Privateer 2 - part of the WC universe??

Could it be that the Tri-System people are, say, descendent of a colony convoy that jumped very far due to a quirk and either haven't really been able to contact the "mainland" or didn't find it practical to because it's very far away?
 
Nemesis said:
But the dates? What’s the benefit to us there? I see none.
Yeah, all right. And what's the benefit of any local date for the Tri-System? Dates in sci-fi are only useful if they serve as reference points to tell us where we are. A date that doesn't mean anything is useless. That's why Star Wars doesn't ever use dates - what would be the point?

The developers almost certainly didn't give these dates a moment's thought from this angle. They didn't have this long discussion about what year 1 in Tri-System was - the dates were most likely decided by choosing a number high enough to indicate a distant future. But of course, the only way a date can indicate the distant future is if the date is in our system.

Another thing to note is that, when the decision was made that yes, P2 is set in the WC universe, it would have been desireable from the developer's point of view to avoid any obvious conflicts. So, from that point, having a date in the same system actually does serve a purpose. "What? Guns that never run out of energy? They don't have that in WCP... oh, right, this is the 28th century." "What? nuclear weapons, time travel? They didn't have that in... oh, right, 28th century."
 
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.

Except that your analysis falls short of reason - you're ignoring a very obvious red flag, which is exactly what you need to watch for in textual analysis. Analysis is figuring out what something could be based on the available data, not deciding what you want to be in spite of it.

Yes, if I were to find 5/5/1958 next to a criminal record I could very reasonably say that this looks like a date - it's in the same format of a date, it's a place where a date might logically be placed and it fits in general with the known dating system. That's a fine analysis.

But if I were to find 5/BACON/1958 next to a criminal record I would be, where I analyizing this in a reasonable fashion, forced to admit that it is pretty darned unusual for some BACON to be there - and that it makes our text *unlike* a date. A reasonable *analysis* means saying that that BACON doesn't belong there -- not thinking up increasingly obscure reasons that we should tiptoe around it.

(And doesn't the fact that there's *one* different ruin the claim that it must be a date because it's *similar*? We're supposed to know it's a date because it has slashes just like the dates we use... and to do that lets first ignore the fact that if it is a date it's clearly *not* supposed to be in the same format we know.)

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.

There's absolutely no reason to assume that the Tri-System has no dealings with the rest of the universe -- and plenty of *evidence* to say that it does. (I deal with this in more depth below, I just happen to reply to posts in a haphazard manner. Read down a few blobs.)

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?

I don't think anyone is pleading ignorance about the DD/MM/YY format, nor does it have anything to do with the current debate. I continue to slip into the 'wrong' European dates ten years after going to grade school in France.

Your "analysis" doesn't make sense because I don't understand European dates, it doesn't make sense because no one measures the passage of months using letters of the alphabet.

Your *conclusion* then makes no sense because in order to allow the alphadates (they're trying to look alien!) you have to go completely against the initial theory that lead you down this path in the first place (they're trying to look like normal dates!).

(Furthermore, the entire thing falls apart when you think about it on a grander scale anyway - our multi-planet distant theoretically-alien race that absolutely cannot use the same numbers for years is using a dating system that evolved on Earth because of the phases of our single moon? Wait, maybe they humanized the concept of months into Privateer 2... and then deported them again so they'd seem alien.)

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 would say that *this* would your chance to put forth a reasonable textual analysis - that four digit number looks a lot like the years that go with the Privateer 2 story. You can build a good argument that whatever the whole of the serial number/directory/intentionally misleading date that only you can understand is that it is quite possible that it refers to the year in which the offense was committed (or the year they were charged or convicted or whatever makes the most sense based on the available data).

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.

So... when Privateer 2's flavor text mentions the Red Baron, it's actually that someone kindly translated the name of whoever the Tri-System's romantic flying ace was into something having the same general concept from our own history? And you genuinely believe that this was the intention and that there is evidence that this has occured?

But... then they conveniently forgot to apply what must be an absolutely foolproof idea translation process to hundreds and hundreds of other proper nouns and historical references cited in the game that remain 'Tri-System specific'?

And that even though we had this amazing, pointless process of historical meaninglessnessifying of occasional terms (and parts of dates - but not all of dates!) to satisfy a claim that no one ever, ever made (that the Tri-System had no ties to the rest of the universe), it absolutely in no way shape or form could ever have occured that at the same time some simple *numbers* were converted into "our" system.

(You also seem to be confused about the word humanoid - it's not a weird alien name made up for Privateer 2 to describe the inhabitants of the Tri-System. It's an actual word that means having a human form. You, Kris, Quarto and I are all 'humanoid'. Well, the jury is still out on Kris. Privateer 2 uses 'human' and 'humanoid' on occasion -- presumably using the latter to seem more unusual. What we can't do, however, is see that they've used an unusual term and assume that they are giving it a meaning we've decided on that is unrelated to its definition and that furthermore all the times that they *didn't* use said word were errors or mistakes by the notoriously poor aim of the historical meaninglessification machine.)

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

The Free Republic of the Landreich is not part of the Confederation. The Empire of Kilrah is not part of the Confederation. Firekka is not part of the Confederation. Oasis is not part of the Confederation. Canada is not part of the United States. Etc. Whether or not the Tri-System is part of the Confederation is absolutely meaningless as to its connections or past connections to the rest of the Wing Commander universe.



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.

Privateer 2 has something like thirty different planets -- that's thirty different definitions of a year that *have* to vary. Without the simple Earth-derived year that has been applied to everything from bird aliens to Kilrathi having private conversations with eachother the word year as indicative of a passage of time is *absolutely meaningless*. Yes, it 'could' be similar - but even if it is similar-to-the-same in one case, it's going to be variably-to-vastly different in twenty-some others. And if you eliminate year as a solid measurement in Privateer 2, you do so everywhere else as well.

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.

How does this statement stand now that we've established that the Tri-System and the rest of the universe have an interconnected history? To be more exact - if I go through the trouble of cataloging a good number of 'Earth history' references in Privateer, will this invalidate your point?

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.

On the contrary, I would be happy to play with all kinds of dates. I love that kind of timeline and I love the power it gives you to fix little continuity errors when they arise... and I enjoy all sorts of universes that have fun 'new' dating systems. I just refuse to accept that one exists in Privateer 2 without being told so - the possibility that it *could* is not enough for me, and the fact that one has never been introduced (to the point of things not making any sense from a xenocultural perspective) in Wing Commander means I'm not willing to assume.

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.

Every Kilrathi number in Voices of War is the equivalent human number put through Windows Calculator's base-eight conversion. I used to think it was an amazingly cool thing for there to be unusual numbers in VoW -- TC and I treated it as a base ten number and calculated Kilrah's orbital period! -- but then I noticed that and the entire thing became somewhat of a joke.

The precedent you fear already exists; it’s only a matter of if, when, and where EA builds on it. can say for certain that it does.
[/QUOTE]

This is never a reason to appreciate the current continuity. They could retcon *anything* tomorrow - we can't live our lives assuming that that *will* happen because it *could*. If we go with what EA 'could' do, none of the continuity is safe.

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.

