Wing Commander (novel)

A series of novels were authorized by Origin to fill in the blanks left by the games or otherwise expand on the setting. Some of these were novelizations (WC3, WC4, and the movie), but a majority of them were original stories, though as part of the official universe the various works all reflect on one another. In publication order:

Novels

 * Freedom Flight by author Mercedes Lackey and Origin employee Ellen Guon, is a POV Sequel to the Wing1 Expansion Pack "Secret Missions 2: Crusade," in which the Confederation was called upon to defend the planet Firekka, which the Kilrathi have occupied for use in a religious ritual involving the mass sacrifice of lots and lots of slaves. While players fly the missions, the novel focuses on the ground resistance through four Switching POV characters: Non Player Characters James "Paladin" Taggart and Ian "Hunter" St. John; Kirha, a Kilrathi servant to Defector From Decadence Ralgha nar Hhallas; and K'Kai, a Firekkan native.
 * End Run marked the beginning of William R. Forstchen's dominance over the franchise's novels; everything from here on out is either authored or co-authored by him unless otherwise marked. It takes place in two parts. The first, "Milk Run," is written by Christopher Stasheff, detailing a recon mission to identify a Kilrathi cultural site. The second, "End Run," details a strike to destroy that site, causing the Kilrathi fleet to rush headlong into a trap. Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky, fresh from his introduction in "Secret Missions 1," is assigned to the TCS Tarawa, which will (while the Kilrathi are distracted) travel to their home planet, Kilrah, and cause as much chaos as possible. The Tarawa will be "First To Kilrah," but since the ship is barely more than a heavy freighter with a flight deck stapled on, this is likely to be a One-Way Trip...
 * Fleet Action: I Surrender, Suckers, The Novel. In this case it's the Kilrathi, who are buying time for their new Hakaga-class supercarriers to come online. But Properly Paranoid elements within Confed, specifically Admiral Tolwyn, suspect the true nature of the situation. Bondarevsky and the Tarawa cross the entirety of Kilrathi space and confirm the existence of the carriers. Now Tolwyn has to Race Against the Clock to get the Confederation's military from "demobilized and in cold storage" to "fighting status" if he wants to save the human race...
 * Heart Of The Tiger: the novelization of Wing Commander III, co-written by Andrew Keith. Its Road Cones are considered untouchable Canon--even when it takes the Downer Ending at Locanda. Whilst fighting a losing war, Blair becomes involved in two secret operations to force the Kilrathi to surrender. Admiral Tolwyn's pet monstrosity, the "Behemoth", is a space-going Wave Motion Gun, while Col. Taggart's "Project Temblor" exploits unstable fault lines on the Kilrathi homeworld. Both end in an Earthshattering Kaboom, but it's Blair's job to make it happen...
 * The Price of Freedom: the novelization of Wing Commander IV, co-written by Ben Ohlander. As with the Wing Commander III novelization, it sets as the Canon events where players of the game would get a choice. In particular, where the player got to choose between the Circe and Speradon mission sets, the Speradon route is the official path. Having said that, the two played fast and loose with other aspects of the game, including some major departures in characterization and a complete discarding of the Border Worlds' Cool Spaceships. (Heck, the cover of the novel shows a fighter from the game which the novel doesn't even mention!)
 * Action Stations: a Story Within a Story, this is a fictionalized account, written by a Confed historian, of the "Mc Auliffe Ambush," the Pearl Harbor-esque sneak attack that opened the Terran-Kilrathi War; it was published just a few (in-universe) years after the events of The Price of Freedom and is its author's attempt to explain why Geoffrey Tolwyn became a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
 * False Colors: co-written by Andrew Keith, though the cover mistakenly says "William H. Keith". An "interquel" between Heart of the Tiger and Price of Freedom, this book details the adventures of Jason Bondarevsky, serving with the Free Republic of the Landreich, and his ship, now renamed the FLRS Independence, to stop separate conspiracies by both humans and Kilrathi to restart the war. It was meant to be the beinning of a trilogy, but Keith's Author Existence Failure brought an end to that.
 * Wing Commander: the Novelization of The Movie, written by Peter Telep. The film (and its novel) detail the adventures of Christopher "Maverick" Blair and Todd "Maniac" Marshall as they first join the flight line on the TCS Tiger's Claw. The novel retains the Mole subplot which was cut from the film, and also goes into more detail about Blair's status as a "Pilgrim," a Hollywood Mutant with supernatural math skills.
 * Pilgrim Stars is the second novel of a trilogy by Telep. While the Kilrathi conflict continues, Blair, Angel and Maniac must deal with a group of Pilgrim rebels who have stolen a Concordia-class super-cruiser mounting an experimental FTL drive which doubles as a Wave Motion Gun. And these Pilgrims seem bent on pursuing a war against their Muggle oppressors...
 * Pilgrim Truth details the adventures of the Power Trio as they attempt to prevent a genocide against the Pilgrims, as prompted by the events of the previous novel. In 2000 it was canceled before publication; in August 2011 it was finally made available through some bargaining by both Electronic Arts and the Wing Commander Combat Information Center, the franchise's major fansite. It can be read there for free.

