Wing Commander III Calendar Scanned

We recently posted a scan of the 1997/2673 Kilrathi Saga calendar, a classic Wing Commander document that hasn't been available online. But wasn't there another Wing Commander calendar? There was! The fancy Premiere Edition of Wing Commander III came with a trilingual calendar that shows off high resolution stills from the game's FMV. It's not quite as cool as the Kilrathi Saga calendar because it doesn't have any original lore... but it sure is pretty! But we've scanned the whole thing anyway and you can get either the high resolution version here (298 megs) or a smaller reading copy here (12 megs). You can take your time, though: you can't use this one again until 2034!

Wing Commander Movie Night: The Fifth Element

The Wing Commander movie club has run both silent and deep through Das Boot! We were certainly impressed… with the film and with just how much of the film Chris Roberts managed to work into Wing Commander. Next up we're going to watch something a little more fun: as suggested by Vera, Friday's movie will be The Fifth Element! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The Fifth Element is a 1997 science fiction film from French director Luc Besson. It tells the story of a futuristic taxi driver who inadvertently becomes the key to stopping an incredible weapon capable of destroying the Earth. That plot description is reductive, though: the film is celebrated for both its slick storytelling and its stunningly visualized world (with visuals inspired by the likes of Moebius and Mézières) that seemed like nothing we'd ever seen before at the time. Do you think it will hold up now that some of our audience probably doesn't even know what a taxi is? We'll find out!

Thierry Arbogast is a celebrated French cinematographer who is particularly known for working with Luc Besson on films like The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita, Leon: The Professional and others. A cinematographer, or director of photography, is the person on a film who is responsible for how everything beijing filmed looks. They manage the camera, the light, the sets and so on in the service of the director's vision. It's a job that is both extremely creative but also highly technical. And it's such an important job that FOX's Wing Commander press kit photos, pictured below, misidentified Arbogast as director Chris Roberts!

Wing Commander's official website introduced Arbogast thusly:

Joining Lamont in working with director Chris Roberts in designing the film's overall look was director of photography Thierry Arbogast. Arbogast's work on the sci-fi thriller The Fifth Element demonstrated his abilities in that genre and made him an ideal choice to work on WING COMMANDER. While Arbogast and Lamont created a look that captures Roberts' retro-future world, the visual effects team, headed by Chris Brown, designed the intricate and vast worlds outside the ships.

While the production notes explained more about his overall role::

Moyer agrees: "We have an extraordinary group of department heads on this film, and I think they're crucial to the success of the project. For example, we have Thierry Arbogast as director of photography. His experience on THE FIFTH ELEMENT makes him uniquely qualified to work on this project because this is a very technical film. Almost every shot has a green or blue chromakey, there are holograms, all the sets are deployed on hydraulic devices - it's an extraordinarily complicated job."

THIERRY ARBOGAST (Director of Photography) has worked on films such as THE FIFTH ELEMENT, HUSSARD SUR LE TOIT, THE PROFESSIONAL, MY FAVORITE SEASON, and LA FEMME NIKITA. Arbogast received the Technical Grand Prix at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival for his work on SHE'S SO LOVELY. He has also won the César Award for Best Cinematography twice. He was recognized for his work on THE FIFTH ELEMENT in 1998 and for HUSSARD SUR LE TOIT in 1996.

A soft-spoken man, Arbogast sees himself as something of a skilled worker for this project. "I think I'm working on this film thanks to my general experience as a cinematographer," he explains. In a most obvious comparison, he says: "THE FIFTH ELEMENT and WING COMMANDER are totally different films, with a different atmosphere and plot. THE FIFTH ELEMENT has much more comedy and fantasy. Here we are in a war film. It is a more realistic, sadder film. Sometimes we light the set completely with red or blue light, and then it is like in the old submarine films from 20 years ago. There are no limitations for a film like this, only "styles" to adhere to and to keep consistent.

But we don't select movies just because they shared a creative… there needs to be at least some connection between the productions. And for The Fifth Element, that connection is incredibly specific: Arbogast used the same motion gimbal rig for the Rapiers as he did the taxi! Here's a description of M. Arbogast's Rapier shooting setup from the August 1998 issue of SFX:

In one corner of the hangar set, another cockpit sits on a raised platform with lighting scaffold wrapped around it like a spider. The actor has just completed a series of close-up inserts and puts on a mock upper-crust English accent as he "tally-ho's" another target. To make the Rapiers perform for the camera, visual effects supervisor Chris Brown's CGI team at Digital Anvil in Texas will be creating the ship-to-ship battles in a fully computerized environment. In fact, several DA crew are on set getting high-resolution texture images of the "prop" fighters to later map onto the computer-generated versions. But at the same time, the actors must still be put in the thick of things, so another Rapier sits atop a gimbal rig and green-screen affair capable of shaking the few tons of mock-up back and forth violently. This is nothing new to the gimbal - its last job was handling Bruce Willis' Leeloo-punctured hover-taxi in The Fifth Element.

