Origin of Species in the Ooniverse

[PhantorGorth]

I am looking into ideas to expand Oolite when this point cross my mind on How did the GalCo-op space get filled with so many diversely specied [not sure that's a real word] worlds in such a small volume of space. I have been thinking (which is always a bad idea) on how this could fit into the concepts of the Milky Way galaxy and the histories others have plotted out plus what seems realistically possible.

I started with these known or agreed facts:

There are 8 galaxies or rather galaxy sectors.

Galaxy 1 is just outside the region containing Sol.

At some point in the future all other species are driven out of Galaxy 1. [This assumes that we actually want to be consistent with Frontier and FFE.]

There are 8 main species types: Rodents, Frogs, Lizards, Lobsters, Birds, Humanoids, Felines and Insects. Additionally there are Humans and Thargons.

Each world is has a variant of one of those 8 species or is Human populated. The Thargons originate elsewhere.

There are no unpopulated worlds in the 8 "galaxies".

I can not go with the idea that all the non-human colonial worlds all evolved such a limited range of species types so close to each other independently.

With the above facts and thoughts I considered the following scenario:

Humans discovered interstellar space flight and expanded into the region around Sol discovering a handful of non-space-faring inhabited worlds.

Scientists invented the galaxy hyperdrive most likely somewhere in the space that is Galaxy1 (if invented by Humans). This allowed jumping to other regions of the galaxy that form a loop that leads back to Galaxy1.

Each galaxy (2 to 8) are situated in the Milky Way near regions of space which have other space-faring species are expanding into. Each "galaxy" is near one species except one "galaxy" (which is to be decided) that has two species nearby.

GalCo-op is set up to keep the peace between the species and by treaty is limited to 8 equally sized cuboids of space that is recognized by us players as the 8 "galaxies". Inside each "galaxy" is a mixture of worlds populated by any of the 9 species and maybe a handful of native species which just happen to look similar to some of the others. Outside of each of the GalCo-op "galaxies" there are empires that are mostly one or, in one case, two of the species.

Time passes and GalCo-op's "galaxies" are fully populated and the regions around them are overrun by worlds of the appropriate species.

The Thargon wars keep the various species more engaged in dealing with an external threat than at each other's throats/thoraxes/etc. With the defeat of the Thargons other political machinations lead to the collapse of GalCo-op and each species takes control of their neighbouring GalCo-op "galaxy" (such as human factions take control of Galaxy1). This leads to major migrations of species back to their home "galaxies".

At some point the galactic hyperspace jump system fails (or its jump points start to migrate) breaking the cycle and isolating each "galaxy". Humans populate all worlds in Galaxy1. There are some members of other species on these worlds but they become a minority except for the native species worlds. Similar occurs in the other "galaxies".

Further thoughts:

Human Colonists worlds occur more often due to either:
a) Humans are more expansionistic.
b) GalCo-op colonial policy is biased
c) Both a) and b)

Thargons threat comes from the space in the centre of the loop of "galaxies" and therefore explains why the war is spread through all 8 "galaxies". Also some Thargon technology homed in the centre of their space is causing the galactic hyperspace drive to loop around in a circle. [I have an idea to what that is but that's for another day] When the the Thargons are eradicated the galactic hyperdrive start to fail.

Galaxy4 would have the Feline empire near it (thinking of the Lovecats OXP) [not used that OXP so that idea could be incompatible]

The above are my thoughts on "Origin of Species in the Ooniverse" maybe others can expand on this idea or point out the holes.

Comments welcome.

Phantor Gorth
(Paul)

[Diziet Sma]

In the following, I'm not sure which concepts come from which areas, as I've done a lot of reading in the forums, Wiki, and fan fiction, but what I've gleaned from all this is roughly as follows...

It seems that in actuality, there are many more worlds physically located in the 8 Gal-Sectors than appear in the charts. There is no trade to these systems because they want nothing to do with GalCop (or maybe vice-versa). Some of them belong to other Empires.

The reason they don't appear in the charts is that GalCop ensures that their co-ordinates are not programmed into the nav-computers available to civilians, thus making it easier to keep GalCop citizens safe, under control and (probably most importantly) avoiding diplomatic incidents.

Thus, the "territories" of various Empires and other galactic powers are somewhat more intermingled than it might appear, but due to the way navigation is done, by choosing destination rather than programming co-ordinates manually, this fact is hidden from the average trader. Indeed, the danger and risk involved in manually programming a jump is played up, to deter anyone from attempting it.

If you haven't done so yet, I highly recommend reading the available fan-fic, as it helps flesh out the Ooniverse considerably.

