Privateer 2 - part of the WC universe??

[Bandit LOAF]

Looks like Priv2 didn't actually start life as a WC game after all (assuming this link is true) - just found this, makes interesting reading:

Lets clear up the zany conspiracy theories.

Privateer 2: The Darkening began its life as Privateer 2: Darkside in November, 1994. Wing Commander III had just been finished and all signs were that Full Motion Video would be the next big thing.

Of course, there weren't any other FMV games at the moment... so Origin created an 'interactive movie' label under which they tried to sell a variety of games that they'd developed anyway for Q4 94/Q1 95 -- Ultima VIII, Bioforge, System Shock, Cybermage and Wings of Glory all got little film can logos in the hopes of appealing to the people who loved Wing Commander III -- much like how the original Wing Commander was sold as being 'from the makers of Ultima'.

Calling a bunch of regular games interactive movies was the immediate solution; in the long run, they knew they'd want an entire slate of Full Motion Video-based games for release in the next year. Chris Roberts' Wing Commander IV, planned for an incredible ten month development cycle would be the centerpiece of that effort. Also towards that goal two other projects got the green light: Tony Zurovec's Crusader: No Remorse... and Erin Roberts' Privateer 2: Darkside.

Erin Roberts had just finished the fantastic Privateer CD, which recieved a fairly unceremonious retail release... but ended up becoming one of the highest produced games ever because of a huge array of OEM/pack-in deals with the likes of Gateway and Creative Labs. If you were buying or putting together a computer in the mid-90s, it's a good bet you wound up with at least one copy of Privateer CD.

Anyway, the idea was that the 'second tier' FMV games could be done cheap for various reasons - Crusader would be done in Austin with greenscreens and a tiny tech budget, while Privateer would be developed by a new team in the UK and using a licensed 3D engine instead of developing a new one.

And that's where Privateer 2 began its development - in November, 1994 as a project called Privateer 2: Darkside.

By August, 1995 the game had the name we know: Privateer 2: The Darkening.

This would be a nice and very uniteresting story if we didn't have a full year of development to go -- but this is only where the story that you're all vaugely familiar with begins.

Around this time Origin decided to take Wing Commander more seriously - that is to say, as a multimedia franchise instead of a semi-annual game release. They licensed card games, a cartoon, began serious talks to do a motion picture (and comissioned a script) and so forth. One of the 'new' concepts decided in mid-late 1995 was to develop the previously ignored Privateer franchise as part of a huge tie-in TV series and game. Origin would develop a pair of Privateer sequels which would bookend the TV series and also tie in to the events and release of Wing Commander IV.

In August, 1995 Erin Roberts' project became "The Darkening". Chris Roberts', poised to be Wing Commander's Gene Roddenberry, would oversee the "real" Privateer 2.

The entire concept seems impossible now, but they were serious about it at the time. In a few months it'd be almost gone - the TV show concept fell through, at least... but Chris Roberts continued to express interest in developing a Privateer sequel after Wing Commander IV. When Wing Commander IV shipped it included a tiny text advertisement for "The Darkening" -- which is the first time any of you heard of it, and is the source of your insistence that some wholly unrelated game was renamed.

The rest is the part you know - Chris Roberts' opted to develop Silverheart instead of 'his' Privateer 2. The "Austin" Privateer 2 would be developed by another team... and 'The Darkening' got its name back. It would now be 'Privateer: The Darkening' - a Privateer "spinoffs". Same gameplay, different setting went the concept.

Chris left Origin in the aftermath of Wing Commander IV, and "his" Privateer 2 fell apart (though it would be relaunched several times over the years). The Darkening got its "2" back very shortly before its release in 1996.

So, some points:

* Privateer 2 spent roughly six months developed as a Privateer "concept" game instead of as an actual Wing Commander title. Basically, it had the same gameplay without the restrictions of the continuity (as if that has ever effected any fictional universe ever other than in our heads). That certainly has something to do with why people feel it's so different - but it is important to know that the game was both started and finished as a Privateer title.

* There is a lot of bad blood over EA's last minute decision to call it 'Privateer 2'. Obviously, the Origin team who was developing their Privateer 2 wasn't happy about their project being cancelled... and the Origin guys who went to work on the last part of The Darkening in England weren't happy that their (absolutely correct) input was pretty much ignored.

Both of these things are a huge shame -- but they have nothing to do with the integrity of the work of art itself... and Privateer 2 is a beautiful, interesting (and also painfully flawed) game.

Yes, EA changed the name (to less of an extent than you've all claimed) at the last minute, presumably to sell more units (though the original Privateer was *not* a success in terms of sales, so the actual motivation remains somewhat unknown) - and that's a fun fact to point out at dinner parties, but it ignores the fact that they set out to develop the game as Privateer 2 in the first place. If you hate that an evil company changed it from The Darkening to Privateer 2 to suit its needs, you should also hate that the same evil company changed the name from Privateer 2 to The Darkening in the first place.

Finally, ask yourselves - what else could it be? It's the same gameplay in a title developed by the same man who did the original Privateer. Could 'The Darkening' possibly have existed without people fuming about how it was "ripping off" Privateer?

Isn't a jump point supposed to be some naturally occuring phenomenon?

Theoretically; one oft-suggested behind-the-screens ideas was that the Steltek had created the network of jump points... it finally got a legitimate reference in The Confederation Handbook, which points out that the Scylla anomaly from the movie was created by a precursor race. The reference you're quoting, though, is just someone mixing up the Steltek storyline with the actual setting of the game.

I’d be curious to know the reference for this. (And by “humans”, do you mean us, or simply another human-like race?)

My guess is that the reference is to the Anhur's current civilization being 'several thousand' years old (3000 years would be ~210 BC, based on when Privateer 2 happened - we didn't used to have a solid date.)

The inhabitants of the Tri-System are routinely referred to as humans.

Tri-System dates appear to represent months with letters A-L (which is twelve) and days with numbers that can range up to 37. In what sense is this “standard”?

Do we have any reason to believe that the numbers and letter are dates rather than some sort of case identifiers? The years are referenced in other settings making clear that they're... years... while the letters are not.

