Bandit LOAF said:
We see his ship explode and then are told that there has been a memorial service for him... that's the extent of the Blair story. If it weren't for our specific group wanting to make an issue over what could or should have happened, there would be absolutely no question. We don't have "is Dallas really dead?" threads, even though he suffers the exact same fate as Blair (ship explodes, body not recovered, memorial service referenced).
(Note: I just real quick want to tack on this disclaimer that these are only my opinions, and I realize this.) Fans don't talk about Dallas, I think, mostly because his character wasn't around long enough to really get all emotional about. Fans are a bit more drawn to Blair because he was the main man for every other game up until now. If the events of Prophecy were real events, then yeah - Blair could be MIA, there could be a memorial service, and that would be the end of the subject matter. He was just another guy to fall against an unknown enemy, and would join the long list of great heroes people wouldn't remember the next day (hey, that bartender at the beginning of WC4 can't quite place his face, right?). Also, we see the static death footage of Dallas over the vid-com in some cases in-game. In the case of Blair, all we know is that his marine LC never made it off the gateway, there was a spectacular flash, and all we see is one destroyed tower tumbling at the end that's suggestive and not too promising, but (from my point of view) altogether deliberately inconclusive.
Seeing as how this is sci-fi, though, my own personal feelings are that a character that has been so central to the Wing Commander theme for so many years and dear to the hearts of so many deserves something more from a writer's standpoint before they drop the closing curtains. If that means he makes it and he falls to a supporting character in the future, then that goes over well with fans. If it's going to be the character's swan song, fans need to watch him go to the bitter end and shatter a universe in his fury in that fateful final moment.
Bandit LOAF said:
There's ample opportunity to suggest that Blair might have survived, and Wing Commander has not *ever* been subtle... but at the end of the game, Casey sits around mourning Blair, not winking and pointing out that he might still be out there.
As always, good points there, LOAF. My own feelings on the matter differ a tad, though. I don't get the feeling that Casey's either mourning Blair or suggesting he might have made it. If there was one word to address that entire final scene when he's talking to Talvert/Stiletto, I'd use "uncertainty." They don't know about Blair, and they don't know what they're going to do. When Blair was around, everyone was confident about things. Now without him, they're on very shaky ground. I got the feeling that Casey needed Blair's reassurance that he did the right thing, and that everything was going to be okay. The only reassurance he gets is from Talvert/Stiletto who is just as unsure of things as he is at that point. I don't see sadness when I look at that last scene; I see fear. But then again, I could just reading too much into things with my own bias too.
Regardless, I have my own thoughts on Blair's fate which will be included in the aforementioned story/trilogy. But to reiterate my point, with as important a historical and adored a character as Blair to WC fans, I personally feel something more is required; something more needs to be told. In my mind, it's a necessity from a fiction standpoint which is why I think it's sparked such lengthy and incessant debates over the years since Prophecy left things where they're at currently. Fans of these kinds of characters need triumphant & definitive death and glory or physical immortality. Prophecy gave us neither, in my opinion, and it's far too sensitive a thing to just leave dangling out there.
(all below this point is an intentional side-note to address the concerns of writing characters important to WC lore, with the intentions of hyping the intended story concept a bit and alleviating any worries that it will turn into a generic and completely impossible fake within the realm of the "known" WC universe; my intent is not to hijack this thread; if it comes across that way, I fully honor any moderator's determination on its existence in this thread)
So for better or worse, the community will get my little fan project on this matter. Whether it grows wings and flies or is recycled into toilet paper is a choice I'll leave to the fan readers out there.
As reassurance, just know that I'm not intending to go overboard with insane and random thoughts for this story idea; it's being written with a careful & profound level of personal humbleness and excessive planning, building on what we already have rather than wiping the slate clean and changing everything. This is being written solely for the love of the characters that I feel deserve another few chapters (especially after all this time), not to fulfill one of those ridiculous "hey wouldn't it be cool" scenarios inspired by Lord of the Rings or a Star Trek movie scene with huge armies appearing from nowhere or super-duper fighters being cranked out to tie circles around an advanced alien threat.
Seven years have passed. The UBW is still relatively poor and trying to contend with trying to make the most out of old rust buckets on the edge of human space, the Landreich economy is (likely going to be treated as) a secluded grouping of entrepreneurs and corporations weighing the business implications of siding with Confed against a rising Nephilim threat, Confed and the Assembly of Clans are both being pushed to the breaking point against an enemy that has been attacking both relentlessly for the years following the events of Prophecy. Somewhere in the midst of all the craziness is a ship of nobodys led by a notorious, dying UBW criminal sociopath seeking a kind of personal redemption for a mistake he once made. His ship, while of an unknown design, is probably roughly the size of the BWS Intrepid (i.e. "small" as far as capital ships go), and hardly invincible, carries a very small number of fighters & bombers (less than 20 total), and has every reason to stay out of the public's eye. According to a Kilrathi seer outcast along for the ride, the final days of the Kn'Thrak have come. Shady Confed Intel data supports the seer's warning - they find preparations for a massive Nephilim offensive the humans and Kilrathi don't have anywhere near the strength to repel. As the last hours tick away, and all Confed & Kilrathi ships rally for a last stand against the coming darkness independently & alone, this one pirate ship finds itself in a unique position. The only question left is whether or not her captain can find the humanity within himself to do anything about it, if there's even anything that can be done.
The story will jump around with a few different characters to a few different ships and locations, but the main character through it all will be Casey...and no worries - he's being fleshed out to be a stronger and deeper character than he was seven years before. Accompanying his concerns for the impending doom ahead are his thoughts of love and loss, of doing the respectable thing or the "right" thing, and finding out about a ghost he never quite buried all those years ago. Despite a few feminine passes over the years, he hasn't been tangled up in a relationship, unable to rationalize the who, how, or why of it as he took stock of his life's value and worth. Now with time running out, he's going to start figuring out what really matters to him, and what needs to be done as he's torn between duty and emotion. And he'll risk it all to find the truth behind the motivations of the Nephilim and the Aligned. All of humanity now relies on his ability to discern the meaning and players behind the Kilrathi Prophecy, and to try to stop it if he still can.
- Falc ~};^
