Arena series references

[Blaster]

That's pretty much all it says. Remember, though, that Secret Ops already gave Blair a funeral, as he was presumed dead. As far as we know, nobody in Confed has any knowledge that might indicate he's merely missing.

At the time of SO everybody thought Blair was dead but the Star*Soldier writers’ commentary said this,

“"unlikeyhood" - Is this Torg's passive-aggressive way of reminding everyone that Blair is dead, or is he still alive and just unlikely to write a memoir (like Neil ARMSTRONG)?”

So I was pretty sure the writers were trying to leave open the possibility that Blair had returned to the Confederation.

 

[Baggins]

Ya, apparently that was Bandit (he wrote most of the manual, and the explanations?) way of leaving things 'open'.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Yeah, that's right -- Arena manual was my baby. I pitched it to the producer (the criminally undercredited Sean Penney!) and he was kind enough to give me a wide latitude to make it happen.

Maybe we'll see something like that again...

I'll have to do some digging on my own. But while LOAF's breakdown does make sense, Blair's "some would disagree" talk with Paladin on Vespus at the start of WC3 sort of throws a wrench in my memory of the timeline?

By splitting at the WC2 section, pretty much everything in WC2 works. No one ever bothers to reference Venice or the Sivar specifically!

 

[Wojo]

... there was a LOT of love in that project, just made a bit ridiculous by what the marketeers told them people wanted in a game.

I do think I have the raw text somewhere, I'll dig around old emails!

I'd love to see what the 'marketyrants' spun to the studio - it's amazing (and fascinating) to think that so many titles are driven by people who have no interest whatsoever in the genre, or gaming in general. It's like a bunch of chefs running an auto mechanic shop.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Marketing is never what anyone expects! At the time, you had folks ranting and raging that EA was abusing Wing Commander and just using it to make money... and the reality was pretty far from that.

The project came about for two reasons:

- EA took note of a major increase in sales of "shumps" in Japan the previous year and decided it was worth betting on the idea that they might be the 'next big thing' in the US/Europe (didn't pan out, of course!)
- The company was looking forward to a predicted rise in smaller digital distribution games via services like Xbox Live, PSN, etc. This one DID pan out, but even then the idea wasn't that they'd get rich on Wing Commander Arena and Boom Boom Rocket... it was that they could lock in/test/consider for purchase smaller outsource studios capable of making those games. The two were more tests of the people than an expectation that they'd make a great profit directly off of the games in 2007.

And that's it! The idea that Arena was a Wing Commander game wasn't dictated by marketing in any way... the producer was asked to put together a shmup-style Xbox Live game using an outsource studio (Gaia.) He realized EA had the Wing Commander license and begged to be able to use it for the project... which they approved over some objections.

 

[Wojo]

So rather than "Let's make a wing commander game; it'll be like this" it was more "Let's make a game like this, how about we make it Wing Commander"... Interesting. It's a shame it didn't do better - I loved some of the design elements & structure. StarSoldier came as a complete (and awesome) surprise!

 

[Blaster]

During The Secret Missions 2 live stream I noticed that the player character said that he had never met a non-human before, but during the events of Academy TV Blair had already met more than one Kilrathi as well as a bunch of Dolosians and whatever those people in the Lords of the Sky episode were called, so I guess that’s one more reason to think he is not the player character in WC1.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Maybe we'll see something like that again...

You continue to tease this...hang it all man, don't leave us in suspense!

 

[RogueBanshee]

I had a genuine “eureka!” moment about this tonight.

First of all: Quarto, that is exactly what I’ve been running through my head this past week. There are some not-insignificant reasons that it’s very appealing. Chief among them is the idea that if the missions on the Tiger’s Claw are flown by LaFong instead of Blair (as written) then 2654 makes a lot more sense. Blair can be off the Tiger’s Claw for the Pilgrim novels with no consequences, and his personal narrative is much less ‘small universe’: he’s the noted hero in 2654 because he saves Earth in the movie and leads the charge at Dolos… and you have a different hero pilot who ends the Venice campaign, destroys the Sivar, etc. And it would benefit greatly by clarifying once and for all that the details of the ‘Academy’ section of the book refer to someone other than Blair. (And the same is true of many references to LaFong’s background that we do not know whether or not to apply to Blair.)

