Well, like I said, even situations where the "official" person or people are directly involved in a new telling of a given story, either on a different platform (from PC or novel to TV or movie), or sometimes even just with a new developer, the result is so drasticly different as to be merely based on the original. William Gibson is probably the best example of all. Have you read the original Johnny Mnemonic? As I said, he did write the screen play and choose the director for the film. And wrote the original story in the first place. But the 2 are *very* different from one another.
I'm sorry - not familiar with either the film or the book of Johnny Mnemonic.
I'm not really explaining myself very well, re: Wing Commander - 1996 was a really neat year for Wing Commander specifically because there was such a big push for continuity. There was going to be an elaborate Privateer TV series that would begin and end with tie-ins to Privateer 2 (Chris Roberts' project, not The Darkening) and Privateer 3... there was going to be an Academy style 'animated' game to tie it to WC1... they even talked about a Darkening/Blair crossover of some sort. The market fell through and most of it never happened - but they were trying really hard to create a continuous Wing Commander universe after Wing Four.
For that matter, look at what Roberts did in the movie. I don't even know where to begin, so I probably won't. It was about as much Wing Commander as Starship Troopers was Starship Troopers (which is to say, very little).
Well - the movie is another discussion entirely... one I'm certainly willing to
have, but you can probably find all the relevant points in old threads (G)
Hellcats were long retired and either put out to pasture or used as target drones. Bearcats went into service with other nations (we didn't have much use for a prop driven interceptor/air superiority fighter - that's what the F-86 was for). Even the P-47 was retired, much to the chagrin of F-51 pilots forced to move mud, some even said they'd buy their own Jug if only they had the money. The P-51 (F-51) and F4U remained in service in Korea. The F4U from Korea was greatly improved over it's WWII counterpart, but, each was relegated to mud moving.
But, we had nothing better for mud moving, so it made sense to continue to use the existing stock of equipment we had. Also, the rate of advance would (and does) slow down between wars. Even with that, we still went from dabbling in jet turbines with the P-80, to a committed transition with the F-86.
So I still see it perfectly reasonable to say that each game represents the changing technology (to give the marketing a game based explanation).
I was under the impression that the reconnaissance variant of the Bearcat (F8F-2P?) saw use early on in Korea. I may well be wrong - I haven't really looked into such things in several years, so any knowledge I have is rather rusty.
Anyway, to discuss Wing Commander:
Wing Commander II's Special Operations disks end in mid-2667, and at that time we see a new group of fighters coming online: SuperFerrets, Crossbows and Morningstars. We get a mid-2668 'state of the fleet' update through the Wing Commander Academy (game) manual - the WC2 ships (Ferret/Epee/Rapier II/Sabre/Broadsword) are still in service, Morningstars are Confed's primary capship killer and Crossbows are on the front lines. Confed is getting ready to put the new Wraith-class into service as the top of the line space superiority fighter. Fleet Action brings us to the end of 2668 and supports all of this - the WC2 fighters are still in service, albeit with service life extending upgrades (Sabre-D kits and an unspecified upgrade to the Broadsword-class). WC1's Hornets and Raptors even show up as parts of Confed's reserve squadrons. Wing Commander Armada, which takes place around the same time, now puts the Wraith in frontline service. (It also introduces several other new fighters - though the Banshee and the Phantom are said to be evolutions of WC1's Raptor and Scimitar (respectively)).
Then it gets weird, though - Wing Commander III is about three months after Armada and it has an almost entirely new set of fighters (the exception is the Arrow, which shows up in Armada). Did Confed build an entirely new group of fighters? Sure, that's quite possible - wouldn't be the first time. But I don't see these amazing new top of the line fighters going straight to a reserve light carrier. It's always seemed more likely to me that FW-36's "new" ships in WC3 are older reserve craft... going along with the older carrier and her older escorts.
