Metafiction: Dialogues on the Lore of Xlite

[Redspear]

Ironically, my assumption of giant stable wormhole in witchspace is more exotic than Cody's original SMBH in true space.

I'm losing track of all the assumptions we're making

but to exploit SMBH as wormhole you need to be as close as possible to its event horizon and SMBH must spin extremely fast - just 0.999 or so light speed on event horizon, like Gargantua black hole in Interstellar movie.

And there's another one, albeit less obviously so...

That's based on our current, speculative understanding of wormholes, right? What if that understanding is not quite correct? What if the hyperdrive itself could influence that required distance? And why wouldn't it? I mean the technology involved generates and exploits travel points and how it might do that is speculative at best.

This relates to my earlier point about changes from elite to oolite. I think witchspace would have been better served remaining more mysterious. By adding wormholes and time effects it was rationalised in a way that was unnecessary (IMHO) in order to achieve the same game effects.

[Disembodied]

Or join free traders association independent from Galcop bureaucracy. If you refuse to give us safe traffic network - well, we'll create it without your assistance. Seems that private companies dealing with this issue will be inevitable.
Indeed, sometimes free traders invites to use their wormholes. Alas, interaction with another ships is still very limited - you have no simple way to give somebody such gift in return.
It can be good to have OXP, providing reputation bonus (or maybe, some another forms of premium/preference) for such help to NPC traders with clean legal status.

Private companies are … not good with networks. They might try to set up something like this on high-traffic routes but no corporation is going to provide links to all the worlds. And you're sending something in to a system - which will then have to refuel in order to get back again, so either it sunskims or it heads in to the main station. And if it's heading in to the main station anyway, would it not make sense to stick some cargo on it? And then maybe give it a few escorts to protect it?

Sharing wormholes is fine, but who can you trust? Having your escorts tag along is one thing - giving a free ride to a total stranger is entirely another.

[user2357]

Whoosh! (That's the sound of my head spinning from all these theories...)

What deep-space rabbit hole have I fallen into?!

I think I have some homework now, having to consider all these great, new possibilities...

Ideally, though, I would like to see a Grand Unified Theory that explains consistently (albeit imaginatively) all of the authentic lore from the original documents: Dark Wheel, Imprint, Misfortune, and all the manuals and other related documentation from all Xlite versions.

Squaring this circle now seems to have become tesseracting the hypersphere!

[Cody]

Squaring this circle now seems to have become tesseracting the hypersphere!

<chortles>

[stranger]

That's based on our current, speculative understanding of wormholes, right? What if that understanding is not quite correct?

Our current, speculative understanding of wormholes is definitely NOT correct. It is just hypothetical possibility based on General relativity concepts. Honestly, I have no idea how to transform (hypothetical) huge astronomical object, stabilized by exotic matter with negative energy, onto compact and cheap technology of individual using like Xlite hyperdrive. It is beyond my imagination. But dealing with reconstruction of Xlite lore I prefer to take current scientific knowledge as reference point. Unlimited imagination will create fantasy world ruled by magical forces, not scientific laws.
In other games of space genre you have network of ancient portals created by mighty Alien race. There are no scientific explanations how it works, just you can use these magic artifacts without understanding their nature.

[Redspear]

But dealing with reconstruction of Xlite lore I prefer to take current scientific knowledge as reference point.

I've no issue with that, in fact I like to think I do it myself.

But dealing with reconstruction of Xlite lore I prefer to take current scientific knowledge as reference point. Unlimited imagination will create fantasy world ruled by magical forces, not scientific laws.

I think the point of imagination is that it is unlimited, and so one should use just enough of it.
By scientific laws, can I presume that you mean known scientific laws?

In other games of space genre you have network of ancient portals created by mighty Alien race. There are no scientific explanations how it works, just you can use these magic artifacts without understanding their nature.

Ah, so this might be the crux of it...

For a scientific explanation you would require scientific knowledge as not only a reference point but as a pathway.
So if I'm understanding you correctly, you prefer not to have things in lore that cannot be either explained or extrapolatated from what is known? So if you can't understand it on some level then you find it unsatisfactory?

So where does the imagination fit in for you?

