A question & then a proposal:

nickmitsialis

Rear Admiral
Guys:

Being a bit of a newby around here I have a couple of things I want to ask:

First: What is this 'Star Soldier' that I see mentioned from time to time?


Secondly: How's this for a 'reboot': Forget the WC movie for now...how about turning it into a series? I mean, like 'BSG' was changed from a 1970s cheese fest to a gritty war drama. What's not to like? You have TWO TOTALLY implacable factions locked in a 'no compromise/no holds barred' battle to the death--and then we have the Border worlds, Pirates, traitors (Mandarins, Retros), defectors, turncoats, heroes, villains & opportunistic SOBs---and often they'd be the SAME persons;

IF the writing is any good it could touch on all the 'moral parable' stuff that BSG tries to do without seeming silly ( a few tens of thousands of refugees are probably NOT going to have any political concerns other than survival but a few trillion Confed citizens probably WILL have to be more complex): balancing survival of Humanity & operational security & maintaining the viability of the Confed armed forces vs wartime morality & leaving allies & citizens to the mercy of the Kilrathi; issues of 'press freedom' & the politics of the involvement in a never-ending war, that, in spite of war weariness, MUST not be lost; how to handle the issue of 'internal dissent' & flat out treason....and of course, LOTS of stuff blowing up! :p

Personally I'd like nothing better than getting a chance to see the following: Some fan fiction had as one of it's many characters a Mixed species Confed Marine Unit called 'The Spine-Snappers'; the unit commander was a Kirathi Noble from N'gora Khar (sp?) who's soldiers were both Kilrathi AND Terrans--the fiction EVEN had an interesting bit with Terran Marines preparing themselves for battle by praying to Sivar;

Well, what do you all think?

NM
 
Guys:

Being a bit of a newby around here I have a couple of things I want to ask:

First: What is this 'Star Soldier' that I see mentioned from time to time?

Star Soldier is the online manual for WC Arena. Its quite detailed and very well done, in fact its the best one done since the TKS manual.
 
You can download it here

It's the "manual" for Arena. It's incredible.
 
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Secondly: How's this for a 'reboot': Forget the WC movie for now...how about turning it into a series? I mean, like 'BSG' was changed from a 1970s cheese fest to a gritty war drama. What's not to like? You have TWO TOTALLY implacable factions locked in a 'no compromise/no holds barred' battle to the death--and then we have the Border worlds, Pirates, traitors (Mandarins, Retros), defectors, turncoats, heroes, villains & opportunistic SOBs---and often they'd be the SAME persons;

I was actually involved with this, slightly, some years back -- Chris Roberts had (and likely still has) the rights to do a Wing Commander TV series and there was strong interest in launching it back in 2001. This was immediately after the pilot and first couple of episodes of Enterprise had unexpectedly high ratings... but Enterprise fizzled and hopes for the WC show died.

It would have been set during the Kilrathi War and they had even got to the point where they were working out where it would be filmed. I'm sure we'll find the original pitch concept floating around somewhere, someday... (the problem with basing another pitch for such a series on BSG is that BSG is only a success when compared to everything else on the Sci Fi channel; it wouldn't survive on a network.)
 
This is one of the reasons I am hopeful that the starwars TV series will be a mainstream success.. It might just be enough to prove there is interest in network Sci-Fi again.
 
It would have been set during the Kilrathi War and they had even got to the point where they were working out where it would be filmed. I'm sure we'll find the original pitch concept floating around somewhere, someday... (the problem with basing another pitch for such a series on BSG is that BSG is only a success when compared to everything else on the Sci Fi channel; it wouldn't survive on a network.)


This is probably a stupid question - why not work with a venue like the Sci Fi channel? It's probably the best way to complete a business case contingent on reaching and then expanding past a niche market.

BSG can't go on forever - WC is different enough that it could certainly be an appropriate successor.
 
Sci-fi is an odd channel that's hard to deal -- my understanding is that it's where NBC Universal (?) sticks their newly hatched executives... and they generally have their own elaborate vision of how to make it 'cool' instead of a niche network.
 
But how come every Sci Fi original movie ALWAYS has a big snake or something to do with mutated bugs or aliens?
 
the easy answer is that movies with tiny crews (read a single strike team in enemy X's territory) and a crappy CG monster are pretty much the cheapest movies you can make.

So they don't even need ratings to get them produced.
 
BSG is in its last season. It's sad, but I really doubt they'll put WC in its timeslot.

Too bad...it was fun while it lasted although a LOT of the stuff they did to make BSG seem 'timely' was SUCH a stretch in logic: The 'direction' of the show RE: the New Caprica arc & it's aftermath just seemed so nonsensical as to defy logic--That being said the Galactica/Pegasus to the rescue sequence was one of the GREATEST bits of action in ANY Movie or TV show I have EVER seen---and the acting & writing were usually top notch...

HOWEVER the Two Part Mini-Series showed LOTS of the cold blooded tough decisions that had to be made---most evident was when the FTL capable civilian ships were ordered to jump leaving non-jump capable ships to the (non Mercy) of the Cylons---the final scene with the child sitting obliviously under the dome of the Greenhouse ship while Cylon nukes are speeding towards them and the radioed pleas & curses of the ships left behind was a VERY chilling moment...


NM
 
But how come every Sci Fi original movie ALWAYS has a big snake or something to do with mutated bugs or aliens?

Not true, there are a large amount of movies where fairly improbably natural disasters occur in regions of the world whose climate and physiology doesn't support them.

Which always require a nuclear detonation to save the entire earth from the certain destruction of this localized natural disaster.

I think scientists feel guilty for creating nuclear weapons, and are trying to justify them by claiming they can divert hurricanes and stop run-away eruptions and relieve pressure from over-bearing earthquakes.

Maybe a counter nuclear detonation could flatten out a tsunami before it reaches shore. I wonder why they haven't thought of that, yet.
 
I think scientists feel guilty for creating nuclear weapons

Tell that to Edward Teller!

I believe they did to experiments with using nuclear weapons to divert/dissipate hurricanes some years ago, but that the concept proved faulty.
 
I had to look to see just who you were talking about, and I'm shocked to say there is an entire wikipedia article on peaceful applications of nuclear weapons.

What really scares me is that Edward Tellers plan to dig a harbor in Alaska with a thermonuclear detonation was canceled because it wasn't FINANCIALLY VIABLE. Not because of you know, the danger or anything like that.
 
I don't think nukes would *launch* the spacecraft, but they would propel it once it was in space.
 
I don't think nukes would *launch* the spacecraft, but they would propel it once it was in space.

Nope, the idea was to build a huge, I guess pan would be the right word, flip it over, put a couple of nuke under it and BOOM. Then when got to the maximum height, drop more nukes to keep it going. I am not making this up.
 
You're talking about the Orion project. The original design might have used the nuclear system in atmosphere, but all the serious design submissions used a series of solid booster rockets. 10-12 I believe. Once in space, the nuclear drive would have been engaged, and it'd start pogo-sticking it's way across the solar system. Quite a cool concept.
 
Not true, there are a large amount of movies where fairly improbably natural disasters occur in regions of the world whose climate and physiology doesn't support them.

Such as, for example, a black hole cropping up in the middle of St. Louis. :D I remember that Sci-Fi movie kind of bummed me out, as I had some family in that area.

Oh, well. I'm sure they would have been able to get out of there beforehand.
 
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