History WesternAnimation / WingCommanderAcademy

''Wing Commander Academy'' was an American animated series released in [[TheNineties 1996]] as part of the USANetwork's SaturdayMorningCartoon lineup. Based on the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' series of video games, it featured several of the games' characters, [[HeyItsThatVoice most of them played by the actor who portrayed them]] in the later games, and filling in backstory on The Kilrathi and Admiral Tolwyn. The plot centers around a group of [[PluckyMiddie cadets]] going on their final cruise before graduating from the MilitaryAcademy.

* SpritualSuccessor: To Universal Animation's previous sci-fi combat series, ''WesternAnimation/{{Exosquad}}''.

* CrossThrough: The USA Network's 1996 Saturday morning cartoon lineup had a storyline on November 16 about "The Warrior King" (voiced by Michael Dorn), a man chasing an "[[{{MacGuffin}} Orb of Power]]" through various dimensions. After an expository intro, he confronted M. Bison in ''WesternAnimation/StreetFighter'' ("The Warrior King", Season 2, Episode 9) and battled The Fiend in ''TheSavageDragon'' ("Endgame", Season 2, Episode 8), both of whom attempted to abuse the Orb's powers. From there the Orb landed in the hands of Shang Tsung in ''WesternAnimation/MortalKombatDefendersOfTheRealm'' ("Resurrection", Season 1, Episode 9; the Warrior King only makes a cameo as a shadow), after which Raiden tossed it to the universe of ''Wing Commander Academy'' ("Recreation", Season 1, Episode 9), where the Warrior King's quest ends and he [[RidingIntoTheSunset flies off into the stars]].

* ShownTheirWork: You do have to hand it to the production team, some real effort was made to be true to the source material.

* ChekhovsSkill: The payoff to a RunningGag where Maniac keeps wanting to try and attack the Kilrathi carrier by [[SuicidalOverConfidence flying into its hangar bay and gut it from the inside]]. [[spoiler: Turns out, Maniac really is that good. [[BigBad Prince Thrakhath's]] [[CoolStarship dreadnought]] is crippled when Maniac finally gets to try this.]]

** Confed uniforms resemble those from the games
** Ship designs were close enough to the in-game ones that you could recognize Hellcats, Broadswords, Scimitars, and Dralthi fighters. Arrows, Longbows, Sabers, and numerous other ships used in minor roles, giving the idea of a military that used a wide variety of ships rather than the small handful the heroes appear to be checked out on. The Kilrathi similarly use a wide variety of fighters from the games, with the Dralthi (AKA the "[[InSeriesNickname Flying Pancakes]]" being only the most easily recognized.
** Cockpit instrument panels resemble the ones from the games closely enough that a regular player could assess the characters' tactical situation from the instruments

* CrossThrough: The USA Network's 1996 Saturday morning cartoon lineup had a storyline on November 16 about "The Warrior King" (voiced by [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Michael Dorn]]), a man chasing an "[[{{MacGuffin}} Orb of Power]]" through various dimensions. After an expository intro, he confronted M. Bison in ''WesternAnimation/StreetFighter'' ("The Warrior King", Season 2, Episode 9) and battled The Fiend in ''TheSavageDragon'' ("Endgame", Season 2, Episode 8), both of whom attempted to abuse the Orb's powers. From there the Orb landed in the hands of Shang Tsung in ''WesternAnimation/MortalKombatDefendersOfTheRealm'' ("Resurrection", Season 1, Episode 9; the Warrior King only makes a cameo as a shadow), after which Raiden tossed it to the universe of ''Wing Commander Academy'' ("Recreation", Season 1, Episode 9), where the Warrior King's quest ends and he [[RidingIntoTheSunset flies off into the stars]].

* FakeIrish: Maya [=McEaddens=], complete with being a [[GreenEyes green-eyed]] [[HeroesWantRedheads redhead]] with a brogue. Played by Lauri Hendler, an American. [[InksuitActor A green-eyed redheaded American.]]

* ShoutOut: A space pilot character played by MarkHamill, captured by primitives, spending some time hanging by his arms and legs from a pole, then convincing the primitives to join the fight against the bad guys? [[ReturnOfTheJedi Hmm...]]?
** The Kil'rathi fighters looks similar to the saucer section of the Enterprise-B which rescued Malcolm McDowell's character.

** Ship designs were close enough to the in-game ones that you could recognize Hellcats, Broadswords, Scimitars, and Dralthi fighters. Arrows, Longbows, Sabers, and numerous other ships used in minor roles, giving the idea of a military that used a wide variety of ships rather than the small handful the heroes appear to be checked out on. The Kilrathi similarly use a wide variety of fighters from the games, with the Dralthi (AKA the "[[FanNickname Flying]] [[InSeriesNickname Pancakes]]" being only the most easily recognized.