 

[Ptarmigan]

Looks like Priv2 didn't actually start life as a WC game after all (assuming this link is true) - just found this, makes interesting reading:

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1112175

I have to agree the combat is way too easy, but the acting is beautiful - classy, yet corny, everything i love about fmv games.. anyone remember phantasmagoria 2?

Interesting. There were somethings I did not quite get about Privateer 2, like when was the Tri-System colonized. The graphics were good, even today. Also, the movie was excellent, with many big names like Clive Owens, Jugen Prochnow, and Christopher Warren.

 

[Shipgate]

Either way you look at it, Privateer 2 is a great conversation piece and an interesting game. Yes it does have a lot of stubborn flaws in it. What bothered me about it was how you could pretty much get through the whole game by just visiting the people your journal told you to. I also got very frustrated at how long I would end up at a single nav point? because hostile ships kept entering the system. And sometimes it would be a pirate shuttle that was really far away and you had to kill it before you could move on. At least in the original Privateer if you didn't want to fight you could run away from them or with certain factions cool them down with the friendly things to say.

One thing I can really appreciate about P2 is the interesting directing of the cinematics. The way if Lev might be talking to a fixer then it would cut to the other people in the bar and then go back to Lev with maybe his drink finished and asking for more details. Even the scenes with Lev and his girlfriend were cool. And I loved the whole introduction. Anyway, great game.

And since I like to make up stories in my head anyway, that's what's fun about Privateer 2 is thinking how it is somehow tied into the Wing Commander universe in some way.

 

[ChrisReid]

Either way you look at it, Privateer 2 is a great conversation piece and an interesting game. Yes it does have a lot of stubborn flaws in it. What bothered me about it was how you could pretty much get through the whole game by just visiting the people your journal told you to. I also got very frustrated at how long I would end up at a single nav point? because hostile ships kept entering the system.

Yeah, that was the only problem I ever had with the game. It just forced me to practice, and eventually I didn't have to worry about getting stalled at nav points. It's worth noting that you can actually fly away and jump once you reach a certain distance from enemy craft, but often it's easier to just kill your pursuer. One of the absolutely wonderful things about Privateer 2 is how so much of the game *isn't* available by following the log entries. There are a ton of side missions which appear by simply flying around and doing missions to build up your ship, both before and after you tackle the main plot. These missions have interesting motivations and are delivered and concluded with neato full motion video scenes. Whole characters and mini-story arcs are embedded in the game and you'll encounter them at random separately from the main plot.

And since I like to make up stories in my head anyway, that's what's fun about Privateer 2 is thinking how it is somehow tied into the Wing Commander universe in some way.

Yeah, we also get a bit of closure too. Secret Ops left us with quite a terribly powerful adversary yet to deal with. Thanks to Privateer 2, we know that, at least in the medium term, the Nephilim don't wipe out the Confederation.

 

[Shipgate]

Are you sure you could actually fly far enough away from them to jump? The way I remember it is that you eventually get so far away that for the target's distance it just said EXTREME. Unless it was at that point that you could jump. I don't remember.

 

[ChrisReid]

Page 6 of the Privateer 2 Manual:

A ship powering up for a jump is an easy target. For this reason, you cannot jump if there are any hostiles in your area. The jump drive bar will turn red and you will have to eliminate the hostile ships or travel 3600 klicks away from an enemy before you can jump.

 

[Chevieblazer]

what i didn't quite understand is why the roberts bros(and chris seems to hold at least some rights to the wc name since he created the movie) dropped wc and instead created the lancer universe which only connection to wc is the re-usal of the not kilrathi looking kilrathi ships from the movie

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Electronic Arts granted Digital Anvil limited rights to develop the Wing Commander movie in 1997 (press release). Chris Roberts holds no rights to the series - like most any video game, it was work for hire.

 

[Nemesis]

My guess is that the reference is to the Anhur's current civilization being 'several thousand' years old (3000 years would be ~210 BC, based on when Privateer 2 happened - we didn't used to have a solid date.)

Well, the main CCN entry for Anhur only notes “a few thousand years of really serious history”, which may or may not refer to the beginning of “human” life on Anhur. But I’m curious to know if the game anywhere refers to a B.C. date as such.

The inhabitants of the Tri-System are routinely referred to as humans.

But also as humanoids, like Ser Arris. Which raises the question whether the term could only be generic and relative, meant simply to distinguish between, say, the genetic line of the “First Civilisation” and earlier and/or subsequent variations and offshoots, including other “human”-like races (like us “Earthlings"). Moreover, it’s hard to believe the common language is anything like modern English, let alone English at all.

Do we have any reason to believe that the numbers and letter are dates rather than some sort of case identifiers? The years are referenced in other settings making clear that they're... years... while the letters are not.

As to those possibilities, I think letters and numbers corresponding to months and days is more understandable. As “identifiers”, what could the single letters and numbers refer to that would serve to distinguish one case from another? Respectively signifying types of crimes and case numbers doesn’t seem to work well. (Kane’s hygiene violation and Shondi’s tax evasion are both “E”; the numbers appear consistently and remarkably low.)

In any event, my only point, like yours, is that for some issues we really don’t know enough to say one way or the other. My touchstone for that is a simple question: what constraints does P2 place on a future developer who wants to tell a consistent story involving both the Confederation and the Tri-System? I don’t know of anything in P2's canon that would require that developer to equate the Tri-System’s 2790 with the Confederation’s 2790.

However, we can certainly talk about the implications of the various “what-ifs”.

 

[Death]

But also as humanoids, like Ser Arris. Which raises the question whether the term could only be generic and relative, meant simply to distinguish between, say, the genetic line of the “First Civilisation” and earlier and/or subsequent variations and offshoots, including other “human”-like races (like us “Earthlings"). Moreover, it’s hard to believe the common language is anything like modern English, let alone English at all.

No more difficult than believing that the Kilrathi, who aren't even remotely human other than general body shape (ignoring feline appendages like ears, snout, and tail), speak English amongst themselves.

 

[Nemesis]

It's a catchy language all right.

