What is the best death scene, IYO?

agreement

Yeah, all those civilian ships helping in the defense against the Kilrathi super-carriers, very poetic.
 
Originally posted by mpanty
Coolest (and sad at the same time), Angel getting disemboweled...

Do novels count? If so, the numerous sacrifices support ships made to save the bigger important capships, those were quite important and beautiful IMHO...
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Now, if they could have made an FMV of that..........::speachless:: That would just be cool.
 
Re: Re: Re: a ship's death...

Originally posted by LeHah


Ok, just be a blatant idiot. Despite the fact Tolwyn saved billions of lives in the Battle of Terra, you're willing to say you enjoyed his death though his evil, no matter how gruesome, was still minor compared to his victory?
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In the first place, Tolwyn was far solely responsible for saving the people of earth in the Battle of Terra. The destruction of the Hakagas through the Marine boarding action was Grecko's idea, an idea which Tolwyn thought was insane. If Grecko hadn't had the rank to over-rule Tolwyn and go ahead with it, Eath would have been destroyed. And even *after* Grecko and his men sacfriced themselves to destroy the Hakagas, Tolwyn still couldn't keep the Kilrathi warships away from Earth. It took the arrival of the Landreich pilots *and* Jukaga's last minute rebellion to stop Earth being nuked.

And in the second place, just becuase Tolwyn might haved saved lives during his career doesn't mean he has any right to aribrarily decide that others should die, any more than a doctor who saves lives in his career has the right to take someone's life just because he has saved more than he killed. Lives aren't just numbers that can be added and subtracted in a balance book. If we go down that road, what we're doing is saying that some have more right to commit murder than others do, which is ridiculous. Whatever else he was in the past, in the end of WC4 Tolwyn was a mass murderer who got his just deserts.

Best, Raptor
 
You of course completely overlook the fact that Tolwyn battled the Cats from Sirius to Earth, and then ordered hundreds if not thousands of civie pilots and transporters to their deaths in the Battle for Terra.

You say "Lives aren't just numbers that can be added and subtracted in a balance book." Sadly, Patton and MacArthur, the latter being Tolwyn's model, used whatever was nessessary to win to great effect. People are resources in war, not people, to some generals and admirals.

Face it, down to it, war is murder. Anything else is just a PC term.
 
And this holding action fought by Tolwyn alone, I take it. It didn't involve thousands of fighter pilots who hurled themselves into the teeth the enemy fleet in hopeless attacks, or civilian volunteers who went in knowing they had no chance of surving. Tolwyn was one cog in the military machine that fought the battle of Terra, not its entirity.

And as for the comparison with Patton and MacArthur, we were, of course, at war with those farmers on Telamon? That's odd, I seem to have missed that from playing WC4. The simple fact is that Tolwyn was not a soldier acting on the orders of his government against an enemy force as Patton and MacAurther were, rather a renegade was acting outside the law and without the sanction of his government.

Besides, war is not an excuse to kill innocent people who pose no threat to you. If that's the case, why the heck did we both holding the Nueremburg war crimes trials? And what, pray tell, is the differance between killing Jews because they didn't fit your profile of the Master Race, and killing the people of Telamon because they didn't fit the profile of the Master Race? There are some things that can never be justified, no matter whether we are at war or not.

Best, Raptor
 
You make several good points. The game seems to make Tolwyn very Nazish while the novel makes him a man gone mad. Me and Forstchen agreed on something. Here's his own words -

I should add that I was always very partial to the Tolwyn character, seeing in him the genius, and flawed personality of a MacArthur. I had worked on the character early on into the series when he was still just a foil for the main characters and
wanted to see him evolve as a complex military genius, unfortunately he was pushed in other directions by the powers that be and I did have objections to the final turn out, perferring to see him as a MacArthur/Patton/Cromwell type instead. Its why I did write in the scene involving his suicide (a story line I could not change) the part where his medals are laid out on the
bunk. It's why I used him as the main POV for the book that goes back to the origins of the Kilrathi war.

I still think Tolwyn going the way he did in WC4 as a whole was stupid. What a waste of WC's deepest character. :(
 
Well, I certainly agree that the way Tolwyn's story ended in WC4 was tragic. What I don't agree with is the viewpoint (which I've often seen on these boards) that even in WC4 Tolwyn was essentially a good man who was slightly misguided in his methords. In addition to what happened on Telamon, he was also trying to subvert the democratic proceess of the government which he had sworn to uphold, and was trying to instigate a needless war of agression on a peacefull neighbour. That's a perversion of everything that Confed and its military are meant to stand for. "...as I light the fire of peace, I shall hold life sacred, for it is my duty to rise against evil."

The way I see Tolwyn is as someone who, while he might have started out with good intentions, knowingly and committed commited acts which were unforgivable because he was supremely convinced he was right. In the end, he was brought by his own hubris, by his belief that his own way and no other would ensure the survival of humanity.

