What happened to Morningstar?

[kingmakeress]

Given that it was introduced in SO2 and it was quite powerful, why did we not get to see it in Wing Commander III? 🤔🤔

 

[Bandit LOAF]

On the development side, it was because Chris Roberts wanted a new art direction for the Wing Commander III ships.

On the lore side, I expect they're still around. The entry in the Academy manual says that "the Morningstar is generally recognized as the current Confederation state-of-the-art capital ship destroyer." It's probably a case of their just being assigned to other theaters or ships. The Victory (at least at the start of the game) wasn't a very important posting, so the state of the art squadrons are probably going somewhere else! Or it might even be a case where a smaller, older carrier can't support them--maybe they need a fleet carrier for maintenance/ordnance storage (for the Mace!)/etc.

 

[kingmakeress]

The Victory (at least at the start of the game) wasn't a very important posting, so the state of the art squadrons are probably going somewhere else

This was my first thought, Blair himself was not exactly enthused at the beginning of WC3 about being assigned to Victory.

Do we know if the Border Worlds got their hands on Morningstars. Excaliburs, and Thunderbolts, or did the Confederation prohibit them being exported?

 

[Star Rider]

This was my first thought, Blair himself was not exactly enthused at the beginning of WC3 about being assigned to Victory.

Do we know if the Border Worlds got their hands on Morningstars. Excaliburs, and Thunderbolts, or did the Confederation prohibit them being exported?

Except for their domestic designs (Banshee, Vindicator, and Avenger). The majority of what the Border Worlds obtained was Confederation Surplus that had been supplied during the war or purchased after the war either directly from Confed or Lend-Leased by The Landereich.

Fighters like the Thunderbolt and Excaliburs may have been available in small numbers from what they were able to liberate from Confederation facilities in the Border Worlds. We see an example of this with the Bearcats during The Speardon Raid in the game and The Princeton's fighter complement in the novel.

Another source of Front Line Confederation Fighters was defections. Blair brought 3 Hellcats over with him in the game. In the novel his Thunderbolt.

It's possible if the Border Worlds were to obtain Morningstars that they would get them from targeted raids or defections. Granted we have no idea how many Morningstar space frames were left after the Terra Defense Campaign.

 

[kingmakeress]

I wonder how the BW managed to keep up with the logistics as it probably had a heterogeneous fighter fleet. Probably engineers like Pliers had to convert fighters and apply field upgrades in order not to keep fighters operational, but also to reduce maintenance requirements

 

[MadMac_5]

The most likely in-universe explanation for "What happened to the Morningstars?" is the same answer as to what happened to most of the Wing Commander II-era ships between the games; they were likely destroyed during the Battle of Earth and the fleet action leading up to it. Chances are pretty good that Morningstars, Crossbows, and a good chunk of the Sabres would be deployed against the onslaught of carriers and other capital ships, and they likely got shredded in the resulting battle due to the sheer amount of fighter cover and defensive fire/flak.

The production answer is, as LOAF said, because they wanted a new art direction. They also probably NEEDED a new art direction, since the pre-rendered ship sprites would have led to real-time rendered ships that had far too many polygons for decent performance on a 486 or even a fast Pentium in 1994. In that year, having a 486 DX2-66 with local-bus video was a pretty high-end computer, and that could barely cope with running the low-poly models that shipped with the game at 320x200 resolution.

 

[Star Rider]

I wonder how the BW managed to keep up with the logistics as it probably had a heterogeneous fighter fleet. Probably engineers like Pliers had to convert fighters and apply field upgrades in order not to keep fighters operational, but also to reduce maintenance requirements

That was part of the reason why Pliers cannibalized The three Hellcats you bring in for spare parts.

As far as modifications there is a line from the Novel where they're doing some repair work to Blair's Thunderbolt. Pliers takes a strut off a donor Rapier, and after trimming it to size installs it on the Thunderbolt.

Necessity, and not having the right part/tool for the job is the mother of all improvisation.

 

[kingmakeress]

they were likely destroyed during the Battle of Earth and the fleet action leading up to it

Yes, that certainly makes sense as the Confederation would use literally everything it got to defend Earth. Also, this would explain in-universe the designs of Wing Commander III-era fighters as they incorporate lessons from this battle

 

[kingmakeress]

Necessity, and not having the right part/tool for the job is the mother of all improvisation.

Totally agree!

 

[Star Rider]

The most likely in-universe explanation for "What happened to the Morningstars?" is the same answer as to what happened to most of the Wing Commander II-era ships between the games; they were likely destroyed during the Battle of Earth and the fleet action leading up to it. Chances are pretty good that Morningstars, Crossbows, and a good chunk of the Sabres would be deployed against the onslaught of carriers and other capital ships, and they likely got shredded in the resulting battle due to the sheer amount of fighter cover and defensive fire/flak.

