The Great Dralthi-esque Hunt!

[Sphynx]

I think all of us can agree that WC has become iconic in science fiction and gaming. I thought it would be fun to see if we can find some ways that WC has left a legacy on the visual designs that have emerged since its creation. To start that off, I propose, “The Great Dralthi-esque Hunt.”

For me, if you asked me to state the first thing that came to mind when you say “Kilrathi fighter,” I would say “Dralthi.” It was the first Kilrathi ship I saw in the intro, and one form of the Dralthi or another has been in almost every incarnation of the WC franchise. So, it seemed like a good place to start.

See if you can find any Dralthi look-alikes out there. Look in games, movies, novel covers, concept art, etc. Extra kudos go to anyone who can provide some proof that the design the inspiration for the design they find can legitimately be cited as the Dralthi. Double kudos go to anyone who can find a design predating the release of WC that could serve as a reasonable inspiration for the Dralthi design.

I have several ideas to start with, but I won’t use them all yet.

First, let’s start with the Pegasus (I think that’s what it’s called) from Tachyon: The Fringe. Any way you look at this baby, it screams “Dralthi!” to me.




Then, there is the new incarnation of the Cylon Raider. Half Cylon Centurion, half Dralthi, all toaster.





Then, there is also one of the main Gorene fighters from Star Crusader (a great game in its own right that was overshadowed by Wing Commander). You can see a general idea of the design from this shot of the game cover.






Okay, that’s three marks on the kill board for me to open up the hunt. Like I said, I found others, but I won’t hog all the kills now. See what you can come up with!

[McGruff]

I would say the original Cylon fighters were direct contributors.

[Mjr. Whoopass]

Here's an obvious one: The 'Shroud' from Starlancer:



Here's a less obvious one.. I'm not entirely sure what this is from or who made it, but the author writes: CFS2 AB-BatWing (4.38MB).The famous "BatWing", flown by The Dark Knight. Features Mach 3 speed, special flight characteristics and a unique panel setup.

Originally Posted by Sphynx

Double kudos go to anyone who can find a design predating the release of WC that could serve as a reasonable inspiration for the Dralthi design.

How's this?
This US Navy fighter prototype with blueprints dating to 1939 has similarities to the Dralthi. It was the result of multi-millions of dollars for research and caused several "Flying Saucer" sightings. I now present the original "Flying Pancake":

[Bandit LOAF]

Very good idea for a thread, definately worth a Space Point.

So I'll go ahead and add the most obvious one...

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Freespace also had a Dralthi-like ship, the Ulysses.

[Sphynx]

I was wondering when the Drakhri would show up! Now that it has been quite firmly established that it is not a Dralthi, there won't have to be any bloodshed about this particular issue.

Let me add another obvious one: the Jrathrek, although I can't seem to find a decent picture of one outside of the ships database.

[MannPower]

To a lesser extent, these fighters from Terminal Velocity had a similar 'forward wing' design.

[BrynS]

How about the Yehat Terminator from Star Control 1 (July 1990) and 2 (November 1992)? The Yehat themselves influenced how I imagined the Firekkans to look like until I read Freedom Flight.

[MannPower]

The Yehat themselves influenced how I imagined the Firekkans to look like until I read Freedom Flight.

Kudos for a Star Control post (the Kor'ah Death March is one of the most bad-ass doomsday events in video game history) - but isn't there a cutscene with a fully-body shot of a Firekkan if you avert/fail to avert the Sivar-Eshrad ceremony?

[Bandit LOAF]

Yes, you see Firekkans multiple times in SM2.

(In the treaty signing... attacking the Priestesses... and then chasing away the Kilrathi at the end... or being enslaved.)

[BrynS]

Originally Posted by MannPower

Kudos for a Star Control post (the Kor'ah Death March is one of the most bad-ass doomsday events in video game history) - but isn't there a cutscene with a fully-body shot of a Firekkan if you avert/fail to avert the Sivar-Eshrad ceremony?

Heh, I think so -- I only went back and played WC1 and 2 for the first time around 1997, after originally being snagged by Privateer and WC3 when they were released. Do not forget to *enjoy the sauce*!