None of the above should be taken as detracting from your idea, however.. What you propose sounds very interesting indeed..

[overmage]

I'ma go ahead and suggest my own small addition to this:

Galactic hyperdrive technology was not invented by Humankind. It was discovered from the wreckage of a strange, green hexagonal ship that had crash-landed on a planet orbiting Sol.

This would explain certain facts noticeably unexplained (like why Thargoids tend to ambush travellers in witchspace, as it is considered an invasion of their previously private territory), but the knowledge of the origins of the galactic hyperdrive should be a highly classified military secret.

[Cmdr James]

Guys, there is quite a bit of work done on this already, with a timeline working elite, and frontier together, and lots of thought gone into explaining things such as non-newtonian physics, and the relationships between species.

I think it might be worth looking into things like http://hughesd.co.uk/elite/unlocking_the_frontier.asp so you can focus on the areas that currently dont make sense.

There are also questions about which bits are considered canon. Status Quo and Mutablis for example fill in a lot of the blanks, but possibly aren't canon.

[PhantorGorth]

Diziet Sma wrote:

It seems that in actuality, there are many more worlds physically located in the 8 Gal-Sectors than appear in the charts. There is no trade to these systems because they want nothing to do with GalCop (or maybe vice-versa). Some of them belong to other Empires.

The reason they don't appear in the charts is that GalCop ensures that their co-ordinates are not programmed into the nav-computers available to civilians, thus making it easier to keep GalCop citizens safe, under control and (probably most importantly) avoiding diplomatic incidents.

I was thinking this was the case. I read the Dark Wheel from my original Electron version of Elite many years ago and that included a world that was off the beaten track but would still appear in Galaxy1. I was more think that there are no unpopulated worlds under GalCo-op control and with the density of the populated worlds is very high that this implied that the GalCo-op "galaxies" are really groups of worlds embedded in a larger field of inhabited worlds which are like to extend beyond each "galaxy's" border.

I haven't read all the fan-fiction I have to admit, but I am on holiday next week so I may get round to reading more. I added this thread to help flesh out the idea and get some consensus rather than come up with ideas that get rejected by nearly everyone.

overmage wrote:

Galactic hyperdrive technology was not invented by Humankind. It was discovered from the wreckage of a strange, green hexagonal ship that had crash-landed on a planet orbiting Sol.

This would explain certain facts noticeably unexplained (like why Thargoids tend to ambush travellers in witchspace, as it is considered an invasion of their previously private territory), but the knowledge of the origins of the galactic hyperdrive should be a highly classified military secret.

I go with the idea of it not being invented by humans but if it was discovered in Sol wouldn't it have been used in Sol? And then we would have different galaxies (likely offsets to the current ones). I would suggest it was discovered by the GalCo-op , on say a brown dwarf world a short hop from one of Galaxy1's high tech worlds, and kept secret by making sure reverse engineering attempts cause it to go unstable and explode (or some such mechanism). By tightly controlling the Galactic Hyperspace drive GalCo-op has a monopoly on the economic benefits from trade with other species. This monopoly is additional reason for other governmental organisations such as GalFederation etc to be fairly envious and threatened and likely to force such a region limiting treaty and be offhandish.

I also go with the idea that Thargons treat witchspace as their's.

Phantor Gorth
(Paul)

[PhantorGorth]

Cmdr James wrote:

Guys, there is quite a bit of work done on this already, with a timeline working elite, and frontier together, and lots of thought gone into explaining things such as non-newtonian physics, and the relationships between species.

I think it might be worth looking into things like http://hughesd.co.uk/elite/unlocking_the_frontier.asp so you can focus on the areas that currently dont make sense.

I was trying to keep within this framework and flesh things out a bit. Particularly the early parts in the timeline.

Phantor Gorth
(Paul)

[Selezen]

One of the stories I have outlined in my Magic Folder deals with exactly this issue. Origin of Species.

Since it's unlikely that I'll be writing it very soon, I'll reveal the HUGE spoiler! If you like it, then feel free to adopt it.

In the early years of the 22nd century, mankind had made great leaps in space exploration and technology and had tapped into the hyperspace realm. In those days it was all very very carefully controlled and misjumps were common, with ships disappearing on a regular basis

Ruthless corporations and varying government types fought for control of space. One such corporation was TAC Biogen, a corporation that specialised in adapting Earth lifeforms for survival on other planets. They developed hybrid lifeforms by gene splicing different genetic information from a variety of Earth's creatures.

You can probably see what's coming now...