Best, Raptor
 
The way I see Tolwyn is as someone who, while he might have started out with good intentions, knowingly committed acts which were unforgivable because he was supremely convinced he was right.
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You mean, he stood up for what he believed in?:)

I think we’re unanimous on the question of whether Tolwyn’s “later acts” were heinous. The question of how to judge his heart and mind, though, is much harder. But that’s really a good thing for that’s as it should be for any character of fiction whose “life” is given any kind of depth. Indeed, you can think of literature and drama generally as a quest (never-ending?) to find or formulate a definitive measure of the human soul.

So argue on!

But on a related note, I’ve often wondered how successful–which is really to ask how satisfying to us players–a new series of WC games would be. Specifically, just what should Origin or its successor “pick up” from the old to “carry over” into the new? I think that’s a very hard question given “what’s left” as of the end of Prophecy and Secret Ops.

The “centers of attention” from the games are the obvious first resort. But Tolwyn, arguably the most three-dimensional WC character we have, is dead. Blair is probably dead. The Kilrathi are greatly diminished. And both Casey and the Nephilim seem depressingly flat after their debut.

Actually, Prophecy together with P2 seem to book-end the problem. On one end of the spectrum, exploring a wholly new culture and locale within the WC universe is highly objectionable to some of us. And on the other end, copying the established formula via the introduction of a wholly new hero and enemy, even where both have distinct ties to what has gone before, has also left a fair number of us sorely dissatisfied. (Some of us couldn’t even bear a recasting, if you will, of the tried-and-true via WCM.)

Maybe it’s the case that, no matter how much all of us want to see a new WC series, there’s little chance most of us will be satisfied with the result if it ever comes to pass. It’s pretty much like arguing over how to judge Tolwyn the man, we haven’t developed enough of a consensus about what defines WC itself. Still, there should be no question, again like the debate over Tolwyn, that it’s worth it to keep trying.

Happy Labor Day.
 
Tolwyn as he was portrayed in the WC4 game seemed to be a complete madman, a continuation to the extreme of the man he was in the beginning of WC2 (at least in the "I'm right and no one else is" part).
Tolwyn as he was portrayed in the WC4 novel to me seemed a man desperate after the diminishing of his status due to the Behemoth disaster to get back up there. A man so desperate that he could not see that the straw he was holding onto was the wrong one.
I agree with Forstchen on how Tolwyn 'should' be in my mind, mostly. I guess it's one of those things that we'll always argue over.

On another note, I found it disconcerting that humanity in the 27th century still entertains capital punishment...
 
Nemesis: I think everyone would recognize a sequel to SOPS as WCish, since WCP build bridges from the old universe to this new cast (with Blair, Hawk, being the Iceman's son etc...). And there were even in SOPS such ties (as the the destruction of the Mt.St-Helens) and they could easily make new bridges in a new WC game, by re-intoducing familiar persons/ships etc. or even let us battle some Kilrathi pirates.
 
Originally posted by Nemesis
Maybe it’s the case that, no matter how much all of us want to see a new WC series, there’s little chance most of us will be satisfied with the result if it ever comes to pass. It’s pretty much like arguing over how to judge Tolwyn the man, we haven’t developed enough of a consensus about what defines WC itself. Still, there should be no question, again like the debate over Tolwyn, that it’s worth it to keep trying.

Happy Labor Day.
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...all's the more reason, in fanboy projects, to use a new game engine to be able to re-play the original games:
Same well-loved stories & characters, this time "re-told by a more gifted storyteller", who can make it come alive more vividly (as it were).:)
 
Originally posted by Unforgiven
On another note, I found it disconcerting that humanity in the 27th century still entertains capital punishment...
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We will never be an advanced society if a rain storm still delays a shuttle launch. - George Carlin
 
Hum, I think that saying would have been better with out 'if a rain storm still delays a shuttle launch' :p .
 
well that just depends on who you talk too. In my opinion, we will never be an advanced society if there is never another wing commander.
 
Originally posted by Unforgiven
On another note, I found it disconcerting that humanity in the 27th century still entertains capital punishment...
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Talking to myself here... :D

I just finished the WC4 book (had a few pages to go on that last post), and it's great to see that apparently, Forstchen agrees with me, as Tolwyn got life sentence instead of execution in the novel.
Btw, is that a possible endgame in WC4, that you end up Brigadier General? All I know of are the 'gotta keep flying' and the Admiral endgames.
 
No, 'only' the Admiral and the Flight Instructor endings are included in Wc4 (of course, you can also end dead ot being thrown out of Confed) .
 
I saw those two losing ending quite a few times when I first tried to get past the first disc :eek: . Those first planetside missions are brutal, thankfully I've gotten much better since. Last time WcIV was working on my computer [playing on the default difficulty] I was able to get to the third disc with out dying :cool: , my first try too, although I was of course trying to see if I could finish it with out dying :mad: . Normally I like playing on ethier nightmare or the setting underneath it but I figured my chance of getting very far on those settings with out dying was pretty slim. So just out of curiosity any one else try and do anything similar with any of the wing commander games?
 
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