Hoaxes and Rumours FAQ

Does the Black Spathi Squadron exist?

We don't know for sure whether it exists in the Ur-Quan Masters Universe, but it doesn't exist in the Star Control II game.

The only reference to a Black Spathi Squadron is the rumour told to you by Starbase Commander Hayes. A rumour which he doesn't believe himself. A webpage about the Black Spathi Squadron exists in The Pages of Now and Forever, but the page is a joke and the images it contains are doctored.

What's this about DataPlates?

As with the cloaking device, the DataPlates were an abandoned idea.

From a mail by Paul Reiche III to a Star Control II player:

Regarding the mysterious, purple thingy -- that's a 'DataPlate' which was a class of game item that we ended up not using. The idea was that you could buy, find and sell ideas, concepts and technology in this abstract form. We did the art and included it in the game, but later on we changed the items to be more interesting, more tangible things like the Aqua Helix and Wimbly's Trident [sic].

The source code to the game, as it was released to the public, contains some leftover code for the DataPlates.

Also three images for DataPlates are included (they are called miscdata.91.png, miscdata.92.png, and miscdata.93.png in The Ur-Quan Masters).

I hear there's some way to get a cloaking device for the The Flagship. Where can I find it?

There's no such thing.

The box in which the original Star Control II came had a screenshot of an earlier version of the game on the back, in which a cloaking device could be seen in the devices menu.

This led to rumors on the Star Control boards of the Pages of Now and Forever that the released Star Control II still contained a cloaking device somewhere. Angelfish, one of the regulars on that board, eventually claimed to have found it, and went as far as to mock up some screen shots to "prove" it. His posting can be found on the WayBack machine, and the fake screen shots on the Pages of Now and Forever.

While Toys For Bob eventually denied the existence of a cloaking device for the Precursor ship, the hoax was for some time still frequently played on newcomers to Star Control and the old The Ur-Quan Masters boards.

From a mail by Fred Ford to a Star Control II player:

O.K., O.K. I must admit the conversation threads relating to the cloaking device have been the most amusing to someone who knows the truth and after six years I don't think it will diminish the game to put this matter to rest. No, there is no cloaking device. Yes, there was going to be one, but we couldn't figure out a way, given the limitations of two players fighting on the same screen, to make it functionally better/more interesting than the Ilwrath's.

A trace of the cloaking device can be found in the Star Control code which was released to the public, in the form of a definition of an (unused) flag named "FLAGSHIP_CLOAKED".