Elite - Elite Dangerous: A few things that are valid and not valid

[Allen Stroud]

Emerging from the recent discussions on newly discovered aliens was a request or two to know what wasn't valid from the original Elite (1984) game.

I've tried to lay out a few things below that people can dismiss or speculate about. I've also tried not to give spoilers or reveal anything Frontier haven't already confirmed, that's really not my place. In my mind, speculation is healthy and we want people playing the game, not squirrelling away to a random blog to find out things, but when you can't find these things out, you do need a place to go. Best place = the game and after that, forums I think.

Some of the bits below include later versions of Elite on the Atari and the Amiga.

Elite

1. Eight Galaxies - no longer valid. Just the little region known as the Old Worlds remained in Frontier: Elite 2, Frontier: First Encounters and in Elite Dangerous.
2. Alien civilisations on all the planets - no longer valid.
3. Commander Jameson. Yes, he lived and left Lave Station in 3125, which was (is) the fixed date for the game.
4. Thargoid encounters. The Witchspace/Hyperspace encounters remain part of canon, although the term 'witchspace' isn't used anymore. There's a good correlation to what's going on now.
5. Ship first construction dates - I'm pretty sure these are still valid.
6. Corporations mentioned in the manual - These were all carefully recorded and written up for Elite Dangerous
7. Ship Equipment. A certain amount of handwavium here.
8. Hoopy's casino (Elite Plus?)- exists in the history.
9. No artificial gravity in space - still valid. Rotation only.
10. Ships. All designs are valid, as to whether they are in game or not, that's up to Frontier.
11. Generation ships - written into the history, so yep.
12. Dredgers - I think so.
13. Trumbles - I don't think a decision was made...
14. Commodities. Most are in the current game. Market is much expanded.
15. Thargoid documents mission. Don't see why not.
16. Destroy station held by Thargoids mission. Might have happened, but there's no record in public history. Might have been recorded as a gas explosion?
17. Destroy the Constrictor Mission. Don't see why not.
18. Save a Station from a Super Nova - pretty sure its in the history.
19. Destroy the Cougar. See comment above about ships. Would love to see this back in game, although the name has other connotations now...lol

These are just a few I could remember. If people want other answers, I'll try to help with those.

 

[EidLeWeise]

When we travel from one star system to another, are we interacting with what was called Witchspace in Elite?

 

[Allen Stroud]

As i said, the name in parlance is now Hyperspace (I think personally the name change was a bit of a shame).

Holdstock's description of the experience really does feel just like what you go through though (as in the visuals designed by the folks at Frontier) and yes it would be the same as was in the original, not a different jump method.

 

[Commander Thane]

10. Ships. All designs are valid, as to whether they are in game or not, that's up to Frontier.

Wait, is this where I stand up and shout "MERLIN!?"

 

[Alien]

13. Tribbles - I don't think a decision was made...

Don't you mean Trumbles? "Tribbles" was Star Trek, and "Trumbles" was in Elite in the Elite Plus versions onward (I don't recall ever seeing them in the C64 version).

 

[Allen Stroud]

Wait, is this where I stand up and shout "MERLIN!?"

Pretty much, yes. Or we shout WOLF! KRAIT! etc...lol

- - - Updated - - -

Don't you mean Trumbles? "Tribbles" was Star Trek, and "Trumbles" was in Elite in the Elite Plus versions onward (I don't recall ever seeing them in the C64 version).

I do indeed. I'll correct. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

do you know if there is an actual lore reason why our ships are all empty (computer upgrades or something?), or is it just a waiting game whilst FD flesh out the game more...

ie in older games we had to employ the crew before i could even take off complete with wages. I still go on the assumption that its in progress, however possibly its already working as intended/

thanks.

PS the krait would make an excellent small fighter

 

[Allen Stroud]

do you know if there is an actual lore reason why our ships are all empty (computer upgrades or something?), or is it just a waiting game whilst FD flesh out the game more...

I think we're waiting. Any explanation would be temporary. There's a nice diversion into all things automated and from there all things AI, which will be an interesting discussion in 2017 with regards to the roleplaying game.

PS the krait would make an excellent small fighter

The Krait features in Lave Revolution, so its still canon. It wasn't a fighter. The wingtip lances were aerial pylons.