Arbogast's work was widely celebrated by the other luminaries involved in Wing Commander's production. Here's a sample of quotes and stories from them that show the impotence of his work (and equipment and crew) to the film. In the April 1999 issue of Cinefex where director Chris Brown discusses the work and especially the 'half Rapier' cockpit shots you may have seen filmed on the same gimbal setup:

While on patrol in their Rapiers, Blair and his wing commander, Deveraux (Saffron Burrows), encounter a Kilrathi communication ship near the brown dwarf. After an aerial dogfight the pair destroys two of the Dralthi fighters. Chris Brown directed second unit for the show. "I took a CYA approach to the Rapier fighter cockpit stuff," said Brown, "shooting everything three different ways. We utilized a half-cockpit for tight close ups, while medium shots were done from outside the Rapier mockup, looking in at the pilots through the cockpit glass, with a translight mounted behind for the background." Five generic nebulas were generated at Digital Anvil, then passed to the production art department which produced the translights. A mesh screen was placed between the Rapier and the trans light softening the background and suggesting greater depth. These translights were also utilized for scenes on the bridges of Diligent and Tiger Claw, for angles that included only a sliver of window in frame. "The translights saved us from an unmanageable number of greenscreen shots- I know I'll be using them again and again on future shows." For the third angle, the camera was moved back further from the mockup, which was mounted on a gimbal built for the taxi scene in The Fifth Element and shot against greenscreen.

SFX also discusses Arbogast's impact on the film's costumer, Magali Guidasci, while comparing the results with The Fifth Element:

As soon as Roberts calls "Cut!" there's a weird line-dance as the actors try to undress and make for the water cooler at the same time. The costumes are the brainchild of Magali Guidasci, whose exotic and colourful designs also appear in the martial arts kick-flick Double team an the forthcoming Bruce Willis asteroid movie Armageddon. On Wing Commander, Guidasci is working once more with director of photography Theirry Arbogast, recent winner of the French Cesar award for The Fifth Element, and it's Arbogast who puts into words their mutual desire to "paint the scenes with colour."

"This film is more moody than The Fifth Element - there's a different ambiance to it. Sometimes we set the lights completely red or blue and it's like those old submarine movies from 20 years ago. There are no restrictions to a movie like this, just 'styles' that you must adhere to."

The official movie magazine includes another story from Brown:

Like any good second-unit director, Brown knew that his shots would have to match Roberts' main unit scenes so when all the elements were finally combined, the resulting film would be seamless in tone and style. "By the time we got to the cockpit work, we were already about three to four weeks in, which was good. Chris also had had a nice rehearsal period with the cast, so when they came on to my set, these guys had their characters down. That really made a big difference in continuity. When they came in and hopped in the cockpit, I would take them on a quick joy ride, because the motion control-based simulator we used was just fantastic. It was the same one used for the taxi cab in The Fifth Element and the guys who were running it were just terrific. The cast really got into the whole feeling of things and manipulating these jets, and it really worked out well for us.

Eric Strauss, the movie's VFX producer, also praised Arbogast's work with light in the movie magazine:

Another eye-catching aspect of Wing Commander is its highly saturated color palette, which extends to the FX sequences. "Director of photography Thierry Arbogast did a lot of shooting in colored light, so on the bridge set, everything is bathed in red or blue depending on the situation, and our backgrounds, the digital elements and the scene's lights match that. We have a very colorful atmosphere. There's lots of nebulas and things bathed in different colors of light. We were very happy to push the envelope in terms of the way outer space looks, because it does have different hues and tones to it, which we tried to emulate as best we could."

In a December 1998 preview of the movie, producer Todd Moyer explains why he recruited Arbogast for the film:

"Because Chris was a first-time director, I wanted to have A-level people around him," explains Moyer, who recruited cinematographer Thierry Arbogast (Fifth Element) and production designer Peter Lamont (Titanic) to help create the retro-future look of the 27th Century. Inside of a set of cavernous warehouses that used to contain a munitions factory, Lamont and his team built the deck of the Tiger Claw with stunning detail. "We took an English Electric Lightning cockpit," explains Lamont, "and converted it into the Rapier fighter of the year 2665."

Chris Roberts explained why he chose Arbogast as the man to make Wing Commander distinct from other franchises in the March 1999 issue of Starlog:

For his cinematographer, the director tapped Thierry Arbogast of The Fifth Element. "I've been a big fan of Thierry because I loved Luc Besson's movies like La Femme Nikita and The Professional, and I wanted someone who was going to be bold and give me a colorful look," Roberts explains, "I wanted a look in this movie that would make it stand apart from other SF movies. Star Wars was very bright and '70s, Star Trek is sort of clean with clean lines while the aliens are dark and grungy, and ALIENS is dark and grungy. I wanted to stay away from those three big science fiction franchises and give Wing Commander its own identity. We're seeing a lot of space on the Hubble Telescope photos, and since we're going with the World War II look and the submarine motif, I wanted a colorful look to the film."

