History Literature / WingCommander

** Also played straight: The ships project energy "scoops" to collect free floating hydrogen from space for their power plants. This [[HandWave 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.

* ILoveNuclearPower: 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.

* DemotedToExtra: A lot of this goes on in the ''Price of Freedom'' novelization. Vagabond and Catscratch, two of the six main pilot characters in the game, simply disappear once Blair leaves the ''Lexington'': they do not follow him as they do in the games. (This creates a plot vacuum for TheChick whom Catscratch is supposed to romance, and -- perhaps predictably -- she ends up with [[EscapistCharacter Blair]] instead.) Panther and Hawk, another two of the six pilots, get likewise stripped of almost all characterization. And finally, the Banshee, Vindicator and Avenger, the {{Cool Ship}}s on the ''Intrepid'', get ditched entirely in favor of ''Wing Commander II''-era ships. This intensifies the stakes of the DavidAndGoliath conflict between Border Worlds and Confed, but can result in raised InternalConsistency eyebrows when Maniac takes a Rapier II into the fight against Seether's Dragon superfighter, which ([[AllThereInTheManual according to the games' respective manuals]]) has ''100 times'' more HitPoints and can OneHitKill Maniac's ship with three of its four guns turned off.

* TheMutiny: {{Shaggy Dog Story}}'d in ''End Run''. The ''Tarawa's'' commander is woefully incompetent, and Main Character Jason Bondarevsky is informed, by people both above and below him in rank, that they expect him to take charge if they are to survive. Then the captain is abruptly killed in battle, and Jason, who was the NumberTwo anyhow, gets the chair.

* {{Novelization}}: ''The Heart Of The Tiger'' (''Wing Commander III''), ''The Price of Freedom'' (''Wing Commander IV''), and ''Wing Commander'' (novelization of the film)

** ''End Run'' is explicitely {{lampshaded}} in the dedication as being the Wing Commander version of the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo.

* '''Film/WingCommander''': the {{Novelization}} of TheMovie, 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 [[TheMole Mole subplot]] which was cut from the film, and also goes into more detail about Blair's status as a "Pilgrim," a [[{{Mutants}} Hollywood Mutant]] with supernatural math skills.

* {{Novelization}}: ''The Heart Of The Tiger'' (''Wing Commander III''), ''The Price of Freedom'' (''Wing Commander IV''), and ''Wing Commander'' (novelization of TheMovie)

* NotSoDifferent: one of the best moments from the novels is the appearance of Kirha -- a defected Kilrathi -- in a Fleet bar. The WorthyOpponent vibes from both Kirha ''and'' the Confed personnel provide hope that, even despite the current FalseFlagOperation, a true peace might actually be possible.

* '''Pilgrim Truth''' details the adventures of the PowerTrio 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 Creator/ElectronicArts and the [[http://www.wcnews.com Wing Commander Combat Information Center]], the franchise's largest fansite. It can be [[http://www.wcnews.com/news/2011/08/11/pilgrim-truth-released read there for free.]]

* HumanityIsInfectious: Baron Jukaga's admiration of the humans makes him betray his own side and prevent the Strontium-90 thermonuclear bombardment of Earth, buying Krueger's fleet critical time for the BigDamnHeroes save.

** In the same novel, a young Baron Jukaga is instructed to dedicate himself to studying the humans in order to understand them better and learn from them. By the time of ''Fleet Action'', he has learned about humanity [[HumanityIsInfectious all too well]].

* CallForward: One scene in ''Action Stations'' features a group of Confed officers in a bar, and one of them makes a toast: "To a long war or a bloody plague," being a sort of "break a leg" way of wishing rapid promotions for your fellow officers. The book was released a year after ''The Price of Freedom'', which would show Tolwyn's career, marked by decades of war, coming to an end after [[spoiler: he is arrested and convicted after he, among many other crimes, unleashed a horrible plague on an unsuspecting planet.]]

* TheClan: Kilrathi court politics and rivalries between the Imperial clan and the other ruling clans, centered on Baron Jukaga against Prince Thrakhath, are highlighted in ''End Run'' and ''Fleet Action''.

* NeutralZone: The Free Republic of the Landreich exists between the Confederation and Kilrathi territories and hates both factions.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis:
** The novel ''Action Stations'' is, per the foreword, a reconstruction of the events surrounding the 2634 attack on [=McAuliffe=] that kicked off the [[CatFolk 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 PlayerCharacter before he was officially named "Blair".

** ''Fleet Action'' is pretty much Wing Commander's Battle of Midway

* PsychicPowers: Pilgrims who have them are called "extrakinetics". Naturally, Blair is one.

* CallForward: One scene in ''Action Stations'' features a group of Confed officers in a bar, and one of them makes a toast: "To plague and long war," being a sort of "break a leg" way of wishing rapid promotions for your fellow officers. The book was released a year after ''The Price of Freedom'', which would show Tolwyn's career, marked by decades of war, coming to an end after [[spoiler: he is arrested and convicted after he, among many other crimes, unleashed a horrible plague on an unsuspecting planet.]]

Once upon a time, there was a Space FlightSim VideoGame called ''VideoGame/WingCommander'', by Chris Roberts (''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', ''VideoGame/StarCitizen'') and Origin Systems (''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Crusader}}''). It had relatively arcade-ish qualities, but also featured a fairly in-depth plot and a real sense of consequence due to persistent NPC deaths and StoryBranching. It caught on, spawning five distinct sequels, three {{Gaiden Game}}s, a number of {{Expansion Pack}}s, a [[WesternAnimation/WingCommanderAcademy Saturday-morning cartoon]] and even a [[Film/WingCommander live-action movie]]. All that was left... were books.