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What the...?
MannPower points us to the Ultima Restoration Project's development of a fan-run Ultima I remake which seems to feature... a Kilrathi space station? It is true that Ultima I did involve space stations, shuttles and TIE Fighters... and here's what they look like in 2008, apparently:
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Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 23
This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the fifth systems page:
CONCEPT: See the previous post!
REFERENCES-
"T'Kirsa" - T'kirsa is the 'other' Firekkan system introduced in the Wing Commander Universe map. This bio, which represents Arena's "Bearpit" mode, was cut down from the original demo version of the manual. My reasoning was that the Bearpit was the least 'Wing Commander' game mode, as fun as it is - so if I could come up with a reasonable backstory for it, I could do anything.
- "Firekkan Planetary Alliance" - The name for the Firekkan political group, also from the Universe Map. Presumably this is the Firekkan government formed after they left the Confederation in Fleet Action.
- "Roman coliseums and Kilrathi war-halls" - The whole idea is to connect this strange, strange space station to both reality and the reality of Wing Commander. That's another reason I made it Firekkan: it seems unlikely that humans in the 28th century would have built a massive bloodsport stadium -- but someone else might have.
- "Viewing galleries" - A feature of the mode itself, where up to 14 other players fly around the outer circle while battle happens in the center.
- "Kika'li" - The especially alcoholic drink introduced in Freedom Flight.
- "Last of the Megacarriers" - This is a reformatting of the various Midway explanations I worked on. You will see that various possible explanations for the change in appearance are included.
- "TCS Port Broughton" - The name comes from a list of the Midway-class ships created by Captain Johnny back in 1997-98. I did manage to include the whole list in an article added late in the process, as I knew it was one of those things Wing Commander fans had always wanted made part of the 'canon'. The name comes from a city in Australia.
- "CVX-10" - The original Midway was CVX-1. There was much discussion over the years as to what the 'X' meant. Basically, was it a new type of designation (a la CVS, CVE, CVA, etc.) or did it mean 'prototype' as with modern aircraft (ie, XF-22). Although the Midway was the class leader it clearly wasn't a prototype, so I've kept the designation for every ship in the class.
- "Flight IIA Midway-class" - Here's one possible (simple) explanation for the altered appearance. I don't know if 'Flight IIA' is a common name for an uprated version of a ship or not; I took it from the US Navy's Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
- "2686" - The novels give a five year producton time for new fleet carriers and we know from the ICIS manual that the Midway and the Mistral Sea enter service within a year of eachother.
- "McAuliffe" - Site of the McAuliffe Ambush, introduced in Claw Marks and the focus of Action Stations.
- "B'shriss" - Where Iceman died, as mentioned in Wing Commander Prophecy's dialogue.
- "Silenos" - The system where you choose to defect or stay with the Confederation in Wing Commander IV.
- "Sirius" - A system nuked by the Kilrathi in Fleet Action; also the penultimate series in Secret Ops.
- "Fiddler's Green" - A system mentioned by Angel in Wing Commander II; it was one of several human colonies attacked by the Kilrathi at one point in the game.
- "Reid" - The Wing Commander Universe map's shout-out to Chris Reid. The interesting thing here, though, is how far Reid is into the heart of the Confederation, which tells you something about the scope of the Nephilim War.
- "fluid space" - One concept they talked about for Strike Team was that space would be different across the wormhole. It would have helped make the game play and feel differently... so I referenced that here, hoping to put into your heads elaborate space coral colonies and schools of space fish fighters. Imagine a place where the shiny Nephilim fighters look natural.
- "modified to fight effectively" - Second explanation, to suggest why it looks different and is covered by those 'awful' towers.
- "Sirius wormhole" - Not a typo, this is a wormhole in Sirius rather than Proxima (the one seen at the end of Secret Ops).
- "Charybdis" - The quasar from the Wing Commander movie, which was the central point of many, many mysterious jump lines.
- "secondary theater" - A slight jab at the TCS Concordia.
- "TCSN" - I know, everyone else just says TCN, I'm sorry.
- "18th Fleet" - Highest fleet number seen yet!
- "Yelkin II" - Ah! This is one of the Wing Commander Armada sector map systems. I was trying to connect those great eleven maps to somewhere in the 'familiar' Wing Commander universe (Firekka).
- "burning in space" - Heh.
- "Tiamat battlegroups" - The Tiamat was the ultimate bad guy capital ship in Wing Commander Prophecy and apparently the Port Broughton went up against several of them.
- "intell" - Strange spelling of intel used in Victory Streak, presumably to avoid using the same name as the chip manufacturer?
- "new cruisers" - Oooh.
- "Krakatoa" - This has to be a Vesuvius-class ship (in fact, the name comes from an unpublished bio Captain Johnny did on that class).
- "history will not forget" - Somebody watched Generations. Ugh.
- "Commodore C. Strevell" - That's Blonde from the CIC team. Also, I feel that the Commodore rank is woefully underused.
- "four years later" - Suggests that the Nephilim War (or - some war) was still going on in 2698.
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