List of Wing Commander characters

The Wing Commander series of video games and novels have developed a wide variety of characters and personalities.

In order of appearance:

Historical figures

(pre-27th Century)
* Sivar
* Karga
* Sun Wan Lu
* Zhing
* Harold Jarvis
* Tralchar
* Shari Akwende
* Ivar Chu McDanial
* Andre Morvan

Pre-War

Action Stations

Terran Confederation
* Commander Winston Turner
* Ensign Geoffrey Tolwyn
* Ensign Vance Richards
* Senator Jamison More

Admiral of the Fleet Spencer Banbridge

Admiral of the Fleet Spencer "Skip" Banbridge is a character in the Wing Commander universe. He appears in the novel "Action Stations" as chief of the Confederation military, and may or may not be the same character who appears in chronologically later novels as Wayne Banbridge.

Early life and career

Skip Banbridge started his career as an enlisted spacehand in the Confederation Fleet, eventually proving to be of sufficient intelligence and capability to earn a sponsorship to the Academy on Earth. While at the Academy, he met and befriended Winston Turner, as well as his future wife Janet. (While their marriage was a happy one, he was ever aware that he was her second choice, after Turner. They had several children, two of whom died in the first contact with the Kilrathi Empire).

He and Turner rose through the ranks together; for a portion of that time, he was under Turner's command on the elite Marine Commando Six special-operations team, along with Gunnery Sergeant Manuel Ulandi and future Landreich leader Johann Blucher. When Turner burnt out and took an Academy professorship, Banbridge continued rising, eventually becoming Admiral of the Fleet.

Having believed that such an exalted position would give him a freer hand in organizing and improving the Fleet, he discovered instead that he was more hamstrung than ever, having to deal with politicos less interested in national defense than pretty photo-ops. His temper more than once got him into hot water with senior senators, particularly Senator Jamison More, who was threatening to withhold support for the Fleet's fighter-upgrade programs unless the new factories were built on his homeworld.

tart of the Kilrathi War

In 2634, the Confederation declared war on the Kilrathi Empire. Over Banbridge's protests, the battle plan chosen was Orange Five, a limited-action plan pushing back Kilrathi incursions in the Facin sector. Fleet Intelligence reports of Kilrathi strength and cultural makeup had long been ignored by the government in favor of the considerably more pleasant Confederation Intelligence Services assessments, and seemed to be proven right during the war in Facin sector.

Distrustful of the Kilrathi response, Banbridge dispatched his old friend Turner, along with a young Geoffrey Tolwyn and Vance Richards, into the frontier regions between Terran and Kilrathi space, hoping that they would bring back firm proof of a full-scale Kilrathi invasion. They did so, but delays in their return, combined with Terran bureaucratic inertia and breakdowns in communications within the Fleet officer corps, resulted in news of a full-scale offensive arriving just before that offensive. The attack nearly shattered the Landreich and resulted in a third of the Confederation's outer systems being trapped behind Kilrathi lines, the main military base at McAuliffe being wrecked, and the loss of the majority of the Confederation battle fleet. Banbridge had been right, and now he had to pick up the pieces.

Post-"Action Stations"

"Action Stations" ends with Banbridge frantically trying to reorganize the surviving Confederation forces.

Empire of Kilrah
* Prince Gilkarg nar Kiranka
* Baron Jukaga nar Ki'ra
* Vakka nar Ki'ra
* Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka

Free Republic of the Landreich
* Hans Kruger

2650s

Wing Commander Movie

2nd Lieutenant Todd Marshall

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Todd Marshall


Caption = Todd "Maniac" Marshall in Wing Commander I
Rank = Major
Callsign = Maniac
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = 2631
Planet = Leto, Proxima Centauri IV
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance = Wing Commander I

Todd "Maniac" Marshall acted as Christopher Blair's friend and competitor throughout much of the series, with Marshall playing the wild younger brother to Blair's reserved personality. Maniac was played in "Heart of the Tiger", "The Price of Freedom", "Prophecy" and "Academy" by Tom Wilson, best known for his portrayal of "Biff" in the "Back to the Future" movies. (Mark Hamill initially auditioned for this role, and was sorry to lose it, as he felt that Maniac was by far the more amusing character.)

Personal biography

For such a flamboyant personality, Marshall had a relatively quiet start; he moved through the Academy fairly quietly, showing a flair for improvisational flying but none of the rebellious attitude, though his rivalry with Blair had already been kindled by the time both graduated and were transferred to the TCS Tiger's Claw. Once there, the 'Maniac' persona began to fully emerge and flourish. His dazzling flying skills only excelled, but he became notoriously unreliable, preferring to "do his own thing" than obey a wing-leader's orders... or pleas for assistance. Regardless, his abilities were top-notch. One tale, circulated endlessly during the last five years of the war, told of a time when Maniac, leading a recon wing, came across two Kilrathi destroyers. Lacking anywhere near the weapons to deal with these two craft, any other pilot would have bugged out; but Maniac, through sheer flying alone, managed to coax the two capital ships into a fatal collision. To this day, nobody has any idea how he did it. But the demands of his reputation and high-risk flight patterns eventually took their toll; partway through the Vega campaign he suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be rotated off of frontline service.

Once pieced back together, Marshall was assigned as senior pilot in the new Morningstar heavy fighter flight-test program. Here he reunited with Blair aboard the TCS Concordia (the "Claw" being long gone) and was peripherally involved in the Mandarin affair. After the Battle of Earth, he was assigned to the TCS Victory, where he flew alongside Blair in a number of missions, including the doomed "Behemoth" defense and the Temblor Bomb run at Kilrah. After ejecting during the latter, he was captured (and 'interrogated') for a few hours until the Temblor Bomb ended the war.

Instead of deactivating into the reserves, Marshall decided to remain in the cockpit, and was aboard the TCS Lexington when Blair was assigned there to investigate the Border Worlds' alleged aggressions. He defected to the Border Worlds alongside Blair, Capt. William Eisen and Lt. Winston "Vagabond" Chang, and flew in the Black Lance campaign. He continued in active service for over a decade and was aboard the TCS Midway during the Nephilim campaign. Temporarily achieving the long-desired position of squadron commander, he led the Black Widow squadron for a short time before renouncing the post and its associated responsibilities. He was in space on Blair's and Casey's respective wings when the Savior of the Confederation made his final jump. Now over fifty years old, the only major hero of the Kilrathi War who is still in the cockpit, he is finally considering retirement. He is also working on his memoirs: "Me: The Life and Battles of "Maniac" Marshall."

Other media

*In the 1999 "Wing Commander" feature film, Maniac was played by actor Matthew Lillard.

*Maniac also appears in the "Heart of the Tiger", "Price of Freedom" and film novelizations.

Terran Confederation
* Admiral William Wilson
* Commodore Richard Bellegarde
* Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn
* 2nd Lieutenant Christopher Blair
* Commodore James "Paladin" Taggart
* Commander Paul Gerald
* Captain Jacob L. Sansky
* Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John
* Captain Joseph "Knight" Khumalo

Colonel Jeannette Devereaux

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Jeanette Devereaux (DECEASED)


Caption = Jeanette Devereaux in WCI(top) and (bottom)
Rank = Colonel
Callsign = Angel
Race = Human
Gender = Female
Birth = 2626
Death = 2669 (age 43)
Planet = Earth
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance = Wing Commander

"Jeanette Devereaux" (2626-2669) is a character of the computer game series "Wing Commander". A native of Belgium, she was a starfighter pilot in the Terran Confederation Space Force, flying under the callsign of Angel. She took part to the "Vega Sector" and "Enigma Sector" campaigns and worked also in the Special Operations division during the period of the Kilrathi War, as depicted in the first three games of the series: "Wing Commander", "Wing Commander II - Vengeance of the Kilrathi" and "Wing Commander III - Heart of the Tiger".

Personal biography

Jeanette Devereaux was born in 2626 in Brussels on Earth. She is usually described as a cool, rational person who regarded her role as a fighter pilot as an honor and "lived to fight the good fight". Angel took particular interest in the statistical aspects of fighter combat, and could often be heard conversing on such while off-duty. Many pilots found it practical to know that the Kilrathi Salthi light fighter tended to break to one side more frequently than the other (due to the arrangement of its ducts), but this information and more like it (a great deal more) gave Angel a reputation as a bit of an egghead.

In 2654, already promoted to Captain, Angel flew off the Confederation strike carrier TCS "Tiger's Claw" during the Vega Sector campaign. During this period Angel was assigned either to the "Killer Bees" squadron, equipped with Hornet light fighters, or the "Star Slayer" squadron and its Raptor heavy fighters. In the Star Slayer squadron Angel also had the chance to test the Confederation's newest and hottest hardware, the Rapier medium fighter, in real combat mission in the Gimle star system. Her wingman on this mission was a quiet, unassuming rookie named Christopher Blair; that the two of them, relatively inexperienced, were given the opportunity to fly such a high-profile mission, was a foreshadowing of the enormous roles both would play in the Terran-Kilrathi War.

In 2655, after the Confederation successfully repelled the Kilrathi from the Vega sector, the "Tiger's Claw" and her crew were sent in to destroy the Kilrathi HQ in the Enigma Sector at K'tithrak Mang. Devereaux was one of the few pilots to survive the destruction of the "Claw" when the ship was ambushed by a squadron of the then-unknown Kilrathi "Strakha" stealth fighters and lost with (almost) all hands.

By 2665, Devereaux had risen through the ranks up to Colonel and was serving as Wing Commander onboard Geoffrey Tolwyn's flagship, the TCS "Concordia". The ship was in the Enigma sector, attempting to subdue enemy presence there. When Capt. Christopher "Maverick" Blair, the "Coward of the K'tithrak Mang," was assigned to the "Concordia" by a grudging Tolwyn, Angel was one of his staunchest supporters, even flying on his wing to demonstrate her confidence in him. In 2666, after the tragic death of their common friend and fellow "Claw" survivor Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka, the two of them started a romantic relationship that would last until Angel's death. Devereaux was still aboard and in the Wing Commander role when Blair personally destroyed the K'tithrak Mang on a daring solo mission.

