Hobbes and Downtown | Let’s Play Wing Commander II – Mission B, Niven and Ghorah Khar Alt

Surprisingly different plot segments here. On either path, players will ultimately get most of these, but it’s interesting how they’re introduced differently depending on whether you’re on the winning or losing path. In the winning (Niven) path, we get to know Colonel Ralgha “Hobbes” Nar Hhallas a little better while playing cards with him, Spirit, Stingray, and Jazz.

On the losing path, we meet Ross “Downtown” Baldwin while dirtside on Ghorah Khar. We’ll have roughly the same conversation with him a mission later in Niven, but it happens here first. A human who grew up on a Kilrathi colony. The same colony where Ralgha rescued a human child from certain death. Man, what a weird coincidence.

Of the two missions, the Ghorah Khar Alternate is probably just slightly more difficult of the two. Both have you in Ferrets, sans wingman, taking on a single group of Kilrathi fighters, but the Ghorah Khar version has you rescuing a Free Trader transport from a quartet of Drakhri. I think that’s more difficult, in only because Drakhri are capable of destroying the Free Trader if you’re not careful. On the other hand, I personally failed the Niven mission more.

Plot twist! As we return to the TCS Concordia in the Ghorah Khar B mission, we’re told to surrender our sidearm, because there’s been a murder on board, and a pilot is suspected of perpetrating the crime. Meanwhile, on the Niven side, we actually see a cinematic of the crime happen, as a shadowy figure is interrupted while surreptitiously communicating with a Kilrathi. Poor Specialist McGuffin, he never had a chance to do more than move the plot along.