What is regarded as canonical in Oolite history

[Capt. Murphy]

You can accept Status Quo and it's sequels as canonical and still do what you like, given that the books introduce the premise of parallel time-lines where things can be very different....

There you go.......sorted.....build your OXP with whatever story you like.....

[Commander McLane]

However on reading Status Quo (which is described as The Dark Wheel for Oolite) I discovered that the author lent heavily on technology and background from Frontier and FFE, such as the presence of the Empire and Federation political bodies and ships such as the Imperial Courier and Eagle Mk2 Fighter. This led me to ask the question of what should be considered canon for Oolite? If Status Quo is accepted as the base novella for the game then that would suggest the Empire and Federation, as well as other Frontier history, should be included as canonical.

Drew has based his work on Selezen's timeline, which exists mostly for the purpose of reconciling the discrepancies between Elite and the Frontier-verse. So indeed, for anything based on the timeline Frontier is in pretty much by design.

That's also my personal take on Ooniverse history, mainly because I like the bigger background it provides, and the dramatic idea that everything we see in Oolite is doomed a mere 20 years from the start of the game. I have never played any Frontier game myself and therefore don't particularly care about their content or their canonicity, though.

There are forum denizens who are fiercely opposed to including Frontier in the canon, but still enjoy the Oolite Saga on its own merits.

The bottom line and most important statement about Oolite canon is still that there is none. Canon is what each player decides to be their canon. For Elite it was always true that the most important part of game play did not take place on your screen, but inside your head. You had to fill in the blanks provided by the game (beginning with what your ship looks like inside and out, other than just a wireframe; going on with what motivates other space farers, and not ending with what GalCop is all about). Personally, I bought my first copy of Elite in some "Gold Collection" in 1985, and never knew about The Dark Wheel until discovering Oolite in 2005. Therefore in my head the Ooniverse probably looks different than in other people's heads.

So you are absolutely free to include Frontier in your interpretation of the Ooniverse, and you are also absolutely free to refrain from doing so. If you're writing an OXP, people will play it regardless of their own personal stand, if it's enjoyable to play. If you're writing fiction, people will read it regardless of their own personal stand, if it's enjoyable to read. So whatever you do, let your first goal be enjoyability, not canonicity. That's the best advice I can give.

[Disembodied]

So you are absolutely free to include Frontier in your interpretation of the Ooniverse, and you are also absolutely free to refrain from doing so. If you're writing an OXP, people will play it regardless of their own personal stand, if it's enjoyable to play. If you're writing fiction, people will read it regardless of their own personal stand, if it's enjoyable to read. So whatever you do, let your first goal be enjoyability, not canonicity. That's the best advice I can give.

Absolutely! Canonicity is best applied retrospectively, anyway. If it's good, those who like it and want it will shoehorn it into their own personal canons, and/or stretch those personal canons to fit. And like Capt. Murphy says, Drew's take on the ooniverse includes plenty of scope for reinvention.

[Cody]

There are forum denizens who are fiercely opposed to including Frontier in the canon

I'm one of them!

I bought my first copy of Elite in some "Gold Collection" in 1985, and never knew about The Dark Wheel until discovering Oolite in 2005. Therefore in my head the Ooniverse probably looks different than in other people's heads.

LIkewise, I had no novella with my BBC Elite, and 'created' my own background. To this day, I have never read The Dark Wheel (nor will I).

[Smivs]

Likewise. No Frontier for me, thanks.
I also have never read The Dark Wheel, or any Oolite fiction for that matter, so the whole background for me is in my head.
Put simply I exist in an Ooniverse which is always on the edge of collapse. There is a fine balance between 'good and evil' where some systems are fairly safe and civilised and others are most certainly not. It's every man for himself, although taking a risk to help someone in distress is acceptable.
I view the situation as relatively stable in the sense that the galCop forces and Pirate and marauder gangs never really seem to get the edge over each other.
As for tech, I see again a fairly static situation. Things have moved on over the last 300 years (a Boa Class Cruiser is clearly much more sophisticated than a Python), but the progress is slow and nothing much ever seems to change.

[Selezen]

The timeline I did was created independently of my involvement of Oolite (and might actually predate it) so the choice of Oolite fiction writers (or OXP writers) to reference it is entirely theirs.

My recent thoughts on the timeline and Oolite in relation to the established "Frontier Developments Canon" is that the Oolite stuff could well be an alternate reality, diverging sometime just before 3143. I justify that by the fact that if the OXPs and Drew's excellent works are to be taken as Oolite canon, then the Frontier universe as we know it by 3200 could be very different (thousands more different types of ship, for example).

