The one thing where Wing Commander was far better than most popular Sci-Fi

[Ijuin]

Speaking of naive, one cliche that really annoys me in Stargate and Star Trek (yeah I know..) is the "not deserved" accusation. Closely aligned with the "You haven't invented your stuff!"

Notice how the really big baddies (the ones who can't be reformed) never develop their own war machinery. They can't even copy stuff, the info must be literally sucked out from victims. The Borg have assimiliated everything, not invented. Same with the Goa'Uld basically. There are other examples. It follows the naive thought that "the evil ones" never can have technological progress on their own. It must have been stolen, always. this is a very romantic and unrealistic thought.

I think that this theme comes from the idea that "more liberty in a society = larger number of open-minded less-dogmatic intellectuals = more discoveries". The popular present-day perception of human history is that societies that restricted intellectual freedom (especially by silencing those who speak against political/religious/scientific dogma) advance in science and technology a lot slower than those who don't, unless they "parasite" off of the discoveries made by outsiders.

Thus, any society that is seen as highly conservative and unwilling to allow dissent is also seen as one that is slower to adopt new ideas (including scientific ideas). If they do not start off a conflict with a clear technological advantage, then they will be outpaced by societies that are willing to cast aside old theories for new ones in a hurry. This leaves the conservative society with a dilemma: In order to keep up technologically, they must either get it from an external source, or they must allow "ideological pollution" into their society in order to let their scientists work faster. A society that executes anybody who claims that the world is round is not going to advance very fast unless they either get their advancement from somebody else or they stop killing anybody who gets new ideas.

 

[Delance]

I would have changed the motivation of Hobbes' betrayal though. Hobbes turning sides because he didn't want to see Kilrah blown to smithereens by a doomsday weapon would have been better.

That always bugged me a little because the personality overlay plot was ultimately convoluted and unnecessary and much weaker and less relatable than Hobbes simply not wishing to see Kilrah blown to dust.

Then I'd go a step farther and make Blair's choice be between killing Hobbes and protecting the immoral weapon... or letting him go knowing he wants to warn his hrai/clan.

That sounds good to me, however Blair had to/would protect the Immoral weapon anyway. While playing for the first time WC3, I really had no qualms nuking Kilrah - I even liked the quasi-religious request frmo Paladin to "blow them all to hell". However, later I began to think that it was not really a very nice thing to do.

But I guess if you are losing a war that has been going on for decades and consumed billions of lives your ethics and general sanity really wears down.

I'm actually not a huge fan of the Kilrathi winning the war through WC3. It made for better individual drama for Blair, but I regret not getting to see the World War II analogy to completion...

I wonder if nuking Kilrah was like nuking Ella in the sense that it was harder, but not impossible to win to win without, or if it was truly a sine qua non.

 

[AD]

I wonder if nuking Kilrah was like nuking Ella in the sense that it was harder, but not impossible to win to win without, or if it was truly a sine qua non.

The way it's presented in the game, if you fail the Kilrathi overrun Earth...

 

[Delance]

The way it's presented in the game, if you fail the Kilrathi overrun Earth...

I agree, but there's that whole subplot on the novel about the Belisarius group being the main motivation for Tolwyin to deploy the Behemoth, and not the imminent Confederation defeat.

But I believe that the way it's presented in the game is a more efficient motivation, if not for anything else because it gave us that awesome speech from Eisein, one of the best cutscenes on Wing Commander or any other video game, ever.

 

[Delance]

I'm actually not a huge fan of the Kilrathi winning the war through WC3. It made for better individual drama for Blair, but I regret not getting to see the World War II analogy to completion...

About the WWII analogy, I believe they did go for that in an inverted way, I remember some notes about the last missions to protect Earth a "Hitler's Bunker" kind of scenario where defeat was inevitable and surrender was not an option. Also Confed was a side that was losing the war and its only hope of victory rested on superweapons. From a purely strategically perspective, it was closer to the Axis than the Allies in this regard.

It's a little unsetteling beacuse we, as Confed, were the good guys, but a WWII analogy wouldn't have a lot of drama. "Colonel, you must deploy the Temblor Bomb on Kilrah because invading it would just be too much trouble and too many confed soldiers would be lost" isn't that epic. It could be interesting if you added a more conspiratorial "And that way the other powers of the Galaxy will fear us", especially considering that the destruction of Kilrathi sprung the events of Wing Commander Prophecy.

