Rider said:
Well in my country doesnt have pc gamer so what I should I do now
I have a few minutes, while I wait for my wife to meet me here at the office. Was working late installing some new Cisco routers. This is by no means a complete history, and I may gloss over a few things but it does give away plot points, so be warned before you read any further. If anyone feels tehre are any major mistakes, feel free to correct them.
The novel Action Stations takes place before WC1. It is supposed to be partly a device to help explain who Admiral Tolwyn really was and what shaped and influnce him. The story deals with the start of the war with the Kilrathi and a Pearl Harbor-like attack they launch against Confed. It deals with a young Geoff Tolwyn, Vance Richards and Max Kruger (you'll get more info on them later.) They fail to warn Confed in time to succesfully defend the huge base the Kilrathi attack, though Confed is able to save some ships and live to fight another day. They also bloody the Cat's enough to prevent them from pressing their advantage, which alllows the Confederation to survive.
WC1 You start the game as a 2nd Lt. on the TCS Tiger's Claw, not quite fresh from the academy, but this is your first posting on a carrier. 20 years have passed since the war with the Kilrathi began and it has been pretty much a stalemate. You begin flying a few missions with Lt. Tanaka Mariko aka Spirit. After these copule easy intro missions, you pair up with a series of different wingmen, including Paladin and Angel. You also meet Shotglass, the bartender a former pilot, with lots of opinions. Depending on how well you fly, you may or may not fly with certain people. Performance also affects the way the story in the background goes. If you do well, the war goes well, if not, then the war goes badly. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to follow the rosiest path. As you move through the game, you start pushing the Kilrathi back, until the final series of missions in which you destroy the Kilrathi Sector command post, a Star base orbiting a planet in the Venice system. You also move through the ranks at an unbelievable pace, but when they were writing this game they really didn't know if there would be another. I think you end this game as a Lt. Col., the highest ranking active duty pilot that you know of.
Secret Missions 1 takes place after WC1. The Cats develop a Sivar dreadnaught that carries a really nasty main gun. The Kilrathi use the weapon to destroy the Goddard Colony. The Tiger's Claw is sent to destroy this ship. You follow her behind Kilrathi lines, get ambushed by a captured confed destroyer and watch Maniac lose his mind, since he can't take the pressure. Finally you track down the Sivar destroy it and flee back to Confed space. The final cutscene shows the emporer executing the admiral in charge of the fleet which happens to be his son and heir. This makes Prince Thrakath, the Emperor's grandson heir to the throne.
Sectret Missions 2 is supposed to be a Milk Run. A new bird like species the Firekkans are joing the confederation and the TCS Tiger's Claw is there to escort the diplomats. Even though the planet is far from the front, Kilrathi forces start showing up. In addition there are reports the Kilrathi are abandonning other positions. A Fralthi defects under the command of Ralgha nar Hhallas who later becomes known as Hobbes. He informs ConFed that the Kilrathi are coming to Firekka to hold the Sivar Eshrad, which is a religious ceremony. COnfed can't gfet reinforcements there in time, so the Claws mission is to get the diplomats out of the area and then retreat. At this time you are introduced to two new pilots, Jazz and Doomsday, who are visting from the TCS Austin. Confed decides, based on Hobbes info that the best thing that they can do is try to disrupt the ceremony. You get to fly a couple missions in a Dralthi and basically do some recon. Then some killing and escort missions where you help get some Marines on Firekka. If enough make it, they disrupt the ceremony. Then you have to escort them back, which is even harder. If you do that, then the Claw makes a run for the jump point out of the system. The game ends with th Kilrathi retreating, supposedly because they are afraid they will face a horrible afterlife because the Sivar Eshrad was disrupted. You are told by Col Halcyon, the person in charge of the Space Forces on the Claw that you will be replacing him. The novel Freedom flight deals with this in more detail.
