Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 51 (October 2, 2008)

[Bandit LOAF]

This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the first Port Broughton page:

CONCEPT: See the previous post! I do want to note that this article is a pastiche - it's supposed to sound like an overly dramatic popular magazine article, not attempt to be a piece of great writing.

REFERENCES-

• "first ten Midways" - The ICIS Manual establishes that the Navy plans to build ten Midway-class ships. I call this the 'first ten' because I assume the war changed the goal to building as many as possible...
• "Midway... Tripoli" - The ten names come from a list posted by Captain Johnny some years ago. It's one of my favorite pieces of trivia and I wanted to make sure it was 'canonized'. Note that the prose specifically avoids giving a fate to Midway herself. It's up to a full fledged game designer to sink a 'hero' ship!
• The picture is the ready room from Wing Commander Prophecy. There were no characters standing around, so I didn't mind lying in the caption...
• "Shrike" - One of the attack fighters assigned to the Midway in Prophecy.
• "Jarma lizards" - One of several 'background aliens' mentioned in Action Stations.
• "Platolum jewelry" - Platolum was the amazing laser-proof metal discovered on Ghorah Khar in Victory Streak.
• "optic nerves" - A commodity from Privateer 2. Creepy!
• "Firekkan feather trinkits" - I'm not sure if Firekkans can lose their feathers or not... but this was certainly inspired by the fact that the Kilrathi are eating Firekkan roasts in Voices of War.
• "Marine dog tags" - Borrowed from a similarly nasty reality where shady street markets in Vietnam sell (fake) GI dog tags.
• "Hell's Kitchen" - Drink mentioned in Wing Commander IV's intro. The ingredients aren't mine save for the addition of 'Brimstone' (a system from Wing Commander I).
• "Kilrathi guave-ape" - I guess this is some kind of monkey that tastes like fruit? Mmmmm.
• "Terran hamburger" - Inspired by the early episode of seaQuest where Krieg is trying to smuggle an illegal hamburger onto the ship.
• "Wu stringo" - Made up instrument. The Wu are elephant-sized aliens from Action Stations, so the idea of a human playing whatever their instrument is is amusing.
• "credit chit", "dol chit" - Ah hah! I used both 'credits' (mentioned in everything but Armada) and 'dols' (Armada) as the currency. So... what's the difference? You decide!
• Kilrathi, hookers and mercenaries - That'd be a great game.
• "Gorth" - The Gorth were a species conquered by the Kilrathi, according to Fleet Action. For some reason what I'm envisioning here is that Gorth is the future equivalent of Spanish - a good second language to have in the Confederation. I don't know why, I think it's just a fun word to say.
• "Brilliance, Ultimate, Elysium, Warp Steroids, Happy Death" - A veritable whose-who of Wing Commander's narcotics! In order: Privateer, Privateer, Privateer 2, Privateer 2, Action Stations.
• "Kilnip" - And my own addition to that pantheon! I think the inspiration is clear.
• "Durasteel" - Here's where we get to those pods everyone hates so much -- literally!
• "Kennedy Annex" - Kennedy is just a popular name for anything in space.

​

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Original update published on October 2, 2008

 

[Death]

"Firekkan feather trinkits" - I'm not sure if Firekkans can lose their feathers or not...

IIRC, they are mentioned to molt when agitated, in Freedom Flight during the escape after breaking the captured Firekkans out of their cells.

Of course, worst case you can pluck them. I can't imagine eagles voluntarily giving up their feathers for Indian headgear, for example...

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Ah, now we know that we don't know anything about Midway's fate.

 

[Dundradal]

Ah, now we know that we don't know anything about Midway's fate.

We've known we've known since S*S came out. Look at the Reference thread I started back then.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Oh, I remember that thread but I wasn't totally convinced back then.

 

[AD]

I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but the Port Broughton article is my absolute favorite part of Star*Soldier. It's a necessary and elegant way of bringing the seemingly random modes of Arena into a greater context.

It would have been cool though if, like the battleship map, that the habipods and other antenas and whatnot could be detroyed by the enemy to visualy tell us what kind of state the carrier/station was in.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

But...you can destroy the little thingies on the Midway in the gauntlet mode.

Or did I misunderstand you?

 

[AD]

But...you can destroy the little thingies on the Midway in the gauntlet mode.

Or did I misunderstand you?

I'm saying you should have been able to.