Tropes employed by the novels:

 * Apocalypse How
 * Class 6: In Fleet Action, the Kilrathi on the warpath use Strontium-90 clad thermonuclear weapons to render several human planets incapable of sustaining any life, and threaten to do so to Earth until Max Krueger's Big Damn Heroes moment.
 * The Novelization of Wing Commander III states that the official outcome of the Locanda system missions is that the Victory air wing fails to intercept the bioweapons, which devastate life on Locanda IV in a Class 3 A scenario.
 * Artificial Gravity: In addition to the traditional use of this on human spacecraft, the "hopper" drive mentioned in Confederation Handbook (essentially the manual for the movie) creates a temporary gravity anomaly to effectively make the equipped ship superluminal (though not with the ease of use of traditional jump drives). The novels building off of the movie Novelization, Pilgrim Stars and Pilgrim Truth have an improved version of this drive that eliminates some of the limitations and can be used as a weapon, equipped on a ship that gets hijacked by Pilgrims.
 * Author Existence Failure: A planned sequel to False Colors, helping to fill in some of the gap between that novel's events and the start of Wing Commander IV, was canceled due to the death of co-author Andrew Keith in 1999.
 * Boring but Practical: A number of the features on the escort carriers such as the TCS Tarawa that were holdovers from their original design as merchant ships prove quite handy, including a setup where equipment and cargo can be secured to the ceiling of the cargo bay for storage. When the cargo bay ends up being the hangar bay, this ends up being the solution to a lack of deck space for a force of Marine transports that are taken aboard.
 * Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: what on Earth are these Pilgrims on about? Do you really need to tweak the word "Friday"?
 * Cats Are Mean: They're not any more kind in the novels than they are in the games.
 * Catfolk: The Kilrathi, a species of feline bipeds.
 * The Cavalry:
 * The Landreich forces in Fleet Action, during the Battle of Terra, saving Earth from being made uninhabitable by "dirty" nukes.
 * Admiral Tolwyn's task force in the climax of End Run, rescuing the Tarawa after her behind-the-lines raid on Kilrah's moon.
 * Crystal Spires and Togas: Pilgrim Truth.
 * Death From Above: In Fleet Action, multiple Terran Confederation planets are bombarded from orbit by a massive Kilrathi fleet the humans are unable to stop, using Antimatter warheads and dirty nukes specifically employed to sterilize worlds, as described in Apocalypse How Class Six, above.
 * Everyone Went to School Together: A lot of named characters tend to get linked together this way, though usually it's more that they knew each other from previous commands while serving in the military, not from schooling.
 * False-Flag Operation: as mentioned, the Cats' "I Surrender, Suckers" plot in Fleet Action. This is met by a counter False-Flag Operation in which Tolwyn persecutes his attack of a Kilrathi carrier despite the armistice having already been signed, allowing Confed to dishonorably discharge him for being a Military Maverick. He then goes to the Landreich as a (politically) Fake Defector and launches the recon op into Kilrathi space... All whilst operating under secret orders to do all these things and confirm whether the armistice is a ploy or not.
 * Future Imperfect:
 * In the novels, a few references indicate that they take certain movie stars to have been the people they portrayed in their films (one character was confused at how John Wayne seemed to have served in multiple jobs) although there is some confusion about why the "historical evidence" (movies) is so self-contradictory.
 * In a probable nod to Enemy Mine, the Kilrathi think Bugs Bunny is some kind of important figure, and sometimes insult him in an attempt to taunt human pilots, much to the amusement of the humans. According to Bear, Hobbes was heartbroken when informed of the unintended humor.
 * Guy in Back: In End Run, the death of a turret gunner in a damaged bomber that Kevin "Lonewolf" Tolwyn (nephew of the admiral) was supposed to escort back to the Tarawa (see the games section entry for Glory Hound) was a significant contributor to Tolwyn's Character Development from a wild hotshot to a reliable "team player".
 * Home Guard: The Border Worlds Militia and the Landreich Free Corps, for the portions of space they occupy, both typically using whatever ships they could get a hold of, regardless of obsolescence. The Border Worlds forces traditionally relied on being backed up by the Confed forces, while the Landreich troops, being generally out of the primary fronts of the war, relied on tactics involving Refuge in Audacity to deal with the Kilrathi.
 * I Love Nuclear Power: In the Confederation Handbook, mutations from cosmic radiation are said to be the cause of Pilgrim powers, though not in the short term as often depicted by this trope, taking multiple generations.
 * Insignia Rip Off Ritual: Tolwyn's discharge.
 * Literary Agent Hypothesis:
 * The novel Action Stations is, per the foreword, a reconstruction of the events surrounding the 2634 attack on McAuliffe that kicked off the Kilrathi War, written by a post-Wing Commander IV historian trying to give a more complete picture of what made Admiral Tolwyn what he was.
 * Not technically a novel, but the first official strategy guide for the Wing Commander series, Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide, was written as being from the memoirs of Carl LaFong, the name they gave to the Player Character before he was officially named "Blair".
