Election Day Education: The Confed Executive Branch

The Executive Branch

The Terran Confederation is lead by an elected President and Vice President. There is no known term limit; President Harold Rodham held the office for fourteen years. 2634 was a presidential election year.

The President has the ability to order the military to mobilize for emergency action. He may elect to order the military to Defense Level Two, authorizing the putting of ships to space and the cancellation of leaves and mobilizing the active reserve forces, or Defense Level One, which also authorizes cross-border reconnaissance and shoot-to-kill orders. He is expressly prohibited from ordering offensive action without a declaration of war from the Senate. In 2634, the President ordered the military to Defense Level Two shortly before the McAuliffe Ambush, alerting key forces hours before the invasion. In 2668, President Quinson ordered the fleet to prepare for emergency action after taking office in preparation for the expected resumption of hostilities. The President has the ability to declare a disaster area; President Vasura declared the site of the 2654 Assembly bombing a disaster area. The President has the ability to order law enforcement to conduct an investigation; President Rodham ordered that Foreign Secretary Jamison be investigated after demanding her resignation.

The President is responsible for appointing the Cabinet of the Terran Confederation who advise him and manage the departments of the executive branch. The President may also demand the resignation of cabinet members. Cabinet positions include the Foreign Secretary (also called Foreign Minister) who is responsible for interactions with foreign states and who oversees treaty negotiations. The Foreign Secretary is head of the State Department (also referred to as the Foreign Office.) In the period leading up to the Kilrathi war, the State Department was in favor of fighting a limited conflict as a show of strength and generally avoiding outright warfare with the Kilrathi. In 2668, Foreign Secretary Rhonda Jamison persuaded the President to support armistice talks with the Kilrathi. Jamison negotiated the resulting armistice agreement and was essential in persuading the Assembly to pass rapid military cutbacks in order to appease the Kilrathi. It was ultimately revealed that Kilrathi intelligence operatives had provided her proof that her son had been taken as a prisoner of war during the Third Enigma campaign. Also called the Confederation Foreign Service, the State Department oversaw the Confederation Peace Commission after the war, deploying officials to ensure that human worlds (members and non-members) abide by the Treaty of Torgo. A formal suit is considered to be the uniform of the Foreign Service. Jamison was unhappy with the war and desired to replace Rodham as President. The Kilrathi used this information to manipulate her actions to reduce the Confederation's readiness. Prior to his resignation, President Rodham demanded Jamison's resignation. Incoming President Quinson appointmented a new Foreign Minister but Jamison refused to resign, convincing some in the Assembly she was the victim of a military conspiracy. The Secretary of Defense is the President's key adviser on military issues. There was a cabinet-level position on cultural sensitivity whose role Senator More sought to expand in 2634 (though the Kilrathi invasion later that year likely rendered this a distant concern.)

The Vice President of the Terran Confederation is the first in the line of presidential line of succession and succeeds the President in the event of death, resignation or removal, completing his term. Vice President Rodham succeeded President Vasura after her death in 2654 and was himself succeeded by Vice President Quinson after his resignation in 2668. The Vice President also assumes the duties of the Senate’s Assembly Master in the event of death, resignation or removal until a new master is elected. Vice President Rodham had previously assumed this role following the 2654 bombing which of the Assembly which killed Assembly Master Pequin Gydideron.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a group of senior military leaders who advise the President. The Joint Chiefs are lead by the Chief of Staff. The Chief of Staff is appointed by the President. The group is made up of representatives from each branch of the military, including the Army, Navy, Space Force and Marine Corps. A red-and-gold card identifies that someone works for the office of the Chief of Staff; Winston Turner used such an identity card to access the base headquarters at Johnson Island as he attempted to mobilize the military for the impending invasion of McAuliffe. Admiral Wayne Spencer Banbridge was Commander in Chief of the Confederation Fleet (CICCONFEDFLT) at the outset of the Kilrathi war. Space Marshal Susan Jayhefsa was CICCONFEDFLT during the Pilgrim crisis in 2654. The Chief of Staff in 2654 was Marine General Jon Linta. The In 2668, a suicide bombing killed Chief of Staff Admiral Noragami the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, save Commandant of the Marine Corps General Grecko. Appointments may carry over from one administration to another: President Rodham appointed Grecko Chief of Staff hours before his resignation and he served the remainder of his term under President Dave Quinson (Grecko was killed shortly after his appointment during the Battle of Earth.) The Chief of Staff is legally required to inform the President if the military engages in combat during peacetime.