Following the Enigma Sector campaign, details on Devereaux's career become a little hazy. However, it is known that by 2668 she had transferred to the Special Operations division ran by another "Claw" veteran, Gen. James "Paladin" Taggart, leaving control of the "Concordia" flight group to Blair. In 2669, after the Battle of Earth, Angel embarked on a Special Operations mission, aimed to secretly penetrate into Kilrathi territory. Flying a captured Kilrathi transport ship, Devereaux and her crew reached Kilrah, the enemy home planet, and conducted a geological survey, confirming that the planet was, from a seismic standpoint, ready to fall apart at the seams. They then set up three secret asteroid bases within the Kilrathi star system for use in a future Temblor Bomb strike.

Unfortunately, after setting up all the depots, Devereaux and her crew were captured by the Kilrathi and imprisoned. During a Kilrathi council held by the Emperor himself, the Special Operatives were bodily disintegrated. Angel, the only exception, was personally disemboweled by Crown Prince Thrakhath "nar" Kiranka, a sort of backhanded honor bestowed on powerful enemies. A holographic recording of the event was later used against Col. Blair, who eventually led the strike to deliver the Temblor Bomb, thus following through on his "lair-mate's" work.

Notes

* In the "Wing Commander III - Heart of the Tiger" Full Motion Video cut scenes, Jeanette Devereaux was played by Yolanda Jilot, while in the 1999 "Wing Commander" feature film Saffron Burrows was cast for her role.

Wing Commander

Terran Confederation
* 2nd Lieutenant Christopher "Marverick" Blair
* Sam "Shotglass"
* Major James "Paladin" Taggart
* Captain Jeannette "Angel" Devereaux
* 2nd Lieutenant Todd "Maniac" Marshall
* Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John
* Captain Joseph "Knight" Khumalo
* Colonel Peter Halcyon
* Major Zachary "Jazz" Colson
* Captain Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair
* Field Technician Jason Galbraith
* Jason “Bear” Bondarevsky

Lieutenant Colonel Mariko Tanaka

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Mariko Tanaka (DECEASED)


Caption = Spirit in WCI
Rank = Lieutenant Colonel
Callsign = Spirit
Race = Human, Japanese
Gender = Female
Birth = Unknown
Death = 2666
Planet = Earth
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance = Wing Commander I

Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka is a fictional character in the computer games "Wing Commander" and "". Spirit is an excellent pilot and plays a couple of roles as Christopher "Maverick" Blair's wingman in the computer game series.

About

Mariko Tanaka was born in Sapporo, Japan, and became a Terran Confederation fighter pilot during the Terran-Kilrathi War. She comes from a long line of warriors, her father having died in battle, and joined the war effort out of tradition, but would quickly learn that the war against the Kilrathi is one that has to be fought and won if the human race was to survive. In "Wing Commander I", she was introduced to Christopher Blair. Her pilot callsign was "Spirit". Spirit was transferred to the "TCS Tiger's Claw" and was a wingman under Blair in several missions. Mariko was a distinguished fighter pilot, her superior flying skills were top-notch.

Spirit remains a soft-spoken, philosophical, and friendly pilot, lending a sympathetic ear or some words of advice and encouragement. She would later fall in love and become engaged to a man named Philip, who was in the enlisted in the medical corps. Unfortunately he became a prisoner of war, and Spirit grew angry and vengeful of the Kilrathi at first, before fantasizing of being a commando and saving Philip. After many years, nothing was ever found about Spirit's missing fiancé and was thought to be dead. This left Spirit to better herself as a pilot and fantasize about being a commando to save her beloved.

In "Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi", Spirit was transferred to the "TCS Concordia", and one of the few pilots that survived from the loss of "TCS Tiger's Claw". However, a traitor reveals to Spirit that her missing fiancé, Philip, was not dead as she feared but was actually on board a Kilrathi space station. She was contacted by the Kilrathi with this information and was tempted to defect, but refused. Later she kamikazed her ship into the station holding Philip, killing herself and destroying the station. Her last words to Blair were "Tengoku de omachi shite imasu" (I am waiting for you in Heaven)".

Major Michael Casey

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Michael Casey (DECEASED)


Caption = Michael "Iceman" Casey
Rank = Major
Callsign = Iceman
Race = Human, Canadian
Gender = Male
Birth = 2623
Death = 2656 (age 33)
Planet = Earth
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance = Wing Commander I

Michael "Iceman" Casey is a fictional character in the computer game "Wing Commander". Iceman is an excellent pilot and plays a couple of roles as Christopher "Maverick" Blair's wingman throughout the computer game series.

Casey should not be confused with Tom "Iceman" Kazansky from the 1986 movie "Top Gun."

Personal Biography

In the fictional Wing Commander universe, Michael "Iceman" Casey was born in Vancouver, Canada and served in the TCS "Tiger's Claw" adequately but with little inspiration. He was considered to be assigned to another area when tragedy had struck for Casey. In late 2649, his first wife and 15-month-old daughter were killed in a Kilrathi raid on Vega VII, and his other daughter, Julia Casey, was taken prisoner. Angered by this news, Casey's kill ratio nearly doubled immediately and his kill score continued to rise. His dispassionate, emotionless demeanor earned him a new callsign, "Iceman."

In Wing Commander I, Iceman continues to serve under the Confederation and is still on board the TCS "Tiger's Claw". In the year 2655, good news was to come to Iceman. Iceman received word that the "TCS Jerusalem" had intercepted a Kilrathi slave ship, and that his daughter, Julia, was among those on the ship. Shortly after Firekka, Iceman met a waitress named Kylie Sarah Richards. A few months later they married and had a son, Lance. Life was looking good for Iceman for a bit until tragedy struck. Six weeks after his second marriage however, Michael Casey was killed in action on a deep space patrol in the B'shriss system. Christopher Blair brought back his life-pod, but the official report of his death omitted the fact that he was found in pieces. In , Jacob "Hawk" Manley, a close friend of Iceman's since his assignment on the TCS "Tiger's Claw", explained that Iceman's body was found the way it was because the Kilrathi took in his life-pod, killed him in that fashion, and afterwards, put his remains back in the pod and left it adrift for Confederation pilots to find. This part of the report was omitted to prevent traumatizing Iceman's family even more.

Michael "Iceman" Casey had achieved three hundred and sixty seven Kilrathi kills during his nine-year career in the Terran Confederation. Seven of those years were spent on the TCS "Tiger's Claw", along with pilots like Christopher "Maverick" Blair. He was one of the most decorated pilots of the Confederation and even had a flight maneuver named after him.

Major Kien Chen

Kien "Bossman" Chen is a fictional character in the fictional "Wing Commander" game series. He appears in "Wing Commander 1" (1990) and the two Secret Missions expansion packs.

Wing Commander character|if=|Title = Kien Chen
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Kien Chen (DECEASED)


Caption =
Rank = Major
Callsign = Bossman, formerly Ripper
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = Unknown
Death = 2655.271
Planet = Earth
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance = Wing Commander 1

Historical background

Kien Chen was born in Kaoshiung, Taiwan on Earth on an unknown date. He was a pilot for the Terran Confederation since 2637 and held the rank of Major by the time he was assigned to the TCS Tiger's Claw. He also had a degree in aeronautical engineering. Chen's old callsign was "Ripper", but earned the name "Bossman" for his splendid leadership in combat and for always providing reliable advice to his comrades.

During the year 2654, nineteen years after the Kilrathi War started, Bossman was still serving on the TCS Tiger's Claw. He became a good friend of Christopher Blair, who at that time was a rookie pilot. Bossman used his knowledge gained from flying to help Blair and other new pilots in the field. He cooperated in the Vega Campaign, Operation: Thor's Hammer, and the liberation of Firekka. He was also one of the few believers in the capture of TCS Gwenhyvar, an Exeter-class Destroyer the Kilrathi were using to attack human ships. His belief in the ship's existence proved true when Blair destroyed the vessel during a mission in Operation: Thor's Hammer in 2655.

Bossman was in the Firekka System at the time that the Kilrathi invaded the defenseless planet. He hoped to bring his family to see the planet on a holiday after Confed removed the Kilrathi from the planet. Tragically, he did not live to see that day. Bossman was flying alongside Major Jeannette Devereaux on a patrol on 2655.271 when the Kilrathi Imperial Guard attacked them. Bossman was killed while trying to save Angel's life, who managed to get away. Bossman's death was a devastating loss for the TCS Tiger's Claw, since they had gotten used to taking advice from him. Angel kept blaming herself for Bossman's death and it was a while before she forgave herself.

Bossman is survived by his wife, Mingxing, and a daughter who was born in 2653. As of 2655, they live in San Francisco, California.

Notes

* In the movie, Lieutenant Christopher Blair accidentally sits in his fighter. For some reason, they never met (Chen was killed before Blair transferred to the Tiger's Claw).

Empire of Kilrah
* Khajja the Fang
* Dakhath Deathstroke

Bakhtosh Redclaw

Baktosh Redclaw is a fictional Kilrathi character from the Wing Commander game series. He only appears once very briefly in Wing Commander (1990).

Historical Background

Baktosh Redclaw was a Kilrathi noble loyal to the Empire of Kilrah. As of 2654, in the middle of the 35-year Kilrathi War, he was ranked as "the" best pilot in the Kilrathi fleet. Redclaw only flew a Jalthi heavy fighter, which was infamous for mounting six laser cannons, a deadly combination that matched his ferocity. Redclaw fought with several of the Terran Confederation's finest ace pilots. Some years before the events of 2654, Redclaw fought with a squadron led by James Taggart. Redclaw and his wingmen killed four of Taggart's own wingmen before Taggart's force could organize an appropriate retaliation. Redclaw was among the most feared pilots in the Kilrathi fleet.

During the Vega Campaign in 2654, the TCS "Tiger's Claw" was in the Dakota System trying to assist a colony on the planet Fargo. The colony suffered an outbreak of a disease known as Watson's Disease, and the TCS "Tiger's Claw" had to get the vaccines down to the planet before the colony died off. Baktosh Redclaw was defending three transports on 2654.139 when pilots Christopher Blair and Joseph "Knight" Khumalo attacked them on a routine patrol. Redclaw was with the second transport which was carrying troops. Whether he dies in this mission of the game or not is up to the player.

Bhurak Starkiller

Bhurak Starkiller was a Kilrathi ace fighter pilot in the fictional Wing Commander game series. He makes one appearance in Wing Commander (1990).