The Austin Chronicle interviewed Roberts about the movie in March 1999 and he explained that Arbogast had brought his experienced crew from France to work on the film:

AC: Did you use a mostly local crew or did you fly in people from Austin or Hollywood? I have no idea what the gaffer scene is in Denmark …

CR: It was kind of a combination. The art department was mostly English -- Peter Lamont was production designer and came out of Pinewood Studios -- and then we crewed up in the lower areas with a Luxembourg crew, [cinematographer] Thierry Arbogast brought his people over from France, and the grips were all Belgian. All in all, it was a pretty mixed crew.

Finally, in 1998 camera manufacturer ARRI's newsletter interviewed the man himself in some detail about the technical work that went into Wing Commander:

That’s right: when you hear the title WING COMMANDER you first think of the very popular computer game of the same name. It has now been adapted for the cinema in a suitably ambitious way, using state of the art technology. It is the year 2624. In the universe a war is going on. The heroes – stranded war veterans and daring young pilots – get involved in risky battles with each other and survive dangerous missions. Exciting fights and the struggle between good and bad are at the heart of this saga in outer space. “The story borrows from the film, THE BOAT, adapted of course for outer space”, Chris Roberts describing his feature film. It is the first time this American has directed a film – he also developed the computer game series of the same name.

WING COMMANDER was filmed in Luxembourg. With a budget of 45 million DM, it is the most expensive film project to date made in the Grand Duchy. The film was produced by the Carousel Picture Company (AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS) which the Luxembourger Romain Schroeder founded, together with his partner Tom Reeve in 1995.

The main roles are played by Freddie Prinze jr. (I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER) and Matthew Lillard (SCREAM), two of Hollywood’s rising stars. In supporting roles are Jürgen Prochnow (THE BOAT) and Tchéky Karyo (NIKITA). For his debut, Chris Roberts hired some of the best international specialists. In the team of over 170 people, such well-known names as Peter Lamont and Michael Ford can be found. They were responsible for the design of the buildings and details of the set construction. Both recently received an Oscar for their work on the mega-production TITANIC. In total, 25 people who worked on the TITANIC production were hired to work on this project. Césarwinner Thierry Arbogast (films include THE FIFTH ELEMENT, LEON, SHE’S SO LOVELY) was responsible for image composition. He shot WING COMMANDER with ARRIFLEX 535B and 435 cameras. Robert Wiesmann, head of the ARRI Camera Rental Park in Munich, spoke to him:

R.W.: Your last film, THE FIFTH ELEMENT was the same genre. Can we assume that Science Fiction is your preferred film genre?

Thierry Arbogast: No, it was more a coincidence that Luc Besson made a Science Fiction film. As I had often worked with him before, it was also clear that he would ask me if I wanted to make the film.I very much like the type of cinema which in France is called genre films – for example period dramas, thrillers and of course also Science Fiction, which provide a particular challenge. I mean, I love films which belong to a precisely defined category.

R.W.: And what films do you like to go and see?

Thierry Arbogast: I think highly of Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER, Michael Cimino’s HEAVEN’S GATE and also Clint Eastwood’s PALE RIDER. As a visual person I prefer this style – when beautiful images are shown. In general these are North American productions.

R.W.: On WING COMMANDER you also support Chris Roberts in directing, as he is actually a computer games programmer and this is his first time directing. How did you cope with this extra function as well as your tasks as DoP?

Thierry Arbogast: Oh no – you can’t claim that I directed on WING COMMANDER in any way. I just very much enjoy discussing with the director how a sequence should be shot. Or what possibilities existed to further tighten up a sequence.

With Luc Besson it’s completely different as he has a very exact idea of how a sequence should be shot. Often he even operates the camera. And then I’m the one who has to run after him. But I am, of course, very interested in the discussion with the director, as that is also part of filming.

And although this was his first film, Chris Roberts is a brilliant director, especially technically. He is very enthusiastic about the cinematic medium. And there were already many filmic sequences in the WING COMMANDER games, so you could say he has definitely a certain experience in directing.

R.W.: On the set it was noticed that you let the operator work the camera, although particularly in Europe that’s not very common.

Thierry Arbogast: First of all the sequence is discussed with the director to get a common understanding of it. Then, of course, I reach for the camera to establish the image composition. Then I leave the field to the operator and tell him: that’s exactly what we want.

The actual operating of the camera is a job which I don’t necessarily have to do. Sometimes it is also simply better to have an operator on the scene.