The problem is, once again, that you can apply this claim to any aspect of any thing - refusing to acknowledge Privateer 2's rightful place in the timeline because you don't want it there is silly.

Anyone who doesn't like Rightous Fire or Secret Ops or Wing Commander 2 can immobilize it in a similar manner - we therefore need a system of analysis that requires *proof* that Privateer 2 uses a different dating system rather than conjecture that Privateer 2 *could* use a different dating system. If we base our facts on remote possibilities we won't ever get anywhere with anything - and we'll be going against the original concept to do so.
 
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.

Ancient Greece?! I'm not an ancient Greek, why would I care about converting their dates?! The *point* of dates is so that they can be used to tell the amonut of times between things. On this level of thought, what would be the point in creating a new system of dates that exists only to be unrelated to the single system used in every other source?

(And yes, the 'Wing Commander/Privateer 2' crossover factor was a serious consideration in the aftermath of the game. They even talk about developing a game that more properly connects them in the 1997 'Origin' PC Gamer issue.)

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.

What exactly are you seeing here that no one else does? The only "implications" from this text that I can see are that 1) the Tri-System exists concurrently with the Confederation and 2) it could someday join the Confederation. There is absolutely nothing about placement in a timeline here. (On the other hand, I suppose you could look at it on a meta level and think it means that they haven't *decided* whether or not it'll be part of the Confederation, with 'currently' referring to 1996 -- still, though, unrelated to timeline.)

As best I can tell you're reading 'Confederation' as 'Wing Commander' - and that's just wrong. The Confederation is a specific political entity that certainly does not encompass all of the Wing Commander universe.

Could it be that the Tri-System people are, say, descendent of a colony convoy that jumped very far due to a quirk and either haven't really been able to contact the "mainland" or didn't find it practical to because it's very far away?

The issue with this theory, as discussed earlier in this thread, is that there's "several thousand" years of Tri-System history.

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..

Well, the one thing that point three fails to mention is that the Talon is a derelict -- it's an *abandoned* fighter. If Privateer 2 is in 2790, then the meaning of the Talon encounter is that you're coming across a 136-year old abandoned ship design from someone elses navy.

Point 4 also supports (and I hate that we have to support what is directly stated in the game) the 2790 year for the game -- technology has advanced far beyond what we saw earlier in Wing Commander.
 
Not really - in the talon mission, you have to go and rescue the talon's pilot for interrogation.. The fact that the pilot ejected and the ship was disabled would indicate, though, that whatever event landed the ship in the tri-system is less than healthy for spaceships, which may explain the lack of contact between confed and the tri-system. Origin does state they're in the same game universe, after all, and jump drives can make the universe a small space..
 
Quarto said:
And what's the benefit of any local date for the Tri-System? Dates in sci-fi are only useful if they serve as reference points to tell us where we are. A date that doesn't mean anything is useless.

No, the Tri-System dates are clearly useful in-game and in-system regarding the Tri-System’s storyline and history (what little is related). My only point is to ask whether they’re also useful “out-game” and “out-system” regarding the other WC histories, and they simply aren’t at this point. There’s nothing to keep a developer from relating the respective realities any way he/she thinks best (including, of course, equating 2790 with “our” 2790).

This conclusion, however, is strictly in keeping with how we debate canon in the normal course. When we “resolve” a conflict within or among the other games, all we’ve done is propose a logical solution or solutions that EA may or may not in the future go along with. Our solutions certainly cannot be said – not honestly anyway – to be canon, only candidates for canon. And that’s part and parcel with what I’m saying here – that P2 presents such an extreme case, that there are so many ways a developer would feel free to further “define” the Tri-System, including its dates, that all we can truthfully say is that there is no single or even limited number of logical ways in which EA could proceed.

The developers almost certainly didn't give these dates a moment's thought from this angle. They didn't have this long discussion about what year 1 in Tri-System was - the dates were most likely decided by choosing a number high enough to indicate a distant future. But of course, the only way a date can indicate the distant future is if the date is in our system.

I think that’s a fine conjecture (including your further one that I didn’t quote), and could well be true. But that still wouldn’t mean that EA is stuck with 2790 being “our” 2790, as opposed to, say, our 2740, 2840, or 5090. (The Tri-System’s rather advanced technologies tend to speak for themselves anyway, but could be due to their following a different arc of innovation rather than following “ours” and therefore arising only that far ahead in “our” future.)

Notice, though, how your thinking jumps between gaming and storytelling considerations. That’s not any criticism, just a comment about how hard it can be to pin down the significance of P2's “facts” in the absence of other “tie-ins” to the WC universe. That’s the crux of the problem in trying to determine P2's canon.

So how should we deal with such a state of affairs? I recommend: With caution. And I say that because of what I think the smart question is here: what constraints does P2 place on a future, responsible, developer? In sum, I don’t think it’s a good idea, especially in this case, for the community to get too far ahead of the Tri-System’s further development. It’s not necessary; it’s not honest, and it only invites disappointment and “Son of Pilgrim” threads in the event EA does decide (surprise, surprise?) that the Tri-System’s “then” is not exactly the “now” we “counted” on its being.

LOAF said:
Except that your analysis falls short of reason - you're ignoring a very obvious red flag, which is exactly what you need to watch for in textual analysis. Analysis is figuring out what something could be based on the available data, not deciding what you want to be in spite of it.

You talking to me?:)

Yes, I agree, please stop doing that. As you’ve already admitted, you readily interpreted them as dates to begin with – you never even thought on your own they might be something else – and all you’re doing now is disavowing any such interpretation solely in order to preserve a bias you have (and apparently want the rest of us to have) about the year 2790.

I have no such bias or prejudice. I think it would be grand if EA said the “2790” in P2 is the year 2790 in the Confederation. I also think it would be grand if EA said otherwise. I’m happy to go where the canon leads me. But where the canon is not discernible, where in fact it comes to a practical dead end because the logical possibilities for how it continues are too numerous or too equal, I will go no farther.

The truth is, based on the “facts” in P2, we don’t know what kind of calendar the Tri-System uses. And so we shouldn’t guess or make boundless leaps of faith in that regard.

Yes, if I were to find 5/5/1958 next to a criminal record I could very reasonably say that this looks like a date . . .

But if I were to find 5/BACON/1958 next to a criminal record I would be . . . forced to admit that it is pretty darned unusual for some BACON to be there - and that it makes our text *unlike* a date. A reasonable *analysis* means saying that that BACON doesn't belong there -- not thinking up increasingly obscure reasons that we should tiptoe around it.

(And doesn't the fact that there's *one* different ruin the claim that it must be a date because it's *similar*? We're supposed to know it's a date because it has slashes just like the dates we use... and to do that lets first ignore the fact that if it is a date it's clearly *not* supposed to be in the same format we know.)

I’m surprised you posted this.

We have formal names for months and we also represent them symbolically with numerals, a simple linear ordering method. Letters can easily play either role, as abbreviations or as ordering symbols. As to the former, the first letter of each month is sometimes all that is used in spreadsheets and other similar statistical analyses. As to the latter, letters A-L are commonly used to represent months in product serial numbers. So it’s hardly any sort of fanciful or strange idea.

