Better Call Salthi

A few weeks ago, we mentioned wanting to post about the history of the 'green Salthi'. Well, that just made me realize that there were a LOT of interesting appearances of Wing Commander I's slightest fighter across the Wing Commander canon… and it would be fun to gather them all in one place! So here's a brief history of the Salthi, from its original appearance in 1990 all the way to novels, cutscenes, spinoffs and movies! Did you know the little ship was so versatile?

The Original (1990)

The initial Salthi light fighter was designed by Origin Systems artist Glen Johnson and modeled by Mary Bellis and Steve Spear. It made its first appearance in the original Wing Commander rolling demo shown at CES that summer before serving throughout the original Wing Commander and both expansions. It's perhaps best remembered for being the fighter flown by Kilrathi ace Bhurak Starkiller (Bhurak nar Caxki).

It's not totally clear if there was one reference for the Salthi or not, but we think a good guess is that it may have been inspired by the Kzinti fighters that had recently begun appearing in Star Fleet Battles.

AI Slop (1990)

One of the first 'talking head' conversations in the original Wing Commander is about how Salthi always turn to the left:

Paladin: Och, laddy, take a seat an' tilt a glass with ol' Paladin. I recall once when I was just a lieutenant like yourself there... We were flyin' patrol o'er Accord, the fourth planet in the Alliance System. These four Kilrathi Salthi came zoomin' in with the sun at their backs...

Angel: What is the point, monsieur? There is one, oui?

Paladin: I was leadin' up ta it, lass. That day, we learned that a Salthi will always turn ta the left... It's got somethin' ta do with the way 'er engines an' ducts are arranged. So when you tail a Salthi, watch ta the left... That's where 'e'll go when 'e makes 'is break!

This has given rise to a Star Citizen troll conspiracy theory which claims that the Salthi is proof that Chris Roberts stole Wing Commander's engine from Lucasarts which had a Japanese dive bomber that only turned left. None of this is true: there's no left-turning dive bomber in Battlehawks and Wing Commander's AI is easy to study (it's even printed in the official guide, below)… it's quite clear the designers intentionally set the very simple values so that the Salthi's flight would match the conversation.

Learn to Fly (1991)

The Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide included a fair amount of new Salthi art, even using a front view as the cover for Carl LaFong's book!

These were further adapted for the Sega CD port...

... and even the Super Famicom port!

It is… Green (1992)

For the 1992 port of Wing Commander for the Super Nintendo, the team at Mindscape had to cut a great deal of material. Everything from entire ships to all the cutscene art was dropped from the game to help it fit into a small SNES cartridge. And one memory saving trick was that the Jalthi heavy fighter's unique art was dropped… and replaced with a green tinted Salthi! It made a little sense, given the similar names… maybe they were intended to be connected designs somehow?

The full color Japanese version of the map even had green Salthi art for the Jalthi! The US art simply does not show the Jalthi.

In Salthi Still Green (1993)

The Green Salthi/Jalthi naturally continued into the standalone release of The Secret Missions for the Super Nintendo… with a bit of extra flare! Artist Greg Winters was called upon to paint the box art and to indicate the difficulty of the campaign he pitted his interpretation of the weakest human ship, the Hornet, with the strongest Kilrathi one… the Jalthi, painted as a heavily armed green Salthi!

In the Novels (1992-1993)

Salthi are surprisingly rare in the Baen novels! In the initial trilogy they're mentioned only twice. In Freedom Flight, a young Jazz claims to have shot down a Salthi and a Dralthi:

“Right, right. You’re the piano player, aren’t you? I heard you play last week. You’re good. Damn good. Let’s see if you can fly that well. How many combat missions have you flown, Jazz?”

“Two. I iced a Salthi and a Dralthi.” There was pride on the young man’s face.

And then a single "old-style Salthi" appears at Vukar Tag in End Run and destroys one of the Tarawa's Sabres! That's quite a kill.

The Sabre detonated silently, a brief flair in the darkness of space. He closed the range, the first Kilrathi ship, an old-style Salthi starting into its turn to make good his escape. Jason punched in one last shot of afterburner, lined up on the ship’s bottom rear and fired off a quick succession of salvos. The enemy ship disintegrated, Round Top swinging about to make his second kill of the day, the third ship racing away to disappear around the far side of the moon.

Escort Duty? (1994)

Mark Minasi compares the Salthi to the Ford Escort in Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe: "Take a look at a Salthi's side view from your cockpit. It looks like a Ford Escort. Could it be that there's someone at Origin who doesn't like Escorts?" What do you think?

Bob further notes that the very next year the manual for one of Wing Commander's beloved cousins, Frontier: First Encounters, draws the same comparison for one of its hero ships:

In the 20th Century, as any history buff will know, a motor car company by the name of Ford came up with a car called an Escort, which was generally regarded to be their finest hour. The Cobra Mk III can only be described as the Ford Escort of the space lanes. It has the classic lines that millions of ships tried to emulate.

Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe also provided us with perhaps the first and best fan art of the Salthi:

Souped Up Super Salthi (1994)

For Super Wing Commander, Origin's internal artists created new 3D models for all of the Wing Commander ships. In many cases they did not reference the original designs at all, though the new rounded Salthi certainly looks like it was adapted from the classic design! The 3D mesh used in creating the game has survived and you can download it here.

Taste Righteous Fire! (1994)

Privateer: Righteous Fire's storyline involves a Kilrathi admiral supplying the Church of Man (Retros) with surplus spacecraft (which they eventually upgrade to an 'elite' model with replica Steltek guns) with which to wreak havoc. The Super Wing Commander Salthi model was used for these ships although they were only labeled as 'unknown' during gameplay. Were they intended to be old Salthi or some new ship? There's a smoking gun in the files: if you unpack Righteous Fire's TRE you find that the new ship's information is stored in SALTHI.IFF!

All the Myriad Armadas (1994)

Wing Commander Armada has (arguably) two surprising Salthi appearances. The first occurs in the lore manual, Voices of War, which includes a Kilrathi report about a recent battle. It makes the surprising claim that six Salthi torpedoed a Confederation carrier… certainly a capacity we didn't know they had! Note that the 'Feeding Colony', Bordrav, would later be referenced in the name of a Kilrathi destroyer on a Wing Commander CTCG card.

Notice: Action Report
Hard news has just arrived of losses on the front line, though our Navigation Leader cannot pinpoint the time of transmission. Our brother forces lost two light carriers in a battle near Omega Sector, along with seventy-four brave warriors. The message from the last remaining carrier indicates that the enemy task force was presumably attempting an attack on a Feeding Colony on Bordrav. Six Salthis torpedoed the Confederation carrier in time to prevent the attack.

The Armada intro even shows a Shok'lar in battle!

False Colors (1999)

The final Baen novel, False Colors, introduces a brand new variety of Salthi! It's the Hrakthi-class recon ship which is cloak capable… just like the Shok'lar! I love the idea of these various specialized ship variants that show up in the corners of stories.

Reconnaissance craft, Hrakthi-class, approximately one squadron in good condition. Unarmed and constructed from a modification of an older light fighter, the Salthi, the Hrakthi was intended purely as a scout craft. They possessed the ability to cloak, and were packed with sensors, but their combat worth was small. Still, the ability to study an enemy formation from close up without being detected appealed to Tolwyn.

Shhh! (1998)

There's even a casual reference to the Salthi in Wing Commander Secret Ops! One of the fiction articles is an academy transcript where the professor casually mentions the little ship…

As for the weapons, the Panther can pack a wallop. But be careful, the gun pool is not that much greater than other ship models. The panther usually has two types of guns. I think the current configurations the Confed Dev boys are playing with are the chain ion cannon and cloudburst guns. I've seen a few guys just hold down the trigger to watch the pretty light show the chain ions throw. Then they complain the guns couldn't strip the shields off a junked Salthi. The truth is: they're right, the chain ion guns really aren't that good at stripping shields, but they do a decent job at plinking away at armor. Personally, I think that the chain ion cannon is a crutch for aiming. Fire enough bolts at something and even an engineer flying in the simulator at lowest level can hit something. When I fire, I make certain that both the "cluds" and ion bolts fire at the same time. Time your shots and resist the urge to start the light show. You can only get off a few shots before draining your gun's energy pool, but there aren't many fighters that can take those few shots.

The Salthi (Doesn't) Goes Hollywood (1999)

And the Salthi was almost a movie star! The Wing Commander movie's script calls for three different Kilrathi fighter types to appear: Salthi, Dralthi and Krant. But the Salthi and Krant models were never finished so they don't appear in the finished film and instead the Dralthi mesh is used for everything. But they still get a package in the Confederation Handbook and they show up in the novelization! As scripted, the Salthi appear during the battle with the Kilrathi warships in act two; Blair and Maniac battle them just before the bombing run. We do get the slightest look at the design in the movie's storyboards for the sequence!

148 EXT. BROADSWORDS & THREE RAPIERS - MOVED: Now follows scene 141
The Broadswords are on a bombing run. Deveraux's Rapier leads them in...

Four Kilrathi fighters -- Salthi -- move to intercept. Deveraux shoots one out of the sky with a missile! Blair gets another with his lasers...

MANIAC
Hay! Save some for me...

Maniac shoots a Salthis' wing off. It spirals into the last Kilrathi fighter, both go up in a fireball!

MANIAC (CONT'D)
Buy one, get one free!

"Blair? How's our six?" Deveraux asked.

"Clear for the moment," he replied, not that his report really mattered. The radar display—a living, breathing thing—could change in a heartbeat. The proof lay in front of him as four Salthi light fighters broke from their box formation to intercept the bombers. Blair tracked their velocity at nearly one thousand KPS, their afterburners stoked. Forward-swept wings fixed to their broad, flat fuselages in an inverted V pattern gave the fighters a low profile while maintaining a respectable level of intimidation through design. One Salthi didn't pose a huge threat to a Rapier. But like killer bees, if you faced enough of them, they would drop you through attrition.

