Strange Idea I had about the Nephilim

Bandit LOAF said:
Do they disappear or are they shot down? I thought the game spawned the Strakha ace over and over until they were dead.

(But yes, Flint dies if you choose her and then fly with her and you get a 'Blair alone' ending... but if you choose her and *don't* fly with her then they're together.)
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Agree with LOAF...they don't just disappear, the game spawns infinite aces that go after one of them until one is dead at each station.

Although, I believe the "official" story is that Maniac was one of the three that accompanied Blair and that he survived, even though he was shot down? (Maybe picked up by the Kilrathi and spared because they immediately signed a cease fire?)

Out of curiosity, who were the "official" pilots that accompanied Blair, other than Maniac? If Vagabond was one, then he must have somehow survived as well, since he has an official role in WC4. And who was the "offiical" Blair love-interest choice?
 
Out of curiosity, who were the "official" pilots that accompanied Blair, other than Maniac? If Vagabond was one, then he must have somehow survived as well, since he has an official role in WC4. And who was the "offiical" Blair love-interest choice?
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Maniac, Vagabond and Flint. In the novelization both Vagabond and Maniac are said to have possibly ejected (Blair thinks he sees both but isn't sure). In the original draft of the book all three wingmen were killed without question. Origin asked Andrew Keith to go back and change the manuscript to leave the possibility that Maniac and Vagabond survived... which suggests that they were pretty sure Flint *wouldn't* be back before Wing Commander III even shipped.

Maniac's experience gets a bit more gloss later on. We hear his version of the story in his interview in the ICIS manual... and we learn he was captured and interrogated by the Kilrathi in the Prophecy guide.

The official love interest was Rachel; we see her leave Blair in the novelization and things occasionally remind him of her in that book. Their relationship is also mentioned a few times in the Prophecy material.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Maniac, Vagabond and Flint. In the novelization both Vagabond and Maniac are said to have possibly ejected (Blair thinks he sees both but isn't sure). In the original draft of the book all three wingmen were killed without question. Origin asked Andrew Keith to go back and change the manuscript to leave the possibility that Maniac and Vagabond survived... which suggests that they were pretty sure Flint *wouldn't* be back before Wing Commander III even shipped.

Maniac's experience gets a bit more gloss later on. We hear his version of the story in his interview in the ICIS manual... and we learn he was captured and interrogated by the Kilrathi in the Prophecy guide.

The official love interest was Rachel; we see her leave Blair in the novelization and things occasionally remind him of her in that book. Their relationship is also mentioned a few times in the Prophecy material.
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I wonder what Maniac was like in that situation. :)
 
Farbourne said:
Agree with LOAF...they don't just disappear, the game spawns infinite aces that go after one of them until one is dead at each station.
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Hang on, which game are we talking about? I'm referring to the PC version - I remember the first time I played the end missions, I was terribly confused as to why my wingmen were disappearing even though we were killing all the Kilrathi (no death screams, just wingmen going missing). There were no mysteriously re-spawning Strakhas or anything of the sort.
 
Hang on, which game are we talking about? I'm referring to the PC version - I remember the first time I played the end missions, I was terribly confused as to why my wingmen were disappearing even though we were killing all the Kilrathi (no death screams, just wingmen going missing). There were no mysteriously re-spawning Strakhas or anything of the sort.
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Yeah, the PC version--Stalker appears over and over and goes directly for your wingmen. If you have the cheat mode on you can finger of death over and over indefinitely.

I don't think Wing Commander III had the ability to instantly blow anything up for some reason--there was always some semi-hidden trick (like how the capship battles would end with a scripted CapShipMissile).

I wonder what Maniac was like in that situation.
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He holds up to interrogation/torture with his usual charm in Pilgrim Stars... but I guess he was younger, then.
 
The only time I recall seeing the multiple Stalkers was in the last mission - at the nav point before Kilrah, where you're supposed to cloak. And of course, by that point, he always went for me personally.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Do they disappear or are they shot down? I thought the game spawned the Strakha ace over and over until they were dead.
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I remember sending a wingman home at the jump point before the ace shows up. So thats a third option.

