Community Event / Creation Implications of AD 3300

[drew]

Just found out about he PCGamesN article. That'll teach me for not keeping up with twitter.

Interested to see the date has been fixed at 3300 AD, 50 years after FFE. So technology will have moved on. That's 100 years after FE2, which is quite a length of time. And perhaps 175 years beyond original Elite if you consider Elite to be set in 3125 by rough calculation of grandfather Jameson's age.

Clearly new ships and technologies. Humanity should have spread out much further too. What else do you think might have happened given the passage of time?

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Allen Stroud]

Ummm, 3300 isn't fifty years after FFE. The FFE timeline goes to 3296 with Phekdra's joining of the Alliance.

The article and general reading around it suggests some time in the 3300s (approximately fifty years after FFE),so your point is right, but lets be a bit careful on exactly which year we're talking about before its entirely official.

 

[Brian]

50 years after FFE. So technology will have moved on. That's 100 years after FE2, which is quite a length of time. And perhaps 175 years beyond original Elite.

I played the original Elite, and that just makes me feel really really old...

Brian

 

[drew]

Ummm, 3300 isn't fifty years after FFE. The FFE timeline goes to 3296 with Phekdra's joining of the Alliance.

The article and general reading around it suggests some time in the 3300s (approximately fifty years after FFE),so your point is right, but lets be a bit careful on exactly which year we're talking about before its entirely official.

I'm not so up on my FFE, is this timeline online somewhere? FFE (the game) started in 3250 though, yes?

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Allen Stroud]

Last two paragraphs from the Phekdra entry in the Frontier First Encounters manual, quoted below:

---

A new government was never fully formed. The remaining four million lived in almost tribal communities. Corporations that had been tapping the natural resources returned, and Experiment and Topaz were re-terraformed. The system had collapsed into a state of stable anarchy, and the corporations had to do their own policing. The last attempt at forming a civilian government was in 3145, and was almost successful, but sadly the system once again lapsed into anarchy only a few years later. This state remained until January 3296, when once again, dissatisfaction with the often corrupt corporate management of the system incited the population to rebel.

The latest rebellion was relatively bloodless, the corporations taken completely by surprise. A new Phekda civilian government has formed, and immediately began the procedure to join the Alliance of Independent Systems. Phekda is currently a provisional member of the AIS, receiving full AIS privileges on the understanding that full entry criteria will be met by 3298. With the rule of law and order restored, and help from other Alliance members, Phekda’s future once again looks as bright as its primary star.

---

This implies the game started in 3297.

 

[Cthulhus]

It's logic, by adding 50+ years, the ED team will solve some technical details about the ships logic...

The ship must be logical. For example, in FFE/FE2, some vessels were too small in relation to the cargo transported (Anaconda, Panther ...)

On the ED, now, users can see the ship from the outside and from inside.

So to justify major changes in the design of ships, add 50 years is a good thing.

 

[Susimetsa]

Technology does not seem to evolve very quickly in the Elite universe. Remember that FFE still had ship models from c. 400 years ago in everyday use (Cobra Mk I etc.). 50 years is not very much in that context...

 

[Crayfish]

It seems as though the technological level in Elite has reached a plateaux. That makes a lot of sense really, we currently live in an unprecedented age in terms of technological development. Compare that to the hundreds of years in the past when the sword was the peak of close combat technology.

 

[Darren Grey]

It doesn't make any sense to me really - technology evolution is constantly accelerating, and I can only imagine it being moreso when society has spread to the galactic scale. The only possible explanation is insane bureaucracy severely limiting the allowed ship designs and research. But in general it's a game, it's fictional, it doesn't matter too much.

An important advance in terms of technology is near-instant hyperspace engines (necessary for multiplayer) and short range hyperspace. I'd be interested in knowing if there's any negative effects from the increased use of hyperspace... From the videos it looks like weapons have changed a little too, with beam lasers being rarer (maybe not existing?) and rapid pulse lasers in frequent use. Hard to tell how that'll be in the final game. Ships seem capable of carrying far more missiles than before too.

In general I imagine the tech will be very similar to the old games, because that's what gamers will expect and FD may not want to rock the boat too much. Certainly so far the ships and all seem very similar.

The advances in relations between Federation and Empire will be of interest, of course, and any further relations with the Thargoids.

