Oolite Bulletins

The Decline (and eventual Fall?) of GalCop

Musings

Looking at the regions on ClymAngus’s Vector Map and then musing about the Golden Age of GalCop leads me to wonder what happened and how it happened.

Just gazing at the far east of G1 (the three anarchies of the Devil’s Triangle, and the assorted anarchies and feudals of the Tortuga Expanse) makes me wonder what used to be there. Presumeably a mix of Democracies and Corporates or some such. And much more wealth.




Regional Flavours?

Most of the star systems are not in a region. Fewer than 70/256 are. So why are the regions regions? And how long have they been regions for?

The Devil’s Triangle and the Tortuga Expanse are presumably new regions named after their wealthy precursors collapsed into chaos and the nature of the area changed.

The Iron Stars, GalCentre, the Pulsar Worlds and the Old Worlds might well date back to before the formation of GalCop (depending on whether GalCop preceded the settlement of the Ooniverse).

The Teraed and Xexedi clusters might have been named after those worlds which were involved in influencing the settlement of those areas - or protecting the areas when the collapse set in. Or even both!

But did the various regions have a particular flavour? Were any of the Corioli made locally (or were there regional ship manufacturers or Rock Hermit designers) and thus there might be identifiable similarities in the region? Sadly, we probably have too few coherent retextures amongst our OXPs to do much with this at the moment.



Star Systems before the collapse?

Was the collapse into Feudals & Anarchies engineered by malevolents or was it just a natural reaction to events (Thargoid invasion, increase in piracy as GalCop crumbled)?

The Feudals and Anarchies are an obvious response to the collapse. So too are the Multi-Govs. Is that also true of the Commies and Dictatorships? Did they not exist before the collapse - or were their numbers/influence insignificant?



GalCop before the collapse?

One presumes that GalCop was much wealthier but that the Technology was slightly less advanced. Does this also hold true for population sizes?

And how do the consequences of all this play out to give us our modern range of statistics regarding the individual systems. where (as Stranger adumbrates in his essay on the subject) population/economy/politics do not tie in as neatly with system wealth as one might expect.

And there may well have been older regions whose integrity/identity collapsed in the Great Collapse.



Ancient GalCopian remnants

Should we expect to find remnants of GalCops golden age scattered hither and yon?

Ancient defence platforms - or hulking battleships armed with decrepit Twin Plasma Cannons? Coriolis Precursors? Deserted Interstellar waystations from the days before hyperdrives?

Or will it all have been cannibalised in the struggles against the Thargoids/pirates?

If galcop were to decline then to answer some of your questions one might be better prepared by establishing how such a thing happened.

For the purpose of what follows I'm going to assume the usual idea, i.e. the piracy boom idea.

So, if more piracy = less police (due to unsuccessful combat engagements), then we might expect less intersystem trade.
Consequences would likely include

• lower tech levels (less supply of material components)
• More dangerous government types where systems required food imports (i.e. industrial systems)

Note that the second one is not reflected or even particularly suggested with many industrila being the more high tech, relatively safe systems.


I'd like to reference another idea in here, that of a fabled 'ninth' galaxy.

I was never particularly intersted in this as it didn;t hold a lot of appeal for me but what i it was reversed?
What if it were the 8 'legacy' galaxies that were special and instead the player started in a new galaxy 0, especialy designed for oolite?

It could still be randomised but with a redesigned model. For example

• Where the starter system and its neighbours were safe but low tech
• Where the most profitable systems were also the most pirate infested
• Where viper interceptors (or alternative) roam uniquely

So the imagined galaxy zero could effectively be the 'oolite galaxy', however it were to be imagined or rationalised, without the need to butcher any of the sacred cows of galaxy's 1-8. One could even keep the traditional missions in those galaxies. *

For those who remember galaxies 1-8 then the nostalgia of 'returning' to them remains while for those who don't, there's no need to tie the starting environment to the design quirks of elite circa 1984.


* A new mission for galaxy 0 could be created, one that would grant the galactic hyperdrive upon the completion of some task, thereby making the transition to the other galaxies more significant. This reward migh be the drive itself or perhaps some adapter/instructions/blueprints/time lapse necessitated to make it available to the player as a piece of equipment,

As regards the decline, I'm taking the Oolite website blurb as gospel:

Among the seven trillion people who are - at least officially - Cooperative citizens, you are nobody. So far, anyway. You've got a ship, some weapons, and enough spare cash to get started - and one day, you might get the fame, wealth or glory you want. Perhaps one day, everyone might know your name. If, that is, you can survive that long.

The two thousand star systems of the Cooperative once enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity, and perhaps the wealthiest of them can still pretend to. The trade ships that once safely travelled between planets now have to be well armed and escorted to fend off pirate attacks, from small-time criminals desperate for their next meal, to powerful robber barons extracting tithes from everyone who passes through their space.

The Cooperative's police force, concentrated near a few influential planets, can no longer maintain order. The mercenaries they hire for a few credits a kill are too few, too unreliable to do so either. And in the darkness between the stars, an old enemy lurks, fearless, perhaps waiting for order to collapse entirely.

Good luck, Commander. (https://oolite.space/)

And then combining it with cim's notes on history in his Ship's Manual (massive Thargoid attacks years ago).