A Dumb-fire missile flared below Deveraux's starboard wing, then went from zero to 850 KPS in three seconds—enough time for the Salthi pilot she had targeted to curse her, beg for Sivar's forgiveness, then experience a more corporeal wrath.

As Deveraux's Salthi vanished in a short-lived conflagration, the fighter nearest it scissored across Blair's field of view. He dove after the Salthi, lined up on its six o'clock, then fixed his cross-hairs on the green circle leading the fighter. Target locked! He dished out a flurry of bolts from his rotating nose cannon. The first salvo struck the Salthi's shields, crooked fingers of energy scattering across a light blue hemisphere. Another volley stitched a pattern across the Salthi's cockpit, and the ship flipped into a barrel roll before bursting apart.

"Hey! Save some for me," Maniac said.

Pulling up from the Salthi's still-flashing rubble, Blair saw Maniac shoot off the third Salthi's wing. The cat inside fought for control but couldn't help spinning into the fourth Salthi flying toward it. A white-hot fireball enveloped both fighters.

Maniac howled with glee. "Buy one, get one free!"

Salthi go on to appear in the climax of Pilgrim Stars, when Blair and Maniac defend the Olympus from a Kilrathi battlegroup.

Meanwhile, the four Broadsword bombers below had come within torpedo range of the lead Fralthi, and while their fighter escorts warded off attacking Dralthi and a few Salthi light fighters that had joined the fray, the bombers each launched a pair of torpedoes at the foundering cruiser. Maniac could not help but watch for a second as the eight projectiles struck in succession, blasting apart the cap ship’s port bow, her superstructure, and tearing gaping breeches amidships. Four hundred and seventy-five meters of Kilrathi engineering began to break apart, illumined by the flickering light of her explosions. Nutrient gas streamed from at least a dozen ruptures in her hull and formed long, emerald pennons that trailed the devastation. Tattered pieces of plastisteel tumbled and glimmered, and a few of the Rapiers nearby narrowly avoided colliding with some of the larger rubble.

And they make a single appearance in Pilgrim Truth when Blair practices against them in the TrainSim... just like you can do in Wing Commander I!

Blair slid into the SIRE"s Rapier cockpit, still boiling over the fact that after training for six hours per day for four straight days, he had been instructed by Angel to endure a another six-hour marathon. She had told him he would train for “a few days” to test his reflexes--not a business week. Thus far Blair had gone up against nearly every Kilrathi adversary the computer could muster. He took on Dralthi, Salthi, Krants, Grathas, and Jalthi. He flew with the other pilots in his squadron against Ralari-class destroyers and Fralthi-class cruisers. He swooped down and strafed Snakeirclass superdreadnoughts and even single-handedly took out a Kilrathi ConCom ship by tricking its captain into lowering shields. Everything about the simulations was as real to him as his own flesh and blood.

Hail Britannia! (1999)

The last canonical appearance of the Salthi is a weird one: Ultima Online! For April Fools Day in 1999, the Ultima Online team posted a 'letter' from Samuel Mekings reporting on a Kilrathi attack on Britannia! Included was a screenshot of a Salthi apparently strafing the game. Britannia does appear on the Wing Commander Universe map but it's pretty deep inside Confederation territory!

Britannia is in a panic! Early this morning, the sky darkened as a group of steel like birds descended upon the land. Like huge, terrible, flying dragons, the huge birds shoot fire from their gaping mouths at humans, creatures, and buildings without discrimination.

I stood paralyzed when I first saw these mammoth beasts. I was minding my own affairs, handling my resources at the bank when the horrible monstrosity came near me. Some of the more veteran warriors and magicians near me charged towards the ferocious animal and attempted to use their high arts to conquer it. They thought this was nothing more than a new variety of monster, as yet undiscovered, and easily destroyed.

They were woefully mistaken. I watched in horror as the mighty ones fell all around me while the fire breathing steel bird still swooped about, doing damage to all in its path. Finally, my wits about me, I turned on heel and ran for the protection of my friend's house nearby, narrowly escaping the same fate of the fighters.

From the safety of the house, I quickly penned this report, and I hope to find eventually find a cryer to whom I can deliver the news, so that they might warn the other cities and villages of the attack. All seems in chaos, and I fear the worst. But if you are reading this, then perhaps my message has found its way into good hands. For this, I can only pray. And that we might have some brave souls who can defend us against this enemy.

Watch the skies! Beware! These huge birds may be those that are called Kilrathi, a mysterious race that only the wisest of sages are privy to. Written about in the ancient tomes, and prophesied of in the most secret of scrolls, the Kilrathi are said to be a race from beyond the skies, from between the stars. Most of the educated scholars who have heard of them, believed them to be fairy stories, conjured to frighten the young ones. But by the virtues, today I believe, and I warrant by the end of today, so shall all of you.

Go in peace, and may the virtues keep you safe.

Samuel Mekings

The Community (Infinity and Beyond)

Of course, the fans have created some wonderful representations of the Salthi over the years! The design has shown up in Unknown Enemy and Standoff and has been replicated virtually and as a 3D model over the years. One great example is Howard Day's 2005 Salthi model which features incredible style and attention to detail. You can get a copy here.