Do you think of imaginaion in terms of creative application of existing science? Or are you actually imagination averse in these instances?

Again, I'm trying to be frank for the purpose of clarity, I mean no disrespect.

[stranger]

Private companies are … not good with networks. They might try to set up something like this on high-traffic routes but no corporation is going to provide links to all the worlds. And you're sending something in to a system - which will then have to refuel in order to get back again, so either it sunskims or it heads in to the main station. And if it's heading in to the main station anyway, would it not make sense to stick some cargo on it? And then maybe give it a few escorts to protect it?

Looks reasonable. But I think some forms of loose informal cooperation and private activity will emerge.
You have systems A and B with polar economics - but one of such system (or both) has anarchy systems in 7LY range and not safe for regular milk runs. Sharing wormhole will be good strategy for traders - from "you'll open wormhole on route from A to B, I'll did it on return trip, OK?" to private company, having iron ass trade ships as convoy leaders.
More complex case: there are systems A and C with polar economics and you have system B on route between A ans C - not profitable, but dangerous. The best solution again will be to share wormhole to pass this system without dangerous and time-consuming trip to main station for refuel.
You can imagine also private courier company, dealing with fast delivery of valuable cargo. Or VIP delivery. Time is matter. Such company will have offices at least on main trade routes with ships providing wormholes for courier or VIP, again without need to refuel. And this ships will rotate between systems taking regular cargo for profit.
I feel there are some other situations when sharing wormholes will work.

Sharing wormholes is fine, but who can you trust? Having your escorts tag along is one thing - giving a free ride to a total stranger is entirely another.

Right. So planning trip you can look for possible companions on local bulletin board and meet them in local bar before departure?
Sometimes it is more safe to travel alone indeed - you have more options to avoid possible danger if you have skills of situation awareness. But sometimes having companions will be good idea.

[stranger]

@ Redspear
No need to excuse. Hope I understand you position.
Yes, I prefer to use known scientific laws as reference point and guideline. I have no idea how to work with unknown scientific laws.
And yes, if I can't understand something on some level I'll find it unsatisfactory.
Personally for me the most part of fun is to combine imagination with knowledge. How far we can reconstruct picture without breaking rules A, B and C? And how this reconstruction explains facts 1, 2 and 3?
Sorry, I'll have no enough time for further discussion.

[Redspear]

I have no idea how to work with unknown scientific laws.

Quite
But there's a serious point here in terms of how one reacts to the unknown.

I can't understand something on some level I'll find it unsatisfactory.

So you're trying to understand the technology of an imagined future by using the science of today?

Perhaps the main problem for you there is not just that of the fiction but that it is a fiction (or fictions) based around a game.

Some sci-fi novels are written by expanding a scientific idea and so the science leads to the fiction.

Science --> Fiction

Sometimes however, more artistic licence is employed and so it becomes more about the fiction dictating the science.

What we may have with Oolite however is the game dictating the fiction and then the science. If you consider that it's predecessor had (for its day) the unusually detailed instructions that came with some lore attached and even a novella. So as a product at least, the pathway was more:

Game --> Fiction --> Science

That pathway is heading in the wrong direction for your tastes it would seem.

I think science often makes its biggest leaps forward by the formulation of 'crazy' new ideas that make little sense to the accepted science of their time. I'm happier to imagine a future Faraday or Einstein (or 12) to show us the way rather than expecting to be able to rationalise it by myself.

Furthermore, I personally believe that it's a healthy way to look at the world: by considering that much of what goes on is beyond my current understanding. It encourages me not to 'close any of my books' or to act stridently and in haste (or at least to temper such behaviour).

However, this is a solo game, so whatever makes you happy

[user2357]

Just my two pence from the peanut gallery, latching on to some snippets that caught my attention...

I have no idea how to work with unknown scientific laws.

Quite
But there's a serious point here in terms of how one reacts to the unknown.

I can't understand something on some level I'll find it unsatisfactory.

So you're trying to understand the technology of an imagined future by using the science of today?

Perhaps the main problem for you there is not just that of the fiction but that it is a fiction (or fictions) based around a game.

