Oolite Literature
For stories about Oolite: see List of Oolite stories
Contents
Overview
Blame Robert Holdstock! Instead of a manual telling a new player how to play Classic Elite (load game, save game, etc.), he wrote a manual telling new pilots how to fly their new ship! You don't press keys on a keyboard, you press controls on an astrogation console! Brilliant! And it all grew from there.
In terms of immersion, Holdstock was spot on! The combination of his manual with his short novel The Dark Wheel helped create a world in the imagination which built on the brilliant game created by Bell & Braben and the overall effect left a lasting impression on so many people. This eventually led to Aegidian creating Oolite, twenty years later.
This is the current state of play...
Elite Books which you can actually read
- The Space Traders Flight Training Manual - written for new owners of a Cobra Mk.3 in Classic Elite
- Galactic Catalogue - the F7 screen world descriptions generated by the Galaxy Seeds
Books mentioned in Elite
- GC Orbit and System Space Code, (Federation Planet Bureau) (see the above Manual p.22)
- PsychoHistory and Economic Theory in the GalFederation, Kroweki & Carr (2845) - analysis of government types and affect on trade (Manual p.47)
- Jane's Galactic Ships and Remote Colonial Construction (5th edition, 3205, Trantor House) - the complete reference guide (Manual p.52)
- Jane's Galactic Shipset OXP tweaks the vanilla game shipset to conform to this in terms of size, speed etc.
Oolite Books which you can read
- Cim's Ship's Manual - see Ship's Library OXP - brilliant, and adapts itself to whatever you are flying!
- Extracts from the Tre Clan - Addresses on Interplanetary Life: lectures on the nomadic life of a space-farer (also by Cim)
- Rough Guide to the Ooniverse - conceived and mostly written by Disembodied
- The Traders Almanach - Trading tips, collated by Zireael
Books mentioned in Oolite Wikipedia articles
- The Hermit Almanac
- An Overview Of The Laws Governing The Galactic Cooperative of Worlds, 17th Ed., Galactic Cooperative of Worlds Central Publishing, 2083800
Poetry mentioned in Oolite Wikipedia articles
- Scrolls of the Poet Lexegez: The work of Lexegez is said to be the finest and most accurate poetic description of the universe, with their Quanteisrion cycle, describing all of the 2,040 worlds known during their time, probably the most famous. These are first generation facsimiles, believed by the most pretentious of galactic society to be the best way to experience the poems. Most people just buy the book. (from New Cargoes OXP)
- Poetry: Xesoon in Chart 3 counts as Communist mostly because it had to be filed somewhere. The citizenry communicates entirely through poetry, and the Constitution is a fifty-thousand word epic. Government business is carried out through an annual song-poem, to which any citizen may append a verse to set out and approve of their business for the year. While private enterprise is technically allowed, the locals prefer to add their work to the song-poem, and outsiders who can compose poetry to the standards required to do business are extremely rare. (from Ship's Library OXP).
- Poetry: Famous Planets introduces Lexuq, the Xequerinian lobstoid poet whose death in the fourth galaxy on Sector4/Dienon allegedly gave birth to the Coomunin.
Classic Elite, of course, contains innumerable references to Edible Poets, Evil Poets & Mountain Poets, not to mention the eccentric love of poetry which DrBeeb morphed into a regretful support of poetry!
Magazines existing in Oolite
In a category of their own
In-game advice with a difference:
- Mr Gimlet
- Uncle Blix's Upgrade Guide
- Elite Trader OXZ a lot of this wiki page is literature about the Elite Trader OXZ, either as news reports or as autobiography
