+4 HP for Wing Commander

Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 57

This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the classifieds page:

CONCEPT: This one should be self-explanatory; many Wing Commander manuals have had short classified sections and they've always been so much fun... so, why not a full page? It increased in size as time went on - it originally shared a page with the Crusader movie advertisement. As I had so much fun writing more and more in-jokes, long overdue facts and nods to fans the Crusader picture became a half page and then a quarter page and then its own separate page.

REFERENCES-

• "Patriots, the True Terran Militia" - This is mostly a play on the word militia, using it in the modern 'crazy people with guns' sense instead of the 'National Guard in Space' we see in Privateer.
• "Lancers, Pirates, Kilrathi, Nephilim and others" - Hopefully this comes off as properly crazy, as the wars with all but one of these groups have since ended.
• "the center must hold" - A variation on Yeats' Second Coming, quoted in Wing Commander IV (things fall apart, the center cannot hold).
• "filho@circe.government" - Ed Filho, one of the alt.games.wing-commander posters. The fact that this is being organized on Circe (where such a conflict had already been seen in Wing Commander IV) and by a government official of some sort is also telling as to the state of the galaxy.
• "HELP!" - The idea here (and elsewhere) is to mirror the Privateer mission postings. This one is especially relevant because it describes a mission you can fly in the game itself (sort of).
• "safety on Circe" - The joke is that Circe probably isn't very safe, given the immediate preceding classified advertisement.
• "ninja@avalon.government" - Named after NinjaLA, from the online community; he went on to win the Arena art contest with a sketch that was then presented to the team at Gaia. Avalon is a spinward sector (opposite the Terran-Kilrathi border) on the Wing Commander Universe map.
• "Single Orange Kil" - Admit it, you wanted to see a Kilrathi personal ad. The joke is that it's essentially the same as a human one -- I only regret not being able to use nonsensical abbreviations instead of the actual wording (SOK, LM and so forth).
• "Wing-Cat" - The term comes from Wing Commander Armada, where you are assigned Danthrax as a wingcat at one point.
• "Lair Mate" - Term from Wing Commander III, used by Thrakhath to describe Angel and Blair's relationship.
• "blood-feud against Qarg" - Even here we have the background Kilrathi conflict developed a slight bit -- the Som'mers must be fighting the Qarg.
• "Maxims of Xag" - Bits of quoted wisdom, as seen throughout Action Stations.
• "Sivar" - Kilrathi God(dess) of War introduced in The Secret Missions.
• "no hairlesses" - Another jab at/explanation of those crazy movie Kilrathi (which do have hair, for the record... just not overly much of it).
• "d'shrill@som'mers.clan" - Here's our obligatory asommers reference! The Som'mers clan was originally referenced in the Kilrathi Saga version of Victory Streak, where Bloodmist inexpicably becomes Bhuk nar Som'mers instead of Bhuk nar Hhallas.
• "Path to Sivar" - Hey, Kilrathi religion is a scam!
• "Priestesses" - The key take-away here is that the Priestesses of Sivar (introduced in Secret Missions 2) are still running/benefiting from the Kilrathi situation in 2701. Taking down the Empire didn't really harm the actual puppetmasters... and that seems like it should matter.
• "DO NOT APPROACH NEPHILIM DERELICTS" - A classic public service announcement, based on the trouble with Nephilim disease being passed around in Wing Commander Secret Ops.
• "Military Governor Masterson" - This is actually a tribute to a Wing Commander fan and not the librarian from Privateer's Oxford series... but I made the same connection after I wrote it and wasn't entirely sure how I felt. I also think that just the title, Military Governor, is important (it was used in the United States for governors appointed by Congress to run territories... or states in rebellion).
• "Jetlag corporation" - Jetlag is another Wing Commander fan; his high resolution scans of CCG artwork were a huge help in my work here. This note is another take on a Privateer mission assignment - with the added kicker that it's a reference to Privateer 2! The concept is that the Tri-System has been discovered... but that it's very far away. Think of it as being like the early expeditions to China or the Americas -- we're sending out convoys that can take years and years to reach the new world without being sure of what they'll be able to find or bring back.
• "Isaac System" - One of the three systems in Privateer 2's Tri-System.
• "Hopper flights" - Hopper Drives were the technology that preceded jump drives - they're a slower and more dangerous FTL solution... but one that works when no jump lines are available/explored. They were introduced in the Confederation Handbook.
• "Titan Alloys, Pleasure Borgs and more" - All commodities from Privateer 2's commerce system.
• "Unexplored region" - Here's teh deal: Origin's canonical FAQ says: 'Privateer 2: The Darkening takes place in an isolated section of the Wing Commander universe. The Tri-System is not currently a part of the Confederation.' Too many people take 'isolated' to mean 'unconnected' -- it doesn't. All I had to do was get the Tri-System far enough away and I could reference the two. Still, I wanted to be especially cautious for the future, hence 'unexplored region'. Privateer 2 itself is still another ninety or so years off.
