Elite roleplay: Q&A and OOC

12 Nov 2016, 4:13pm
Hello CMDR's

Role playing here is certainly interesting, aside from the personal drama's which play out as well.

In the role playing, and creating fanciful stories, I have come to the conclusion that 400 Billion stars is quite a vast cosmos, and as someone said, "it would be a terrible waste of space if no other life existed in the universe".  Taking that concept and expanding on it, it would be nice if Elite Horizons placed in the far reaches of space, some of the empires, space dramas and AI opponents contained within these wonderful alternate story lines. Granted, Elite started as one man's vision of space and it's empires, but there seems to be a definite undercurrent of feeling we would like to visit those cultures, places and events. Elite certainly has the room for it, and I doubt in every day gameplay, we would ever use more than twenty percent of the cosmos given to us.

Just a thought!

Be safe.
12 Nov 2016, 5:04pm
Richard DaystromHello CMDR's

Role playing here is certainly interesting, aside from the personal drama's which play out as well.

In the role playing, and creating fanciful stories, I have come to the conclusion that 400 Billion stars is quite a vast cosmos, and as someone said, "it would be a terrible waste of space if no other life existed in the universe".  Taking that concept and expanding on it, it would be nice if Elite Horizons placed in the far reaches of space, some of the empires, space dramas and AI opponents contained within these wonderful alternate story lines. Granted, Elite started as one man's vision of space and it's empires, but there seems to be a definite undercurrent of feeling we would like to visit those cultures, places and events. Elite certainly has the room for it, and I doubt in every day gameplay, we would ever use more than twenty percent of the cosmos given to us.

Just a thought!

Be safe.


So my thoughts. I wouldn't inject anything that's not established lore from frontier, so leave out all that alien stuff. It was Jodi Fosters character in that movie Contact that made the comment about it being an awful waste of space.

Fermi's paradox has something a bit different to say about that. And this is my justification for the lack of intelligent life in the galaxy. And since ED is based off the milky way I think it holds.

In the end I would leave out self created alien races.


Last edit: 12 Nov 2016, 7:20pm
12 Nov 2016, 9:09pm
Richard DaystromHello CMDR's

Role playing here is certainly interesting, aside from the personal drama's which play out as well.

In the role playing, and creating fanciful stories, I have come to the conclusion that 400 Billion stars is quite a vast cosmos, and as someone said, "it would be a terrible waste of space if no other life existed in the universe".  Taking that concept and expanding on it, it would be nice if Elite Horizons placed in the far reaches of space, some of the empires, space dramas and AI opponents contained within these wonderful alternate story lines. Granted, Elite started as one man's vision of space and it's empires, but there seems to be a definite undercurrent of feeling we would like to visit those cultures, places and events. Elite certainly has the room for it, and I doubt in every day gameplay, we would ever use more than twenty percent of the cosmos given to us.

Just a thought!

Be safe.

Feel like this is appropriate again:
Luke3107Basically what Stryker said but to clarify, they aren't mutually exclusive. Some people run short stories and ignore them during RP, but others allow their RP to influence the short stories.

Best I can do is use myself as an example. I have short stories in the pipeline that are basically a backstory that I intend to finish where the characters enter the RP forums then have the short stories continue where my characters leave the station. Like you said, a running narrative between the two.

It's entirely up to you how you do it. But while your short stories are your own and you can do what you like with them, we ask that during the RP, you stick to the rules of the Elite: Dangerous Universe. There are really two main reasons for this:

1. Your rules may be different to someone elses rules. Having a set universe allows everyones ideas to remain consistent and parallel.
It's all fun and games until one person decides their Sidewinder has a direct link to the Death Star and intends to target Starfleet Academy and destroy the Dragonborn to gain control of the Master Chief. (Or something.... I dunno....)
2. You control your character in RP and only your own. Whether they are a "good" writer or not is a matter of opinion but the fact remains that the person you are interacting with knows their character better than you. Some people are content to let little things slide such as (directly from my experience again) "expressing bewilderment at being let loose from jail" but others would prefer that even those remain products of the owners own thoughts.
Again, it's a problem when someone is, say, running down a corridoor and an unexpected person jumps in and writes "And he shouted at the person running to stop, and in response the runner stopped and turned around before flipping him the bird." Now the owner of that character has an action to deal with that he/she may not have even wanted in her characters story. Nor even one that he/she deems consistent with that character.

Simply put, if you are interacting, or starting an interaction with another RP'er. You dictate YOUR action, then await the other persons reaction. But bare in mind that even a simple hello can escalate rapidly to something more sinister.

On a sub note, time in RPing doesn't flow normally. Best I can recommend is ignore timelines for events and only deal with what your character is involved with. It only takes thirty seconds to get a drink. But in the time it takes you to sit down and begin talking with someone, 3 murders, a fight and a space battle could easily have come and gone by the time you get a response.

Hopefully that helps. Welcome aboard CMDR and hope to see you out in the black as well as here... In the orange? (Sounded better in my head... Sorry...)