WC2 starts with the destruction of the Tiger's Claw, which is on approach to K'tithrak Mang, Enigma Sector HQ for the Kilrathi. You are blamed for it. You claim you saw Stealth fighters, but no one else did and your flight recorder is missing. They can't convict you of treason, but Admiral Tolwyn does demote you and stick you in a backwater. At the same time in the Kilrathi Empire, the colony of Ghorah Khar rebels and Prince Trakath and his cousing Khasra realize they must destroy the shipyrads where the stealth fighters were built, before they fall into rebel hands. Ten years pass. After a long stalemate, the Kilrathi are on the offensive again. During a routine patrol you and your wingman Shadow come across some Kilrathi fighters, which is very strange because this part of space hasn't seen any action in years. Not long after you recieve a distress call from the TCS Concordia which is under attack and because of damage can't launch fighters. You and Shadow rescue the Concordia but don't get a warm reception from Admiral Tolwyn who is flying his flag from the Concordia. You head back to the station, but are forced to return again because of another attack. You save the Concordia again, but Shadow is killed. You land on the Concordia, and even though Tolwyn does not want you aboard, he has to keep you on because the Concordia is jumping out of the system. You find that Angel is the Concordia's Wing Commander. Your old wingmate Spirit and the two guys you met from the TCS Austin during the Firekka campaign, Jazz and Doomsday are also on the flight roster. YOu also meet a couple other pilots, Stingray and Hobbes. Most folks on the Concordia don't trust you because they feel you were a traitor that cause the destruction of teh Tiger's Claw or at least were incompetent. You fly a few solo missions, then are hooked up with Hobbes, who does trust you. You are both outcasts so you have that in common. Later you meet Downtown a former human slave that Hobbes rescued and you begin to warm up to Hobbes. A couple times you spot Stealth fighters but you are always alone and have equipment failure so you have no proof. There is also sabotage occuring on the Concordia and it is believed there are members of a group known as the Mandarins aboard. They believe the Kilrathi will win the war so they support them in hopes of getting rewarded by the Kilrathi later. Paladin shows up again, he seems to be a free trader, but also is working for Tolwyn. His definietly playing his cards close to the vest. A comm officer is killed by the saboteur, but grabs the killers flight wing in his fist as he falls to the ground. A search of lockers reveal that Stingray's flight wings are missing so he is suspected. He now feels more sympathetic to Blair, but Blair blows him off. Spirit starts acting strangely and you find out that she has been in contact with the Madarin, though she does not know who it is. Her fiance had been captured by the Kilrathi and she was told he was still alive and they were trying to use him to get to her. She ends up destroying the station he is being held on, by going in kamikazee. You go back, tell Angel about it, and you guys finally hook up. Sympathy sex, to be blunt. Shortly after this, you finally get proof that the Kilrathi have Stealth fighters. Jazz slips up in a conversation with Angel and you find out he is the Mandarin. He attacks Angel, and escapes the Concordia in a fighter. You are returning from a patrol and chase after him. You shoot up his ship and he ejects. You line up your guns on his ejection seat, but before you pull the trigger, Angel swoops in and tractors him into her fighter, arguing that it is a matter for the courts, and you don't have a right to kill him in cold blood. You talk with him later to ask him why and it turns out his brother died during the attack on Goddard and he blamed you and the Tiger's Claw for not getting there in time. He was trying to kill everyone connected with the Claw and he had almost succeeded. Now that that issue is taken care, the Concordia prepares to attack Kitithrak Mang. Angel, worried about your safety, puts you on a safer mission. You disobey orders have Sparks (your mechanic) rearm your ship with torpedoes and you attack Kitihrak Mang. You face off against Thrakath, defeat him and destroy the base. Everyone loves you, you get your old rank back, the game ends with a shot of Thrakath being tractored in to a Kilrathi ship, to live to fight another day.