Wing Commander II didn’t even seem problematic at first, as you note. VERY little is carried over between Wing Commander 2 and 3 (friendship with Hobbes, relationship with Angel, tension with Tolwyn) and so in broad strokes you could assign it to someone else and have Hamill’s Blair go into WC3 differently. But you get into trouble, as you note, with the Prophecy background (which mentions the events of Wing Commander II explicitly) and even moreso with the material added to the Wing Commander II manual for Kilrathi Saga — notes to Blair from wingmen about his exile, his paycheck for the holovid about his life, etc.

So, a fun exercise but not something that really holds up. Unless…

… and this is where I’m very proud of myself tonight. What if we separate the Wing Commander II section of the book from the Wing Commander I and Academy ones? It’s a separate part of the book just like the clearly out-of-universe Making Of book… it could be an entirely separate document, and more specifically BLAIR’s memoir of the events of Wing Commander II. The cut is so clean: the description of the last patrol off the Tiger’s Claw starts the new section, so everything that HAS to be Blair can be (the Prophecy guide doesn’t mention anything beyond that Blair was there for WC1.)

That’s insane!, you say, they call him the wrong name throughout! And here’s the amazing thing: it DOESN’T! The Wing Commander II section was written very differently then the lazily expanding narrative for the WC1 missions, letting players see the story themselves in the game… so there’s not much by the way of conversations or additional details. It’s all first person and he’s never called Carl or LaFong!

The trouble that remains is minor:

• He’s called ‘Prankster’ by three characters: once by Paladin ("I think Maniac's already lived his down, Prankster”) once aboard the Austin ("Prankster, where's your flight-data recorder?”) and several times by a bed-ridden, crazed Maniac.
• LaFong’s intro mentions being the ‘Traitor of K’Tithrak Mang’ and alludes to the events of Wing Commander II. But as already figured out here, that’s NOT Blair’s actual nickname, so it’s easy to assume that LaFong might be another survivor similarly treated (but without the comeback story.)

It’s a retcon, yes, but damn if it doesn’t somewhat cleanly solve one of Wing Commander’s oldest, most confusing issues!

I like this though Lafong would defintely have a comeback story of his own to be counted as one of the great aces of the war. It just hasn't been told yet.

 

[Baggins]

During The Secret Missions 2 live stream I noticed that the player character said that he had never met a non-human before, but during the events of Academy TV Blair had already met more than one Kilrathi as well as a bunch of Dolosians and whatever those people in the Lords of the Sky episode were called, so I guess that’s one more reason to think he is not the player character in WC1.

Problem with this is even Carl LaFong or Jason Armstrong met/helped save Hobbes (was Hobbes saved more than once in Firekkan and Cairo systems?) Don't know if Carl personally met any Firekanns though.

 

[Baggins]

Bandit did you ever find the all the transcripts for Arena?

 

[Baggins]

[*]He’s called ‘Prankster’ by three characters: once by Paladin ("I think Maniac's already lived his down, Prankster”) once aboard the Austin ("Prankster, where's your flight-data recorder?”) and several times by a bed-ridden, crazed Maniac.
[*]LaFong’s intro mentions being the ‘Traitor of K’Tithrak Mang’ and alludes to the events of Wing Commander II. But as already figured out here, that’s NOT Blair’s actual nickname, so it’s easy to assume that LaFong might be another survivor similarly treated (but without the comeback story.)]
[/LIST]

Well actually Prankster also says this in those in between mission storyline in the novel:

"This is great, "the mad man of Firekka" and the "traitor of K'tithrack Mang" are back together again."

So as you mentioned "Traitor of K'tithrack Mang"
along with being called Prankster by Paladin in that chapter is pretty specific LaFong reference. Infact he's referred to as Prankster by the Commander in charge of his Court Martial during the Court Martial as well, and by Spirit on his way to his cabin to be locked-up before the Court-Martial... Then at least twice by Maniac, and maybe once by Angel.

In another section later the epilogue "Prankster" meets up with Maniac for a Goddard Special (LaFong's favorite drink though the entire book) recalls back to the story when they were in the academy together and they first met gives a short callback to an event mentioned in the Academy years chapter.

With those references and the intro to the book where LaFong mentions Wing Commander I and II are interactive holo-sims/vid-games about his time on the Tiger's Claw and Concordia it seems more than enough to be sure that at least the "between Missions" sections and the epilogue has to be about LaFong.