Rostov, huh? Guess they didn’t save the Ralari.
In a weird coincidence, the Wing Commander III novelization also names the TCS Victory’s bartender Rostov and makes him a shameless Space Russian in the grand tradition of Ensign Chekov.
There is a lot to talk about here. For one, isn't it odd that they just borrowed Shotglass' setup from Wing Commander I? Is every bartender in the fleet a wounded veteran?
I'll let folks with actual culture decide if "Dmitry Rostov" is a terrible made up Russian name but it certainly is an odd coincidence (?) that it's the same name as a system from WC1... which I can confirm was all over the series bible provided to Forstchen and Keith.
On the other hand, the TCS Leningrad reference is a very deep cut. It's from a brief mention in Freedom Flight where Hobbes reminisces about the time he destroyed it.
But just the implication that a ship named after a Russian city would naturally have a super Russian crewman is kind of silly. And he calls Blair Comrade! Also odd is that Blair calls him Bear (and “Rosty” at the same time)… despite the fact that the major Wing Commander character already named Bear APPEARS IN THIS BOOK.
But by far the strangest decision in all of this is the fact that they decided to make this character who appears in the script (and would surely be visible in the game)’s distinguishing characteristic the fact that he has ONE ARM. Spoiler warning: the bartender in Wing Commander III... who appears in many cutscenes!... HAS TWO ARMS.
Jean Pierre Pereat played the bartender; he was not an actor but a production worker. Here he is today!
Another odd coincidence (?) is that the WC3 novel ends Bear Bondarevsky on a cliffhanger where he is injured… and three books later we find out that… he lost his arm!
Whoops, perpetuated an error there. While Bear’s Special Operations 1 sprites have a uniform with Space Force Captain’s bars it never actually appears and he is referred to as a (Navy) Lieutenant.
Novel protagonist Bear started life in the initial draft of WC2 as a Georgian bomber crew chief redshirt with a secret who bonds with Blair over their dedication to the service. He too was a goofy space Russian:
After he was cut, his artwork was reused for the Bear we know in Special Operations. The age backstory survived in the series bible and is referenced extensively in End Run! End Run claims that he is from a mostly Russian colony “in Alpha Centauri”. His dad was Russian and his mom Australian. But then Fleet Action says he’s from a distant frontier colony 500 light years from Earth. A lot farther than Alpha Centauri! His third story as protagonist claims his colony was named Razin and that it was settled by Eastern Orthodox Christians (by way of setting up a cute Christmas scene with a black cat! Sully will model.)
Anyway I think we got sidetracked somewhere. Let’s down one of Shotglass’ famous Rostov Hairballs and pray that whatever war is going on now will quickly end.
What is a Rostov Hairball, named after the star system’s asteroid fields? It’s an unspecified mixed drink… except for SNES pilots for whom it is an ice cream sundae! The SNES bar serving ice cream instead of booze is actually closer to reality (enormous hook pulls me off stage).
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