Special Operations 1 Takes place shortly after WC2. You are flying off the Concordia, Tolwyn hints that there is a special group he would like you to join. Before that happens you find out there has been a mutiny aboard the a confed ship that is deployed with the latest Confed bomber, the Crossbow. You fly a few missions against the mutineers but find out there are two factions. One faction, which is in control of the TCS Gettysburg wants to return to Confed, the other, which has taken over a Starbase wants to turn pirate. One of the leaders of the group that wants to rejoin Confed is Jason "Bear" Bondavarsky. You team up with them to destroy the station and the other mutineers give up. It turns out they were acting legally since their commanding officer was issuing illegal orders to attack Kilrathi civilian transports. After this you and Hobbes hook up with Paladin who is running a Secret Operations unit. You and Hobbes are to help the rebels on Ghorah Khar fight off a new Kilrathi invasion of the system. Along the way Khasra, one of Prince Thrakath's cousins tries to kill Thrak, becasue he thinks he and the Emperor are unfit to lead, but fails, you end up resucing Thrakath. He escapes with one of the new crossbows though, and you don't catch him before he jumps away. However, you do kill Khasra and his wing of fighters that was also after the prince. You find out a couple other Kilrathi planets are planning to rebel, so the success of Ghorah Khar will help inspire them further. You and Hobbes, with help from Bear (who Tolwyn becomes very fond of) and the Concordia defeat the Kilrtahi and Ghorah Khar does not fall back into the hands of the Imperial Kilrathi. The other planets rebel, but Prince Trakath does not seem phased by this since he has other plans in the works.
Special Operations 2 starts off with the trial of Jazz Colson. He is found guilty and is being shipped off to be executed. You are escorting the prison ship that is taking him to his execution site, but a group of Mandarins sieze control and free him. Maniac and his squadron of Wild Eagles (a test squadron) come on board the Concordia to test the latest Confed fighter, the Mornignstar. The Morningstar is jump capable (though it seems to have some difficulties reliably jumping) and carries a Mace missle (a dumbfire nuke that can take out a cap ship or several fighters that are flying n a tight formation. Maniac appearently has recovered from his breakdown in during the Secret Missions and had a lucky break that helped propel his career. The pilots of the Wild Eagles (there are only four of them, counting Maniac) all fly like Maniac, the only one of real note is Mynx, a female pilot who needs to get more sun
She is very pale looking. She hits on you. Turns out she is a Mandarin as well and steals a Mornignstar. A bomb she sets off to prevent pursuit kills one of the Wild Eagles and injures the other one, who happens to speak Kilrathi as a hobby, so he can never fly again. He, along with Maniac and you, join up with Paladin to try to track dwon the Mandarin base, a place called Ayer's Rock and destroy the Mandarins and prevent the Morningstar from falling into the hands of the Kilrathi. You find the base, destroy the base and find out, from a dying Mynx that Jazz escaped with the Morningstar. You and Maniac give chase, but Maniac's jump drive fails so it is you vs. Jazz. You shoot him down and the ships explodes around him before he can eject. I think his Mace also goes off for added effect. The game ends with the Mandarins destroyed, but the kilrathi are happy because while the Concordia was tied up with this, the Confed fleet in Deneb was crushed and the war looks good for the Cats.
The novel End Run takes place shortly after this. COnfed starts design small throw carriers that they built on transport frames to help fill in some gaps because COnfed is running low on larger fleet carriers. The Wing Commander of the ship is Bear. Confed finds out about an out of the way planet that is very important to the Kilrathi royal family. A copule of these new light carriers lead an attack on the planet, defile the palace there and then dig in. Admiral Bainbridge, the Admiral in charge of the Fleet has a plan. COfed is hurting and what he wants to do is draw the Kilrathi fleet to this planet, Vukar Tag and ambush the main Kilrathi fleet with the carriers he has left. The only problem is, in all of the sims of this they've run the Kilrathi end up cleaning Confed's clocks. So Bainbridge plans to send the Tarawa (Bear's ship) along with a couple escorts and some marines to go by way of a new jump point to Kilrah. If they are detected at the right time, this will force the Cats to split their fleet and if that happens, Confed will be able to crush the Kilrathi forces that do come to Vukar Tag. The plan works and the Tarawa and the marines aboard are actually able to destroy some shipyards on one of Kilrah's moons. The love of Bear's life, Svetlana, is one of the marines that attacks the moon and she dies trying at the end of the battle. The Tarawa ewscapes from Kilrathi space, but the ships that were deverted back to Kilrah give chases and block off most of the paths out. Tarawa manages to esacpe the system but is trapped. Meanwhile at Vukar Tag, Confed almost completely destroys the other half of the Kilrathi fleet, losing one carrier and having another badly damaged in return. Against orders Tolwyn leaves the battle and tries to rescue the Tarawa, which he manages to do.