* StealthInSpace: A Kilrathi prototype stealth fighter wrecks havoc among the Confed in one episode. Surprisingly, it's played straight- the fighter itself is not invisible to the naked eye, although it ''is'' painted black (which is naturally harder to see against the background of space). Rather, it's invisible to confed scanners, probably using similar stealth tactics as real-life stealth fighters (radar-absorbant paint, unusual geometry, etc.).

* ThisIsReality: "[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Hey, this isn't a game you know!]]"

* WrenchWench: Maya [=McEaddens=].
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The [[UniverseBible Series Bible]] indicates that later seasons would have had a Kilrathi pilot joining the crew, with all the tension that would bring, and the show's plot would run right up to the beginning of ''Wing Commander III'', incorporating plot elements from the second and third games.

* InksuitActor: Commodore Tolwyn is a dead ringer for MalcolmMcDowell. ([=McDowell=] had previously played the character in the live-action cutscenes of the video games, so the resemblance was already established.)

* SpaceCadetAcademy: The Terran Confederation Academy. This animation in particular features Academy cadets as the main characters.

* GreeneyedRedhead: Maya [=McEaddens=]. Payback is definitely a redhead whose eyes are a much paler shade of green.

* TheChainsOfCommanding: Several episodes focus on the weight and responsibility of leading people in combat, and the certainty that some will die following your orders. This trope is also used to give Commodore Tolwyn some CharacterDevelopment to balance against what we see of him in the games.
** To clarify on how the trope affects Tolwyn: Most of the cadets see him as an all-powerful flag officer who makes things happen by ordering them to be so, when in reality he is just as restricted by the orders his superiors hand him as the cadets are by his orders. So when he requests reinforcements for a major operation and is told they can't be spared, the cadets simply see him as a [[TheAce glory hound]] willing to [[WeHaveReserves sacrifice their lives]] to achieve his goals. This leads to a MedalOfDishonor moment when Blair refuses a medal since he is outraged to learn he was used as bait on a suicide mission.

* DramaticIrony: Due to its original conception as a tie-in of sorts to ''Wing Commander III'', we already know the fates of several of the characters, and how their relationships will develop. That is to say, Maniac and Blair will become even more antagonistic towards each other, and Tolwyn's respect and mentoring of Blair won't last past the intro of ''Wing Commander II''.
** Most particularly, players of ''Wing Commander IV'' know that Tolwyn and Blair will end up [[spoiler: as enemies on opposite sides of a war.]]

-->'''''Grunt:''' If there's one thing I learned in the Marines, it's never to volunteer for anything!''
-->'''''Tolwyn:''' Spoken like a true veteran.''
-->'''''Grunt:''' Oh, thank you, sir!''
** DangerouslyGenreSavvy: Karnes.
** GenreBlind: The Dolosians.

* HighSchoolAU: Oddly enough, the original premise of the show was basically the characters of ''Wing Commander III'' transplanted into an Academy class together, with Tolwyn as their instructor. Most of the changes that occurred (Many of the younger characters from WCIII are replaced with Expies to better justify them actually being in school together, for starters) can be chalked up to this being a PragmaticAdaptation. The setting change gets weirder when you consider that they spend almost no time at all doing anything you associate with being a student, and everything you associate with just being a combat pilot.

* InksuitActor:
** Commodore Tolwyn is a dead ringer for MalcolmMcDowell. ([=McDowell=] had previously played the character in the live-action cutscenes of the video games, so the resemblance was already established.)
** Payback and [=McEaddens=], played by Lauri Hendler, are both redheads with eyes in varying shades of green.

* PlotDrivenBreakdown: The computer running the flight simulator crashes before Maniac can complete his run on a carrier that massively outguns the Hell cat he's flying, so we never get to see him make a fool of himself ([[ChekhovsSkill or not]]).
* PragmaticAdaptation: The show's original premise was basically how [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether everyone in]] ''[[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether Wing Commander III]]'' [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether went to school together]]. Many of the character changes (quite a few Expies popped up) were likely to avoid the FridgeLogic that would happen with a Lieutenant Colonel in the games being revealed to have been in the same academy class as a pair of lieutenants.