 * The Mutiny: Heavily foreshadowed in End Run, due to the Tarawa's commander being woefully incompetent, and many of the ship's officers quietly informing Colonel Bondarevsky that they expect him to take charge if they are to survive. Ultimately averted, due to the captain being abruptly killed in battle, resulting in You Are in Command Now instead.
 * New Old Flame: Svetlana Ivanova to Bondarevsky.
 * Not So Different: one of the best moments from the novels is the appearance of Kirha -- a defected Kilrathi -- in a Fleet bar. The Worthy Opponent vibes from both Kirha and the Confed personnel provide hope that, even despite the current False-Flag Operation, a true peace might actually be possible.
 * Novelization: The Heart Of The Tiger (Wing Commander III), The Price of Freedom (Wing Commander IV), and Wing Commander (novelization of The Movie)
 * Nuclear Option:
 * In Fleet Action, the Kilrathi use Strontium-90 clad nuclear weapons to render several human worlds uninhabitable, and nearly succeed at doing so to Earth before Krueger's Big Damn Heroes moment.
 * Although technically not nukes, in the same novel humans use matter/antimatter bombs as part of a plan to destroy the enemy supercarriers from the inside, when regular spaceborne weaponry proves ineffective.
 * Psychic Powers: Pilgrims who have them are called "extrakinetics". Naturally, Blair is one.
 * Recycled in Space: the "Expanded Universe" novels written solely by William Forstchen use this trope quite readily.
 * End Run is basically the Wing Commander version of the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo.
 * Fleet Action is pretty much Wing Commander's Battle of Midway
 * Action Stations is an almost painfully obvious reflection the Real Life attack on Pearl Harbor.
 * Salt the Earth: In Fleet Action, the Kilrathi build a fleet of super carriers and begin a seemingly inexorable push into human space. Along the way they bombard any human planets with Strontium-90 clad thermonuclear weapons that ensure that the planets will be uninhabitable. Even if the Kilrathi had succeeded, they would have gained little because they would have had no use for the conquered territory. Of course, this was precisely the point, and was the cause of an Enemy Civil War among the Kilrathi that ultimately prevented Earth from being obliterated.
 * Space Friction:
 * While the games themselves obey game-friendly atmospheric physics, the novels avert this by allowing fighters and capital ships to undergo indefinite acceleration (finite fuel supplies notwithstanding).
 * Also played straight: The ships project energy "scoops" to collect free floating hydrogen from space for their power plants. This somehow generates enough friction in space to cause the ships to operate similar to atmospheric craft. Operating without the scoops allows them to travel much faster, but then their effective range is much reduced (due to them not scooping in any extra hydrogen), not to mention neither humans nor Kilrathi having the reaction times required to engage at such speeds.
 * Space Marines:
 * While they get relatively brief mention in the games, the Terran Confederation Marine Corps plays an important part of several of the novels.
 * In Fleet Action they probably have their collective moment of awesomeness when they board a fleet of super-powerful carriers against which the normal weapons (torpedoes delivered by fighters) were nearly useless due to their extreme armor and shielding, for the purpose of detonating antimatter mines inside the carriers. Naturally, this is somewhat less than survivable for the Space Marines in question, but when the alternative is The End of the World as We Know It...
 * The Confederation Marines' commander, General Grecko, is so badass that when a bomb blows up the entire floor of the building he is on, he is still fit to go into combat the next day, minus a prosthetic arm that luckily helped shield him from the blast.
 * Strawman Political: Not infrequently found in the books written solely by William Forstchen.
 * Subspace Ansible: Heightened stellar activity can interfere with FTL communications in the Wing Commander universe, as shown in Action Stations, but otherwise, the only time there's significant time lag for communicating across interstellar distances is the human steps relaying transmitted messages to/from the comm system and the people ultimately at either end of the line. No such limitations are mentioned in the game, FTL communication is just there.
 * Trapped Behind Enemy Lines:
 * At the end of Action Stations, Max Krueger's ship is shot down over a Kilrathi-held human world during a raid on Kilrathi assets in the area.
 * The Tarawa, towards the end of End Run, after she has completed her mission and is attempting to fight her way out of Kilrathi space having just proverbially kicked the hornet's nest and mooned it.
 * You Are in Command Now: the captain of the Tarawa is a political officer and quite clearly does not have the testicular fortitude to command the End Run. Subverted in that Bear is warned, by quite a few people, that he's going to have to take over if anyone intends to survive.
 * You Shall Not Pass: In Fleet Action, a vastly outnumbered and outgunned Confederation manages to hold off the Kilrathi fleet, at one point having civilian craft play "human shield" for the Marine landing craft to board the Hakaga supercarriers, to detonate antimatter mines from the inside, where the heavy armor not only didn't help the Hakagas, but helped focus the blast to gut the ships from the inside.