Previewing the Wing Commander Novels

If you've followed these posts for any length of time you probably know that I find it particularly fascinating to look backwards at design documents, demos and unreleased builds of games because it lets you see how many individual elements were adapted and changed during the creative process. But games aren't the only Wing Commander stories that we can 'space telescope' back in time: many of the Wing Commander novels had published preview chapters which ranged from slightly to significantly different from their final forms!

To make a study ot these preview chapters, I collected their text and then diff'd each one with the equivalent chapter in Baen's ebook version of the final text. What I found ranged from many typographical and grammatical changes but in some cases some pretty significant edits to content and meaning. Below we'll look at each of the chapters and point out what changed in them but you can also review the entire collection of diff'd text in a Google Sheet available here.

Freedom Flight

The first and perhaps best known Wing Commander novel preview chapter was the lengthy excerpt included in the 1992 Wing Commander II Deluxe Edition manual. It covers Ralgha's interrogation and his encounter with Hassa as well as part of Hunter's visit to Firekka. You can download a PDF version of the manual here.

• There is a revision to the Kilrathi titles. Commander Jakhai becomes Kalrahr Jakhai and Ralgha is referred to as Lord rather than Captain. Thrakh’ra becomes Thrak'hra.
• The duration of Ralgha's stay in the Ghorah Khar prison is greatly reduced in the final version, from weeks to days.
• Ralgha's relationship with Hassa is changed from "old and beloved friend" to "old friend and beloved", a remarkably impactful shifting of two words.
• Ralgha originally exclaims "Not possible!" when he is told he must defect; this is removed in the final exchange.
• The final version makes several changes to better emphasize that Hunter and K'kai have never met in person.
• The detail that a Firekkan was at one point attempting to groom Hunter's eyelashes was added to the final text.
• In the initial version, K'kai's dialogue has a distinct accent that is mostly built around dropping h sounds (wi' instead of with, t'an instead of than and so on).
• Kika'li is fermented from kika seeds instead of seeds mixed with alcohol. The later version adds that Firekkans like to eat the seeds for their flavor and stress and pain reducing qualities, while human diplomats have adopted it because of the added alcohol.
• Rikik is one of many flock leaders in the original version but she is explicitly "Teehyn Ree, the leader of flock-leaders" in the final description.

This was not the only preview of Freedom Flight published! The November 1992 (Vol LXVII, No. 8, #576) issue of Amazing Stories magazine included an excerpt from Chapter Three in its Looking Forward preview section. The excerpt covers the first part of Hunter's mission to rescue the Ras Nik'hra. The changes are less significant than those to the manual excerpt but they are still very interesting. You can find a copy of the the issue online here.

• Youngblood's callsign "Puma" is not present in the Amazing Stories text. He is referred to only by his name.
• Hangover drugs are changed to simply drugs (this may have been an edit made in reverse for the magazine as it omits the section covering Hunter's hangover treatment).
• The type of Spirit's fighter is not described in the magazine version but it is implied to be a Rapier. The final book specifies that it is a Raptor and appropriately changes references to her firing a laser cannon and a dumb fire missile to a neutron gun and a friend-or-foe missile.

The magazine version also adds a short introduction from Wing Commander novel packager Bill Fawcett describing the book and setting the stage. While it may seem short, it is an interesting peek at what the people making the Wing Commander books thought about what they were doing:

Introduction by Bill Fawcett

This novel is set in the universe created by the popular Wing Commander computer games from Origin Systems. Like the best of all military books, it centers on people (and aliens) in the war and not devastation itself.

Uniquely, one of the collaborators, Ellen Guon, actually helped to design the game. The result is a fast-moving, constant action book that provides a real feel for what being part of an interstellar war would be like.

In this interlude, the pilots of the Fighter Carrier Tiger’s Claw are about to spread themselves thin in search of a raiding Kilrathi cruiser.

End Run

Amazing Stories went on to print a preview of the second Wing Commander novel, End Run, in their Winter 1994 issue (Vol LXVIII, No. 9, #578). This excerpt of Chapter VII of End Run covers the Tarawa crew's first battle at Kilrah. Unlike the Freedom Flight previews, the edits between the magazine and the final book are largely typographical. You can find a copy of the the issue online here.

