Oolite Bulletins

I thought we could do with a place for any random musings on the ooniverse -- mainly because I have one such random musing:

Is the ooniverse the aftermath of a singularity?

I think it is. There are many peculiar things about the ooniverse. For example:

1. Where’s Earth?
2. Why are the only colonists human?
3. Why are the other species based on terrestrial life-forms?
4. How can all these different species all eat (and drink) the same sorts of food?
5. Why are “slaves” a viable commodity? Where are the AIs? And why is there so little automation on board ship?
6. Why all this trade in “computers”?

All of these point to one thing: the creation – accidentally or otherwise – on Earth of a Strongly Godlike Entity, probably some time after the Generation Ships began to leave for the stars. There may be a connection there, depending on how quickly a SGE develops; in any case, running through the end-stages of a singularity is no doubt unpleasant for most of the participants.

So: bam, pow, Rama is born, the ultimate end-product of a recursive axiomatic metaprogramming algorithm. At this point part of the story trails out into ineffability; but it’s an undeniable fact that, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of solar systems, conveniently close to each other, found themselves inhabited by humans, humanoids, and numerous other sentient species – derived, often it would seem whimsically, from Earth stocks, all sharing a basically common physiology. These planets have developed societies and have progressed or regressed from there, some discovering (or uncovering?) the secrets of FTL flight, journeying out, making contact, and forming the ooniverse we know today.

That pretty much takes care of a) though d). The final two questions relate to an entrenched, and entirely understandable, deep-rooted fear of Artificial Intelligence. The ooniverse is a post-singularity society, and there is a determination amongst the vast majority of its inhabitants that such an event must not happen again (of course, the paranoids might think, here’s more evidence of the meddling hand of Rama: maybe it doesn’t want any competition). AI is hugely restricted. The droids we see in the unloading bays are basic manipulation machines, barely one step up from a forklift. There are no true Artificial Intelligences: if you want an instrumentum vocale you have to get one the old-fashioned way – hence the slavery. It’s more tolerable to the citizens of the ooniverse than AI.

Finally, what are these “computers” we trade in? Why is the demand so inexhaustible and why is one computer so very much like another? The demand never drops off because, like food, these computers are a consumed resource. They are largely organic in construction, partly so that they can be grown on vast wet-tech mats in warm saline ponds, but mainly for one all-important reason: so that they die. These computers age and die, just like us. Rather faster than us, in fact. Never again will a machine bootstrap itself into consciousness – not while apoptosis stands as an essential element in cybernetic systems. We keep our computers weak, and mortal, and rely on nerves and hands and eyes to do our work and fight our battles.

We’re left with the problem of the Thargoids. What are they descended from? They’re insectile, true enough – but their technologies and behaviours appear bizarre to all the other races. Were we flung here by Rama to fight these beings? Did it make them to battle us? Or are they the children of some other god – and if so, what’s lurking behind them?

A. Sol (the Earth System) is 50.68ly to the Galactic North-east of Lave. The reason it is not present on the GalCop star charts is because it is the administrative capital of the Federation.
B. Because, as explained in Red Dwarf, humans are the galactic equivalent of the common cold. They spread much more than other races, simply because they cannot believe that other planets have even worse rainy weather than England.
C. Because the people who wrote the Galactic Census entries were humans who wanted to convey the approximate similarities between aboriginal species on the non-colonised worlds and Earth creatures.
D. Who's to say that any food stuff (e.g. Biargeian edible poets) you sell to Black Bug-eyed Lobsters from Eninte will be consumed by them and not sold onto their customers?
E (1). Because Slaves are cheap, self-propagating and require little in the way of maintenance and repair.....
E (2). All over the place. Why do you think flying a ship as big as a Cobra Mark III is so easy for a solo pilot?
E (3). See above, how hard would it be to seal a hull breach when you are fighting off a half-dozen pirates?
F. Because every low TL world would desperately like to become high TL worlds and this means increasing your inhabitants' tehnological expertise.

And as for the Thargoids? They're extra-galactic bugs that're gonna get stomped if they ever get between me and a profit margin.....

Captain Hesperus

& what about the blasted Weeviloids. Far more dangerous than Thargons IMHO!

