Maybe it's something about this thread that is seeping into people's minds.
Yes, there's something about this thread. Please take away from it that if someone is kind enough to debate you then you should respect them and respond in kind rather than piling on passive-aggressive post after post. We address eachother directly at this board and recognize it as a sign of respect; anything else is anything but.
Now that our cooling off period is coming to an end, though, I would like to try to restart *intelligent* debate... and to so do, I will restate some arguments:
The Intrepid is said to be a Confederation ship in the 'Instructor' end game because that was the intent behind the scene. The ship's crew and complement wear Confederation patches and Confederation flight suits. Senator Taggart is aboard. The scene is set (per the published script!) in orbit of Saturn.
This is the entire dramatic point of the dual endings: if you are bad then all you've done is delay conflict between the Border Worlds and the Confederation to some near future (the Hawk/Admiral ending)... if you're good and moral then you've fostered an entirely new relationship between the two groups at the end of the game.
The scene is full of visual cues established to explain this to the viewer: Confederation pilots are flying Border Worlds ships, the Intrepid is in the Sol system, Panther is a Confederation pilot (with a flight suit made for only her two second appearance!), Paladin is aboard the 'rebel' carrier instead of standing in front of the Vesuvius, etc. The purpose - the intent - is clear... can anyone argue with this? If so, do so... but don't repeat over and over that you don't understand the thinking on the subject because that's insulting to everyone involved (most of all yourself.)
I will grant that we are not dealing with strict textual interpretation -- no character says 'the Intrepid is a Confederation ship now' (more on this in a moment...) but it's definately more than an originalist one (and let us be clear that the third approach doesn't fly at all in our fandom - stare decicis is not a reason for insisting fan beliefs be accurate on the future... evidence, argument and all that is required.)
(As an aside, let us be absolutely clear what the sequence we are talking about is, since that's one of the points you've somehow refused to acknowledge (?) several times. Blair, Maniac and Panther are flight instructors on the Intrepid which is orbiting Saturn. This is a decidedly textual interpretation, since all of these things are directly stated. We are not seeing the Intrepid ferrying anyone anywhere - we're seeing Blair being told he is supposed to shake down a group of new pilots but then deciding to go joyriding in a Banshee instead. That's the whole thing.)
Here is another important point, as of yet unmade: despite constant claims to the contrary, there is actually nothing in the Wing Commander IV novel's conclusion that proves the Intrepid is still a Union of Border Worlds carrier. Blair's orders from Paladin are that he "take over the
Confed fleet in the Border Worlds" (emphasis mine.) Paladin then says that he will "be taking the Intrepid out to the frontier area, courtesy of captain Garibaldi... We've agreed to fix his plumbing and enough of the quarters to give you your own VIP berth." This is in no way specific - it is equally (or, given the Instructor endgame, more) likely that Garibaldi has joined almost all the other Wing Commander IV characters in resuming his Confederate commission. The simple fact that the Confederation even has a fleet in the Border Worlds after the events of Wing Commander IV seems to suggest that there is some form of defense agreement.
The timeline is also much more clear than originally suggested in this thread - Tolwyn hangs himself *after* Blair is promoted and ordered to the frontier but *before* he appears as a flight instructor. If the Intrepid is not a Terran Confederation ship at the end of the novel then it is at some unspecified time afterwards. The two scenes are points and not a line - we simply don't know what happens between them...
... which brings me to another point. If the awkward anger present in this thread is a result of dedication to some piece of fanon then remember that we simply DO NOT KNOW THE STORY of what happens to the Intrepid beyond those two specific points. It is not necessarily contradicting Unknown Enemy or the Aces Club stories or any other piece of fan fiction... because it's very, very easy for the Intrepid to change hands again after the game's final cutscene.
Now that's the what -- another problem with this thread is that it's insisting on knowing the whys and wherefores... which we, quite simply, do not have. My fairly simple brain can come up with half a dozen explanations for why the Intrepid *could* be a Confederation ship, but I can not tell you *why*. If that's what you want, it will never happen. The information does not exist.
I don't even want to list easy theories, since you seem so caught up in them... but:
- The Intrepid was always a Confederation ship and it reverted to the Naval Reserve (or some equivalent) when the conflict ended.
- The crew of the Intrepid decided to resume their Confederation commissions and the ship became a defacto part of the Confederation fleet.
- The Intrepid was too crippled or too expensive and the UBW did not want it.
- The Intrepid was given to the Confederation as a goodwill offering.
- The Confederation insisted that the Border Worlds dismantle their force projection capabilities in a peace treaty or in a later defense agreement, which *reasonable to you or not* was something Paladin clearly had an issue with early in the Wing Commander IV novelization.
- The Confederation simply bought the ship to use as a training carrier, similar to the old ships used as training carriers used by the modern USN and the Confederation in Action Stations.
- Blair became an instructor and specifically requested the Intrepid be provided as a training ship, as part of the same 'fence mending' policy we know he applied to bringing Wilford aboard as Captain of the Midway.
... but at the end of the day there is simply no quote that explains that the Border Worlds gave the Intrepid to the Confederation -- nor can we easily argue the virtues of these points since they're all things we've just theorized about now. No evidence suggests for or against any of them.
We also, let us be clear, do not know the *origin* of the Intrepid, we do not know the terms of the treaty with the Border Worlds (if one exists) and we do not know the details of the defense agreement (we can cite both the end of the Wing Commander IV novelization and the Secret Ops materials to prove that one exists.)
And that's that - now can we play nicely about this and have a good chat from this point on?
(And can we please move the 'real carrier' side talk to somewhere else or - ideally - nowhere? 'Guy on the internet does or does not know something about the modern Navy' is somewhat tired when removed from making a point about Wing Commander.
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