Fleet Action is the next novel. Confed has had some success with the new light carriers like the Tarawa. Confed has used them to strike shipyards and military transports. They are making it very difficult for the Cats to resupply their front line carriers. One of the Clan leaders Baron Jukaga, who had reluctanly lead the assault of Vukar Tag, returns from his exile (imposed on him because he was blamed for the loss at Vukar Tag, even though he had argued against splitting the fleet.) He proposes that the Kilrathi sign a cease fire with Confed and give themselves a breather. It turns out that the Cats also have been working on a secret new fleet of super carriers and support ships. However the fleet isn't ready. The cats need some time. The Confed military doesn't believe the offer is genuine, but the politicians do, particularly the Secretary of State. The cease fire is signed, but Admiral Tolwyn deliberatelyy does not call of an attack he is launching. After the cease fre takes effect, he is Courtmartialed and stripped of rank. Bear, Paladin and Hunter (a pilot from the Tiger's Claw) head out the the Landriech, which is a group of human colonies that don't always agree with Confed. Their leader, Max Krueger, also believes the Cats are lying. He buys some of the light carriers Confed is selling and tries to prepare for the renewal of the war he knows is coming. He also helps Tolwyn and Admiral Vance Richards (who is in charge of Fleet intelligence) prepare an expidition into Cat Space. Before the cease fire Intel was suspicious of the absence of Kilrathi transports and some odd communications. Hunter and Paladin take Paladin's ship, the Bonnie Heather, which is now cloakable, into Kilrathi space. They find the fleet under construction, scan it, and try to get the info back to Confed. Hunter dies in the process but Confed gets the news. The politicians don't believe it at first but it turns out part of the problem is the Secretary of State is a traitor. Her son was captured by the cats and they have been using that to get info out of her. Tolwyn's rank is restored. The new Cat fleet isn't as ready as they would like, but they launch anyway, since Confed has been disarming. Quite a few of Confed's military leaders are killed in an explosion set of by a Kirathi diplomat. The cats blame Confed for his death and use that as their excuse to renew the war. Tolwyn is in charge of getting the fleet ready, but they are sorely underprepared. They fight a delaying action, the Kilrathi use very dirty nukes to destroy and make unihabitable several of the largest Confed worlds as they make their way to Earth. Confed finally throws everything they have at the Kilrathi at the Battle of Earth and use marine landing craft to destroy the super carriers from the inside. The Ctas launch some conventional weapons against Earth and destroy some major cities but are unable to launch the weapons that would make Earth lifeless. Bear and some ships from Landreich arrive to prevent that.