 

[Chevieblazer]

No more difficult than believing that the Kilrathi, who aren't even remotely human other than general body shape (ignoring feline appendages like ears, snout, and tail), speak English amongst themselves.

lol, as do the gou'ld, the wraith, centauri, narn, minbari, drakh, asgard etc.
at least they have a roaring accent

 

[Bandit LOAF]

As to those possibilities, I think letters and numbers corresponding to months and days is more understandable. As “identifiers”, what could the single letters and numbers refer to that would serve to distinguish one case from another? Respectively signifying types of crimes and case numbers doesn’t seem to work well. (Kane’s hygiene violation and Shondi’s tax evasion are both “E”; the numbers appear consistently and remarkably low.)

I've always thought of them as dates; the idea that they might be case identifiers didn't cross my mind until Kris mentioned it -- but the issue is that you're arguing the exact *opposite* here as what you're saying in your other point... in order to prove your other point. We should say they're dates because they seem like dates... and having then you'd use that assumption-as-fact to support claiming that we *shouldn't* assume that the years are years because they seem like years. It's a circle.

In any event, my only point, like yours, is that for some issues we really don’t know enough to say one way or the other. My touchstone for that is a simple question: what constraints does P2 place on a future developer who wants to tell a consistent story involving both the Confederation and the Tri-System? I don’t know of anything in P2's canon that would require that developer to equate the Tri-System’s 2790 with the Confederation’s 2790.

I think the issue is that it's a flawed claim because it's a type of analysis that can theoretically be applied to *any* piece of information.

Just like meters and quarts, dates are a manner to scientifically measure things. If someone tells us that a fighter is ten meters long in Privateer 2, we'd assume it was ten of our meters long. When we see, without any sort of other specifier, that a date is mentioned we have to assume that that date fits with our system.

If we agree to consider years differently in the case of the game we don't like we open the door to doing that for *everything*. Oh, Prophecy takes place 2681 Sirius years after World War 2 started... oh, the fighters in Wing Commander are measured in 'new meters' and they're actually thousands of miles long... and so forth.

Yes, we see other science fiction universes that invent new 'zero years' as a device... but they're completely irrelevent unless such a claim is specifically made in Wing Commander, and it never is. We're talking about the universe that has the *Kilrathi* measure their years in base-eight conversions after the birth of Christ.

 

[Nemesis]

Sorry for the interlude. Where were we now?

I think we can all agree there’s a fault line of sorts separating game play (including the practical writing of a program and the ultimate goal of making a game fun) and common sense (including the goal of developing a logical game canon). That schism accounts for why we usually don’t worry (well, not overmuch anyway) whether, for example, WC’s technology or action sequences always conform to the laws of physics, or the Kilrathi actually speak Kilrathi, or the graphics display the true structure, accurate dimensions, and complete details of the ships, and so forth. But accordingly, when we seek to explain a “fact-in-question” in a game, there is always a choice – whose criteria may not always be clear – to look “out-universe” or “in-universe”.

That appears to be the crux of our disagreement over P2's “dates”. What remains to be seen is whether it’s resolvable. (As our arguments are tending to show, it’s not always easy to separate out the distinction; there’s a degree of incommensurability about it.) But certainly it makes for an interesting discussion.

I've always thought of them as dates; the idea that they might be case identifiers didn't cross my mind until Kris mentioned it -- but the issue is that you're arguing the exact *opposite* here as what you're saying in your other point... in order to prove your other point. We should say they're dates because they seem like dates... and having then you'd use that assumption-as-fact to support claiming that we *shouldn't* assume that the years are years because they seem like years. It's a circle.

No, it’s a spiral.

There are two assumptions at work here. (Well, in the end three, but we’ll come to that.) First, that the notations in the game like “37/G/2769” are dates (day/month/year). Second, that they are equivalent to the Confederation’s calendar (or, as you and Kris would say, WC’s “standard calendar"). But it’s important not to “collapse” or confuse the two, for they rest on different “authority”.

It’s one thing to look at “37/G/2769” on its own terms, including its context (“Criminal Record"), and say, “You know, that really looks like a date more than anything else.” But it’s quite another to say, “And I think it is or should be based on the WC/Confed calendar.” The first is a textual analysis; the second is (in whole or in large part) a guess about the game developer’s intent.

Comparing the two, I don’t think it’s hard to conclude the second assumption is farther out on the plank, so to speak, than the first. More importantly, the first is cast in the form of argument we commonly accept and use in debating canon, while the second is just nowhere near as trustworthy because “intent”, usually so hard to pin down in the first place, and thus often speculative at best, can so easily change and prove fickle over time.

Now to recap the arguments that have been made so far: Kris stated his belief that “the dates” reflect “the standard calendar”, meaning, as I understood him, that the year 2769 (in our example) in P2 would be the same as a reference to 2769 in a Confederation-based game. I then questioned how well that view held up against the P2 dates themselves, where letters were used for months (which nonetheless, based on other examples I came across, indicated a twelve-month year) but the initial numbers – the days – went as high as 37 (and who knows, maybe higher). In other words, I was questioning whether the obvious fact of a differently-measured month in P2 undercut the assumption of an identically-measured year in P2. (Well, it certainly doesn’t help, does it?) You and Kris then proposed that the month-and-day parts of the notations were instead possibly “case identifiers”. I discounted the idea, again textually, arguing months and days still made more logical sense.

But the gist of your and Kris’s assertion was to try to reinterpret part of the text of the notations – the troubling part, the part that cast at least some doubt on your non-textual interpretation, for which you had no concrete basis to begin with other than, of course, your original textual interpretation that the notations were dates. And your latest rejoinder is that I’m the one sounding circular? What I’ve done is defend the most natural textual interpretation and question whether we have any basis to advance a non-textual interpretation that has all the appearances of wishful thinking.

I think the issue is that it's a flawed claim because it's a type of analysis that can theoretically be applied to *any* piece of information.

Just like meters and quarts, dates are a manner to scientifically measure things. If someone tells us that a fighter is ten meters long in Privateer 2, we'd assume it was ten of our meters long. When we see, without any sort of other specifier, that a date is mentioned we have to assume that that date fits with our system.

