Legends of Elite

Introduction

Rumours have always abounded strange 'easter eggs' in Elite and its descendents, David Braben did nothing to discourage this, in fact: his inuendo strenghtened the credability of these sightings. The legends of Elite have been one of the great factors that have kept fans loyal, even after twenty years.

I'd like to list a few of the more notorious ones here.

And: please add to this article, it is a stub.

Space Dredgers

The elite manual mentions space dredgers. Immense factoryship agglomerates that scour space for debris, especially at battlesites. Best given a wide berth, they have the reputation of being unscrupulous in what they ingest.

Generation Ships

Huge colonisation vessels travelling through normal space at near-relativistic speed, many have still to reach their destinations. Of those that have, none have attempted to decellerate and have made no effort to communicate with welcome parties. Generation ships were mentioned in the manual of classic elite, and even present in the arc-elite version (?unverified, but I have seen pictures).

There is a short story based on Elite Generation ships called Schism

Unreachable stars

There are many unreachable planets in elite, rumour had it, that on one of these the Elite-pilots had their hide-out.

Owning a thargoid fighter

A definite hoax in classic Elite and FE:2. However, in FFE, the reward for completing the second part of the Argent's Quest missions was your own Thargoid ship, complete with Thargoid lasers - given by the Thargoids themselves. As for Oolite, the only definitive answer on a player Thargoid warship is "not yet".

Black holes

There were a few stars in FE/FFE that were un-approachable, those were rumoured to be blackholes.

Worm holes

Supposedly, there is a wormhole at the centre of the galaxy in Frontier.

This rumour has been affirmed by DB, but no evidence has been found in the sourcecode.

Rock hermits

Mentioned in the Elite classic manual, but not present in all versions of classic Elite. BBC Elite didn't have rock hermits, but ArcElite and Elite on the ZX Spectrum had them. On the Spectrum version, rock hermits could be recognised by noting whether an asteroid was tumbling or not. Asteroids that were not tumbling were rock hermits, and would release a couple of fighters if attacked. On Oolite, it is possible to dock with a rock hermit, and the Pirate Coves expansion pack turns some rock hermits into pirate hideouts (which can be fatal to approach in a lightly armed ship). In ArcElite you may collect the normal bounty for destroying an asteroid (2cr) but you will not find any mineral fragments. This also counts on your legal rating; killing rock hermits is considered a no-no by the police.

(In)famous pilots

Commander Jameson, hero of the Thargoid wars.

Your persona in classic, your grand daddy in FE2/FFE.

Thargoid warzones

There are at least 50 warzones...in Intergalactic Space.

Raxxla

The planet Raxxla. It is fabled to be a gateway to other universes, or at the very least a portal to somewhere else in the galaxy. Many parties actively search for Raxxla, but no-one has ever found it.

(related legends: 'shan ri la', 'the 7 planets of gold' and 'the whitehole, the wellspring of eternal life')

Dark Wheel, the

A mysterious organisation with many elite members. They mediate in (or engender) conflicts, expose corruption, search for legends and forbidden technology. In short: they are meddling mystics and treasurehunters.

Additions

As said: please add to this page, it's just a start. I'm sure there are plenty more legends.

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