My feeling is that they were trying to create a mission in which victory would mean the immediate victory in the war, and defeat would mean the immediate defeat in the war. That’s not a very plausible scenario for such a long and massive conflict, so the superweapon device was the way the authors could find to create a more dramatic climax.

 

[Farbourne]

Heh. The first time I completed WC3, I was a freshman in college. My roommate watched me beat the game (he didn't play himself, but had read on GameFaqs or something how one beat the game and what happened so that he could have a bunch of snide comments saved up for me...like mocking the endless flow of Ekapsis that shot me down multiple times...). Right after I beat the game for the first time, by nukiing Kilrah, he started calling me "Hitler", and continued to do so for the rest of the weak. Ah, the maturity of 18 year old boys. Although with a better sense of history, maybe he should have been calling me "Truman", or at least "LeMay".

Regarding the Hobbes thing...wasn't the personality overlay sub-plot actually cut out of the game, as shipped? As I recall, the first time I played through, Hobbes betrays you and runs off. I opted not to follow him, and when I encountered him over Kilrah, he was completely silent. Never responding to any comms at all. The "explanation" he leaves in your locker wasn't in the game, as shipped, I don't think (I was playing the KS version...maybe in the original version it was in there), so I always assumed that he *had* betrayed Confed because they were planning genocidal destruction of his homeworld. I just figured they'd done a poor job in editing the game of coming out and saying that.

Then, years later, I discovered the "missing" video with the personality overlay explanation, and was in two minds. On one hand, I was glad they finally explained why Hobbes had betrayed Confed, but on the other, I thought the reason was kind of lame and contrived. (I had just finished watching Babylon 5, which uses almost an identical plot device...twice...and thought it was lame there, too, but don't know whether Babylon 5 or WC3 came up with it first).

Question for LOAF or anyone else in the know: Was the overlay scene present in the original WC3 release? If not, why was it cut? Was it simply for space reasons, or was there a last minute decision made that it was kind of a lame plot device and they thought they could just lift it cleanly and leave it up to the player's imagination why Hobbes counterdefected? There was some other content I've seen (confed newscasts) that were also cut out of the game, which didn't seem to have a good reason for being cut...

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I wonder if nuking Kilrah was like nuking Ella in the sense that it was harder, but not impossible to win to win without, or if it was truly a sine qua non.

Everything we know indicates the latter. As AD pointed out, it happens in the game if you can't make it to Kilrah... and you have things like Tolwyn's justification of the Behemoth: "If the current trend continues, the Kilrathi will be walking on the Earth in six months, maybe less." More than that, I think the Confederation is out of miracles--there's just nothing left to oppose Thrakhath's "Grand Fleet".

I agree, but there's that whole subplot on the novel about the Belisarius group being the main motivation for Tolwyin to deploy the Behemoth, and not the imminent Confederation defeat.

It's important to note that even just in the context of False Colors this wasn't necessarily *true*--this was the story Tolwyn told to convince Bondarevsky to help him...

Question for LOAF or anyone else in the know: Was the overlay scene present in the original WC3 release? If not, why was it cut? Was it simply for space reasons, or was there a last minute decision made that it was kind of a lame plot device and they thought they could just lift it cleanly and leave it up to the player's imagination why Hobbes counterdefected? There was some other content I've seen (confed newscasts) that were also cut out of the game, which didn't seem to have a good reason for being cut...

The Hobbes tape and the news stories (and some other bits) were cut from the PC version, but not for any artistic reason. Back in 1994 there were still a good number of users who owned first generation 1x CD-ROM drives... which could only read 60-minute CDs instead of the standard 72-minute ones. Although the game doesn't officially support 1x CDs, the decision was made very late to make sure they could at least read the discs... and that necessitated cuts to the video. The footage appears in the console releases, which were built for a particular piece of hardware that could always read the larger CDs.

 

[boringnickname]

I am very glad they didn't include the Hobbes explanation. Hearing it would have for sure worsened the game for me.

It sure did to some extend after I've found it years later on the internet.

