Did Thrakhath have a cloaking device on his escape pod?

F

Fellentos

Spaceman
I was always wondering why the confederation didn't detect the pod of Thrakhath at the end of Wing Commander 2. Was that because of a cloaking device?

Also we see the flagship of Thrakhath pick him up in SO1. So it must have jumped in (or already been near) to his ejection position. Didn't the confederation have any forces in the area? I mean the station wasn't put there for nothing so it must have been a strategic position to keep hold off.
 
Having just very recently flown that mission, I think the answer to question #1 is no cloaking device. You do see his ejection pod floating in space at the end of WC2, so my guess is that it's the 'Nine Cat Lives' principle since Khasra was exactly the same way in WC2. Important cats seem to have a habit of surviving deadly fighter explosions(with Kur being an exception).

In answer to question #2, the Concordia was the only Confed ship in the area. The briefings to K'Tithrak Mang emphasize that you're all alone with no backup on these missions.
 
Fellentos said:
I was always wondering why the confederation didn't detect the pod of Thrakhath at the end of Wing Commander 2. Was that because of a cloaking device?
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Blair was kinda busy at the time with the Drakhai and K'Tithrak Mang ;) Do we even know how long it took to secure the K'Tithrak Mang system? There was a Ralatha and Fralthra stationed near the station that weren't present for the final assault. I presume they moved against the Concordia.

Also we see the flagship of Thrakhath pick him up in SO1. So it must have jumped in (or already been near) to his ejection position. Didn't the confederation have any forces in the area? I mean the station wasn't put there for nothing so it must have been a strategic position to keep hold off.
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At the start? That would be in the K'Tithrak Mang system, wouldn't it? In which case the Concordia was the only ship in the system, with the Agincourt maybe or maybe not joining depending on if that was a trap to lure out Jazz.
 
I'm not sure it's that easy to detect pods though. In the WC movie, angel turns off the beacon in her pod and it takes Paladin in the Diligent quite a while to find her. I imagine that trying to find a lone kilrathi pilot in a pod with the beacon turned off (if the kilrathi bother with beacons to start with) amid a debris field could be more of a chore than it would be worth.
 
Also, if I recall correctly, escape pods weren't standard equipment on Kilrathi fighters. I believe there is a line in SM2 about how they have to (or are unable to?) fit Dralthi II's with escape pods. I guess it goes with the whole "die with honor" thing.

Still, the important cats seemed to have escape pods of some kind, but we have no proof that these "pods" were just little immobile targets like the Confed pods. If only your extremely elite folks even get escape pods, and only massive, elite fighters like the Bloodfang, maybe those pods DO come with cloaking devices, or at least sensor masking technolgy, along with maybe limited locomotion capabilities...
 
Farbourne said:
Also, if I recall correctly, escape pods weren't standard equipment on Kilrathi fighters. I believe there is a line in SM2 about how they have to (or are unable to?) fit Dralthi II's with escape pods. I guess it goes with the whole "die with honor" thing.
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It just depends. The Dralthis in SM2 don't have escape pods, and the Dralthis in Wing Commander Armada do. It varies from model to model.

Farbourne said:
Still, the important cats seemed to have escape pods of some kind, but we have no proof that these "pods" were just little immobile targets like the Confed pods. If only your extremely elite folks even get escape pods, and only massive, elite fighters like the Bloodfang, maybe those pods DO come with cloaking devices, or at least sensor masking technolgy, along with maybe limited locomotion capabilities...
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It's not only elite Kilrathi that get escape pods, and (at least some) Confed ejection seats do have limited thruster ability.

I think the whole question is probably overthought. So you didn't see Thrakhath's pod in space after the dogfight, but then he gets tractored aboard (wasn't it just a Kamekh and not a Rigakh?). That's fine. It's obviously a cinematic choice, and people need to understand that stuff like this doesn't need an elaborate new concept to explain it.

In the "real" Wing Commander universe, scanning isn't some simple black and white thing. When you read a Wing Commander novel, pilots have to deal with sensor echos and radiation bursts and stellar particles and everything else in order to find targets in deep space. Nobody wants to fuss around with that stuff while playing a Wing Commander game though, so it manifests itself exactly like you see here. Thrakhath ejected, probably hid behind a piece of space junk, and then got tractored in once Blair left the area. In the excitement of having to destroy the Kilrathi sector HQ single-handedly before reinforcements arrived, Blair had no time to spend looking for a pod that may or may not existed to his knowledge. There probably isn't anything more to it than that.
 
Farbourne said:
Also, if I recall correctly, escape pods weren't standard equipment on Kilrathi fighters. I believe there is a line in SM2 about how they have to (or are unable to?) fit Dralthi II's with escape pods. I guess it goes with the whole "die with honor" thing.
...
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After reading the S*S article about the Dralthi Mk. II, I got the impression that the ejection seat-less Dralthi Mk. II was more the exception than the rule.
 
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