A story flaw? Colonel Christopher Blair - the most inexperienced ace in the universe?

[-danr-]

After a quick replay of the Kilrathi Saga this week, I've been pondering about Blair and his combat experience (or lack of) by the end of the Kilrathi war.

I was wondering, does anybody else think that it was a flaw to the story that he spent a decade of his career aboard Caernarvon station, seeing no combat against the Kilrathi? I mean, it's clear from the beginning that Blair was a naturally talented fighter pilot right from the outset, his exploits serving off the Tiger's Claw earned his reputation as humanity's best pilot - even the Emperor of Kilrah makes mention of him at the start of WC2, and Hobbes reflects that Blair's skill is well known amongst the Kilrathi.

But compared to some other flyers, he really didn't see all that action in the grand scheme of the war:

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2654: Rookie 2nd Lt. Blair serves aboard TCS Tigers Claw, quickly earns rep as ace fighter pilot, and plays a key role in the Vega campaign and Venice sorties. In 2656 the 'claw is destroyed and a court martial finds Blair guilty of negligence - he is assigned to spend the rest of his career aboard a space station under the ISS.

(Two years combat experience prior to this point)

2665 Nine years later, Blair finds himself, partially by fluke aboard the TCS Concordia having saved her from Kilrathi attack, his career finds a new lease of life as he flies alongside regular combat pilots. In 2669 The Concordia is destroyed, Blair survives and is reassigned to the TCS Victory where he remains until the end of the war, ultimately playing the pivotal role in the Kilrah bombing run.

So there's another four years, meaning a combined combat experience of six years.

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This doesn't seem very much for an ace of Blair's calibre, so what are everybody's thoughts on this? Did Origin get it wrong by putting most of Blair's career aboard the Caernarvon, would five years in purgatory have been more appropriate?

I think so, but I still wouldn't change a thing.

 

[Triple-B]

i agree that the timespan of ten years from wc 1 to wc 2 was a lot of a waste of time.however i think that blair few at least patrols in these 10 years aboard caernaveron station, therefore he is not so inexperienced after all plus he is "naturally talented" concerning his fast advance of ranks in wc 1

 

[Quarto]

So there's another four years, meaning a combined combat experience of six years.

This doesn't seem very much for an ace of Blair's calibre, so what are everybody's thoughts on this? Did Origin get it wrong by putting most of Blair's career aboard the Caernarvon, would five years in purgatory have been more appropriate?

From a storytelling perspective, I don't see what it would have changed - five or ten, it's just an abstract number, given that virtually nothing happens in-between. It could just as easily have been a year or two, and it still would have worked the same.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that in the real world, someone with six years of active combat experience would be considered *extremely* experienced. In WWII, only a handful of pilots on either side had the luck, skill and good timing to serve six years from the start right through to the end of the conflict. Some only joined halfway through, some died, some were transferred to other duties, shot down and captured, retired due to wounds, exhaustion or old age, and so on. Now, it may be that in the 27th century, there are many pilots who have served for a longer period, but looking at Wing Commander from our perspective of today, Blair's "lack of experience" just isn't an issue.

 

[Adventure4Life]

didn't the kilrathi stop the war for 10 years as that boss cat nuked his own ship yards... so even though he was ten years idle at the space station so was pretty much everyone else? Besides this is BlueHair we are talking about here.... after a few mission he would have a higher kill count even if the y WERE fighting for ten years with out him

 

[Quarto]

No, the war went on just the same as before - but there are no stories about the war in that period.

 

[ChrisReid]

didn't the kilrathi stop the war for 10 years as that boss cat nuked his own ship yards... so even though he was ten years idle at the space station so was pretty much everyone else?

All that did was delay the full scale Strakha introduction.

Besides this is BlueHair we are talking about here.... after a few mission he would have a higher kill count even if the y WERE fighting for ten years with out him

Which was the case, no matter how long he was sidelined. At the war's conclusion, he had the 11th highest all-time kill count, and the top ten were from earlier in the war when Kilrathi threw away fighters and pilots as cannon fodder.

 

[Triple-B]

besides since 1998 i always wanted to know what was going on with blair in prophecy.

at the end of the game it is said that blair is missing in action, no one said that he died.

i always hoped they would clear things up in secret ops, but they didn't.. i never understood that.

so who says that blair is dead after all? he is still missing isn't he?

after all, if he is dead at all. this whole story proves to be ironic. I mean in all wc parts, we always thought that maniac would be the one who get killed in the end for his flying style, but he is one of the few, who survived the whole war and retired

 

[ChrisReid]

at the end of the game it is said that blair is missing in action, no one said that he died.

i always hoped they would clear things up in secret ops, but they didn't.. i never understood that.

so who says that blair is dead after all? he is still missing isn't he?

