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Saga of the Warrior King
It's Saturday morning, November 16th... 1996. 10:45 AM. I'd been up for hours - too excited about a new episode of Wing Commander Academy. It's smack in the middle of those thirteen perfect weeks where there was another Wing Commander story every Saturday morning - and then a weekend of talking about it in #Wing-Commander and at the Origin's Official Chat Board. My tape is ready - I've tuned in early so I can't possibly miss anything. I was always nervous when it came to taping things.
Savage Dragon is ending. It's an awful show based on a presumably awful comic book about a guy who turns into a dragon. A savage dragon. Hey, Michael Dorn is playing some sort of viking - that's neat. It's 1996, people still like Star Trek and the world is still pure and clean. It ends, I hit record and then... Mortal Kombat?! What the heck, man?! Mortal Kombat is supposed to be on at 11:30, after Wing Commander. The terrifying possibilities rush through my brain - did WCA get cancelled? Did they air it earlier?! What happened?! I know there's supposed to be an episode today, "Recreation" - the USA Network maintains a remarkably thorough scheduling website (for 1996).
Okay, breath. Watch Mortal Kombat, maybe there'll be a commercial. There is - Wing Commander Academy is next. Whew. That's a load off my mind. I'll tape it then. Who knows why it got switched around - I'll just be more careful in the future. The episode starts... a Kilrathi tug! Awesome awesome awesome. Wing Commander Academy at its finest! Huzzah!.
But wait... it's... Michael Dorn... as a space viking! What the hell?
What the hell indeed. Though I did not know it at the time - and do not understand it to this day - Wing Commander Academy was playing a part in the strangest TV crossover ever imagined. Somehow - and I have in the last eight years seen no commentary on how or why this occured - four separate animation studios agreed to pool their efforts and have Michael Dorn travel as a space viking through their shows. The USA Network further obliged this insane plan by changing the airtimes of the shows so they would follow the story in the proper order - with Street Fighter first and Wing Commander Academy last. And doing nothing else.
If you watch only your show (Street Fighter, Savage Dragon, Mortal Kombat or Wing Commander) you will not know that there is a crossover. Nor was a crossover ever promoted by the network - there were no commercials, no between-show bumpers... nothing to indicate that the fact that Michael Dorn plays a Space Viking in all four shows is anything but the worst kind of coincidence.
The story starts on Street Fighter in "The Warrior King" (Season 2, Episode 9). The show opens with Space Viking ("Warrior King")'s castle under attack by wizards riding dragons. There's some exposition ("If the wizards get the orb, Warrior's World will be lost!"), and then a good wizard opens some sort of space portal and shoves Space Viking and his Magic Orb through. They end up in Street Fighter's version of the Middle East, where the evil army officer guy steals the orb and uses nature to destroy... whatever it is the Street Fighter characters are protecting. The world, I guess. Space Viking teams up with the girl Street Fighter and they save the world. At the end of the episode, the orb and the Space Viking get shoved in another Fry-hole.
... to end up in Savage Dragon! In "Endgame" (Season 2, Episode 8), Savage Dragon and Space Viking team up to rescue the orb again. I haven't actually seen this episode since 1996 - but I'm working on tracking down a copy. They save the orb and end up in another Fry Hole.
Next, Mortal Kombat, "Resurrection" (Season 1, Episode 9). The evil force that fights the Mortal Kombat people winds up with the orb, and uses it to fight the... Mortal Kombat... characters. The Mortal Kombat people recover the orb, and then open their own space-hole at the end of the episode. You see Space Viking for only a second, jumping after the orb as it goes into said hole.
Finally, Wing Commander Academy. "Recreation" (Season 1, Episode 9). There are no amazing space holes - Space Viking is found frozen on a sleeper ship, and escapes at the end in a stolen Scimitar. The Nature Orb Dealy is giving life to a barren planet full of weird aliens, and instead of stealing it to rebuild his planet, Space Viking decides to let it be in the end.
But why? And how? And... all sorts of questions. No one knows. No one I've ever talked to who worked on Wing Commander Academy was even aware that such a crossover existed. It's just... strange in every possible manner.
Why bring it up now? In 1996 I was horrified and wanted to hide it - it was... embarassing. In my old age, I'm kind of interested in preserving it... and I found out that two of the episodes are available on DVD. You can get Street Fighter's episode on this set (R1, NTSC) and Mortal Kombat's episode here (R0, PAL). I'm working on tracking down a bootleg of the Savage Dragon episode, so people can once again enjoy this strange and pointless piece of Wing Commander history.
[LOAF] [# 5205] [Discuss]  
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Update published on 1/7/2004. View all news from that day.
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Official news, fan projects and topics of particular interest to Wing Commander fans.
- Rapiers in High Demand on the Frontier
- 2010-09-02 -- Kevin Caccamo has released photos of the updated Rapier II to be featured in his Freespace mod, WC Hostile Frontiers. Two basic paint schemes have been revealed, and both revolve around the Republic of Landreich faction. Their use in this remote region mirrors their late era service in the Border Worlds (WC4 novel) and Epsilon Sector (Arena).
- Victoria super Omnia
- 2010-09-01 -- TonViper has cleaned up the textures on his Excaliburs a bit more. These will eventually get added to the Homeworld 2 Mod, which will allow them to be built on command. This pushes the design more towards a fresh factory paint scheme instead of a worn scorched look.
- Star Ruler Space Sim
- 2010-09-01 -- wc3 tipped us off about Star Ruler, which was just released for Windows. It's a space sim/strategy game with dynamic "procedurally generated" galaxies. Individual technologies can be developed throughout the game, and there's also a large multiplayer component.
- HCl Develops Sega CD Voice Extractor
- 2010-08-31 -- HCl took a break from investigating the 3DO file formats to dig into the Sega CD/Megadrive. His preliminary work has already produced a utility that allows extraction of Sega CD speech! WC1 on Sega CD includes full spoken dialogue in place of the original game's subtitles.
- Rapier Returns in Paper Form
- 2010-08-30 -- Péricles is working on a new paper model. His latest masterpiece is the Rapier II Blade based on the original Arena 3D meshes. The ships from Arena apparently make great source models for paper designs.
- Road Trip!
- 2010-08-30 -- The CIC Staff's 2010 adventure is under way! Here's our American crew ready to get the party started. We'll be posting periodic updates to the Facebook page and Twitters (@banditloaf, @aclawson & @chrisreid) if you'd like to follow along.
- Bestowing Bob's Badass Bengal
- 2010-08-29 -- Remember that swanky Tiger's Claw in Bob's recent propaganda poster? It was singled out for being a nifty artistic take on the ship, and now it's yours to download! Grab the 3DS Max 7 model here (160 k zip).
- CIC Forums Go Mobile
- 2010-08-29 -- The CIC Forums look better on the latest generation of smartphones than ever before, but they're still a bit cumbersome to use. KrisV fixed that today with an upgrade to support Forum Runner. The new app support allows iPhone users to browse threads and reply to posts as easily as working with email.
- Radical Rapier RocZ!
- 2010-08-28 -- JasonRocZ has posted another star trio of fighters from the Arena 3D Mesh pack. From left to right, these are the Rapier Blade, Vanguard and Cavalier. Although the ships might look unfamliar to some, they are based on the authentic F-54 Rapier II frame - from Super Wing Commander!
- EA Holding Weekend Sale
- 2010-08-28 --
Did you know EA runs some killer deals on the weekends? The EA Twitter reports that Dead space is $10, Spore is $20 and Mirror's Edge is just $5. These are all the digital download PC versions.
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