R.W.: You shot WING COMMANDER and THE FIFTH ELEMENT on Super 35. Who decided on this format?

Thierry Arbogast: Well, it wasn’t my personal choice. On THE FIFTH ELEMENT the recommendation on format came from Digital Domain, as with anamorphic lenses the special effects would have been more complicated. Luc Besson finally made the decision.

Personally I also like anamorphic lenses because of the aesthetic reproduction – they create something bizarre in the image which I find interesting. The same with zooms which cause the image to no longer look quite as natural. I would also like to try out the Variable Primes one day.

R.W.: You shot both THE FIFTH ELEMENT and WING COMMANDER with ARRIFLEX 435 and 535 cameras – how did you find them?

Thierry Arbogast: To be honest, if I have the choice between various camera systems, I prefer the one with the better viewfinder. That seems to me to be the main trump of an ARRI camera, as I like viewfinders on which the image seems very close. It is a little bit as if with an ARRIFLEX you are sitting in the fifth row of a cinema and with other cameras at the back of the cinema. Some cameramen like that because then they can assess the image globally and at the same time keep an eye on the contours. But that is rather a view of many operators. When I work as an operator, I prefer to see the image close up.

Another point is that the viewfinder can be pivoted to the other camera side. Sometimes you end up in the corner of a room and are forced to use the viewfinder on the other side. It doesn’t happen very often, but on WING COMMANDER that’s exactly what happened three or four times. And that alone justifies the system.

R.W.: You also had a special ground glass which darkened the surroundings to neutralise everything which wasn’t in the image. Was that the operator’s wish?

Thierry Arbogast: No, that was my idea. I hate seeing things in the camera which are outside the image. For me only the image counts – only the image composition and nothing else around it. I would even like the surrounding area to be completely black.

R.W.: Doesn’t it bother you, for example, to only see the sound assistant’s microphone once it comes into your image?

Thierry Arbogast: What can you do to stop it? All you can do is pivot to the ground when you see a microphone coming towards the image, and that creates a bad image composition. To me it makes more sense to say: OK, let’s repeat the scene. It certainly doesn’t justify leaving an edge around the actual image. However, I accept having very dark grey shadows to enable the operator to at least have minimal points of reference.

R.W.: On WING COMMANDER there were very many camera moves. Sometimes, for example, the camera rotates on its own axis with the Scorpio-head. Doesn’t that later cause a problem for animation?

Thierry Arbogast: No, not necessarily. On WING COMMANDER the special effects were much more easily adaptable than, for example, on THE FIFTH ELEMENT. The technical development of special effects moves very fast. With increasing experience people now have far less fear of many things.

R.W.: In the jets’ cockpits you also left the glass panes in the set. Doesn’t that normally create problems for post-production?

Thierry Arbogast: Yes and no. If the glass panes are kept, some of the set will also be reflected. That doesn’t affect the Green Screen’s performance though. But if we take the glass away, we would have no reflections, and they make everything look far more realistic.

R.W.: The budget of WING COMMANDER was much smaller than on THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Did that cause limitations?

Thierry Arbogast: As a DoP you don’t have a lot of influence on the production’s problems. The limitations exist and you have to live with them. But that also happens on a large film and it’s not necessarily a question of budget. In any case you have a certain responsibility to the production company. And that means, if I don’t really need something, I don’t take it. Even on a big film. It is correct that less money was available for WING COMMANDER than for THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Despite this, relatively speaking the budgets for both films were very small.

On WING COMMANDER we shot for 9 weeks with 4 cameras, on THE FIFTH ELEMENT it was 20 weeks, again with 4 cameras.

R.W.: Which of your own films is your favourite?

Thierry Arbogast: I very much like the films which Luc Besson directed, because he is an extraordinary director who teaches me a lot technically. It is a great pleasure to work with Luc. There is a film called LE BRASIER by director Rick Barbier which I also enjoyed a lot, or HUSAR ON THE ROOF. But somehow it’s strange to say that a film is your favourite. That is like deciding which child in the family is your favourite. I really like all the films I make, even the little productions, such as for example THE APARTMENT by Gilles Mimony.

R.W.: Thank you very much for this interview! Thierry Arbogast’s next project will again be with Luc Besson, who after THE FIFTH ELEMENT, LEON, NIKITA and THE BIG BLUE will begin filming JOAN OF ARC this summer.