• "jbiermann@jetlag.corporation" - That's Jetlag, the fan.
• "Governor Muprhy" - A nod to Wing Commander artist Sean Murphy, who is great with fans and in actually should not be assassinated by a crazed member of the tourism industry.
• "Bistango System... ruins" - Per Victory Streak and Wing Commander III, Bistango X (pronounced 'ex' - thanks, Barbara) is home to beautiful ancient ruins (which were attacked by the Kilrathi at one point). Think about various Greek ruins being delcared off-limits when it became clear that tourism was damaging them...
• "omatta@watchmaker.corporation" - Octavio Motta aka Delance from alt.games.wing-commander. 'Watchmaker' plays tribute to an old joke about the company that owned Delance.com years ago. It's also a genuinely creepy sounding name for an evil corporation.
• "Free to Good Home" - Another classifieds section trope, free kittens. I hope no one feeds the Weirdos to their pet spacesnake (and yes, I realize that it's odd that someone is giving away pets in a monthly magazine for hired killers...).
• "Discurian Ovizard" - I hope it's clear what I'm naming here. In 'Lords of the Sky' (WCATV) the second act begins with footage of a lizard swallowing a huge egg and then reacting to a Scimitar entering the atmosphere by changing color and running off. I love the sequence.
• "Stealthy, eggchomping space weirdos" - The exact terminology used for them in a WCNews.com update!
• "creid@dioscuri.science" - Chris Reid, founder of WCNews.
• "WAR MEMORABELIA" - Here's a more appropriate advertisement for a mercenary magazine.
• "Kilrathi claw knives" - A special type of Kilrathi knife prized by victorious Marines, per End Run.
• "Yan tails!" - The Yan were the group the Confederation fought in the century before the Kilrathi emerged, per Action Stations. Before this we weren't entirely sure they were an alien species... but if they have tails!
• "ears, ears, ears" - Again, the marines in End Run collect Kilrathi ears (although human soldiers have done this throughout history, too).
• "spork@ivanscollectables.commercial" - This doesn't reference anything. Spork is just a funny name.
• "BOUNTY MISSION" - Yet another Privateer-style mission assignment. These make sense in the context of our magazine, at least.
• "Telamon survivor" - Telamon was where Tolwyn's forces tested the gen-select bioweapon in Wing Commander IV, devastating an entire population. Note that Telamon wasn't actually the name of the planet - that was FT957. Again we see the idea of hunting down Lance survivors as being like modern day Nazi hunting, which is an idea we must credit the Wing Commander Aces club for.
• "analik@vega.civilian" - Singer Anna Nalick. The Vega Sector was the original Wing Commander 'space' - note that Telamon is actually located in Engima Sector.
• "Have You Heard the Truth? Local Church of Man..." - These are the Retros from Privateer, and they're still proselytizing!
• "non-believers for combat missions" - ... and they're still hypocrites! More importantly, though, they're still around: they survived the shakeup that was Privateer: Righteous Fire.
• "deacon7@churchofman.religious" - This brings up some interesting thoughts. Is this a simple joke, or is the futuristic group that assigns domain names either unreglulated or so independant that they assign terrorist organizations their own .religious subdomains? Or is there a 'legal' Church of Man?
• "Used ships available!" - Here's the entry you all love - I realized I could quickly give designations to all the hitherto unorganized fighters in the Wing Commander universe. And so I did! I believe that with very few exceptions all of the Wing Commander ships should line up in 'design' order now. Note my big mistake: forgetting the Hellcat! Someday we'll get a better view of that WC3 screen to confirm whether or not it is the F-86...
• "F-36 Hornet" - The Hornet was easy, I took it straight from the series bible. Note that the Scimitar's biblical designation has since been contradicted canonically so was not included here.
• "F-38 Talon" - Taken from the Standoff mod.
• "F-71 Stiletto" - Taken from the Standoff mod.
• "F-98 Phantom" - Fans had given the Phantom a much lower designation, and with good reason - the thing sucks. That said, Armada's fiction claims at one point that it's a new ship... so it's part of our '90-series' of fighters. I'm envisioning that the F-9X designs make up the complements of the best-equipped carriers in the last days of the war.
• "F-95 Morningstar" - Taken from the Standoff mod.
• "F-97 Wraith" - Taken from the Standoff mod.
• "A-14 Raptor" - From the series bible.
• "A-15 Gladius" - Taken from the Standoff mod.
• "A-20 Banshee" - Derived from the fact that Banshees are absolutely brand new in 2669, in Wing Commander Armada.
• "crazyjoe@shipsmustgo.corporation" - Nod to Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum and to insane car dealers everywhere.
