If there were to be another Elite novel...

[drew]

...and this is by no means a promise that this will occur (before anyone jumps to conclusions). Consider this a 'what if'.

I'd be very interested to know what areas of Elite: Dangerous folks would like to see featured.

My thoughts include big things like the 'Alliance' (who I think deserve some love), clearly aspects of 'Horizons' (notably planetary landings) and the upcoming series of expansions, perhaps the Powerplay characters themselves to flesh them out as characters a little. I also think putting in some of the antics of player led factions, notable CMDRs and referencing some of the community goals might be fun.

A book gives the opportunity to delve rather more deeply into what is going on behind the scenes, so...

Over to you - what sort of things would you folks like to see?

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Voyager_NL]

The mystery surrounding barnacles... but that would probably be off-limits for you.

 

[Freebird]

The Great War of Lugh, one of the first player created events.

 

[drew]

The Great War of Lugh, one of the first player created events.

Love that idea.

Cheers,

Drew.

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The mystery surrounding barnacles... but that would probably be off-limits for you.

A book would come out 'after' the events occurred in game in all probability, so that might not be impossible.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Goose4291]

An attempt to balance some of the retcons and discrepancies we've had with lore adjustment in the last year (such as: the birthing of female duval children, and it's acceptance by a culture that opposed the idea until the last 50 or so years).

Additionally, if not set prior to the present timeline, incorporation of events as they've happened so far.

 

[Kzak]

Possibly a novel that goes into detail about the Alliance. Also, maybe about Sirius Corp? Secret projects underway a long distance from the bubble of civilization. What better place to conduct off-the-records activities than space stations that aren't found on the common maps?

 

[brumster]

I'd like to see a story follow a lowly drinks vending machine engineer on a Generation ship that suffers a radiation leak that kills off most of the crew...

Oh wait, hold on....

 

[drew]

An attempt to balance some of the retcons and discrepancies we've had with lore adjustment in the last year (such as: the birthing of female duval children, and it's acceptance by a culture that opposed the idea until the last 50 or so years).

Additionally, if not set prior to the present timeline, incorporation of events as they've happened so far.

Yes, a book is well placed to deal with lore 'updates/discrepancies'. The Duval line is a good example. Including a 'timeline' of sorts in a published work should come with Dave Hughes' Elite RPG.

 

[Arubeto]

I'd love to see PowerPlay characters and major story lines and events created or at least triggered by the ED community - Distant Worlds comes to mind - be mentioned in a new ED novel, but I am not sure about specifically including gameplay mechanics like planetary landings or some things coming up in season 2. I did like "Elite: Legacy" by Michael Brookes, but sometimes I thought all the PIP handling and description of ship mechanics went a little too far and sounded a little forced and game manual like. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed your "Reclamation" novel so much: it incorporated stuff like landing on planets, but didn't centred around it, making those mechanics themselves important plot parts. I think those should be included naturally, but - for example - emphasizing on engineers as something new and special in a novel would feel strange, since I like to belief they have always been part of the game world but just now we get access to them, so making them the centrepiece of a narrative might feel kind of unnatural.

Sorry for the confuse rambling, just typed exactly what came to my mind as a response to your questions without any prior filtering taking place

Edit: I think it would be cool if CQC could be integrated as some kind of "future e-sport" in a novel to better tie it into the lore of the game world. Shouldn't be too forced, but perhaps a character could be a CQC champion or something similar and his career in that e-sport could influence his standing in public etc.

 

[drew]

Possibly a novel that goes into detail about the Alliance. Also, maybe about Sirius Corp? Secret projects underway a long distance from the bubble of civilization. What better place to conduct off-the-records activities than space stations that aren't found on the common maps?

Alliance definitely needs some love. Sirius Corp is a nice big entity that could be up to all sorts of interesting shenanigans. Secrets projects: yes, absolutely.

Cheers,

Drew.

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I'd like to see a story follow a lowly drinks vending machine engineer on a Generation ship that suffers a radiation leak that kills off most of the crew...

Oh wait, hold on....

That sounds vaguely familiar... Plenty of 'M' class stars in the galaxy though.

Cheers,

Drew.

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I'd love to see PowerPlay characters and major story lines and events created or at least triggered by the ED community - Distant Worlds comes to mind - be mentioned in a new ED novel, but I am not sure about specifically including gameplay mechanics like planetary landings or some things coming up in season 2. I did like "Elite: Legacy" by Michael Brookes, but sometimes I thought all the PIP handling and description of ship mechanics went a little too far and sounded a little forced and game manual like. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed your "Reclamation" novel so much: it incorporated stuff like landing on planets, but didn't centred around it, making those mechanics themselves important plot parts. I think those should be included naturally, but - for example - emphasizing on engineers as something new and special in a novel would feel strange, since I like to belief they have always been part of the game world but just now we get access to them, so making them the centrepiece of a narrative might feel kind of unnatural.

Sorry for the confuse rambling, just typed exactly what came to my mind as a response to your questions without any prior filtering taking place

I hear what you're saying. The planet landing scenes in ER were 'nods' to players of FE2 and FFE, (along with being crossroad points in the story). I mostly focus on characters anyway, so fleshing out the PowerPlayers and the engineers would be done from a perspective of making them less flat and two-dimensional. It would be fun to see what Aisling and Denton got up to behind the scenes, so to speak!

