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The United States government is busy trolling its citizens with nonsensical construction in Washington DC so we thought it would be a good time to look a little further ahead in the city's culture. You see, Wing Commander III establishes something that seems increasingly unlikely thirty years on: Washington DC, the capital of the United States of America today, is the seat of government for the thousand star Terran Confederation! We see this in the game's losing endgame, where Kilrathi bombers savage the city as their warships loom overhead.

The United States Capitol opened in 1800, relocating the United States' capital from Philadelphia to the new purpose-constructed city of Washington. It was partially destroyed in 1814 during the War of 1812 but was rapidly restored. The rotunda opened in 1824 and the famous dome seen in this screenshot was completed just after the Civil War in 1866. It's a building

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Here's a neat little detail that I had never noticed before until last night: the canteen vet in the Wing Commander IV introduction is actually wearing a Wing Commander III 'combined forces' patch on his shoulder! Maybe I'm just oblivious but I never picked up on this one! It's a neat way to show that he's a down-on-his-luck veteran… and it seems particularly to tie to his mention that he was a pilot on the TCS Liberty, surely chosen to sound like Blair's TCS Victory where he wore the same emblem. Though like a lot of the details in the cantina set it isn't especially visible when watching the original Xanmovie version of the game's movies. Did you know there's a lizard in a tank in there? A vintage airplane? An African board game> What I wouldn't give to see some set photography!

The character is credited as "canteen vet" and was played by Peter Marquardt, an Austin area actor and game producer who

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How big is Crius, anyway? We've been working on the upcoming Tri-System atlas for the past week or two and one thing I noticed was that there's a very specific diameter listed for each of the planets and moons in the Tri-System… so I thought it might be fun to put together a chart that compared that data to the real moons and planets in our own solar system! And here it is. Turns out Crius is extremely similar to Earth in size!

And how is the atlas coming? We've built pages for all 225 nav points and all of the moons and stations with plenty more material to come. You're welcome to join us working on the WCPedia if you're interested in archiving Wing Commander's lore and history… or just doing some good old fashioned supernerdery with friends.

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Everyone loves The Wizard of Oz! From my mom (I always tell her about the movie club movie!) to our youngest member, the movie is timeless in a way that isn't just lip service because we expect a classic. It's proof that you don't need modern special effects or quippy actors or any other flavor of the day to make something permanent and magic. Or maybe we're all just connected to the similarly timeless understanding that Kansas kind of sucks.

And here's our direct connection, author L. Frank Baum's credit versus his immortalization in Wing Commander Armada. One thing that it's interesting to think about is that the Wizard of Oz had a 'canon' just like any modern science fiction universe decades before this movie even came out. I remember learning all about that as a kid reading the original dozen or so books... it was sort of training wheels for a modern fandom!

One Wing Commander-adjacent element of

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is The Birdcage (1996) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start at 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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Isn't it funny how actors tend to show up on TV right when they happen to have a new movie out? No, of course that's because they take part in press junkets sponsored by the companies that are producing those films. In the mid-1990s, Electronic Arts invested heavily in having their Wing Commander actors do just that; Wing Commander III and IV (and to a lesser extent Prophecy) saw the likes of Mark Hamill and Malcolm McDowell popping up all over the place to talk about their storied careers... and, oh yeah, to mention there's a new CD-ROM out, too! Today we've found two fun examples from the various Wing Commander junkets to share with you.

In 2026, everyone knows Jon Stewart as the celebrated host of The Daily Show... but in 1994 he was the fresh faced host of a self-titled and short-lived syndicated talk show. This interview is from the November 15, 1994 episode which featured actor Malcolm McDowell,