I don’t think it’s so clear that we would or even should assume equivalency with either common experience in general or WC experiences in particular, including the usual standards of measure, when in the case of P2 we’re talking about a foreign culture and setting that, by its very nature – in the WC universe, but isolated and independent, not to mention quite advanced – isn’t supposed to, and so really shouldn’t (and for some people preferably won’t) be readily familiar or comparable to “what has come before”.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying there’s a lot more to be fleshed out about the Tri-System, and that arguing in favor of a perspective that has us “hugging” general terms as though they were security blankets is not really “in the spirit of the game” in this case.

But let’s see if your claim and concern ring true otherwise. When I play a given game, how important is it to me and what thought do I give to the bare-bones fact that my fighter, for example, is traveling at “x” kps? Not much. The practical problem is that my real-life experiences provide little basis for comparison. I generally know I’m (pretending to be) going really, really fast, but that’s about the extent of my sense of reality on that score. What I’m much more aware of, say in Privateer, is that 300 kps in a Tarsus is asking for trouble, while 1000 kps in a Centurion is boasting a top-gun. The truth is “kps” could be redefined any which way and it wouldn’t change my sense or experience of the game.

But with “years” all of us have that common experience and understanding of the passage of such defined time, and so that’s something we take with us into a game and readily identify with whenever the game talks about “years”, right? Well, no, because we commonly aren’t that precisely self-aware in real life. We typically regard “years” as nothing more than “markers” of events, part of a time line, and when we are called upon to think in terms of “years” it often hardly matters how many days make them up.

More to the point, would anyone’s sense of a “year” be materially changed, and their “feel” for playing Ser Arris altered, if a Tri-System “year” turned out to be only 359 days, or 350, or even 340? Or as many as 366 days, 375, or even 390? I can’t imagine how. (The same is true regarding the hours in a “day”, the minutes in an “hour”, and the seconds in a “minute”.)

Your argument can’t afford any such leeway. (Still, when the day comes that a game does “relate” the Confederation and Tri-System, if we need to I’m sure we can come up with a handy conversion table.)

If we agree to consider years differently in the case of the game we don't like we open the door to doing that for *everything*. Oh, Prophecy takes place 2681 Sirius years after World War 2 started... oh, the fighters in Wing Commander are measured in 'new meters' and they're actually thousands of miles long... and so forth.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

Sorry, couldn’t resist. But your concern is surely overblown. People here have always been free to make such arguments if they felt they had merit (and regardless of whether they love or hate a given game). The thing is, measurements like “meter” or “year” or whatever in the Confederation can trace their history back because it’s supposed to be our history, Earth’s history, and that’s no mean “preamble” to overcome.

Yes, we see other science fiction universes that invent new 'zero years' as a device... but they're completely irrelevent unless such a claim is specifically made in Wing Commander, and it never is.

Now we come to your third assumption.

If I wanted (though I don’t), I could agree with your and Kris’ contentions up to this point – that the first half of the notations are really “case identifiers” and that the Tri-System should be seen to measure its “years” just like Confed does. But that would still be insufficient to support your overall conclusion, because there remains the question of when the Tri-System started counting its identically-measured 2,790 years.

Your third and necessary assumption is that the “start date” is the same too. And you argue, as I understand it, we should accept that assumption because there’s nothing in the game (let alone in all of WC) that tells us otherwise.

I beg to differ. First, why would we want to foist the tenets of our own (and imagined future) civilization upon another that is given as isolated and independent and thus has its own unique culture and history? (What’s the universal principle being espoused here exactly – all sentient species think alike, except that humanoids think in base 10 and all non-humanoids think in base 8? I would hope we could do better than that.)

But second, I think P2 does present a couple of plausible candidates for its “Year 1”. At the start of the game we are told: “The three systems of Irrulan, Isaac and Hom have co-existed peacefully for over two thousand years [and perhaps precisely 2,790 years?}, each with its own rich variety of technological, religious and racial cultures.” And as I’ve previously noted, the CCN database entry for Anhur refers to its “few thousand years [maybe beginning 2,790 years ago?] of really serious history”.

But no, we should just assume the Tri-System eschewed those – and for that matter any other – noteworthy “homegrown” histories and “reached out” and adopted our particular history (and religious history at that) for its calendar to embody. Yeah, right.

We're talking about the universe that has the *Kilrathi* measure their years in base-eight conversions after the birth of Christ.

What a fascinating coincidence!

Or maybe there’s another explanation. Who knows, perhaps as some requirement of their religious beliefs, each time the Kilrathi face a new enemy they conform their calendar in kind (while of course keeping to their number system), such a “subjugation” of their enemy’s “measure of history” further attesting to their own superiority and thus ensuring a destined victory. (Just the sort of thing one might expect of a rigidly ritualistic culture.) Anyway, let’s hope EA explains it one day.

(As an aside, though, I’m certainly glad Origin, with the time line presented in the Armada manual, started getting more into the swing of things, recognizing the need, from a common sense point of view, to “build in” some stark differences between our conception of reality and that of an alien culture and race. And choosing the number system with the calendar as the vehicle was a no-brainer, for how we count and in general how we “measure” reality, such as time, has to be one of the most subjectively-based forms of knowledge there is, and so would be guaranteed to vary among interstellar civilizations. Clearly, P2 presents an opportunity to further build on this realization.)

End of spiral.

 

[Quarto]

I think Nemesis makes an excellent point. It certainly is unthinkable that a group of people that speak English all the time and measure distances in metres & kilometres would use the same time measurement system we use.

Of course, when I say 'unthinkable', I mean that it requires a temporary lapse in one's thought processes to put forward such an argument . If we assume that all that other stuff - the language, the distance measurement system, etc. - is translated from their Tri-System version for our benefit, why does it seem unthinkable that the same thing would be done with the date? I don't know about you, Nemesis, but I have yet to find a history book about Rome that would provide all the dates ab urbe condita.

 

[Haesslich]

I think Nemesis makes an excellent point. It certainly is unthinkable that a group of people that speak English all the time and measure distances in metres & kilometres would use the same time measurement system we use.

Of course, when I say 'unthinkable', I mean that it requires a temporary lapse in one's thought processes to put forward such an argument . If we assume that all that other stuff - the language, the distance measurement system, etc. - is translated from their Tri-System version for our benefit, why does it seem unthinkable that the same thing would be done with the date? I don't know about you, Nemesis, but I have yet to find a history book about Rome that would provide all the dates ab urbe condita.