TAC Biogen had a large fleet of seeder ships that were intended to be used to seed plant and insect life onto various explored worlds in order to make them viable for either colonisation or harvesting. TAC, however, went one step further and planned to introduce thier own cloned lifeforms to worlds that already had suitable atmospheres. They designed and built a new fleet of Deep Space Cruisers that were ostensibly hyped as seeder and exploration ships with a mission to analyse planets and introduce the appropriate small life forms.

The fleet launched in the mid 22nd century (2160s or thereabouts) with a cargo of hybrid lifeforms ready for introduction. What hadn't been made public was that half of the ships' cargo was hybrid sentient life. Felinoid, insectoid, amphibian and avian, all cross developed with humanoid DNA and creating a wide variety of phenotypes ready to introduce as civilisations. The cloning and growing process included direct learning via neural links. In theory, the cloned lifeforms could be introduced to a planet with suitable atmosphere and equipment and build a sentient civilisation with what they had to hand.

The ships spread throughout local space (Galaxy 1) rapidly, usually via deliberate misjump, introducing these life-forms everywhere. There was no pattern to it, merely the random chance that misjumping introduced.

In time these colonies thrived. They developed thier own technology and were soon spacefaring races in thier own right, accelerated by the knowledge they had been given by thier unknown benefactors. None of these races knew their true origin.

In time, humanity's main colonisation and exploration efforts reached out to the group of worlds that would come to be known as the Old Worlds. One of these worlds, Diso, was home to a felinoid race that claimed to have been there for millennia. The planet Lave was colonised first, and the colony governors there made a solid alliance with the Disans, learning about the area of space they inhabited and their history.

In the late 2480s the Federation demanded that Diso be given over to them as a human colony and the Disans be relocated to another felinoid world. Diso's rich mineral andagricultural value was to blame, but the Disans resisted the action, reluctant to leave their homeworld. The humans on Lave agreed and refused to back such an action. In 2491 The Federation retaliated in force, sending a fleet to capture Diso. The Lave colony and other human colonies in the Old Worlds region stood with the Disans and fought off the invading Federal forces. The battle was short and violent and many were lost on both sides. Eventually the colonists prevailed and the Federation retreated. The worlds in that region declared thier independence from the Federation and declared that they would stand against any such attempt to annexe worlds of the non-humanoid races by any government. They stood for independence and fair treatment to all. They formed the Far Colonies Alliance and sent envoys to every non-human world to ask them to join in a mutual defence pact. This was highly successful and many worlds joined, including a high number of human colonies who agreed with the stand the FCA was taking against the increasingly xenophobic Federation.

The Far Colonies Alliance grew, becoming one of the largest and fastest growing governments in known space. Members signed up from regions far from the Old Worlds area, including other Galaxies (as they were thought to be back then), and the name Far Colonies Alliance seemed to be outdated. A new, more galaxy-spanning name seemed apt.

The Galactic Co-operative of Worlds was born...

ironically, this is stuff that will be dealt with in the next but one story - an old DSC is found in Galaxy 3 and the whole history is discovered.

I'll be posting this stuff to my site soon, now that it's public...

Other comments:

There are millions of unpopulated worlds in the Elite universe. They just aren't shown on maps. What would be the point? The Dark Wheel showed that there were worlds in existence that were not shown on the maps. Federation and Imperial worlds are not shown either. Note that Elite shows a map of member planets, not systems - systems may contain other planets that are either not inhabited or not members of GalCop.

Humans are listed in Elite as Human /Colonials/... Thus ALL humans are colonists, originally from Earth/Federation.

Thargons (or Thargoids, to name them properly) are insectoids. Whether or not they were part of the original genetic experiments is open to debate, but I personally didn't include them. In the galaxy at large there are some native species out there, and I think the Thargoids should be one of them. Having said that, maybe they found out long ago that they were an abandoned human experiment. Maybe not though.

Galaxy 1 is indeed adjacent to the region of Sol. I have a map that shown exactly where the G1 map is in relation to Earth. Note that Achenar (home of the Empire) is actually within the boundaries of G1!

I think I went over once before what happens to the other races between the events of Elite and Frontier. If I haven't put it online publically then let me know and I'll do it. It covers what actually happens to bring GalCop crashing down and how things change so much between Elite and Frontier in more detail than the UTF stuff.

I have a second timeline document that I haven't made public, since it covers the timeline and events of my stories (including ones I have outlined but not written yet). Since my writing time is decreasing by the day, I might publish it for people to see and use if they want. I never thought that the original Unlocking the Frontier stuff would be so widely used! Thanks, guys!

[PhantorGorth]

That's an interesting take on the origin of species as I hadn't considered genetic modification as a source.