Bhurak Starkiller was one of the finest pilots of the Empire of Kilrah. He always flew a Salthi light fighter. He fought in the Vega Campaign during 2654. Up until that point, Bhurak had sixty-four kills in both pilots and capital ships. When TCS "Tiger's Claw" was in the McAuliffe System on 2654.132, Bhurak and his squadron attacked a Drayman-class Transport that then-First Lieutenant Christopher Blair and Major James Taggart were escorting to the TCS "Tiger's Claw". Blair managed to shoot down Bhurak before the transport was destroyed, killing the ace pilot.

Bhurak Starkiller's real name was Bhurak nar Caxki, meaning he was a member of the nar Caxki clan.

Wing Commander Academy

"The list is ; you can help by [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TVXQ&action=edit&section=24 expanding it] ."
Terran Confederation
* Commodore Geoffrey Tolwyn
* Cadet Christopher "Marverick" Blair
* Cadet Todd "Maniac" Marshall
* Cadet Gwen "Archer" Bowman
* Cadet "Payback" Price
* Tech Specialist Mia McEdens
* Cadet "Grunt" Pauz
* Cadet Allen "Blizzard" Goetz
* Cadet "Hyena"
* Cadet "Clifford"
* Cadet Victoria "Viking" [Only Seen on Episode 1]
* Cadet "Pitchfork" Petell
* Cadet "Raker" [Only on radio in Episode 11]
* Cadet "Jazzman"
* Cadet "Cobra"
* Cadet "Gharal"
* Cadet "Flint"
* Pilot Damian Karnes
* Cadet "Razor"
* Cadet Emil "Easy" Zoarian [Only Seen on Episode 11]

Empire of Kilrah
* Gerhal
* Boc Nar Ragitagah

Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ff0000
Title = Thrakhath "nar" Kiranka (DECEASED)


Caption = Prince Thrakhath as he appeared in ".
Rank = Crown Prince
Race = Kilrathi
Gender = Male
Birth = Unknown
Death = 2669
Planet = Kilrah
Affiliation = Kilrathi Empire
First Appearance =

Thrakhath "nar" Kiranka is a fictional character in Chris Roberts's "Wing Commander" video game and science fiction series. He belongs to the felinoid Kilrathi species and acts as the primary antagonist of Confederation Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn and pilot-hero Christopher Blair during part of the "Kilrathi War". Thrakhath appears in the ' and ' games, the ' and ' novels as well as in the animated series "Wing Commander Academy".

Personal Biography

Crown Prince Thrakhath "nar" Kiranka (2624-2669) was the youngest son of Prince Gilkarg nar Kiranka, son of the ruling Kiranka Emperor and third in line of succession. Born in 2624, he rose to prominence as heir to the Empire following the death of his brother at the Battle of McAullife in 2634, and of his father following the KIS "Sivar" debacle of 2655. He gradually assumed more responsibilities as his grandfather grew infirm.

The young prince proved to be a tenacious, ruthless commander who often demanded "zu'kara" (ritual suicide) from those who failed to live up to his high standards. He shunned desk jobs, preferring to lead his war armada from the front; in the early part of the war, and even as late as 2666, he regularly took to space in his custom-built Bloodfang fighter. He never truly respected his foes, regarding humanity as food-prey unworthy of the honor of battle.

Though his bullheaded leadership style led to early successes against the Confederation, it faltered as Thrakhath came up against Rear Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, who easily proved Thrakhath's match, in both obstinance and strategy. By 2667 and the Battle of Vukar Tag the tide was turning against the Kilrathi, with Thrakhath continually snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Stories of his incompetence spread, and the Prince who once drove the Confederation from "Enigma Sector" became known as an inept buffoon. Assassination attempts, both on him and the Emperor, became commonplace, one of which was organized by his one-time advisor Baron Jukaga.

By mid-2669 the Kilrathi had recovered from their losses of the previous year. With his rebuilt battle fleet, and facing a Confederation greatly weakened by the Battle of Earth, Thrakhath seemed on the verge of victory. In one stroke he would redeem his clan's honor and wipe out his hated enemy. But it was not to be. Thrakhath was downed in combat on 2669.267 by Colonel Christopher Blair, and his home planet, the seat of Imperial power, died shortly thereafter.

Pilgrim Stars

Terran Confederation
* Commodore James "Paladin" Taggart
* 2nd Lieutenant Christopher Blair
* 2nd Lieutenant Todd "Maniac" Marshall
* Lieutenant Commander Jeannette "Angel" Devereaux
* Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John
* Space Marshall Sandra Gregarov

Pilgrim Alliance
* Captain Amity Aristee
* William Santyana
* Protur Carver Tsu IV

Freedom Flight

Terran Confederation
* Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John
* Lieutenant Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka
* Major James "Paladin" Taggart
* Captain Joseph "Knight" Khumalo
* Colonel Peter Halcyon
* K'kai
* Rikik

Empire of Kilrah
* Ralgha nar Hhallas
* Kirha nar Ragitagha

2660s

Wing Commander II

Terran Confederation
* Captain Christopher Blair
* Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn
* Colonel Jeannette "Angel" Devereaux
* Janet "Sparks" McCullough
* Dirk "Stingray" Wright
* Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky
* Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka
* Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair
* Colonel Ralgha "Hobbes" nar Hhallas
* James "Paladin" Taggart
* Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall

Zachary Colson

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Zachary Colson (DECEASED)


Caption = Major Zachary Colson as he appeared in
Rank = Major
Callsign = Jazz
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = Unknown
Death = 2667
Planet = Unknown
Affiliation = Terran Confederation, Mandarins
First Appearance = Wing Commander I

Zachary "Jazz" Colson is a character from the computer games " and ".

Biography

Zachary Colson first appeared in Chris Roberts's Wing Commander, during the "Secret Missions" campaigns. Colson started his service life as a young, inexperienced pilot on the TCS Austin. He got his callsign "Jazz" from being a musician and was known to perform on the TCS Austin, playing the piano. Colson is later transferred temporarily to the TCS Tiger's Claw along with fellow pilot Etienne Montclair. In the "Secret Missions" campaign, because of Christopher Blair's actions involving the heavy losses of the Goddard Colony, Roberts would make the character into a cold and hateful person.

By , Over ten years would have passed. By then, Colson was assigned on the TCS Concordia. However, Roberts had made Colson into a cold and bitter person after the "Secret Missions" campaign in Wing Commander I. Colson had joined a rogue group of humans called the Mandarins that worked for the Kilrathi. He then began a campaign of betrayal and murder. Colson would sabotage ships, commit several murders, transmit classified information to the Kilrathi, and planted explosives on the Concordia's flight deck.

The first major incident Jazz caused on the TCS Concordia was the murder of Comms Specialist McGuffin. Jazz volunteered to watch the comms room while McGuffin took a short break, giving Jazz the chance to contact the Kilrathi with his latest intelligence. When McGuffin caught him in the act, Jazz shot him down, putting Dirk "Stingray" Wright's pilot's wings in his hand to make him look like the enemy. Afterwards, the aforementioned flight deck explosion occurred thanks to Jazz, and he blackmailed Mariko Tanaka with her long-lost fiancee's life if she refused to betray the Terran Confederation. Her future husband, Philip, had been imprisoned for ten years. When she refused, Jazz planted explosives on her starfighter. Her gunner died and she committed suicide by ramming her craft into the Heaven's Gate starbase.

Near the end of , Colson's betrayal is discovered by Wing Commander Jeannette Devereaux. In an attempt to escape, Colson flew from the TCS Concordia, only to be intercepted by Christopher Blair. Afterwards, Blair went to see Colson to ask why he had betrayed the Confederation. Colson believed that the Goddard colony and his brother would have been saved if the TCS Tiger's Claw hadn't detoured to attack a Kilrathi troopship. He had sworn to kill everyone who served on the Claw.

In the "Secret Operations" campaign of . Colson faces several Confederation officials at his military tribunal. Colson is convicted of murder and high treason and is sentenced to death by Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn. However, Colson is rescued by members from the Mandarins. He spent a few days in hiding on Ayer's Rock station in the Ayer's System, but fled in a Morningstar when the base was destroyed by Blair. Blair eventually tracked down Colson and was able to shoot him down, which finally let Roberts end the character's life of treachery.

Empire of Kilrah
* Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka
* Kirha

End Run

Terran Confederation
* Commander Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky
* Janet "Sparks" McCullough
* Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair
* Svetlana Ivanova

Kevin Tolwyn

Kevin "Lone Wolf" Tolwyn is a fictional character in the Wing Commander series of computer games and novels. He is a fighter pilot who is the nephew of Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn. (It is worth noting that early scripts for "Wing Commander Prophecy" said, instead, that he was the admiral's son.)

From the moment Kevin Tolwyn entered the Academy, eyes widened, jaws dropped and crowds parted for him. He shared the last name of one of the finest commanders in the fleet, Adm. Geoffrey Tolwyn; and if pressed he would admit to being the man's nephew, as his aunt was Tolwyn's late wife. Spoiled and pampered as a child, he nonetheless knew that he would eventually enter the military, as Tolwyns had served Terra and England (not necessarily in that order) for over a thousand years. A natural pilot, he scored well at the Academy and gained popularly from the almost infinite depth of his wallet.

It was expected he would never see actual combat, but on his first assignment, he was assigned to the flight group aboard the TCS Tarawa CVE-08, then a newly-minted escort carrier constructed (alarmingly) by stapling a runway to a transport. He made quick friends with her commander, Capt. Thaddeus O'Brian (formerly a transport commander) but aroused only skepticism with her flight group commander, Capt. Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky. During the engagement above Vukar Tag, the first for the fresh-out-of-flight-school "Tarawa" crew and flight group, Lone Wolf was assigned to escort a damaged Sabre heavy fighter back to base. When a lone Sartha light fighter sortied up, Lone Wolf gave chase; he got it, but allowed several other Kilrathi fighters to close with the Sabre and destroy it, resulting in the loss of one crewmember. Tolwyn's actions, exacerbated by his possibly-phony explanation that his radio had been damaged, led to his indefinite removal from the flight line; as far as Bondarevsky was concerned, Tolwyn was simply looking out for himself and could not be considered reliable.

