Tolwyn Knew, and Paladin is an Arse

[Dran]

In WC IV (recently picked game back up and playing again) I ran into some things I did not notice before, and also made different choices leading me to weird ending.


1st. On my last mission before the end of the 6th disk when Blair discovers Tolywin is a tratior, Blair sneaks on to their capship the Vesuvius (sp) and hears Tolywin's speah. Hear he goes on about building better genetic humans, because the Cat's might have been the first, but will not be the last, and this time humanity will not be ready. What are the chances that Toylwin had some insite maybe do to access to classified info that the Nephilim would soon attack?


2nd. So right after this mission you must make your way to earth to testify against the Admirial. I picked stay back, cause fools rush in, and the Admiral sees you, and arrests you. Blair pleads to Palidin to let him have a chance to speak, in which Palidin ignors. Way to have a 'ol wingman's back I tought. What an arse, like all that time fighting on the front with you means nothing now.

Anyway I am done.

 

[Dyret]

Okay.

 

[ChrisReid]

13) Posters are held to a certain standard of legibility. Non-native English speakers are very welcome, but sloppy and lazy writers should proofread their posts as a courtesy to others.

 

[Dran]

13) Posters are held to a certain standard of legibility. Non-native English speakers are very welcome, but sloppy and lazy writers should proofread their posts as a courtesy to others.

U assume English is my first language and that I know how to spell.

 

[Dyret]

U

This, at least is sloppy.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

No... his post explicitly said that non-native speakers were welcome. You quoted it.

 

[X_FIREFALCON]

Maybe it's just because I'm half-asleep, but Dran's post made plenty of sense to me. *shrugs*

Anyway, my thoughts on things:

(1) Could Tolwyn have known about the Nephilim back during the WC:IV era? While others here far more wiser about WC than myself would argue differently, part of me wants to say that within the scope of things, it could indeed be possible. When we play Prophecy and we look back to many of Tolwyn's speeches from WC:IV about the strong surviving and Confed needing to be prepared because we have no idea who will attack us next or when...it does seem like it could be foreboding or ominous. I firmly believe a fan fiction project could be written that could bridge just this kind of gap and have indeed considered it as a plot point for my own project, admittedly. What others feel is also indeed worth hearing at this point.

(2) Paladin...yeah, kind of strange that he'd just toss Blair to the dogs for biting his lip at that point, but to an extent, it makes some sense, I think. We're to assume here that Blair's gone completely off the radar and there's enough that's been going on and that Tolwyn could report on to seal the lid on him. Paladin and Blair go way back, but I also got the feeling Blair had kind of disappeared for years following the war. If he didn't charge in with something to say the second he entered the room, it adds suspicion and doubt as to why he was there to begin with. The whole last mission of Price of Freedom was a balsy gamble on Blair's part. To not have him charge ahead when he reaches the Assembly kind of defeats the purpose. There's too much at stake, too much to lose by not confronting Tolwyn right on the spot in front of everyone to condemn his words and actions. Paladin has to cater to the crowd...remember, up to this point Tolwyn's still a respected leader, so his word will carry more weight than Blair's unless Blair can level the playing field by showing the Assembly that he has something contrary worth contributing.

But yeah, I think at this point, it would have made more sense to have Blair be able to ask for temporary leniency from Paladin to explain his presence if you chose to wait.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on both of those ideas of yours. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ChrisReid]

U assume English is my first language and that I know how to spell.

I don't care whether you speak any English at all, but you should know that English names don't rearrange their spelling several times in a single paragraph. That's just careless and insulting to people you expect to read your posts.

This, at least is sloppy.

No, that's testing my patience.

 

[Dran]

Ok, I don’t know why we have to get in to a discussion on English, so I think it would be best dropped before things get out of hand. I am not here to offend people; rather I posted this because I found some things quite odd that I wanted to hear what others thought. We are all human and make mistakes both in life, and when writing sentences or spelling. So with out further ado, I apologize if you find my horrible writing offence. With that put to bed in my opinion, to suit you and other readers Chris, I will run my posts through spell check and re-read it. I can’t promise that I’ll catch all mistakes. But I’ll make an attempt anyway.

