I haven't had the time to read all of it but most of it sounds like interesting ideas and good developments of what could have happend after Secret Ops. Also the funny reverances to different things like Privateer2 and the WC movie are funny. Another thing that when I first read it was "to generate music called UMuse." Somehow I connected that with Ipod for some unknown reason. Still I think that their is enough material in to to provide a base to future storys in the WC universe. Special the part with the second Nephilim war where in the end half of Confeds and Nephilim fleet just vanished. Or the Young Kilrathi that from somewhere got a dreadnought?!
Interesting and grim future somehow I got the feeling they were paving road for Society and Culture type we see in Privateer 2.Allthough the reference to P2 Darkening was amusing. Another interesting thing to note from pictures is the adoption of kilrathi ship style for some of the ships. Overall Good stuff to read.
I don't know, I think what makes bad fan fiction bad fan fiction is gratuitous continuity... which this decidedly *doesn't* have. It's primarly a direct and professional followup to the concepts introduced in Secret Ops (which fans by and large aren't overly i nterested in) -- there's very, very little of the 'look at me, I'm referencing a novel!' kind of writing that characterizes fanfic. No 'u' in Nephilim. No, it's not canon -- something that isn't published isn't part of a continuity, regardless of how interested it is. We probably have a dozen different post-WCP treatments available online now... they're all amazingly interesting, but no one will take them into account when they go to develop the next Wing Commander game. Wing Commander fans seem notoriously touchy about jump drives, a technology that isn't ever developed in a singularly coherent manner. The interesting thing about that one, I think, is how similar it is to the WC1/2 Guide -- which claimed that 'Wing Commander' and 'Wing Commander II' were interactive holo-vids directed by 'Tristan Roberts' many years after the war to teach people about the history of the conflict. The joke is probably about iMuse, LucasArts' famously proprietary interactive music system. Remember that the iPod had not yet taken over the world in 2000.
Sounds fun, and would open an entirely new line of debates, because that would make Cdmr. Gerar and Adm. Tolwyn part-time actors on a video-game.
Yes that sounds more like it...maybe I connected it because I hear and see Ipods here and there every day at the moment but you are right the iMuse is closer to it....I know it sound somehow familiar ^_^
I like the quote about the "movie." If you read it a certain way, you can read that before WC was put on hold by EA, they may have been considering another movie: "Blair deserved better, and maybe, one day, he’ll receive just treatment." Highly improbable, but possible? Anyways. I think the whole thing was really good. I don't like that Casey died, but then who likes it when a known hero they like does... It's somewhat suitable though that the only person to really best Casey in battle is... Casey. And though the whole clone thing seems a bit stretched, remember they were making a background for an online game. One where if you died, you shouldn't be eliminated... The whole thing was obviously setup so that the player could reset as his clone if he were to get killed... That way you get continuity with minimal problems.
I didn't care much for the Casey clone thing either. The Ghoul idea is neat but Casey killing Casey didn't work for me. The Darkening thing didn't either. I laughed out loud when I read it but I thought they could of done something a lot more useful with it. But over all, it was a good read and I'm sure it would of made a awsome game. I also liked they layout of the document.
As a side note, I'd like to point out that I don't subscribe to the position that a clone that has a copy of my conscience and memory is the same as me. I could make a clone and look at him, talk to him. It would not be me. A clone is that, just a clone. That a very lame form or "immortality". That's why I favor ejection pods.
The Darkening thing is an in-joke, like the WEC in Secret Ops or 'Hail SHODAN' in Victory Streak -- not a legitimate attempt to explain away Privateer 2. The Casey thing is interesting. Clearly, the team didn't like Casey -- or, at least, they didn't like the actor who played him in Prophecy (who refused to return to do voicework for SO)... so it's somewhat respectable and well crafted that he's both given a noble career and a good death *and* made into a villain. The 2703 entry covers this issue: "A cloning researcher under Dr. Ebsei develops what are coined “flash maps”. These neural snapshots are incorporated into the cloning seed process and cover not only conscious and subconscious aspects of the brain, but the “muscle memory” at all neural spike locations across the body. For the first time mental and muscle memory integrity are maintained with the subject template."
I read that as well. It's a very perfect clone, a clone which probably is pretty much sure is the original one, but it's still a clone. You can make a few dozen versions of the original guy, and they can talk to each other.
Remember that a man is defined by his environment as well as his actions. Clone Casey would have all his memories but only to the point of the brain-scan-thing. Being a celebrated war hero wouldn't Casey be a proud man, and to the clone his pride has been insulted by being the copy without decorations or even official existence, and the fact that the clones seem to be imperfect/mutated, that could make him a very angry man.
Hehe, sure, it's an in-joke, but I think it's safe to say that it is also a legitimate attempt to explain away Privateer 2. It's one thing to reference other game series - but when you make a reference that fictionalises a game from the same series, that's a pretty clear statement. I have to say, all in all I really don't like these outlines. They really do seem rather fannish. It's as if they wanted to reference just about every unimportant character they could think of. I don't see the point of mentioning, and especially killing off the Love Animals or Saranya Carr - both of these things were originally introduced as throw-away items to build up the WC universe background. When they keep referring to them again and again, though, they turn them into foreground material. So, while originally this stuff made the WC universe seem like a richer, more real place, referring to them again here makes the WC universe poorer. Is there really only one famous actress in the 27th century? And only one music band? Any new made-up name would have worked a thousand times better. Also, why make Admiral Rayak run for office? Again, any other random name would have done just as well (though, truth be told, no name at all would have been better still - some of this stuff is just uselessly gratuitous. If the game is set in 2710, why do we need to know who the governor of Sol sector was in 2690? Some stuff is better left to the imagination) - but they apparently decided that since SO had introduced a new admiral, they absolutely had to use her again... and then forgot her first name, and gave her a sex change! Argh. And yeah, I know - we would have undoubtedly ended up explaining this away as merely a second admiral with the same last name... but I'd be very, very surprised if that had been what they actually intended.
I don't think it's so sinister... it's written in a fashion that can only be an in-joke -- it isn't *explicitly* a way to write off the story of Privateer 2, it's just something that people 'in the know' will recognize as being a joke about the game. There's no 'explaining' there -- it's namedropping Erin Roberts, Lev and 'The Darkening' (it doesn't seem any different than having 'Tristan Roberts' direct the 'Wing Commander' holovid game in the Wing Commander I & II Guide...). I think this is probably overlooking the purpose of the document -- the writer was probably told to take the Prophecy and Secret Ops fiction and follow it through to the 'present', with the end goal of explaining the various necessary changes to allow for the gameplay of the MMP setting. This isn't the background to be published in the manual... it's a very early history to go from point A to point C, which would then be filled out later on with all the new references. That's probably a mistake. My guess regarding Rayak running for office, though, is that the game is setting up Reconstruction in Space (which it certainly seems to be doing)... and he'd be the President Grant character in that story. (Or, perhaps its just something from the aborted Strike Team storyline -- the Privateer: Retribution script shows up in this timeline even thought it was dead and buried by this point...)
I think it was a good read. Shame they never made the game. I like the part about HOTT's. I think half the people here would make good members ~~~
