Wing Commander Questions

F

fg76

Spaceman
I have always been a fan of the games, but never read any of the books based on them. Does Chris Roberts' consider the books canon, or are they just non-canon fanbased books? Because they're some plot points I'm missing they may or may not be goofs. And if they were goofs, I guess I want to know if the books tried to explain these plot holes?


1. Hobbes: In WC3, we learn that Hobbes was part of a personality overlay experiment. Which is why Ragla nar Hallas seemed to easily defect to confed during Secret Missions 2. However, what about the other Kilrathi that joined Confed during that time? Gorah Khar (WC2) and the other Kilrathi based homeworlds (Special Operations 1). In WC2 you felt Hobbes was a true Kilrathi, but felt it was a matter of politics and honor to leave the empire. The character very much regrets his decisions of leaving his family (Special Operations 1), and even his friend Downtown notes he was never betrayed his people. Yet in WC3 the writers seemed to forget about that. What did the books do to explain this?

2. Hawk: In WC4, it was well known that Blair and Hawk had met for the first time. In WCP, Hawk not only seemed to have known Blair during the Tiger's Claw era; but knew Casey's father Iceman as well. There was even a point when Hawk talks about "ten years ago" when Blair tried to rescue Iceman; only to have found the pod with Iceman's severed body. Unless I am messed up on the timeline -- Iceman died during the Tiger's Claw era -- although it was never canon unless you were on the final losing chapter in WC2. The way Hawk put it (if I remember right; its been years since I played WCP) -- Blair would have been in InSystem Security when Iceman died.


That is all for now.
 
2. Hawk: In WC4, it was well known that Blair and Hawk had met for the first time. In WCP, Hawk not only seemed to have known Blair during the Tiger's Claw era; but knew Casey's father Iceman as well. There was even a point when Hawk talks about "ten years ago" when Blair tried to rescue Iceman; only to have found the pod with Iceman's severed body. Unless I am messed up on the timeline -- Iceman died during the Tiger's Claw era -- although it was never canon unless you were on the final losing chapter in WC2. The way Hawk put it (if I remember right; its been years since I played WCP) -- Blair would have been in InSystem Security when Iceman died.
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This issue has been discussed rather thoroughly, so you might want to check some of the older threads. The best explanation I've heard is that:

1) Hawk and Blair never served together on the Tiger's Claw

2) Iceman survived the destruction of the Tiger's Claw, because he was out on patrol at the time

3) Iceman and Hawk served together on another carrier, which Iceman is transferred off of at a later date

4) Iceman is killed, and through circumstances that we're currently unaware of, Blair was available to retrieve his pod.

If you listen to Hawk's discussion in WC Prophecy carefully, nowhere does he say that he served with Blair on the Tiger's Claw. Nor, do I believe, he specifically says that he was there in person when Blair retrieved Iceman's pod. The only thing we know for sure is that Hawk knows the story about what happened when Blair retrieved Iceman's pod. And Hawk could have heard that from someone else.
 
Dougly said:
This issue has been discussed rather thoroughly, so you might want to check some of the older threads. The best explanation I've heard is that:

1) Hawk and Blair never served together on the Tiger's Claw

2) Iceman survived the destruction of the Tiger's Claw, because he was out on patrol at the time

3) Iceman and Hawk served together on another carrier, which Iceman is transferred off of at a later date

4) Iceman is killed, and through circumstances that we're currently unaware of, Blair was available to retrieve his pod.

If you listen to Hawk's discussion in WC Prophecy carefully, nowhere does he say that he served with Blair on the Tiger's Claw. Nor, do I believe, he specifically says that he was there in person when Blair retrieved Iceman's pod. The only thing we know for sure is that Hawk knows the story about what happened when Blair retrieved Iceman's pod. And Hawk could have heard that from someone else.
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Okay. I think you're right if I remember now. It still doesn't explain how a Insystem Security officer would have been allowed to rescue an old friend. Blair would have been demoted and sent to Caernovon station long before Iceman died if these facts were correct. Unless Iceman was patroling near the Gwenywed sector. I guess, in theory, that Blair's trial could have taken months. Just seems like a big hole to me.
 
I have always been a fan of the games, but never read any of the books based on them. Does Chris Roberts' consider the books canon, or are they just non-canon fanbased books?
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Well, first is a technicality -- Chris Roberts doesn't own Wing Commander, and is not presently involved in the series. The various development teams (and Electronic Arts) consider the novels part of the 'canon'.