Wing Commander III takes place after shortly after that. The games starts with you and Paladin finding the wreckage of the TCS Concordia. You, who still don't get along well with Tolwyn, are assigned to an old carrier named the Victory. Angel has been asigned to a secret mission and Tolwyn won't tell you anything about it. Paladin claims to know nothing about it. You arrive on the Victory and find your old "friend" Maniac is aboard as is Hobbes. There are alos a bunch of other pilots, Cobra, Vagabond, Flint, Vaquero, and a crew chief named Rachel. Rachel and Flint both flirt with you. Cobra was a former Kirlathi slave and she hates Hobbes, and doesn't trust him. You've flown with Hobbes and saved each others lives and are very close. Also on the Victory is her skipper Capt. Eisen who you warm up to and Rollins, the comm officer who is also a gossip and conspiracy theorist. You fly some missions, you go to Flint's home syetem and (in the book fail, though in the game you can suceed) to defend the planet by a bioweapon attack by the Kirlathi that uses skip missles. These are large capship launched missles that have cloaks. They drop out of cloak occasioally to check theri postion and correct their course. A new test pilot comes on board with the latest COnfed fighter, the Excalibur. He has an attitude, you duel with him in the simulator and he joins the Victory's crew. You win some battles, but the war isn't going well. Admiral Tolwyn shows up, takes command of the victory and announces he has a new weapon, the Behemoth, which is a dreadnaught with a gun that will destroy whole planets. You successfully test the weapon and prepare to take it to Kilrah. However a traitor on the Victory gives Thrakath the info about your course and ambushes the Behemoth, destroying it. Tolwyn leaves the Victory his career seeimingly in ruins, and tells Eisen he has a leaky ship. While the crew does not know for sure there was a traitor, it seems as though the Cats knew to much for it to be luck. Cobra is convinvced it is Hobbes and enlists Rollins help to try to find out about it. Somewhere in here, Thrakath taunts you while you are aboard the Victory and a little later shows you a video of him killing Angel who had been captured near Kilrah. Paladin shows up. It turns out Kilrah is tectonically unstable and he has been working on a weapon of his own, the Temblor bomb, which will cause Kilrah to shake itself apart. At this point Cobra does catch Hobbes trying to transmit data about the Tremblor bomb to Trakath. You go after hm and are forced to destroy him in a dogfight. You help Paladin rescue a captured Confed scientist who holds the secrets of the T-Bomb and then you prepare to destroy Kilrah. At this point, FLint and Rachel who have both been after you make you choose. In the book you choose Rachel, the crew chief, in the game it is up to you. The Victory gets a few more of the new Excaliburs, which happen to have cloaks and jump drives. You take three wingmen and head for Kilrah and some asteroid bases along the way. Turns out what angel was doing was working on Paladin's project and paving the way for a future attack by building these self conatined bases. You finally reach Kirlah, face off with Thrakath and shoot him down aagin for the final time. You enter Kilrah's atmosphere, fly through a cnayon and drop the Tremblor bomb int a major fualtline. The bomb does it's trick and Kilrah is destroyed. Your Excalibur is badly damaged and recovered by a Kilrathi ship. Oh, most of the fleet was in orbit around Kilrah planning a major push into Confed space. It was for the most part destroyed. Melek, Thrakath's aide, surrender's to you. The game ends with a pecase trey being signed and you and Rachel heading for the beach. (This can vary depending who if anyone you pick and whether or not they survive.
False colors takes place a few years after the war ends. There are still some Kilrathi warlords causing trouble and Max Kruger and the Lnadreich is unhappy. However some folks in Max's government isn't happy with him. Max finds out that a Kilrathi super carrier presumed destroyed actually still exists and is abandonned in a system not far from his borders. Tolwyn, Richards and Bear begin a mission to recover the ship. Tolwyn tells Bear of a conspiracy to overthrow the Confed civilian governemnt and put a military one in its place. Tolwyn is acting very oddly but is determined to get the recovery project to succeed to help prevent that, but he is playing his own game, it seems. They recover the ship, get it working, only to find out the Kilrathi warlord across the border has obtained a Kilrathi Dreadnaught 22 km long and full of weapons it too is damaged and undergoing repairs. Tolwyn, Richard, Blair and Krueger launch an attack using the new super carriers and some other ships to destory the dreadnaught. They badly damage it, destroy some other Kilrathi ships and smash the warlords space station which was supposed to be used to repair the dreadnaught. Kruger survives an attempt to oust him from office. A larger war is averted, which suits Towlyns plans. He returns to Confed to take over a new role.