 

[boringnickname]

The Hobbes tape and the news stories (and some other bits) were cut from the PC version, but not for any artistic reason.

Really? I don't know, if I had to decide what to cut, I would have had cut some bar banter scene and not such an important plot point.

Maybe it's just the optimist in me who hopes that someone at Origin had common sense and realized that the overlay plot was less than perfect.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Heh, well, remember that they would be approaching these cuts as game designers rather than video editors... so the big idea would be to pick whole scenes that could be removed without changing how the morale system was balanced. (Note that the ones they removed also let them remove the associated 'postage stamps'--they're all scenes where you never have to click on that thing again.)

 

[Captain Obvious]

I remember being pretty amazed by the extra video included in the Playstation version especially because I had no idea it was there at the time. I bought it during a period long before dosbox when I just couldn't get WC3 running anymore. I get a kick out of the TCN stuff.

I have to agree I never liked the Hobbes thing either. WC2 is my favorite game and I really loved Hobbes so even though their intention was probably to spare your feelings by essentially saying "it wasn't really the Hobbes you knew that turned on you" it had the opposite effect by notifying me that I was being duped this entire time.

Hobbes turning on us to save his homeworld is totally understandable. The game should've played that up and added some moral ambiguity and complexity to the plot. I would've forgiven the Hobbes I knew and trusted for turning on us to save his home but I can't find myself able to forgive that he was a faker the whole time even if he himself didn't realize it .

 

[boringnickname]

UGH

Here in Germany they aired the new "V" for the first time, God, it sucked bad.

Hm, I have trashed the similiary themed "Earth: Final Conflict" (beginning from Season 2) pretty bad here, but I must cut it some some slack now.

Final Conflict, first season, was a great show that was literally killed in the second season by its new writing team and new direction, but now, even season 2 looks better since I've watched the atrocity that is the new V yesterday. At least EFC beginning from season 2 had still some of the "alien" design.



First of all, the aliens in EFC were truly "alien". In V they didn't even try. Funny how someone asked "Anna" (that's a name for an alien, wtf?) in the pilot why the Vs look like humans, the scientists on Earth say it's impossible. She just says it is possible, and that's it. No one asks further about this.

If you want to come across as friends, it's a dumb idea to appear out of nowhere without warning with your huge ass ships and kill 650 people in the process. WTF, are they stupid?

They told the people that they came for water and a mineral? Ehm.. and then they are wondering why there are protesters after they have setup "peace corps" and stuff, despite saying they won't stay long and just get the water? Stupid plot.

The humans and the aliens are lobotomized: The aliens seem to try everything to come across evil right away, like "accidentally" killing over 600 people in the first minute, using over-the-top Orwellian language like "We are of peace - always" and doing mass damage in the cities. Wile the humans see alien beings from outer space that look EXACTLY like them, have almost the same mannerisms, have even human names and carry clothes that could be bought at a mall in New York and somehow this is a non-issue, not even the protesters seem to be freaked out by this.

... Space lizards, really? It was acceptable for the original V in the 80s, but after the "astral" and truly otherwordly Taelons from EFC I expected something more. By the way, I want aliens and robots back to some extend. What's with American sci fi in this regard nowadays? Aliens look exactly like humans now, (yeah, I now, disguised..) not even ridged noses here. Robots look exactly like humans, too (Battlestar Galactica). And the latter without any transformation effects or the like to speak of. Not even the clothes of the aliens/robots are in any way "alien" in both shows.

No creativity in the design of the alien craft and equipment, it looks totally stale. The ships from Independence Day looked more interesting.

Teenage drama - What the heck?! The guy gets an alien girlfriend... what the heck I am watching here? Aliens travel thousands of light years to hang out at bars with teenagers and to fuck them. Mom catches her brat with a scantily clad alien in his room. The only thing that was missing here was a masturbation joke. My, American Pie seems to have really rocked the boat in Hollywood.

First contact with alien life - and you joke publically about how hot they look at the press conference..? who writes this CRAP? Unbelievable.

Mega-powerful alien supermen need PASSPORTS? What will humans do, trying to stop them at the airport if they don't have papers while their gigantic ships are hovering all over the world?! Oh come on, what a stooopid plot point, I can't believe they bothered with it. How "Anna" (again: What the fuck!) was obviously proud of that human document.. ridiculous.