 

[Spacemarkl]

Don't you mean Trumbles? "Tribbles" was Star Trek, and "Trumbles" was in Elite in the Elite Plus versions onward (I don't recall ever seeing them in the C64 version).

Besides they should be called "Trumples" nowadays. For obvious reasons with a hard b.

 

[EidLeWeise]

What happened to make AI's illegal? How close to the line can we get?

 

[S3B4ST13N]

OT:

As i said, the name in parlance is now Hyperspace (I think personally the name change was a bit of a shame).

Personally, I'd have voted to keep Witch space, I quite like it even though it's very .. 80's sci-fi. Hyperspace, and hyperspace conduit are much more keeping with modern sci-fi I think. However, I'd have voted to rename Thargoids .. I really don't like that name, lmao.

- - - Updated - - -

The Krait features in Lave Revolution, so its still canon. It wasn't a fighter. The wingtip lances were aerial pylons.

You sure? Did it get changed?

The Krait:

Small, reliable one-man fighter, common until the standardized version of the Mamba became available in the open market. Several of these early Faulcon De Lacy designed craft may still be found in service in remote areas, but spare parts are no longer available and the need to cannibalize has reduced numbers still further in recent years.

— Description from Elite (1984) handbook

 

[Allen Stroud]

OT:



Personally, I'd have voted to keep Witch space, I quite like it even though it's very .. 80's sci-fi. Hyperspace, and hyperspace conduit are much more keeping with modern sci-fi I think. However, I'd have voted to rename Thargoids .. I really don't like that name, lmao.

Agreed. That was something I mentioned in the seminar on the Thargoids I ran at Lavecon 2016. "Thargoid" - Like a "Tharg" Who is Tharg?

EDIT - Note the gem pattern on his head?



However, I think its iconic, so no matter what's done it'll stay. Might be we call them Thargoids. We've no idea what they call themselves...

- - - Updated - - -

What happened to make AI's illegal? How close to the line can we get?

Yeah, nice try. I can't talk about that.

At the moment.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Agreed. That was something I mentioned in the seminar on the Thargoids I ran at Lavecon 2016. "Thargoid" - Like a "Tharg" Who is Tharg?

http://static5.comicvine.com/uploads/original/0/77/1807419-tharg2.jpg

EDIT - Note the gem pattern on his head?

Perhaps DB was a 2000AD fan.

However, I think its iconic, so no matter what's done it'll stay. Might be we call them Thargoids. We've no idea what they call themselves...

Not sure either, but it would probably sound like this:
[video=youtube;p06hdPTMJLo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p06hdPTMJLo[/video]

 

[madbilly]

TL;DR: Thanks Allen, more accessible canon history and continuity (or explanations) with previous games would be appreciated

Emerging from the recent discussions on newly discovered aliens was a request or two to know what wasn't valid from the original Elite (1984) game.

I've tried to lay out a few things below that people can dismiss or speculate about. I've also tried not to give spoilers or reveal anything Frontier haven't already confirmed, that's really not my place. In my mind, speculation is healthy and we want people playing the game, not squirrelling away to a random blog to find out things, but when you can't find these things out, you do need a place to go. Best place = the game and after that, forums I think.

Helpful thanks. I would agree that the best place for gamelore is the game itself, but it's very difficult to access. The web is much easier to access, for example all the Galnet articles are stored on the elitedangerous.com website. It's been suggested before and I think it's still a good suggestion - get the Elite: Dangerous history timeline on the web, then we know what it is, include everything that's currently in game as a Galnet article, and in anything like ship, system, powerplay, engineer descriptions etc. There will still be gaps to speculate about, places where we wonder "Did the Quest missions really happen" etc, but for all the things that are definitive, put them on the web where we can all easily access them.

Regarding the rest of your list, it would be nice if some of these things could be confirmed, either in game, in Galnet, in the new web repo I suggest, or even in official fiction or the RPGs that are being worked on. Or we can continue to speculate and decide what we each want to be true, e.g.:

1. Eight Galaxies - no longer valid. Just the little region known as the Old Worlds remained in Frontier: Elite 2, Frontier: First Encounters and in Elite Dangerous.

