Alpha 1

Alpha 1 is a designation of the fighter pilot who flies as leader of Alpha wing. In the two games—and the official expansion Silent Threat—the player's character always receives this designation, and is called Alpha 1 instead of a human name.

Logic dictates that Alpha 1 almost certainly cannot be the same person for each game. Alpha 1 of FS1 ended in Sol, cut off. Alpha 1 of Silent Threat is too old for an active fighter command by the time of FS2 (and in any case FS2's Alpha 1 is welcomed as a recruit by Lieutenant Loukakis).

There is some speculation that Silent Threat's Alpha 1 may be Aken Bosch. In the cutscene Monologue 4, Bosch states:

"As a young pilot I battled against the rebels of the Great War, the Galactic Terran Intelligence whose research of Shivan technology and biology would form the cornerstone of my project."

Achievements

Some major events that Alpha 1 has been in:

The Great War

Main article: Great War

• Acquisition of Shivan shield technology.
• Witness the destruction of the GTD Galatea.
• Participate in the attack on the SD Lucifer.

GTI Rebellion

Main article: Hades Rebellion

• (Help) Destroy(ing) the GTD Hades. (Silent Threat)

The Second Shivan Invasion

• Weaken the first SJ Sathanas, so the GTVA Colossus was able to defeat it.
• Witness the Colossus's first and last battles.
• Help evacuate Capella.
• Assisting Special Operations Command in extremely dangerous operations.

Non-canon

In many user-made campaigns, the player's character usually retains the designation of Alpha 1. Whether a campaign's pilot is the same Alpha 1 as the one that the player flies in the official games is determined by the user-made campaign's plotline.

Newer versions of FreeSpace Open allow the FREDder to place the pilot into wings other than Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. This change inspired campaign makers to get rid of the "Player is Alpha 1" tradition.

Trivia

• Alpha 1 never speaks a single line in canon missions.
• Alpha 1 only speaks once: in the ending cutscene of FreeSpace 1.
• FRED doesn't allow the player ship to send any in-mission messages. This can be circumvented by preceding the player ship's name with #, as in #Alpha 1. New SCP builds will take this into account if the player ship is given a callsign and replace the in-game sender name with the defined callsign accordingly.
• Lines such as "Pilot down!" or "Squad lost a pilot!" are only spoken when Alpha 1 is killed. If an AI-controlled friendly craft is destroyed, its own pilot may send an automatic message (usually an agonized scream), but none of the remaining pilots will take note unless scripted.