• "How few remain!" - Here's our nod to the Piglrims from the Wing Commander movie, which are (per the elaborate history in the Confederation Handbook) formally the McDanielite church. "How Few Remain" is an alternate history novel from a few years back - I wish the phrase came from somewhere great, because it evokes a great sense of generation-fading whistfullness.
• "Ivar Chu" - Ivar Chu McDaniel was the father of Pilgrim theology and the part of the first group to travel to another plain of existence.
• "McDanielist" - I already explained this, but I just wanted to point out how clever Chris McCubbin and friends were in creating the background in the first place. Their entire basis for the Pilgrim religion comes from the fact that without planning anything of the sort intentionally the Wing Commander Prophecy map makers included 'McDaniel's World' on their star map placed near several 'religious sounding' system names (things like 'Faith'). The whole Pilgrim backstory flows from making that connection...
• "crossbearer@mcdaniel.reserve" - Because they wear distinctive Pilgrim crosses (and so do I!). I can't say for sure what the reserve is - did the Pilgrims leave behind agents to convert future humans or is this a group that has formed in the years since 'Pilgrim Truth'?
• "BIG CREDS" - Scam scam scam! Do not sell your Steltek artifacts! They are valuable! This is the equivalent of those 'cash for gold' advertisements you see on late night TV. (Steltek artifacts were the mcguffins that began the Privateer story... and many, many cancelled Wing Commander stories planned to use them as the WC equivalent of Known Space's Slaver stasis boxes.
• "lmonkhouse@oxford.archaeology" - Dr. Monkhouse was the scientist who discovered the initial Steltek artifacts in Privateer. Oxford was that game's university planet where they were studied.
• "ACTORS WANTED" - An uncharacteristically mean swipe at Steven Petrarca, the actor who played Lance Casey in Wing Commander Prophecy (and then refused to voice the role in Secret Ops).
• "ascendant@digitalholovid.productiosn" - Ascendant is Chris Roberts' current production company, Digital Holovid was the fictional one from the Kilrathi Saga manual.
• "Duty, honor, adventure" - Just a reminder that the Free Republic of the Landreich, which appears in a good portion of the Wing Commander novelizations, is still out there. Frankly, I'm kind of tired of fans mythologizing these guys -- but there you go.
• "Glory to Kilrah" - The Kilrathi want to... rebuild Kilrah? Crazier things have happened! This was actually the plot of a Privateer 3 concept, although it would have involved a Steltek tool
• "murragh.cakg@noktak.clan" - Murragh was the Kilrathi Prince from False Colors; we learn in this manual that he is now in exile.
• "FIREKKAN UNIONIST PARTY" - Am I the only one who felt bad about the fact that Fleet Action breaks the Firekkans away from the Confederation and that they're never returned? We worked our butts off in Secret Missions 2 to save them! I've always wondered if Firekka was eventually conquered by the Kilrathi at the end of the war - there are a few lines to suggest this is the case circa 2669... like the availability of tasty Firekkan roasts in Armada.
• "T'kirsa Customs House" - T'kirsa is the 'second' Firekkan system introduced by the Wing Commander Universe map. In earlier days, a custom house was a government office where paperwork for ingress/egress into a country takes place. The name is probably best known today as the name/location of Hawthorne's introduction/prequel to The Scarlet Letter.
• "AMAZING NWE GUN MOUTN" - The Kraven Mk. IV was the 'super gun' in Privateer 2... and here we see its anscestor!
• "johnmaddox@kraven.corporation" - John Maddox is presumably an anscestor of Bill Maddox, the Texas cowboy who introduces the Kraven Mk. IV in The Darkening.
• "PATROL MISSION" - Really simple - this is a nod to how I made about five million credits in Privateer. You take three 'patrol the whole system' missions in Perry at the same time and you make quite a profit.
• "BOUNTY OFFERED" - More background on the Kilrathi Civil War - we can see that the Sihkag and the Qarg are fighting especially hard.
• "WANTED" - More Black Lance background, inspired by that great 'car sales' poster of the 'Dragon' (WCIVPSX advertisement).
• "F-107 Lance" - A designation for the 'Dragon' from Wing Commander IV! My theory which goes against the popular fan opinion is that there's an ordinary fighter model of the Lance serving with the Confederation fleet. Imagine it with slightly less sleak lines and painted in ordinary Confederation colors. (For those unfamiliar with the elaborate history here: Wing Commander IV calls the ship the "Dragon". The novelization retcons this - they're called Dragons informally, like the A-10 Thunderbolt II is the 'Warthog'. The actual name of the ship is the 'Lance', because per the script it is derived from the Excalibur program, and the covert ops variant is the 'Black Lance' (think 'Black Panther, Black Wasp, etc. from Wing Commander Secret Ops). In turn, conspiracy has no formal name - "Black Lance" is derived from the familiar fighter, while the actual group is 'The Project' (or '212'). All of this makes sense and, as such things go, is a very clever set of supporting retcons... but it's a huge shock to anyone who has only played Wing Commander IV.