WCIV takes place a few years after that. There have been problems between COnfed and the Border Worlds. The Union of Border Worlds is a group of colonies that fought along side the Confederation during the Kilrathi war (I'm assuming the Landreich is part of the nion of Border Worlds, but it isn't spelled out as such) They want to be independent of the Confederation. Confed is acussing them of attacking Confed transports, and the Border Worlds are accusing Confed of being the agressor. Admiral Tolwy calls you out of retirement to join the TCS Lexington and go into the area to try to calm things down. Your repuation as Savior of Humanity may help defuse things. You are reunited with Maniac, Vagabond and aptain Eisen. You also meet a new rookie pilot Catscratch who missed out on the war, but idolizes you. After a few missions where you bump head with Border Worlds, you actually atack one of their planets to rescue a sceinetis kidnapped by the Border Worlds. Captain Eisen seems to be acting wierd and a new Captian shows up to take over for him, while Eisen is releived of duty but left on board. Maniac and Eisen make a run for a Border Worlds ships and you can choose to follow them. If you don't you will get another oppurtunity. For the sake of brevity
let's assume you go with them. You land on the BWS Intreped which is badly damaged but still able to fight. Most of her bridge crew are gone and it is a few of the Senior fighter pilots, like Hawk and Panther who are in charge. Even though they don't trust him fully, Hawk and Panther let Eisen take command of the Intreped. Eisen tells you he learned of a conspriacy similar to the one Tolwyn discusses in Fals colors. He was asked to join but passed. Since then hings have been very odd. Confed is making strannge troop deployments and there has been lots of wierd traffic. Lt. Sosa, the comm officer on the Intreped works with Eisen to help decode the encrypted transmission Eisen took from the Lexington. After a series of missions you get hints that there is a thris party at work here, trying to get COnfed and the Border Worlds to declare war on each other. Eisen leaves with waht he has hoping to talk some sens into friends he still has with COnfed. Confed is getting ready to declare war on the Border Worlds in less than two weeks. Whoever this thrid party is, they have some cutting edge technology, and are even able to make a good chunk of space very hard to travel through. Sensors don't wpork, guided weapons turn back on you, etc. After you manage to destroy the ship causing this, you find Admiral Tolwyn trying to escape from a space station in the area. He claism to have been out on a fact finding mission and agrees with you that another force is at work. You either let him go or he escapes. Shortly after that, you capture a ship that has some of these new fighters aboard. They are faster and more manuverable than the Excalibur and they cloak as well. After a few more missions you get a distress call from a Border Worlds colony. By the time you get there it is too late. The survivors describe ships like yours that dropped canisters. It wassome type of bioweapon. Nano technology actually. The nanites lok at a persons DNA and if it doesn't fit certain parameters it causes the body to wage a war on itself. Death is slow and painful. You and the crew of the Interepd put the clues you have together and you head out to investigate a system that seems to be the focal point of the problem. You go in cloaked and find a huge Asteroid base. You manage to land on the base and find out that it is Amdiral Tolwyn who has put this together. He feels humanity got lucky and he is trying to bioengineer a race of superhumans to face threats that he feels are coming. You head back to the hangar and stumble acorss the sicentist you "rescued" when you were on the Lexington. She helped make the nano-bioweapon used on that colony. She gets killed as you try to escape. Before you leave you see the newest Confed supercarrier, the TCS Vesuvius orbiting the asteroid. You barley make it back to the Intreped. You and the Intreped try to head for Earth with the Vesuvius on your tail. Finally when you are jst about pinned the TCS Mount St. Helens, the not quite completed sister ship of the Vesuvius, which is under command of Captain Eisen. You are forced to detroy the Vesuvius. You head off alone to face Tolowyn as he adresses the Confed legislature, which is getting ready to vote to go to war with the Border Worlds. You do some verbal sparring with Tolwyn and if you do well enough they vote not to go to war. Tolwyn is tried and convicted of crimes against humanity, but before they can execute him he commits suicide. Depending on some decision you make in the game you either end up becoming a new Tolwyn or you become a flight instructor.
So there you have, the abridged version of the war with the Kilatrthi (not counting the movie) and the border worlds conflict. Whew. I think my hands are going to fall off now.
[This message has been edited by Shane (edited August 01, 2000).]
