Notes and Questions on Characters

capi3101

capi3101

Admiral
Morning all. Another WCRPG related thread; hoping I can get some help on a few things without having to go re-read the novels and hunt through Academy a yet again.

I've been working on character profiles for the last couple of weeks and I've got a lot of the data I need to start work, but there are a few gaps in my knowledge (and a few gaps over at WCPedia and the CIC Encyclopedia on the topic of characters). So, I figured I'd ask and see if y'all might help me fill them in.

First question: Manuel Ulandi - do we have any idea from whereabouts he's from? I've tried tracing the surname but haven't been successful. Mainly looking for ethnicity here - the given name "Manuel" suggests Spanish or Portuguese descent.

Second question: Skip Banbridge - vs- Wayne Banbridge? Am I right in thinking these are two different guys? Seeing as Action Stations takes place in 2634 and End Run/Fleet Action takes place around 2669, that seems to make sense - it would be incredibly odd I think, even in wartime, for someone to hold the position of Chief of Naval Operations for at least 35 years, especially considering they'd have to be old enough to achieve a high flag rank before they could hold the post. I think Arleigh Burke was the longest serving CNO in US history...and he only held the position for about six years. This does bring up corollary questions about the relationship between Skip and Wayne, but I'll wait until I get my original question answered before going down that road.

Third Question: Thrakhath's half sister (you know, the Cat in pink from Academy) - I want to make sure I have her name right: is it Zukara? In which episode does she first show up (I know it's one of the later ones)?

A lot of the remaining questions I have left deal with Vance Richards...let's start with these and see what comes up.
 
Ulandi - I always got the impression he was of Latin descent, but then again we don't really get a lot about him. He's the stereotypical old salt Marine that's putting his time in before he punches his final ticket.

Bainbridge - Same person. "Skip" is probably an Academy nickname. Some people's stick throughout their career, some don't. Examples: Admiral Willis "Ching" Lee, Admiral J.J. "Jocko" Clark and Admiral Marc "Pete" Mitscher come to mind.

ER starts in '67. The thing is, at that time, Bainbridge doesn't appear to be CNO. He's a Fleet Commander, or maybe higher? In FA, he's a member of the JCOS but also Commander, 3rd Fleet. He could rotate in and out of the CNO position. Or he could just have Ernie King syndrome and not want to leave until the job was done.
 
Dundradal said:
Ulandi - I always got the impression he was of Latin descent, but then again we don't really get a lot about him. He's the stereotypical old salt Marine that's putting his time in before he punches his final ticket.
Click to expand...

That still covers a lot of ground - Iberia, most of Latin America, parts of Africa and parts of the Pacific. My brain is going "He's Filipino" but I don't know why.

Dundradal said:
Bainbridge - Same person. "Skip" is probably an Academy nickname. Some people's stick throughout their career, some don't. Examples: Admiral Willis "Ching" Lee, Admiral J.J. "Jocko" Clark and Admiral Marc "Pete" Mitscher come to mind.

ER starts in '67. The thing is, at that time, Bainbridge doesn't appear to be CNO. He's a Fleet Commander, or maybe higher? In FA, he's a member of the JCOS but also Commander, 3rd Fleet. He could rotate in and out of the CNO position. Or he could just have Ernie King syndrome and not want to leave until the job was done.
Click to expand...

I don't see how they could be the same person really, though that could be my preconceived notions of military protocol talking. Let's assume that's the same person, and that he's 64 in '69 (the maximum service age for a flag officer in the U.S. Navy). Okay, so McAullife is in 34...and so my lightning quick math skills tell me he couldn't have been older than 29 at McAullife. Seems awfully young. Also, most flag officers retire after a number of years for the sake of the advancement of their subordinates. For someone to stay in the same post for that long might be without precedent (if you can refute that one, please do so). Finally, there's the fact that in ER and FA, Banbridge and Tolwyn seem to be on a first name basis. That'd strike me as a bit disrespectful on Banbridge, given that Tolwyn is obviously his junior (again given that they're the same person).

