On the thread about @drew's recent livestream discussion of Frontier's abandonment of lore, @Ian Doncaster made a comment that I'd wanted to reply to, but the thread got locked before I could. In the hopes of avoiding the disruptive elements that were involved in getting the thread locked, I'd like discuss this here. Everyone’s welcome, of course. 
The Golden Age of Sail Aesthetic
This is the aspect of the setting that IMO relies most on a lack of fast FTL communications. On the trading front, "merchantile captains" relied on the communications lag, ignorance, and isolation (either physical or communications) to make their fortunes. On the piracy front, pirates rely on isolation (either physical or communications) and/or a breakdown of law and order to operate.
The WW2 Dogfighting Aesthetic
Truth be told, I'd always assumed this was a gameplay compromise. Dogfighting is much more interesting to most players than what the reality of what space warfare would be, which is why we only see realistic warfare in printed media.
That being said, there is one explanation for the extremely close-range combat seen in these video games: someone invented a way to achieve stealth in space. Not the proverbial invisibility cloak type of stealth, but a way of spoofing sensors enough to bring engagement ranges down to the proverbial knife's edge. Active sensors exist, naturally, but using them in combat is more effective at allowing others to target you than the reverse.
The Cyberpunk Aesthetic
This is the easiest one to explain IMO. It's pretty much inevitable if corporations and wealthy individuals are allowed to operate unchecked by governments. This describes the Elite setting to a tee. Furthermore the three major Superpowers are all heavily invested in maintaining this status quo:
The Federation - Is pretty much ruled by Corporations.
The Empire - Aesthetically it resembles the Roman Republic, where wealthy individuals are allowed to wield unlimited power.
The Pilots' Federation - (Sorry Alliance, IMO you're a distant fourth) It started life as a trade guild, and to quote Adam Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
It seemed inevitable that, by the 34th century, it had morphed into the largest legal criminal organization in Human space. Besides ironically being in control of the Galaxy's justice system, via its monopoly of the bounty system, its the Superpower the other Superpowers look to for mercenaries, assassins, saboteurs, privateers, kidnappers, slave traders, and other “off the books” operations.
In other words, we’re the baddies.
and just to be complete...
The Alliance - IMO, the Alliance is pretty much what you get if the Federation and the Empire had a kid, who inherited all their flaws, and none of their limited virtues.
Since I now have to acknowledge /sigh/ "telepresence" as actually existing in this setting, I need to headcanon a reason why people are willing to pay Commanders exorbitant prices to physically deliver even routine, non-critical communications to other star systems, when a much better alternative exists. Not to mention the lack remotely controlled ships, the lack of an on-demand functioning economy, and of course physically delivering exploration data, combat bonds, and bounties.
Thankfully, there is a relatively simple explanation for this discrepancy, namely that it’s in the best interests of the Pilots Federation and the rest of the Galactic Powers to maintain the old status quo. It’s much easier to make a profit off of a humanity that is divided, dysfunctional, ignorant, and isolated. Unfortunately, this relies on two assumptions. The first is that FTL communications technology is prohibitively expensive, to the point where only the hyperclasses (including the Pilots Federation) have access to it. The second is that FSD technology remains relatively rare, so to most of the galaxy, even nearby systems are weeks away.
Funnily enough, that's my way of viewing the Elite setting as well, and I always felt it was fairly coherent myself... if there was no FTL communications that were faster than ships could travel. Which is why I’d assumed that it had been retconned away, along with the numerous alien sophonts, back in 1993. At any rate, here's my thoughts on those three aspects of the Elite setting.
The Golden Age of Sail Aesthetic
This is the aspect of the setting that IMO relies most on a lack of fast FTL communications. On the trading front, "merchantile captains" relied on the communications lag, ignorance, and isolation (either physical or communications) to make their fortunes. On the piracy front, pirates rely on isolation (either physical or communications) and/or a breakdown of law and order to operate.
The WW2 Dogfighting Aesthetic
Truth be told, I'd always assumed this was a gameplay compromise. Dogfighting is much more interesting to most players than what the reality of what space warfare would be, which is why we only see realistic warfare in printed media.
That being said, there is one explanation for the extremely close-range combat seen in these video games: someone invented a way to achieve stealth in space. Not the proverbial invisibility cloak type of stealth, but a way of spoofing sensors enough to bring engagement ranges down to the proverbial knife's edge. Active sensors exist, naturally, but using them in combat is more effective at allowing others to target you than the reverse.
The Cyberpunk Aesthetic
This is the easiest one to explain IMO. It's pretty much inevitable if corporations and wealthy individuals are allowed to operate unchecked by governments. This describes the Elite setting to a tee. Furthermore the three major Superpowers are all heavily invested in maintaining this status quo:
The Federation - Is pretty much ruled by Corporations.
The Empire - Aesthetically it resembles the Roman Republic, where wealthy individuals are allowed to wield unlimited power.
The Pilots' Federation - (Sorry Alliance, IMO you're a distant fourth) It started life as a trade guild, and to quote Adam Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
It seemed inevitable that, by the 34th century, it had morphed into the largest legal criminal organization in Human space. Besides ironically being in control of the Galaxy's justice system, via its monopoly of the bounty system, its the Superpower the other Superpowers look to for mercenaries, assassins, saboteurs, privateers, kidnappers, slave traders, and other “off the books” operations.
In other words, we’re the baddies.
and just to be complete...
The Alliance - IMO, the Alliance is pretty much what you get if the Federation and the Empire had a kid, who inherited all their flaws, and none of their limited virtues.
Since I now have to acknowledge /sigh/ "telepresence" as actually existing in this setting, I need to headcanon a reason why people are willing to pay Commanders exorbitant prices to physically deliver even routine, non-critical communications to other star systems, when a much better alternative exists. Not to mention the lack remotely controlled ships, the lack of an on-demand functioning economy, and of course physically delivering exploration data, combat bonds, and bounties.
Thankfully, there is a relatively simple explanation for this discrepancy, namely that it’s in the best interests of the Pilots Federation and the rest of the Galactic Powers to maintain the old status quo. It’s much easier to make a profit off of a humanity that is divided, dysfunctional, ignorant, and isolated. Unfortunately, this relies on two assumptions. The first is that FTL communications technology is prohibitively expensive, to the point where only the hyperclasses (including the Pilots Federation) have access to it. The second is that FSD technology remains relatively rare, so to most of the galaxy, even nearby systems are weeks away.
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