There are millions of unpopulated worlds in the Elite universe. They just aren't shown on maps.

I agree but I was referring to the worlds inside the space of each "galaxy". Each "galaxy" is a box only 102.4 light years across by half that tall. (and maybe less than 20 light years thick if I assume the 2D map is just a projection of a 3D reality) My study of Astrophysics lets me know that there are not that many star systems in a volume that big only 60-ish light years from Earth. In the density of stars in each "galaxy" being 256 is not wildly out for the part of the Milky Way Earth is situated. The numbers probably double or triple if you include dim brown dwarf systems and bottom end red dwarves. Just like Frontier I can not see the 8 "Galaxies" as anything but sectors embedded in our larger real galaxy the Milky Way. When I mentioned no unpopulated systems I was trying to get at was that the system marked on the maps are advanced colonised worlds. Their population figures in the billions indicate that. I used that say that this fits in with the worlds surrounding the "galaxies" will be populated too. I then extended that with the idea that each of the 9 "friendly" species had zones of expansion around different "galaxies".

Humans are listed in Elite as Human /Colonials/... Thus ALL humans are colonists, originally from Earth/Federation.

I am aware of this and I haven't said otherwise. Are you refering to Humanoids which I am treating as not Humans but a species that looks vaguely like us?

Galaxy 1 is indeed adjacent to the region of Sol. I have a map that shown exactly where the G1 map is in relation to Earth. Note that Achenar (home of the Empire) is actually within the boundaries of G1!

This again assumes that we want to be 100% consistent Frontier. I would like to be, but even so Achenar could be above or below GalCo-op space boundary as well as the possibly being in it.

I actually have an reason in bringing all this up. I have downloaded the trunk and I am in the process of mapping what I need to do to the code to expand the 8 galaxies into a full blown 3D map of the Milky Way (like Infinity) that still keeps the GalCo-op regions in it. In the process of doing this I had thoughts into what would be in the space not in those 8 regions and how did the populated worlds end up being so dense and with so many species.

I think I went over once before what happens to the other races between the events of Elite and Frontier. If I haven't put it online publically then let me know and I'll do it. It covers what actually happens to bring GalCop crashing down and how things change so much between Elite and Frontier in more detail than the UTF stuff.

I didn't think all of this was completely set in stone which if I read you right you indicate it is. I am only suggesting variations on the themes you and others have described.

Phantor Gorth
(Paul)

[Lestradae]

I actually have an reason in bringing all this up. I have downloaded the trunk and I am in the process of mapping what I need to do to the code to expand the 8 galaxies into a full blown 3D map of the Milky Way (like Infinity) that still keeps the GalCo-op regions in it.

Are you talking ingame?

...





L

[Cmd. Cheyd]

Got a crazy idea reading this, and you guys can toss it around or dismiss it out of hand as you see fit...

What about combining some of the ideas here with the idea of charts PAST #8...
What if those charts (9+) are the Empire's & Federation's territories? You travel to G8, buy a "Visa" to enter Empiral space, and they provide you with new navigation charts for your systems.

Or- If we could get trunk support (rather than just OXP), we could make it so that we could change from GalCop to Empiral charts (and thereby change the Galaxy Seed or what have you to Galaxy# + 8 ), and still use the G1-8 system to navigate within that political body's systems. Federation could become G# + 16.

Okay, that gives the basic idea... I gotta get back to work now...

[overmage]

I noted there is no explanation for the origin of the 'stable wormholes'. I would like to surmise that the Thargoids have something to do with them intimately...

[PhantorGorth]

Lestradae wrote:

Are you talking ingame?

No I am not. I was going to do galaxy octtree for The Elite Project but never got anywhere (I was just too lazy ) . I have the basic algorithm concepts and I have been currently looking into how to integrate the idea with the existing code and scripting without breaking too much. It was thinking about this and its implications that also led me to starting this thread. I would discuss this more but that's not for this thread.

Phantor Gorth
(Paul)

[PhantorGorth]

I noted there is no explanation for the origin of the 'stable wormholes'. I would like to surmise that the Thargoids have something to do with them intimately...

Agreed. Personally I think that we haven't seen half of what the Thargoids are capable of and the battles with GalCop are just minor skirmishes to them. They have plans and priorities we have no inkling of.

[overmage]

It might also explain why the stable wormhole connecting Galaxies One and Two collapsed shortly after the destruction of the Thargoid threat

[PhantorGorth]

Here are my ideas as a diagram:

Ooniverse Map with Species Idea.pdf

Phantor Gorth
(Paul)

Edit 25/4/2017 - fixed url on link to file