Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 32 (September 14, 2008)

Bandit LOAF

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the Nephilim page:
CONCEPT: I have been dreaming about this image for years - I even have a drawing of it that I did as a kid, with the Wing Commander I ships. It comes from a British plane spotting poster from the Great War which featured all the fighters at the top, the bombers in the middle and then huge blimps and Zeppelins at the bottom. I've always thought it would transition perfectly to Wing Commander, with capital ships replacing the ligher-than-air stuff. There's a copy posted at the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and I should really go take a picture the next time I'm in town because I can never find exactly the one I'm thinking about online.

Obviously, we fudged it somewhat since everything else in the manual suggests that the Nephilim War has ended... but I had to include this, I just had to. For the images we colored Wing Commander Prophecy VDU images -- and as many have pointed out we tried to add a few new ships for variation (it was tough to do, though, and still keep the poster meaningful - I assume the Nephilim have a lot of new hardware that isn't on here). Note that they are to scale in their individual groupgs. I'll identify the ships (row by row) in the comments. While we did name the new designs, consider what I tell you 'unofficial' since it doesn't appear in print.
REFERENCES-
  • Fighters and Bombers, Row 1: Ray Node w/ Remoras, Devil Ray, Skate Cluster, Tarpon, Lamprey
  • Fighters and Bombers, Row 2: Manta, Skate, Moray
  • Fighters and Bombers, Row 3: Squid, Stingray, Puffer
  • Support Ships: Triton, Earwig, Barracuda
  • Ships of the Line, Row 1: Tiamat, Marlin, Orca
  • Ships of the Line, Row 2: Kraken, Hydra
  • Ships of the Line, Row 3: Leviathan
  • "Watch Officer" - Terminology straight from the Blitz!
  • The "Marlin" is a reference to the Wing Commander Prophecy Gold box, which displays a Hydra identified as a Marlin (an earlier name for the ship in-development, but in that context implying that it's a new ship for the new game).
  • The flag was done by Bob McDob based on the one seen in the Wing Commander movie introduction. I've been told since that the actual colors are slightly off (it's not colored in the intro), but this is the in-continuity representation now!
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Original update published on September 14, 2008
 
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So the Tarpon, Puffer, Earwig and of course the 'Marlin' round out the new ships included in the game. Interesting.

We've seen the name Earwig before somewhere, haven't we? In reference material or some such? It sounds vaguely familiar like it was on the WCP or WCSO CD's.

The Tarpon is interesting because it's brand new. Interestingly, it has not one but three references in the real world, first The SS-14 was called the USS Tarpon, and then the SS-175 was also called the USS Tarpon.

Lastly, in an odd bit of Trivia, the 'Grumman Tarpon' was the British version of the venerable TBF Avenger made so popular during World War II. Yay for triple references!
 
Jason_Ryock said:
The Tarpon is interesting because it's brand new. Interestingly, it has not one but three references in the real world, first The SS-14 was called the USS Tarpon, and then the SS-175 was also called the USS Tarpon.

Lastly, in an odd bit of Trivia, the 'Grumman Tarpon' was the British version of the venerable TBF Avenger made so popular during World War II. Yay for triple references!
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The reference is that the Tarpon is a type of fish, named similarly to all the other Nephilim ships.
 
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