Privateer. (Ellen Guon later mentioned that Pournelle was never contracted... may have just been an assumption on the part of the book packager wanting a big name and knowing of his love for Wing Commander.)

(Side note: I’ve found many references to this novel being called ‘Freedom Run’ and have repeated that myself in the past; for the record, this is incorrect… Freedom Run was an error that was meant to read Freedom Flight in a circa-1995 Mercedes Lackey newsgroup FAQ.)