When the "Tarawa" was assigned to Task Force Valkyrie as part of its now-famous raid on Kilrah, Bondarevsky put Tolwyn back in the cockpit; they'd need every pilot they could get, and arrogant or not, Lone Wolf was one of the best. In the ensuing campaign, he achieved his ace strip and, in light of pilot losses (as well as Bondarevsky's emergency ascension to captain of the "Tarawa"), was promoted to commander of the Rapier medium fighter squadron. The campaign erased from him any delusions of grandeur; what he wanted, he discovered, was not the phony camaraderie of his affluent civilian life, but the life-and-death trust of his fellow pilots. During the Kilrah campaign, he got it. He was one of only fourteen pilots to survive the raid, and returned to a proud uncle on Earth with the right to call himself a valued member of the "Tarawa" crew, one of the First to Kilrah.

During the armistice, he was one of the retired Confed personnel who transferred to the Free Republic of the Landreich, but was not aboard when the "Tarawa" penetrated into Hari space and discovered the "Hakaga"-class supercarriers; he had returned to Earth with his uncle, to send out a phony radio signal cribbed from the Battle of Midway. Both Tolwyns were planetside when a bomb wiped out most of the military's senior staff; when intelligence from the "Tarawa" arrived only minutes later, the picture became clear: not only were the Kilrathi planning to attack Earth under cover of the armistice (proved by the radio signal), but they had the firepower with which to do it. Admiral Tolywn was immediately reinstated and made commander of the Third Fleet, with orders to defend Earth against the new threat by any means necessary. Kevin, assigned to the "Concordia," flew in both the Battle of Sirius and the Battle of Earth, where he personally escorted Brigadier General "Big" Duke Grecko's marine landing craft into Thrakhath's flagship; shortly afterwards he was hit and forced to eject. Though he received a dangerous dose of radiation when Grecko's marines blew their thermonuclear weapon to destroy the carrier, he was rescued in time and survived.

After the Battle of Earth, he was rotated off the front lines by Admiral Tolwyn, who, despite his pride in the boy, could not bear the thought of losing someone who had become less of a nephew and more of a surrogate son. As a Major, he ran courier services and information across the Confederation. He came aboard the TCS Victory for a short time to brief her Wing Commander, Col. Christopher Blair, on the TCS Behemoth project, and only declined to join Blair's flight group because he knew it would pain his uncle.

After the war, Kevin found himself still flying fighters, but this time as a wing commander himself. He commanded the fighter wing flying off FRLS "Independence", the renamed Tarawa, which was now in Landreich hands. By the end of the events surrounding the recovery and refitting of the lost Kilrathi carrier (chronicled in "False Colors"), he had been promoted to naval captain, and had become the "Independence"'s commander.

Empire of Kilrah
* Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka
* Baron Jukaga nar Ki'ra

Fleet Action

Terran Confederation
* Captain Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky
* Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John
* Janet "Sparks" McCullough
* Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair
* Kevin "Lone Wolf" Tolwyn
* Professor David Torg
* Rear Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn
* President Harold Rodham
* Admiral Vance Richards
* Vice President David Quinson

Empire of Kilrah
* Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka
* Baron Jukaga nar Ki'ra

Free Republic of the Landreich

President H. Maximillian Kruger

Hans Maximillian Kruger is President of the Landreich in the Wing Commander video game and science fiction series.

Brash, bold, disdainful of the Confederation (popularly known in the Landreich as Confees), Kruger personified the Landreich during much of its existence. He appears in "Action Stations" (as Hans Kruger), "Fleet Action", and "False Colors", and is referred to in the "Price of Freedom" novel.

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger

* Colonel Christopher Blair
* Colonel Ralgha "Hobbes" nar Hhallas
* Lieutenant Winston "Vagabond" Chang
* Lieutenant Robin "Flint" Peters
* Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall
* Major Jace "Flash" Dillon
* Lieutenant Mitchell "Vaquero" Lopez
* Lieutenant Ted "Radio" Rollins

Chief Petty Officer Rachel Coriolis

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Rachel Coriolis


Caption = Ginger Lynn Allen as Rachel Coriolis
Rank = Chief Petty Officer
Race = Human
Gender = Female
Birth = Unknown
Planet = Unknown
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance =

Rachel Coriolis is a fictional character in the Wing Commander video game universe. Her first appearance was in the computer game . In "Wing Commander III" and , the character of Rachel is played by Ginger Lynn Allen.

Personal biography

In the fictional Wing Commander universe, Rachel Coriolis is the most decorated enlisted female in the Confederation Navy and is regarded as one of the top five naval engineers on active duty.Coriolis was born on a Navy base. She is the middle child and only girl in a family of five. Her father served in the Navy and her mother was nightclub singer (and a showgirl before marriage.)

Coriolis excelled in science and math, earning a degree in Mechanical Engineering in college.She attended Naval ROTC and did exceptionally well, but dropped out in Junior year rather than accepting a commission. Coriolis took an assignment on the TCS Victory, becoming the youngest flight deck Chief on any Confederation carrier at the time. While there, Coriolis met Christopher Blair and the two immediately married shortly after the war. Following a messy marriage break-up, Coriolis re-enlisted and earned two post-graduate degrees while serving.

Coriolis had an occasional involvement in research projects, and joined Midway's development at Blair's invitation after being promised control of the flight deck after its launch. The game manual from includes an e-mail from Paladin to Blair, mentioning them getting along well after their "falling out" at the end of the war. Coriolis is now friends with Blair. In the game , Lt. Casey is immediately taken with her (so much so that he cannot speak on their first encounter) but the two quickly become friends.

Role in Wing Commander III

Coriolis is one of two possible love interests for Christopher Blair (played by Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame) in Wing Commander III. Even if Blair does not choose her, they maintain a flirtatious relationship throughout the game--Rachel has many brief cutscenes, including one at the end of nearly every mission "grading" Blair's performance (based on how shot up his craft is) or informing him if an ejected wingman made it back safe. In their ending, after the long-fought Kilrathi War has ended, both Blair and Coriolis fly on a space shuttle and share a romantic moment together.

"Maverick: So what would you like to do first?"
"Coriolis: I wanna take a long walk along the seashore, I wanna feel the sand between my toes, and never see another bulkhead. (laughing)
""Maverick: Sounds good to me."

Captain William Eisen

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = William Eisen


Caption = William Eisen in Wing Commander IV deletable image-caption
Rank = Captain -> Admiral
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = Unknown
Death = Unknown
Planet = Earth
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance =

Captain "William Eisen" is a fictional character in the "Wing Commander" computer game and novel series. In the computer games, Eisen is played by the lateJason Bernard, perhaps best known for portraying Paul Bracken on "Herman's Head".

About

William Eisen is first introduced in ', as captain of the "TCS Victory", the carrier that serves as Colonel Christopher Blair's home base. Throughout the game and the novel based on the game, he proves himself to be a good man and fine officer who is as much a father figure to the "Victory's" crew as a military commander. In ', he is again the commander of Col. Blair's home ship, this time the fleet carrier "TCS Lexington". As the game and its spinoff novel progress, Eisen, suspecting a conspiracy within the Confederation government, defects to the Border Worlds, followed soon after by Blair and several other pilots, where he commands the Border Worlds carrier "BWS Intrepid" during the brief shooting war with the Confederation. At the story's conclusion, exonerated along with Blair and his friends, Eisen receives a promotion to admiral. Eisen presumably dies during the period between "Wing Commander IV" and "", as actor Jason Bernard died in late 1996 due to a heart attack. The "Vesuvius"-class carrier "TCS Eisen" appearing in "Wing Commander: Prophecy" is presumably named for him.

General James Taggart

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = James Taggart


Caption = James Taggart as he appeared in "Wing Commander.
Rank = General
Callsign = Paladin
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = 2609
Planet = Venus
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance = Wing Commander I

In the fictional universe of Wing Commander, James Taggart is one of the most important characters, with the callsign of "Paladin". He appears in all five games of the main continuity, as a senior pilot ("Wing Commander"), a special operative ('), a general (') and a Senator (' and '). He also has significant appearances in many of the Wing Commander novels by Mercedes Lackey, Ellen Guon and William Forstchen.

Personal biography

In the Wing Commander series, Paladin usually plays the part of the sage old man. At the beginning of the Kilrathi War he was still a young man, however, by the time of WC1, he was middle aged and considering retirement. Sometime between Wing Commander I and , Taggert retired from active duty. However, rather than leave military life for good, he transferred to Special Operations to work as a spy and under cover operative for the Confederation. During the intervening years he participated in a number of actions, including the Ghorah Khar incident, in which the Kilrathi colonists on the planet successfully rebelled against the Empire of Kilrah.

Paladin played a big part in , advising Admiral Tolwyn on the situation within the Enigma Sector. After the attack on K'tithrak Mang, Christopher "Maverick" Blair, the game's protagonist, joins Paladin to participate in a number of special operations.

Paladin continued to rise in prominence with the special services, eventually heading up a number of black projects designed to win the war against the Kilrathi swiftly and decisively. At the end of Wing Commander III, he personally commanded the operation that led to the destruction of Kilrah and the end of the war, thanks to the use of the new Temblor Bomb. Taggart had recruited Angel to help him do vital re-con work for the project and he was aware of her death on Kilrah long before Blair. Paladin insisted that he withheld the truth from Blair to "protect him from himself".

Taggert's prominence after that battle, gave him enough political clout to where he was elected president of the Confederation's Senate by the events of Wing Commander IV. Despite his numerous complaints about the political backbiting involved in the job, he proved to be an able leader, guiding the Confederation through a crisis with the Union of Border Worlds, and the attack of the Nephilim. It is likely that part of his success as a politician is due to the close ties that he still maintains with his old friends in the intelligence service.

Media

*Paladin, as portrayed in , , and , was played by John Rhys-Davies.

*In Wing Commander movie, Paladin was portrayed by Tchéky Karyo. James Taggart is half-Pilgrim, like the young Christopher Blair, and his presence foreshadows the strong influence that he and Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn will have on young Blair's future career.

Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn

Wing Commander character|if=|Title = Geoffrey Tolwyn
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Geoffrey Tolwyn (DECEASED)


Caption = Malcolm McDowell as Geoffrey Tolwyn
Rank = Space Marshal
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = Early 2600s
Death = 2673
Planet = Earth
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance =

Admiral Sir Geoffrey Tolwyn, Bt. is a fictional character in the "Wing Commander" universe. Frequently he is a direct or nearly direct superior and adversary of the viewpoint character, Christopher Blair.

