Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 5 (August 17, 2008)

[Bandit LOAF]

This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the first Joan's page:

CONCEPT: You can't have a real Wing Commander manual without ship specifications! Why, that would be crazy! I'm looking at you, Wing Commander IV. This first page should be nice and short since it's just the field definitions used in every manual... almost.

REFERENCES-

• "Joan's" - As mentioned in another post, this comes from the original two Wing Commander games (and the Confed Handbook) which had it as their play on Jane's. I believe what made Electronic Arts uncomfortable was how close our graphic was to the real Jane's logo -- so we turned it burnt orange instead of blue and everyone was happy.
• "Epsilon Sector Supplement" - refers to the fact that the WC1 and WC2 Jane's updates were both location and time-specific supplements. Someone needs to do an entire Joan's book someday... and that someone would be me if Electronic Arts was ever willing to put out another Star*Soldier style online booklet.
• "Gunnery Sergeant Poore, TCMC" - This is Dan "Death" Poore of the Wing Commander fan group. I believe, but will not swear, that this is the first time TCMC has been used 'canonically' to refer to the Confederation Marines.
• "spaceframe" - This is a wonderful word that I may have made up. Like an airframe, but in space.
• "Rapier Cavalier" - Another reference to this fighter being the cream of the crop on the frontier.
• "Vampire" - the top Confederation fighter from Wing Commander Prophecy. It's hardly six months old in Wing Commander Arena, though...
• The rest is straight from Wing Commander III's Victory Streak! I had actually removed Pitch as a joke at one point but then decided it would be a little too cruel.

​

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Original update published on August 17, 2008

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Hehe, thinking about removing "Pitch", that's funny!

I don't get the phrase about the Vampire: "It's hardly six months old in Wing Commander Arena, though..."

 

[Frosty]

This came up in #Wingnut last night:

Aug 17 22:49:19 <Ryock> OH good, I had a question about the gloss from today.
Aug 17 22:49:38 <Ryock> ""Vampire" - the top Confederation fighter from Wing Commander Prophecy. It's hardly six months old in Wing Commander Arena, though..." <- This line confused me.
Aug 17 22:50:19 <LOAF> The paragraph it's referring to says the core worlds can build a new type of spaceframe every six months
Aug 17 22:50:30 <LOAF> So that's poiting out that the Vampire isn't a very good example of a six month old fighter
Aug 17 22:50:39 <LOAF> Since it's more than two decades old at this point.
Aug 17 22:51:19 <Ryock> Ah, that makes much more sense.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Ah, thanks! Now I know.