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Introduction

WCU being a union of Wing Commander and Privateer maps, ships and factions, needs something special for its (new and original) Privateer - Part 3 storyline. Spiritplumber dreamt of a fusion of privateering alternating with military career stints, and also threw in the idea of there being another Privateer (an evil one?) that Burrows must overcome. But there was no “plot” per se, and spiritplumber did not want to be the plot-writer, or even to be perceived as veto-ing alternative plot line ideas. The “Rival” idea comes from the original Privateer 3 design documents from Origin/EA.

Plot-writing actually began with Captin cocksniff’s brainstorming a “19th Fleet” stint idea, plus some stuff happening afterwards. Pretty good ideas, though I (chuck_starchaser) didn’t think so when I first jumped into his thread. Unfortunately, and for various reasons, none of those early ideas have remained. (Did I kill them? ^^) For example, the 19th Fleet happens a bit too early in WC canon to be able to “make it” to it. Not that this precludes a “20th Fleet” for lack of a better term, and this idea is in, as of this writing.

The rest of those original ideas were interesting, but later we began to analyze the Priv/RF plot in more detail, and something different emerged...

It seems to us, Origin came up with a “deep” plotline, much more complex than meets the eye. If that was indeed their intention, they did a great job: The storyline of Priv/RF is chock full of hidden hints to stuff going under the surface. It is this stuff, we realized, we needed to understand fully well, before we could come up with a continuation of the story.

Thus, what’s in this continuously evolving wiki, comes mainly from the ‘storyline ideas’ forum thread, which began here: storyline ideas and, for technical reasons, continued here: storyline ideas (part 2) If you wish to understand the full evolution and discussions surrounding the plotline, by all means, read those threads in their entirety. This WIKI does NOT document the evolution of the storiline, but is rather a destillation of its current status. It’s like the latest CVS version of code. I will try, however, to provide links to specific posts in those, and other discussion threads, where the justification for some concepts may not be too obvious.

Captain Cocksniff drifted out of sight and earshot, but then Michael Beasly (Commander Falafel) jumped into it, and for a while this Privateer 3 plotline evolved as a wiki at his website. Real Life got on the way of fun, and the work went offline for a while. Finally, here it is at deeplayer.com, coming back to life, as of this writing.

The plotline for our yet to be named “Privateer 3” begins at the end of RF (Righteous Fire) and overlaps the end of the Kilrathi War; –and probably the Black Lance saga, and beyond. Thus, it happens long before Privateer 2 :-) but may tie into it somehow.. And, before you ask, NO: no Steltek, and no Nephilim...

Rough Roadmap

The rough, early version of a roadmap for putting together the plot is as follows: 

 1. Collect canonical information about the Wing Commander universe
 2. Figure out the "deep plots" going on, or possibly going on
 3. Deeply analyze factions and characters, their secret motivations...
 4. Extend those deep plots in space, in time, in scope ...
 5. Flesh out with new characters and factions
 6. Connect and explain unanswered mysteries
 7. Throw Burrows into this mess, and write the damned plot.

A "to do" list we compiled at some point...

Gameplay Stuff:

  • military service
  • simulators
  • characters that join your party like in RPG’s
  • RTS-style battle tactics, exploration
  • colony building strategy*

Base economy management:

  • both turn-based style
  • cargo hauling fleet management
  • ability to board and capture ships
  • research and development
  • ship and missile design
  • mining
  • ship building and magazines you can subscribe to
  • possibly 3d bases and ship interiors

Story Stuff:

  • putting to rest the gun question
  • putting to rest the Pilgrim question
  • putting to rest the TCS Lexington mystery
  • putting to rest the kat’s mention of the Mantu coming back
  • putting to rest the question of what happened to Monkhouse
  • clarifying the story about the Church of Man
  • explaining out who Monte and the informant really were
  • explaining how Tolwyn got his money to buid Vesuvius carriers, Black Lance and all that
  • sorting out the underground economy of Gemini, like the links between the mobs and Tolwyn
  • Burrows and Blair meet

WC universe Reference + Analysis + Inferences + Ideas

Most of the info comes from the CIC Encyclopedia

Why duplicate what’s already at the CIC?

Well, it’s handy to have all this stuff together with the brainstorming; plus, we can annotate stuff. The stuff here is terse in canon, rich in hypothetical stuff and full of new ideas for future plots’ dynamic background...