Captain Hesperus wrote:

A. Sol (the Earth System) is 50.68ly to the Galactic North-east of Lave. The reason it is not present on the GalCop star charts is because it is the administrative capital of the Federation.

Ah... Federation, shmederation. If I can be sniffy for a moment, I don't take Frontier as being canonical [insert smiley of someone turning up his nose, like a two-year-old being offered asparagus]. I could never forgive it for being such a disappointment after all those years of itching and sweating... anyway, in the ooniverse, we can never go there.

Captain Hesperus wrote:

B. Because, as explained in Red Dwarf, humans are the galactic equivalent of the common cold. They spread much more than other races, simply because they cannot believe that other planets have even worse rainy weather than England.
C. Because the people who wrote the Galactic Census entries were humans who wanted to convey the approximate similarities between aboriginal species on the non-colonised worlds and Earth creatures.

A possibility, true... but why is everything so Earthlike? So many frogs, and felines, and bugs, and birds: no shoggothoids, no slime-mould-analogues, no beings wholly outside our range of experience...

Captain Hesperus wrote:

D. Who's to say that any food stuff (e.g. Biargeian edible poets) you sell to Black Bug-eyed Lobsters from Eninte will be consumed by them and not sold onto their customers?

The prices would vary more, depending on what foodstuffs you were transporting. Taking something yummy would yield more than shipping a cargo-hold full of something utterly indigestible. And everyone is at least carbon-based enough to want to trade in liquor and wines.

Captain Hesperus wrote:

E (1). Because Slaves are cheap, self-propagating and require little in the way of maintenance and repair.....
E (2). All over the place. Why do you think flying a ship as big as a Cobra Mark III is so easy for a solo pilot?
E (3). See above, how hard would it be to seal a hull breach when you are fighting off a half-dozen pirates?
F. Because every low TL world would desperately like to become high TL worlds and this means increasing your inhabitants' tehnological expertise.

Yeah, but slaves are also inefficient, and prone to committing incessant acts of sabotage. A proper AI robot could be made to actively love sewer maintenance, or scraping space barnacles or whatever, and wouldn't get tired or rebellious.

There are some automated in-ship systems, sure -- but there are automated systems in a washing machine. We're still in the pilot's seat. And hull breaches (if you'll ignore for a moment my comments about Frontier above) can be sealed by expanding vacuum-setting foam held between a double hull.

And finally, regarding computers: nobody seems to care whether you're selling them TL 15 or TL 5 or TL 2 computers: they're all the same. I don't think computers in the ooniverse can be the same sort of thing they are in ours.

Captain Hesperus wrote:

And as for the Thargoids? They're extra-galactic bugs that're gonna get stomped if they ever get between me and a profit margin.....

Captain Hesperus

Well, yes, and more power to your lasers on that one! Same goes for the Weeviloids, too.

Disembodied wrote:

Captain Hesperus wrote:

A. Sol (the Earth System) is 50.68ly to the Galactic North-east of Lave. The reason it is not present on the GalCop star charts is because it is the administrative capital of the Federation.

Ah... Federation, shmederation. If I can be sniffy for a moment, I don't take Frontier as being canonical [insert smiley of someone turning up his nose, like a two-year-old being offered asparagus]. I could never forgive it for being such a disappointment after all those years of itching and sweating... anyway, in the ooniverse, we can never go there.

Have you seen Selezen's or Mussofa's timelines?
You may even disagree with their conclusions, but you'll have to grant that they put a lot of thought on it.

A taste from Selezen's site:

Note the date mentioned as the in-service date for the MC15 Transporter. It is listed as prior to 2500, but an exact date is unknown. The prototype is known to have originated from Sol, but it is now manufactured by a company called Lakon Spaceways. So it is not made by the Federation, but it was designed by them.

We can then assume that the worlds of GalCop split away from Federation control around 2500. However, according to information from the novella Imprint, the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds was not ratified until 2696.

As to the matter discussed above of GalCop being unaware of the existence of the Feds and Imperials, this simply cannot be the case. Earth is only 20 light years away from the upper edge of GalCop space, and there is not enough space there for there to be anything of major consequence blocking them off. A war zone would not be likely due to the fact that Feds and GalCop would both be involved in the conflict, with the area being so close to Earth. Add to this the fact that Achenar falls within the GalCop map for Gal1. There is no way of twisting or turning the map enough to get Achenar out of the way. Hence, Achenar is there – like it or not.