To discuss the ships specifically. The Excalibur, of course, is new - that's a necessary part of the background fiction of Wing Commander III. It doesn't really affect the possibility that we're flying reserve spacecraft, though, as there's no Excalibur squadron onboard the Victory... we recieve the survivors from the TCS Eagle as a plot device later in the story. The Thunderbolt is fairly new - we're told in the Authorized Combat Guide to Wing Commander III that it entered service in mid-2668, though that it isn't particularly popular. The Thunderbolt doesn't show up in Academy, so there's no need to look into it much further. The three ships that we actually see on Academy:
The Arrow (V) should be a non-issue - Armada gives a 2654 service-entry date for the fighter... and, at one point, Armada even uses it in the same manner as Academy - as a fast personell courier.
The Hellcat V isn't *actually* in Academy... we see it simulated at the Academy, in the same manner that the Wraith prototype is simulated in the WCA game before its ever actually built. Since the Hellcat has been established as the direct replacement for the Rapier II, this seems reasonable given your idea that Confed's fighter replacement mirrors that of the US Navy in World War II. The Rapier II is in service now (2654) and pilots are already being trained on its replacement (There's also a nice, albeit unofficial, theory that the Hellcats seen in Wing Commander Academy are in fact Wildcats - the predecessor seen early in the war in 'Action Stations'. Similar designs for the two ships would be a fun tie in to Wing Commander's "WW2 in space" theme.)
The Longbow is the third. I don't think there's much to talk about here - we see it for approximately three frames, and we get no idea of armament or specifications. Given that the Morningstar and the Crossbow have just entered service mid/late 2667, it seems possible to me that the Longbow is an older design (the Longbow's quick retirement after the war would seem to support this - the Longbow and the Arrow were the first of Confed's fighter classes to leave the inventory in the post-war era).
Anyway, that's my logic for fighter development and such.
I'm not so sure. I know you said that because the official guide to 1 & 2 show Blair and Maniac meeting in the academy it's canon, but, that guide had some odd stuff going on that I can't remember specificly enough to recite at the moment. Has Origin or Roberts said that the storyline aspects of that guide is official? Just because Origin sanctioned the book itself doesn't mean that the fiction components are also accepted as official. (all it takes is for someone with the authority to look at it, decide it represents the product well (which could be based on any imaginable criteria) and give it the stamp of approval.)
Like most of the official guides (exception being the WC3 Authorized Guide), the WC1/2 guide was actually done in-house. Mike Harrison was an Origin staff writer, who worked on most of their early nineties titles. (Origin's Wing Commander bible actually includes a significant (~60%) of the guides 'story' as its WC1/2 background for new writers).
That aside though, how'd the Tigers Claw go from an unimportant ship in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of cadets, to an important ship in the war effort, on the forefront of Confed strategy, even being selected for "secret missions" and diplomatic detail?
I would imagine that the success of the Dolos operation at the end of the series earned the 'Claw its... claws.
Why was a commodore commading the ship and it's fighter compliment? That's the Wing Commanders (cough cough lol) job.
Captain and Wing Commander are distinct - even in the original Wing Commander, Captain Thorn commanded the 'Claw while Halcyon commanded the wing. My understanding of Academy was that the ship had a regular complement of fighters which would have a regular Wing Commander... and that Tolwyn was simply teaching the command school (and commanding the ship).
Why were Broadswords and torps present in WCA when they weren't in WC1, even though many of the missions were to take out capital ships and starbases (which torpedos were not only built for, were also explained as shield tech got to the point where fighters guns were useless and torps were the only way to bring the large targets down)?
The first torpedoes appear in Action Stations, at the very beginning of the war. Just looking at the games, though, you can see that the requirement for torpedoes is cyclical:
Wing Commander (1) - Guns are stronger than shields. You can destroy a capital ship with any sort of fighter-based weapons.
Wing Commander II - Shields have improved - to destroy a capital ship, torpedoes are necessary.
Wing Commander III - Guns have improved - to destroy a capital ship, you can use guns and missiles (or torpedoes, which are still in the inventory).
Wing Commander IV - Same tech level as Wing Commander IV... until the end, when ships like Axius and the Vesuvius appear whose shields cannot be damaged with guns.
Wing Commander Prophecy - Shields are better than guns - you need torpedoes to destroy enemy ships... until the end of the game, when new guns (like the Plasma weapon) are good enough to punch through enemy shields on their own.
Just take it backwards a bit - and it fits with all of the novels and Academy.
Thats got to be the worst argument I've seen here in a while.