Admiral Tolwyn first appears in "Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi". In the full motion video cut scenes beginning in "Wing Commander III", Tolwyn is portrayed by Malcolm McDowell, who also voices him in the animated series "Wing Commander Academy". In the 1999 "Wing Commander" movie, Tolwyn is portrayed by David Warner, as McDowell was unavailable. (It is of interest to note that both actors co-starred in the fantasy epic "Time After Time" as Jack the Ripper and H.G. Wells, respectively.)

Youth and young adulthood

Admiral Tolwyn is 43 years old as of the beginning of Wing Commander 1. The only son of a British baronet, Tolwyn grew up as part of the last remaining vestige of nobility in the world. He was born in 2612, during an era of relative peace. He attended the Confederation Navy Academy and graduated during a time when many in the Confederation were questioning the very necessity of the armed forces and when Confederation senators were looking to bolster their votes by cutting "wasteful" military programs; all during the slow, steady build of tensions between the Confederation and the Kilrathi Empire. Tolwyn was assigned as a special operations officer straight out of the Academy after a run-in with a Senator over a controversial bill to close the Academy in which Tolwyn brought up ugly personal motive for the senator's blockage of a new starfighter program to replace the aging "Wildcat" medium fighter.

It is stated several times in the novels that Tolwyn is a widower, with two sons who were lost in the course of the war. The name of his wife is still in dispute; "End Run" gives her name as Elizabeth, while in "Fleet Action" the same author calls her Clara. To complicate matters further, in "Action Stations" his fiancee's name is given as Rebecca. However, it is stated in "End Run" that he met his future wife at a party at the Academy, whereas in "Action Stations" his engagement was one arranged by his family, so it's possible that that arranged engagement was broken off at some point, paving the way for Elizabeth/Clara. The fact that she met him at the Academy raises the possibility that she may have been a Navy officer as well.

Beginning of the Kilrathi War

During the Battle of McAuliffe, Ensign Geoffrey Tolwyn was a fighter pilot in the cockpit of a Wildcat, with barely five hundred flying hours under his belt. He managed to survive both of his sorties, including a battle against the then-Crown Prince of Kilrah (who committed ritual suicide because of his shame at being defeated by a "mere human"). After that battle, Tolwyn was promoted to Lieutenant and given command of a frigate.

Rise to flag rank

From 2639 to 2654, Tolwyn rose to prominence in the Confederation Navy, rising from Lt. J.G. to Commodore in the 15 years. His driven nature was as much a hindrance as a blessing, however, and he developed as many enemies in the Admiralty as friends; some of whom blocked his ascension to Rear Admiral for a number of years. Finally his chance to prove himself as a force commander came on the "Tiger's Claw"'s cadet cruise of 2653-4, where he commanded the carrier and its battlegroup (and its load of student-pilots, including a young Cadet Christopher Blair) through a number of harrowing engagements with the Kilrathi ("see Wing Commander Academy"). After the completion of this task, Tolwyn was promoted to Rear Admiral and command of 14th Fleet.

On the "Concordia"

In 2661, Tolwyn's flagship, TCS Concordia, a "Confederation"-Class Dreadnought, was commissioned. Now with a ship, Tolwyn's command was shunted to 3rd Fleet and to the front lines of the war. With his flag in "Concordia", Tolwyn spent the next decade plus on the spearhead of the Confederation's war efforts, battling in multiple theaters of the war, in both Vega and Enigma Sectors. In 2664, Tolwyn was reunited with Christopher Blair - this time under much more adversarial circumstances - and they fought together, albeit grudgingly, during the most dangerous campaigns of the war. Tolwyn commanded the fleet during the Battle of Earth, and won the battle which was mankind's most perilous hour. However, the fleet he inherited after the battle was worn and dangerously thinned, and Tolwyn was reduced to sending decades-old light carriers to battle the Kilrathi in engagements that before would have required full fleet carriers. Towlyn was transferred off the "Concordia" shortly after the battle of Earth to head the Terran Confederation Navy's Weapons Development Program at Jupiter Station. While he was away, the "Concordia" was fighting a rearguard action in the Vespus system when it took torpedo hits to its engines, causing it to fall out of orbit. The "Concordia" crashed into the massive ocean of Vespus, taking almost all her crew with her. Colonel Christopher Blair located the wreck and reported to Tolwyn that it was a 'total loss'.

War's end

In 2669, the Behemoth Project was tested. One of the largest space faring structures ever built by the Confederation, its major weapon, a planet-killing superconducting particle beam cannon, was successfully deployed against the test planet Loki VI. However, a Kilrathi spy in the fleet leaked the weak points in Behemoth's defenses to the enemy, and a massive Paktahn bomber strike on the weapon destroyed it, along with Tolwyn's hopes of saving the Confederation. Fortunately, General James "Paladin" Taggert's Temblor Bomb program, the second Confed superweapon program and truly the Confederation's last hope for victory, was successfully deployed against the Kilrathi and saved the human race from annihilation. As a result, Taggart was elected to the Confederation senate after the war.

Peacetime Tolwyn, the SRA, and the Black Lance conspiracy

After the end of the Kilrathi War in 2669, Tolwyn, burning with humiliation from "Behemoth"'s destruction, was assigned to command of the Strategic Readiness Agency and promptly converted the agency into his personal fief. He was brought into the Agency's two-decade-old Black Lance project and found that he had a personal skill for misappropriating funding from other projects to fulfill the Black Lance's agenda. Tolwyn's fanatical personality had found his ultimate fulfillment: the "perfection" of humanity into a fighting force unparalleled in the galaxy. By 2674, the biogenic plague intended to destroy the unworthy was prepared and test runs were made against planets in the Border Worlds, but before the plan could fully unfold (which included war with the Border Worlds), Colonel Christopher Blair - operating with Border Worlds forces - uncovered Tolwyn's plot and revealed it to the Senate in an impromptu but impassioned speech. It was during this Senate hearing that Tolwyn was to be given the position of "Space Marshal" (the highest rank in the Confederation military, equivalent to a Fleet Admiral or Grand Admiral) and a decision would be made on whether to declare war on the Border Worlds. With Blair's intervention, the senate voted against war in an impressive landslide. Tolwyn was arrested and arraigned on charges relating to crimes against humanity.

After being found guilty on all charges stemming from the Black Lance conspiracy, convicted and stripped of rank, Geoffrey Tolwyn committed suicide in his prison cell on the eve of his execution in 2674, believing he had failed humanity. His sentence differs slightly in the novelization of Wing Commander IV with him being given life imprisonment as opposed to execution. Tolwyn hangs himself in both versions.

References and sources

* [http://www.wcnews.com/encyclopedia/showrecord.php?id=1516 Wing Commander CIC] - Geoffrey Tolwyn article
* [http://www.wcnews.com/encyclopedia/showrecord.php?id=1516 Wing Commander IV Script] - Script for WC4
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000532/ IMDB: Malcolm McDowell] IMDB - Malcolm McDowell

Lieutenant Laurel Buckley

Laurel "Cobra" Buckley was a fictional character who appears in the fictional Wing Commander game series. She only appears in (1994).

Wing Commander character|if=|Title = Laurel Buckley
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Laurel Buckley (DECEASED)


Caption =
Rank = Lieutenant
Callsign = Cobra
Race = Human
Gender = Female
Birth = 2637
Death = 2669 (age 32)
Planet = Enyo
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance =

Historical Background

Laurel Buckley was born in 2637 and was a citizen of the Terran Confederation. She lived with her family on the planet Enyo. When she was only ten years old, the Kilrathi attacked her planet in 2647. Laurel and any surviving members of her family were then enslaved in labor camps, where Laurel would remain until she was twenty years old. She managed to escape from the Kilrathi after ten years of imprisonment in 2657, but her family was gone, and Laurel would forever be disturbed from the terrifying memories she had of the treatment she received from the Kilrathi.

Following her escape, Confed medical specialists and psychiatrists tried to cleanse Laurel of her painful memories, but a great deal of them still remained. Laurel forever held a deep hatred of the Kilrathi, and insisted that only total annihilation would ensure their total and well-deserved defeat. Afterwards, Laurel joined the air force, and with her brutal flying style against the Kilrathi, she rose through the ranks and became a popular wingman. By 2669, she had reached the rank of Lieutenant and was assigned to the TCS Victory, which was under the command of Captain William Eisen. Laurel's flying style earned her the callsign "Cobra", meaning that she was a lethal and dangerous foe. While on the "Victory", Cobra could almost always be found sharpening her dagger, in the case that she should meet a Kilrathi face-to-face.

During the last months of the Kilrathi War in 2669, Cobra was forced to serve alongside Colonel Ralgha nar Hhallas, or "Hobbes", a Kilrathi pilot. Cobra despised Hobbes and insisted that he was not trustworthy. This put a strain on her relationship with her commanding officer, Colonel Christopher Blair, since he regarded Hobbes as a loyal friend. Throughout the game, Cobra took part in numerous campaigns against the incoming Kilrathi invaders, such as the campaign in the Tamayo System, the offensive in the Kilrathi-owned Ariel System, and the escort mission for the "TCS Behemoth". Cobra was more than ready to see Kilrah be obliterated by the "Behemoth", prompting Colonel Blair to ask Cobra about her terrifying life history. After the "Behemoth" was lost in combat against the Kilrathi while en route to Kilrah, Cobra investigated Hobbes' activities alongside Lieutenant Ted Rollins, the ship's paranoid comms officer. She believed that Hobbes transmitted the "Behemoth"'s weak spots to the Kilrathi fleet since the Kilrathi seemed to know where to hit the poorly-shielded vessel. Many crew members did agree with Cobra that Hobbes was a threat, but Blair and some other pilots thought differently. Blair once again told Cobra to lay off of Hobbes, insisting that he was innocent.

While in the Alcor System, where the Terran Confederation prepared to field the Temblor Bomb to use in Confed's final attempt to destroy Kilrah, Cobra's suspicions about Hobbes proved true. Hobbes betrayed Confed and fled on a HF-66 Thunderbolt VII Heavy Fighter to rejoin the Kilrathi. Cobra tried to stop him, but Hobbes slashed her with his claws on the flight deck. Blair, Captain Eisen, and Lieutenant Mitchell Lopez found her, and she presented them with a datadisk she stole from Hobbes. It proved that he spied on Blair while he was briefed on the technical specifications of the Temblor Bomb, also proving that he provided the Kilrathi with the "Behemoth"'s weak spots. Cobra told Blair to chase Hobbes, and then died from her wounds. Cobra's body was flown into space in a traditional space funeral. Colonel Blair later regretted doubting Cobra about Hobbes' true nature. Cobra was only thirty-two years old, and is survived by no known family members.

