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I've been reading some of the fictional works and looking through the forums wondering what Elite/Oolite history is regarded as canonical. Having little luck I thought I'd ask the question here to get a centralized consensus.

The reason I ask is that since Elite I've had an idea of how I would implement the hunt for Raxxla within the game and what discovering Raxxla would mean. Now having found Oolite I believe the scripting will allow me to implement my idea as an OXP. However I don't want to step on toes or go against established canon.

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts.

Read Drew's books if you haven't yet.

Well, it's every man for himself really. There are those who think all sorts of other stuff like Frontier etc fit in with the Oolite canon, whereas in fact it's the other way round...the Frontier backstory was 'massaged' so that Elite fitted in.
Then there is the Oolite fiction, much of which is taken to be canon.
The purists (of whom I guess I'm one) take only two references as being canon, the Elite manual, and 'The Dark Wheel', the Novella which was supplied with some versions of Elite.
So you pay your money and take your choice.

As Smivs pointed out, there is no official canon and not even a hint of consensus.

Together with the resources he linked to I personally find the timeline compiled (and for the most part created) by Selezen a very useful tool for Oolite history and tend to stick to it, at least to the broad strokes. It's on his website. Start with the main Elite/Frontier timeline and have a look at the Oolite timeline afterwards.

As far as Raxxla is concerned, there is now the [wiki]Oolite Saga[/wiki] written by [wiki]Drew Wagar[/wiki], which is a must-read before you start writing your own saga. Its first installment, [wiki]Status Quo[/wiki], is recognized by many as being the same to Oolite as The Dark Wheel was to Elite. But again, because there is no such thing as "official" when it comes to Oolite, it is only almost the "official novella".

The really big controversy is whether the Lave in Oolite/Elite is the same as the Lave in Frontier/FFE. If it is, then Selezen's timeline provides a plausible explanation for the resulting inconsistencies. If it isn't, then that makes things much simpler in general, but rules out a few other things (including parts of the Oolite Saga and large parts of the Selezen timeline) as being canonical. You will not get any consensus on which is the case, so pick whichever you prefer. (Or ignore the issue entirely if your plans allow for it, as most fiction and OXPs do)

Most Oolite fiction is about a few people and a few systems. It almost certainly doesn't matter whether it's something that really happened in-Ooniverse, or just a tall tale told at a spacer bar.

Write the OXP to tell the story that you want to tell. If you can do that without contradicting what another OXP or story says about the same topic, then great. If you can't, then no-one will mind. (If you have your own ideas about Raxxla, then you're almost certainly going to contradict something...)

+1 on all the above from me! Don't worry about stepping on toes: if someone doesn't agree with your interpretation, they don't have to believe in it. Even more so for OXPs, since nobody is forced to download or install anything they don't want to!

Commander McLane wrote:

there is no official canon and not even a hint of consensus.

<chortles>

realbrit70 wrote:

wondering what Elite/Oolite history is regarded as canonical.

Personally, I'd really struggle with something that did not conform to this:

Smivs wrote:

the Elite manual, and 'The Dark Wheel'

realbrit70 wrote:

The reason I ask is that since Elite I've had an idea of how I would implement the hunt for Raxxla within the game and what discovering Raxxla would mean. Now having found Oolite I believe the scripting will allow me to implement my idea as an OXP.

Call it "The Legend of the Hunt for Raxxla.oxp" or "Reliving the Hunt for Raxxla.oxp" and you can deviate from anyone else's fiction as much as you want. Especially if "Hunting for Raxxla" is actually a recreational activity in the Oolite ooniverse, like a Murder-Mystery Weekend.

Then again, having watched - appalled - Star Trek 2009, you could call it "Elite rebooted" and have Raxxla as Earth, Commander Jamesson as an African American green lizard with an Australian accent liberating Mars from the British Federation, and use time travel to go back to create the wormholes between the 16 galaxies and have Dr Who pop up to breed the Thargons as Dalek variants from a time when the Vulcans did not have head-bones but before waking up in the shower scene when JR was shot. Don't forget to include Jar Jar Binks and change the ending to be the opposite of the book. And don't forget the product placement and a love interest. And the Christmas toy angle - I suggest cuddly Trumble CargoPod Families - gotta collect 'em all!

