System Shock and Wing Commander - Referencing back and forth

[665b185c2ebb9unn_atropos]

I guess we have this references are already mentioned here somewhere, but I would like to put it all in one spot

http://www.wcnews.com/news/update/10891

In the Wing Commander universe, System Shock is a fictional movie based on a game. In Wing Commander III's Victory Streak manual here (page 45) , we are treated to a movie review of "Hail SHODAN," which describes the events of System Shock:

Hail SHODAN radiates with cyberpunk action and the good looks of Clint Mason. After streetwise hacker James Finn (Mason) accepts the challenge to punch deck into Citadel research station, he unknowingly removes the logic systems behind the station's artificial intelligence. Finn finds himself trapped in a steel jungle with nothing but his good looks and a few electro-magnetic grenades. The furious pace of this epic game-based HoloVid will send you reeling through the aisles ... the ending will astonish you. (2.24 hours) ***

The 3DO version of the manual even goes so far as to include a System Shock screenshot as a picture from the film:
Image: http://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc33do-shodan.gif (unn_atropos: could not find that manual)
So far, so good. In the 27th century someone makes a movie of System Shock. But then in Crusader, which purports to be a Wing Commander prequel... System Shock is REAL! The newsletter included with No Remorse includes an article about the invention of SHODAN:
The most exciting revelation at this year's forum was the conference on Project: SHODAN, a previously confidential long-term research project of the Cybernetics Cartel, based in Chicago. SHODAN is designed to produce a program that's not only capable of human-like thought and emotion, but that also far surpasses human intelligence levels. Dr. Titania Omolu held spellbound the capacity audience in the 40,000 seat main auditorium of the Perth Hall of Commerce with her presentation, describing how a fully functional SHODAN AI could manage and maintain all the operations and functions of a self-contained orbital research facility housing more than 1000 citizens with only minimal human support.

You can read the full Topline newspaper here .
Even more confusing, the paper references a series of movies called "I, Crusader" that seem to also be about Crusader. In Crusader.
And it gets worse! In System Shock itself, Wing Commander is a GAME! The CD version of System Shock includes a minigame version of Wing Commander called "Wing 0." Designer Sean Barrett says:

  "...for the CD game I outdid myself with a relatively complete Wing Commander minigame, Wing 0--written just before Wing 3 was released, it's both an homage and a parody, featuring, for example, one pacifistic wingman who refuses to fight (and strangely never gets attacked either, because he's actually a traitor!!!), a mission where you get something like 8 wingmen, and a final 'aww, what the heck, let's send you out by yourself to defeat their entire armada' mission."

 

[665b185c2ed83xdiesp]

Pure class.

I was so wasted on mechwarriors and wing commander in my formative years, that I never picked up another game in that genre, feeling that this was just hiatus between (the spurious) Prophecy and WC6.