I'm not sure if this type of thing is planned or even possible with ED, but its something I've wanted to see implemented into a gameworld since the days of Frontier and First Encounters. Now in 2013/14 maybe with today's technologies it's at least feasible?
Anyway, what I'd love to see in Elite Dangerous is an
organic evolution of the environment and the political theater as opposed to a strictly scripted inception and outcome of pre-determined events. As a long time Eve player I found the mission arcs in that game where so limited in scope - almost completely scripted and had very little bearing on the wider world as a whole. They were predictable and repeating grinds that eventually became ISK faucets for large organised player-run corporations.
I'd hope Frontier Developments don't go down that path...
Here's just one single example of a mission (or lets say an in-game event or incident) that can organically grow into something far more interesting:
Stage 1 - Lets say you're out exploring the Frontier systems in your deep space scout ship. You enter an unsurveyed system and conduct a long-range scan. A few minutes later your scan reveals that the system is a binary and has a dozen planets. Now you switch to planetary scan mode.
A few minutes later you get a hit on a possible "goldilocks planet" i.e. a planet with enough mass to retain an atmosphere that orbits its sun at just the right distance that it could be temperate enough to sustain known life.
Now you want to conduct a closer inspection so you plot a course to take you into orbit around this world.
A few minutes later you're in low orbit. From low orbit you can see its a pretty desolate world, continent-wide deserts, large polar caps etc, not much cloud cover, no discernible vegetation.
You launch a probe
(or in a later version of ED, you go planetside and fly into the atmosphere, fly across the surface, or even land and get out of your ship to take rock & soil samples 
)
After a few minutes the probe sends back its analysis and full break down of what prime resources this world has. But more importantly it concludes that the world could be made habitable through Terraforming. Bingo! You just hit the jackpot.
You now have in your possession the complete digital readout of a possible habital planet with untapped resources. This item (a datachip for example), can now be sold to a prospecting-type NPC corporation back in the core systems.
The game would prevent resurveying of this particular world for a set time to give you time to report your findings and for other reasons mentioned later*
You set off for home where you sell your datachip to the highest NPC bidder and here ends our scout pilots role in this saga.
Stage 2 - Some time later the corporation / businessmen who purchased the data chip makes it known via bulletin boards that they're hiring planetary surveyors for a classified mission. Human players OR NPC's (if no human players are interested**) are hired as the actual surveying team or their escorts. Their role is to survey the planet further and gather information on what types of terraforming equipment will be needed (again this is done by sending down advanced probes, and analyzing atmospheric conditions etc). A full in-depth survey is now complete and the info is relayed back to the funding NPC corporation. Here ends our surveying teams role in this saga.
Stage 3 - Some time later the NPC corporation begins advertising for freighter pilots and escorts to deliver classified machinery to a classified destination (again Human players or NPC's are hired for the roles via bulletin boards).
On successful delivery of the cargo to the destination world, you are paid accordingly. This marks the end of our freighter pilot & escort roles in this saga.
Stage 4 - This stage is all NPC driven. Deployment of the terraforming equipment is undertaken and adequate automated defence systems for that equipment is put on line.
Terraforming can take some substantial time to complete - lets say from weeks to months real time.
Stage 5 - The planet is now habitable and the NPC corporation begins sending NPC colonists and hires (human or NPC) escorts to take them to the new world. The NPC corp is now given full mineral rights & ownership of this world once the first colony base (NPC built) is on line.
This ends the first chapter of this saga...
Stage 6 - By now the NPC corp has begun building spaceports in orbit and has a permanent NPC presence in the system. Human player or NPC pilots are being hired throughout the Core systems to deliver equipment and food to this fledgling system. NPC prospectors are moving to this system enmass in order to exploit its untapped resources. The high traffic attracts pirates - and bounty hunters (Human players and/or NPC's).
The system information is updated on the galactic map. Its now a thriving and developing colony and the Frontier boundaries are pushed a little further out from the Core.
Weeks / months / a year goes by and now due to the changing political landscape (or the discovery of an ultra rare element within the system) it becomes a disputed system between two rival factions. Both factions begin hiring mercenaries to defend/attack the colonists and a whole war could break out over this one world.
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In conclusion, these event arcs should be organic and at any stage could go off in a completely different tangent. For example - *if the original guy who scouted the planet is blown up on his way back to the core systems, the data chip could be lost or captured by a completely different entity that has no interest in doing anything with it. That world would remain unsurveyable (therefore undeveloped) until the datachip timer expires - be it months in real time later. The story would end there.
Or if the surveying team or subsequent colonists are constantly destroyed by pirates enroute, the NPC corp may postpone the venture until hired gun bounty hunters (NPC or Human) have eliminated the threat, or the corp may even abandon the venture altogether if it became too costly or the corp found more lucrative incomes elsewhere through other overlapping world events. If the latter, again the story would end there.
The point is a whole host of unrelated circumstances could crop up that delay or even prevent this evolutionary arc in the gameworld from developing. None of the stages are a given. Anything could happen that prevents this whole situation from occurring. The main thing is its completely unscripted. One stage could lead to another if the right conditions occur..
This is how universal events could grow and evolve from one single incident - a lone pilot out in the wilderness who took the time to survey a few distant worlds. His impact on the gameworld may have been insignificant at the beginning but as time and events unfolded, he can look back and see just how much his actions have evolved into something far bigger.
** I think its important that these types of events should be independent of human interaction because to feel fully immersed in a game on this scale I need to know that I'm just a part of the gameworld and that the gameworld doesn't revolve around me. Yes my actions have a bearing (like the fictional surveyor pilot), but the universe will evolve whether I just sit and watch it from my cockpit window outside Lave, or whether I get directly involved. I think this is where the biggest challenge is for the game developers. Is this the kind of 'evolution' David Braben mentions in one of the vids, or is this something still a few years away development-wise?
