Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 24 (September 5, 2008)

[Bandit LOAF]

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

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

REFERENCES-

• "S'thran-Pak" - An anonymous Kilrathi system from the Wing Commander Universe map. This is Arena's "duel" mode, which is a very cool map. I'm proud of not taking the easy way out here - it would have been very simple to write a story about an asteroid crater rather than working out Wing Commander's equivalent of pistol duels.
• "Murragh's Empire" - Murragh was the Kilrathi dissident seen in False Colors; plans for the sequel to that book would have had him entering the civil war to try and reclaim the Empire for himself (we'll talk about that later).
• "L5" - Lagrange Points are specific areas in star systems where you can build a space station without worrying that it would gravitate in any particular direction.
• "Charon System" - Arena's multi-purpose boneyard map! The Charon System was first seen in The Secret Missions, which I reference here as the Boneyard's origin.
• "channels and tunnels" - These are obviously present in the game, but there were actually more earlier in the development process - you can kind of see some of their entrance points at the center of the map, which you would have had to use special maneuvers to access.
• "Gotherian Crystals" - The special ops team from Action Stations (Tolwyn, Turner, Richards and Kruger) carried a load of Gotherian Crystals as their cover while investigating a frontier trading post. It's a great connection, since the map is chock fupp of crystals.
• "largest Kilrathi pleasure world" - Look at that population! 19 billion kils is a lot... my intent here was to show that Kilrathi planets could have a *lot* of cat meat on them, to help explain why their wartime casualties were so very high (per the Wing Commander Prophecy guide). Since the Kilrathi were the ones wiping out entire planets, it's odd that their casualties were three times those of Earth (unless we're counting post-war suicides... and we are).
• "Kiranka Overlay" - I wanted to use these to imply what three of the five factions in the Kilrathi Civil War were: Murragh's Empire, the Qarg Governorship and the Kiranka Overlay. The other two are found elsewhere in the manual, more directly stated - the Ki'ra and the Sihkag.
• "k'g'harg ceremony" - Sorry, you'll have to use your imagination. Nonetheless, isn't the idea of a Kilrathi pleasure planet being a significantly different cultural experience cool? The story writes itself...

--
Original update published on September 5, 2008

 

[Dundradal]

The connection to the AS mission is great. He's right it is a great connection to the map.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

And now we know what the five sides in the Kilrathi civil war are.

I ask myself now: does that mean that the other noble clans (Caxki, Kur'u'tak, Sutaghi, Ragitagha) suppor the Kilrathi Assembly of Clans?

 

[Dundradal]

I'm glad to know Murragh's Empire managed to survive the early attempt mentioned in the timeline. I bet Graham is still with him after all this time.

 

[Blaster]

And now we know what the five sides in the Kilrathi civil war are.

I ask myself now: does that mean that the other noble clans (Caxki, Kur'u'tak, Sutaghi, Ragitagha) suppor the Kilrathi Assembly of Clans?

It's possible they were all wiped out by the bugs.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Well not all of them, since these Clan names appear in the pilot list in S*S. But yeah, who knows what casualties the Kilrathi suffered during the Nephilim invasion.

 

[Quarto]

I don't think there's really any reason to assume that all the other clans support the Assembly of Clans. It would be unwise to read too much into the name "Assembly of Clans" - we all know how democratic and people-oriented People's Democratic Republics are . I would imagine that at least some of the clans would be happier to support an Empire (even if it meant allegiance to another clan) than the Assembly of Clans which always sounded like something imitating human government (though, of course, we really know nothing about it).

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

You're right, of course. But I wondered whether the author considered them to be supporting the Assembly of Clans.
After all, I have some sympathy for Melek .