Some unfinished/unreleased projects do refer to Blair coming back in one form or anything, but Secret Ops does do its part to conclude this. It says no remains were recovered, but he is considered killed in action. Memorials services were held in New York and on Nephele.

https://www.wcnews.com/articles/sofiction/2_3_d_isdn.html
https://www.wcnews.com/articles/sofiction/3_3_d_isdn.html

after all, if he is dead at all. this whole story proves to be ironic. I mean in all wc parts, we always thought that maniac would be the one who get killed in the end for his flying style, but he is one of the few, who survived the whole war and retired

Regardless of what happened with Blair, that is what happened to Maniac.

 

[NinjaLA]

he even wrote a book! there is an ad for it in Star*Soldier

 

[Farbourne]

No, the war went on just the same as before - but there are no stories about the war in that period.

This is purely conjecture on my part, but I always figured it likely that the war did slow down a bit then. Look at the technologies that appeared. In WC2, all but he smallest of capital ships have phase shields, and the only weapons that can penetrate them (barring the Concordia's PTC) are anti-matter guns and phase-shield penetrating torpedoes. We don't know when AM guns were invented, but they were NOT standard armaments on capships in WC1, and the WC2 manual clearly states that phase-penetrating torpedoes are a very new invention and that fighters are just now (i.e. in WC2) being able to be effective against capships again.

The implication is that, for at least some portion of time during those 10 years, fighters couldn't hurt major capships, and it's possible (if capships were re-armed with AM guns AFTER they were equipped with phase shields) that there was also a period when capships couldn't hurt (at least some) capships. This screams "stalemate" to me. Especially when you consider that lighter support ships--corvettes, tankers, and transports--that are essential to supporting offensive operations by providing a mobile supply line and ground troops for attacking planets--didn't carry phase shields and hence would be vulnerable to fighters and phase-shield equipped capships. When both sides can easily destroy the other side's support ships, and can destroy heavy ships that can be used in defense with great difficulty or not at all, it seems likely that there would be some kind of stalemate.

 

[RogueBanshee]

The problem is that phase shield penetrating torpedoes aren't new the Kilrathi were using the prototype design at the first major battle of the war and I believe Confed salvaged one their so they probably had their own in production by year 2 or 3 of the war. The thing is by the time of WC1 fighter weapons had evolved so they could beat down phase shields instead of having to bypass them so you didn't need torps and by WC2 phase shields had counter-evolved to make it so fighter weapons couldn't beat the shields down and had to bypass them again.

 

[Quarto]

The implication is that, for at least some portion of time during those 10 years, fighters couldn't hurt major capships, and it's possible (if capships were re-armed with AM guns AFTER they were equipped with phase shields) that there was also a period when capships couldn't hurt (at least some) capships. This screams "stalemate" to me.

That doesn't work, though, once you take into account all the other complexities of the WC universe. There are things out there told in multiple stories, which we have to put together.

1. You mention that AM guns are standard equipment on WC2 capships, but not in WC1 - however, we also know that Waterloo cruisers already existed during the WC1 period - this is not merely mentioned in Freedom Flight, but even appears in the WC2 manual. We don't know anything about the other capital ships, but the only one that absolutely could not exist during WC1 was the Concordia.

2. You mention that torpedoes were new in WC2. That's true, they were, the manual tells us so. But we also know from Action Stations that torpedoes had been used as early as 2634, during the McAuliffe Ambush. We also see torpedoes used during the WC1 period (in the Movie, and in the Academy cartoon). Therefore, we must assume that the WC2 manual refers to a new type of torpedoes that works better against the new shields that appear in WC2. Does this mean the old torpedoes didn't work at all? Not necessarily...

3. Action Stations also tells us about battleships, used to take down other capships at a time when fighters and bombers couldn't do it. This tells us that anti-capship guns, such as the AM guns we see in WC2 or the plasma weapons we see in WCP are not at all a new concept. They may not even be new technology at all. It's easily possible that not only were such weapons ready for use during the WC1-2 period, but even that there were already battleships out there, sidelined for two decades but still ready to be brought out of retirement as necessary. Given the dreadnoughts and supercruisers we see in the Movie, it's possible that battleships simply never left the front lines at all.