Don't forget all those history books which talk about events during Feudal Japan that use 'In the 20th Year of Emperor Kammu.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

No, it’s a spiral.

There are two assumptions at work here. (Well, in the end three, but we’ll come to that.) First, that the notations in the game like “37/G/2769” are dates (day/month/year). Second, that they are equivalent to the Confederation’s calendar (or, as you and Kris would say, WC’s “standard calendar"). But it’s important not to “collapse” or confuse the two, for they rest on different “authority”.

It’s one thing to look at “37/G/2769” on its own terms, including its context (“Criminal Record"), and say, “You know, that really looks like a date more than anything else.” But it’s quite another to say, “And I think it is or should be based on the WC/Confed calendar.” The first is a textual analysis; the second is (in whole or in large part) a guess about the game developer’s intent.

That's not where the dates came from, though - other database entries use the year... the idea that those *might* be dates came from already understanding that that was the 'range' for dates, not some kind of automatic assumption that the listing of criminal records wouldn't refer to, you know, *record numbers*.

Comparing the two, I don’t think it’s hard to conclude the second assumption is farther out on the plank, so to speak, than the first. More importantly, the first is cast in the form of argument we commonly accept and use in debating canon, while the second is just nowhere near as trustworthy because “intent”, usually so hard to pin down in the first place, and thus often speculative at best, can so easily change and prove fickle over time.

Every Wing Commander game has measured years and dates in an unquestioned manner - the Kilrathi use the human system, the Firekkans use the human system, humans on hundreds of different stars with presumably different orbital periods use the same system. Humans serving on starships with 26 hour days use the same system - and that same system is (assumed to be) the Christian-derived modern day calendar without question. Given all of this as our basis for thought, it seems pretty easy to make the leap that yet another Wing Commander game used the same system for dates.

You don't see how this was an easier leap for us to make than assuming that because something has two slashes in it it must be a date?

Now to recap the arguments that have been made so far: Kris stated his belief that “the dates” reflect “the standard calendar”, meaning, as I understood him, that the year 2769 (in our example) in P2 would be the same as a reference to 2769 in a Confederation-based game. I then questioned how well that view held up against the P2 dates themselves, where letters were used for months (which nonetheless, based on other examples I came across, indicated a twelve-month year) but the initial numbers – the days – went as high as 37 (and who knows, maybe higher). In other words, I was questioning whether the obvious fact of a differently-measured month in P2 undercut the assumption of an identically-measured year in P2. (Well, it certainly doesn’t help, does it?) You and Kris then proposed that the month-and-day parts of the notations were instead possibly “case identifiers”. I discounted the idea, again textually, arguing months and days still made more logical sense.

But the gist of your and Kris’s assertion was to try to reinterpret part of the text of the notations – the troubling part, the part that cast at least some doubt on your non-textual interpretation, for which you had no concrete basis to begin with other than, of course, your original textual interpretation that the notations were dates. And your latest rejoinder is that I’m the one sounding circular? What I’ve done is defend the most natural textual interpretation and question whether we have any basis to advance a non-textual interpretation that has all the appearances of wishful thinking.

I disagree (I mean I... non textually... rejoinder an... assertive reinterpretation... circularly -- now say something nice about Honor and you can write dialogue for David Weber) - the *only* reason anyone asumes that "37/G/2769" looks like a date is because it has a number which looks similar to a Wing Commander year at the end of it and that it appears in a Wing Commander game. For all practical purposes it looks a heck of a lot more like a directory structure or some kind of ID number. There is absolutely no way you can take "37/G" and tell me that it's in any way clear that the intent was to refer to a month and a day, and that reading "37/G" as anything other than a month and a day is a conscious attempt on my part to ignore such an intent.

I don’t think it’s so clear that we would or even should assume equivalency with either common experience in general or WC experiences in particular, including the usual standards of measure, when in the case of P2 we’re talking about a foreign culture and setting that, by its very nature – in the WC universe, but isolated and independent, not to mention quite advanced – isn’t supposed to, and so really shouldn’t (and for some people preferably won’t) be readily familiar or comparable to “what has come before”.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying there’s a lot more to be fleshed out about the Tri-System, and that arguing in favor of a perspective that has us “hugging” general terms as though they were security blankets is not really “in the spirit of the game” in this case.

I think you're laboring under a misconception: that the Tri-System being 'isolated' automatically makes it completely unconnected to the cultures seen in the rest of the continuity.

The references to 'Wing Commander' may be limited to a passing mention of the Kilrathi... but the references grounded in present day human culture exist throughout every aspect of Privateer 2. For every attempt to make the Tri-System seem unusual (the odd superlatives, the strange religions, etc.) there's an equally clear reference to our own culture.

(I'm sure that they intended Col. "Tex" Carver and all his down home southern witticisms to have come from the Cowboy Planet. Or... Space Earth!)

But let’s see if your claim and concern ring true otherwise. When I play a given game, how important is it to me and what thought do I give to the bare-bones fact that my fighter, for example, is traveling at “x” kps? Not much. The practical problem is that my real-life experiences provide little basis for comparison. I generally know I’m (pretending to be) going really, really fast, but that’s about the extent of my sense of reality on that score. What I’m much more aware of, say in Privateer, is that 300 kps in a Tarsus is asking for trouble, while 1000 kps in a Centurion is boasting a top-gun. The truth is “kps” could be redefined any which way and it wouldn’t change my sense or experience of the game.

But with “years” all of us have that common experience and understanding of the passage of such defined time, and so that’s something we take with us into a game and readily identify with whenever the game talks about “years”, right? Well, no, because we commonly aren’t that precisely self-aware in real life. We typically regard “years” as nothing more than “markers” of events, part of a time line, and when we are called upon to think in terms of “years” it often hardly matters how many days make them up.

More to the point, would anyone’s sense of a “year” be materially changed, and their “feel” for playing Ser Arris altered, if a Tri-System “year” turned out to be only 359 days, or 350, or even 340? Or as many as 366 days, 375, or even 390? I can’t imagine how. (The same is true regarding the hours in a “day”, the minutes in an “hour”, and the seconds in a “minute”.)