1. Hobbes: In WC3, we learn that Hobbes was part of a personality overlay experiment. Which is why Ragla nar Hallas seemed to easily defect to confed during Secret Missions 2. However, what about the other Kilrathi that joined Confed during that time? Gorah Khar (WC2) and the other Kilrathi based homeworlds (Special Operations 1). In WC2 you felt Hobbes was a true Kilrathi, but felt it was a matter of politics and honor to leave the empire. The character very much regrets his decisions of leaving his family (Special Operations 1), and even his friend Downtown notes he was never betrayed his people. Yet in WC3 the writers seemed to forget about that. What did the books do to explain this?
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The explanation in Wing Commander III proper is that the Hobbes persona was completely false, though, created by the Kilrathi to hide a deep cover agent -- the family he tells Blair he regrets leaving doesn't necessarily exist, the ethical issues he tells Blair he's grappling with never existed.

The other Kilrathi... aren't related -- maybe some are deep cover agents, maybe they aren't. There's no reason they would or would no have to be.

(Since you asked about novels, the very first time Hobbes appears, in 1992's Freedom Flight, it's under very suspicious circumstances -- a local Kilrathi officer accuses Ralgha of treason just before Firekka... and Prince Thrakhath himself shows up to free him.)

2. Hawk: In WC4, it was well known that Blair and Hawk had met for the first time. In WCP, Hawk not only seemed to have known Blair during the Tiger's Claw era; but knew Casey's father Iceman as well. There was even a point when Hawk talks about "ten years ago" when Blair tried to rescue Iceman; only to have found the pod with Iceman's severed body. Unless I am messed up on the timeline -- Iceman died during the Tiger's Claw era -- although it was never canon unless you were on the final losing chapter in WC2. The way Hawk put it (if I remember right; its been years since I played WCP) -- Blair would have been in InSystem Security when Iceman died.
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Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander Prophecy gives some details regarding Hawk's career - he was a communications tech on the Tiger's Claw earlier in the 2650s, and it was Iceman who encouraged him to attend OCS. He was there (or in Flight School) when the Tiger's Claw was destroyed.

Per the Wing Commander I & II Strategy Guide (and the various dates in Lance Casey's history), Iceman survived the Tiger's Claw by some months -- it was at this point that he flew as wingman for one of Hawk's 'first missions'.

The Blair story is separate -- Hawk wasn't involved in recovering Iceman, he just knows that Blair did it. We don't know the details of how/why/etc. this happened yet.
 
Originally posted by fg76
It still doesn't explain how a Insystem Security officer would have been allowed to rescue an old friend. Blair would have been demoted and sent to Caernovon station long before Iceman died if these facts were correct. Unless Iceman was patroling near the Gwenywed sector. I guess, in theory, that Blair's trial could have taken months. Just seems like a big hole to me.
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Why is this such a big hole?

In Wing Commander II, Blair - still an Insystem Security officer - ends up flying numerous combat missions off the Concordia, due to a series of circumstances that led to him being on that ship when it had to jump. At no point before his name is cleared did he transfer out of Insys... Instead, he just remained "on loan" from them.

Something similar could very well have happened early in Blair's assignment to Caernovon. There could have been some incident that led to Blair being on Iceman's carrier when it jumped out system, leaving Blair "on loan" until there was a chance to return him to Caernovon.

Obviously, we don't know if this is what happened or not. But there are any number of possibilities that could have led to Blair being the one who retreived Iceman's pod. After all, we don't know for sure what every second of Blair's life was like after he was sent to exile in Insys Security.
 
Dougly said:
We know that most of it was boring, not that every second was boring.
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I don't think so. There are several scenes where he refers to not flying a combat mission in 10 years. I think that a S&R mission would qualify as that wouldn't it?
 
A search and rescue mission is not a combat mission, or at least meant to be one.
 
Originally Posted by Lt.Death100
I don't think so. There are several scenes where he refers to not flying a combat mission in 10 years. I think that a S&R mission would qualify as that wouldn't it?
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There are two possibilities here.

1) As Mace pointed out, an S&R mission isn't meant to be a combat mission. Had he been temporarily "on loan" to Iceman's carrier, it's likely that whoever the Wing Commander of that ship was wouldn't have been as accommodating with him as Angle was on the Concordia. As such, perhaps he hardly flew at all, and, when he did, it was only on missions that were almost guaranteed not to provide enemy encounters.

2) When many people say that they haven't done something in 10 years, they're actually estimating, not giving an exact number. Had the scenario that placed Blair on Iceman's carrier occurred very shortly after his transfer to InSys, Blair simply might have been rounding up when he told people that it's been "10 years" since he last flew a combat mission. In reality, it might have been more like 9 or 8 years.
 
There were a lot of defections. Hobbes was a sleeper agent, but a lot of other Kilrathis probably weren't. Thrakkath was genuinely pissed to have to bomb his stealth fighter shipyard because of the rebels.
 