Behind the Scenes

* In the FMVs, Cobra was portrayed by B.J. Jefferson.

Empire of Kilrah
* Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka

Melek nar Kiranka

Melek "nar" Kiranka is a fictional character from the fictional "Wing Commander" game series. He appears in both ' (1994) and ' (1996). He was a member of the Kilrathi, a fictional felinoid race.Wing Commander character|if=|Title = Melek "nar" Kiranka
bgcolor= #ff0000
Title= Melek "nar" Kiranka


Caption=
Rank= Chancellor of Kilrathi Assembly of Clans
Race= Kilrathi
Gender= Male
Birth= Unknown
Planet= Kilrah, then Pasqual 10
Affiliation= Kilrathi Empire/ Kilrathi Assembly of Clans
First Appearance=
Last Appearance=

Historical Background

Melek was the senior chee'dyachee, or retainer, of Crown Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka, the heir of the Kilrathi throne, at least since 2669. It's unknown when he started acting as Thrakhath's primary retainer. He oversaw Kilrathi fleet actions and kept Thrakhath updated on the actions of their enemy, the Terran Confederation, during the final years of the Kilrathi War. He served alongside Thrakhath onboard the Kilrathi flagship, the KIS Hvar'Kann. Melek clearly feared his superior whenever the Crown Prince lost his temper, and was careful not to insult or disappoint him. Melek proved to be an effective leader, but respected his human enemies as a worthy adversary, which almost cost him his position.

Melek served with Thrakhath during many of the final battles of the War. He informed Thrakhath that the Kilrath-controlled Locanda System was depleted of natural resources after years of purging the human colonies there and enslaving the civilian population. Although it was still a source of slave labor, Thrakhath reminded him that they had plenty of slaves, and should therefore give up the system to the humans, but not without rendering the system uninhabitable first. This later led to the bioweapon attack on Locanda 4, which forced the system into permanent quarantine. Later, the TCS Victory attacked the Kilrathi fleet in the Ariel System, but later fled to friendly space after being spotted. It was Melek who informed the Crown Prince that Colonel Christopher Blair, aka "The Heart of the Tiger", was on the vessel. This prompted Thrakhath to chase the Victory and send a transmission that coaxed Colonel Ralgha nar Hhallas, a friend of Blair's, to betray Confed. After the Kilrathi destroyed the TCS Behemoth in the Loki System, Confed rescued Dr. Philip Severin on Alcor 5, a Kilrathi prison planet. He later would create the Temblor Bomb used to destroy Kilrah. Melek personally told the Emperor of the humans' success in this mission, but Thrakhath disregarded this, as he was personally preparing an attack on the Earth.

Melek helped Thrakhath oversee the assembly of the Kilrathi fleet that would destroy Earth, and would have accompanied his leader to the planet. However, Christopher Blair delivered the Temblor Bomb to Kilrah less than 48 hours before the attack began, destroying Kilrah and demolishing the Kilrathi fleet. Blair killed Thrakhath above Kilrah, so Melek took control of the "KIS Hvar'Kann", which barely escaped Kilrah. He captured Colonel Blair and almost killed him, but chose to surrender instead, preferring not to risk the extermination of the now weakened Kilrathi at the hands of the humans. He personally signed the Treaty of Torgo alongside Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, officially ending the Kilrathi War. Afterwards, he declared himself chancellor of the Kilrathi, but few Kilrathi pledged their loyalty to him despite some support from surviving members of the royal family. One of his supporters was Murragh Cakg dai Nokhtak, who was Thrakhath's nephew and the last heir to the throne. Melek had to deal with a massive civil war ravaging the surviving Kilrathi clans, who were fighting for control over the remnants of the Empire of Kilrah. One such opponent was Warlord Ukar dai Ragark, who fought the Free Republic of the Landreich. Melek tried to stop him from destroying the fragile peace between the humans and the Kilrathi, but ultimately, the Landreich were the one who stopped him.

In 2673, the Black Lance Conspiracy started and the Black Lance harassed Kilrathi ships, including Melek's personal shuttle in one raid. After being rescued by the Union of Border Worlds, Melek reunited with his old enemy, Christopher Blair, who left the Confederation in favor of the Border Worlds. The two of them made peace with each other and Blair helped Melek return home to Pasqual 10, a Kilrathi colony. Before this, Melek told Blair that he was a hero to many Kilrathi, for the Kilrathi grew too corrupt and murderous over the centuries. They were denied victory by their wargod for adopting human war policies. Blair's role in Kilrah's destruction allowed them to rebuild their culture and adapt to peaceful rule. It is unknown what Melek's position was after 2673 or in 2681, when the Nephilim (Wing Commander) attacked the newly-formed Kilrathi Assembly of Clans.

Behind the Scenes

In the FMVs, Melek was voiced by Tim Curry in "WC3". In "WC4", Melek was voiced by Barry Dennen and played by Christopher Bergschneider in a costume.

Wing Commander Privateer

* "Brownhair"
* Sandoval
* Tayla
* Roman Lynch
* Miggs
* Masterson
* Dr. Lemuel Monkhouse
* Lynn Murphey
* Taryn Cross
* Captain Sandra Goodin
* Admiral Terrell
* Mordechai Jones

2670s

False Colors

Terran Confederation
* Commander Douglas Scott Graham
* Lieutenant Janet "Sparks" McCullough
* Admiral Vance Richards
* Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair
* Kevin "Lone Wolf" Tolwyn
* Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn
* Ambassador Clark Williams
* Colonel Lorenzo Mancini

Captain Jason Bondarevsky

Jason Bondarevsky, callsign "Bear," is a fictional pilot in Chris Roberts's "Wing Commander" computer games.

Bondarevsky, though Russian by ethnicity, grew up in a Centauri colony and did not set foot on Earth until well into his military career. His father was a pilot, and his older brother attempted to follow that path before being shifted into the Marines; both were dead by the time Jason enlisted at the age of 16. He managed to get into flight school, where he fell in love with fellow student Svetlana Ivanova. Things looked well until she flunked a critical course and washed out; she joined the Marines, spurning Bondarevsky's offer of marriage and a happy (if obscure) life in the enlisted ranks.

Bear's first assignment, straight out of the Academy, was the TCS "Gettysburg", a now-famous Waterloo-class cruiser. In 2667, "Gettysburg" captain, Commander Cain, ordered his pilots to open fire on an unarmed Kilrathi transport full of refugees. His pilots refused and engineered a successful mutiny. Afterwards, however, the crew split over its future course: one faction, led by Flight Group Commander Colonel Ransom, wanted to go on as interstellar pirates, while Bondarevsky and Lt. Col. Poelma wished to return to Confederate service. Ransom led the "Gettysburg" crew in capturing the Rigel supply depot, but Poelma's faction recaptured the "Gettsyburg" and left.

News of the "Gettysburg"'s absence had reached Confed C-in-C by now, and the Navy's finest ship, the TCS "Concordia", was sent to investigate. It was Bondarevsky who met with Col. Christopher "Maverick" Blair, and then Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, to arrange for the loyal "Gettysburg" faction to stand trial for their actions. He then assisted Blair in destroying the Rigel outpost, and Ransom's forces with it.

The "Gettysburg" crew was acquitted, and Bondarevsky decorated for his actions. Tolwyn took him aboard the "Concordia" for a tour of duty; he remained there for another year, until being promoted to Flight Group Commander aboard the TCS "Tarawa". Tolwyn picked Bear for the assignment because Bondarevsky was the most appropriate for the job; he had shown a natural tendency to responsibility and leadership, Blair was being kept on the "Concordia", and Col. Jeannette "Angel" Devereaux had already been assigned to Special Ops. What Tolwyn didn't know was what the "Tarawa" was in for.

Six months previous, reconnaissance flights had finally confirmed what was on the backwater Kilrathi planet of Vukar Tag: an ancient and beautiful castle, ancestral home of the Kilrathi Emperor's Dowager Mother. Confed C-in-C, represented by Admiral Banbridge, had engineered a plan to take the planet and destroy the castle, a massive slight to collective Kilrathi honor. The Kilrathi fleet would swarm out to recapture the planet, and march right into a trap... A trap that it outnumbered two-and-a-half to one, as the Terrans only had four carriers available against the Kilrathi's ten. Instead, Banbridge hoped to draw off part of the Kilrathi fleet, and the "Tarawa", now part of Task Force Valkyrie, had been chosen to do so... By attacking, directly, for the first time, the homeworld of Kilrah.

What happened next is the stuff of legends. The "Tarawa", little more than a flight deck stapled to a heavy transport and designed to be expendable, returned, heavily damaged but victorious, from its mission, officially named the First to Kilrah. Its escorts, the Gilgamesh-class destroyer "Intrepid" and Venture-class corvette "Kagimasha", were lost with all hands; thirty pilots, four hundred crewpersons and over four thousand Marines were lost as well, including Svetlana Ivanova (whose doomed romance with Bondarevsky was made fodder for uncounted holodramas). In return, the "Tarawa" smashed several major dock facilities on Kilrah's moon, including six almost-completed carriers, thousands of trained construction workers and a specialized design staff that, by coincidence, was visiting that day; diverted four of the ten carriers headed to Vukar Tag, which allowed the Confederate fleet to destroy or heavily damage all but one of the remainder, to only one human carrier lost; and returned to tell the tale, boosting morale and bringing hope to the embattled human race, which, up until then, had been quite clearly losing the war.

It meant a great deal to Bondarevsky as well, and not just because of his rekindled-but-short-lived love affair with Svetlana. "Tarawa"'s captain, Thaddeus O'Brian, was a transport captain and only received the post because he'd helped with the Wake-class design. He was, in short, a coward, not to mention something of an alcoholic, and was singularly ill-suited to leading a raid whose primary purpose was to draw attention, with their lives if necessary. Fortunately, a hit early in the campaign knocked out the bridge, and O'Brian was killed. Bondarevsky, the ranking officer on the ship, took command, leading the tiny fleet to its victorious conclusion; he never left the chair again.