Am I making any sense here? I'm a little sick at the moment and my brain isn't functioning normally.

Nix Banbridge being CNO - he isn't.
Fleet Action said:
"“The Chief of Staff wants to hear a full briefing from you tomorrow morning,” Banbridge paused to look over at his computer screen. “Speaking of the old man, there’s a staff meeting in ten minutes. Why don’t you stay here, I’ll have my aide get a meal into you, and for heavens sake, Geoff, let’s see if we can get you some better clothes.”

Tolwyn nodded in agreement. He felt absolutely ridiculous wearing the coveralls of a civilian maintenance worker, and the beard he had grown on the way back from Tarawa was itchy as all hell. It was a convenient
enough cover for him to slip through the underground parking lot of fleet headquarters. Once he was inside, a Marine security team had ushered him down a private corridor the rest of the way to Banbridge’s private quarters. He rubbed his chin.

“Wish I could shave this off.”

“You do look kind of ridiculous, Geoff.”

Banbridge stood up and grabbed his attache case.

“What’s the meeting about?”

“Always curious, aren’t you?”

Tolwyn smiled. “Working with Vance kind of rubs off on you.”

“That damn Kilrathi ambassador asked for a meeting with the Chiefs of Staff and some of our fleet admirals. He’s screaming over a list of grievances about border violations by military patrols, and incidents from the Landreich are top on the list. So just lay low here, there’s bound to be some press trying to sneak around, and if they ever saw you, there’d be hell to pay.”
Click to expand...
 
capi3101 said:
That still covers a lot of ground - Iberia, most of Latin America, parts of Africa and parts of the Pacific. My brain is going "He's Filipino" but I don't know why.
Click to expand...

Oh I didn't say it would help at all. Just what I thought in my own head. :)

I don't see how they could be the same person really, though that could be my preconceived notions of military protocol talking. Let's assume that's the same person, and that he's 64 in '69 (the maximum service age for a flag officer in the U.S. Navy). Okay, so McAullife is in 34...and so my lightning quick math skills tell me he couldn't have been older than 29 at McAullife. Seems awfully young. Also, most flag officers retire after a number of years for the sake of the advancement of their subordinates. For someone to stay in the same post for that long might be without precedent (if you can refute that one, please do so). Finally, there's the fact that in ER and FA, Banbridge and Tolwyn seem to be on a first name basis. That'd strike me as a bit disrespectful on Banbridge, given that Tolwyn is obviously his junior (again given that they're the same person).

Am I making any sense here? I'm a little sick at the moment and my brain isn't functioning normally.

Nix Banbridge being CNO - he isn't.
Click to expand...

You assume people still live normal lifespans six hundred years in the future and that the Confederation Navy is the same as the USN. I wouldn't make that leap. At times, yes, ConFleet appears to be a copy of the USN, but not always.

I'm pretty sure he's the same guy. The age thing can probably be attributed to Forstchen forgetting his own characters.

I don't have an issue with the first name usage. Both of them have been fighting the Kilrathi since Day 1. Tolwyn was a critical piece of the run up to the war and has Bainbridge's respect. By '68, not being on a first name basis would bother me more. They've served thirty years together in a war of extermination. Something like also throws the rulebook out the nearest porthole.

You are making sense, we just have to add in some things that have been discussed before. I know LOAF has a Wayne "Skip" Bainbridge theory which, if I'm remembering correctly, is basically what I stated above.
 
capi3101 said:
That still covers a lot of ground - Iberia, most of Latin America, parts of Africa and parts of the Pacific. My brain is going "He's Filipino" but I don't know why.
Click to expand...
I googled up Ulandi, and while the name doesn't come up too much, you can actually find several people named Ulandi on LinkedIn. Most of them are concentrated in South Africa - and the name does sound reasonably Bantu to me (although some of those South African Ulandis appear to be white). If I had to make a guess, I would say Mozambique or Angola - the two parts of southern Africa that were colonised by the Portuguese.