• "anonymous@212.squadron" - 212 was the designation for The Project in Wing Commander IV; this advertisement is a Nazi wanting engine parts for his Messerschmitt (I don't think this actually happened). Remember that Tolwyn had seeded small pockets of Lancers throughout the galaxy in the hopes that they could reorganize should he fail in his initial attempt.
• "JACK OF ALL TRADES" - The Vindicator, my favorite fighter from Wing Commander IV, makes a rare appearance! This actually references the Strike Commander manual, which has an A-10 pilot in similar (if more dire) straights. 'Jack of all trades' is a criticism of the Vindicator, which is certainly a 'jack of all trades, master of none' fighter.
• "mason@borderworlds.government" - I do not believe this references anything.
• "BOUNTY OFFERED" - Here's the opposite take on the Qarg/Sihkag fight.
• "HAVE SHIP, MUST TRAVEL" - From 'Have Gun, Will Travel,' one of the great 1950s Western shows.
• "Hari Sector" - The vast expanse of worthless space first seen in Fleet Action; the Kilrathi conquered the thousand worlds of the Hari in a three year war of extermination... but the planets were all lifeless and devoid of resources.
• "lemmings@vukartag.civilian" - Lemmings is another nod to a Wing Commander fan. Vukar Tag is the Kilrathi world attacked in End Run (and visited in Milk Run). The idea that there's a civilian presence on the former reserve-world home of the Emperor's mother is interesting.
• "FREE FURNITURE" - We jump back to abject parody here, with another classic classified ad.
• "Nephilim Infected Zone" - I would like to see this fleshed out someday; is it an area ruined by Nephilim bioweapons or does it have to do with the plague seen in Secret Ops? I believe I borrowed the name from Starship Troopers' Arachnic Quarantine Zone.
• "jefferson@camelot.industries" - Camelot Industries was the company Flash flew as a test pilot for, per the Wing Commander III novelization. They also, apparently, designed the Broadsword!
• "BOMBER PILOTS NEEDED" - Here's confirmation that the Confederation built more Behemoths! Why? Only time will tell.
• "TCS Gargantuan" - What a great name - just another word meaning something huge, like Behemoth.
• "menace to navigation" - A reference to the flimsiest excuse in science fiction history, from the last episode of Babylon 5.
• "weapon of mass destruction" - We throw this phrase around an awful lot these days and apply it to pretty much anything that mildly inconveniences us. Eight mile long space gun that blows up planets? That's an actual weapon of mass destruction.
• "david.terrell@gemini.government" - Admiral Terrell, the credits-reader from Privateer! This gives him an official first name, which comes from the background for the aborted Privateer television show.
• "MANTU SPOTTED" - It wouldn't be arcane Wing Commander lore without a reference to the Mantu, the since neutered 'evil' aliens which posed a background threat in several Forstchen novels. For those unfamiliar: way back in 1991 Dr. Forstchen was already interested in what would happen 'after' the Kilrathi War. He spoke to Origin and agreed to 'hint' at a greater threat than the Kilrathi, which were eventually called the Mantu. When Wing Commander Prophecy came around the manual retconned the Mantu as being a perceived threat by the Kilrathi but not actually a danger to humans - allowing the Aligned People to become the next big heavy.
• "TCS Tsiolkovsky" - The Tsiolovsky was a science ship first referenced in Secret Missions 2 and then reported lost in Wing Commander II. That's never followed up - until now, where we learn it was apparently destroyed by a Mantu warship. The interesting thing here is that it suggests that the Mantu could be more dangerous than the ICIS manual lets on.
• "vengeance@aussi.hrai" - Vengeance was the callsign of a Kilrathi in Word of Honor (WCATV), but I'm pretty sure that's a coincidence. The actual reference here is "Aussie.hrai", implying that despite Hunter and Kirha's deaths their 'clan' lives on somehow. Did Hunter have a son? Kirha? Who knows.
• "WHO KILLED THE INVISIBLE SHIP?" - From that 'Who Killed the Electric Car' documentary that's all the rage these days. Just a simple joke about conspiracy theorists (and not a suggestion that the Confederation and Empire got together to prevent eachother from developing stealth fighters for nine years).
• "rburns@hope.civilian" - RFBurns was a Wing Commander fan who was also somewhat of a conspiracy theorist. Hope was the new sector created for a cancelled Privateer Online attempt.
• "GOT SPEED?" - I really, really hoped people would start having space races in Wing Commander Arena. Ah, well.
• "mmahadeen@avalon.civilian" - Needaham, from the Standoff team (their musician).
• "centicredits" - A subunit of currency!