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

both of the above ideas sound great, and i would read either!. (even though i have still not read reclamation yet )

Obvious choice of course would be something Thargoid related but that may be hard to do given they have not been introduced to the game yet (i suppose it would depend on when FD plan on introducing them).

Trying to think outside of the box, something bridging 1st encounters through to "modern day" Elite dangerous could be nice.

so it could start from the peace pact made with the thargoids at the end of 1st encounters (I am rusty on the details myself, well it has been 20 years since i played it!!!) and cover such things as the new hyperdrives, possibly with some tales of adventure as they are tested in the early days,

maybe even reminiscing further back to the technology between elite and Frontier which made the galactic hyperdrive obsolete

and what ever happened to the space dredgers? (I believe Michael B already has generation ships covered)

 

[drew]

so it could start from the peace pact made with the thargoids at the end of 1st encounters (I am rusty on the details myself, well it has been 20 years since i played it!!!) and cover such things as the new hyperdrives, possibly with some tales of adventure as they are tested in the early days,

I like this idea.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Y'Berion]

Something about lost human colony who came in contact with completely unknown alien life form (not the boring ol` Thargoids), which turned them into some sort of strange hybrid race with unknown powers and intentions. Or something along these lines. Mistery, paranoia, doubtfulness, fear... that's the kind of stuff I would love to read.

Political mumbo-jumbo is probably something I'd skip altogether. Plenty of that in RL already.

 

[drew]

Something about lost human colony who came in contact with completely unknown alien life form (not the boring ol` Thargoids), which turned them into some sort of strange hybrid race with unknown powers and intentions. Or something along these lines. Mistery, paranoia, doubtfulness, fear... that's the kind of stuff I would love to read.

Interesting idea, though probably quite hard to fit with the ED lore/universe as it currently stands. You'd have to have a rationale for the colony - though perhaps a generation ship would do it.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Y'Berion]

Yeah, one of the old, long forgotten generation ships should play starting role [smile]

 

[Goose4291]

You see this is what confuses me a little. This thargoid peace accord everyone talks about never actually happened as far as I'm aware.

Basically the way first Encounters end to me was the thargoid's sold you a sob story that they weren't the ones who started the war and begged you to go get the cure so they could fix their bioengineering hyper drives as they couldn't get it themselves (due to INARA heroically neutering the theat they posed).

Like a patsy you willingly oblige and get the cure at which point they promise to the player that theyll be good, give you a ship (which marks you out as a traitor to your race) and dissappear again (to no doubt recoup their strength)

Since then in official lore the only interaction I've read involving them is their attacking of a science lab and dissecting it's occupants, man woman and child alike.

Hardly the nice image people keep painting in their minds eye of them.

 

[Y'Berion]

Here's another one, Drew, coming from another thread: Mars terraforming. According to timeline, it took humanity just one century to turn that dry, cold, airless (and without magnetic field) desert into life-thriving blue planet much like the Earth. How? If I am not mistaken, this endeavour of epic proportions has not been covered properly in lore, if at all.

Actually, this might be better material for scientific chronicles. Which is another thing we badly need because so many technical stuff is only vaguely explained - or haven't even been touched.

 

[Jon flint]

Yeah, one of the old, long forgotten generation ships should play starting role [smile]

Ninja'd

This would have been in my wishlist too. Also as another poster said, something about the early days/testing of our current hyper drive tech. Pushing out the frontiers etc...

 

[Certacito]

I'd like to see a story follow a lowly drinks vending machine engineer on a Generation ship that suffers a radiation leak that kills off most of the crew...

Oh wait, hold on....

They're all dead brumster!

 

[Deleted member 38366]

I'd like to see more of the generally overlooked things we currently take for granted or plain accept "as is". And those things that otherwise may go unnoticed/don't have visibility right now.

Ships and their success Story - or their failure, including designs that never made it (think concept art for inspiration).

Some key Equipment, technical side of story to show "why things work the way they work" (Scanners, targeting Mechanics & limitations, Stations, Outposts (think of the different types) etc.).

Planetary Settlements and their evolution - how they became what they are now.

Super-Remote Outposts, incl. those that lack a Commodities Market. Why? What drove some of them to construct at such uncompetivite Distances? (AFAIK, so far we only know the background of Hutton)

Stories revolving around either large Player Groups (Lugh already mentioned), but also about lone Individuals i.e. that set Exploration records or made otherwise notable achievements. What's their story? What drove them to go beyond anything anyone else had done before them?

"The Fallen" - background stories about Individuals that took drastic changes in their ways... What made a once peaceful Trader become a rogue, Pirate or even a feared Terrorist?

The Canonn (as far as Spoilers can be avoided) should make for a good Reading for sure, I imagine there's tons of material specifically here. All their attempts, persistence against all odds and the brainstormings that eventually lead to a solution while trying to identify & solve the mysteries and puzzles.

PS.
On the Individual stories, I could imagine Aliases being used and the story based on their actual experiences & background for the content part.