Status Quo

Introduction

This is a short story based on Oolite. Currently a work in progress, written by Drew Wagar

It 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 the how the Q_bomb came to be invented

Downloads

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven in progress.

Notes

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), so somebody needs to provide a rationalisation of why the Courier wasn't seen in the original Elite (Year 3125). This authors 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). So an explanation of why it appears as an OXP in Oolite (Year 3142) is also required... ;-)

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).