With regards to aliens. ED has prequels that contained an alien race known as the Thargoids. Although it has since been decided by FD themselves that those games are non-canon. While that hasn't stopped the occasional mention of them, it should be noted that within the game, we are just now encountering alien wreckages.


Last edit: 12 Nov 2016, 9:20pm
12 Nov 2016, 10:26pm
Luke3107
Richard DaystromHello CMDR's

Role playing here is certainly interesting, aside from the personal drama's which play out as well.

In the role playing, and creating fanciful stories, I have come to the conclusion that 400 Billion stars is quite a vast cosmos, and as someone said, "it would be a terrible waste of space if no other life existed in the universe".  Taking that concept and expanding on it, it would be nice if Elite Horizons placed in the far reaches of space, some of the empires, space dramas and AI opponents contained within these wonderful alternate story lines. Granted, Elite started as one man's vision of space and it's empires, but there seems to be a definite undercurrent of feeling we would like to visit those cultures, places and events. Elite certainly has the room for it, and I doubt in every day gameplay, we would ever use more than twenty percent of the cosmos given to us.

Just a thought!

Be safe.


Feel like this is appropriate again:
Luke3107Basically what Stryker said but to clarify, they aren't mutually exclusive. Some people run short stories and ignore them during RP, but others allow their RP to influence the short stories.

Best I can do is use myself as an example. I have short stories in the pipeline that are basically a backstory that I intend to finish where the characters enter the RP forums then have the short stories continue where my characters leave the station. Like you said, a running narrative between the two.

It's entirely up to you how you do it. But while your short stories are your own and you can do what you like with them, we ask that during the RP, you stick to the rules of the Elite: Dangerous Universe. There are really two main reasons for this:

1. Your rules may be different to someone elses rules. Having a set universe allows everyones ideas to remain consistent and parallel.
It's all fun and games until one person decides their Sidewinder has a direct link to the Death Star and intends to target Starfleet Academy and destroy the Dragonborn to gain control of the Master Chief. (Or something.... I dunno....)
2. You control your character in RP and only your own. Whether they are a "good" writer or not is a matter of opinion but the fact remains that the person you are interacting with knows their character better than you. Some people are content to let little things slide such as (directly from my experience again) "expressing bewilderment at being let loose from jail" but others would prefer that even those remain products of the owners own thoughts.
Again, it's a problem when someone is, say, running down a corridoor and an unexpected person jumps in and writes "And he shouted at the person running to stop, and in response the runner stopped and turned around before flipping him the bird." Now the owner of that character has an action to deal with that he/she may not have even wanted in her characters story. Nor even one that he/she deems consistent with that character.

Simply put, if you are interacting, or starting an interaction with another RP'er. You dictate YOUR action, then await the other persons reaction. But bare in mind that even a simple hello can escalate rapidly to something more sinister.

On a sub note, time in RPing doesn't flow normally. Best I can recommend is ignore timelines for events and only deal with what your character is involved with. It only takes thirty seconds to get a drink. But in the time it takes you to sit down and begin talking with someone, 3 murders, a fight and a space battle could easily have come and gone by the time you get a response.

Hopefully that helps. Welcome aboard CMDR and hope to see you out in the black as well as here... In the orange? (Sounded better in my head... Sorry...)



With regards to aliens. ED has prequels that contained an alien race known as the Thargoids. Although it has since been decided by FD themselves that those games are non-canon. While that hasn't stopped the occasional mention of them, it should be noted that within the game, we are just now encountering alien wreckages.


Actually, no. Thargoids are canon, but the specific events in the previous games appear to have been wiped. Judging from the official bit of lore that was on Galnet a month or two ago, they exist- but are more the stuff or rumor and legend than anything solid.

Based on the ruins and crash sites that have been discovered, aliens are almost certainly going to be a thing in the future. I can only speak for myself, but it's my hope that Frontier will handle their debut with a little more grace than the "massive invasion that unites the disparate factions" story arc (like in Star Trek with the Dominion, Star Wars with the Yuuzhan Vong, and to a lesser extent Freelancer with the Nomads). It's a tired way to introduce new races into existing lore, and it's my hope that the game developers will inject a little more nuance than a "humans good/ xenos evil" binary.


Last edit: 12 Nov 2016, 10:34pm
12 Nov 2016, 10:57pm
Fair enough. Aliens are all but confirmed to be coming into ED at this point. But they haven't been formally introduced to us yet. So if you write RP containing such things, fair warning that people will likely respond negatively to it.

As for how FD will handle it. I can see there being a 3-way battle on the go. Empire vs Federation vs Xenos. With each superpower blaming the other for instigating the fight. While the Alliance blames both and refuses to participate in the main fight, instead just engaging in small scale conflicts to protect it's own interests.

Edit: I'd like to clarify the point that I'm saying aliens are unconfirmed at this point, but in the same way that next years Call of Duty or FIFA is unconfirmed. We all know they're coming they just haven't been "officially" announced...