The difference between us in this thread is that in each instance you’re out (desperately it appears) to peg what is only one among other possible interpretations as the one and only interpretation, and for reasons that have little to do with the usual way we go about debating canon. The question is why? Is this merely (what I would see as) a misplaced desire to defend P2 as a “true” WC game, or are you actually proposing a new kind of dogma we should embrace?

There's absolutely no reason to assume that the Tri-System has no dealings with the rest of the universe -- and plenty of *evidence* to say that it does.

No, the issue is whether the Tri-System has current dealings with the Confederation such that we can say it has good reason to be using the Confederation calendar. And given that the evidence is obviously lacking, we are obliged – as a simple matter of logic – to say we don’t know. Maybe it uses the calendar, maybe it doesn’t; only a future game (developer) can tell us for sure.

I don't think anyone is pleading ignorance about the DD/MM/YY format, nor does it have anything to do with the current debate. I continue to slip into the 'wrong' European dates ten years after going to grade school in France.

But is the game’s “British” syntax consistent? That’s the proper question and focus. As far as I know it is, and so the “format” carries some bite in indicating whether it could be dates. And so yeah, it could be! No getting around it for you.

Your "analysis" doesn't make sense because I don't understand European dates, it doesn't make sense because no one measures the passage of months using letters of the alphabet.

Yeah, right, no one because it’s so many more than that. Letters can be so used and are so used because they naturally lend themselves to serve just as well as numbers in this instance. The fact is it’s easy to see and understand the notations as dates, and your harping that the letters stand as some sort of “insurmountable” obstacle to common sense – in the context of a futuristic sci-fi game no less – is a lost cause.

Your *conclusion* then makes no sense because in order to allow the alphadates (they're trying to look alien!) you have to go completely against the initial theory that lead you down this path in the first place (they're trying to look like normal dates!).

So, if a game developer wanted to make dates look “alien” for his space-sim, he’s . . . I don’t know, honor bound? . . . to render them into something totally unrecognizable to us as dates, thereby rebuffing his initial intent that they be seriously seen and taken as dates? Very artful. A kind of self-immolation of the mind. I like it . . . but just how far do you propose to take that in the context of what is supposed to be a fun video game?

For an alien race to be alien, must the game use an alien language (let alone a genuine extraterrestrial language, which would certainly bring a quick end to the project) that we are never able to comprehend? Is it your position that the people of the Tri-System are really British and that their English has in fact stagnated for several hundred years? That the WC3 Kilrathi are really humans dressed up in furry costumes? (Well, they are, really, but are they “really”?) That the WC2 and WC3 Blairs are actually different persons?

And all this because for some reason it’s incredibly important to you that we accept and believe the Tri-System uses our calendar when the fact that it does or doesn’t isn’t important at all at this point?

(Furthermore, the entire thing falls apart when you think about it on a grander scale anyway - our multi-planet distant theoretically-alien race that absolutely cannot use the same numbers for years is using a dating system that evolved on Earth because of the phases of our single moon? Wait, maybe they humanized the concept of months into Privateer 2... and then deported them again so they'd seem alien.)

Wow, so that’s what a 37-day month means, huh? A lunar cycle generally? Our lunar cycle in particular? It would have to mean those things, right?

I would say that *this* would your chance to put forth a reasonable textual analysis - that four digit number looks a lot like the years that go with the Privateer 2 story. You can build a good argument that whatever the whole of the serial number/directory/intentionally misleading date that only you can understand is that it is quite possible that it refers to the year in which the offense was committed (or the year they were charged or convicted or whatever makes the most sense based on the available data).

No, we’re able to see and do that for the whole of the notations too, thank you. Only takes a little thought, if even that.

And unlike mine, your analysis is “forced” in order to serve an ulterior motive – you know, your interpretation about “case identifiers”, a.k.a. “Confederation Lifeboat No. 2790”.

So... when Privateer 2's flavor text mentions the Red Baron, it's actually that someone kindly translated the name of whoever the Tri-System's romantic flying ace was into something having the same general concept from our own history? And you genuinely believe that this was the intention and that there is evidence that this has occured?

It could have been the intention, might become the intention, or was never nor ever will be the intention. I don’t know, you don’t know. And we have no reason to care right now. Without having yet told us anything about Tex’s background, EA can still “translate” him into almost anyone or anything it wants without violating P2's meager storyline.

But... then they conveniently forgot to apply what must be an absolutely foolproof idea translation process to hundreds and hundreds of other proper nouns and historical references cited in the game that remain 'Tri-System specific'?

And that even though we had this amazing, pointless process of historical meaninglessnessifying of occasional terms (and parts of dates - but not all of dates!) to satisfy a claim that no one ever, ever made (that the Tri-System had no ties to the rest of the universe), it absolutely in no way shape or form could ever have occured that at the same time some simple *numbers* were converted into "our" system.

Please, I’m no apologist for Origin. I don’t know what the developers thought they were doing (not to mention from time to time) in P2. But the upshot of your criticisms – running as rampantly as they are – is that we must, absolutely must, now see the Tri-System as a British colony! Once again, you appear to take an absolute position you know needn’t be true and that you probably don’t want to believe anyway, all in order to “protect” a preferred belief that could easily turn out to be false. Pray tell, what do you think you’re doing?

But, following Quarto’s example, if I were forced to guess, I’d guess that it’s supposed to be a human, or to some degree a human-based, society. (No question that would be the easiest way to go, though I myself don’t care one way or the other.) But even given that, who’s to say it won’t turn out that the Tri-System is made up of a bunch of pilgrims (small “p”) who at some point gave up on “our” society to form their own (as well as, understandably, mark a new “Year 1”), and have been and remain fiercely independent? Or, that the Steltek transplanted some proto-humans from Earth way back when to an isolated region of space so that they could control them and their development – surreptitiously infusing them with an “Earth-type” culture – as part of some grand experiment to study at what point violent tendencies or technological obsessions become “irreversible” in humanoid races? Or, that the “Tri-System” is simply Grayson Burrows’ latest (oh, let’s say second) attempt at a holo-novel – all the recent rage on the various pleasure planets of Gemini? (And so it really is P2 after all, and on two levels of reality!)

Let it go.
 
Part 2:

LOAF said:
(You also seem to be confused about the word humanoid - it's not a weird alien name made up for Privateer 2 to describe the inhabitants of the Tri-System. It's an actual word that means having a human form. You, Kris, Quarto and I are all 'humanoid'. . . Privateer 2 uses 'human' and 'humanoid' on occasion -- presumably using the latter to seem more unusual. . .)

No, I’ve used the term in accordance with its standard meaning, denoting man-like species. Yes, we humans are humanoids, but not all humanoids are human. That’s the only sense in which I’m using the one word. What you don’t like is that I’m using the word “human” in a relative sense, but that’s really its nature vis-à-vis “humanoid” (particularly in a sci-fi context). In short, in the Tri-System: “Who da man?” Not Ser Arris, apparently. (But he could, nonetheless, be our kind of man.)

And I notice in your argument besides that you still are forced to presume some reason why the word “humanoid” is being used at all. So much for your argument. Personally, I don’t care how EA ends up using it, I’m only interested, in this thread, in how they might be.

