Fiction Where's Aliens?

Cmdr Eagleboy · Nov 8, 2013

So I am reading "Dark Wheel" for first time. I still in the middle of the process, and so far it has been enjoyable experience and I see why it has inspired so many people.

However, what stroke me was that book explains lot of details which contradict current lore - like aliens. If I am not mistaken, there's humans and that other, not worthy mention insectoid race, but nothing else. But book speaks about other alien races. But as far as I understand by Fiction diaries, there's just humans out there.

What I am missing? I know that Elite happens to have several galaxies, not just huge one. It also gets mention in "Dark Wheel".

Cody · Nov 8, 2013

The felines, rodents, etc only appear in the original Elite (for which TDW was written) - not in Frontier.
There were eight 'galaxies' - but only 256 star systems in each. History has been re-written - again!

Arexack · Nov 8, 2013

I'm rooting for a gradual creep back to the original background, with intelligent aliens, several seperated stargroups and Galcoop running the show. Feds and Imps reduced to the punchline in anti-human racist jokes.

Also: trumbles.

All in good fun.

Aewarin Jameson · Nov 8, 2013

Like a "reboot" that they do with films ?

Haven't read the book myself so I can't really comment - all I remember from Elite was humans, thargoids, and trumbles.

Darren Grey · Nov 8, 2013

The only intelligent aliens are humans and the insectoids. There are other alien animals though.

Cody · Nov 8, 2013

Liqua said:
... all I remember from Elite was humans, thargoids, and trumbles.

Try Oolite - then you might encounter NPC pilots such as Dith Ouonnu, the green bug-eyed bird from Tiared.

Razorwire · Nov 8, 2013

I kinda liked the original, with intelligent blue hairy frogs and hoopy casinos etc, but I guess a human-only (thargoids aside) universe like Frontier and FFE is easier on the art team...

Cody · Nov 8, 2013

Yeah... not to mention the edible arts graduates.

Arexack · Nov 8, 2013

Cody said:
Try Oolite - then you might encounter NPC pilots such as Dith Ouonnu, the green bug-eyed bird from Tiared.

Or
Captain Hesperus - a Grey Feline bountyhunter and trumblepusher,
Daddy Hoggy - A black fat avian of mystery with a huge love of shiney things.

good times

@Darren Grey: For now, mister Grey, for now. One can always hope, it is a big galaxy after all.

Cody · Nov 8, 2013

Arexack said:
One can always hope, it is a big galaxy after all.

Maybe it's simply a parallel universe.

GalCop is perhaps one of the most amenable of interstellar alliances. They are proud to state that they have peaceful relations with nearly every other organisation that they share space with. The most notable exceptions to this are the Galactic Federation (who still harbour ill-feeling regarding the secession) and the Empire of Achenar, who share much of the same space with GalCop worlds.

Those who train as GalCop commercial pilots are proud to make themselves available as reserve navy pilots in case of enemy invasion. It is this fact that has driven a wedge between GalCop and the Empire of Achenar, since the latter organisation claims that this provides GalCop with an unfeasibly large standing offensive force.

T. James · Nov 9, 2013

Having worked with Frontier on the Thargoid Guidebook for the writers, I can confirm that, at this stage, the only space-faring races are the Thargoids and humans.

I don't believe Frontier are planning to introduce any more races with what we would recognise as a culture, but they may change their minds at a later date - only they know the future of the Eliteverse.

Cmdr Eagleboy · Nov 9, 2013

T. James said:
Having worked with Frontier on the Thargoid Guidebook for the writers, I can confirm that, at this stage, the only space-faring races are the Thargoids and humans.

I don't believe Frontier are planning to introduce any more races with what we would recognise as a culture, but they may change their minds at a later date - only they know the future of the Eliteverse.

Is this timeline official?

http://daftworks.co.uk/elite/index.php/Galactic_Timeline

I had hard time to buy in into disappearance of alien races and connections to other galaxies, but it's better than nothing

Cody · Nov 9, 2013

Pecisk said:
Is this timeline official?

As stated, the green text is conjectural - and I doubt that it's official, as history has been re-written.

T. James · Nov 9, 2013

Pecisk said:
Is this timeline official?
http://daftworks.co.uk/elite/index.php/Galactic_Timeline

I had hard time to buy in into disappearance of alien races and connections to other galaxies, but it's better than nothing

As Cody says: most of the timeline was completed before the current flurry of fiction and re-imagining took place, so it's content may or may not be accurate. A quote from the timeline's creator, David Hughes sums it up:

This timeline is gradually being rendered obsolete by the continuing evolution of the Elite: Dangerous back-story.

David is one of the writers who has been collaborating with Frontier on the history - so he should know.

Commander Mick · Nov 9, 2013

Nonononononononononononononononononono

Abysinth · Nov 9, 2013

Where are the Aliens?

This is the Human Race,

We wiped them out...

All of them...

(Well, nearly, one race left

)

Andrew Sayers · Nov 9, 2013

You might be interested in an old thread on this topic. While somewhat out-of-date by now, it has some great insights from Dave Hughes (Selezen).

Cmdr Eagleboy · Nov 9, 2013

So....alien creatures, but not sentient beings. Well, I could buy that. Also aliens in "Dark Wheel" feel quite 'stuck on' just because of Star Wars.

drew · Nov 10, 2013

This is quite an interesting one.

In the original Elite, planet descriptions were very basic and procedurally generated, so you'd have random <colour, <lifeform>, famed for their <verb>, <noun> and cursed by <another noun>. Or something along those lines.

The Dark Wheel indicated that the universe was filed with sentient lifeforms (Felines, Insectoids, Amphibians, etc). The story tells of interactions with these lifeforms.

In the original Elite there were 8 galaxies (and a rumoured 9th) with 256 stars each. You reached each galaxy by galactic hyperspace. (A one shot piece of equipment)

In FE2 those lifeforms had all disappeared entirely without any explanation. In FFE the Thargoids returned as an Ammonia based life-form. Neither FE2 or FFE featured galactic hyperspace.

Dave Hughes tried to reconcile this as a fan with his original timeline. I wrote Incursio and Finis to explain what happened to all those Alien lifeforms (and the demise of galactic hyperspace) - it sort of fits with established canon if you squint a bit.

As for Elite: Dangerous, as has already been pointed out, those alien lifeforms (with the exception of the Thargoids) are not the same.

The official rationalisation is that the descriptions in 'Elite' indicated the dominant type of life on the planet, but that they weren't sentient. So there are blue bony felines, they just can't throw you witty one liners.

Cheers,

Drew.

Jean-Marc Cipullo · Nov 10, 2013

T. James said:
Having worked with Frontier on the Thargoid Guidebook for the writers, I can confirm that, at this stage, the only space-faring races are the Thargoids and humans.

I don't believe Frontier are planning to introduce any more races with what we would recognise as a culture, but they may change their minds at a later date - only they know the future of the Eliteverse.

Well this is indeed a disappointment.
The universe in the original Elite had a multitude of aliens and now we have just 2 races in the new BIGGER (much much much BIGGER) Elite???

Just 2 races in the universe?

I think we should ask the opinions of Paul Hellyer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_umkpnt1Dg

and Sgt. Clifford Stone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ING_9tsq_WA