No Remorse

As the game progresses, the Captain uncomplainingly undertakes dangerous missions, often with substandard equipment, and his continued success gradually earns the respect of his fellow Resistance members.

The Captain eventually uncovers secret plans for a WEC space station

Space station

A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...

, the Vigilance Platform, which can attack any location on Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 from space, meaning cities with a known Resistance presence can simply be annihilated at the leisure of the WEC. All such cities are threatened with orbital bombardment unless they surrender. Concurrently, the player's Resistance cell is betrayed from within, and almost all the non-player character

Non-player character

A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...

s are killed. Despite these setbacks, the Captain infiltrates the Vigilance Platform and destroys it. The traitor is also on the station, guarding the lifepods, and challenges the Silencer to a duel over the access card for the last pod. As the Vigilance Platform is exploding, the Captain is contacted by Chairman Draygan, who swears vengeance against the Silencer.

No Regret

No Regret begins 46 hours after the events in No Remorse. A WEC freighter headed for the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

 picks up the Silencer's escape pod, and the Captain, upon moonfall, makes contact with the local Resistance. The WEC uses the moon as both a mine and prison, where most of the political dissidents and Resistance members are forced to extract a precious radioactive compound, Di-Corellium. This mineral is the basis of virtually all energy production on Earth. Approximately half of all known reserves are on the moon, and a shortage of Di-Corellium would cause serious problems for the WEC. For this reason, Chairman Draygan is on the moon to oversee the Di-Corellium production, which has been lagging recently—possibly due to incursions from the Resistance cell on moon, at the hidden Dark Side base. He is, to say the least, not happy when he learns that the Silencer appears to have survived and may well be on the moon.

Over the course of No Regret's ten missions, the Silencer works to undermine the WEC presence on the moon, culminating in a showdown with Chairman Draygan who pilots a mech. The WEC's lunar headquarters are destroyed and the Resistance takes control of mining operations, with the hint of further conflicts with the WEC. The game's story is notably more simplified and straightforward than that of No Remorse.

Relationship to other Origin games

Crusader has several references to Origin's Wing Commander

Wing Commander (franchise)

Wing Commander is a video game media franchise consisting of space combat simulation computer games from Origin Systems, Inc., an animated television series, a feature film, a collectible card game, a series of novels, and action figures...

series and is also referenced by other games. According to the game's lead designer Tony Zurovec these references are solely easter eggs

Easter egg

Easter eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime.The oldest tradition is to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jelly beans...

 and Crusader is not sharing a universe with any other game series.

The introduction of the game shows a dating system as used in Wing Commander (a year number, followed by a decimal signifying a day). Also, according to the W.C backstory, the Terran Confederation is a government that replaced WEC in the aftermath of a Terran civil war. Additionally, the Wing Commander Arena

Wing Commander Arena

Wing Commander Arena is a space combat video game developed by independent software developer Gaia Industries for the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade service. It is a spin-off of the popular Wing Commander series of games...

manual "Star*Soldier" has an advertisement for a movie called No Regret, which is portrayed in the manual as based on true events.

Furthermore, there is a reference to the System Shock

System Shock

System Shock is a first-person action-adventure video game developed by Looking Glass Technologies and published by Origin Systems. Released in 1994, the game is set aboard the fictional Citadel Station in a cyberpunk vision of 2072...

 franchise: An article in the 'Newspaper' added to the No Remorse box mentions SHODAN, Citadel station and artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

.

Also the blood soaked operating tables seen throughout certain levels are of the same model used in Bioforge, on which its main character LEX was created on.

Trivia

• On the first game's CD a file named HELP3.DAT can be found. If the filename extension is changed to BMP the file turns out to be a bitmap file showing the face of one of the game's developers, Eric Wilmar.

External links

• Echo Sector Fan Website
• Crusader Series at MobyGames
  MobyGames
  -Platforms not yet included:- Further reading :* Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson, High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media; 2 edition , ISBN 0-07-223172-6...
  
  
• Tony Zurovec interviewed by GOG.com