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

The Fifth Element is currently available for rental or sale digitally at all storefronts. If you're interested in tracking down a physical copy, a UHD version was released in 2017 and remains in print today. If you are unable to track down a copy please ping a member of the WCCIC staff on the Discord in advance of the watch.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

Intel Everywhere

In early 1993, Origin Systems signed a brand deal with a major technology player, Intel Corporation. At the time, Intel's processors were the industry standard and they were particularly interested in expanding their marketing to appeal to the new furor for multimedia entertainment. The initial deal allowed Intel to use Wing Commander II and Strike Commander to promote their i486 chips. The February 12, 1993 issue of Point of Origin (Vol. 3, No. 32) summarizes the original agreement:

ORIGIN and Intel
Intel Corporation will showcase their 486 chips at the Software Publishing Association (SPA) conference in March and the Comdex trade show in May by running Strike Commander. Strike will be the only entertainment product used by Intel to show off the speed of their chips. ORIGIN has also granted permission for Intel to use some of the game play sequences and screen shots from Wing Commander II and Strike Commander in upcoming TV shots and print ads.

An expansion of the deal the next year would allow Intel to use a number of other Origin games to promote their new Pentium chips to consumers; this would result in some pretty fascinating and rarely remembered Wing Commander III marketing being published! Today we're going to take a look at both print and TV campaigns!

Print Campaigns

"Catch a Rising Star"
July to November 1993
Outlets: Business Week, Computerworld, Fortune, National Geographic

These are the earliest Wing Commander-related Intel ads we've been able to find, two page print spreads promoting the Intel486 DX2 processor. They use a screenshot from Wing Commander II showing a Rapier cockpit with Hobbes on the right VDU alongside other productivity software.

One fun aspect we noticed while researching this was that they cropped the software differently depending on the publication. Compare Business Week to Fortune to National Geographic! No alien cat faces allowed in the important world of finance.

"What's the Big Attraction?"
November to Spring 1995
Outlets: Business Week, The Computer Paper, PC Computing, GW2k: Gateway Magazine, Wired

This one is really exciting: a late 1994 two page spread that includes truly unique renders of two Arrow fighters from Wing Commander III!

"Boldly Go Where No PC Has Gone Before"
October to December 1994
Outlets: Edge (UK), PC Joker (DE), PC World (DE)

This print ad was part of a European campaign that used the same format for a number of different applications. We've found the Wing Commander III version in English and German.

Here are some examples of the non-Wing Commander ads in the campaign in English, German, Spanish and Italian:

TV Spots

"Fall Into Place"

This 1993 commercial shows Intel-supporting software dropping like Tetris blocks. Watch carefully and you'll find both Wing Commander II and Strike Commander!

This 1994 commercial features a kid doing his homework with Red Shift and then switching to "the Kilrathi sector" for (a mockup version of) Wing Commander III! It's even narrated by LeVar Burton.

Posters

Europe

European players received the biggest boon of the Origin/Intel partnership: these two "really fly" posters were widely distributed in English, French and German in a variety of different games (from Origin and other publishers). The Strike Commander poster was for 1993 and Wing Commander III replaced it in 1994.

CES 1994

Americans had a slightly different and significantly rarer Intel poster: these five prints showcasing different Origin games were distributed at CES in 1994.

And Beyond…

One funny side-effect of the co-branding deal is that while it was active Wing Commander's style guide used "intell", with two ls, for Confederation intelligence. It's visible throughout Victory Streak and continues sporadically all the way through the Pilgrim novels. Mag Force 7 didn't get the note, though, and actually had an 'Intel Inside' joke in a luck card:

Wing Commander had one more Intel campaign left in it: in 1996, a deal with Intel helped promote Privateer 2: The Darkening. The game even plays a brief Intel logo when it starts up! The partnership would vanish soon, though: when Chris Roberts started Digital Anvil and created the Wing Commander movie one of the biggest investors was Austin-based AMD, Intel's direct competitor.

Ship Confusion: Caernarvon, Carnovean, Caernavon, Caernaven

Wing Commander II famously opens with now-Captain Blair being reassigned to an InSystem Security squadron at a base called Caernarvon Station. Caernarvon is an impressive space station but it's clear that Blair is now just a two-bit cop in a backwater system unlikely ever to encounter the Kilrathi. The story quickly expands beyond Caernarvon Station but its familiarity led a number of later stories to attempt to reference the location again… every time with some kind of error! In fact, it has been referred to by as many as four different names. We're going to look at the origins of the station and then each of these references to try and figure out exactly what's going on. It's a thrilling quasi-typographical space station adventure, today on the Combat Information Center!

Namesakes

The space station in Wing Commander II is named after Caernarfon Castle, the eventual form of a fortification established in the late 11th Century in Gwynedd, Wales. The connection with Caernarvon Station being located in the Gwynedd System should be apparent! The name itself derives from a Welsh phrase for "the fortress on the land opposite Anglesey." Today, there is a town by the same name near the site of the castle.

Before we introduce the confusion surrounding the name in Wing Commander, we should acknowledge that there are multiple spellings owing to its origin as a Welsh name. Caernarfon is the Welsh spelling and it is the name used today for the town and often the castle. The English adaptations of the word, Carnarvon and Caernarvon, are often used in older material (and sometimes to refer to the castle specifically today, as in Wing Commander II).