For me, personally, I would still like to try to consolidate all those fictions - plural - within a singular, logically-consistent (if imaginative, in-universe) framework. From what I've seen so far of other attempts, is that they seem to be less than satisfactory at tesseracting the hypersphere consistently.

For instance, none of the following seem the return positive search result when CTRL+F'ing for "generation ship":

https://daftworks.co.uk/elite/index.php ... c_Timeline and associated appendices + the Oolite Timeline, which seems to have formed the foundation for the following:
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Pilot% ... l#Timeline - 11:13, 17 February 2006‎ Selezen
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Timeline - 21:45, 2 August 2009‎ Diederick
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Chroni ... _Milky_Way - 14:16, 3 February 2013‎ LutherBurgsvik
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite_timeline - 18:35, 19 December 2013‎ Zireael

...But: please refer to the original 'Space Trader's Flight Training Manual' (SBG38/B1), p. 30, top of the page, 'INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL', 'Generation ships'...

A generation ship is a big thing, literally and figuratively, in more than one sense. ...And there were still, around the time of 3100, when the original manual was published along with the release of the first Faulcon deLacy Spaceways/Cowell & MgRath Cobra Mk IIIs, according to our best information, 'seventy thousand [!!!} of these immense vessels ploughing their way through the galaxy'... Why would *ALL* the other historical records be silent about such a phenomenally-ginormous and significant event as the launch of merely even only the first generation ship, never mind the 69,999 others - and presumably more - that were to follow supposedly relatively shortly afterwards?

IMHO, redaction and retconning should not be necessary if homework had only been done properly beforehand. However, now that preparatory homework has been proven to have been lacking, I am of the opinion that is has become our task to find a single, exhaustive explanation for this - and other paradoxes and seeming contradictions - an explanation that makes logically-consistent sense, at least within an in-universe framework.

Commander Wagar, in his 'Wagar on Writing' Twitch stream a while back, mentioned something to the effect that disbelief can be suspended fairly satisfactorily if the repeated question of 'Why?' can be answered at least five levels deep. So, I would eventually like to see at least a 'five-level' framework within which most disbelief can consistently be suspended for the entire (and all) Xlite universe(s).

*

Some sci-fi novels are written by expanding a scientific idea and so the science leads to the fiction.

Science --> Fiction

Sometimes however, more artistic licence is employed and so it becomes more about the fiction dictating the science.

What we may have with Oolite however is the game dictating the fiction and then the science. If you consider that it's predecessor had (for its day) the unusually detailed instructions that came with some lore attached and even a novella. So as a product at least, the pathway was more:

Game --> Fiction --> Science

That pathway is heading in the wrong direction for your tastes it would seem.

I think that it might be helpful to distinguish between RL (Real-Life) Science and IU (In-Universe) Science. My interpretation, Commander Redspear, is that, perhaps, you seem to have in mind in your first flow diagram:

*RL* Science --> Fiction

...and in your second flow diagram:

Game --> Fiction --> *IU* Science

Please correct me if my interpretation is off-target.

RL and IU Science might require some handwavium to associate the two with each other. (TBH, my thoughts are still rather unclear about this topic at the moment. I just thought I'd mention something that popped up in my head when I read the thread, in a further attempt to clarify communications.)

[/two pence]

*

However, this is a solo game, so whatever makes you happy

It keeps me happy to try make sense of all the confusion.

[Cholmondely]

For me, personally, I would still like to try to consolidate all those fictions - plural - within a singular, logically-consistent (if imaginative, in-universe) framework. From what I've seen so far of other attempts, is that they seem to be less than satisfactory at tesseracting the hypersphere consistently.

....

IMHO, redaction and retconning should not be necessary if homework had only been done properly beforehand. However, now that preparatory homework has been proven to have been lacking, I am of the opinion that is has become our task to find a single, exhaustive explanation for this - and other paradoxes and seeming contradictions - an explanation that makes logically-consistent sense, at least within an in-universe framework.

Commander Wagar, in his 'Wagar on Writing' Twitch stream a while back, mentioned something to the effect that disbelief can be suspended fairly satisfactorily if the repeated question of 'Why?' can be answered at least five levels deep. So, I would eventually like to see at least a 'five-level' framework within which most disbelief can consistently be suspended for the entire (and all) Xlite universe(s).

