Exploring Kilrathi Emblems

A lot of people (one guy on Discord) have been asking what the correct emblem for the Empire of Kilrah is. So let’s have a thread and find out!

Wing Commander I has matching emblems for factions on every ship. The Kilrathi have a red cat skull which we get to see close up thanks to the beautiful box shot of a high resolution Dralthi wing.

The ships are so low resolution that they’re just dots in flight, but you can pick them out every time. You can see the skull very clearly on the WC2 demo Bloodfang, which is its last appearance.

And there’s a black one on the Imperial Guard troops in The Secret Missions 2!

As an aside, we NEVER got a high res version of the WC1 Confed roundel. You can see it twice on the Drayman here. It looks like a TNG comm badge or maybe three ships orbiting a sun?

Now, this is the broad answer to the question. This is the emblem of the empire itself, the grouping of all eight clans. It was introduced for Wing Commander III and used widely beyond. This emblem is also claimed by factions of the Kilrathi civil war (see Arena).

Technicality number one is that Super Wing Commander had its own takes (Kilrah and Confed, respectively) which aren’t seen too often.

The movie also had its own version derived from the font created for the Kilrathi text there. You can see it very clearly on the Confed kill markings!

Your next question: what about this, which was introduced with Armada and has been used often since? This is the specific emblem of the ruling Kiranka clan. I should also note that Kiranka translates literally to red claw; hence Baron Baktosh Redclaw and the red claw clan insignia.

What about the other seven ruling clans? You can see them here on the throne set from Wing Commander III!

The WC3 lore also claims that the red markings on spacecraft represent which clan constructed them. That wouldn’t be limited to just the eight, though!