 

[Adventure4Life]

I dunno... I see a lot of "cannon" chat on some scifi fourms i hang out on like trek and dr who and stuff and imo... counting books, tv shows, comics etc etc shouldn't be counted.

wc1 then 2... is the cannon imo. As that was all that existed when wc2 was written. All the other books and stuff that were made after are embellishing it and while to be considered "cannon" they needed to be approved, they were in no way taken into account when wc2 was actually made.

So in a way , as i see it, they are just another type of fan fiction and should ONLY be considered when working out histories if it in NO WAY conflicts with the official game version histories or IMPLIED histories.

 

[QuailPilot]

The thing is though, is that the books and the games don't contradict each other; they complement each other to the point that they are in the implied history. Infact, if I recall, the Star Soldier manual makes references to the novels.

 

[Quarto]

I dunno... I see a lot of "cannon" chat on some scifi fourms i hang out on like trek and dr who and stuff and imo... counting books, tv shows, comics etc etc shouldn't be counted.

We know this happens in things like Star Trek... but we really don't care .

We, as a community, have been through this discussion many, many times. Ultimately, while we realise there are various contradictions between different sources, the consensus in the WC community is that all sources are equally valid. Here's why:

1. Firstly, if we were to assume that some sources are less valid than others, we'd have to work out which sources that includes. There is no objective way of doing this. Unlike Star Trek or Star Wars, the creators of Wing Commander have never said that one source is more "canon" than the others. They have never claimed that the games are canon, while the books and other materials can be ignored. More often than not, these sources were heavily intertwined. WC2, the game, contains an excerpt from the novel Freedom Flight - and furthermore, that novel was written by one of the writers behind WC2. Then, the novel Fleet Action was specifically written to go along with WC3, explaining the changes that had occured between WC2 and WC3. Again, impossible to ignore this - otherwise, we go from winning the war in WC2 to inexplicably losing in WC3. The WC3 novel was specifically altered before publication, at the request of the game creators, to ensure that there were no contradictions between the WC3 novel and the WC4 game. Then, the WC4 game package included an excerpt from the WC4 novel. And finally, the novel Action Stations included hints about the WCP plot. In turn, the WCP manual makes references to story elements from the earlier books.
In short, there is no way to separate these sources. The game creators had made a conscious effort to keep it all together, and while there obviously are contradictions between some sources, there is absolutely no way to justify dismissing one source as being less important than the others. In other words, if we were to start doing this, we'd be doing it based entirely on our personal opinion, and not because someone responsible for the franchise had said anything about it.

2. More important than the practical considerations described above, is the fun factor. Yes, we could simply ignore anything that contradicts with the games, but... what's the fun in that? We've had so many discussions here on how to resolve these conflicts. Without this, what would we talk about at these forums? If we can find a way to interpret these different sources in such a way as to resolve the contradictions, why not? Why should we put an end to all this fun? We're WC fans - we'd much rather have fifty WC products that sometimes occasionally contradict each other in slight details, than five WC products that don't contradict each other.

3. Finally, note that most of the time, when people talk about contradictions, they don't know what they're talking about . Yes, it's true - WC2 never mentioned Blair's ethnic background, while the WC Movie suddenly says that he's a Pilgrim. Many people pounce on this as a huge contradiction... except that there is no contradiction at all. All we have is a new fact established where previously there had been none. And again, there's a lot of fun to be had by looking at how this new fact allows us to reinterpret past events. Why did Tolwyn send Blair, whom he did not trust, alone through a jump point in WC2? Well, obviously this wasn't the intention of the WC2 creators... but it is fun to make the connection between this mission, and the fact (established eight years later) that Blair is a Pilgrim whose genetic background simply makes him better at calculating difficult jumps.

 

[Mace]

wc1 then 2... is the cannon imo. As that was all that existed when wc2 was written. All the other books and stuff that were made after are embellishing it and while to be considered "cannon" they needed to be approved, they were in no way taken into account when wc2 was actually made.

The last pages of the WC2 manual contain a chapter of the novel "freedom flight" that contains the background of Hobbes, and give some detail into his personal view, and takes time during the events of WC1-SM2, where he defects with his carrier. I'd say they paid a lot of attention to this.

