MOD:WCU:bgWCstory

Early history of Wing Commander dissected: Terrans and Pilgrims

Humans divide into Terrans and Pilgrims. Pilgrims are slightly different, genetically. Here I'm going to draw a parallel between the WC story and Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Robot trilogies...

Terrans - Spacers - Settlers

That's Asimov's Foundation categories, but they are uncannily similar in WC: Earth begins to colonize other worlds, but at 50 worlds, the colonies rebel, declare independence, and even threaten Earth, should it try to expand into "their space". The colonies' people become different from terrans, get psychic powers, have more robots than themselves. They are the Spacers. In WC, the Pilgrims. Eventually Earth finds a way to expand beyond. In Foundation, by negotiating with the Spacers (and by Earth going radioactive). In WC by inventing the D-drive. Those new, outer colonies are made up of Terrans that despise the the Spacers/Pilgrims. In Foundation they are called the Settlers; in WC they have no particular name, but they are the new fronteer sectors like Gemini. I can't remember if the Spacers went to war; but the Pilgrims did and lost; with the last battle being the siege of Peron. Supposedly some Pilgrims escaped. Where did they go? Obviously not Kilrah; so the Tri-System is the obvious choice. But without going too far, we got a number of cultures here:

Terrans

Old Earthers, they still feel they are the center of the world; and in a way they still are: Most heavily defended system being Sol. They are the culturally oldest, and they could live off tourism alone. Big believers in Democracy and respect for other cultures; but is this pure ideology?, or is it fear of putting their military power to the test? Tolwyn seems to think the latter.

CrushedPilgrims

Crushed militarily by terrans and settlers, they learn in a hurry to eat humble pie. Fortunately most terrans aren't out for revenge (except a few like Tolwyn), so now they focus on reconstructing themselves economically, culturally and politically. Their Pilgrim identity brings bad memories, so they take on a new identity: Border Worlds. But lack of a long cultural heritage to be proud of calls for extra emphasis on the political identity. So they demand and get independance under alliance with the Confederation. When a problem exists, yet isn't well defined, or simply lacks a solution, that's when people band into parties that advocate opposite bad solutions. We could therefore assume that, within the Border Worlds there must be at least two undercurrents...

Pilgrim Revivalists

They believe in going back to pure Pilgrim identity and cultural heritage, and consider Border Worlds as a political identity designed to divide them (Border Worlds doesn't span even half the original Pilgrim systems); and probably a conspiratorial plan put together in Sol and pushed by spies and infiltrators. They refuse to recognize Border Worlds and advocate spoiling the ballots in BW elections.

NeoPilgrims

Pacifists; they don't believe in Border Worlds, but for the exact opposite reasons: They think while Pilgrim genes and psychic sensitivities are good, why should that be a reason to have wars or political rivalries? Might as well share their genes with the rest of humanity. Border World's existance is a duplication of Confed bureaucracy, and a threat of lack of unity against the Kilrathi.

PragmaPilgrims

Pro-BorderWorld-ing in the sense that being a separate nation partly compensates their comparative smallness. If the kats attacked one of their systems under the Terran Confederation, it would just be the loss of a system, and considered a miltary setback. As a separate nation, however, an attack on one of their colonies is "an attack against one of our members" which forces the confederation to take immediate action. The existence of Border Worlds as a national identity also helps forget the more insiduous, Pilgrim identity, is an easy sell, and by duplicating government bureacracy provides jobs for their kids, and power for themselves.

ResettledPilgrims (Escapers)

We know nothing about them yet, except that they decided to part with the rest of humanity and create a new society, not only free of war, but free from the memory of war; and proceeded to forge a new history for themselves; --we'll try for the Tri-System...

• Bex faithful, history revisionists, and the religious majority. They decide to rewrite human history to erase the memory of war.
• Bex unfaithful, anti-revisionists, persecuted, discriminated against, become pirates out of necessity. But unlike pirates in the rest of the world, they also feel more self-righteous, are more industrious, and progress more rapidly than the rest of the Tri-System's society in some respects. So big and powerful, in fact, that they become sub-factionalized, eventually; but that's yet to happen at this point.

Note that Terrans and Pilgrims, although slightly different human subspecies, they can cross-breed, and this they do, so...

Terran-Pilgrim descendents

While neither terrans nor pilgrims want to remember their former enemity, and have buried their hatchets for good; the cross-breeders straddle both sides, but, by the same token, they can't so easily forget the cultural divide, as they have an identity crisis to resolve (Blair, Eissen?). For them the war is over, but not forgettable; and they are the first to be willing to see through the veils and recognize the fact that, for Tolwyn, the Terran-Pilgrim war isn't even over yet. Politically, terran-pilgrim descendents can't identify with any of the Pilgrim political undercurrents above: For they need a 'solution' too seriously to simply take up some stupid banner; and they don't talk about their inner struggles much, so they are not politically organized. Unfortunately, while identity crises often produce great thinkers and leaders (Blair, Eissen, Masterson, Monte, Burrows?), more often they beget social outcasts: If we were to take a census of local pirates and mobsters in the central sectors, we'd probably find a lot of them are of mixed, terran-pilgrim heritage. This should also explain the distinctive lack of humor of Sol and Border World pirates, compared to the smart ass pirates in Gemini, for instance. (TBD)

Gemini Settlers

Roughing out growth pains, and hard working, these people sleep with their guns. They think of old-terrans and their love of democracy as a little naive, and of the Confed military as stupid. But with a lot of problems of their own, and Confeds being supportive of militias, they are the least of their worries. Gemini is in constant internal turmoil: A struggle between Confeds, Militias, pirates, mobs, Retros, merchants and mercenaries. No faction seems to gain the upper hand over the others.

Landreich "Settlers"

Unlike Gemini, and perhaps due to the virtual absence of Retros, pirates here do gain an upper hand from the beginning, later stabilize into a more unified society, and eventually gain national independence. Perhaps Landreich is almost free of Pilgrim blood. At least Tolwyn seems to consider Landreich as some sort of future cradle of humanity.