What about Gwynedd? Gwynedd is a county in north Wales whose name originates with the medieval Kingdom of Gwynedd which existed in roughly the same area. The origin of the name itself is debated but many believe it to have originated in Old Irish where it would have referred to the 'wild people' or 'people of the wood'. It is connected to the given name Gwyneth which is also how it is pronounced.

Wing Commander II - Caernarvon Station

Caernarvon Station is an enormous space station with six large drydocks for capital ships and a 360 degree flight deck for fighter operations. The main 'wheel' of the station is 2.4 kilometers across. The Wing Commander II manual identifies the design as a Star Base. We see a fair amount of the interior, including the flight deck and comm room, during the game.

The base design itself was inspired by Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Headquarters and Battlestar Galactica's Cylon basestar. If you're interested in learning more about the making of the design itself, we have a complete article about the station's inspirations and its interior.

The retelling of Wing Commander II in the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide introduces a great deal of lore about the station. We are told that it is "the most remote outpost in Terran-controlled space" and that its full name is Caernarvon Space Station. Later we find that it was constructed as a research outpost for the Intergalactic Science Council which relocated to another sector just before Blair arrived. The Terran Confederation Space Navy took over the base for monitoring and reconnaissance in the Enigma Sector. Most of Blair's work involved analyzing data from remote-space sono-buoys, tracking space probes and occasionally flying patrol missions. Here's an extended sequence covering his time there:

Caernarvon Station was the pits. It was one of the oldest active space stations and my quarters reflected its age. Looking back, it's hard to believe I made it through 10 years of the most boring duty in the Space Navy.

Caernarvon Station was originally designed as a research outpost for the Intergalactic Science Council (ISC), but in the year preceding my arrival, its scientific staff had been sent to a newer facility in another sector. When the TCSN took over, it was put into commission as a monitoring and reconnaissance station for the Enigma Sector of space.

Giving you a 10-year history of my years on the station would be the most boring reading since the Congressional Record during the latter part of the 20th Century. Suffice it to say that my responsibilities mainly involved punching keys on a computer, analyzing the data from remote-space sono-buoys, and tracking the progress of various space probes. Only an occasional patrol route in a light fighter broke the monotony until the year 2664. Until that time I never heard, sighted, or suspected the presence of the Kilrathi in our sector.

I tried to keep track of the war, the pilots I had known on the Tiger's Claw, and any new information on the Kilrathi through the computer network. It was, in some ways, my only direct connection with the war effort. I wasn't flying much any more, but I always scanned the databases for the latest dope provided by our intelligence services for combat pilots. If I ever did run into the Kilrathi again, I wanted to be ready.

In the last nine months I spent on the station, I discovered that, after a lull of almost nine years with only sporadic contact with the enemy, the action was heating up again. Of course, the new data from Intel increased at the same rate.

Bluehair and Shadow discuss their upcoming patrol, talk about how much of a waste of time it is — ‘There haven't been any Kilrathi sightings within 20 parsecs of this place for years." Mention that Bluehair and Shadow are two out of only six pilots on the station. The station (called Caernvarvon [sic]) is referred to disparagingly as a pre-fab communications platform.

Six pilots?! But I thought it had a 'full complement' of fighters, just like the Concordia. In fact, the Kilrathi Saga manual actually specifies that the Wing Commander II Space Station can carry 350 fighters!

Why is Caernarvon so large when it's supposed to be a backwater outpost or a communications platform? The answer is that the model itself was designed for an earlier version of Wing Commander II where it appeared only as the Heaven's Gate space station destroyed by Spirit. For this role it was designed as an imposing, enemy-occupied battlestation that it was supposed to be difficult for the Concordia crew to attack head on. When Wing Commander II was reworked, Blair's disgraced career was moved from the cruiser Robert Peel to Caernarvon Station and the artwork created for Heaven's Gate was reused. Note that based on the landing cutscene, the six pilots' equipment includes two Ferrets and two Sabres. There is also footage of a Rapier landing on a Space Station included in pre-release marketing material.

Wing Commander Fleet Action - Carnovean Station

The third Wing Commander novel, Fleet Action, makes the below reference to Confederation bases where the fleet is being shut down: Earth, Sirius and "Carnovean Station". Here's the full description:

The inactive fleet was therefore, at least for the moment, secured, the ships hooked to orbital bases for power and maintenance. Rodham, however, had agreed to the ship's crews being paid off and assigned to inactive reserves as a cost cutting measure, a fact which meant that hundreds of thousands of highly trained personnel were being pulled from their ships and demobilized as quickly as ships were pulled from the front and sent to the main bases either above Earth, Sirius, or out at Carnovean Station.