Your argument can’t afford any such leeway. (Still, when the day comes that a game does “relate” the Confederation and Tri-System, if we need to I’m sure we can come up with a handy conversion table.)

I would argue that Privateer 2 is a game whose story is *based* on our ability to appreciate the passage of time and specifically what years mean.

To appreciate Ser Arris' situation at the start of the game, we must understand the implications of being frozen for twenty years -- and we have to recall that same fact, the passage of time, when we come face to face with his aged brother in the climax. If the idea of years is suddenly brought into question it could mean *anything* - from planets that take 30 everywhereelseinWC years to go around the sun to planets that do so in two months (or, to explain in what are *clearly* obvious terms, the amount of time that passes between "A" and "C").

(I would also argue, though, that a basic appreciation of proper speeds has always been important. Were we not told that the World War II dogfights in space we encounter in the original game were actually happening across vast scales at hundreds of kilometers per second we'd have been arguing with people about how the ships aren't even fast enough to achieve escape velocity...)

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

Sorry, couldn’t resist. But your concern is surely overblown. People here have always been free to make such arguments if they felt they had merit (and regardless of whether they love or hate a given game). The thing is, measurements like “meter” or “year” or whatever in the Confederation can trace their history back because it’s supposed to be our history, Earth’s history, and that’s no mean “preamble” to overcome.

When Blair says he's been on Caernaven for ten years, is he talking about the time it takes for Gwynedd's habitable planet to circle its star... is he talking about 356 days times 26 hour ship days times ten because he's on the station and not the planet? Of course not. We have always assumed he is referring to the same standard we use to measure years - the same thing that the word year currently means -- and *not* some kind of made up, never reference Science Fiction calender. Without ever bringing up that such a thing exists in ordinary Wing Commander - or in Privateer 2 - I don't see how we can say for certain that it does.

Now we come to your third assumption.

If I wanted (though I don’t), I could agree with your and Kris’ contentions up to this point – that the first half of the notations are really “case identifiers” and that the Tri-System should be seen to measure its “years” just like Confed does. But that would still be insufficient to support your overall conclusion, because there remains the question of when the Tri-System started counting its identically-measured 2,790 years.

Your third and necessary assumption is that the “start date” is the same too. And you argue, as I understand it, we should accept that assumption because there’s nothing in the game (let alone in all of WC) that tells us otherwise.

I beg to differ. First, why would we want to foist the tenets of our own (and imagined future) civilization upon another that is given as isolated and independent and thus has its own unique culture and history? (What’s the universal principle being espoused here exactly – all sentient species think alike, except that humanoids think in base 10 and all non-humanoids think in base 8? I would hope we could do better than that.)

But second, I think P2 does present a couple of plausible candidates for its “Year 1”. At the start of the game we are told: “The three systems of Irrulan, Isaac and Hom have co-existed peacefully for over two thousand years [and perhaps precisely 2,790 years?}, each with its own rich variety of technological, religious and racial cultures.” And as I’ve previously noted, the CCN database entry for Anhur refers to its “few thousand years [maybe beginning 2,790 years ago?] of really serious history”.

But no, we should just assume the Tri-System eschewed those – and for that matter any other – noteworthy “homegrown” histories and “reached out” and adopted our particular history (and religious history at that) for its calendar to embody. Yeah, right.

Those are very pretty words -- but why did you bother writing them when you clearly went on to read my point about how the Kilrathi use the human system of years in Armada? The reason we would foist "the tenets of our own civilization" on the Tri-System is because we do so in every other case for half a dozen other civilizations... in every unit of measure including years. So the humans, Firekkans, Kilrathi, Landreich, etc. all measure time in human years/days/minutes/hours/seconds... and they all speak English and measure speeds in kilometers per second and amounts of liquid in quarts and so forth... but the Tri-System! The Tri-System can only... do everything but the years. Because this is the one case out of all the others where measuring their time based on our calendar would be *silly* (... but they can still use our units of measure and our language and so forth).

What a fascinating coincidence!

Or maybe there’s another explanation. Who knows, perhaps as some requirement of their religious beliefs, each time the Kilrathi face a new enemy they conform their calendar in kind (while of course keeping to their number system), such a “subjugation” of their enemy’s “measure of history” further attesting to their own superiority and thus ensuring a destined victory. (Just the sort of thing one might expect of a rigidly ritualistic culture.) Anyway, let’s hope EA explains it one day.

(As an aside, though, I’m certainly glad Origin, with the time line presented in the Armada manual, started getting more into the swing of things, recognizing the need, from a common sense point of view, to “build in” some stark differences between our conception of reality and that of an alien culture and race. And choosing the number system with the calendar as the vehicle was a no-brainer, for how we count and in general how we “measure” reality, such as time, has to be one of the most subjectively-based forms of knowledge there is, and so would be guaranteed to vary among interstellar civilizations. Clearly, P2 presents an opportunity to further build on this realization.)

End of spiral.

That's very cute, but I don't see how it gets you to ignore a huge part of the argument in terms of Wing Commander dates.

 

[Dix]

Out of interest, why do we assume that the langauage and formats of things like dates are being viewed by us in their original form? I would guess it is possible, as with many works of literature, everything is rendered in English and according to western conventions purely for the benefit of us, the audience , as is the case with, say, a chinese legend redone for western theatre.

It's entirely possible that the Kilrathi are growling away in High-Kilrahani in their spare time, when not trading insults with confed (after all, what value an insult when your enemy merely thinks you are purring?), and the dates of the tri-system have just been shown in a format that will have a greater impact on us, thereby enhancing the story.. Even the Nephilim only spoke their own language long enough to be established as truly alien, and to show how "powerful" they are by the speed in which they learn ours.

Summation, on the lack of contact between tri-system and con-fed, and where Priv2 fits into the timeline:

1) some tri-system world infos talk about colonisation prior to the discovery of ftl drives, indicating local origin, and for the T-system to be far enough away from confed to be unknown, settlement by a terran STL ship would be unlikely due to the timescale.

2) the talon (rehash, i know ) is unknown by the black-ops division, who you'd expect to be the most up to date on things like new encounters, despite talons being very common in the fringes (priv-1 era, at least)

3) As above, if a talon is far enough out to reach the tri-system, I would guess it is being used for exploration or something similar, placing priv2 around the priv-1 timeline.