Keep in mind, though, this is more than six hundred years in the future, and there's so many unknowns to deal with, that it's really kinda pointless to try to nail down people's ethnicity. While surnames are a little more ethnic than first names, they still tend to detach after a while. You see a lot of Filipinos with Spanish surnames, but an ethnically Filipino appearance. Similarly, Smith is a typically Anglosaxon surname, but you still have Will Smith out there. Six hundred years! Think about the changes in the ethnicity of our own societies that have been observed over the past fifty years, and multiply that by twelve...
 
Let me preface this discussion with SHUT THE HELL UP PEOPLE FROM FIVE YEARS IN THE FUTURE, GOD I HATE YOU SO MUCH. YOU ARE THE WORST. Because I know that when I start to talk about intentions and plans changing over time and the history of how this stuff is written, a specific group of you dorks are going to go THAT IS NOW THE MOST FASCINATING THING ABOUT WING COMMANDER I AM GOING TO START TELLING EVERYONE THAT THAT'S HOW THE BACKGROUND IS *SUPPOSED* TO BE FROM NOW ON AND NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT EVER. See: the Wing Commander IV team thinking about having the Concordia in the game and TEN MILLION OTHER THINGS THAT ARE INTERESTING UNTIL YOU JERKS GET YOUR STUPID OBSESSIVE HANDS ON THEM.

So, that said, there was some loss of fidelity between Fleet Action and Action Stations, presumably because of the latter's long gestation time (four to five years.) A close read of Fleet Action will show you that Action Stations was actually in the works VERY early on and that a lot of the characters were created specifically because of how they would work in the prequel... but the delay in actually writing the book kind of threw a wrench into it how the plan really happened.

Banbridge was supposed to be the "Winston Turner" character; that is: Tolwyn's old mentor. That's supposed to be the source of their close relationship in Fleet Action... they were teacher/student, they went through the covert operation/start of the war together and have been working together ever since. (See also: the green-skinned Academy commandant from Red & Blue, who is the same role and may be supposed to be Banbridge.)

But for whatever reason, Dr. Forstchen lost track of that and created a new (and super super super Mary Sue-y) character to be Tolwyn's professor. So Banbridge ends up getting his same End Run/Fleet Action role (he is called "Admiral of the Fleet" in Action Stations and he is said to be commander of the Confederation's main fleet in End Run.)

He's obviously not 29 years old in Action Stations, since the book starts with his thinking back thirty years to when he first met Turner at the Academy. And it notes that he's six years Turner's senior as he was originally an enlisted man. So he's in his mid-to-late 50s when the war starts. So he's in his late 80s/early 90s in End Run and Fleet Action. But that's not uncommon in Wing Commander and the idea is of course that he's the best fighting admiral in the fleet in a desperate situation... he's not going to retire like someone would in peacetime.

(But make no mistake, the narrative intention is that he's the same Banbridge, wrong name and changed plans for his backstory aside. So it seems like it'd be disingenuous for us to pretend otherwise.)

Third Question: Thrakhath's half sister (you know, the Cat in pink from Academy) - I want to make sure I have her name right: is it Zukara? In which episode does she first show up (I know it's one of the later ones)?
Click to expand...

I don't think she's explicitly his half-sister, I think she's his... full sister. The name is Zukara and she first shows up in The Price of Victory (episode 12.)
 
Was sick and the power was out this morning, so I broke down and started reading Action Stations. Got as far as Turner taking command of Concordia before my wife informed me it was time to help out with our kids (both of whom are also sick). Anyways...

Quarto said:
I googled up Ulandi, and while the name doesn't come up too much, you can actually find several people named Ulandi on LinkedIn. Most of them are concentrated in South Africa - and the name does sound reasonably Bantu to me (although some of those South African Ulandis appear to be white). If I had to make a guess, I would say Mozambique or Angola - the two parts of southern Africa that were colonised by the Portuguese.