It took over a year to repair the ship; Bondarevsky spent his time at Confed HQ and at the Academy, training new pilots. Ship and captain re-entered the war just in time for the false armistice of 2668; both were deactivated into the reserves shortly after. Admiral Tolwyn, however, was not sanguine on Kilrathi offers of peace, and arranged for a number of Wake-class light carriers to be sold to the Free Republic of the Landreich; Bondarevsky went with them, and then led his ship in deeper to find signals regarding the "Hakaga"-class supercarriers. The "Tarawa", already First to Kilrah, became First "Beyond" Kilrah as well. Unfortunately, Landreich president H. Maximillian Kruger still owned the "Tarawa", and refused to join the Confederate defense at Sirius; only after Bondarevsky's constant heckling did the Landreich fleet go. They arrived at the Battle of Earth too late to participate in the main conflict, but in time to prevent a wing of Kilrathi cruisers from wreaking total destruction on the planet itself.

The "Tarawa" re-entered service with the Confederation but was quickly crippled in battle; it was sold to the Landreich, who renamed it the FLRS "Independence". Bondarevsky remained with the Confederate Navy, assigned to the TCS "Coventry", a destroyer assigned to the TCS "Victory" during Tolwyn's "Behemoth" project. During this campaign, the "Coventry" was heavily damaged by a minefield and Bondarevsky lost an arm. He spent the rest of the war recuperating and eventually returned to the Landreich, commanding the "Independence" and later the Flight Group of the "Mjolnir", a captured Kilrathi carrier, in an action against a rogue Kilrathi warlord. He was eventually promoted to Rear Admiral, but his fate is otherwise unspecified.

Empire of Kilrah
* Admiral Largka Cakg dai Nokhtak
* Murragh Cakg dai Nokgtak

Free Republic of the Landreich
* Lieutenant Aengus "Bard" Harper
* President Maximillian Kruger
* Captain John Calhoun Galbraith
* Commander Darlene "Babs" Babcock
* Daniel Webster Galbraith

Ragark
* Ukar dai Ragark lak Haka
* Dawx Jhorrad

Wing Commander IV

Terran Confederation
* Colonel Christopher Blair
* Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn
* Senator James "Paladin" Taggart
* Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall
* Captain William Eisen
* Seether

Captain Hugh Paulsen

Wing Commander character|if=|Title = Hugh Paulson
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Hugh Paulson (DECEASED)


Caption = Hugh Paulson in
Rank = Captain
Callsign = None
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = Unknown
Death = 2673
Planet = Unknown
Affiliation = Terran Confederation/Black Lance
First Appearance =
Last Appearance = Hugh Paulson was a fictional character in the fictional Wing Commander game series. His only appearance is in (1996).

Biography

Paulson was a Captain in the Terran Confederation during the year 2673. He presumably had been serving with the Confed Space Navy for many years. Paulson was a ruthless military commander with great ambitions and wealth. He looked down on those of lower ranks and had little patience for failure. He used his wealth and military prowess to further his goals. He was also bureaucratic.

Very little else is known about his backstory because he shows up very suddenly in the game and it does not go deep into his past life.

During the year 2673, the Black Lance Conspiracy was at its peak and threatened to break the peace between the Terran Confederation with its former allies, the Union of Border Worlds. The Border Worlds were seeking independence from Confed and in previous months, unmarked ships that were known to be in use with the Border Worlds were harassing Confed vessels, prompting major tensions. Captain William Eisen and Colonel Christopher Blair, who served together on the TCS Victory during the Kilrathi War in 2669, were deployed to investigate Border Worlds activity on the Concordia class fleet carrier TCS Lexington. However, while in the Tyr System, Captain Paulson arrived on the "TCS Lexington", having just come from the Third Fleet. Paulson took over for Captain Eisen for fears that Eisen had Border Worlds sympathies and was therefore spying for them. Paulson took firm command of the vessel, leaving Eisen to face an unanticipated reassignment.

Paulson took the "Lexington" to the Masa System, where he led an assault on a Confed Space Lab invaded by Border Worlds forces. He had Blair and a marine force liberate the station. Afterwards, Paulson attacked two Border Worlds cruisers that trespassed into Confed space. Their crews claimed that Paulson attacked what was actually a Border Worlds Space Lab, but Paulson pressed the attack. With Blair's help, they forced the cruiser force to back off. Blair and his comrades grew suspicious of Paulson, and Paulson knew that they had to be kept quiet. Unbeknownst to the pilots, a man named Seether was on the "Lexington", and he clearly had some evil intentions he shared with Paulson. Finally, Captain Eisen and Major Todd Marshall betrayed Confed and fled on a shuttle, with Lieutenant Winston Chang, Christopher Blair, and Lieutenant Troy Carter serving as escorts. They fled on the BWS "Intrepid" to the Silenos System, prompting Paulson and his allies to pursue them.

Paulson turned out to be a wealthy backer of the Black Lance forces, who were instigating the conflict between Confed and the Border Worlds by harassing vessels on both sides with unmarked ships coming from both fleets. Seether was one of its pilots and as commander of Black Lance combat operations, he was Paulson's superior. The two of them pursued the "Intrepid" and caused massive damage and casualties to the crew and the vessel. They were trying to recover data that Eisen had stolen from them. However, things did not work out in Paulson's favor. Blair and his wingmen disabled the "TCS Lexington" and the "Intrepid " fled to friendly space, leaving the "Lexington" in the dust. Seether criticized Paulson for failing to kill Blair sooner, and told the captain that he was to be "reassigned". In reality, Seether decided to execute him for his failure, so he slit Paulson's throat open with a laser knife. Paulson was killed within seconds. Seether then threw his body out of the airlock, and then he took command of Paulson's men.

Behind the scenes

Hugh Paulson was played in the FMVs by actor John Spencer, an actor from The West Wing who passed away on December 16, 2005.

2nd Lieutenant Troy Carter

Wing Commander character|if=|Title = Troy Carter
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Troy Carter


Caption = Mark Dacascos as Tony Carter
Rank = 2nd Lieutenant
Callsign = Catscratch
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = Unknown
Death =
Planet = Unknown (Border Worlds)
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance =

Troy "Catscratch" Carter is a fictional character in the computer game series "Wing Commander". He is a fighter pilot aboard the TCS Lexington and defected with Christopher Blair to the BWS Intrepid. His first appearance is in the computer game . Tony Carter is played by actor Mark Dacascos.

Biography

In the fictional Wing Commander universe, Troy Carter was born as a Third Generation Borderworlder, but was sent by to the Terran Naval Academy on Earth. Carter graduated top of his class and was assigned to the TCS Lexington.

During the events of Wing Commander IV, Carter met the person he admired most during the Kilrathi War, Christopher Blair. He felt honored when flying alongside Blair and learned a great deal him. He confided in the Colonel about his doubts about the missions they were flying against the Border Worlds on board the Lexington.

When Blair chose to defect, Catscratch joined him, along with several others. Together, they went on board the BWS Intrepid. There, he continued to fight bravely; while not flying, he would flirt with the ship's Chief Comm Tech Velina Sosa, and the two began to develop a relationship. While on the side of the Border Worlds, Catscartch felt wrong about shooting down former comrades. Blair advises him and Catscratch is now able to fly properly and with confidence; however, he also started taking advice from Todd "Maniac" Marshall, which Blair knew could cause trouble.

At the end of either the Circe or Speradon System campaigns, Carter takes on a solo mission to retrieve a strange satellite, and ends up with his fighter crippled in space. The player, at this point, is asked to decide Catscratch's fate: Blair, the only pilot available to help, would have to abort an important mission to do so. Even if the player "does" decide to rescue Catscratch, his crippled fighercan still be destroyed by enemy fire during the ensuing dogfight. After this, he able to eject and be safely retrieved (the satellite is a total loss no matter what the circumstances). If Catscratch lives, he apologizes for messing up, admitting that he took some of Maniac's terrible advice to heart and leading to Blair putting him on probation (Blair would "like" to ground him, but the "Intrepid" has too few pilots as it is). If not, Blair takes some flak for abandoning him from other characters, especially the heart-broken Sosa.

1st Lieutenant Winston Chang

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Winston Chang (DECEASED)


Caption = François Chau as Winston "Vagabond" Chang
Rank = Lieutenant
Callsign = Vagabond
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = 2631
Death = 2673.224 (age 42)
Planet = Enigma Sector
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance =

Winston Chang is a fictional character in the computer game series "Wing Commander", he is a fighter pilot with a "dark" past he wishes to leave behind and a wanderer’s spirit, reflected by his callsign "Vagabond". He appears twice, first in "Wing Commander III - Heart of the Tiger" and later in "Wing Commander IV - The Price of Freedom".

Biography

Winston Chang was born in 2631, his home system located somewhere in the Enigma sector. His past is mostly classified due to his involvement in several secret government projects, such as the demolitions experiments he worked on with Dr. Philip Severin (who would later develop the Temblor Bomb). During these experiments a failed experiment on the planet of Pax VII caused the death of numerous civilians. The disaster was covered up and labeled as an accident. Feeling guilty for this event Winston Chang decided to enter the military and help the war effort in a manner where he could directly see and fight his enemy rather than accidentally cause massive civilian losses. He became a fighter pilot and took the callsign of Vagabond to reflect his nature of "man without any roots".

In spite of his irreverent manners and dislike for military protocol Vagabond soon adapted to life aboard a space ship and became an experienced and reliable pilot. Chang's own vision of himself was of "a cool professional on duty and the Rec Room clown off duty". Vagabond's favorite hobby when off duty was to play cards and he never failed to show up with a deck of cards in his hands: usually it didn't take much time for the rest of the crew to find out he was an extremely skilled and lucky card player.

By 2669 Winston Chang was a Lieutenant flying off the Confederation carrier TCS Victory: during this cruise he lost many of his fellow pilots including Mitchell "Vaquero" Lopez a young Latino pilot Vagabond frequently flew with. The loss of so many friends was the reason why Chang decided to join Col. Blair "Temblor Bomb Raid" in spite of his disgust for the use of weapons who would cause civilians losses.Vagabond accompanied the other pilots from the Victory to the Kilrathi homeworld until his fighter was intercepted by an enemy patrol and shot down in the ensuing dogfight. However before his ship blew up he was able to eject and was later recovered.

In 2673, still a Lieutenant, Winston Chang was assigned to the TCS Lexington during the building of tensions between the Confederation and the Union of Border Worlds. Suspecting someone in the Confederation may be behind the acts of terrorism and piracy he witnessed, Vagabond decided to defect to the Border Worlds with the Lexington Captain Eisen in order to be able to shed some lights on what was happening along the frontier.