4)Confed would have loved some of the technologies, eg guns that never run out of power, but only have to stop firing from heat concerns, or alternatively generators able to supply enough power to completely fufill the power demands of even the heaviest guns and shields? invulnerable (for a few seconds) shields, that could make fighters immune to missiles? heh, the kilrathi war would have been over in a week..

just my 2 cents worth..

 

[Nemesis]

No, it appears I wasn’t clear enough in my earlier posts, or failed to emphasize their points. Recall the issue I raised:”what constraints does P2 place on a future developer who wants to tell a consistent story involving both the Confederation and the Tri-System?” Let me explain why I think that’s a good question, especially as regards P2.

P2 presents an odd and extreme case in WC lore, where the development took something of a winding road, and in the end Origin felt it necessary to publish a declaration on its website that the Tri-System is indeed located in the WC universe. It’s no mystery why some in the community react to it so cynically.

But it is a WC game and so I think the best way for the community to approach it is not so much defensively as prospectively, thereby encouraging a more positive mind-set. My question serves as an honest starting point for that, and I believe it’s the obvious practical question besides.

However, another “virtue” is that it exposes another way in which P2 is a strange case, and that’s in regard to the overlap or the “fault line” of gaming and storytelling, artifice and canon. In contrast to other WC games, we’re not sure about the Tri-System’s origins and history, but the game clearly presents us with a human-like culture that speaks English, uses the metric system, and refers to dates that don’t seem that far off from the Confederation time line. How should we see and treat that? (For that matter, is it altogether clear how we have seen and treated those and similar things in the other games?)

And so here we are. My general take on the one basic question (apparently needing to be reiterated as well) is that we can’t say for sure at this point how the Tri-System relates to the Confederation. But sure, it could be that the Tri-System is – that it will be written to be – an extension, in whole or in large part, of our human culture, that its citizens really do speak English, embrace the metric system in all its glory, and rely on the Confederation calendar. Or not as the case may be. In sum, I think it’s hard to see P2 as much more than a tabula rasa – in the WC universe absolutely and without question, but mostly only in the abstract, so far.

It certainly is unthinkable that a group of people that speak English all the time and measure distances in metres & kilometres would use the same time measurement system we use.

I hope it’s clear now that I’ve never said or implied that was “unthinkable”.

But taking you up on your WYSIWYG premise, even if we accept that, from your premise, it then somehow follows the Tri-System would also use “our” calendar (no small leap of faith it seems to me absent a concrete reason for an isolated and non-Confederation society to do that), it still wouldn’t follow that the dates we see in the game must refer to that “standard” – or in that context “interstellar” – calendar, as opposed to another – equally official but “more localized” – calendar.

If we assume that all that other stuff - the language, the distance measurement system, etc. - is translated from their Tri-System version for our benefit, why does it seem unthinkable that the same thing would be done with the date?

Again, not unthinkable. And to be sure, the fact the game is “rendered” into English and the measurements are metric is a real convenience to us players, as such things always have been.

But the dates? What’s the benefit to us there? I see none. Imagine our developer: “Gracious, whatever I do I must make sure to preserve the 109 years separating P2 and Prophecy because . . . because . . . I must preserve the 109 years between Prophecy and P2.” Yeah, tie that boot nice and tight. The fact is the Tri-System has, so to speak, no horse in the WC race right now. We are given no reason in P2, and so we really have no reason, to care at all when the Tri-System is related to the Confederation.

And I’m not so sure that Origin didn’t signal the same thing in its answer on its website. The question of whether P2 takes place in the WC universe was no run-of-the-mill question. But Origin’s answer that the Tri-System is not “currently” a part of the Confederation couldn’t have been more equivocal about the time line. I mean, it’s not as if there was any mystery about the need to reassure fans that P2 really did fit into the WC universe. It appears Origin decided to go only so far in that reassurance.

 

[Nemesis]

Sorry about the double post.

That's not where the dates came from, though - other database entries use the year... the idea that those *might* be dates came from already understanding that that was the 'range' for dates, not some kind of automatic assumption that the listing of criminal records wouldn't refer to, you know, *record numbers*.

In other words, we know that years are mentioned in other database entries, and the four-digit numbers in the “criminal record” examples compare very favorably to the range of the known years, so those four-digit numbers could quite possibly be years too. Further, those “slashed” notations with the four-digit numbers that could be years are a very common format for “day/month/year”, and so that could quite possibly be what the notations mean.

There’s nothing wrong with that textual analysis, it’s a reasonable interpretation and it casts doubt on whether the years are Confederation-based years.

Every Wing Commander game has measured years and dates in an unquestioned manner - the Kilrathi use the human system, the Firekkans use the human system, humans on hundreds of different stars with presumably different orbital periods use the same system. Humans serving on starships with 26 hour days use the same system - and that same system is (assumed to be) the Christian-derived modern day calendar without question. Given all of this as our basis for thought, it seems pretty easy to make the leap that yet another Wing Commander game used the same system for dates.

You don't see how this was an easier leap for us to make than assuming that because something has two slashes in it it must be a date?

You don’t see how that was a foolish leap to make since a reasonable textual analysis of the notations indicates the “consistency” you point to in other games was not followed in P2? (And all things considered, I can’t see how we would, let alone why we should, be surprised if that turned out to be true.)

Nonetheless, let’s pretend for the sake of your argument that there’s no textual thorn in its side. Why wouldn’t we expect the Tri-System to use, as you say, the “human system”?

Well, why do the other people and cultures make use of it? I imagine because it’s a necessity given the practicalities of their “dealings” or “confrontations” with the Confederation as a whole.

But does the Tri-System have any such need? None that we know of.

I disagree (I mean I... non textually... rejoinder an... assertive reinterpretation... circularly -- now say something nice about Honor and you can write dialogue for David Weber) - the *only* reason anyone asumes that "37/G/2769" looks like a date is because it has a number which looks similar to a Wing Commander year at the end of it and that it appears in a Wing Commander game.

Shhh! Good grief, you’re only going to inspire another “P2's not WC!” argument.

