The Wildcard phase of the Dangerous Games is now underway... to help you decide who to help get in to the Dangerous Games finals, and be in for the chance to become a power in Elite Dangerous, we're running a series of community spotlights all about the Wildcard groups.
Note - the winner of the Dangerous Games would work with our developers to encorporate their Power into the game... the lists supplied below in this interview are just the wishes of the group, and not what the final benefits they would have if they were to make it through the Dangerous Games.
Community Spotlight: UGC
Where does your group come from originally?
The logo and the name 'United German Commanders (UGC)' were developed before release of ED to give the german-speaking community a way to show that they are present in the galaxy, too. Over the time the first groups formed that didn't want to fly under the UGC banner any more but solely under their own name .
We had to make the hard decision to drop the UGC as a tag to be used by every German-speaking CMDR who wanted to and restart as a group among many.
What is your group all about? What are your fundamental goals?
The UGC was formed as one of the groups originating at the fan-forum elitedangerous.de. Most forum members are from Germany, Austria or Switzerland. The CMDRs like to stay in touch with each others, help new recruits and set their sight on bold new ventures like fostering their minor faction, explore, trade, and everything else you could possibly do as a free CMDR in the void with the notable exception of piracy and murder. The UGC group holds their members up to a codex of honour everyone has to read, understand, sign before he can fly side by side by side with the other pilots.
Do you have a narrative around your group? Is it part of the in-game lore?
We have developed lore that fits to the German-speaking CMDRs we have and to our home Wapiya. A short version was already posted on the frontier forum but we have begun to write a detailed version right from the inception of the "Vision of Brothers" on Sol 3. Here is the version we have posted in the UGC thread in the subforum "Dangerous groups":
The UGC
Longing for freedom and independence and the belief in equal rights for everyone drove our ancenstors from earth into the void. Wandering through unknown space far away from the trade routes of the super powers our ancestors found a new home in the system WAPIYA. Like brothers they worked side by side to fullfil their vision of a better future for mankind.
Life was hard at the frontier but step by step our ancestors built a new society. As times went by nearby star systems were populated, new trade routes established with our neighbours. Their peaceful attitude and pride about the achievements made them overlook the changes at first. Outposts and factions from the empire settled in the area and became more and more influential. They had a lot of patience but from generation to generation they tightened their grasp and pushed our culture and ideals nearly into oblivion. Imperial nobles treated them more and more like serfs, on their own ground. And then Torval came - and live became unbearable.
More and more people grumbled about their oppressors and remembered the legacy of their ancestors from central europe on old Earth. A group of pilots secretly founded the UNITED GERMAN COMMANDERS and united under this banner we began to fight back. Badly outnumbered and outgunned we were only an annoyance to the imperial rulers at first, but with the people backing us and hindering or even sabotaging authority forces whenever they could, we persevered. Unwilling to pour more and more ressources into holding an increasingly unhospitable system the ruling aristocrats finally withdrew to friendlier systems and their minions fled to outposts and ground bases. The UGC broke free of the imperial chains despite impossible odds, freed the slaves and reestablished a democratic government.
But the battle is not over, it has just begun!
Wherever you look our sky is filled with new fiefdoms of our old oppressors!
If we want to maintain our freedom we have to bring justice to them.
Our first success was BPM 16204 - a small system drained of all valuable ressources and then forgotten and left to decline slowly by the empire. Far too late the decadent rulers took our small fleet serious and called for help. When the reinforcements arrived the battle was already over. Unwilling to risk their precious ships they ceded the system to the UGC. With the support of our people BPM has a chance to thrive again in freedom and peace.
Next we arrived in Minanes, a high-tech system with 19 million inhabitants. This time the empire fought back with everything they could throw at us. Our Commanders fought valiantly but with the help of their capital ships the aristocratic bootlickers forced a stalemate upon us. But we don't give up! While repairing our battered ships we continued to spread our vision of freedom and equality amongst the inhabitants and we were greeted with open arms. We rallied our forces again to knock on the oppressor's gates and this time we burnt them! Minanes was free and slavery and all the other cruel excrescences of the former rulers are history from now on!
We had barely freed our neighbour system Minanes from the reign of terror and begun to heal the wounds as we were attacked by a fanatic faction from the empire, the Achenar Immortals (AI). At the same time the council of the United German Commanders (UGC) received a formal declaration of war that shows how influenced the AI is by the ruling propaganda. The UGC would NEVER attack civilians, these citizens have begged for our help! It is scary to see how much support our old oppressors can mobilize. After some fierce combat operations in WAPIYA, MINANES, PARAS, the UGC was able to bring in some reinforcements from like-minded pilots like the AI did from the beginning. This conflict raged on until the UGC won a decisive victory at 10.05.3302
The details about this conflict can be found here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=244553
Our call goes out to all you pilots who can remember the legacy of your ancestors. The reason your forefathers left earth in the first place. Join our fight to bring the people
FREEDOM, EQUALITY, INDEPENDENCE
Why should you make it to the final of the Dangerous Games? Why should people help you in the games?
Well, maybe because we want to continue our story of the first ever Dangerous Games (DG)? We are continuing with stories and RP around the DG to give all our supporters something to remember. If you read our thread you get a good idea how we handle things and how we will continue to do so. If you like what you see you are very welcome to join the ranks of the UGC/BBfA coalition for the duration of the DG. If you prefer one of the other appilicants or just want to watch from the sideline that's fine with us. Our group was built around the principle of freedom for every member and we hold it in high esteem.
What would it mean to you and your group if you did make it in to the final of the Dangerous Games?
First it would be a great honour and we are humbled by all the support we already enjoy. We could never do this on our own. And second we would open up even more to all the CMDRs from the whole international community. We would like to get into contact via the frontier forum even more with all our supporters and would certainly offer new options to fly together (maybe a new team speak/discord server). This mainly depends on what we can do while giving our best during the DG. This is a huge endeavour we can only master together.
If you were to become a Power, what sort of power would you be?
Well this depends heavily on the freedom that Frontier would grant us to form a new power. We would stay true to our history but open up the power to CMDRs everywhere in the void and drop the reference to the area our CMDRs originated on Sol 3...maybe with a reinterpretation of the UGC abbreviation or with a completely new name.
One thing we would love to offer would be our rare good 'Wapiya dark beer' at the commodities market. Due to some strange bureaucrazy this proposal has not been answered by the pilots federation yet.
Although we would like to keep our independence we COULD imagine to form an alliance power if Frontier asked us to do as long as it stays true to its independence-loving origins.
As for special equipment:
Everybody wants better weapons, better shields, better FSD, combined standard modules to free up internal space. How about something from the old Elite? A cargo bay extension for example that would grant you 25% more cargo space than a module of the same class.
Who would you support if you were going to support someone else in the games?
We have friendly ties with and enjoyed the support of several groups already. They know who they are and we won't let them down if we have to leave the Dangerous Games before the finals.
If there’s anything else you want to tell the community about, now’s the time to do it… Anything?
First we want to thank each group and each CMDR who supported us, who scratched or even lost ships during the course of these games. Without you we would have never been able to enter the wildcard challenge. You are all epic! o7
Second I want to remind all of our supporters - especially whole groups but also individual CMDRs - to share their story of the Dangerous Games with us. We have already received transmissions from our allies, the Blood Brothers from Alrai (BBfA), and the Explorers on Tour (EoT) and added them to our history of the games. We would love to receive your point of view, too, so your contribution to the first Dangerous Games ever will never be forgotten (please contact 'Abacus' on the Frontier forum if you have further questions or want to send us your story).
Ambassador Abacus
speaking on behalf of the UGC/BBfA coalition