1) I have noticed at least two schools of thought in my blundering around this bulletin board - those who wish to amalgamate E's 2-4 with Elite/Oolite and those maintaining a strict seperation. I am sure that there are other variants to be found.

2) Non-Strict-Game Oolite is infinitely variable. Drew and Selezen can include Imperial Couriers within their Ooniverses, ... I can refuse to touch them with a bargepole.

3) This all matters only for some of us.

Might it make more sense to come out with suggested lists of .oxps for the various schools which could be combined with appropriate textual backstories as to how each variant developed in the way it did. It seems highly unlikely that one can come up with a user-fits-all solution - and if one did, it would be shattered by the next addition to the corpus. And, with such a solution being of necessity highly complex, it is unlikely that most of those adding to the corpus would bother to master it fully.

One of the important ideas in 1950's historiography was that of colligation (WH Walsh): which historical facts does one include when one is trying to ratiocinate about history - and which does one just ignore! The use of strict colligatory criteria by adherents of our various schools would seem to be the only way of providing rigorous solutions to the glorious mess.

[Redspear]

I think that it might be helpful to distinguish between RL (Real-Life) Science and IU (In-Universe) Science. My interpretation, Commander Redspear, is that, perhaps, you seem to have in mind in your first flow diagram:

*RL* Science --> Fiction

...and in your second flow diagram:

Game --> Fiction --> *IU* Science

Please correct me if my interpretation is off-target.

I think that might be tautological, at least in relation to stranger's position (to which I was replying).

If our starting point is not real life science then there is no problem - we're free to imagine alternate timelines, realities and paradoxes interacting in any way we choose. We would be free from (among other things) scientific method.

With regards to 'in universe' science, it must be so in order to operate within the game (as dictated by the diagram). If you're operating under the assumption that IU <> RL then we already know there are exceptions to that within the game engine.

So rather than simply being obtuse, maybe I can help out here.
Instead of the RL/IU science distinction, how about within our current understanding and beyond our current understanding?
The difference might appear to be subtle but I think it's an important one.

There currently exist differeing schools of thought even within RL science. Whilst it's true that many of those are applicable on the edges of our current understanding i don't think that applies universally.

Consider that the history of scientific thought is one of rethinking our models as we better understand them. Medicine is a difficult science in that the subject (i.e. people) is so variable. Condider the various models that moved in and out of accepted science. That's also true with regards to astronomy of course. I think it's sometimes forgotten that the enlightenment and modern scientific method didn't prevent the evolution of such 'false' models, rather they 'just' imposed a new series of checks.

Consider the most cast-iron, testable, repeatable scientific experiment you can imagine. Imagine you had the data from every time it had been successfully demonstrated. Now try to prove that it will occur on every future itteration of the experiment. You could certainly make a strong case but I think statistical analysis would still result in a certainly of less than 100%.

The important point is not that it's likely to be wrong (quite the opposite in fact) but rather that it could be wrong; or at least sufficiently 'wrong' to make us reassess our assumptions.

3100 is still some time away. I would be very surprised if no ne of our scientific models had been overturned by then.

IMHO, redaction and retconning should not be necessary if homework had only been done properly beforehand. However, now that preparatory homework has been proven to have been lacking, I am of the opinion that is has become our task to find a single, exhaustive explanation for this - and other paradoxes and seeming contradictions - an explanation that makes logically-consistent sense, at least within an in-universe framework.

Commander Wagar, in his 'Wagar on Writing' Twitch stream a while back, mentioned something to the effect that disbelief can be suspended fairly satisfactorily if the repeated question of 'Why?' can be answered at least five levels deep. So, I would eventually like to see at least a 'five-level' framework within which most disbelief can consistently be suspended for the entire (and all) Xlite universe(s).

History is bunk... or at least it can be. When researching anything, one source is like one experiment in science: insufficient to draw reliable conclusions from. If you imagine bias, ignorance and the like then all accounts can be 'true' to a degree. Contradictions are more problematic of course but they can sometimes prove to be the most interesting points.

As for 'why?', in real life we often just don't know. I'm content in recognising at least some of my ignorance and also with imagining ignorance or misrepresentation on the part of the author. I read a piece recently where the some of the prose was... not to my taste and so I reimagined what the author may have been describing as I went along. It really helped me to enjoy the story.