Hey, Hollywood does whatever it wants, why can't you?

I've been reading Drew's books. I'm through the second and onto the third. That's what prompted the question. Drew's vision of Raxxla has some similarities to mine but my vision has tended to revolve around what can be implemented in the terms of the game mechanics rather than dramatic impact; so I wanted to find out if Drew's vision was accepted as canon and whether a poor imitation of something along those lines but which would work from a game mechanics point of view would be something sacrilegious to the community. I don't want the comfy chair!

I had also looked briefly at the timeline and the whole issue of the Elite/Frontier system maps. They are something that seem to play into Drew's books with regard to the political balance between GalCop, the Federation and the Empire. Oolite follows the Elite model where all the systems are GalCop worlds and the Imperials and Federation play no part, correct? That did trigger a second plan to investigate adding a Politics OXP that integrates with the excellent Systems OXP to elements of political gameplay including the following:

Diplomatic Missions
Political Espionage
Galactic Warfare
Political Assassination

However a project that large would require a better understanding on my part of creating OXPs and a whole lot of help.

I guess everybody has their own canon, so don't worry about treading on toes. As long as it is believable, everything goes. Heck, there are even people who introduced Star Wars into Oolite

realbrit70 wrote:

Oolite follows the Elite model where all the systems are GalCop worlds and the Imperials and Federation play no part, correct?

In the core game, that's how I see it, yes.

realbrit70 wrote:

Oolite follows the Elite model where all the systems are GalCop worlds and the Imperials and Federation play no part, correct?

Oolite doesn't "follow the Elite model". Oolite is at its core a re-creation of Elite. From this premise can be concluded at once that Oolite does not "follow" anything else, be it Pacman or Star Wars (and this includes of course a series of games that were developed by Frontier Development).

Commander McLane wrote:

realbrit70 wrote:

Oolite follows the Elite model where all the systems are GalCop worlds and the Imperials and Federation play no part, correct?

Oolite doesn't "follow the Elite model". Oolite is at its core a re-creation of Elite. From this premise can be concluded at once that Oolite does not "follow" anything else, be it Pacman or Star Wars (and this includes of course a series of games that were developed by Frontier Development).

Sorry, substitute "borrows", "uses", "is based upon" or any other word or phrase that doesn't offend your sensibilities.

realbrit70 wrote:

Sorry, substitute "borrows", "uses", "is based upon" or any other word or phrase that doesn't offend your sensibilities.

It's not so much about my sensibilities, but about what Oolite is and is not.

Oolite is (at its core) a re-creation of Elite, which is a specific game. It is not a re-creation of FE2, which is also a specific (and different, many people would say unrelated) game. Elite doesn't know about an Empire or a Federation (except for one obscure reference in The Dark Wheel).

(To make it clear: I'm not offended, and hopefully you aren't either. My point is just that you shouldn't too quickly assume the connection between Elite and its "sequels" as a given.)

Commander McLane wrote:

realbrit70 wrote:

Sorry, substitute "borrows", "uses", "is based upon" or any other word or phrase that doesn't offend your sensibilities.

It's not so much about my sensibilities, but about what Oolite is and is not.

Oolite is (at its core) a re-creation of Elite, which is a specific game. It is not a re-creation of FE2, which is also a specific (and different, many people would say unrelated) game. Elite doesn't know about an Empire or a Federation (except for one obscure reference in The Dark Wheel).

(To make it clear: I'm not offended, and hopefully you aren't either. My point is just that you shouldn't too quickly assume the connection between Elite and its "sequels" as a given.)

I'm not offended. Your answers are part of why I'm asking the question. My understanding was that Oolite was a re-creation of Elite, updated for modern machines, graphics and programming styles which allows customization through the use of a scripting interface. Therefore I had assumed that at it's core the canon for Oolite was the original Elite game and the Dark Wheel novella that came with it.

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.

Before making that assumption though I wanted to see what people who were playing the game felt.