Oolite Bulletins

Hi All,

Inspired by the sight of Draco's Generation ships lumbering through space I thought I might peek under the hull of one of them...

Here's my take on what be going on in those massive ships after 30 generations in space...

Schism - Chapter One.

Feedback as always.

Cheers,

Drew.

Excellent! Not a lot more I can say lest I be condemmed to Hull.

Interesting story idea - I sense things are going to get very intense on that ship

One thing I'm wondering - if the folks on the gen ship have the same name for their destination planet as the one used by "modern civilisation", that would imply it was named on Earth prior to their departure (and the later departure of those with witchspace drives). And yet the planet is populated by Blue Bony Felines, who presumably didn't come from Earth (or am I mistaken?). Was this a special case, or did the galaxy choose to adopt the human planet names as standard?

Hmmm... Well, it's obviously a plot device for me primarily... however.

Tianve's star is only 80 or so light years from earth, so easily visible with even todays technology. If the gen ships left 900 years prior to the timeframe of elite, that puts launch at around 2250.

I'd imagine that remote surveying using telescopes would have mapped all the local stars which had habitable planets, prior to the launch of these genships. No point sending them off on the 'off chance' !

I'm assuming, therefore, that the names on the elite map are the 'human' names for the systems, not the ones given by indigenous lifeforms. As originally mapped in (to current elite combateers) the dim and distant past.

As I'm sure you are all aware, Tianve is pronounced 'Chqoisqwkdsoaskdososowwqwlkqk', by the local felines in the primary felis declension dialect.

Cheers,

Drew.

ps. No offence intended to anyone from 'Hull', the resemblance is entirely coincidental!

That's one crazy dialect! I guess humans are the dominant species in Elite/Oolite, which would explain why their names are generally used. Although some of the planet names are so odd and difficult-to-pronounce (e.g. Xeququti) that I'd like to think they originated from other sources (even though that example, Xeququti, is a human colony).

I'm wondering now whether humans were the only species to independently develop witchspace technology, or whether a few other species got there on their own or even first (as in Star Trek with warp drive). Has this been established?

Humans call the planets by the human names, they would know no different. recently India has renamed it's cities to the pre-British rule, until this was done everyone called them by the British names.

Thargoids also have witchspace tech.

Humans (and hybrid humans) and Thargoids appear to be the dominant space faring race in this particular section of the galaxy, however the Ooniversal map only covers a very small section of the galactic disk.

I keep forgetting about all the planets that are off the charts - including those of the Empire and Federation in the time of Oolite, right?

Incidentally, the Indian-renaming thing is a bit ridiculous in some cases - for example, Madras (now Chennai) was founded by the East India Company, so it never really had a pre-British name (though the area was called Madraspatnam, which may have been Portuguese in origin). But the prevailing sentiment is that colonialism was entirely bad, hence the revisionism.

Anyway, I'm getting way off-topic!

Tut tut, Drew - how could you have been so careless? everyone knows that the spelling is "Chqoisqwkdsoaskdososiwwqwlkqk". I not O! The word, as you're printed, in fact, means "Those small squiggly things underneath the stones with the spotty bits on them, that don't taste all that nice, kind of nutty flavoured really"

It's that second 'i'... just can't get it right.

[plagarise]

Though I thought it was the sound you made when you got your sexual organs trapped in something, eg. when you're reading in the nude and close the book too quickly...

[/plagarise]

Great feedback btw everyone!

Cheers,

Drew.