It's pretty clear that Dr. Forstchen is attempting to refer to Caernarvon Station, which is mentioned in the series bible he was provided. But because he's using a bible and not the game itself, the connection feels confused. It's extremely similar to how his nod to "Phoenix" (secretly Blair) in End Run was inscrutable. The station we see in Wing Commander II simply doesn't match what's being described here, unless things changed significantly between when we last saw it (two years prior to Fleet Action). And that's fair! Maybe the Third Enigma Campaign wound down there. The other issue is, of course, that the base in Wing Commander II it isn't named Carnovean Station. These two issues might just cancel each other out in a broader continuity, though: presumably Carnovean Station is simply something different from Caernarvon Station. And for the record, absolutely NOTHING is named Carnovean; it's a word that appears only in Fleet Action (which alongside the capitalization of Station further supports the idea that Caernarvon Station was the authorial intent)!

Victory Streak - Caernavon Station

… okay, what about Caernavon Station? The Wing Commander III manual, Victory Streak, features a letter to the editor which is reacting angrily to a previously written (in universe) article that criticized the uselessness and expense of "Caernavon Station".

DEAR ECS,
You’ve got to have cat-dung for brains if you think that anyone would believe that trash you wrote about Caernavon Station last week! You seem to think that because it was not designed as a military research installation, nothing that came out of it was worthwhile. You couldn’t be more wrong. My father spent his life trying to further the war effort there.

We didn’t know how the war was going to turn out in those years. No, they didn’t get any direct results from their weapons research. However, the advanced Kaplein Visual Radar Enhancement System that daily saves the lives of countless pilots was based on Caernavon studies. Capital ship waste hydro-recycling is another benefit. I would go on, but I would hate to take up your time when you obviously have so much background verification to catch up on!

dschrueders@victory.libr

We would give you our apologies, Lt. Schrueders, but we find nothing non-factual about the writeup on Caernavon Station. Having spent a year’s tour of duty there, we know all about the research that went on. Your father made many contributions in his time, including the Kaplein VRES system AND the hydro-recycling units.

But, did you know that for every successful project, at least five failed? Take in these stats – in 2058, the station spent 4.3 billion on vacuum fusion research. In 2060, they wasted almost the same amount on biological research – Meta-Analysis of Synapse Replacement, and the Incidence of Myocardial Infraction among Pre-Geriatic War Veterans. The total bill? It ran close to ©10 billion, enough to outfit an entire fleet and crew. So, Lieutenant, perhaps you ought to do some fact-checking for yourself.

IOH editorial opinion, we need to concentrate on making our young pilots better now, instead of waiting until they’re old ...

Again, this is clearly a spelling error in an attempt to reference Caernarvon Station from Wing Commander II. Here the lore much more closely matches that of the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide with the base having a scientific purpose and generally being disliked. But there's a bigger problem with this material: the fact that the dates listed are 600 years off! Is this a different station (presumably one in the Sol System) named Caernavon that has been doing this research for centuries? Maybe! Or maybe it's Caernarvon and 2058 and 2060 should be 2658 and 2660. Or maybe it's the same station and we somehow settle the Gwynedd System very, very early! (Which would, admittedly, jive with the claim that Caernarvon is one of the Confederation's oldest stations and cover the fact that scientists stopped using it before Blair arrived).

Wing Commander The Price of Freedom - Caernaven-class Frigate

Finally, there's the strange but mostly harmless fact that the Wing Commander IV novelization decided to name the frigate used by the pirates at the start of the game "Caernaven class". These frigates were first designed to serve as Paladin's headquarters in Wing Commander III but were cut from the game late because of a missile turret bug. The design was reused in Wing Commander IV and colored for all three of the game's factions. Here's the excerpt from the novel, which describes a pretty cool war book Blair can access to study enemy ships:

Blair yawed wide to the right, far enough to get a decent profile view of the ship. The targeting computer flashed a graphic over the ship, then listed a likely class identification in the targeting box. Blair sucked air in through his teeth as it selected Caernaven frigate. The Caernavens were an older, but still serviceable class.

He flipped to the tactical book again, this time to the Caernaven's page. He wasn't surprised to learn that the Confederation had stricken the ships from active service. Many were held in reserve status or had been mothballed. Others had been sold to the Border Worlds, or, stripped of their guns and weapon systems, to private concerns. The Kilrathi had even captured a few as trophy ships. Blair ground his teeth in frustration. The Caernavens were, without a doubt, as common as dirt.

The unusual thing about this description is the claim that the Confederation had stricken the ship from active service… because we see one of these frigates in Confederation colors in Wing Commander IV (see appendix below). Still, it's easy to assume it might be serving with some kind of reserve unit.

