Last Chance to Vote

On Friday or Saturday we'll be announcing which sites and fan projects that won this year's annual contests. If you haven't indicated which have helped you the most this year, now is your last chance. You can vote for one from the website category and one from the fan project category. Voting beyond this in any way will disqualify the voter completely. All it takes is an email to vote. Here are the combined nominees again.

Site of the Year
• Cyberion Systems - A relative newcomer, Cyberion opened his site in January and has created lots of models and interesting things for Wing Commander fans.
• Fleet Tactics - Psych and Jibbo have put together one of the most serious in-universe reference sites in many years.
• HCl's Wing Commander Editing Site - HCl was the master at hacking into WC games long before we ran site of the year contests. He continues to come up with innovative patches and fixes for our beloved series.
• Origin Museum - Joe and Paula have had a busy year offline, but their site serves as a tremendous monument to Origin. They now archive many of the last artifacts to leave Origin's Austin compound.
• Wedge009's Wing Commander - Wedge has assembled some of the most comprehensive data and files on the Wing Commander universe. His in-depth research of the various games provides a great resource and orientation for the series.
• Wing Commander 3D - Tolwyn's repository of 3D models and resources got a big update this year.
• Wing Commander in Russia - Black Joker's complete Wing Commander site serves as a major community pillar for Russian Wing Commander fans.
• Wing Commander Revival - Andreas Schmitt and HCl have been busy this year, but their site is one of the few older Wing Commander News sites out there that still updates with original content periodically.

Fan Project of the Year
• Flight Commander was made almost entirely from scratch by Eddie Benowitz. It is easily modifiable and comes complete with most of the features of the later Wing Commander games.
• Holding the Line endures as the longest running fan fiction series. At more than five years old, regular chapters continue to flesh out the story as it nears its ultimate conclusion.
• Privateer Remake expands on the original Vega Strike project to update and expand the original Wing Commander Privateer. They are now in the final open beta stages.
• Reckoning is the Privateer themed mod to the popular Freelancer game. Numerous Wing Commander additions give you the best of both games in one experience.
• Standoff has taken the Secret Ops engine to new heights with the release of their mod. They are working to combine the best of early nineties Wing Commander designs with the latest Wing Commander engine to create an episodic release.
• WC Saga has utilized Freespace 2's powerful editing tools to create a sharp new experience. Their numerous updates should culminate in an exciting package soon.

Holding The Line Chapter 197

Hey all, Raptor here

HTL continues with the second half of the great "Aftershocks" two-parter, which is written by Joe "Wraith" Guida. As you saw in the last story, pilots from the TCS Yorktown had located the wreckage of the light carrier TCS Endeavour, only for their rescue efforts to be interrupted by the Nephilim. This story picks up from there. Please send any and all comments to Joe at captpowell1@earthlink.net, not to me.

The story is at: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~theraj/archives/ch197.htm

The HTL writing team would like to wish our fellow Wingnuts a happy and prosperous new year. We have a lot of big events coming up in 2005, not the least of which will be the big finish to the storyline. We'll also be passing some major milestones on the way, including HTL's six anniversary, its 200th chapter, and one million published words. Last but not least, Holding The Line Dot Net will be going online, so stay tuned.

Best, Raptor