The Galactic Federation (or GalFederation) is mentioned a few times in the manual, so we know from this that GalCop is aware of the Federation and vice-versa, since 2845 saw the publication of a treatise on the Federation itself – so GalCop are obviously watching and commenting on their neighbouring organisation. This raises the original question again – where is Earth in Elite? It can be surmised that Earth is still around, it is just impossible to travel to it. The knowledge that both Federation and Empire require payment of a huge fine to allow pilots starting at Lave in Frontier to dock at any of their stations would point to some sort of conflict – possibly a political upheaval or cataclysmic event that resulted in those affiliated with GalCop being banished or exiled from Federation / Empire space.

With all this in mind, it can be said that the worlds that would one day become GalCop have voluntarily seceded from Federation or Imperial influence as of 2500 or so and may instigate a policy of non-contact. Their technology would in this case diverge from that of the Federation. The 11 worlds included in Frontier from Elite are referred to in Frontier’s Gazeteer as the Far Colonies. That may be the identity the seceding worlds chose for themselves. The absence of Sol and Achenar systems from the Gal1 map can be explained by the fact that these worlds would not be included on the Gal1 map due to the policy that non-GCW worlds are not listed on the standard star-charts (reference The Dark Wheel for proof of this).

Cmdr. Maegil wrote:

Have you seen Selezen's or Mussofa's timelines?
You may even disagree with their conclusions, but you'll have to grant that they put a lot of thought on it.

No, I hadn't seen them. Very interesting, both of them, not to say ingenious! My somewhat petulant ditching of Frontier is ... well, lazier, but it does tidy things up. I have to agree with Selezen's comment, with reference to Frontier, that

What a mess. It seems that David Braben just threw logic out of the window when he decided to throw Elite into our own Galaxy and put Lave so close to Earth. He didn’t think about continuity very much.

Found this thing while looking for Victorian decorative designs no less.

It made me think of your Avatar...if you replace the eyes with a brain in the last step.


edit: usefull to add the link too.
an illuminated jar
edit2: hmm strange...seems linking is disabled for me. odd, I've been a good 'ol boy.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

edit2: hmm strange...seems linking is disabled for me. odd, I've been a good 'ol boy.

<_>
>_>

Don't look at me, I haven't even *looked* at the 'Light .50' in an age!

<EDIT> That is rather cool! If you could find a jar large enough, you could probably buy a brain mold kit, cast up a heat resistant latex brain and have your own personal Disembodied lava lamp to sit on your bedside table and freak you out.

Captain Hesperus

Oh, the old internet can be a strange and wonderful place, right enough... I'm deeply touched.

I wonder if there's a market for "Blaze O' Glory" action figures? Or perhaps some brand of space bubblegum* with famous Oolite pilots trading cards?

*This would have to be called "Q-Bomb". And be blue. And possibly kill everyone when it bursts.

and 'Thargoid' spearmints in a octagonal tin.

I can't quite recall the US ubiquitous mint brand... could be 'Altoid's...they are sold in small tins, like 'potters' liquorice.

Disembodied wrote:

I wonder if there's a market for "Blaze O' Glory" action figures? Or perhaps some brand of space bubblegum* with famous Oolite pilots trading cards?

Having my face on twenty billion bublegum cards, although flattering to my humongous ego, would be just as disconcerting as seeing me looking myself back in the face from the plasma matrix of a TeraScreen.....

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

and 'Thargoid' spearmints in a octagonal tin.

I can't quite recall the US ubiquitous mint brand... could be 'Altoid's.

'Argoids'? Do I see yet another YAH! entry?

Captain Hesperus
.....as seen on Card no.087 of the 'Most Notorious Miscreants' set

<EDIT> That is rather cool! If you could find a jar large enough, you could probably buy a brain mold kit, cast up a heat resistant latex brain and have your own personal Disembodied lava lamp to sit on your bedside table and freak you out.

Captain Hesperus[/quote]

I want one!!!

Primus : "What the hell is that!?"
Secundus : "Hitlers brain inna Jar!"
Primus : "Neat, hey, are you still playing that stupid space game!?"
Secundus : "Wheres my bone saw?"