The President is protected by the Terran Confederation Secret Service. Secret Service agents are said to be identified by their black suits. President Vasura was preceded by two Secret Service agents when she appeared at Tolwyn’s tribunal in 2654.

Let the WC2 Soundtrack Take You Back to the Enigma Sector

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi is a space combat simulation game developed and published by Origin Systems in 1991. As the sequel to Wing Commander, the game transports you into an interstellar war between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi, a warrior race of feline-like aliens. While maintaining core gameplay from the original, such as space dogfights and managing wingmen, this installment places a greater emphasis on narrative, featuring structured missions and captivating sprite-animated cutscenes.

The story unfolds after the destruction of the Confederation’s flagship, the TCS Tiger's Claw, in a sudden Kilrathi stealth attack. You are one of the few surviving pilots, accused of negligence, and must now fight to regain your reputation and uncover the truth behind the stealth fighters. Combat missions require precise strategy and teamwork as you lead daring assaults, defend key outposts, and survive against increasingly powerful enemies. As you progress, the game’s structured mission tree allows you to influence the campaign’s outcome, though not without facing personal and political tensions aboard the Confederation’s flagship, TCS Concordia.

Wing Commander II enhances its predecessor with improved AI, audio, and graphics, along with new ships and weapons. The addition of voice-acted cutscenes deepens the storytelling, and the music—composed by Martin Galway, Dana Karl Glover, and "The Fat Man" (George Sanger)—plays a crucial role in heightening the drama and action throughout the campaign.

Neat Cult Reference or Just a Coincidence?

Oooooooh!

Salvage Tug History

Warfare isn't all space fighters dogfighting and battleships pummeling each other with plasma weapon. Wing Commander has always imagined a universe with a complex supply chain and support system behind the action with a variety of transports, depots, shuttles and other vehicles that are perhaps less sexy than a Rapier or a Bloodfang. Chief among these is the Kilrathi salvage tug, an impressive design that is only ever seen very briefly. For a better look at the tug than ever before we've recreated two images of it from panning shots (including one originally blocked by text):

On 4 July 2654, a flight Scimitars off the TCS Tiger's Claw commanded by 2nd Lt. Lindsay Price encountered a salvage tug escorted by a pair of Sartha and carrying a derelict human spacecraft. Price ordered her wingmen to attack, with 2nd Lt. Todd Marshall and 2nd Lt. Gwen Bowman each dispatching a Sartha. Despite the loss of their escort, the tug crew refused to abandon their salvage and escape. Price targeted the tug's port turret bank which initiated a chain reaction which destroyed the entire ship.

Armament

The salvage tug's largest focus is a powerful tractor beam which allows it to collect space salvage and move it across great distances. It is also well defended with four single-mount laser turrets capable of putting up an impressive amount of anti-spacecraft fire in the event of an attack.

Behind the Scenes

The Kilrathi salvage tug was created by Universal Cartoon Studios for the opening act of Wing Commander Academy's infamous crossover episode, Recreation. It appears only in the shots captured here in this one episode! The design seems to reference Wing Commander IV's twin-boom BWS Intrepid and the Star Trek franchise's Oberth-class (made famous by the USS Grissom in The Search for Spock). The detailing on the side of the hull, visible most clearly in frames where the ship's lasers are firing, references the interior ship textures seen throughout Wing Commander III.

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!).

Happy Halloween, WingNuts!

Happy Halloween from the Wing Commander Combat Information Center team! Can you identify all the spooky ships in this festive seasonal collage?

... and of course, if you have kiddos out trick-or-treating tonight you should make sure to check their candy. Some sicko might put a Razor in it:

Nightlife Highlights on Crius

The Crian demimonde is notorious for its obsession with cosmetic surgery, and this bar is the favoured watering hole of the surgery fetishists. Attracting a hard-core crowd of wilfully mutilated patrons, this is not a suitable venue for the faint hearted, as it really can get rather gruesome of an evening.

Just Between You, Me and the Border Worlds Outpost

This Border Worlds outpost is present in Wing Commander IV's files and complete with damage states... but it doesn't appear in the game and it's not clear what it might've been intended for!

Wing Commander IV features a lot of bases -- in fact, it has more space stations than the original game had fighters. What it doesn't have is a Border Worlds base... even when you're ordered to rescue the biochemist from the Border Worlds, you do it by landing marines on a Confederation space lab. It looks like they had originally planned to rectify that, though -- with the Union of Border Worlds Outpost.

Luxuriate in the WC1 Box for a Few Minutes

Ship specs, blueprints, an in-universe military magazine, some lore sidebars, and more. Origin went all-out on the contents in this box.