WC4 - why was Blair called back to duty...?

G

Goethe

Spaceman
hi,

i just finished wc4 again and i'm wondering why Blair was called back to duty by Tolwyn in the beginning ?
tolwyn had other pilots to rescue the bioconvergence scientist, did he want Blair in black lance? I think Tolwyn knew Blair's attitude towards Capt. Eisen and i think Tolwyn should have guessed that once Blair is back in a cockpit he will be a threat for him. did i get that right ?
 
I suppose it was one of three options:

1. Tolwyn hoped that Blair would speak out about the supposed BW acts of piracy, adding some weight to his own accusations.

2. Tolwyn preferred to keep Blair where he could see him. Remember, Blair lived on Nephele, which is (circa WCP, at least) in the Border Worlds - Tolwyn undoubtedly knew about the BW recruiting ex-Confed officers, and he may have wanted to keep Blair away from BW recruiters.

3. Tolwyn knew that the fans expected Blair to return in the sequel, and that without him the game would sell poorly.



Personally, I'd go with number 3 ;).
 
Quarto said:
3. Tolwyn knew that the fans expected Blair to return in the sequel, and that without him the game would sell poorly.
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Yeah, I bet Tolwyn jumped out the screen at Chris Roberts and blackmailed him to bring Blair back or else :) .

On the topic, I don't think Tolwyn would have tried to recruit Blair into the blacklance because he knew he would never have supported anything like the gen-select bioweapon or using the flashpak on civilians.

My guess is Tolwyn just wanted to use Blair's status as the "great hero of the Kilrathi War" to gain support for his cause and also to intimidate the border worlds pilots. Besides, who would want to go up against the Heart of the Tiger himself in a dogfight. As Tolwyn said to Blair: "your very presence in the border worlds will send a potent message to all the galaxy."
 
As I recall, part of Blair's recall to duty was for the purpose of trying to recruit him as a member of Tolwyn's project. Paulsen fumbled the recruitment effort, though, which combined with the failure of the effort to recruit Eisen and the ultimate results (Eisen being relieved of command) turned Blair away from them.
 
I always wondered if it was to satisfy his own curiosity as to whether someone like Blair could compete on the same level as Seether. Just to see how superior Seether could be. I even wondered if it was maybe because Tolwyn thought he could tempt Blair with lots of power via the Black Lance and see if Blair would want to be one of its commanders. And everything he was wanting him to do at first was just some kind of test to prove his abilities once more.

It is a good question though.
 
I would think it was partly exactly what Tolwyn said to Blair in his office - to send a message to the galaxy. In wc2 tolwyn was convinced Blair was a traitor but couldnt prove it. Especialy after being the hero of the kilrathi war, you can imagine that every second day there was probably a documentary on PBS chronicling every detail of Blairs career and character. While Blair seems to respect Tolwyn somewhat in WC4, It would be hard to imagine he wouldnt have hard feelings about the 10 years spent pretty much on the sidelines in nothing assignments. So if Blair vouches against the Border worlds, that would add weight to any Declaration made solely by Tolwyn and his cronies. It's almost the next best thing to a third party observer. The orlando depot hit, and pirate raids were certainly set up to put an exclamation mark on the veil that Tolwyn was creating. While Paulsen may not have done enough to instill the lexingtons crew with confidence, Eisen had already sowed the seeds of doubt before he ever stepped on board the carrier.
 
Here's the dialogue in Tolwyns office:

Tolwyn: Ah, law and order – concepts that seem to be crumbling throughout the Confederation.
Maverick: These are transitional times, Admiral.
Tolwyn: Yes, but in the Kilrathi, we had a common enemy. It was Humanity’s finest hour. Now we cast about, uncertain. Well, you’ve seen it for yourself, the wanton destruction. That’s why Confed needs your services – your experience – again.
Maverick: You know where my loyalties have always been, sir.
Tolwyn: Something we count on, Colonel. For the past months now, there’s been an undeclared war waged against us – acts of terrorism, piracy, sabotage. Is it symptomatic of these transitional times or is there something else at work here?
Maverick: Do you see a strategy or design behind it?
Tolwyn: Every time I connect the dots, I’m always guided back to our long-time allies in the Border Worlds.
Maverick: And you think they’ve undertaken some kind of guerilla war?
Tolwyn: Well, their relationship with Confed has always been uneasy. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Maverick: Which is where I come in?
Tolwyn: Hm. Well, we have a long history together – one that, uh, I daresay has been a bit rocky in the past.
Maverick: We have had our differences, sir.
Tolwyn: But there’s no denying our achievements. Which is why I have personally reinstated you to active duty. Not only will you be my eyes and ears, but your very presence in the Border Worlds will send a potent message to all the galaxy.
Maverick: I am no politician, sir.
Tolwyn: Actions speak louder than words, Colonel. I’m not sending you there merely as a symbol. I’m putting you back in the cockpit, where you’ll be reunited with an old friend… the thrill of battle.