* TheShrink: A mix of all three Types, actually, but mostly a {{subverted}} Type 2. The cadets don't like him, and given his personality, they probably wouldn't like him even if he ''didn't'' have the ability to get them dropped from the pilot program due to a bad eval, but he ''does'' have considerable authority in regards to pulling them from combat duty, and has the ear of their commanding officer regarding matters of morale. In short, obviously he cares about the cadets and the ship's crew, but the rest of them don't particularly care for him. He also shows shades of being an [[OpenHeartDentistry Open Heart Dentist]], being knowledgeable enough in other fields to know how they might affect human behavior and psychology, such as how reports of fried electrical systems in a group of fighters leads him to conclude that the pilots had their heads screwed up by the same electrical storm that fried the electronics. Up till he came across that information, he just assumed that the pilots' behavior was just them being stressed out hormonal young officers. You know, [[HumansAreFlawed normal]].

** [[CallingTheOldManOut Tolwyn]] finally gets one from Blair because he believes Tolwyn willingly lied to Blair about the planned Marine assault and sacrificed the Cadets' lives just to pursue his vendetta against Prince Thrakhath. [[spoiler: He doesn't know that Tolwyn had requested reinforcements for the operation, but was ordered to go it alone by ''his'' higher ups.]] Similarly, Archer gives Tolwyn one or two in private. Commodore Tolwyn seems remarkably inclined towards taking these lectures from his cadets in stride.

* LetsYouAndHimFight: {{Justified}} and {{invoked}} by Commodore Tolwyn in he first episode. Maverick and Maniac are very competitive with each other, so they are chosen to lead opposing teams in a combat simulation. {{Subverted}} by TheMole, who sabotages the fighters, giving them full-powered weapons and reprogramming the flight computers not to register shield damage.

* OneHitKill: {{Discussed|Trope}} in the first episode. The Kilrathi warship can destroy a Scimitar fighter in one hit. {{Justified}} in that, well, it's a full-on warship and carries more powerful weapons than the smaller fighters can.

* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: {{Justified}}, as the show is about the characters still technically being ''in'' school.

''Wing Commander Academy'' was an American animated series released in [[TheNineties the 1990's]] as part of the USANetwork's SaturdayMorningCartoon lineup. Based on the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' series of video games, it featured several of the games' characters, [[HeyItsThatVoice most of them played by the actor who portrayed them]] in the later games, and filling in backstory on The Kilrathi and Admiral Tolwyn. The plot centers around a group of [[PluckyMiddie cadets]] going on their final cruise before graduating from the MilitaryAcademy.

* BackInTheSaddle In one episode, the ''[[TheBattlestar Tiger's Claw]]'' is attacked while most of her fighter wing is away. Because his remaining pilots are badly outnumbered, Commodore Tolwyn decides to climb into a fighter to [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking personally take part in the fighting]].
** Also {{inverted}} in at least one episode, where Tolwyn has Maverick stay aboard the ''Claw'' and supervise from the bridge while the rest of the fighter wing goes to fight the Kilrathi, in order to teach the cadet what it [[AnAesop means to be in command]], knowing that [[TheChainsOfCommanding others might die following your orders]].

* CharacterDevelopment: Several characters, but especially Gwen "Archer" Bowman's arc where she starts hesitating in combat after having to shoot down another cadet. On the other side, Kilrathi captain Garahl nar Hhallas gradually grows disillusioned with his Prince's motives for prosecuting the war.
** Also, outside of the books, the series is the source of almost all of Admiral Tolwyn's character development.

* DeathFromAbove: Several episodes featured air strikes on ground targets, but the last episode, notably, featured this trope being invoked with [[spoiler: Prince Thrakhath's ''own flagship'' being dropped on the temple which was concealing his troops, and presumably the fighters he had parked around it.]]

* DramaticSpaceDrifting: One episode focuses on a pilot who went renegade and his squad. The squad gets wiped out towards the end of the episode, leaving shattered wreckage floating in space, including a destroyed helmet.

* FoeYay: An occasional element of Maniac and Archer's UST.

* HonorBeforeReason: {{Subverted}}: The fact that the [[CombatPragmatist Kilrathi pilots]] in one episode launched a [[SuicidalOverconfidence suicidal attack]] against the ''Tiger's Claw'' for no readily apparent reason is a clue that something is wrong in one episode.

** Ship designs were close enough to the in-game ones that you could recognize Hellcats, Broadswords, Scimitars, and Dralthi fighters.
*** As well as Arrows, Longbows, Sabers, and numerous other ships used in minor roles, giving the idea of a military that used a wide variety of ships rather than the small handful the heroes appear to be checked out on. The Kilrathi similarly use a wide variety of fighters from the games, with the Dralthi (AKA the "[[FanNickname Flying]] [[InSeriesNickname Pancakes]]" being only the most easily recognized.

