The whole thing is exceedingly pulpy and leans heavily on unsophisticated storytelling devices: dastardly, evil aliens heroic, war-worn humans an existential fight for survival a “head vampire” solution to a very complicated problem and of course, the lack of any ethical hand-wringing over the way the war ended.
If it sounds incredibly simplistic, it’s…because it’s incredibly simplistic. The emperor dies along with much of the fleet, which was assembling near the planet, and of course, everyone who was living on Kilrah. The first–a Death Star-esque beam weapon–is destroyed by the Kilrathi, but the second–a “temblor bomb” that exploits the tectonic weakness of the planet Kilrah–succeeds, thanks to you, the hotshot fighter pilot who drops the bomb and wins the day. By the third installment, the Kilrathi are winning the war, and the desperate Terrans comes up with not one, but two technological methods for destroying an entire planet, namely, the Kilrathi homeworld. The two parties wage interstellar combat with starships and starfighters.
A quick synopsis of Wing Commander I-III: the human-led Terran Confederation is at war with the Kilrathi, cat-like aliens with an insatiable lust for conquest.