The Free Republic of the Landreich is not part of the Confederation. The Empire of Kilrah is not part of the Confederation. Firekka . . . Oasis . . . Etc. Whether or not the Tri-System is part of the Confederation is absolutely meaningless as to its connections or past connections to the rest of the Wing Commander universe.

Absolutely meaningless? Hardly. That it isn’t part of Confed must weigh on you, for if it were, you’d have a strong argument that, just like the rest of Confed and its “associates”, it uses “our” calendar. But given that it isn’t part of Confed, the possibility remains that it doesn’t have a reason to use and so doesn’t use “our” calendar. I understand why you’re not happy about that, but trying, and blatantly, to pretend it doesn’t matter is not credible.

Privateer 2 has something like thirty different planets -- that's thirty different definitions of a year that *have* to vary. Without the simple Earth-derived year that has been applied to everything from bird aliens to Kilrathi having private conversations with eachother the word year as indicative of a passage of time is *absolutely meaningless*. Yes, it 'could' be similar - but even if it is similar-to-the-same in one case, it's going to be variably-to-vastly different in twenty-some others. And if you eliminate year as a solid measurement in Privateer 2, you do so everywhere else as well.

Well, here you go again – mass hysteria in the WC universe, if not every gaming universe, and so on. You seem to be saying that there’s room in “our” universe for only one kind of “standard” calendar. But we have at least two already – the Kilrathi’s sure ain’t the same (obfuscation and wishful thinking aside). And despite Origin’s waffling over whether to go with a new definition of a meter or a straightforward base-8 conversion – apparently deciding to do both at the same time – I thought it at least handled relating the two calendars pretty well. Certainly the sky hasn’t fallen yet over our being obliged in this case to re-calculate (base-10) numbers we otherwise would take for granted.

Sorry, but your complaint reduces simply to a question of how easy the given conversion is, as well as to when it is and isn’t necessary in the context of the given game.

Besides, a developer (if he/she decided to posit a different time line for the Tri-System) could simply “reveal” that the Tri-System – whether or not it also uses “our” calendar – has its own local, tri-system-wide, standard calendar. (“Oh, come on you silly WCers, why-oh-why would the people of the Tri-System care about relating strictly tri-system-based events, like crime and local history, to some universally standard time frame? And sure, I suppose people outside the Tri-System might be curious to do that, but that wasn’t P2 now, was it? Anyway, here’s a nice and simple conversion table to help you do that for those P2 dates, since in our new game we do relate the two realities, but also since some of you appear to be, if I may say so, a little too stressed for your own good.”)

How does this statement stand now that we've established that the Tri-System and the rest of the universe have an interconnected history? To be more exact - if I go through the trouble of cataloging a good number of 'Earth history' references in Privateer, will this invalidate your point?

No, because any of us can always posit a “what-if” (as I’ve done already) that accounts for whatever degree or level of “interconnectedness” you care to assert (and really, you might as well stick to your British colony theory) but that still does not require the Tri-System to be using “our” calendar. Not knowing how the Tri-System originated and evolved, not knowing if or how it is “engaged” with any other government or society, we can “connect the dots” of its discrete details, arguably Earth-related or not, in any number of ways. Get over it.

On the contrary, I would be happy to play with all kinds of dates. I love that kind of timeline and I love the power it gives you to fix little continuity errors when they arise... and I enjoy all sorts of universes that have fun 'new' dating systems.

Well, then you need a canon-based explanation for how and why “our” calendar gets used in a given case. My problem with P2 is, based on what it tells us about the Tri-System, I can’t draw the conclusion that the Tri-System is using “our” calendar. (And a future developer could therefore choose, in all good conscience, to make it otherwise.)

I just refuse to accept that one exists in Privateer 2 without being told so - the possibility that it *could* is not enough for me, and the fact that one has never been introduced (to the point of things not making any sense from a xenocultural perspective) in Wing Commander means I'm not willing to assume.

Well, if this is, as you make it sound, just an article of faith for you – that absent a clear and unambiguous statement by EA that it is a different calendar you will choose to believe it is the same calendar – why bother arguing over possible logical interpretations of the text and game play? My only point in these regards has been and remains that in the end we don’t know enough to say for sure what kind of calendar is being used, and accordingly, we should remain neutral on the question. So, no, I’m not a member of your “religion” on this point, but how does that give you the right to trample on my “science”?

Every Kilrathi number in Voices of War is the equivalent human number put through Windows Calculator's base-eight conversion. I used to think it was an amazingly cool thing for there to be unusual numbers in VoW – TC and I treated it as a base ten number and calculated Kilrah's orbital period! -- but then I noticed that and the entire thing became somewhat of a joke.

Yeah, it’s almost like the concept of canon has become a joke to you now too, as with that express redefinition of a meter in Voices of War that I guess you want to say we should ignore and pretend doesn’t exist. Holy cow, at what point in your travels were you waylaid, kidnaped, and brainwashed by the anti-canon “rebels”? (Oh, but I guess you wouldn’t be allowed to recall that, would you?) I’m afraid all I can do is keep knocking you on the head with facts and logic.

And since we’re discussing Armada, why is it, do you suppose, that Origin decided to play with the concept of the Kilrathi calendar and metric system there? I mean, it was free to have done that in any of the prior games, I would think. Why only in Armada? Is there anything “special”, perhaps, about Armada that might account for it? Any thoughts on that? I mean, if there were “something” about Armada that set it apart from the other games and that could be seen as having motivated the desire to differentiate the Kilrathi systems of measurement, we could then see if P2 presents any similar aspects that, purely on the basis of consistency, predict the same should – or, at the very least, might – have been done for that game.

This is never a reason to appreciate the current continuity. They could retcon *anything* tomorrow - we can't live our lives assuming that that *will* happen because it *could*. If we go with what EA 'could' do, none of the continuity is safe.

Of course it’s a reason to do so, because it’s based, not on whim (or faith), which you imply, but on reason. Though I would say you have been guilty in this thread of confusing the two.

The problem is, once again, that you can apply this claim to any aspect of any thing - refusing to acknowledge Privateer 2's rightful place in the timeline because you don't want it there is silly.

Except that we don’t know what its “rightful place” is yet. Otherwise, I couldn’t care less.

Anyone who doesn't like Rightous Fire or Secret Ops or Wing Commander 2 can immobilize it in a similar manner - we therefore need a system of analysis that requires *proof* that Privateer 2 uses a different dating system rather than conjecture that Privateer 2 *could* use a different dating system. If we base our facts on remote possibilities we won't ever get anywhere with anything - and we'll be going against the original concept to do so.

We do have and follow a system that requires proof – our theory and practice of debating canon. And in this case, such debate yields no firm conclusion about P2's calendar (or much of anything else about how the Tri-System fits into the WC universe).

But you refuse to accept that, and I can only come back to my query whether you’re being overly protective of the fact it’s a WC game, or you’re positing some new level of dogma – “In the absence of express contradiction, it is Origin’s/Humanity’s/My dictate that we believe, fervently and fearfully, that the way of the Confed is true for all the universe and for all eternity, Amen.”