Please, the textual analysis is not that simplistic, and you know it. (That’s why you keep trying so hard to discount it.) I’ve already gone through why it’s a reasonable interpretation textually (and below, in my next reply, I point out yet another reason why it’s a better interpretation than yours).

But since you seem to be insisting I provide a still better or “deeper” textual reason for my interpretation (which I don’t think I need to), here it is: My interpretation requires the date format to be – that is, as dates, the notations only make sense as – day/month/year, which of course is not the common American convention (month/day/year). But that is, as it happens, the common European, and British, convention.

Now, where was it that P2 was developed?

For all practical purposes it looks a heck of a lot more like a directory structure or some kind of ID number. There is absolutely no way you can take "37/G" and tell me that it's in any way clear that the intent was to refer to a month and a day, and that reading "37/G" as anything other than a month and a day is a conscious attempt on my part to ignore such an intent.

No, I certainly wouldn’t argue that your “read” is an attempt to ignore such an intent, only an attempt (failed) to ignore the not insignificant possibility that is the meaning.

Moreover, that meaning readily makes entire sense of the notations as dates (as opposed to amorphous directories and ID numbers that could “code” for anything), which in turn further adds to the meaning of the criminal offense, since we now know its time frame (as opposed to directories and ID numbers that only tell us the “interesting” fact the criminal records are recorded somewhere). In sum, my interpretation is still superior to yours.

I can imagine our developer: “Yes, my hands are tied in making the ‘years’ Confederation years because they might not be Confederation years. Oh, wait . . .”

I think you're laboring under a misconception: that the Tri-System being 'isolated' automatically makes it completely unconnected to the cultures seen in the rest of the continuity.

The references to 'Wing Commander' may be limited to a passing mention of the Kilrathi... but the references grounded in present day human culture exist throughout every aspect of Privateer 2. For every attempt to make the Tri-System seem unusual (the odd superlatives, the strange religions, etc.) there's an equally clear reference to our own culture.

(I'm sure that they intended Col. "Tex" Carver and all his down home southern witticisms to have come from the Cowboy Planet. Or... Space Earth!)

Of course Quarto raised similar issues. If WYSIWYG, yeah, we’re dealing with a human culture through and through that speaks English and uses the metric system, but needn’t, as far as we can tell, use the Confederation calendar. If a “translation” (not impossible since “Tex” is a stereotype, and arguably archetype, and thus translatable), pretty much the same problem for you.

In addition, given the mixed goal of translation – to get across, and so not “lose”, the original perspective, yet always succeed in speaking to our commonly understood frames of reference – it’s a fair question whether the “humans” in P2 would be us humans, or we humans would be the “humanoids”. Also whether the dates have been entirely translated, or only “partly” so, into numerals certainly but not necessarily “further” into a Confederation time line.

Origin’s expressly stating that the Tri-System is not part of the Confederation hurts your argument here too.

I would argue that Privateer 2 is a game whose story is *based* on our ability to appreciate the passage of time and specifically what years mean.

To appreciate Ser Arris' situation at the start of the game, we must understand the implications of being frozen for twenty years -- and we have to recall that same fact, the passage of time, when we come face to face with his aged brother in the climax. If the idea of years is suddenly brought into question it could mean *anything* - from planets that take 30 everywhereelseinWC years to go around the sun to planets that do so in two months (or, to explain in what are *clearly* obvious terms, the amount of time that passes between "A" and "C").

(I would also argue, though, that a basic appreciation of proper speeds has always been important. Were we not told that the World War II dogfights in space we encounter in the original game were actually happening across vast scales at hundreds of kilometers per second we'd have been arguing with people about how the ships aren't even fast enough to achieve escape velocity...)

Well, I’d still argue we don’t appreciate the passage of time or a “very great speed” as precisely, indeed as perfectly as you posit; the implications of and our sensibilities to an “almost year” or “almost meter”, for example, would be little changed.

I also still believe your concerns are overblown. I’m not clear why you think that because we have good reason to be cautious in assuming too much about P2's calendar, the rest of the WC universe is thereby up for grabs too. That’s not, in my judgment, the upshot of the standard I proposed. P2 simply does not present any real constraints on how a developer must treat its time line in a future game, in contrast to the other games with their interconnected histories and cross-referenced time lines.

I think I understand your basic point though. You prefer an absolute and universal rule for the WC universe – not canonical but gaming – that every game, no matter what, is seen to use the same calendar (and whatever else is needed as a “convenience” for the player). Personally, I’m not sure I’d want such a rule. But even if I did, I don’t think I’d have any problem (personally or as a developer) treating P2 as a special case given that it hasn’t yet been “cemented” to any of the other in-universe histories.

More importantly, I’m not sure EA does embrace such a rule. At least Origin didn’t in regard to Armada. You can rationalize all you want about how the Kilrathi use the same “human system”, but in fact they don’t. The respective years may be equivalent, but they’re still not identical because the counting systems are different. And as for the metric system, the basic Kilrathi unit, the “mak”, is essentially defined as an “almost meter” – 1 meter is supposed to be “comparable” to 1.2 maks (which does roughly parallel a base-8 conversion, at least up to “our” number 63).

And there’s a fundamental implication to all this besides: Origin took your gaming convenience and turned it into an issue of canon. We can only wonder now if there are other differences in the “Kilrathi system” – whether, despite the base-8 equivalence for certain levels of measure, the Kilrathi’s actual units of scale and measure are the same as ours “all the way down”, or “up”. They needn’t be.

The precedent you fear already exists; it’s only a matter of if, when, and where EA builds on it.

When Blair says he's been on Caernaven for ten years, is he talking about the time it takes for Gwynedd's habitable planet to circle its star... is he talking about 356 days times 26 hour ship days times ten because he's on the station and not the planet? Of course not. We have always assumed he is referring to the same standard we use to measure years - the same thing that the word year currently means -- and *not* some kind of made up, never reference Science Fiction calender. Without ever bringing up that such a thing exists in ordinary Wing Commander - or in Privateer 2 - I don't see how we can say for certain that it does.

No, the point is it’s just not clear in P2 (whether on the basis of gaming convenience, the stated canon, textual interpretation, or what we can glean of Origin’s intent) what kind of calendar is being referenced. We don’t have enough information to say for sure, as well as constrain a (responsible) developer from saying something else.