Again a terrorist plot, with sleeper cells and all that comes with it. As if that wasn't done to death in Lost, 24, Battlestar Galactica..., no we need even MORE OF IT.

Yeah, my rant comes two years too late, and that thing is even cancelled, I know. Sorry.

But my.. this is some very bad television. Even "First Wave" was oscar material compared to this.

 

[Bob McDob]

UGH
But my.. this is some very bad television. Even "First Wave" was oscar material compared to this.

Just wait until they bring out THE EVENT.

 

[DaveO]

While I won't disagree that the new V series was badly written, I will give a slight kudo for the unhappy ending of the second season.

 

[QuailPilot]

Well, V does show what they look like underneath the human skin in some later episodes. Just saying.

 

[Flashpoint]

Gotta say I enjoyed the new V.
Sci-fi audiences today are generally an intelligent bunch and I think it's impossible to paper over a lot of holes like the minor ones you point out about V, without ruining where the show is trying to go. Story is more important than whether you can hear lasers in space, in my opinion.

In the end I was sad to see V end, but yeah, the writers were not exactly the best. The actual premise for the show was very intriguing and if written a little better, could have been teriffic.
As for Battlestar, the Cylon/human thing is an idea that goes back to Galactica 1980 (Episodes: The night the Cylons Landed parts 1 and 2)

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I HATED the new V. Everything about it seemed so cheap--I remember laughing every time they mentioned it was supposed to be set in New York City--and every new plot was so frustrating. But I have to defend lizards! The idea isn't to create some completely alien creature, it's to provoke a particular response... and our reaction to lizards and snakes is an evolutionary one (and thus also something that runs through all our religious imagery).

 

[Captain Obvious]

I liked the new Battlestar through the first two seasons then things just started getting outrageous. I watched it the whole way through anyway mostly to make fun of it with my girlfriend. The ending was one of the stupidest and least satisfying things I've ever seen but I guess in their defense there was no good way to end the complete mess they had created.

Didn't watch much of the new V. It just didn't hold my interest.

Most TV sci-fi has been underwhelming to me in recent years. I tried to watch that new Falling Skies on TNT but it's just so soulless and generic I can't bring myself to care about any of the characters or their plight.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Falling Skies is starting to get good! Give it another chance.

I really, really disliked Battlestar Galactica when it started--felt like it was trying far too hard to be edgy and sexy--and gave up around the start of the second season.

 

[boringnickname]

Gotta say I enjoyed the new V.
Sci-fi audiences today are generally an intelligent bunch and I think it's impossible to paper over a lot of holes like the minor ones you point out about V, without ruining where the show is trying to go. Story is more important than whether you can hear lasers in space, in my opinion.

Minor holes? The fact that the aliens look like humans, sound like humans, speak like humans, behave like humans, have the same names like humans and have the same clothes like humans should just FREAK OUT everyone on Earth who has a double digit IQ.

That's just too many coincidences and stinks TRAP! That point was adressed with a single sentence in the show, and no one seems to ask further. What's minor about it? That's worse than in the original, there the aliens had atleast "odd" voices and foreign clothing.

Or killing 650 people IN THE FIRST MINUTE. Very subtle, and a great way to make friends. Yeah, it was an accident, but could have been avoided with better planning, especially since they have agents on Earth already. Shows that the aliens aren't exactly from the brightest bulb in the Milky Way.

Their excuse to come to Earth - just restock water - isn't exactly airtight logic either. Of course mistrust will grow, after the water would be harvested and they would still be here for years. "We are of Peace - always", and they say it like every 20 minutes. Can it get any MORE over the top? It's like getting hit by a sledgehammer.

If both sides (especially the evil, "superior" one!) are that stupid in a show it's just not interesting to watch. Not to mention that if a show about an alien invasion begins with a braty teenager attempting boinging one something's wrong with it.

These points have nothing to do with "hearing lasers in space", they are substantial failures in the dramatic structure of the show.

In the end I was sad to see V end, but yeah, the writers were not exactly the best. The actual premise for the show was very intriguing and if written a little better, could have been teriffic.

The premise was good, but the execution stinks.