Thank-you for input X-firefalcon, I am still wondering about how much Tolywin did know about future attacks. It doesn’t make him the protector of the species, or excuse him from his actions, but it would be cool to see some fiction shed light on this. I mean I can understand maybe he was a power hungry man afraid of being forced into retirement, but I think some of this is outside his character. Then again he was in charge of a developing a ship that could blow up a planet so maybe his morels are not that good

As for Paladin, I agree that maybe you should just rush in, but that is such a Manic move. I think it would have been more realistic seeing the past bond between Paladin and Blair if, Paladin had seen Blair first, and called him out to speak if you choose this option. I mean Ensign talks about having friends in high places in Confed, why couldn’t he have radio ahead to inform them to say inform Paladin of Blair’s arrival.

 

[X_FIREFALCON]

Hi again, Dran.

While at first, I was a bit taken back by the comments above to speak in a clear, concise fashion, I can see why they have that as a rule on these boards. In the case of all posters above that were emphasizing the importance of it, all of these fine people spend MUCH more time to posting on these boards than I do; they're actively engaged in a variety of conversations, in many cases throwing in direct quotes from a variety of sources, or just generally helping to monitor the boards. The importance of clarity here is (I imagine) for their benefit, to enable them more time to think about replies than trying to decipher the initial posts they're trying to reply to. For that, we can't fault them or the rule. For their benefit, it'd definitely help to run things through spell-check and to make every attempt to be clear; beyond that, just try your best to convey your thoughts, and that'll work well enough for people like me who are only dabbling in a couple of threads (as evident by my relatively sad post count!). In my experience here, all these guys mean well; they've just lived through a lot more history on these boards than we both have, and wind up not being able to devote inordinate amounts of time to any one particular thread because the forum database increases exponentially with every post.

That being said (hopefully to everybody's benefit), I'll take a moment to follow up the ideas in your last post:

Morality is a huge point of discussion in Wing Commander 3. The idea behind the Behemoth and the Temblor Bomb draws into question what is needed versus what is right. The concepts in and of themselves do not appear to be moral, but rather things that are "needed" at a given point in time. Does that mean the people using them are immoral people for using them? That's a tough one to answer. If we're comparing the two individuals, though, then glancing at their WC3 involvement, Blair and Tolwyn both have immoral marks for their performance there - Tolwyn with the Behemoth, Blair with delivering the Temblor Bomb. So either both are immoral characters (and such neither can be trusted in front of the Assembly), or both are great men who have made some tough decisions that make parts of their past immoral. I don't think you can pass either off as a madman, though a misconception (I feel) is that Tolwyn is painted in that light in WC4. Personally, I don't think he was insane; I rather think he was the kind of person who couldn't let go of the war. It was all so many people had ever known, and the prospect of peace left a lot of big questionmarks - should humanity just chill out and let its military decay, ignorant of what future threats there might be? Should they just blindly trust that the Kilrathi would do the same? Tolwyn did what he felt was right, and after the events of Prophecy, it begs the question - was he really wrong?

As for your resolution to the alternate endings with Tolwyn, Blair, and Taggart...I think it's a good one. Unfortunately, this falls into the realm of "would have, should have, but didn't." It makes more sense to me to have Blair charge on in there...like I said, that's the point of the last mission. Eisen claimed to have friends in high places, but after the two big Confed ships duked it out (Vesuvius and St. Helens was it?), Tolwyn was on his way to the Assembly, and the Assembly was gearing up to vote on a declaration of war against the Border Worlders. There simply wasn't enough time to go through the proper channels, and so it fell to Blair to go through the improper ones.

 

[Mace]

I think retirement was not really the issue, but a feeling confed would be crushed without him in a new engagement.