The article also incudes an introduction by Bill Fawcett:

Introduction by Bill Fawcett

In End Run two of today's top action writers have teamed up to tell another story set in the same universe as the Wing Commander computer games. In this book, a light carrier has to provide a distraction that will send the Kilrathi navy scrambling after it.

Trashing the home of the Emperor's mother does the job. Now all the carrier's crew has to do is survive. In this excerpt, the carrier's fighters have just dealt with one threat — only to discover they now have to face an even larger force.

The Price of Freedom

The Price of Freedom, the Wing Commander IV novelization, was the biggest surprise. The game's manual (if it can be called that, see appendix) consists mostly of an excerpt from the upcoming book's prologue and first chapter redivided into four pieces. I discovered some pretty major changes, from characters' names to the types of ships they were flying… and there wasn't a particularly clear reason for any of it! There's some additional and murky backstory here: despite the fact that the Wing Commander IV novel shipped with what it claimed were four chapters of the adaptation, readers didn't find the book on store shelves for an entire calendar year. The story has never fully been made public but Origin explained at the time that the novel had to be held back for reworking in some fashion. For an adaptation which should've been timed to release with the game, that's an extremely expensive decision for Baen to have to make… and given that the final book was extremely different from the game in many noticeable ways it would be interesting to know what the first version looked like! Note that the booklet does credit version specific editing to Origin's Melissa Tyler, so it's possible that some of these changes may have been made in reverse specifically for the game version. You can download the manual here.

• The Confederation fighters in the opening attack are changed from Hellcats to Arrows. This is a doubly confusing change as they were Hellcats in the game!
• Two of Tiger's wingmen's names are changed. Darter becomes Sparrow and Slash becomes Scarman. The latter could be because there is a Slash in Wing Commander IV (one of the Confederation redshirts who favors the Black Lance)... but then there's also a Scar, who Scarman is repeatedly referred to as in the final text. And as with the ships, none of these names match the ones in the game (Tiger, Knave, Darter/Sparrow and Slash/Scarman vs. Russo, Sparky and Vinman). As an aside, I have always wondered if Tom Vale (Tiger) was taken from the contemporary UPN genre show Nowhere Man.
• Tiger gets an additional bit of inner monologue: "Ah, the peacetime fleet, back to polishing brass, kissing butts, and fighting against nothing more dangerous than boredom."
• "Newbee" is changed to "newbie"; this isn't a major change but I remember that odd spelling sticking out in 1996.
• The master of the Ashiri Maru has more of an accent expressed through the dialogue.
• A "sharp arc" becomes an "autoslide". Nice!
• In the manual Tiger's death is described as that he "felt a brief pain, then nothing" but in the final text he "didn't even have time to register pain".
• The Temblor Bomb as being referred to as "The Bomb" is removed.
• A mention of Operation Behemoth is dropped as is this passage about Tolwyn wearing all of his medals: "Why else, Taggart thought, would he pin on every gew-gaw and widget he'd been awarded since being commissioned?"
• An overly prophetic mention of Senators hearing rumors of "navy conspiracies" is reduced to simply "conspiracies". Similarly, Tolwyn's dialogue is edited to be sightly less dismissive of this ("little conspiracies" becomes "conspiracies" and spoken in your head by Malcolm McDowell this is a major change).
• Tolwyn's on-the-nose description of Border Worlds society is cleaned up. "Their society encourages independence and initiative rather than obedience to authority." becomes "Their loose society encourages irresponsibility and indiscriminate growth rather than cooperative and controlled development of resources for the benefit of all humans."
• The Senators who interrupt Tolwyn both have implied accents in the manual which are dropped in the final text.
• The fear of "random elements" is changed to "criminal elements".
• The final version adds a condescending line from Tolwyn where he references Paladin having once served under him in his speech. Good Wing Commander movie connection, though! (I would argue that the Tolwyn/Taggart connection in the movie material greatly improves their back and forth in Wing Commander IV. But that's a story for another time...)
• Maniac also has an implied accent in the original version ("I was 'sposed to get a squadron", "I was just passin' through", etc.).
• The canteen's "disco lights" are changed to "dancing lights and holos of yet more machines."
• The original description of the Border Worlders is removed: "It was as motley a collection of human flotsam as Blair had seen in a long time."
• The original explains that Blair is worried about pickpockets getting his wallet. "That wouldn't stop a sneak thief from picking them, but it would make it more difficult."
• In the manual, Blair orders a Hell's Kitchen like in the game. The scene is rewritten in the final book to have the bartender give Blair a drink uninvited which he then explains is all they serve.
• Bean's accent is more exaggerated in the original, though it continues to be present to some degree in the final version.
• Future economics removed from the original: "Without the steady injections of military spending to sustain the economy, it had slipped into recession, then depression. "
• The final version adds mention of Earth's factories having been destroyed in Fleet Action.