[Kyle Maverick]

Surprised no one's mentioned the Banshee fighters that the Brotherhood of Nod have in Tiberian Sun.

Best pic I could find sorry

[MannPower]

Heh, I think so -- I only went back and played WC1 and 2 for the first time around 1997, after originally being snagged by Privateer and WC3 when they were released.

Aha, that explains it. Anyways, yes, they appear several times in SM2. My favorite shot of them is when they rout the Kilrathi at the end of the campaign - toting rifles.

[Sphynx]

Here's another one:

The heavy fighter from Incoming:

http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2108016qr0.png

(can't seem to get this one to show up right as a picture. Follow the link).

It blows up rather nicely like a Dralthi, as well.

Incoming was a great little bubblegum game whose graphics blew me away at the time it came out.

[Mjr. Whoopass]

I really enjoyed Incoming as well. I was going to post a picture of a different alien fighter from that game that looks a bit like a Dralthi, but then came across the US flying pancake. Doggone it, if I didn't have work tomorrow morning, I'd like to pop the game in and play a bit. So here is the Incoming Fighter I think looks like a Dralthi. I couldn't find an in game shot of it, but it looks very similar in game (it's the one on the left, not the space shuttle ):

[Aginor]

Hmm... I have to check that again, but IIRC there is something that looks similar to a Dralthi in a Top-Down action game called Raptor (anyone here who knows the game?). It is really old, I have a shareware demo of it somewhere...

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

You're right, there is one Dralthi-like ship in Raptor (a wonderful game). I even bought the full version for it, in a box and on CD!

There was also one in another top down game, Galactix, I think (the second wave enemies).

But I do not have any pictures.

[Bandit LOAF]

The original Cylon Raider was definately an influence on the original 'pancake' Dralthi:

[Sphynx]

Originally Posted by Mjr. Whoopass

I really enjoyed Incoming as well. I was going to post a picture of a different alien fighter from that game that looks a bit like a Dralthi, but then came across the US flying pancake. Doggone it, if I didn't have work tomorrow morning, I'd like to pop the game in and play a bit. So here is the Incoming Fighter I think looks like a Dralthi. I couldn't find an in game shot of it, but it looks very similar in game (it's the one on the left, not the space shuttle ):

Ha! You stole my thunder! I was going to post that one today!

Here's some in-game pics:

http://img214.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2110022rg1.png

http://img261.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2108264xa3.png

[Aginor]

Ok, that one really screams "Dralthi"!!
(Now I remember I played that game, too. It came with my graphis card)

[Deacan]

Forward - wing - designs?

Anyone played Star Wolves?

normal onj the left: Cleaner
sleek on the middle: Raptor
sleeker (or somewhat like a beautie to me) on the right: Stormcrow

Deacan

[Mjr. Whoopass]

Originally Posted by Sphynx

Ha! You stole my thunder! I was going to post that one today!

Here's some in-game pics:

I didn't QUITE steal your thunder, those are some really good in-game pics. They really make it look like a Dralthi! That fighter was one of my favorites to fly in the arcade mode. Too bad you don't get to fly it in a mission (that I can remember).

[Sphynx]

Yes, I think it was just in arcade mode. As I recall, newer versions of Incoming also had a tactical mode where you could play it top down and order different units around. But I digress...

[Bandit LOAF]

The aliens in the new Lego Space theme (yay, Space is back!) have Dralthi-esque space fighters:

[Sphynx]

Cool find, Loaf. I wonder how many Lego renditions of the Dralthi have been made by our wingnut friends. Feel free to post pics, if anyone has.

[Bandit LOAF]

There's at least two Lego Dralthi in our news archive, including this amazing one:

[Sphynx]

Wow, that one is spot on! Well done.

[Sphynx]

Here's another one: the Shroedinger (sp?) from Vega Strike. This was the first Vega Strike ship I ever saw and the first thought that popped into my head was, "Hey, that looks a bit like a Dralthi!"

Check out the link below.

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/ga...g2_itemId=5059

And here's another Dralthi-esque Vega Strike ship, the Lancelot. Check out the links:

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/ga...g2_itemId=5514

And another, the Idun:

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/ga...g2_itemId=5516

There's a lot of love for the Dralthi out there.