The other question we have regarding the Morningstar and Crossbow in particular is how many spaceframes were built in the first place.

Morningstars were in limited production when the Wild Eagles were testing them in 2667 during the events of Special Operations 2. During the mission to Ayers Rock it does complete the mission but is still prone to system failure as we see with Maniac. I could see it continuing to have a limited production run of about 80-100 Space frames for additional field testing by elite squadrons, and use by Special Ops. Surviving hulls after the Battle of Earth are either scrapped or mothballed based on damage levels.

Crossbow is in the same boat, a limited production with field testing being performed by the Gettysburg, and Special Operations using them in the defense of Olympus Station. The main issue with Crossbow is Thrakath was able to steal Hobbes Crossbow when he escapes from The Bonnie Heather so the Kilrathi have all the data on the Crossbow. But again like The Morningstar I could see the Crossbow having a limited run of about 60-80 hulls.

 

[kingmakeress]

The main issue with Crossbow is Thrakath was able to steal Hobbes Crossbow when he escapes from The Bonnie Heather so the Kilrathi have all the data on the Crossbow.

One more reason to favor new designs like the Longbow or to use/backport technology from the Crossbow to Broadsword or to other fighters.

Morningstars were in limited production when the Wild Eagles were testing them in 2667 during the events of Special Operations 2

In addition to being in limited production, I would guess Morningstars were expensive to build and difficult to maintain.

 

[Star Rider]

One more reason to favor new designs like the Longbow or to use/backport technology from the Crossbow to Broadsword or to other fighters.


In addition to being in limited production, I would guess Morningstars were expensive to build and difficult to maintain.

We never really get cost of how much a front line fighter is other then the line from Haylcon in WC1 after you eject where the ship you ejected from cost 100 Million credits. Capi's RPG guide might go into greater detail about the cost per hull.

 

[kingmakeress]

True, there are no hard numbers available. Still, given that Morningstar is brand new, it won't be cheap with all the new electronics and the maneuvering jets (which were one of the most expensive items in Privateer).

 

[Star Rider]

285,242,500 is the cost that Capi came up with in the RPG Book.

WCRPG Wiki

The Wing Commander Role-Playing Game is a pen-and-paper version of the ground-breaking, award-winning game series originally developed and released by Origin Systems in the 1990s. Spanning all eras of the WC universe, WCRPG invites players to live the stories they only wished they could...

wcrpg.fandom.com

 

[kingmakeress]

285,242,500 is the cost that Capi came up with in the RPG Book.

Thanks, it sounds plausible assuming that a Confed credit is approximately one dollar or one euro

 

[kingmakeress]

Also, I did not know about the RPG, I will look it up

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Neat stuff in this thread, my apologizes for the late mixed reply!

This was my first thought, Blair himself was not exactly enthused at the beginning of WC3 about being assigned to Victory.

The Victory is a light carrier rather than a fleet carrier. It carries only a third as many fighters as the Concordia did in Wing Commander II. And it wasn't on the front lines until Blair arrived; it had been serving in "secondary theaters and rear echelons" according to the novel.

We see this same thing a couple times with escort carriers. End Run has a special Sabre variant that's necessary because they can't support Broadswords effectively. And then in Prophecy the Panther and the Shrike are intended for purpose-built escort carriers that can't field the Vampire and the Devastator.

Do we know if the Border Worlds got their hands on Morningstars. Excaliburs, and Thunderbolts, or did the Confederation prohibit them being exported?

Blair defects with a Thunderbolt in the novel and Pliers says he hasn't worked on one since the war. That said, you might see them elsewhere. The fact that Flash's dad can equip Tamayo's home defense squadron with Thunderbolts in the Wing Commander III novel suggests that they're being used in such places. Excaliburs and Morningstars are much newer and rarer and by the virtue of the fact that they're strike planes less likely to be serving in planetary defense roles. But give it a few years -- by Secret Ops we've got station-based Excaliburs all over!

Except for their domestic designs (Banshee, Vindicator, and Avenger). The majority of what the Border Worlds obtained was Confederation Surplus that had been supplied during the war or purchased after the war either directly from Confed or Lend-Leased by The Landereich.

I think even the original Wing Commander IV ships are most likely all older Confed designs that were populating the various militia units on worlds that joined the Union of Border Worlds. Remember, the political entity only comes to exist during the course of the game!

The most likely in-universe explanation for "What happened to the Morningstars?" is the same answer as to what happened to most of the Wing Commander II-era ships between the games; they were likely destroyed during the Battle of Earth and the fleet action leading up to it. Chances are pretty good that Morningstars, Crossbows, and a good chunk of the Sabres would be deployed against the onslaught of carriers and other capital ships, and they likely got shredded in the resulting battle due to the sheer amount of fighter cover and defensive fire/flak.