Appendix: The Way of Absolute Candar

Most of the ships that appear in Wing Commander Academy were created for Wing Commander II. The Star Base sprites are included but they are meant to represent a different type of base: Candar Space Station. Unlike most of the creative decisions referenced above, this was absolutely intentional: to allow players to create challenging defense missions, the game greatly reduces the armor, removes the phase shield and cuts the number of flak cannons in half. To explain these changes in-universe, the size of the base is also greatly reduced. Here's a comparison with the sprites scaled to one another:

It's extremely likely that the Wing Commander Academy team wanted to use the depot from Special Operations 1 but were not able to locate the correct mesh to create the new turnaround animation needed in the mission creation UI. This is also why the Crossbow turnaround has the original corvette textures once intended for the base game!

Appendix: List of Examples

Star Bases:

• Caernarvon Space Station - Gwynedd System (Wing Commander II)
• Heaven's Gate Starbase - Heaven's Gate System (Wing Commander II)
• Olympus Station - Ghorah Khar System (Special Operations 1)
• Pembroke Station - Pembroke System (Special Operations 1)
• Akko Station - (Special Operations 2)

• Candar Space Station - Simulated (Wing Commander Academy)

• Unnamed Pirate Frigate - Hellespont B1, B2A & B2B (destroyed)
• Unnamed Border Worlds Frigate - Orestes E1
• Unnamed Border Worlds Frigate - Circe KB
• Unnamed Confederation Frigate - Ella N1A (destroyed)

Appendix: Cheat Sheet

• Vengeance of the Kilrathi - Caernarvon Station
• Fleet Action - Carnovean Station
• Victory Streak - Caernavon Station
• The Price of Freedom - Caernaven-class frigate

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is the continuation of last week: the second half of Das Boot! You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. We'll be starting at the two hour mark. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST, but feel free to drop by and hang any time! Anyone is welcome, even if you didn't catch last week's first part of the film.

The Story So Far...

The movie begins with Jürgen Prochnow's captain driving Warner, a war correspondent, to meet the submarine's crew who are celebrating the night before their next cruise in a French bordello. The sailors are drunk and chaos ensues after another U-boat captain gives a speech insulting Hitler. Rowdy men harass the French singer and fire a pistol and fistfights break out all around.

The next day, after some discussion with the captain the submarine leaves its dock in France for a lengthy planned cruise.

We meet more of the crew as Werner tours the ship and learn that they are largely apolitical. Most are extremely young and more concerned with girlfriends and other thoughts of home than anything else. One watch officer is an adherent Nazi and we see that the rest of the crew thinks poorly of him. The spaces on the ship are cramped and the days are long; the crew spend their time bickering and boasting among one another and going through the routines of everyday life.

After a time, an enemy convoy is sighted and the submarine begins an attack. One of the convoy's escort destroyers spots the sub and targets it with depth charges. They are able to escape after a tense dive to escape the reach of the destroyer's weapons.

There is more boredom for the crew as they spend weeks traveling through heavy storms. We follow a lot of everyday life: meals, medical checks, cloud talk about the state of the world. Some interactions between men become tense as the boredom and fear increase.

At one point, the sub happens to run into another U-boat captained by the man who had spoken against Hitler in the bordello and everyone celebrates it as though the encounter were a joyous homecoming.

Next, in a dramatic sequence that Wing Commander movie viewers will find extremely familiar, the U-boat finally discovers an enemy convoy and attacks, sinking multiple ships before another destroyer sights them. To escape, they must again dive–this time below the recorded safety limit for their boat.

The U-boat manages to escape but one of the crew breaks during the attack and has to be physically restrained. The first half of the movie ends with the U-boat damaged but still alive and the crew stopping to finally rest.

New Year, New Poll!

Our old poll ran in the wake of the CIC's 26th Birthday. As usual, it shows a very sizable portion of our audience dates back to the turn of the millennium, yet there's a pretty good size group that's just found us recently too!

Happy New Year! Kilrathi Saga Calendar Scanned

Happy Wednesday, January 1st! How the heck did we know the date so accurately?! Well, it turns out that the days in 2025 match up to those in 1997 and 2673... which means that you can reuse the calendar included with The Kilrathi Saga this year! The Kilrathi Saga calendar is a wonderful manual produced by Origin as a 'feelie' for the game. It shows off concept art from across the trilogy and even includes lore dates from all over the timeline. A fair amount of Wing Commander continuity was introduced by this document, from the identity of the Rigakh cruiser to Colonel Blair's birthday! You can find January below and we've scanned the whole thing and you can download the entire calendar here (220 megabyte archival quality PDF. Compressed 9 meg PDF also available). Better enjoy now--you won't be able to do this again until 2031!

Why 2673? For one thing, it does correctly match up to 1997 (and 2025) so the team at Origin's creative services department did do their research. It's also when Wing Commander IV takes place! Chris Reid always knew it but it's something that was only truly confirmed by a secret e-mail hidden at Origin's Wing Commander IV PlayStation website around the same time. We've been hosting 'secret.htm' on the WC:CIC server ever since to keep the memory of this cool Easter egg alive!