- Dave Hughes' speculation on this is pretty good. Alternatively we just consider that all 8 GalCop galaxies were still within the bubble, and not separated, i.e. GalCop does not continue to exist somewhere else in secret (not counting these "new GalCop" imposters ). When FDev have too much time on their hands they could even identify which systems in the bubble correlate with which systems in the original Elite and add the original Elite names in the system description! (like I said, when they have too much time on their hands). Or maybe GalCop does still exist somewhere else and and we will meet them one day, Krait's and all! Maybe we'll also find the unstable wormhole to the 9th galaxy as well.

2. Alien civilisations on all the planets - no longer valid.

- Or they did exist, and just like the Empire, GalCop destroyed all of them, including the amphibians and their Morays. Even the Groigans were anihilated.

3. Commander Jameson. Yes, he lived and left Lave Station in 3125, which was (is) the fixed date for the game.
4. Thargoid encounters. The Witchspace/Hyperspace encounters remain part of canon, although the term 'witchspace' isn't used anymore. There's a good correlation to what's going on now.
5. Ship first construction dates - I'm pretty sure these are still valid.
9. No artificial gravity in space - still valid. Rotation only.
11. Generation ships - written into the history, so yep.
14. Commodities. Most are in the current game. Market is much expanded.

- Agreed, no need to speculate on these things.

6. Corporations mentioned in the manual - These were all carefully recorded and written up for Elite Dangerous

- Agreed. However, I'm still trying to work out where the manufacturer and designer names that Jades used on their website and which appear in the expanded FFE manual. I emailed Jades and they said they'd get back to me, some time ago now. Any light you can shed on this would be appreciated.

7. Ship Equipment. A certain amount of handwavium here.

- Well....where've the energy bomb and galactic hyperdrive gone I agree pretty much everything else is there in one way or another. Some missing items are the transmission jammer, cloaking device, laser cooling booster, nuclear weapons (a good thing!), autopilot, combat computer and mining machines.

8. Hoopy's casino (Elite Plus?)- exists in the history.

- what do you mean "exists in the history", where is this "history" you speak of? (and I think it's Hoopy Casinos, it was one of the planet descriptions)

10. Ships. All designs are valid, as to whether they are in game or not, that's up to Frontier.

- Awesome! Well, there're a lot of contradictions in ship designs/capabilities between Elite and FE2/FFE, and also between these and ArcElite in some cases. One that springs to mind is the Boa. First it's smaller than the Anaconda, then ArcElite has the MkII, then in FE2/FFE it's enormous! In "lore" but never in game the Ophidian was a small freighter in the Dark Wheel and a generation ship in ArcElite. Personally, I don't mind these contradictions, so long as all the ships finally appear in game at some point, even the long speculated but never actually existed ones like the Mirage, I and II!

12. Dredgers - I think so.

- Would be nice to seem them though wouldn't it.

13. Tribbles - I don't think a decision was made...

- Copyright warning! Perhaps "I've been taken over by Trumbles!" will be the next clickbait headline to take over Dangerous Discussion?!

15. Thargoid documents mission. Don't see why not.
16. Destroy station held by Thargoids mission. Might have happened, but there's no record in public history. Might have been recorded as a gas explosion?
17. Destroy the Constrictor Mission. Don't see why not.
18. Save a Station from a Super Nova - pretty sure its in the history.
19. Destroy the Cougar. See comment above about ships. Would love to see this back in game, although the name has other connotations now...lol

- Would be great if these these will again appear in game as new events for people to be involved in. Or they could appear in Galnet historical articles, and would be great subjects for some official fiction.

Things still not in E: D but hopefully will appear again at some point: Rock hermits, Dodo stations, mis-jumps (forced or by chance - the recent Thargoid contact is an interdiction, not mis-jump), thargons (but we we expect them to come soon), stations/planets in lagrange and trojan points, and fuel scooping from gas giants.

Probably off-topic wishlist: Would be nice to see a humanitarian side to the Fed/Imp/Alliance where they collaborate on something like GalFam in ArcElite. With the new thargoid contact maybe the Tri-Alliance will appear in E: D, and maybe even the return of INRA! These multilateral powers could even add another dimension to the game, complementary to Powerplay and the current reputation/ranking system. Interpol could come back as a way of tracking fugutives in independent systems.