There is another option - When kats capture Iceman, and learn that he was a Claw survivor, they on purpose leave his pod in Caernaveron, so it will be Blair who finds it and sees his body chopped, as some kind of message - this will happen to all from that ship or something. I think, that it would be action typicall for the cats espetially for Thrakkath (the Kilrathi always belevied that war is pschological antd that kind of crap)
 
Lt.Death100 said:
I don't think so. There are several scenes where he refers to not flying a combat mission in 10 years. I think that a S&R mission would qualify as that wouldn't it?
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The fact that blair flew S&R doesn not contradict with not flying combat missions in 10 years. That isn't the same thing as not seeing any combat at all for 10 years. It just means he was never put in missions where the main objective was to take out a fights, destroy capships et cetera. It's very likely that blair might have encountered kilrathi on his various sorties during patrols and what not. It's just more likely he was relegated to scaring off the pirates and privateers that were around, escorting various ships to and from jump points (that werent currently threatened by the Kilrathi) and more. On the Tigers Claw and on the Concordia, Blair was pretty much guaranteed to run into kilrathi. And often they were pointedly on the offensive. There's no reason thought that and S&R sortie would involve combat either. And look at prophecy: theres a specific non-fighter for ejection pod recovery. I seem to remember missions where you had to clear all the enemy before the S&R craft would come in and pick up the Pods.
 
A Search and Rescue mission is still a combat mission. But only for the fighter pilots that flew it. Maybe Blair was on a supply run with a shuttle or transport (May have wanted to go see a old friend that was close)

If Blair was on Iceman's carrier, the CAG would be foolish not to use him. Blair may also have requested to fly in the mission, since it was his old friend that was missing. But if they didn't trust him, they may have assigned him to fly only the resuce shuttle, and not a fighter.
 
From Wing Commander II losing path mission 12:

(As Jazz floats in space)

Blair: How many died on the claw. Colonel Hayclon, Iceman, Hunter, Knight, and Marico. Do you think I'd let you live, you bastard, I don't think so.

* * *
Now I know that losing path was never considered canon because Blair ended up the hero of Thitratack Mang after ten years of being the "coward." I like the idea that maybe Blair was on loan for a short time and tried to save Iceman. Let us consider this . . . how many years pass between each game?

WC2: About ten years after Secret Missions 2.

WC3: About two or three years after Special Operations 2. The WC3 guide with the game refers to a 'cease fire'deal which ended up with the Kilrathi launching a sneak attack on Earth.

WC4: About two to five years after WC3.

WCP: About five years after WC4.

I need to check CIC if they have a better listing on the timeline.
 
TankGunner said:
A Search and Rescue mission is still a combat mission. But only for the fighter pilots that flew it.
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Technical definitions probably aren't appropriate here. AD is right. It's more likely that he was just relegated to missions less likely to be directly confrontational (of which the majority in the area would have been).
 
Originally Posted by fg76
From Wing Commander II losing path mission 12:

(As Jazz floats in space)

Blair: How many died on the claw. Colonel Hayclon, Iceman, Hunter, Knight, and Marico. Do you think I'd let you live, you bastard, I don't think so.
Click to expand...

That losing path statement can be considered questionable, for reasons beyond Iceman.

Most notably, Blair lists Hunter as having been killed. However, this most certainly can't be the case. Hunter shows up alive and well in Wing Commander: Fleet Action, one of the Forstchen novels that is set in the years following Wing Commander II.

This inconsistency can be explained away by simply saying that Hunter dies at some point during the "non-canon" losing path of Wing Commander II, but that he never dies during the "canon" winning path.

However, under any scenario, Hunter most certainly did not die on the Tiger's Claw, so Blair must mean something else when he makes that statement during the losing path. Perhaps he simply meant to say something like "how many died from the Claw," but misspoke due to his anger.

Because of other inconsistencies, such as the one with Hunter, I'd take Blair's losing path tirade against Jazz as awfully weak evidence that Iceman died while serving on the Tiger's Claw. LOAF, in other threads, has pointed out other reasons why Iceman must have survived the destruction of the Tiger's Claw. Also, the WC I and II Official Strategy Guide includes a scene that seems to indicate that Iceman survived. Therefore, the bulk of the evidence points to Iceman surviving the Claw's destruction and being killed while serving on another carrier.

FYI - the false armistice and Battle of Earth listed in the WC 3 manual are direct references to the events in Wing Commander: Fleet Action. I seriously suggest you track down the WC books on Amazon.com, buy them, and read them. They're awfully good, especially for a Wing Commander fan. I particularly enjoy Freedom Flight and End Run.
 
fg76 said:
how many years pass between each game?

WC2: About ten years after Secret Missions 2.

WC3: About two or three years after Special Operations 2. The WC3 guide with the game refers to a 'cease fire'deal which ended up with the Kilrathi launching a sneak attack on Earth.

WC4: About two to five years after WC3.

WCP: About five years after WC4.

I need to check CIC if they have a better listing on the timeline.
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WC2 - 2666-2667

False Peace - 2667 - 2668

Battle of Terra - 2668

WC3 - 2669

WC4 - 2673

WCP - 2681
 
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