Certainly they lost large numbers of ships but I don't think that would really explain why they'd build /different/ ships in their place. If you need replacements in a hurry and you already have the production/logistics/infrastructure/etc. for Rapiers you're more than likely going to build more Rapiers!

I think it's more likely a case of different designs for different roles. Blair is flying old Arrows and Hellcats on the Victory at the butt end of space but there are probably fleet carriers operating brand new Morningstars, Banshees, Crossbows, etc. elsewhere at the same time. (Think about World War II, for example, where you had different planes that served in different services and theaters in significantly different ways. Hellcats and Typhoons in the Pacific, Thunderbolts and Spitfires in Europe and so on.) We see a lot of the Wing Commander II ships in stories after the Battle of Earth: Broadswords in Privateer (and Arena), Rapiers in False Colors (and Arena), Raptors and Hornets in False Colors, Ferrets and Sabres and Scimitars in the WC4 novel. And we see several of the WC3/4 ships in stories set earlier, too.

The production answer is, as LOAF said, because they wanted a new art direction. They also probably NEEDED a new art direction, since the pre-rendered ship sprites would have led to real-time rendered ships that had far too many polygons for decent performance on a 486 or even a fast Pentium in 1994. In that year, having a 486 DX2-66 with local-bus video was a pretty high-end computer, and that could barely cope with running the low-poly models that shipped with the game at 320x200 resolution.

I hear this sometimes but it's a bit of an urban legend. They would've been capable of building any of the Wing Commander II ships in RealSpace... look at the Wraith in Academy or any of the planes in Strike Commander, Pacific Strike or Wings of Glory. (You kind of wonder how this one got started, in that light! Paul Steed was incredble at low poly texturing.)

Morningstars were in limited production when the Wild Eagles were testing them in 2667 during the events of Special Operations 2. During the mission to Ayers Rock it does complete the mission but is still prone to system failure as we see with Maniac. I could see it continuing to have a limited production run of about 80-100 Space frames for additional field testing by elite squadrons, and use by Special Ops. Surviving hulls after the Battle of Earth are either scrapped or mothballed based on damage levels.

Crossbow is in the same boat, a limited production with field testing being performed by the Gettysburg, and Special Operations using them in the defense of Olympus Station. The main issue with Crossbow is Thrakath was able to steal Hobbes Crossbow when he escapes from The Bonnie Heather so the Kilrathi have all the data on the Crossbow. But again like The Morningstar I could see the Crossbow having a limited run of about 60-80 hulls.

We see their introduction unhe Wing Commander Academy manual, 'written' sometime after SO2, makes both seem like they're normal parts of the force at that point!

Our brains try to categorize everything in a linear as-the-games-were-made fashion but I don't think the lore ever really conforms to that. But I think once you put all the toys on the table you can arrange them in some interesting ways! We are seeing new designs as they're introduced but the overall picture is different than any one game: Morningstars, Crossbows, Excaliburs, Phantoms, Banshees, Wraiths, Bearcats and maybe Tigersharks are all explicitly new designs coming around the same time and starting to replace older squadrons as they're available and can transition. We only see a little corner of that in WC3 (Excaliburs coming in to replace Thunderbolts) but it's happening in different ways on different schedules everywhere. We don't see it in Blair's particular story but I bet if you could look at a nine year old's bedroom in 2673 it'd have like plastic Phantoms and posters of Crossbows

We never really get cost of how much a front line fighter is other then the line from Haylcon in WC1 after you eject where the ship you ejected from cost 100 Million credits. Capi's RPG guide might go into greater detail about the cost per hull.

Fleet Action says the cost to outfit a carrier with fighters is 10 billion dollars... which seems to average out to about one hundred million per ship, too! Action Stations says a Wildcat was 50 million credits.

 

[kingmakeress]

We don't see it in Blair's particular story but I bet if you could look at a nine year old's bedroom in 2673 it'd have like plastic Phantoms and posters of Crossbows

😂😂

Our brains try to categorize everything in a linear as-the-games-were-made fashion but I don't think the lore ever really conforms to that. But I think once you put all the toys on the table you can arrange them in some interesting ways!

True, this is why my original question was more about the lore

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I do have a spreadsheet for this one! I threw this together a while back when considering the same issue, lore vs. game order.

Wing Commander Ship Service Chart

docs.google.com

The first sheet is the known lore (when ships appear from WC1 forward) and then the second one is my theory for filling it out.

 

[kingmakeress]

I do have a spreadsheet for this one!

Thanks for sharing!