In either case, I just don’t see the need. (But I’ll be happy to consider the dogma-thing if the CIC will offer to freely provide all “true believers” with monk-like, WC-initialed robes. Cool!)

. . .The *point* of dates is so that they can be used to tell the amonut of times between things. On this level of thought, what would be the point in creating a new system of dates that exists only to be unrelated to the single system used in every other source?. . .

Well, what would be the point of creating a WC game that has no material “tie-ins” to the rest of WC? And yet, that’s what happened. So much for your argument. We can wish it were otherwise, but the consequences for any analysis of P2's canon are obvious – we can’t say with any confidence how the Tri-System will be further delineated in relation to the rest of WC. It’s up for grabs. And in accordance with our debates of canon generally, we should never say – or maybe promise is the better word – any more than logic allows, and in this case logic is at a loss to say much of anything.

What exactly are you seeing here that no one else does?. . .

You took a poll, did you? How exactly? Care to post it?

No, it’s not what I see but what I’m not seeing that’s the problem. (You know, my dear Gregory, like that dog that didn’t bark in the night.) Here was an opportunity for Origin to lay out and confirm the basic canon of P2, the Tri-System’s relationship to humans, Earth, and the Confederation, every single thing you’ve been desperately trying to convince us of in the absence of such express confirmation, and Origin passed on the opportunity, settling instead for the most equivocal and generic description possible, the kind of statement a person makes when wanting to reveal and/or commit himself to as little as possible.

That’s bad news for your argument, and not because it serves as any indication of how a future game will treat the Tri-System (a foolish extrapolation), but because Origin showed us that it itself lacked the degree of faith that you have in what a future game will confirm.

I guess your only recourse now is to vow in this thread that you will be that future developer. We certainly don’t have a reasonable basis for any sure conclusions otherwise regarding the Tri-System.
 
Eh, Nemesis, you're talking crap. I know you love to debate and use logic and such... usually it makes for a good discussion. But I'm afraid that in this thread, you've reached post-modernism. And post-modernism is the end of the line - there's just nowhere else to go, except to jump off a cliff.

I'm sorry if I'm being too harsh, but I'm not gonna waste my time being diplomatic about this. Your post reminds me of Baudrillard. Baudrillard, for crying out loud! He's one of those idiots who claim that really, you can't be sure of anything, we don't see reality, just images of what we think is reality, et cetera, et cetera... you accept that, and next thing you know, you actually think The Matrix Reloaded was an intelligent movie. Except you don't think... you just think you think... or maybe you think you think you think... or somebody else thinks you think you think you think you think, because you're just an image in someone's head... the point being, we can't be sure of anything being real.

Which is spot-on. Except that it's also totally, utterly stupid. Because it invalidates any debate. By turning your argument for a particular interpretation of P2's dates into an argument against any interpretation of P2's dates (because we can't be sure of anything!), you've turned this thread into a complete and utter waste of time. That's right, buddy - we have no proof that EA or Origin made this or that decision based on this or that idea. We can't prove that P2's dates are Earth-based. Continuing down that line, you can't prove anything either.

...So why the hell did you just write a two thousand word essay about it? What's the point of wasting your breath arguing that nothing can be proven? We can't win against this argument... but this argument happens to destroy the point of even discussing this, and in so doing it also destroys itself (Nothing can be proven? Prove it!).
 
After Quarto, only one thing remains to say: There have been rumors about the rediscovery of the Privateer 3 script - but nothing is proven...
 
You talking to me?

Yes, I agree, please stop doing that.

Petty antagonism is not an intelligent way to argue a point.

As you’ve already admitted, you readily interpreted them as dates to begin with – you never even thought on your own they might be something else – and all you’re doing now is disavowing any such interpretation solely in order to preserve a bias you have (and apparently want the rest of us to have) about the year 2790.

That's right, I'm performing an *analysis*. I believe I explained that in my last post.

I have no such bias or prejudice. I think it would be grand if EA said the “2790” in P2 is the year 2790 in the Confederation. I also think it would be grand if EA said otherwise. I’m happy to go where the canon leads me. But where the canon is not discernible, where in fact it comes to a practical dead end because the logical possibilities for how it continues are too numerous or too equal, I will go no farther.

Of course you have a bias or prejudice - you're trying to win an argument. You're not some knight in shining armor who has a reasoned take on any of this.

The truth is, based on the “facts” in P2, we don’t know what kind of calendar the Tri-System uses. And so we shouldn’t guess or make boundless leaps of faith in that regard.

The truth is that, based on the "facts" in the Wing Commander continuity, we do know what kind of (*single*) calendar over a thousand other stars do use. We can make a leap ("of faith"? Ugh.) here.

I’m surprised you posted this.

We have formal names for months and we also represent them symbolically with numerals, a simple linear ordering method. Letters can easily play either role, as abbreviations or as ordering symbols. As to the former, the first letter of each month is sometimes all that is used in spreadsheets and other similar statistical analyses. As to the latter, letters A-L are commonly used to represent months in product serial numbers. So it’s hardly any sort of fanciful or strange idea.

The difference between us in this thread is that in each instance you’re out (desperately it appears) to peg what is only one among other possible interpretations as the one and only interpretation, and for reasons that have little to do with the usual way we go about debating canon. The question is why? Is this merely (what I would see as) a misplaced desire to defend P2 as a “true” WC game, or are you actually proposing a new kind of dogma we should embrace?

I've never seen anyone use A through L for a date.

If you want to embrace my dogma, it's as simple as this: unless otherwise contradicted we should take things as they were meant to be taken. This means that we need to think about the early history of the war in The Confederation Handbook, because it needs some explanations in places where it does contradict other established facts -- but it also means that we should leave well enough alone when Privateer 2 did absolutely nothing. We *know* the intention of the people who wrote those references was to include them in our future history -- they've told us that much themselves, and even without that it's the point of any such references.

... and sure, we *know* that we can always fall back to your silly "but it's always possible that a year isn't a year!" argument IF IT WERE EVER NEEDED -- but we sure as hell don't apply it for the sake of having an argument and generally discrediting Privateer 2.


No, the issue is whether the Tri-System has current dealings with the Confederation such that we can say it has good reason to be using the Confederation calendar. And given that the evidence is obviously lacking, we are obliged – as a simple matter of logic – to say we don’t know. Maybe it uses the calendar, maybe it doesn’t; only a future game (developer) can tell us for sure.

The news report mentions the Kilrathi -- maybe they'r eusing the *Kilrathi* dating system. (You know, the one that's exactly the same as the human one.)

Unless the *current* developed claimed that the year 2790 was supposed to mean something wholly unique from our system of dates then we shouldn't assume otherwise.

But is the game’s “British” syntax consistent? That’s the proper question and focus. As far as I know it is, and so the “format” carries some bite in indicating whether it could be dates. And so yeah, it could be! No getting around it for you.

No, the game's "British" syntax is not consistent because there are no letters in British dates. Using the same syntax doesn't mean squinting at something weird until it seems like the same syntax.

Yeah, right, no one because it’s so many more than that. Letters can be so used and are so used because they naturally lend themselves to serve just as well as numbers in this instance. The fact is it’s easy to see and understand the notations as dates, and your harping that the letters stand as some sort of “insurmountable” obstacle to common sense – in the context of a futuristic sci-fi game no less – is a lost cause.