From that you can guess at at least three motvations:
1. He wants to use Blair's popularity as a tool for his own political agenda
2. He still values Blair's flying skills, and wants to use them to tilt the conflict into the direction he desires.
3. He wants to use Blair as "eyes and ears", which may be to simply collect information, or to monitor his own skill in hiding his actions and motivations. The latter would be really smart - use your enemy to see if he detects that your conspiring.
 
My thoughts have always been that Tolwyn hated Blair, but was cognicant of Blair's abilities.

His reactivating Blair was simply his way of creating a Win-Win cituation:
1) Blair confirms the Border Worlds (Black Lance) attacks, and there is a call to war.
(Tolwyn's ideal outcome-win.)
2) If Blair is killed, simpathy will force a war against the Border Worlds, and Blair is Eliminated.
(A win for Tolwyn, and his objectives.)
3) If Blair is killed, but there is no immediate call to war, at least Blair is eliminated.
(A win for Tolwyn, and a chance to continue his war-producing efforts.)
4) Blair doesn't confirm that the Border Worlds are involved.
(Tolwyn will be able to discover errors, and make additional attacks, to convince the Senate.-Win)
(Enough attacks, and witnesses, are already available to make it look like Border Words aggression.-Again, a Win for Tolwyn.)
5) Blair discovers the Black Lance involvement.
(Tolwyn knows where Blair is, and should be able to easily recruit/kill/discredit him.-A Win.)
6) Blair turns rogue.
(Tolwyn can have Blair arrested for insurrection. A win.)
(Blair gathers enough evidence, and stops Tolwyn. A Loss, but with a low probability of occurrance.)

All of these are reflected in the various possible routes that the game takes, and in the final outcome(s).
 
There was, as mentioned in the thread, the slim chance that Blair could join the Black Lance/Conspiracy. Then, victory would have been complete.
 
Warzog, that's probably the shortest and most complete outline of the branching possibilities for the narrative yet.

The only thing that's missing is that Blair really joins the Black Lance, as Ed suggests - and here I'll get that fanboyish "what if"-glitter in the eyes. It really would have been cool to have two totally different outcomes, but it certainly would have sunk the production budget.
 
My opinion is that Tolwyn would never entertain the idea of Blair joining the Black Lance forces. Tolwyn seems to be a decent judge of character. He seems to know that Blair is a very moral person. You can tell this by the way he talks Blair back into duty primarily by appealing to his morals. It would have been interesting though to have a branch where Blair decided to join the Black Lance, but then it would be hard to come up with an ending that was happy for anyone who's not a Nazi (unless Blair changes his mind and turns against the Black Lance). Blair was apparently "worthy" based upon the fact that he survived the Bioweapon when he landed on the planet (I can only assume he and the marines that landed knew the bioweapon effects weren't contageous as they seemed to take no precaution or quarentine themselves before boarding the Intrepid- but that's a whole other thread). He may not fit in though unless he agreed to become "Genetically Enhanced". When you dogfight with Seether, he makes a comment which might imply that Blair wasn't a welcome addition to the Black Lance forces when Seether says that Blair is a dinosaur who represents the old way and Seether represents the "new and improved" (in Seether's mind) future.
 
He seems to know that Blair is a very moral person.
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Is he? Blair is a blank slate who changes based on how you play him -- and you have the option to be as immoral as you like. Since the game can actually end with Blair heading the Black Lance, it seems like it must be at least a possibility.

(I know we like to idolize Blair... but how great is he *really*? There isn't a big 'saves the Kilrathi civilians' type backstory for Blair.)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Is he? Blair is a blank slate who changes based on how you play him -- and you have the option to be as immoral as you like. Since the game can actually end with Blair heading the Black Lance, it seems like it must be at least a possibility.
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I know we can choose how to play Blair, but he still seems to be the "good guy" no matter how you play him. For example if you choose to use the flashpak on Ella, his tone of voice when he said "we'll use the flashpak" sounded really unhappy that he chose to do it, but he really believed it was absolutely necessary. Even if Blair does end up leading the black lance, the mere fact that he prevented Tolwyn from causing civil war shows that he certainly does have some good morals. If he was a totally immoral person, (ignoring the fact that it would have meant more work for the developers) you might as well have had the choice to join Tolwyn on his crazy campaign. Maybe I'm way off here but this is how I see it.
 