Keep in mind, though, this is more than six hundred years in the future, and there's so many unknowns to deal with, that it's really kinda pointless to try to nail down people's ethnicity. While surnames are a little more ethnic than first names, they still tend to detach after a while. You see a lot of Filipinos with Spanish surnames, but an ethnically Filipino appearance. Similarly, Smith is a typically Anglosaxon surname, but you still have Will Smith out there. Six hundred years! Think about the changes in the ethnicity of our own societies that have been observed over the past fifty years, and multiply that by twelve...
Click to expand...

It's still something for me to go off of. We really don't get that good of a read on Ulandi, and to be fair that's because he's an ancillary character who's in maybe four scenes total in the entire book. Thanks.


Bandit LOAF said:
Let me preface this discussion with SHUT THE HELL UP PEOPLE FROM FIVE YEARS IN THE FUTURE, GOD I HATE YOU SO MUCH. YOU ARE THE WORST. Because I know that when I start to talk about intentions and plans changing over time and the history of how this stuff is written, a specific group of you dorks are going to go THAT IS NOW THE MOST FASCINATING THING ABOUT WING COMMANDER I AM GOING TO START TELLING EVERYONE THAT THAT'S HOW THE BACKGROUND IS *SUPPOSED* TO BE FROM NOW ON AND NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT EVER. See: the Wing Commander IV team thinking about having the Concordia in the game and TEN MILLION OTHER THINGS THAT ARE INTERESTING UNTIL YOU JERKS GET YOUR STUPID OBSESSIVE HANDS ON THEM.
Click to expand...

I get the distinct impression I might've hit a nerve here...sorry if I did.

Bandit LOAF said:
So, that said, there was some loss of fidelity between Fleet Action and Action Stations, presumably because of the latter's long gestation time (four to five years.) A close read of Fleet Action will show you that Action Stations was actually in the works VERY early on and that a lot of the characters were created specifically because of how they would work in the prequel... but the delay in actually writing the book kind of threw a wrench into it how the plan really happened.

Banbridge was supposed to be the "Winston Turner" character; that is: Tolwyn's old mentor. That's supposed to be the source of their close relationship in Fleet Action... they were teacher/student, they went through the covert operation/start of the war together and have been working together ever since. (See also: the green-skinned Academy commandant from Red & Blue, who is the same role and may be supposed to be Banbridge.)

But for whatever reason, Dr. Forstchen lost track of that and created a new (and super super super Mary Sue-y) character to be Tolwyn's professor. So Banbridge ends up getting his same End Run/Fleet Action role (he is called "Admiral of the Fleet" in Action Stations and he is said to be commander of the Confederation's main fleet in End Run.)

He's obviously not 29 years old in Action Stations, since the book starts with his thinking back thirty years to when he first met Turner at the Academy. And it notes that he's six years Turner's senior as he was originally an enlisted man. So he's in his mid-to-late 50s when the war starts. So he's in his late 80s/early 90s in End Run and Fleet Action. But that's not uncommon in Wing Commander and the idea is of course that he's the best fighting admiral in the fleet in a desperate situation... he's not going to retire like someone would in peacetime.

(But make no mistake, the narrative intention is that he's the same Banbridge, wrong name and changed plans for his backstory aside. So it seems like it'd be disingenuous for us to pretend otherwise.)
Click to expand...

Hmm...okay, I can buy that. Tricky bit for me will be to see if my system will work with that and this'll be a good test. One less character profile to write from scratch...

Bandit LOAF said:
I don't think she's explicitly his half-sister, I think she's his... full sister. The name is Zukara and she first shows up in The Price of Victory (episode 12.)
Click to expand...

Thanks...watching again......crap, I guess she wasn't in pink, she was pink...
It also looks like you're right about her being a full sister; a lot of oddities with her character in general.


Alright, thanks y'all. If I do come up with more questions I'll be sure to ask.
 
Hah no nerve, just frustrated hearing my own behind the scenes stories told back to me as though that makes them canonical years later:)
 
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