* TheShrink: A mix of all three Types, actually, but mostly a {{subverted}} Type 2. The cadets don't like him, and given his personality, they probably wouldn't like him even if he ''didn't'' have the ability to get them dropped from the pilot program due to a bad eval, but he ''does'' have considerable authority in regards to pulling them from combat duty, and has the ear of their commanding officer regarding matters of morale. In short, obviously he cares about the cadets and the ship's crew, but the rest of them don't particularly care for him.
** He also shows shades of being an [[OpenHeartDentistry Open Heart Dentist]], being knowledgeable enough in other fields to know how they might affect human behavior and psychology, such as how reports of fried electrical systems in a group of fighters leads him to conclude that the pilots had their heads screwed up by the same electrical storm that fried the electronics. Up till he came across that information, he just assumed that the pilots' behavior was just them being stressed out hormonal young officers. You know, [[HumansAreFlawed normal]].

** In one episode, nobody is willing to fly with Archer because of her hesitation to kill the enemy. When the ''Claw'' is attacked with very few pilots aboard to defend her, [[BackInTheSaddle Commodore Tolwyn]] declares that he is her wingman. [[hottip:*: Which makes sense, actually, since she has more recent experience flying, while he has been [[DeskJockey stuck behind a desk]] for an indeterminate amount of time.]]
** In a later episode, Maniac's wingman is taken out by a prototype Kilrathi [[StealthInSpace stealth fighter]]. Everybody accuses him of abandoning his wingman in combat. Maverick ends up teaming up with him to hunt the stealth fighter later on when he is similarly disgraced.

* {{Nakama}}: Blair and Maniac really don't like each other that much, but they make a hell of a team when the going really gets tough.

** The cadets flew Scimitar medium fighters. At first this would seem an odd choice. Shouldn't cadets get light fighters or even dedicated training craft to fly? But many who have played Wing Commander believe that the Scimitar was [[YourMileageMayVary by far the worst fighter in the game]], so most in-universe pilots would probably spurn them, making them the only fighter in plentiful supply for cadets to train in.

* CrossThrough: The USA Network's 1996 Saturday morning cartoon lineup had a storyline on November 16 about "The Warrior King" (voiced by [[StarTrek Michael Dorn]]), a man chasing an "[[{{MacGuffin}} Orb of Power]]" through various dimensions. After an expository intro, he confronted M. Bison in ''WesternAnimation/StreetFighter'' ("The Warrior King", Season 2, Episode 9) and battled The Fiend in ''TheSavageDragon'' ("Endgame", Season 2, Episode 8), both of whom attempted to abuse the Orb's powers. From there the Orb landed in the hands of Shang Tsung in ''WesternAnimation/MortalKombatDefendersOfTheRealm'' ("Resurrection", Season 1, Episode 9; the Warrior King only makes a cameo as a shadow), after which Raiden tossed it to the universe of ''Wing Commander Academy'' ("Recreation", Season 1, Episode 9), where the Warrior King's quest ends and he [[RidingIntoTheSunset flies off into the stars]].

** To clarify on how the trope affects Tolwyn: Most of the cadets see him as an all-powerful flag officer who makes things happen by ordering them to be so, when in reality he is just as restricted by the orders his superiors hand him as the cadets are by his orders. So when he requests reinforcements for a major operation and is told they can't be spared, the cadets simply see him as a [[TheAce glory hound]] willing to [[WeHaveReserves sacrifice their lives]] to achieve his goals.

* InksuitActor: Most [[ThereIsNoSuchThingAsNotability notably]], Commodore Tolwyn is a dead ringer for Malcolm [=McDowell=]. Payback and [=McEaddens=], played by Lauri Hendler, are both redheads with eyes in varying shades of green.

** To clarify on how the trope affects Tolwyn: Most of the cadets see him as an all-powerful flag officer who makes things happen by ordering them to be so, when in reality he is just as restricted by the orders his superiors hand him as the cadets are by his orders. So when he requests reinforcements for a major operation and is told they can't be spared, the cadets [[MisBlamed simply see him]] as a [[TheAce glory hound]] willing to [[WeHaveReserves sacrifice their lives]] to achieve his goals.

* FridgeLogic: Why are cadets engaging in combat on the front lines? Well, they're usually not. With a few exceptions, most of the action seen on the show is actually on minor fronts, a way for the cadets to get experience without getting killed in the important battles, not to mention a way for the [[MilitaryMaverick troublesome]] Commodore Tolwyn [[ReassignedToAntarctica to be put to productive use]].

** Blair gets the occasional low-grade one from his fellow cadets who suspect that he is benefiting overly from favoritism by Commodore Tolwyn, as well as one from a Kilrathi defector after [[spoiler: he believes Blair reneged on their deal to work together against Thrakhath, although it was [[MisBlamed Tolwyn]] who made that call, not Blair.]]