[Aginor]

Although IMHO the last one comes the Dralthi as near as everything that has two wings. I don't see a Dralthi in it, there are better examples.

Still it is always nice to see some ships I don't know yet, regardless of where they come from.

[Mancubus]

No picture, but the Batplane from Tim Butons "Batman" is certainly somewhat similar to Dralthi. And it is earlier.

Little offtopic it seems that the pre-launch checklist from WC3 is actually a Joke, as it is copy, or at least begins just like checklist for Batmobile from 1960s batman tv series :-) (i havent seen this, the info is from wikipedia so unconfirmed

This may hint that someone in production team, perhaps Chris Roberts himself was the fun of Batman, and supports the theory of Batplane - inspierd Dralthi

oh, and several other batplanes are similar to dralthi too, especialy this one:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:B...e-Animated.jpg

[Bandit LOAF]

Little offtopic it seems that the pre-launch checklist from WC3 is actually a Joke, as it is copy, or at least begins just like checklist for Batmobile from 1960s batman tv series :-) (i havent seen this, the info is from wikipedia so unconfirmed

That's correct - "atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed" is the famous part of the original Batmobile's startup sequence.

[Sphynx]

Originally Posted by Aginor

Although IMHO the last one comes the Dralthi as near as everything that has two wings. I don't see a Dralthi in it, there are better examples.

Still it is always nice to see some ships I don't know yet, regardless of where they come from.

Granted, that last Vega Strike one is a bit of a stretch (or more than a bit of a strech, really), although the forward sweep of the wings seemed remotely Dralthi-esque. That being said, there are a lot of others that look a lot more like the Dralthi.

I had also considered posting the Batwing from the Batman movie with... was it Michael Keaton? The more you folks talk about Bat-planes, though, the more it seems likely that they are indeed a part of the insipiration for the Dralthi. So far to me, the Bat-plane variants and the orignial Cylon raider seem like the most logical contributors to the Dralthi design. Everything else we've shown thus far seems to be a derivative of the Dralthi design. I'm wondering if there are any other contributors to the Dralthi design... I can't think of any at the moment, although I can still think of several possible Dralthi derivatives, which I will post later.

[MannPower]

No picture, but the Batplane from Tim Butons "Batman" is certainly somewhat similar to Dralthi. And it is earlier.

[Max Gene]

On a mostly-related note, has anyone looked at the ferret as it prepared to launch, knowing you'd encounter Drakhri, and for a little while stopped playing Wing Commander and started to play alternate-universe battlestar? The ferret DOES look a little like a colonial viper in some aspects...

[Bandit LOAF]

The Ferret is kind of odd - it doesn't actually look like you picture it in your head.

... but the Razor from Wing Commander IV does look a lot like a Viper.

[Max Gene]

Huh? Hey, how do YOU know how I picture the Ferret? Is this a sideeffect of just having read your darned Loaf's Merry Guild page?

At any rate, what do you mean? It isn't an exact match, but that's what I thought of.

[Bandit LOAF]

Oh, it's just something I've noticed with myself - I always picture in my head as this cute little triangle fighter... and then when you go and look at it, it's got these big engines and these huge mass driver winglet mounts on the front.

[Sphynx]

That's kind of funny. I always thought of the Ferret as kind of a long, skinny sort of thing with a huge engine. If flying the other fighters was like driving a car, then flying a Ferret felt more like riding a motorcycle for me. I kind of came to think of it as the conceptual offspring of the Colonial Viper and an X-Wing fighter, so I guess I can say that Max and I had similar thoughts, although I can't remember ever taking it as far as Max did.

I have always been intrigued by the analogies we draw in our heads, and that how we represent things to ourselves is not always the same as what things actually are. But I'll stop babbling before I digress into a discussion on Kantian metaphysics and their pscyhological implications.

As far as original BSG, though, each time there was one of those cutscenes in WC2 where you saw a side view of the fighters flying in formation, it always made me think of BSG.

Let me launch a few probes: are there any ships in Star Trek or Babylon 5 that looked like a Dralthi to anyone?

[MannPower]

I think the Viper / Ferret comparisons occur from the fact that the original Viper had the same paintjob colors as the Ferret. (as did the X-Wing)