 

[AlexGS]

Last two paragraphs from the Phekdra entry in the Frontier First Encounters manual, quoted below:

That's actually from the fan-produced "expanded manual" for First Encounters that's available online, but it isn't in the original manual, which doesn't mention any dates later than when the game begins in 3250.

The expanded manual is a nice replacement, with lots of interesting stuff in it, but most of it is firmly in fan-fic territory.

 

[Andrew Sayers]

Minor bit of trivia, but potentially important - 3300 is not a leap year. I'd expect Frontier to set the game in something like 3302 or 3306 so they don't get a ton of errant bug reports every February 29th.

 

[Apatura Iris]

It doesn't make any sense to me really - technology evolution is constantly accelerating, and I can only imagine it being moreso when society has spread to the galactic scale. The only possible explanation is insane bureaucracy severely limiting the allowed ship designs and research.

Ohmygod. You're saying the EU have slapped State aid restrictions on ship development...

Am now expecting an Elite development update in the coming year explaining that sorry chaps, the Cobra Mk.IV isn't happening because 1250 years previously some faceless bureaucrats in Brussels decided to slap a restriction on a publicly-funded grant to a Cambridge-based future technology company on the basis that there wasn't enough private match-funding and, as it stood, that meant all other developers would be at a competitive disadvantage in an open market.

Please god tell me it ain't so...

Jon

 

[Allen Stroud]

Maybe Faucon deLacy did a Kickstarter to fund it...

 

[Mullhew]

Oh a Cobra Mk IV.... I want to see that! C'mon Faucon deLacy - get those AI's designing please!

NOTE: Stuff the EU. Get the Faucon deLacy offices on Lave to do it

 

[Darren Grey]

Ohmygod. You're saying the EU have slapped State aid restrictions on ship development...

I'm more thinking that the Federation and Empire failed to come to an agreement with the independant spaceship registry body on the allowed designs of ships, resulting in a complete freeze in new ship research. The impasse came about over a disagreement over a new standard of class 4 military drive, though of course rumours abound over private developments in each side.

 

[drew]

That's actually from the fan-produced "expanded manual" for First Encounters that's available online, but it isn't in the original manual, which doesn't mention any dates later than when the game begins in 3250.

The expanded manual is a nice replacement, with lots of interesting stuff in it, but most of it is firmly in fan-fic territory.

I thought FFE was 3250!

So that lot is probably not 'canon'. I guess we'll have to wait for Michael's "Writers' Bible" before we go too far...

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Fermats Folly]

It doesn't make any sense to me really - technology evolution is constantly accelerating,

That's been true for, say, the last couple of hundred years but that doesn't mean it has to continue that way indefinitely. There have been periods in history when technological progress has gone backwards (such as after the fall of Rome). I think it would make a richer backdrop if there had been some sort of war, revolution or upheaval when progress had slowed or even stopped.

 

[Mobius]

What else do you think might have happened given the passage of time?

Cheers,

Drew.

Ok let’s change it from tech to something else something completely outside the box.

By the 34th Century all religions that exist today have long gone, since Science proved beyond all doubt that the whole universe was created by the collision of 3 different dimensions and that evolution was a natural process of the so called Big Bang, but because of this a new dominant Religion formed that believes that 3 deities form the 3 dimensions had a almighty battle and the end result was our universe.

This leads to the fact that regardless of science man still feels that even though the one god no longer exists we now have three.

I’m sure if you were to include this you could come up with some insane beliefs.

 

[Crayfish]

It doesn't make any sense to me really - technology evolution is constantly accelerating, and I can only imagine it being moreso when society has spread to the galactic scale.

My common sense tells me that technological advancement cannot possibly constantly accelerate forever. That's where the notion of the technological singularity comes from.

At some point in the future we will know pretty much all there is to know about the physical world and all the processes we can use to affect it. We will know all our limitations (7.7ly per hyperspace jump) and life will go on with technology advancing only very slowly and in a limited way within those limitations.

We live in an unprecedented age of technological development. There's no reason to believe this rate of advancement is normal.

 

[Mobius]

My common sense tells me that technological advancement cannot possibly constantly accelerate forever.

A well know example of technology not advancing is the Star Wars universe,

we have tales from the old republic and 4000 years later we have the star wars we all know, and as far as I can tell not allot has changed.