Creating enemies, to have confed keep their guard up, should have resulted in a well-oiled, battlehardened, all-powerfull fleet, and that was, what his task as admiral during the war was, the black lance, a breed of supersoldiers, might well be his plan to guard humanity. But he took it over the top and went crazy.

In WC4, communication was done over very long distance through communique's.
Radio contact was still only short-distance(in-system). Only a fighter could travel fast enough to catch up with the admiral and adress the assembly in time.

 

[LeHah]

I am still wondering about how much Tolywin did know about future attacks.

All the statements Tolwyn made in the game and in the novel were pretty generic. If he knew about the Nephilim threat, why didn't he use that as justification in his speech?

 

[Don]

With what proof?

 

[McGruff]

What are the chances that Toylwin had some insite maybe do to access to classified info that the Nephilim would soon attack?

What was the big surprise? The Kilrathi seemed to have known about the impending invasion for thousands of years.

 

[Sarty]

What was the big surprise? The Kilrathi seemed to have known about the impending invasion for thousands of years.

It was a prophecy of their religion, nobody knew they were coming. Which is why I certainly don't believe Tolwyn knew anything about their pending attack.

 

[LeHah]

With what proof?

Thats the point I made. What proof does Tolwyn have and even if he did have any, why wouldn't he use it as a selling point to restarting the Confed war machine?

 

[KoN21]

That's too heavy a charge. Imagine Tolwyn did know or had reason to believe that the bugs were coming. He did everything he could to keep us ready for war ie. Black Lance, Dragons, bioweapons etc. Now Blair is the bad guy for keeping Tolwyn from giving ConFed its best chance and sending the innovator to be executed.

I think Tolwyn's defense speech or lack there of proved that he had no such knowledge. He had lost his mind and it was evident at that point. He is justifying turning man into an efficient killing machine as his goal, just to stay sharp, so to speak. In peace time, the saying goes, make alliances- don't make war for the sake of fighting. Tolwyn looked as off his rocker as Jack Nicholson did during the final moments of A Few Good Men. He was a desperate egomaniac lunatic who had lost his mind after the Kilrathi war. It's a shame though, since he was such a presence during it.

 

[KoN21]

As for Taggart, don't forget you clocked him in the face in WC3. Your relationship has had shaky moments and trust is a huge issue. After what happened to Angel, the way he just betrayed your trust... it's hard to give it again. Someone who loses your trust is left in a difficult position and they usually end up distrusting you as well. Add the circumstances surrounding Blair's defection to the BW and Tolwyn's invincibility, seeming innocence and the fact that this is all taking place in front of those who will vote for war or peace.... I can't say I blame the guy

 

[Death]

Actually, in the WC3 novelization (making it official, since in the game the player could go either way), Blair doesn't deck Paladin, though IIRC the temptation is there.

 

[Quarto]

As for Paladin, I agree that maybe you should just rush in, but that is such a Manic move. I think it would have been more realistic seeing the past bond between Paladin and Blair if, Paladin had seen Blair first, and called him out to speak if you choose this option. I mean Ensign talks about having friends in high places in Confed, why couldn’t he have radio ahead to inform them to say inform Paladin of Blair’s arrival.

This actually is the case, in the novel. Let's face it, the game's ending taken by itself made no sense whatsoever - how did Blair even get into the Assembly? Wouldn't it be pretty highly protected, particularly with Tolwyn knowing that a Border Worlds carrier is in the system? And of course, why would there even be any debate about war, when a Border Worlds carrier had just jumped in and destroyed a Confed carrier? Tolwyn would've just shown a video of the fight (minus the St. Helens, of course), and that would have been the end of the debate right there. Similarly, assuming Blair did somehow get in, why didn't he bring along any evidence to show?

The book fixes all this, though - Blair and Eisen actually contact Paladin beforehand, and *he* actually brings them into the Assembly.