Wing Commander: Heroes Legacy

matthew954

Spaceman
Wing Commander: Heroes Legacy

Setting:

Approximately 100 years following Wing Commander: Prophecy

Story:

In the time after the victory over the Nephilim Forces (called the
Great Scourge by the Kilrathi), humans and Kilrathi have learned to put
aside their differences. Thus both races have begun to work towards the
common good of both races. A true Confederation between the Terran and
Kilrathi peoples has been formed. Both peoples agreed that the name of their
government would be “The Terran Confederation.” The problem with
living in years of peace has softened the peoples of both races. Even the
Kilrathi, with no need to go and conquer have softened. With no current threats
to the Confederation, the Great Assembly chose to begin decommissioning
the fleets. The fleet had begun to mothball, or have the ships converted
into cruise liners and massive transports. All that was left to enforce the
Confederation was a small security force.

However, many high ranking officials within the Confederation navy
disagreed with the entire fleet being decommissioned. Included in this
group of officials was the DCINC of CONFLEET, he began secretly having
ships transferred to a secret redoubt in the Sol System. This base,
called Solaris Station, was fully automated and would be able to keep the
ships transferred there ready for action. The only questions were who would
pilot and command these craft. Then, who would train them? The decision was
made to privately train the next generation by sending out scholarships to
“special schools”.

5 years have passed after all of this, all is calm and peaceful. Until
an attempt on the President’s life is attempted and simultaneous attacks
on key Confederation worlds happen. Then the biggest blow occurs, a
massive raid on all of the shipyards/stations occurs and every remaining
active military ships are hijacked and taken to form a fleet at a hidden
location. This group of mainly Kilrathi (but some humans too), claim that the
Terran Confederation will bring an end to the Kilrathi’s people. They preach
that the Kilrathi in the Confederation are traitors to Sivar and the humans
aligned with the Confederation must be eliminated. The Great Assembly
of the Confederation makes a unanimous vote to reinstate the military to
full fighting capacity. Unfortunately, there are few remaining ships in
fighting capacity, and the remaining ships will take months to bring back to
full fighting capacity. One good thing is the shipyards and fighter
factories are able to be brought back to full capacity within a few weeks.

Even with this agreement with each other, the Senators of the Assembly
begin to squabble over whose fault it is for the Confederation to be
in this situation. The fighting in the Senate comes to a point where
worlds are ready to secede from the Confederation. However, the DCINC marches
into the Assembly and asks to speak. He begins talking about how he and a
few other high ranking officers began transferring ships to Solaris
Station. He then begins showing pictures of the fleet of ships being kept there.
But the questions are brought up, who will pilot these ships? Who will
command them? Pictures of the private training centers established over the
Confederation are showed. The DCINC then explains how he and some
other officers had these training centers established. The trainees of these
centers, both human and Kilrathi, are sent to Solaris station. A few of the veterans
of the old navy find there way to Solaris Station, where they are put in
command of the ships there.

This is just a revised background for the game. But it is a major improvement over my first draft. vadmkeranfuller can take credit for making the story better. We have some characters writen up but I would like to keep them a bit of a secret for now.
 
Once again, it doesn't make sense to create a new special union between the Humans and the Kilrathi and call it the *Terran* Confederation.

The bit about converting old ships to cruise liners and transports seems unnecessary. It's probably fairly impractical, and it doesn't add anything to your setting.

Even with no military threats on the horizon, it seems unlikely that they would want to eliminate all of their fleet as you suggest. It's not necessary to present total naval elimination as the reason to keep a secret reserve. Once again, keeping a fleet secret and hiding a training base in the Sol System seems pretty silly.

Why does a force capable of simultaneously attacking every single shipyard and starbase in the Confederation need to steal a weakened fleet that's in the processing of being eliminated? Why is there a Confederation even left after such an overwhelming assault? And how in the world did they manage to get all their shipyards and facilities back online in two weeks after suffering such a massive attack and having their entire fleet stolen?

I don't really see major differences between this draft and the last.
 
Well for one thing I had thought of saying that the fleet was just being reduced in size, but then I thought that mothballing a portion of the fleet was done in Standoff. I didn't want to look like I was copying their work. Though what wasn't mentioned in the draft was that the Security forces are getting many of the mothballed ships. The thought has already occurred to me to change the place where solaris station is. There wasn't a major attack on confed. It was a raid at athe shipyards where the warships that were mothballed were stolen. And they didn't get the fleet back up within 2 weeks, the story will end with a partially restored naval force.

And in rebuttal to your last statement everyone else who has read the story actually likes it. There are many people who are looking forward to playing it.
 
I'm glad you're interested in the story, but I'd recommend getting more familiar with the engine, and creating some test content for it first.
 
matthew954 said:
Well for one thing I had thought of saying that the fleet was just being reduced in size, but then I thought that mothballing a portion of the fleet was done in Standoff.

