user2357 wrote: ↑Fri May 09, 2025 5:43 am
Perhaps an alternative name referring to 'New Licensing Offices' or similar might be applicable...?
Alas, my thinking behind this one was not lore-based. I just wanted to give a player who has been stuck in G1 an opportunity to easily restart in, say, G3. I'm after a name which easily encapsulates that.
The choice of starting location was based on the
playability of Lave - close to a milk run, but not actually part of one. This is based on playability rather than deep lore-based thinking. I can't see that any of these locations would be chosen by anybody with a even half a brain as a Licensing Office!
Otherwise, it
might have made more sense to use the alternatives in (the civilian)
Lave Academy OXP:
Galaxy 1 - Lave, Esteonbi, Enonla, Esanbe, Xequerin.
Galaxy 2 - Maesaron, Erenanri, Reveabe, Legeara, Tigebere.
Galaxy 3 - Radiqu, Edxeri, Ceedleon, Atius, Rerebi.
Galaxy 4 - Mavelege, Bemate, Cebitiza, Mausra, Ensoor.
Galaxy 5 - Zaaner, Vebi, Inenares, Azaenbi, Dioris.
Galaxy 6 - Teesso, Oresmaa, Celaan, Ariqu, Inesbe.
Galaxy 7 - Isdilaon, Aenbi, Ataer, Orreedon, Qutegequ.
Galaxy 8 - Ceenza, Aarzari, Biatzate, Inbein, Oredrier.
For one academy per galaxy, the first planet in each list will be its host.
There
is a variant for this: Dr Beeb's
Naval Academies which comes with lore (but no code) detailing inter-academic rivalries
etc.
Thinking about it all, I wonder how "lore-based" these OXP locations are.
Personally, I feel that the Academy OXPs are all a bit too much. In an universe threatened by Thargoids and pirates, I just don't see the continued existence of dozens of academies in unsafe locations - I see them being marmalised - and if by pirates, then the students being sold off as expensive flying slaves. As the universe got less and less safe, the academies would have been moved to safer locations. Or disbanded.
There is also the aspect of practicality. I only played Elite for a month or so - and never got to read the manual very much, if at all (I don't remember!). On discovering Oolite I also discovered the Elite lore. I suspect my experience is very rare. Cody, for example, played Elite voraciously but never saw Holdstock's work until much later, and then rejected it. Others were lucky enough to enjoy both. But I feel that most "vocal incomers" to our community never spent hours and hours on Classic Elite back in the 80's - and never read the manual.
Maybe they tried E:D. So the relevance of the old lore to them is moot, methinks.
Perhaps a lore-based variant of this would start in the Galactic Centres of each galaxy - or at a significant safe system, free from piracy and well defended against Thargoid incursions. There might be one or two academies per galaxy, based in systems that made sense from a defensive aspect as well as a geographical one. This OXP could then be rewritten to place those academies and start at them. I might even discover that I have some of the skills to do this!
But, bluntly, our Galaxies are based on B&B's goat soup, and it shows. We have some scattered shreds of coherence to G1, and much more for Littlebear's G7 and Ramirez's G8. It would make more sense to develop a more coherent approach, scrutinising each of the Eight and developing them.
What would such development look like? Perhaps the following might make sense.
(i) Finish the Flavour OXPs - Corporate States , other political states (Democracies/Confederacies/Multi-Govs: based on what we already have) & Species States.
(ii) And develop a handful of Systems in each Galaxy (as we have in G1 with Murgh's Lave, Tionisla, CB's Riredi, Lerelace, Drew's Tianve, and DGill's Tibecea) to add spice.
(iii) Overlay each Galaxy with a thought-through skeleton (Law Courts/Prisons/Stock Exchanges/Pirate gangs/On-going wars
etc).
(iv) chuck the player in the middle of it all!
Back to the problem of this OXP. How, then, to explain Lave's game start and Academy?
It
is beefed up, just a tad, by Murgh/Phkb's Lave.oxp (TL8 upped from 5). But it is still a poor system comparatively and is on the edge of things, presumably "more exposed" to the McNasties. I prefer to say that it is based on the Lore. That Her Imperial Majesty's Space Navy (based on (Selezen's?) Empress of Lave living on Basta rather than Disembodied's of G5 Tetiri) has historical attachments there, that as one of the Old Worlds (how far back does the name of that region go?), it had an Academy from before the Golden Age of GalCop, et cetera. And it is at the end of a "Trade Route" (not that that is really implemented OXP-wise).
What do you think?
