Editing Space Quest (section)

== Protagonist==
Roger Wilco is a fictional character and the protagonist of the ''Space Quest'' series, introduced in ''Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter'' in 1986. Roger is depicted as a bumbling but well-meaning [[everyman]] character. He is a spacefaring janitor who has a tendency to attract trouble and stumble into dangerous or interesting situations. Despite saving the universe on multiple occasions, he seems unable to gain any respect from society, and works as some type of "sanitation engineer" throughout the series.

The character's name is a reference to [[voice procedure]], one of many puns in the series (it means "receiving you, will comply"). The first two ''Space Quest'' games allowed the player to choose the character's name, which defaulted to Roger Wilco if left blank. This feature was later removed in the [[Video game remake|remake]] of the first game.

Roger is originally a janitor from the planet Xenon of the Earnon system. He is first introduced as the janitor and sole survivor of the scientific research ship ''Arcada'', which was overrun by the apparently hostile Sariens. After several extremely deadly adventures and a bit of janitorial work, he enters the StarCon Academy. Graduating in ''Space Quest V'', he is promoted from a janitor to captain of the garbage scow ''SCS Eureka''. He also meets Beatrice Creakworm Wankmeister, with whom he becomes romantically involved. In ''Space Quest 6'', his spot in the limelight ends as he is busted back down to janitor and assigned to the backwoods of the cosmos.

According to ''Space Quest IV'', Roger would eventually marry Beatrice and they would have a son (Roger Wilco Jr.) who would later travel back in time to save Roger's life. Beatrice is absent from ''Space Quest 6'', but she is mentioned in the game's closing credits and by Roger himself. By the time of the fictional ''Space Quest XII'', when Roger Jr. would be a young adult, Roger would be "unavailable" for some reason. The details are never disclosed.

While Roger retains his basic appearance and sustains no lasting damage from his [[swashbuckling]] and repeated near-mutilations, his hair begins the series brown and changes to [[blond]]e in the upgrade between parts ''III'' and ''IV''. (The same has happened to fellow adventure protagonists [[Guybrush Threepwood]] and [[Devon Aidendale]], in Devon's case to the other direction.) While this [[retcon]] is never addressed in the game itself, it spawned a full-fledged fan game, ''Space Quest: The Lost Chapter''.<ref name="Tringham2014">{{cite book|author=Neal Roger Tringham|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QH3SBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA119|title=Science Fiction Video Games|date=10 September 2014|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-1-4822-0389-9|pages=119–}}</ref>

Including him on the 2004 list of "top ten working class heroes", ''[[Retro Gamer]]'' opined that "for a hero that Ken Williams (co-founder of Sierra) was initially unimpressed with, Roger Wilco has become a classic cult figure."<ref>''Retro Gamer'', p. 35.{{verify source|date=August 2023|reason=Retro Gamer is a periodical so the lack of date or issue number doesn't allow to verify it}}</ref>