Yes, that's a funtastic theory - but it's not an analysis of the given data. It's you looking at the data, figuring out exactly what is wrong with connecting it to your preconceived notion and then inventing a theory. And you can do that with any set of data -- it's bad, bad science.

So, if a game developer wanted to make dates look “alien” for his space-sim, he’s . . . I don’t know, honor bound? . . . to render them into something totally unrecognizable to us as dates, thereby rebuffing his initial intent that they be seriously seen and taken as dates? Very artful. A kind of self-immolation of the mind. I like it . . . but just how far do you propose to take that in the context of what is supposed to be a fun video game?

For an alien race to be alien, must the game use an alien language (let alone a genuine extraterrestrial language, which would certainly bring a quick end to the project) that we are never able to comprehend? Is it your position that the people of the Tri-System are really British and that their English has in fact stagnated for several hundred years? That the WC3 Kilrathi are really humans dressed up in furry costumes? (Well, they are, really, but are they “really”?) That the WC2 and WC3 Blairs are actually different persons?

And all this because for some reason it’s incredibly important to you that we accept and believe the Tri-System uses our calendar when the fact that it does or doesn’t isn’t important at all at this point?

Once again, none of this is analysis. It is a sign that you have done your analysis and don't like the results.

Wow, so that’s what a 37-day month means, huh? A lunar cycle generally? Our lunar cycle in particular? It would have to mean those things, right?

Months are derived from lunar cycles. Of course, all the major planets in the Tri-System have multiple inhabited moons, so there's probably no direct correlation to our system.

But you seem so darn sure those letters are supposed to mean months...

And unlike mine, your analysis is “forced” in order to serve an ulterior motive – you know, your interpretation about “case identifiers”, a.k.a. “Confederation Lifeboat No. 2790”.

Because *clearly* I'm the only person here who's trying to prove a point. How dare I do that in the face of your overwhelming "maybe things are so vauge that words don't mean what they usually do" argument?

Trying to argue that there's a flaw with *me* instead of a flaw with my argument is a good sign that you've been backed into a corner.

It could have been the intention, might become the intention, or was never nor ever will be the intention. I don’t know, you don’t know. And we have no reason to care right now. Without having yet told us anything about Tex’s background, EA can still “translate” him into almost anyone or anything it wants without violating P2's meager storyline.

I'm pretty sure we both know - and absolutely sure that I do know - that when Privateer 2 mentions the Red Baron it's not referring to anything but the German flying ace.

Please, I’m no apologist for Origin. I don’t know what the developers thought they were doing (not to mention from time to time) in P2. But the upshot of your criticisms – running as rampantly as they are – is that we must, absolutely must, now see the Tri-System as a British colony! Once again, you appear to take an absolute position you know needn’t be true and that you probably don’t want to believe anyway, all in order to “protect” a preferred belief that could easily turn out to be false. Pray tell, what do you think you’re doing?

Well, I have certainly been an apologist on occasion, and I certainly do know what developers "thought" they were doing. I haven't brought any of that into this argument.

But, following Quarto’s example, if I were forced to guess, I’d guess that it’s supposed to be a human, or to some degree a human-based, society. (No question that would be the easiest way to go, though I myself don’t care one way or the other.) But even given that, who’s to say it won’t turn out that the Tri-System is made up of a bunch of pilgrims (small “p”) who at some point gave up on “our” society to form their own (as well as, understandably, mark a new “Year 1”), and have been and remain fiercely independent? Or, that the Steltek transplanted some proto-humans from Earth way back when to an isolated region of space so that they could control them and their development – surreptitiously infusing them with an “Earth-type” culture – as part of some grand experiment to study at what point violent tendencies or technological obsessions become “irreversible” in humanoid races? Or, that the “Tri-System” is simply Grayson Burrows’ latest (oh, let’s say second) attempt at a holo-novel – all the recent rage on the various pleasure planets of Gemini? (And so it really is P2 after all, and on two levels of reality!)

Let it go.

Oh, good, we're being cute instead of serious.

Without dealing with developers or possible futures or anything we can say that humans, human culture and elements of Wing Commander appear in Privateer 2 -- and that if it's an "alien" culture then it's certainly had its language and measurement units translated to concepts understood by us (I believe you said this).

No, I’ve used the term in accordance with its standard meaning, denoting man-like species. Yes, we humans are humanoids, but not all humanoids are human. That’s the only sense in which I’m using the one word. What you don’t like is that I’m using the word “human” in a relative sense, but that’s really its nature vis-à-vis “humanoid” (particularly in a sci-fi context). In short, in the Tri-System: “Who da man?” Not Ser Arris, apparently. (But he could, nonetheless, be our kind of man.)

And I notice in your argument besides that you still are forced to presume some reason why the word “humanoid” is being used at all. So much for your argument. Personally, I don’t care how EA ends up using it, I’m only interested, in this thread, in how they might be.

Okay, then there's a simple logical point that should put this to rest forever: Privateer 2 doesn't exclusively use your 'vauge' word, humanoid. It uses the specific term human as well.
I see a bug, I see a grasshopper. There's absolutely no way to suggest that I'm talking about an ant given both those phrases - even if one of the terms I've used is individually vauge enough to have done so.

The people in the Tri-System are 'humanoid'? Okay, I'll give you that they could be bipedal lizards or big plastic men or robots... but the people in the Tri-System are also 'human'.

Absolutely meaningless? Hardly. That it isn’t part of Confed must weigh on you, for if it were, you’d have a strong argument that, just like the rest of Confed and its “associates”, it uses “our” calendar. But given that it isn’t part of Confed, the possibility remains that it doesn’t have a reason to use and so doesn’t use “our” calendar. I understand why you’re not happy about that, but trying, and blatantly, to pretend it doesn’t matter is not credible.

Please think about what you're saying. You have consciously phrased this paragraph so that it can escape scrutiny BECAUSE YOU WANT TO WIN AN ARGUMENT OVER CARING ABOUT WING COMMANDER. That's just wrong.

"... and its 'associates'"? Please. The Tri-System not being part of the Confederation means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in terms of its assosciation to the rest of the galaxy. As already ignored, the Landreich isn't part of the Confederation. The Empire of Kilrah isn't part of the Confederation. Etc. Not being ("currently") part of the Confederation is not the same thing as not being part of the Wing Commander universe.

Well, here you go again – mass hysteria in the WC universe, if not every gaming universe, and so on. You seem to be saying that there’s room in “our” universe for only one kind of “standard” calendar. But we have at least two already – the Kilrathi’s sure ain’t the same (obfuscation and wishful thinking aside). And despite Origin’s waffling over whether to go with a new definition of a meter or a straightforward base-8 conversion – apparently deciding to do both at the same time – I thought it at least handled relating the two calendars pretty well. Certainly the sky hasn’t fallen yet over our being obliged in this case to re-calculate (base-10) numbers we otherwise would take for granted.

I'm not "obfuscating" anything - I very clearly explained how the Kilrathi years were worked out.

The Kilrathi years may look pretty, but they are exactly the same as the human once - they have Earth's orbital period and they use the birth of Jesus as their year zero.