First of all, a note on...

Races

Besides human, of course...

Governments

Other Factions/Organizations

Companies

(Located in Gemini unless otherwise noted)

Characters

WC universe analysis

WC + Priv + RF timelines combined

Privateer 3 setting & background

What's new with ships and technology

What's new with companies

What's happening with confeds

New Factions

New rumors and space comms

New bar rumors

New comms in space

Privateer 3 plot

(WARNING: *Spoilerish, read at the risk of your eventual fun.*)

  • General Outline (some of this stuff is too detailed; will move into subplots gradually)

PART A

  • The Start: Soldier of Misfortune
  • THE Military stint The military stint spans 52 days, till Blair drops the temblor bomb.

More precisely, WC3 spans from about 2669.185 to 2669.267, or 82 days; while our military stint spans from 2669.215 to 2669.267, or 52 days. Note that the novel Heart of the Tiger spans the WC3 timeline. See also this WC3timing analysis.

The player is sent to Earth to meet his commander, and is discharged, decorated and paid.

There’s a span of 30 days between the destruction of Kilrah and the signing of the Torgo Treaty. During this time the player can trade. Time is computed on the basis of speed and distance travelled: At a speed of 250 kps we count one day per jump. No plot-related things during that time, unless the player comes across a fixer, and therefore a side-plot.

PART B

  • Factional Sub-Plots (in undecided order as of yet, and possibly some of the sub-plots may be playable in no particular sequence)

If we start by trading and side-plots, give that a time from Torgo to New Year 2670. We should be getting to Landreich by mid-january, which shoud be right after the Goliath project stuff; and we should be done with sub-plots by april. Also note that the trading and upgrading, side-plots and factional sub-plots are done in single-ship mode, and that no strong pulls should result, in terms of factional alignments, from such missions. Corporate warfare is a good candidate. But before all that, we need to meet the Steltekers so as to have some direction and sense of purpose...

PART BX

  • Side-plots. Most of them available through fixers. (I have to speak to spiritplumber about this: We need to get rid of the stupid random mission fixers. They ruin the game. Fixers are for side-plots. Nothing else! With so many fixers, we couldn’t get the player’s attention to the side-plots.)

Because of the very different capabilities we enjoy during parts B, C and D, side-plots need to be section-specific. Side-plots that can be done with a single ship should be under PART BX, meaning “eXtra, overlapping part B”. Side-plots needing a whole fleet should be under PART DX.

PART C

  • Gray Ops involves political and military official assassinations of retro infiltrators and corrupt officials

Best way to play this part is to become a Brotherhood pirate, but player is not forced to. Militias and Hunters become your enemies automatically; and Confeds become your enemies officially but secret admirers as individuals. The style of grey ops would vary between single-ship strikes and mini-carrier fleet strikes, transporting shuttles with marines for ground operations, rescues... But although carrier base wing command is introduced, the player should probably opt for piloting one of the fighters during the strikes; leaving the firekkan-made mini-carriers in auto mode, or responding to wing commander directives.

    • Gray Ops subplot 1 Political Purity
    • Gray Ops subplot 2 Military Shakeup
    • Gray Ops subplot 3 Militia Homecleaning
    • Gray Ops subplot 4 Pirate Alignment
    • Gray Ops subplot 5 Kitty Detente
    • Gray Ops subplot 7 Retro Retraction

PART D

  • Exploration, Colonization, Armada, ... Building a new world in order to build a large fleet in order to defeat Kroiz

During Exporation we’re introduced to RPG-style elements. First Monte joins us semi-permanently, piloting his own ship. He becomes a pirate together with the player to get some of the exploration equipment. At some point he and the player split, perhaps; where he goes to meet his contacts in Kilrah to get some missing pieces of exploration equipment, and you go to Rygannon to see Cross about getting the most important analytical super-computer. Cross ends up leaving the ES and joining your team.

All the above subplots except PART D might be typical subplots, involving 4 missions each. If so, we’d have... 18×4= 72 missions. PART D I won’t speculate right now but these subplots aren’t “mission-oriented”, and might last quite a while. Thus, the plan as it stands would be much longer than Priv/RF together.

Miscellaneous and stray ideas

Stray ideas will be captured on the Stray Ideas page.

 
wcu/priv3.txt · Last modified: 2007/03/20 03:17 by chuck_starchaser