False Colors

The final preview chapter was released (with Baen's permission) by author Andrew Keith while False Colors was being edited. You can read the complete chapter online here.

• The date for the chapter is moved back sixty five days, from 2670.015 to 2669.315.
• Intelligence Officer Khirg's name is changed to Khirgh.
• The most significant change is that the original version's references to radiation from Vaku's brown dwarf are reworked to be very clear that the radiation is "weird" and "anomalous". Most significantly, the original draft's elegant concluding line, "Or persuade them that they had to work together with the human survivors if either group was going to see their homes again?", is awkwardly expanded with "before the brown dwarf's strange radiation filtered through the clouds and killed them slowly."

Pilgrim Truth

The unreleased Wing Commander novel, Pilgrim Truth, also had a published preview chapter. With permission from HarperCollins, Peter Telep released the book's Prologue on his official website during the leadup to the (canceled) release. However, there is no final version to compare so there's not much to note! You can read the prologue here. I suppose if you want to be a jerk on message boards you could use this knowledge to adopt the line that Pilgrim Truth itself is not canon though the prologue is! But to what end?

Appendix: What's the Deal with the WC Manual?!

From the original Claw Marks on, Wing Commander's manuals have always been famous for their in universe approach and copious amounts of worldbuilding. It is not an exaggeration to say that Aaron Allston and David Ladyman are as responsible for the Wing Commander universe we recognize as any programmer. Since release, fans have asked: why wasn't there such a lore manual for Wing Commander IV? The novel prequel includes a few pictures of the ships and an incorrect notation that their specifications are listed in a text file on the CD. What happened?

The first part of the answer is cold hard numbers. Every Origin game at the time had a "packaging" budget and timetable that defined what could be done for the physical release and on Wing Commander IV both were stretched with higher priorities than lore. Wing Commander IV required the pressing of more CD-ROMs than any game yet released. It also called for an extra-large custom box with a slipcover showcasing newly commissioned key art by painter Sam Yeates. Wing Commander IV's budget, determined by the intended US release, needed to press six CD-ROMs and print a custom oversized CD booklet, box and slipcover. The custom boxes were designed specifically to appeal to non-gamers and so additional money was spent on their design and production.

This 'more spectacular' packaging was part of the larger marketing campaign which focused on bringing non-gamers to the product rather than doubling down on existing fans. The size of the box, large and colorful to match a print ad campaign and to stand out on the shelves, also served to cover the initial idea that it might need up to seven CD-ROMs with their own jewel cases. This focus also meant that marketing time and money went to material that wouldn't, as happened in previous years, cycle back for reuse with a manual layout. In short, with an unusually short schedule, there just wasn't art time, render time, layout time, writing time or editing time available for a manual.

The other reason for the decision to include the novel was related to the game's production. Wing Commander IV was originally envisioned as having three sections instead of two: Blair would first fly in the Border Worlds as part of a local defense squadron facing pirates and in the process establish their distinct culture and point of view before returning to the Confederation on Tolwyn's orders and then finally defecting. With the game's compressed timeline, they compressed the first part of this into a spectacular introduction movie that, with a single mission in the middle, would establish the Border Worlds and then set up the game's story and Blair's role.

When Chris Roberts headed to Los Angeles to shoot the game, the plan was that it would open with first the Black Lance attack and then a sequence on Blair's farm where we would see how unhappy he is and learn what became of your love interest from Wing Commander III (in fact, it's rather odd that we know Blair is a farmer at all; it's only mentioned by Maniac and never seen!). Sets were designed, props were built and this was scheduled… but schedule overruns meant that there wasn't time left to shoot it. Additionally, the cantina scene which had elaborate props and extras in the hopes of being a major showcase that would establish the rough-and-tumble nature of the Border Worlders, didn't quite play as intended as shot. Including the novelization text, which adapted the unseen farm scene, meant that players of the game would at least be familiar with what was intended as they went in to the final edit (presumably, you all read the novelization during the installation!).