Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 20 (September 1, 2008)

[Bandit LOAF]

This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the second systems page:

CONCEPT: See the [post=360027]previous post[/post]!

REFERENCES-

• "Space Station" - This is the space station map which is shared by at least two of Arena's modes. It's an all-encompassing superstructure that surrounds all of the level's action (and features neat fly through bays and so forth).
• "Polaris Roads Naval Station" - I was so happy to add this to the canon. Polaris Roads is a wonderful name that was created in an early Wing Commander movie script for Admiral Tolwyn's base of operations. It's such a fantastic mix of pulp sci fi and classic naval imagery, just in those two words... I love it.
• "15th Fleet" - One higher than we've seen before - Wing Commander 2 featured the 14th Fleet.
• "Hvar'kann and Behemoth-class dreadnaughts" - I did several things here: I officially named two classes of Wing Commander III ships (and gave a class to one!)... and I also confirmed (I hope) that more Behemoths were built to fight the Nephilim (or for other reasons; the Wing Commander Prophecy guide half-suggests that more are in service in 2681).
• "Kilrathi Durasteel" - Refers to the 'cat colored' version of Wing Commander's regular metal.
• "biopolys from the distant Tri-System" - Listen: I love Privateer 2. A lot. I wanted to do whatever I could to connect it to the Wing Commander universe... but I also wanted to make sure I stuck with Origin's dictates, that it existed a hundred years in the future in a distant and unconnected place. So instead of going whole hog like I did with some other explanations, I just snuck some bits like this in. Biopolys were one of the game's commodities and of course the Tri-System was where it took place. The mythology I want to advance here is that it's reallllly far away and that it only ultra-long-range explorer/traders have any contact with that area of the universe.
• "continual melee" - Since this is the game's melee map (well, one of them)!
• "engine upgrade" - Refers to the gameplay of Privateer plus the fact that Wing Commander Arena had originally hoped to include an economy system.
• "Odell" - Odell Lake, a classic Apple ][ game.
• "Grissom" - Astronaut Gus Grissom.
• "Population" - That's a lot of people! Wing Commander has always been sort of odd about populations: always way over or way under. The WCP official guide says that 2.1 trillion humans (and 7.4 trillion kils) died in the Terran-Kilrathi War... but then the Wing Commander universe bible has major star systems with 200,000 people in them.
• "New Detroit" - The 'Blade Runner' planet from the original Privateer.
• "Arcologies" - I imagine that these are a real thing, but I and everyone else knows them from Sim City. Secret Ops' fiction also mentions an arcology.
• "Vengance strikes" - Doesn't that do something for you? My thought is some futuristic equivalent to the late-war Kamikaze strikes that the Japanese launched (which were never really emulated in our Pacific War allegory-games).
• "Trafalgar System" - Trafalgar was spoken of in a Wing Commander III newsbrief but never actually visited. I put the game's "meteor storm" mode here and attempted to come up with a reason why you would be playing asteroids in Wing Commander (and, honestly, I think it works!). I've connected it to our 'just barely holding on' story for the Epsilon Sector and hopefully made your work important instead of just an arcade run.
• "Tanhauser Nebula" - Also from the Wing Commander III newsbriefs and organized in the Wing Commander Universe map.
• "sharpshooters, top credit" - I hope someone else appreciates this mix of folksy warfare plus futurustic plugin termnology.
• "Kilrathi pandemic" - The Kilrathi Saga calendar confirms that Trafalgar was one of three worlds hit by the Kilrathi in 2669 (Wing Commander III - we flew at Locanda, another of them.)
• "Quarto" - One of the great Wing Commander fan project leaders!
• "mining bases and refinery outposts" - The two types of stations seen in Privateer. From the description here, though, I'm also clearly imagining Known Space's Belt.

--
Original update published on September 1, 2008

 

[Wedge009]

I wonder if Confed would have really gone ahead with building more Behemoths or whether the quote could be seen as a historical reference ("had these ships still existed, even they could find a berth here" sort of thing). Confed had reduced its military spending after the Kilrathi war and although one could argue that it could easily have increased the budget in light of the Nephilim invasion, would it really have resorted to immeasurably expensive super-weapons to fight them? It must have been a pretty concentrated, rock-hard, massive lump of Nephilim junk to require the "biggest gun in the univese".

 

[Jason_Ryock]

I wonder if Confed would have really gone ahead with building more Behemoths or whether the quote could be seen as a historical reference ("had these ships still existed, even they could find a berth here" sort of thing). Confed had reduced its military spending after the Kilrathi war and although one could argue that it could easily have increased the budget in light of the Nephilim invasion, would it really have resorted to immeasurably expensive super-weapons to fight them? It must have been a pretty concentrated, rock-hard, massive lump of Nephilim junk to require the "biggest gun in the univese".

I was also rather under the impression that the Behemoth was only useful against planets with already present seismic factors. Though I suppose blasting anything with a burst of energy is still blasting something with a burst of energy.

 

[Lorien]

I was also rather under the impression that the Behemoth was only useful against planets with already present seismic factors. Though I suppose blasting anything with a burst of energy is still blasting something with a burst of energy.

The Nephilim reefs strike me as something that would be good to hit with 500 million gigawatts. I wonder what the completed design was like? Imagine all that power diverted to shields and turrets scattered around the ship.