[Cholmondely]

I think that it might be helpful to distinguish between RL (Real-Life) Science and IU (In-Universe) Science. My interpretation, Commander Redspear, is that, perhaps, you seem to have in mind in your first flow diagram:

*RL* Science --> Fiction

...and in your second flow diagram:

Game --> Fiction --> *IU* Science

Please correct me if my interpretation is off-target.

Not me, guv!

[Redspear]

Not me, guv!

Apologies. Not sure how that happened (other than through my own incompetence...)

[Cholmondely]

I've not had a chance to peruse it yet.

But are there any views on the canonicity of Brian Phillip's Elite the musical on Ian Bell's website (music by his brother, Aidan Bell)?

http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/musical/book.htm

Setting

The worlds of "ELITE" are not perfect. Instead they are messy and ramshackle affairs, in which environments are dumped on. Space travel is not romantic or polished, but a dirty, sometimes unpleasant, if convenient, way to travel. A space ship is merely a vehicle. Nothing and no one is pristine and nothing and no one is exceptional. In a galaxy of Anarchy planets and Dictatorships, Federation Police and space pirates, the writers of the "ELITE" musical have taken the essence of the Elite game and woven from them a crime adventure story, basing characters, dialogue and place settings on the game.

The music is continuous, with underscored dialogue, and as the gripping plot unfolds, so too does an exciting score written for rock band and full symphony orchestra in styles ranging from the hard rock and "electronic" feel of the pirate Vetch, through gentle narrative and sensitive ballads in Avens' quest to avenge the death of her father at the hands of the pirate Triumvirate, to the full sweeping orchestral writing of true Star Wars tradition, following the lawful path of Galcop Maple.

Combined with a book that is at times harsh and poignant, at times witty and sensitive, "Elite" is a 100-minute score that will appeal equally to those who have never heard of Elite and to the enormous market of Elite players, for whom it will become part of a cult tradition.

Characters
LIEUTENANT
An old, hard bounty hunter, who is prepared to to accept any target. He has the world-weary cynicism of an experienced fighter and doer. Once of the CORPORATE STATES POLICE FEDERATION, hence LIEUTENANT, he now goes his own way. He is ELITE.

VETCH
A space pirate. Head of a pirate syndicate. He is a truly powerful man.

CLEAVERS
A pirate. Supposedly head of another syndicate.

CAMPION
HIGH ADMIRAL of the CORPORATE STATES POLICE FEDERATION ... the GALCOPS.

MAPLE
-A Galcop of the above organisation. He is in his late twenties, slightly by-the-book man, flawed, but working on it. His combat rating has recently been raised to ELITE.

HAWTHORN
Flamboyant, charming and highly skilled. She has been rated ELITE for some time now. Late twenties also Maple's partner

AVENS
Female. Early thirties, not pretty but quite striking.Looks like a vagrant, but has a combat rating of DEADLY.

BINDWEED
Eccentric, dodgy trader. A space worshipper. Slightly unsteady and totally unpredictable, he has a surprising combat rating of DANGEROUS.

ASH
Half-humanoid-half amphiboid . .. human father, lizard mother. He is slimy and sweaty.

CELANDINE
An old, decomposing, half-human, half-feline female. Fat, her body riddled with open pores oozing puss, she breathes like a suction pump Bargains with pirates on behalf of the planet LAVE.

BRAMBLE
Old and creepy ... not what he seems.

PRIMROSE
A female singer and dancer ... performs in a very seedy bar on the DICTATORSHIP of ENZAER.

Synopsis

• Scene I - The lair of pirate Vetch.
  Scene II - The Corporate State of Engema.
  Scene III - Bridge of Cobra III
  Scene IV - NarcoticExocticSlavotic Emporimarket at Clan Shard Onisqu
  Scene V - Bindweed's Krait
  Scene VI - Cobra III
  Scene VII - Bramble's second-hand weapons and parts shop
  Scene VIII - The lair of Vetch
  Scene IX - The Deathdive - Lave
  Scene X - The Warehouse
  Scene XI - Cobra III