Oolite Bulletins

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".

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".

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.

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.

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.

Selezen's Origin Of Species wrote:

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...

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

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

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.

PhantorGorth wrote:

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?

overmage wrote: wrote:

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...