Last edit: 12 Nov 2016, 11:04pm
12 Nov 2016, 10:59pm
I'm just hoping once the Thargoids do make an introduction, we won't seen in influx of Thargoid, Thargoid hybrid, and Thargoid DNA infused characters flood the RP forums. Im sure the assumption will be made that their DNA would be comparable to ours, but the likelihood of that being the case would be astronomically slim to the point of non-existant. In fact who's to say Thargoids use DNA and RNA for genetic material? And unless Frontier sanctions it, in my mind, it won't exist.

But that's just me ranting.


Last edit: 12 Nov 2016, 11:13pm
12 Nov 2016, 11:06pm
Would you be willing to accept a brainwashed sleeper agent? I can see someone making that into quite an interesting read...
12 Nov 2016, 11:13pm
Luke3107Would you be willing to accept a brainwashed sleeper agent? I can see someone making that into quite an interesting read...


I would if it were confirmed in in-game lore that that was a thing. Even so, I'd be very care about such a thing. Like Stryker said, the first real whiff of aliens that we get will probably result in a lot of bad RP, and the temptation to go Full Snowflake will be at an all-time high.
12 Nov 2016, 11:15pm
Luke3107Would you be willing to accept a brainwashed sleeper agent? I can see someone making that into quite an interesting read...

Who's doing the brainwashing? If it's the Thargoids, no. Unless it was sanctioned by Frontier.


Last edit: 13 Nov 2016, 12:26am
12 Nov 2016, 11:45pm
The thing about brainwashing is that it isn't the Manchurian Candidate-type total behavioral and personality switch that movies and media typically depict. In my college psychology class, I learned that brainwashing (and mental health professionals dislike that term) is not only never as dramatic as people think, but requires more or less constant upkeep from the party doing the brainwashing. Once the external conditioning is removed, people usually revert back to their normal selves in relatively short order.

In the case of people who have been subject to such extreme personality changes, a degree of pre-existing, voluntary compliance is almost always needed. In other words, even if the xenos did somehow and for some reason decide to engage in such activity, they would need to find a uniquely antisocial specimen to begin with!


Last edit: 13 Nov 2016, 12:03am
12 Nov 2016, 11:50pm
Was just curious. I've no intentions of doing such a thing myself. We've all seen my attempts at playing a regular villian lol

That said, there will most certainly be Thargoidtm sympathisers I reckon
13 Nov 2016, 12:21am
Luke3107Was just curious. I've no intentions of doing such a thing myself. We've all seen my attempts at playing a regular villian lol

That said, there will most certainly be Thargoidtm sympathisers I reckon


Already is, a faction established themselves so ye....
13 Nov 2016, 4:06am
Well, I don't know about all that brainwashing stuff, and the storyline is certainly important for Elite to establish it's own lore in the realm of space genre, but if you live long enough, and have grown up on this stuff, it's hard not to want or wish for a connection between the genres, especially if you have a non-Elite favorite.

Like ice cream, there are one hundred and one flavors. Some like the traditional flavors and some like the exotic ones, and some try them all, but in the end, it's just ice cream.

I think Elite's lore and storyline have been vague since day one. "Chris Roberts" <<(corrected, from referring to David Braben previously) had better luck with the Wing Commander genre and establishing a stronger character set and objective, all pretty clear. Because of the lack of Elite lore, I am writing a digital book, (21K words so far) with video links to important Elite events, along with an interesting character and story plot.

Of course, this has been done many times by many space genres, but without a center point character or theme, we seem to be wanting something here, but we know not what.

You are all certainly welcome to download and read my "real world physics" e-book at http://www.linkedin.com/in/wrritchie

And a correction on the line I used, i.e. "a terrible waste of space", my wife corrects us with "Jodi Foster's Dad" makes this statement. Just saying!


Last edit: 13 Nov 2016, 5:00am
13 Nov 2016, 4:19am
The point I was trying to make with the quote. "A terrible waste of space...." Was simply this. It's not justification for inserting non-lore home brew alien races and expecting everyone to just choke it down because, the galaxy is such a large place. That is why I used Fermi's paradox, a statistical justification using Drake's equation to "show" that earth should have received or found evidence of intelligent life out in the cosmos by now, but we haven't. So where is everybody? And the short answer is this. There isn't any. (Or so rare that we will won't see it). Now I'm not saying this is true. It's a theorem, and how I justify the lack of other intelligent life in the ED universe, save the up comming introduction of the Thargoids.
13 Nov 2016, 4:24am
Stryker AuneThe point I was trying to make with the quote. "A terrible waste of space...." Was simply this. It's not justification for inserting non-lore home brew alien races and expecting everyone to just choke it down because, the galaxy is such a large place. That is why I used Fermi's paradox, a statistical justification using Drake's equation to "show" that earth should have received or found evidence of intelligent life out in the cosmos by now, but we haven't. So where is everybody? And the short answer is this. There isn't any. (Or so rare that we will won't see it). Now I'm not saying this is true. It's a theorem, and how I justify the lack of other intelligent life in the ED universe, save the up comming introduction of the Thargoids.


Your points are certainly not wasted on me, I understand you completely.

Thank you.
Sincerely

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