This is, incidentally, *not* "relating the two calendars pretty well". It's not even relating *two* calendars.

What you are ignoring in your weird attempt to glorify Voices of War's open seams is the application of your theory to things other than Privateer. I will ask again for what must be the tenth time: why do you apply your refusal to believe that a year is an Earth year *only* to the Tri-System and not to the Confederation (or it's 'assosciates', which somehow include two alien species' that evolved for thousands of years wholly separate from Earth)? Why don't you pick this fight about Gwynedd Years and Kilrah Minutes and the possibility that two years between Wing Commander II and Wing Commander III is completely meaningless to our concept of time?
 
Sorry, but your complaint reduces simply to a question of how easy the given conversion is, as well as to when it is and isn’t necessary in the context of the given game.

Besides, a developer (if he/she decided to posit a different time line for the Tri-System) could simply “reveal” that the Tri-System – whether or not it also uses “our” calendar – has its own local, tri-system-wide, standard calendar. (“Oh, come on you silly WCers, why-oh-why would the people of the Tri-System care about relating strictly tri-system-based events, like crime and local history, to some universally standard time frame? And sure, I suppose people outside the Tri-System might be curious to do that, but that wasn’t P2 now, was it? Anyway, here’s a nice and simple conversion table to help you do that for those P2 dates, since in our new game we do relate the two realities, but also since some of you appear to be, if I may say so, a little too stressed for your own good.”)

We should ignore Privateer 2 and the efforts/intents of the Privateer 2 development team because someone might want to contradict them someday? Okay, now apply this concept to *every Wing Commander story*.

The reason they chose the 2790 date was so as not to contradict the rest of Wing Commander - and now you're saying that we should ignore that because you're worried... about the exact same thing? None of this makes any sense. (And lets all admit this right here, it's a silly fakey cute claim. So for posterity lets address the elephant in the room: for all the adorable 'but EA mights!' you've spewed, we both know that no one is ever going to make a game that contradicts or continues the story of Privateer 2. I do not mean that as a slam on The Darkening - no one is ever going to continue the post-war Nephilim story, either.)

No, because any of us can always posit a “what-if” (as I’ve done already) that accounts for whatever degree or level of “interconnectedness” you care to assert (and really, you might as well stick to your British colony theory) but that still does not require the Tri-System to be using “our” calendar. Not knowing how the Tri-System originated and evolved, not knowing if or how it is “engaged” with any other government or society, we can “connect the dots” of its discrete details, arguably Earth-related or not, in any number of ways. Get over it.

How convenient. So, having established a fault in the lynchpin of your original argument (which is to say, proving that the Tri-System is connected to human history)... suddenly we can explain anything in any way and don't let it get you down, man? And let me guess... the only thing this doesn't apply to is the use of some kind of standard calendar? Jeez.

Well, then you need a canon-based explanation for how and why “our” calendar gets used in a given case. My problem with P2 is, based on what it tells us about the Tri-System, I can’t draw the conclusion that the Tri-System is using “our” calendar. (And a future developer could therefore choose, in all good conscience, to make it otherwise.)

Well, we've established that there are humans in the Tri-System. We've established that the Tri-System's background is tied to human history. We've connected the Tri-System to the rest of the Wing Commander universe. Some of us have even theorized that we're viewing Privateer 2 through some kind of lense that translates everything into our own understanding. Any of these things suggest why they would be using 'our' calendar - and that's without dragging common sense into it.

Well, if this is, as you make it sound, just an article of faith for you – that absent a clear and unambiguous statement by EA that it is a different calendar you will choose to believe it is the same calendar – why bother arguing over possible logical interpretations of the text and game play? My only point in these regards has been and remains that in the end we don’t know enough to say for sure what kind of calendar is being used, and accordingly, we should remain neutral on the question. So, no, I’m not a member of your “religion” on this point, but how does that give you the right to trample on my “science”?

This is offensive and just plain stupid. How can you actually see yourself as some kind of poor oppressed scientist? You're not peddling in facts, you're arguing vauge notions that I should be wrong because you selectively ignore things I point out and then argue that everything is just too vauge for you to accept that a year could possibly last 365 days (like it does for every other culture in Wing Commander).

"Science" doesn't prove theories by lack of evidence. Hey, this drug may cure cancer... we didn't prove it *doesn't*! Take that, religion! (That is to say, you're acting like those Privateer Remake 'retro versus whatever' teenagers with this comment.)


Yeah, it’s almost like the concept of canon has become a joke to you now too, as with that express redefinition of a meter in Voices of War that I guess you want to say we should ignore and pretend doesn’t exist. Holy cow, at what point in your travels were you waylaid, kidnaped, and brainwashed by the anti-canon “rebels”? (Oh, but I guess you wouldn’t be allowed to recall that, would you?) I’m afraid all I can do is keep knocking you on the head with facts and logic.

And since we’re discussing Armada, why is it, do you suppose, that Origin decided to play with the concept of the Kilrathi calendar and metric system there? I mean, it was free to have done that in any of the prior games, I would think. Why only in Armada? Is there anything “special”, perhaps, about Armada that might account for it? Any thoughts on that? I mean, if there were “something” about Armada that set it apart from the other games and that could be seen as having motivated the desire to differentiate the Kilrathi systems of measurement, we could then see if P2 presents any similar aspects that, purely on the basis of consistency, predict the same should – or, at the very least, might – have been done for that game.

I'm not clear on how understanding that something works makes it a joke to me. I do find it silly to accept on the surface that the Kilrathi use the same dating system as we do... but I'm willing to believe that it's a conceit on the same level as the fact that all the Kilrathi documents are written in English (it's uglier because of the base-eight conversion, but not impossible). Of course, I'd apply the same standard to Privateer 2.

But we don't apply standards here, do we?

And why are we pulling all this why why why behind the scenes crap? We both know why they played with the Kilrathi numbers -- just like we both know why Richard answered the Privateer 2 question the way he did. We both know that neither of these things is actually going to have any effect on some future Electronic Arts product. Here's the real behind the scenes why: why are we playing this polite little game?

Of course it’s a reason to do so, because it’s based, not on whim (or faith), which you imply, but on reason. Though I would say you have been guilty in this thread of confusing the two.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you to go back and reply to that paragraph again with an actual argument instead of a silly personal attack.

Except that we don’t know what its “rightful place” is yet. Otherwise, I couldn’t care less.

Privateer 2 takes place in the Tri-System, roughly one hundred years after Wing Commander Prophecy.

Claiming anything else because you don't like Privateer 2 or because you feel like arguing that years might not really mean years is insulting to all aspects of the series.

We do have and follow a system that requires proof – our theory and practice of debating canon. And in this case, such debate yields no firm conclusion about P2's calendar (or much of anything else about how the Tri-System fits into the WC universe).

But you refuse to accept that, and I can only come back to my query whether you’re being overly protective of the fact it’s a WC game, or you’re positing some new level of dogma – “In the absence of express contradiction, it is Origin’s/Humanity’s/My dictate that we believe, fervently and fearfully, that the way of the Confed is true for all the universe and for all eternity, Amen.”