I guess I'll write some reasons for why I think Blair is a moral person. I agree with luminon that whatever you choose for Blair, he puts his moral nice guy spin on it. Blair seems kinder and more politically correct in some of his choices than I would be. I never liked Hobbes very much, so I wouldn't have restated him to the flight roster, especially after finding out the crew didn't like him either. I also wouldn't have risked myself or the Intrepid crew trying to save Melek. I also wouldn't have been as hospitable to him if he was on the Intrepid. Also, if you look at the Wing Commander cannnon :p you see that his choices are highly moral (I know that he uses a torp to disable the Lexington's flight deck in order to save lives- this is after Tolwyn decides to reinstate Blair, but I'm sure there are earlier examples of moral choices Tolwyn would be aware of). As far as controlling the Black Lance forces in an alternate ending, we don't know if it is still the GE Black Lance or simply the name for Confed's elite unit. I would say it probably isn't pro-GE since all of that came out during the trial (even if you didn't select "like bioweapons?" in Blair's speech).
 
I think your theses do not hold any water. IF it is possible for Blair to COMMAND the black lance, joining it would be a breeze. it doesn't matter the tone of his voice in the flashpak ella choice, if he chose to do it he made the first compromise. And once you compromise the first time... Well, that's what happened to Tolwyn. We know that is wasn't necessary, given that you can outrun it. Sure, the books set the canon that he is a good guy and all, but we were talking about the possibilities in the game.

BTW, you are BORN GE. you can't be converted to a GE member. And Blair's genes were used in the program, aling with many others. If it was possible to run all people through a GE program, the whole "let's kill 90% of the humankind" thing would be unnecessary... they could just GE everyone.
 
Edfilho said:
BTW, you are BORN GE. you can't be converted to a GE member. And Blair's genes were used in the program, aling with many others. If it was possible to run all people through a GE program, the whole "let's kill 90% of the humankind" thing would be unnecessary... they could just GE everyone.
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I'm not saying you're wrong about certain details in this quote, I'm simply asking since I don't know the full story behind the GE program.. Doesn't "genetically enhanced" imply that the people's genetics are enhanced and not merely that they were born that way? I agree that not everyone is capable of being GE, but if this was a program that was initiated during the Kilrathi war to develop genetically enhanced superwarriors, doesn't that mean they are altering people? It doesn't seem to make sense that the GE program was merely a program to weed out people who weren't born a certain way. Maybe they were born that way as in they were born as a result of tinkering in the lab?
 
While, I don't think there's any point to debating whether Tolwyn was more or less moral than Blair, I will add this.

As loaf stated, many of Blairs decisions were never based on some kind of high moral platform. Granted he didn't think it right that Tolwyn should kill off innocent humans, He never questioned his orders to wipe out kilrathi civilians on kilrah. Blair is motivatd by a sense of duty and loyalty. His betrayal of confed wasn't because he didn't believe in confed, but because he believed that the black lance and tolwyn were a threat to confed and humanity. When he talks to Eisen in his cabin eisen says "Humans will always vie for power, Colonel. The confederation may be far less than perfect but remember it was the driving force behind our victory. It succeded in uniting humanity in a way that no other institution had.
Blair then says "It's our ultimate duty isnt it." To which Eisen replies " Yes. The dificulty is how best to execute it."

Blair, while he doesn't like killing humans, does so out of a sense of duty. He Kills Kilrathi, maybe because he hated them, but out of duty. He endures ten years in practical exile by tolwyn, basically out of duty. You tell blair where to shoot ant he does it.. by the book.

Don't forget that tolwyns goal was also the preservation of the human race. But he wanted to achieve this through conflict. He's kinda like wing commander's Hal. Hal killed the Discoverys crew because it saw the crew like a variable in a equation... The only way to ensure the completion of the mission was to contol the mission itself and remove potential threats, including humans. The logic was sound from a computers perspective. Humans just forgot to tell it that Killing the crew was wrong. Tolwyn forgets that his duty is not just to mankind but to each and every human, strong or weak.
 
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