How important was Blair to Confed?

[Dyret]

Looking back at WC1-3 it seems like whenever Blair was at the front lines fighting confed made incredible progress, but when he wasn't the kilrathi seemed to be the superior side.

In WC1 you conquer Vega, a major achievement, and then follow up with the destruction of the Sivar and the liberation of the Firekkans in SM. In WC2 the Kilrathi seem to be winning again, but as soon as Blair gets back in the cockpit it isn't long before another Kil HQ blows... Then in WC3 confed is getting it's ass kicked all over the place, but then Blair slips in and blows up their homeworld. It just seems like Blair is the guy who keeps confed on the offensive, though he doesn't seem to be viewed as more than just a good pilot until post WC3.

Then again, he usually flew off fairy powerful and important ships with lots of other ace pilots, so I guess that has something to do with it, and of course things like the false treaty greatly shifted the balance.

So what do you guys think? Was he the man that kept Confed alive all along, or just the guy who got famous for blowing up Kilrah after Confed messed up?

 

[Blaster]

During SO1/2 I was under the impression that Confed was going back on the defensive despite the fact that Blair was still flying. Also in End Run they seem to be in pretty bad shape until Vukar Tag.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

(Space Point.)

That's right, Confed takes some pretty serious licks while Blair is flying - if anything, his time at ISS isn't a period of loss but rather one of holding ground. Blair heads off to exile with Thrakhath telling the Emperor that he's poised to destroy the rest of the human fleet... and it just doesn't happen. It's a bloody stalemate for ten years (... okay, nine years.)

It's a tough question, though, and it's one historians ask of larger than life characters all the time. My biggest argument *against* Blair's importance was that he never really had much of a leadership role - he was just a very good pilot who was capable of doing some very difficutl things...

 

[LeHah]

Was he the man that kept Confed alive all along, or just the guy who got famous for blowing up Kilrah after Confed messed up?

Its easy to say that Blair is the superhero of all time - but thats because we're playing a game, and we're expected to win that game and to win that game, you have to drive the Kilrathi back time and time again.

Confed had better pilots and probably bigger heroes than Blair before he dropped the T-Bomb on Kilrah. His assignment on that was from string-pulling and being in the right place at the right time. He'll always be remembered for ending the war - and thats the reason he's such a big to-do. Before that, he was just a pilot with a really good (and bad!) track record.

Blair was definitely important to Confed after the war - look how Tolwyn ordered Blair out of retirement to carry Confed's colors to the Union Of Border Worlds. Look how Blair later helped in designing the Midway.

In the end though, I think our perceptions are a little off on Blair since we "were" Blair for so long.