My timeline (and thus my internal "image" of the Oolite years) presupposes that the Empire and the Federation do exist alongside GalCop but that their worlds are NOT included as destinations on the galactic maps due to a schism in the last years of the 2400s. They're still there, though, and since Elite canon states that destinations can be added to the galactic maps (The Dark Wheel) then it's possible to travel to them.

Hell, we play a game where even SCALE is inconsistent - making up your own canon is child's play by comparison.

The Elite/Oolite Universe is there for the enjoyment of the players, and the spirit of Elite is in the freeform gameplay that it pioneered - if you want to write about it, then it's YOUR freeform universe to play in.

I think creating an "official canon" would be restrictive and spoil the fun a bit...

[Cody]

The Elite/Oolite Universe is there for the enjoyment of the players, and the spirit of Elite is in the freeform gameplay that it pioneered - if you want to write about it, then it's YOUR freeform universe to play in.

<nods sagely>

[snork]

wow!

this is a big surprise to me - I thought to practically be the only one who has not read all the fiction out there here.

which is mostly due to my strange aversion to read fiction on-screen.
I am fine with reading forums, news, documentation, Wikipedia and whatnots on-screen, but with fiction it oddly is a no-no for me. I have no explanantion for that.
So maybe someday I find the money to order on-demand printouts somewhere.

PS - I know I could change that in my browser, but what the heck drove them to as a default use red writing on black background for the online version of The Dark Wheel ? :slap-front:

[Commander McLane]

PS - I know I could change that in my browser, but what the heck drove them to as a default use red writing on black background for the online version of The Dark Wheel ? :slap-front:

There is a PDF somewhere which I recently stumbled upon. Don't remember where, but it should be googleable.

[Cody]

It's even available in epub and Kindle format apparently.
Including the great typo: "Your father was chasing the mythical plant Raxxla".

[Captain Vrungel]

http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=rsrm1s% ... Gzj69R96t8
That is a recording from unofficial sources, in it was recorded how someone playing Elite for DOS.
How you see in end of it, player crashes.
He is murmuring something and i can't understand what.
It is recorded on microphone, but it is still nice quality.
Microphone is waving, and i have no ideas why.
P.S I cannot promise, that it is real.
That can be a fake.

[Cody]

This video requires Flash 9 or newer.

No Flash on my machine, so I can't view it.

[Captain Vrungel]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzsP7 ... 2ZoQ0tqWk0

[ClymAngus]

The timeline I did was created independently of my involvement of Oolite (and might actually predate it) so the choice of Oolite fiction writers (or OXP writers) to reference it is entirely theirs.

My recent thoughts on the timeline and Oolite in relation to the established "Frontier Developments Canon" is that the Oolite stuff could well be an alternate reality, diverging sometime just before 3143. I justify that by the fact that if the OXPs and Drew's excellent works are to be taken as Oolite canon, then the Frontier universe as we know it by 3200 could be very different (thousands more different types of ship, for example).

My timeline (and thus my internal "image" of the Oolite years) presupposes that the Empire and the Federation do exist alongside GalCop but that their worlds are NOT included as destinations on the galactic maps due to a schism in the last years of the 2400s. They're still there, though, and since Elite canon states that destinations can be added to the galactic maps (The Dark Wheel) then it's possible to travel to them.

Hell, we play a game where even SCALE is inconsistent - making up your own canon is child's play by comparison.

The Elite/Oolite Universe is there for the enjoyment of the players, and the spirit of Elite is in the freeform gameplay that it pioneered - if you want to write about it, then it's YOUR freeform universe to play in.

I think creating an "official canon" would be restrictive and spoil the fun a bit...

Bit of a long awaited reply but there you go this was something of a revival thread to begin with. Anyway. Drew was nice enough to leave all us authurs with a nice "easy out" namely Raxxla. Throwing a cross dimention time machine into the mix makes EVERY possible story a valid one. It also allows characters to cross infect other peoples stories without any lasting harm coming to any of them. It was in a nutshell a master stroke. Validating all that came before it and everything afterwards.

Hell the can of worms he opened up has been by own nasty obsession for a good few years now. (my proof reader fell over so that's why book one is less that complete (sorry guys still working on it).

So write what you feel. Make it as epic or as small as you like for even the worst you can do is but a fleeting facet bound by choice, lost to all but Raxxla alone.

[byronarn]

About 3 years ago, I asked a question that in short order evolved into a discussion on the cannon of the Ooniverse. The conclusion that we hammered out seemed to be about the same as what everyone said in this thread, that Elite and Oolite are in a different timeline than the other Elite games. That discussion can be found here: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16737.

It may be worth a read, if you're interested.