Attempting to recover information that would help the Border Worlds prove the existence of a conspiracy, Winston Chang made use of his espionage notions and infiltrated a Confederation Comm station with Lieutenant Velina Sosa. During this operation he was forced to cover Sosa from an unexpected attack by the station's security forces and was killed in action.

Notes

*The actor playing Winston "Vagabond" Chang in the FMV cutscenes is François Chau.

*Shortly before Vagabond leaves for his fatal mission, he loses in a card game against Maniac. He had in his hand the dead man's hand of aces and eights.

Union of Border Worlds
* Colonel Jacob "Hawk" Manley
* Colonel Tamara "Panther" Farnsworth
* Vice Admiral Daniel Wilford

Lieutenant Velina Sosa

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ffcc00
Title = Velina Sosa


Caption = Holly Gagnier as Velina Sosa
Rank = Lieutenant -> Captain
Race = Human
Gender = Female
Birth = 2648
Planet = Unknown
Affiliation = Union of Border Worlds
First Appearance =

Velina Sosa is a fictional character in the computer game series "Wing Commander". She is a communications officer aborad the BWS Intrepid and her first appearance is in the computer game . Velina Sosa is played by actress Holly Gagnier.

Biography

In the fictional Wing Commander universe, Lieutenant Velina Sosa was the communications officer aboard the BWS Intrepid during the conflict between the Terran Confederation and the Union of Border Worlds in 2673. Sosa was only 25 years old at the time of the conflict, but she already held masters degrees in theoretical mathematics and linguistics from Oxford. Sosa was working on getting a doctorate on theoretical numbers and phase shift inducers until she was recruited by Admiral "Vance Richards".

In the computer game Wing Commander IV, Velina Sosa was an expert on codes and communications, and had been assigned to the BWS Intrepid to decipher the information that Captain William Eisen brought with him when he defected from the Confederation. She also took part in a dangerous mission to infiltrate a Confederation communication station to gather more information (resulting in the loss of Winston "Vagabond" Chang), and helped find the location of the Black Lance's secret operations base in Axius.

Sosa had something of a crush on Christopher Blair, having heard about him on the news, and watched every episode of Heroes of the Confederation. She made a pass at Blair while they were on the "TCS Princeton", but was turned down because of the age difference between the two. During the Confederation/Border Worlds conflict, Sosa was the target of one Troy "Catscratch" Carter. Carter and Sosa had several moments together aboard the BWS Intrepid. After the conflict was over, Sosa was promoted to Captain and was assigned as a Border Worlds liaison officer to Confederation forces on the frontier.

Robert Sykes

Robert Sykes is a fictional human character from the Wing Commander game series. He appears in (1996).

Historical Background

Robert Sykes is a middle-aged man who used to live in the Terran Confederation. He was a Master Chief in the military but joined the Union of Border Worlds to retire after the Kilrathi War ended. He was known to chew tobacco and could almost always be found tearing apart spacecraft and putting the pieces back together into a stronger vessel. His ability to repair and build craft earner him the callsign "Pliers".

Pliers was assigned to the BWS "Intrepid" when the Black Lance Conspiracy was unfolding in 2673. He became the Chief Technician on that vessel, repairing and upgrading the few starfighters the Border Worlds had to operate. He survived the Confed attack on the vessel in the Masa System when Colonel Christopher Blair, Captain William Eisen and several other comrades defected to the Border Worlds. When they came on board, Pliers was responsible for upgrading their ships and giving them technologies stolen from Confed. Pliers nabbed a couple of Manned Insertion Pods, or MIPs, from Confed for covert space infiltrations. The MIPs came in good use when Winston "Vagabond" Chang and Velina Sosa raided a Confed radar station for secret data on the instigators of the Border Worlds/Confed conflict. When the "Intrepid" assisted the Kilrathi leader Melek in getting back home after he was attacked by the unknown Confed assailants, he helped Pliers prolong the cloak life on the MIPs.

Before the biological attack on the Telamon System, Colonel Blair captured a number of Dragon heavy fighters, the signature fighter of the Black Lance and an illegally commissioned craft. Pliers was stunned at all of the brand new systems found in the craft, and found that the fighter's power plant supplied unlimited power for the afterburners rather than separate fuel, allowing for greater use of speed. Pliers prepared these fighters for combat and gave Colonel Blair the one Flash-Pak they acquired for battle. Blair used both the Dragon and the Flash-Pak to combat his Black Lance opponents and to destroy the TCS Vesuvius, a supercarrier the Black Lance had acquired. It was not long afterwards that Colonel Blair revealed the existence of the Black Lance to the Confederation's Great Assembly and stopped the ensuing war between the Border Worlds and Confed. This endeavour would not have been successful without Pliers' technological support on the battlefield in the weeks preceding the war declaration.

It is unknown what became of Pliers after the Conspiracy was revealed. Presumably, he is back in retirement.

Behind the Scenes

*Pliers is portrayed by American actor Richard Riehle.

John Dekker

John Dekker is a fictional character appearing in the computer game series "Wing Commander". Dekker is a Marine Corps officer fighting for the Union of Border Worlds in "Wing Commander IV - The Price of Freedom" and later for the Confederation in "Wing Commander: Prophecy".

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor= #ccccff
Title= John Dekker


Caption= John "Gash" Dekker in
Rank= Colonel
Callsign= Gash
Race= Human
Gender= Male
Birth= 2638
Planet= Unknown
Affiliation= Union of Border Worlds/ Terran Confederation
First Appearance=

Biography

John Dekker was born around 2638 and he entered the Confederation Marine Corps when the conflict with the Kilrathi had already broken out and was reaching its climax. Apparently Dekker was bestowed his nickname "Gash" by a drill sergeant when he gave himself a bad cut while still in training and he had to be evacuated for medical attention.After taking part in some actions against the Kilrathi and having earned several citations for valor John Dekker decided to become an officer. Later he took part in the Repleetah battle, a bloody fight between ground troops that had been raging for years: when the Confederation Fleet exercised a tactical retreat leaving the Marines on the surface of Repleetah without cover and assistance Dekker was among the soldiers who were captured by the Kilrathi. He spent four years in a Kilrathi slave camp as a POW before all the surviving prisoners were liberated by the kilrathi when they signed the false truce agreement that precedeed the Battle of Earth.

When the war against the Kilrathi ended Dekker left the Corps for a brief stint with a mercenary force. Unable to come to terms with some of the ethical problems of his new profession John Dekker left the mercenaries and decided to enter the Border Worlds Marine Corps when he was offered command of a company and a rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During the clashes between the Confederation and the Border Worlds in 2673 Dekker was assigned to the BWS Intrepid as the commander of the contingent of Marines aboard the carrier: he took part to the raid against the TCS Princeton leading his men onto the ship to seize its control.

When the crisis ended Dekker was offered to return in service into the Confederation Marine Corps by promise of duty aboard the newly built TCS Midway, commanding a garrison of soldiers assigned as a rapid reaction force for the carrier. Dekker Marines were instrumental in the fight against the Nephilim when they infiltrated the alien wormhole station and managed to sabotage it with help from Colonel Christopher "Maverick" Blair.

Notes

* The actor portraying John "Gash" Dekker in the FMV cutscenes of "Wing Commander IV - The Price of Freedom" and "Wing Commander: Prophecy" is Jeremy Roberts.

Kilrathi Assembly of Clans
* Melek nar Kiranka

2680s

Wing Commander Prophecy

Terran Confederation
* 2nd Lieutenant Maxwell "Maestro" Garrett
* 1st Lieutenant Jean "Stiletto" Talvert
* Major Terrence "Zero" O'Hearn
* Commodore Christopher "Maverick" Blair
* Colonel Jacob "Hawk" Manley
* Colonel Todd "Maniac" Marshall
* Commander Patricia Drake
* Colonel John "Gash" Dekker
* Captain Daniel Wilford
* Lieutenant Commnader Aurora Finley
* Chief Tech Rachel Coriolis

2nd Lieutenant Lance Casey

Wing Commander character|if=
bgcolor = #ccccff
Title = Lance Casey


Caption = Steven Petrarca as Lance Casey
Rank = 1st Lieutenant
Callsign = N/A
Race = Human
Gender = Male
Birth = Unknown
Planet = Unknown
Affiliation = Terran Confederation
First Appearance =

Lance Casey is a fictional character in the computer game series "Wing Commander". Casey flies under the Confederation Space Force and makes his first appearance the "". Casey is played by actor Steven Petrarca.

Personal biography

In the fictional Wing Commander universe, Lance Casey was the son of Michael "Iceman" Casey. Lance's early career is quite undistinguished. His main extracurricular activities during high school were sports. After attending high school, Lance took a couple of years off, living at home assisting his mother with the spaceport diner she had recently bought. Later, Casey applied and was accepted into the Terran Confederation Space Forces.

During his career in the Confederation, Casey proved to be natural pilot like his father. The only exception was that Lance was brash, which earned him a large collection of demerits. After graduation, Lance was assigned escort duty, escorting ambassadors and diplomats in fast transports. Casey got in to mischief between missions and narrowly avoided career-ending charges several times. Lance was being watched by Senator James Taggart, a friend of his father's, who influenced a transfer for Casey on to the TCS Midway, hoping that military discipline would solve the problems.

In , Lance was transferred to the TCS Midway along with his friend Maxwell "Maestro" Garrett. Soon after Casey's arrival on the Midway, the Nephilim attacked the Midway and Casey played a large role in defeating the alien forces and destroying their wormhole. In a few short months, Casey was promoted to 1st Lieutenant and had earned the Confederation Flying Cross and a Silver star. He even rose to become a member of the top Wolf Pack Squadron.

Following the initial Nephilim threat, 1st LT. Lance Casey was assigned and transferred to the Special Operations division, operating on the Hades-class Quick Strike Cruiser; TCS Cerberus, where again he played a large role in quelling Nephilim attacks.

References

*McCubbin, Chris. "Wing Commander Prophecy: The Official Strategy Guide". Prima, 1997. ISBN 0-7615-1207-1.

ee also

Wing Commander CIC

External links

* [http://wcnews.com/ "Wing Commander Combat Information Center] "
* [http://www.dougie.uk.com/characters.html Wing Commander Extensive Guide to Characters]