Again, impossible to ignore this - otherwise, we go from winning the war in WC2 to inexplicably losing in WC3

I do not remember the exact scene, but after winning SO2, Thrakhath and the emperor met, with the emperor laughing, because while confed had won the battle, it worked into his plan to push his forces towards earth, because while the concordia was kept busy, they were able to destroy another important confed battlefleet and so have gained a strategic advantage.. The scene ends with the emperor laughing... And I'm pretty sure I was not on a losing path... Before hearing of the book, I always assumed that blair was either away on a mission or just at the scene fighting of the Kilrathi and the concordia attempted a crashland with Angel and the other captives aboard, and captured on the ground by the cats before Paladin and Blair went out to look for the wreckage, something like that. In every game the bad guys start with an advantage.

 

[Death]

6th Fleet, in Deneb Sector, was the one that was destroyed while farting around in SO2. However, losing one sector doesn't explain anywhere near all of the change of fortune for the Confederation.

And it's "canon", not "cannon", A4L. Smacking you on the head with a gun is using cannon, doing so with a copy of WC1 is using canon. And with neither cannon nor canon does fans saying "this counts, but not that" matter a single bit, in the WC universe.

 

[Adventure4Life]

We know this happens in things like Star Trek... but we really don't care

Speak for yourself. I love Trek!!

while we realise there are various contradictions between different sources, the consensus in the WC community is that all sources are equally valid.
<snip>
the creators of Wing Commander have never said that one source is more "canon" than the others. They have never claimed that the games are canon, while the books and other materials can be ignored.
<snip>
there is absolutely no way to justify dismissing one source as being less important than the others. In other words, if we were to start doing this, we'd be doing it based entirely on our personal opinion, and not because someone responsible for the franchise had said anything about it.
<snip>
More important than the practical considerations described above, is the fun factor. Yes, we could simply ignore anything that contradicts with the games, but... what's the fun in that? We've had so many discussions here on how to resolve these conflicts. Without this, what would we talk about at these forums? If we can find a way to interpret these different sources in such a way as to resolve the contradictions, why not? Why should we put an end to all this fun? We're WC fans - we'd much rather have fifty WC products that sometimes occasionally contradict each other in slight details, than five WC products that don't contradict each other.

Yea like i said I have been reading threads on canon for a long time and it is all the same no matter what story they are talking about. Fans are so salivating for more content and to satisfy there imaginations that are so much broader than anything ever written down, that they just can not stop talking about stuff, hypothesizing and conjecturing... but as i originally said.. it is all just a type of fan fiction.

You even say yourself that the developers have no comments on formalizing the canon and some of it is contradicting, so it is all just a way of "playing" wing commander by talking about it.. though in the long run it is just that playing, fan fiction, as real as you "believe" it to be. People can talk forever about it, but no one is more correct than someone else, it all depends on witch parts you wish to accept, dismiss, ignore, etc... The only 100% no argument canon is the games themselves.

Do not get me wrong canon chat is one of the hallmarks of a good story, and only the good ones get fans talking about canon. It is a big part of the fun.

And it's "canon", not "cannon", A4L. Smacking you on the head with a gun is using cannon, doing so with a copy of WC1 is using canon. And with neither cannon nor canon does fans saying "this counts, but not that" matter a single bit, in the WC universe.

rofl (edit ok i think i fixed all the cannon/canon stuff in this post... .stop whacking me with the WC1 box!!)

 

[Quarto]

The only 100% no argument canon is the games themselves.

Again, this is purely subjective . Why only the games? Why the games at all, given that the very first thing WC2 does is contradict WC1 (take a look at the Tiger's Claw in the intro)? The later games are no better... we go from Admiral Tolwyn liking the player at the end of WC2 to inexplicably hating him again at the start of WC3. We go from defending Confed systems in WC3, to finding out in WC4 that these places had actually belonged to the "Border Worlds" all along. We go from Blair being... hmm, an evil Space Force general or a Space Force flight instructor (it's optional - which option is canon?) to being a commodore in the Navy in WCP. And then, in Secret Ops, we find out the Midway had Thunderbolt fighters onboard... but where were they in WCP, and for that matter, why didn't we see any Thunderbolts in WC4?

Basically, if your definition of a canon source is something that absolutely does not contradict anything, you'll wind up left with only WC1. Only, even there, you'll have a problem - because the Scimitar as seen in the manual is clearly different to the Scimitar as seen in the pre-flight animated sequence... and both are different to the Scimitar model actually seen in flight. So... if WC1 contradicts itself, and therefore cannot be considered canon... are we left with no canon at all?

 

[Adventure4Life]

well I actually meant the games not the manuals and other things that could have been printing error, or subject to other things like dead lines and not updated or w/e.