 

[Allen Stroud]

Helpful thanks. I would agree that the best place for gamelore is the game itself, but it's very difficult to access. The web is much easier to access, for example all the Galnet articles are stored on the elitedangerous.com website. It's been suggested before and I think it's still a good suggestion - get the Elite: Dangerous history timeline on the web, then we know what it is, include everything that's currently in game as a Galnet article, and in anything like ship, system, powerplay, engineer descriptions etc. There will still be gaps to speculate about, places where we wonder "Did the Quest missions really happen" etc, but for all the things that are definitive, put them on the web where we can all easily access them.

Regarding the rest of your list, it would be nice if some of these things could be confirmed, either in game, in Galnet, in the new web repo I suggest, or even in official fiction or the RPGs that are being worked on. Or we can continue to speculate and decide what we each want to be true,

Agreed, although my purpose posting this was for people to catch up a bit from old stuff to new, not to be a total encyclopaedia. The new ED RPG should have a lot of what you're asking for, but that depends on the funding campaign.

- Dave Hughes' speculation on this is pretty good. Alternatively we just consider that all 8 GalCop galaxies were still within the bubble, and not separated, i.e. GalCop does not continue to exist somewhere else in secret (not counting these "new GalCop" imposters ). When FDev have too much time on their hands they could even identify which systems in the bubble correlate with which systems in the original Elite and add the original Elite names in the system description! (like I said, when they have too much time on their hands). Or maybe GalCop does still exist somewhere else and and we will meet them one day, Krait's and all! Maybe we'll also find the unstable wormhole to the 9th galaxy as well.

Yes it is good, but its not right. Then again, everyone chooses their own storyline and what fits with their narrative consistency.

- Agreed. However, I'm still trying to work out where the manufacturer and designer names that Jades used on their website and which appear in the expanded FFE manual. I emailed Jades and they said they'd get back to me, some time ago now. Any light you can shed on this would be appreciated.

Jade's is a nightmare. there's some amazing stuff that was carefully preserved from the game and then a manual which has all sorts of fan fiction inserted. It totally blindsided me back when I started compiling the guides for the writers. I had to unpick an awful lot of work. I don't cite Jade's as a source for anything unless I can verify it.

- Well....where've the energy bomb and galactic hyperdrive gone I agree pretty much everything else is there in one way or another. Some missing items are the transmission jammer, cloaking device, laser cooling booster, nuclear weapons (a good thing!), autopilot, combat computer and mining machines.

The current in game equipment is expanding. The heat mechanics and stealth modes replicate the Cloaking Device, but with some hard skill requirements. You've got heat sinks and other things. Currently we are just talking about Elite though, not the next two games.

- what do you mean "exists in the history", where is this "history" you speak of? (and I think it's Hoopy Casinos, it was one of the planet descriptions)

I've said before, I wrote a history in the fiction guides for the writers. It collated together stuff from previous publications and worked them into a coherent Federation perspective, Empire perspective, Alliance perspective and Corporate perspective. It was submitted to Frontier and heavily edited by Michael Brookes and David Braben. It exists. We're hoping to turn it into sourcebooks for the forthcoming Elite Dangerous Roleplaying Game - http://www.edrpg.co.uk/single-post/2016/12/08/Announcing-the-Sourcebook-Writers

- Awesome! Well, there're a lot of contradictions in ship designs/capabilities between Elite and FE2/FFE, and also between these and ArcElite in some cases. One that springs to mind is the Boa. First it's smaller than the Anaconda, then ArcElite has the MkII, then in FE2/FFE it's enormous! In "lore" but never in game the Ophidian was a small freighter in the Dark Wheel and a generation ship in ArcElite. Personally, I don't mind these contradictions, so long as all the ships finally appear in game at some point, even the long speculated but never actually existed ones like the Mirage, I and II!

I personally wrote up the Ophidian from the Dark Wheel version. I think it would be great for it to appear in the roster.

- Copyright warning! Perhaps "I've been taken over by Trumbles!" will be the next clickbait headline to take over Dangerous Discussion?!

- Would be great if these these will again appear in game as new events for people to be involved in. Or they could appear in Galnet historical articles, and would be great subjects for some official fiction.

One of the things I've found from revisiting the work we did and writing short stories for the forthcoming roleplaying game is just how many potential stories, ,yths and legends there are. Have you been reading The Unexpected Guest? Its here - http://www.edrpg.co.uk/single-post/2016/12/13/The-Unexpected-Guest---Part-1

Things still not in E: D but hopefully will appear again at some point: Rock hermits, Dodo stations, mis-jumps (forced or by chance - the recent Thargoid contact is an interdiction, not mis-jump), thargons (but we we expect them to come soon), stations/planets in lagrange and trojan points, and fuel scooping from gas giants.