Bandit LOAF said:
The official love interest was Rachel; we see her leave Blair in the novelization and things occasionally remind him of her in that book. Their relationship is also mentioned a few times in the Prophecy material.
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As much as I like the WC3 novelization, I felt that Blair was written with a huge shift in tone between Rachel and Flint and then Blair spurning Flint later on. I wonder if Origin's request came at the 11th hour.
 
Wedge009 said:
The only time I recall seeing the multiple Stalkers was in the last mission - at the nav point before Kilrah, where you're supposed to cloak. And of course, by that point, he always went for me personally.
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Yes I'm with Wedge on this one. I remember distinctly my first play through of the end of the Game because I had just finished the novel where it was implied that they survived and might have died, so I made extra extra extra sure that they stayed alive to dock at each station...and then I couldn't figure out what was going on when I was re-launching for the next stage of the mission minus one wingman.
 
The only time I recall seeing the multiple Stalkers was in the last mission - at the nav point before Kilrah, where you're supposed to cloak. And of course, by that point, he always went for me personally.
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Wait--why would there be multiple Stalkers if not to kill your final wingman? You cloaking can't stop them from appearing--there would still be one left and you wouldn't be able to autopilot.

As much as I like the WC3 novelization, I felt that Blair was written with a huge shift in tone between Rachel and Flint and then Blair spurning Flint later on. I wonder if Origin's request came at the 11th hour.
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Origin didn't request anything about the romance--Andrew Keith's original draft chooses Rachel and kills Flint. Origin's request (which was unusual for the novels, the earlier books were approved without comment) was that Vagabond and Maniac be possibly 'spared' where Andrew had initially killed them without question.

(It's also worth pointing out that the 'respawn until wingmen are dead' situation is a last-ditch thing. The wingmen are killable for the whole thing and the missions are hard enough that they will usually die sooner.)
 
Wasn't the WC3 part of Kilrathi Saga just some kind of "conversion pack" which you fed your DOS WC3 CDs to?

(That doesn't mean it can't be different in DOS and KS versions anyway.)
 
Same experience as wedge,

Unless a wingman was shot down during each leg, a random one would disappear at each Base.

The Strakha Ace would respawn indefinately if I didn't cloak when I was supposed to.
 
Bob McDob said:
Original release and Kilrathi Saga?
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No, I've only ever played the original DOS release despite owning KS.

Bandit LOAF said:
Wait--why would there be multiple Stalkers if not to kill your final wingman? You cloaking can't stop them from appearing--there would still be one left and you wouldn't be able to autopilot.
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As I said before, I never experienced the multiple Stalkers chasing my wingmen - they just disappeared mysteriously. As for the second point, truth be told, my memory is a little hazy on that point. I think it only happened occasionally, in which case I'd get fed up of him coming back all the time, cloak, afterburn-and-slide towards the nav point, and wait until I was sufficient distance away so that I could enter auto-pilot.
 
First two disappeared 'randomly', the last faced the eternally-respawning Strakha ace... that didn't even seem particularly interested in killing him. First time I thought it was some sort of story-breaking bug and deleted my savegame. :/
 
Wedge009 said:
No, I've only ever played the original DOS release despite owning KS.
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That was meant more as a direct response to your question - didn't the KS release fix bugs in the original like being able to kill Thrakkath halfway through the game? It stands to reason they might have done a similar tweak with the endgame.

Also, out of curiousity, how was this handled in the 3DO and PS versions?
 
Ah, maybe. I can't recall what the list of technical changes were. So, are we really comparing experiences between the DOS and Kilrathi Saga versions, here?
 
Dyret said:
First two disappeared 'randomly', the last faced the eternally-respawning Strakha ace... that didn't even seem particularly interested in killing him. First time I thought it was some sort of story-breaking bug and deleted my savegame. :/
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Yes, and the last one is Maniac, so isn't that appropriate? Didn't he stay to cover Blair while Blair carried the bomb in?
 
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