In either case, I just don’t see the need. (But I’ll be happy to consider the dogma-thing if the CIC will offer to freely provide all “true believers” with monk-like, WC-initialed robes. Cool!)

In the absense of express contradiction, STATED FACTS ARE TRUE. (And refining the meta-argument, what's with this poor crazed LOAF implication? You're clearly arguing for the sake of having argued to exactly the same extent that I'm arguing because I believe in Privateer 2 -- so drop the act.)

Well, what would be the point of creating a WC game that has no material “tie-ins” to the rest of WC? And yet, that’s what happened. So much for your argument. We can wish it were otherwise, but the consequences for any analysis of P2's canon are obvious – we can’t say with any confidence how the Tri-System will be further delineated in relation to the rest of WC. It’s up for grabs. And in accordance with our debates of canon generally, we should never say – or maybe promise is the better word – any more than logic allows, and in this case logic is at a loss to say much of anything.

This comment is based on a faulty claim: there *are* material tie-ins to the rest of Wing Commander in Privateer 2. We have established this time and time and time again at this very message board.

You took a poll, did you? How exactly? Care to post it?

Here's what I did: I read the FAQ (linked earlier in this thread). Here's what it says: "The Tri-System is not currently a part of the Confederation."

"not currently part of the Confederation" DOES NOT MEAN completely unconnected to the Confederation. It does not mean it's never been part of the Confederation or that it will never be part of the Confederation (not that either of these two things have any importance to how connected the Tri-System may be to the rest of human culture).

The Confederation is a political entity in the Wing Commander Universe. It is not synonymous with the galaxy and there is absolutely no way to take the term Confederation and decide that it means "everything in Wing Commander" or even (as source after source introduces with things like the Landreich) everything *human*.

So lets ask again: how do you keep misreading Origin's response to believe that it means the Tri-System is unconnected to the rest of the galaxy?

No, it’s not what I see but what I’m not seeing that’s the problem. (You know, my dear Gregory, like that dog that didn’t bark in the night.) Here was an opportunity for Origin to lay out and confirm the basic canon of P2, the Tri-System’s relationship to humans, Earth, and the Confederation, every single thing you’ve been desperately trying to convince us of in the absence of such express confirmation, and Origin passed on the opportunity, settling instead for the most equivocal and generic description possible, the kind of statement a person makes when wanting to reveal and/or commit himself to as little as possible.

This is beyond bizarre. Because Steinberg *didn't* choose to write some kind of extensive history of the Tri-System in his FAQ then his intention was clearly to establish-by-omission the exact opposite of what he actually wrote?

Yeah, Origin said something... but they *could* have said more! That's actually your argument? That's *assinine*. You can, once again, apply this standard to anything ever. Hey, Armada looks like it takes place in 2669... but their failure to publish a FAQ confirming that that's 2669 AD means that it was always their intention for it not to be that?

That’s bad news for your argument, and not because it serves as any indication of how a future game will treat the Tri-System (a foolish extrapolation), but because Origin showed us that it itself lacked the degree of faith that you have in what a future game will confirm.

I guess your only recourse now is to vow in this thread that you will be that future developer. We certainly don’t have a reasonable basis for any sure conclusions otherwise regarding the Tri-System.

This is very, very far removed from anything that appears in the thread.

No, the Tri-System dates are clearly useful in-game and in-system regarding the Tri-System’s storyline and history (what little is related). My only point is to ask whether they’re also useful “out-game” and “out-system” regarding the other WC histories, and they simply aren’t at this point. There’s nothing to keep a developer from relating the respective realities any way he/she thinks best (including, of course, equating 2790 with “our” 2790).

This conclusion, however, is strictly in keeping with how we debate canon in the normal course. When we “resolve” a conflict within or among the other games, all we’ve done is propose a logical solution or solutions that EA may or may not in the future go along with. Our solutions certainly cannot be said – not honestly anyway – to be canon, only candidates for canon. And that’s part and parcel with what I’m saying here – that P2 presents such an extreme case, that there are so many ways a developer would feel free to further “define” the Tri-System, including its dates, that all we can truthfully say is that there is no single or even limited number of logical ways in which EA could proceed.

Yeah, if it weren't for those several date references we'd never know that one character's childhood took place when he was younger than he appears in the game (as an old man).

It clearly wasn't supposed to tie in to the existing future history or (at the very least) imply that the game is taking place far in the future from today (1996). (Note sarcasm)
 
Wow, ignoring the CIC members predictable black and white view of things (really not sure why its so important to them to fit everything into the same timeline, WCMovie and P2 being prime examples when each is perfectly capable of being complete experiences in their own right) but this is the biggest waste of time I've ever seen.

It honestly doesn't matter one way or the other, Privateer 2 didn't change our intepretation of the wing commander time line in any way shape or form so whether its a seperate universe or something tacked onto the end it doesn't alter either the Wing Commander or Privateer 2 experience.

Personally I'm not sure how a finiancial decision of borrowing a popular franchises name is proof of a shared timeline (I sadly find it neccessary to point out that its a FICTIONAL timeline in the first place). This doesn't happen in other fan communities, there aren't hoardes of resident evil fans maintaining that half of its characters were in two places at once or that Jill Valentine escaped Raccoon city and then decided to go back in for a laugh.
 
Read the thread before you troll it - we're debating what year Privateer 2 took place, not generic disaffected fanboy crap.
 
Dix said:
Hey all,

just a random nitpicking query for all the WC experts out here :p
I know Privateer 2 has to be canon (it's an original Origin WC game, after all), but is the Tri-system uni actually part of the rest of the WC 1/2/3/etc. universe, or a seperate beastie? thanks..

umm... before deteriorating into a flame that was the issue which had been raised. Forgive me for addressing the original point :rolleyes:
 
Your post completely ignored the actual thread, which already dealt with the old evil-marketing-conspiracy idiocy.

If you're truly too cool for these threads then you should probably just not post to them instead of the tired old "here's my opinion, and also everyone else is dumb for saying anything". Everyone sees through *that*.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Your post completely ignored the actual thread, which already dealt with the old evil-marketing-conspiracy idiocy.

If you're truly too cool for these threads then you should probably just not post to them instead of the tired old "here's my opinion, and also everyone else is dumb for saying anything". Everyone sees through *that*.

If that were the case no one would have listened to your posts in the history of these forums. I mean where the hell has all this evil conspiracy nonsense come from, money is the driving factor of what sequels get made, what endings get re-written (ok I have issues with this one), who gets cast, what projects get picked up in the first place, its hardly a conspiracy and is usually done to cater to the majority of the audience so they'll actually pay the price. How many people might have overlooked The Darkening if it didn't carry the name privateer? That would have neither benefited the developers nor the game playing public. To those not so deeply into the wing commander universe all they would care about is if they were getting a similar gameplay experience.
"Too cool"? we're in a forum discussing video games, you're addressing a computer programmer who has been spotted at more than his fair share of sci-fi conventions, what the hell is has coolness got to do with anything? Several times the question was raised of if you could ignore privateer 2 as part of the wing commander universe and whether or not this actually has an impact on how you view either would seem to be rather relevant (to a post only two above my first I might add).
 
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