Status Quo

Status Quo, by Drew Wagar

Introduction

This is a short story based on Oolite, written by Drew Wagar.

It was written to give newcomers to Oolite a feel for how Oolite differs from Elite in a the form of a story, setting the scene for all the adventures to come, rather like the original Robert Holdstock novel 'The Dark Wheel' set the tone for Elite itself.

It's set four years before the time in which players of Oolite find themselves. (See notes below).

"A brilliant scientist uncovers a terrifying plot to begin a Galactic war. Aided by a talented, but reluctant and embittered combateer, he must stop the deployment of a super weapon he invented. A weapon so powerful it threatens to destroy entire worlds."

The sequel to Status Quo, Mutabilis, is currently being released. Drew has also written another short story about Elite's Generation ships, entitled Schism.

Readers are welcome to submit feedback and comments to the author via his website.

Feedback from readers

“Fantastic, absolutely spot on. A true work of art.”

“I love it so much!”

“Fantastic work.”

“What a ride!”

“Very nice edge of the seat stuff!”

“Rocks!”

“One hell of a tale.”

“You've still got me hanging on the edge of my seat.”

“Wow!”

“Excellent work I really love it!”

Downloads / Hardcopy

You can download the story in PDF format here. Please note the 'Creative Commons' license contained within.

NB: The filename refers to 'chapter four', this is due to historical reasons and can be safely ignored. The full story is contained within!

Status Quo is just over 200 pages long.

You can buy a hard copy of the story here, if you'd prefer a copy to hold in your hand. This is sold at 'cost' with the buyer only paying for the production costs at cafepress. The author makes no profit from the sales of the story. This is due to Oolite being a 'Creative Commons' production, and 'Status Quo' thus being a derivative work.

Characters

Jim Feynman / Jim McKenna

Rebecca Tyley / Rebecca Weston

Geraint Berell

Zerz Furvell

Anna Mereso

Galcop Chief of Staff

Galnavy Admiral

Galcop President

Galcop Ambassador

Imperial Ambassador

Federation Ambassador

Theme Tune

You can download a theme tune for Status Quo. If you wish to use this inplace of the standard Oolite theme tune, simply replace the file within the Oolite subdirectory.

Notes

Status Quo is set in 3138, prior to current Oolite time (Year 3142), but after the events of Elite (Year 3125). Dates for these events are given in Selezen's excellent hypothetical Elite/Oolite chronology and based on his interpretation of GalCop history.

The subject of the story is how the Q bomb came to be invented.

This story was an attempt to provide a link between the back stories of Elite, Oolite and the later events of FE2/FFE.

For readers familiar with Oolite, the story includes the Imperial Courier and SuperCobra OXP vessels. Whilst these ships are well known and relatively common vessels by the time of Oolite (Year 3142), the author has made the assumption that these vessels didn't become a common place sight in GalCop space lanes until after the events of this story. Thus their appearance provokes alarm and surprise to the characters portrayed. The justification is that these vessels did not appear in the original 8-bit Elite computer games with which the author was familiar.

Unfortunately this doesn't quite gel with Ewtkaticawata, which records the first Courier prototype coming into service (Year 2899). This author's view is that perhaps it was always engaged in Galcop/Empire skirmishes outside of GalCop planetary space, still being a Navy only vessel, and not available to the general public. Ewtkaticawata also marks the Courier being available on general release (Year 3250). For an explanation of why the Courier is seen in the Oolite timeframe, please see the entry on Seldar Shipyards.

In the absence of specific introduction dates given on the EliteWiki entry for the Q bomb, the author has presumed it appeared immediately after the events of the story (Year 3138), thus coming onto the market four years prior to Oolite itself (Year 3142). Thus it is a relatively new weapon, and people are still getting acclimated to its usage, resulting in a number of high profile accidents.

Since the Q-Bomb did not appear in the Frontier and First Encounter Games, the author has presumed that it was banned by treaty before the events of these two later games (Year 3199 onwards). The date of this event has been set, by the author, twenty years later as a result of the Aesbion Conflict (Year 3158), notably after the major Thargoid war (Year 3151). Thus the Q-Bomb may have been a key component in the Thargoids' demise.