It's not really a Standoff thing. It was done in Wing Commander Fleet Action, and then referenced in WC3, Standoff and other things.

matthew954 said:
I didn't want to look like I was copying their work.

It's still similar enough that it sounds like the false armistice business.

matthew954 said:
And in rebuttal to your last statement everyone else who has read the story actually likes it.

Does that include all the dozens of people who've read this thread? I don't really see how "everyone but you likes it" is a "rebuttal" to me saying that this draft seems very similar draft anyhow. What part of what I said are you rebutting with your statement?

matthew954 said:
There are many people who are looking forward to playing it.

Right now you have a story, not a game. You should probably have someone on your team involved with actually making the game before people get really excited about playing it.
 
Hmmm, I also have my doubts about you current storyline. It has a good main idea, but some of the details need fine tuning. Let's take it together:

The "surprise attack" idea is always nice, but as it really is a staple for war fiction, it needs to be explained right. What is the real motivation for the sudden violence? Who is the power behind it all? Your suggestion of a quasi-religious belief in a will to destroy the remaining Kilrathi may serve as a camouflage for the real reason hidden in the story, but even then it's lacking motivation: As you said, all has been peace and quiet before, no sign of a big system-wide anti-Kilrathi conspiracy.

Another idea I like is the "hidden fleet" - although I confess that's my fanboyish side speaking. In any conceivable reality, it will be really hard to hide large pieces of equipment - not to speak about whole carriers and full fighter squadrons. Any military organisation has lists of its equipment, down to the smallest part - and a mothballing or decomissioning is always under high security protocols with several signoffs, just to prevent that somebody decides he'd like to have a souvenir.
So the scenario would need some different explanation - and even then you have the problem that you mention yourself: Who would operate the hidden fleet? The "private scholarships for special schools" explanation does leave too many questions open: Where are those schools and who runs them? Where does the money come from? How can an operation that involves hundreds of people (even the crew of a Hades-type cruiser is already 150) be kept secret?

I'd advise to use a much smaller setting to pull off a plot like that. Near Earth, with the top honchos of Confed involved, the whole story loses credibility far too fast. In a backwater system, and sculpted around Insys Security forces, the story might be reasonable, if you find a good motivation for the underlying conflict, and a stringent explanation for the resources and organization a player character would be cast into.
 
The people i've shown it too are co workers who a re big wc fans, I had asked them what they really thought of the story and they all really liked it. True they said it still needs some work. Im trying to work on the Flight Commander engine, but I cant help but feeling that i'm flying blind here he he. The more I think about it, I wouldn't mind setting the story in the Gemini Sector after the Nephilim Virus outbreak. With all the systems pretty much wiped out there would be plenty of space for some rrebels to hide. I also have been thinking of the system the Solaris Station is residing. I've just never thought of Sol a busy system like say Coruscant in Star Wars. I was thinking of replacing the station somewhere near Proxima, a system thats close enough without being inside Gemini. And yes the story DOES need alot of work as of yet. I just thought everybody would like an update on how its going.
 
If you want to set it in Gemini so that there's room to hide, do so. There's plenty of space in that sector without having to "wipe out" whole systems with the Nephilim infection. Proxima would also probably not be a good place to hide.
 
Most of my thoughts have already been stated by other posters, but I do have some other comments:

- The setting is listed as 100 years into the future, but I don't quite understand when all of the historical events in the storyline occur. For example, was the end of Secret Ops the "victory over the Nephilim", or was there a protracted war involving many incursions over several decades? How long ago did the Kilrathi and Terrans supposedly form this new alliance? Most importantly to the gameplay, how far back did this mothballing of the fleet and "special schooling" get started? Have there been several generations of these special soldiers?

- As stated before, having a secret base in Sol is difficult to believe. Something that would make more sense is a backwater system which is away from the Kilrathi (or former Kilrathi) border. One could say the choice was made because some higher ups were from the Kilrathi War and didn't trust having it so close to their prying eyes, or that they didn't want the Kilrathi to feel they were being mistrusted. There's a lot of one-jump point systems far to the left of Sol that haven't been described in detail; you could call one of them uninhabited, and make it the hiding space.

- Along the same lines, Solaris Station could be made a bit more realistic if it weren't fully automated. Rather, a skeleton crew keeps the ships in a "standby" mode (e.g. reactors not fully powered down), which means that they can be put back into operation at an accelerated pace.

- The rest of the plot sounds fairly intriguing. I think that most comments could be explained with a little more background in certain areas. For example, perhaps a deeper explanation as to why this group of Kilrathi moves away from the Confederation could be given; it could be a religious schism, or an extremist sect that gains power, or something else.

Well, that's my two cents.
 
I have an idea concerning why these Kilrathi broke away. Maybe you could make there could be resentment over the mothballing of the fleet. These Kilrathi want to be ready in case another alien race comes along.
 
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