Probably off-topic wishlist: Would be nice to see a humanitarian side to the Fed/Imp/Alliance where they collaborate on something like GalFam in ArcElite. With the new thargoid contact maybe the Tri-Alliance will appear in E: D, and maybe even the return of INRA! These multilateral powers could even add another dimension to the game, complementary to Powerplay and the current reputation/ranking system. Interpol could come back as a way of tracking fugutives in independent systems.

Lots of ideas here. I guess I should start on a Frontier and F:FE list shouldn't I?

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Jumping from star to star was always Hyperspace to me. I always though that Witchspace was the pocket dimension that the Thargoids pulled you into. (In the old sppecy and 64 games, if they pulled you out of hyperspace, there were no stars). The J key on the old machines was referred to the star drive, to speed up your approach to the station.

Would love the trumbles back, a reason to try and overheat your ship - Trumble death only at 140% ship heat. :O
The Moray is in one of the Tales from the Frontier books, so that one's still valid. [up]
Would love an emergency space dredger mission. I.e. Stop an out of control Space dredger wipe out a station.
Still got to find a generation ship but those seem to have been forgotten in all the excitement.
I thought Constrictor/Cougar Mission was the same one, just on different Machines (i.e. you needed a military lazer to deal with them).
We might see those kind of Thargoid missions again, if the SDC keep on using their itchy trigger fingers. :x

I take it that all FFE Thargoid And Ardent's Quest lore has been discarded and we're starting over? (Personally got no problem with that), kind of like it the whole of FFE didn't happen.

 

[Allen Stroud]

Jumping from star to star was always Hyperspace to me. I always though that Witchspace was the pocket dimension that the Thargoids pulled you into. (In the old sppecy and 64 games, if they pulled you out of hyperspace, there were no stars). The J key on the old machines was referred to the star drive, to speed up your approach to the station.

Yes, its tricky depending on the parlance.

The J jump is a problem. We have J jumping, then Stardreamer and then FSD. FSD is generally acknowledged to be a new invention, otherwise the colonised bubble would be a lot larger. The J Jump was never time attributed, so it sort of feels like a backward step to Stardreamer and then a step forward to FSD. Whilst I was privy to no discussion about it, I think the J Jump is kind of acknowledged as an out of game control to speed things up.

I take it that all FFE Thargoid And Ardent's Quest lore has been discarded and we're starting over? (Personally got no problem with that), kind of like it the whole of FFE didn't happen.

As I said, this thread is for Elite - Elite Dangerous. the storyline connection between F: FE and Elite Dangerous is tricky when you get to the Thargoids. Only Frontier can say what did or didn't happen, although, "Commander J. Saunders" is in Lave Revolution.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Yes, its tricky depending on the parlance.

The J jump is a problem. We have J jumping, then Stardreamer and then FSD. FSD is generally acknowledged to be a new invention, otherwise the colonised bubble would be a lot larger. The J Jump was never time attributed, so it sort of feels like a backward step to Stardreamer and then a step forward to FSD. Whilst I was privy to no discussion about it, I think the J Jump is kind of acknowledged as an out of game control to speed things up.

I take it back, your quite correct. The J key was just called the Jump Drive or in-system Jump drive in the Spectrum and C64 version and it was just a speed up mechanic. Must have got it mixed up with the star dreamer.

 

[VR Lucian Arkright]

I always understood the old 'J' Jump (Torus Jump Drive) as being taken out of service due to dangerous levels of emissions causing galactic environmental groups to get it banned. The Star Dreamer was the stop gap until the FSD was developed.

Could be wrong, but that's what I recall from the Frontier days...

 

[Allen Stroud]

I always understood the old 'J' Jump (Torus Jump Drive) as being taken out of service due to dangerous levels of emissions causing galactic environmental groups to get it banned. The Star Dreamer was the stop gap until the FSD was developed.

Could be wrong, but that's what I recall from the Frontier days...

Yeah, there was no official explanation given to me, but some nice ideas on different websites. If the J Jump drive was legitimate it would put us back into the same problem with colonial expansion as mentioned earlier.