Saturday 6th of February and the start of my research sabbatical from Buckinghamshire New University to work on my Creative Writing Ph. D at the University of Winchester. For those of you that know, the majority of which involves Elite Dangerous and Chaos Reborn.

In 2015, I passed my upgrade Viva based on the work I did on Elite Dangerous. Some of my research was published in Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. This covered the guidebooks I wrote for Frontier Developments in collaboration with David Braben, Michael Brookes, Andrew Gillett, T. James and Dave Hughes.

The ones I worked on were:

- The Federation
- The Empire
- The Alliance
- The Old Worlds
- The Corporations
- The Intelligence Services

The main element of this work was in writing a full history from AD 2013 to AD 3250, some of which came from the previously published Frontier Gazetteer and First Encounters News Journals. Where I made expansions or alterations, David Braben asked me to label and cite what I'd done.  

As an example, the Federation guidebook is more than 18,000 words with 8,388 words of history narrative. It names every President from 2599 onwards, expands on the stories of Raul Santorini, Zack Blackbeam, Dentara Rast, the Jameson family and more, who might be names a few fans of the old games recognise.

How much or little Frontier Developments elected to use was entirely their choice and subsequently these guidebooks were then provided to the writers of official fiction so they might develop their stories. We were asked not to publish information from the guides, although it was acknowledged that quite a bit might be used in Dave Hughes' Elite Encounters RPG. 

As I've already documented, I undertook this task with excitement and enthusiasm. I enjoyed every minute working on the documents.

Times change. My work on this background stuff is long done and I'm sure revised and changed a bit by Frontier Developments. Many people have asked about the history and whether it could be released, I'm pretty sure my signed contracts don't prevent me from posting everything I wrote on the internet, but I never will. I made a commitment and gave my word. That means a lot to me. Going to conventions like Nine Worlds and Lavecon and hearing people ask the writers what sort of guidance they had always makes me smile. I did a little bit to help them make some great books.


Allen Stroud’s efforts with respect to guidebooks on numerous aspects of the Elite Dangerous lore and universe were invaluable to me when I wrote my own novel. I’d frequently refer to them for clarification, style, names, places and background stories that I could weave in and out of my own narrative.
Without these documents the story would be far less well integrated into the overall experience and much less rich overall. The guidebooks also ensure commonality between different books and different authors, which the fans will notice and appreciate.

- Drew Wagar.


Photograph taken by Simon White.However, I didn't labour entirely without thought of my own interest. The processes used in making the guidebooks were an evolution of processes developed by Stuart Maher and myself in making the Eos guidebooks and wiki, which were in turn, a development of the 101 processes I devised for the Arteman family event at Maelstrom in 2005 and the Aegyptus Gathering in 2000. Back then, we were devising summaries of 'what everyone knows' for people playing non player character roles at live roleplaying events, so as to give the devised societies a bit more depth. Some individuals also had their own briefs (poor Daniel Williams and the Prince Werpethi brief of sixteen pages!).

Of course, I can't tentpole this process and don't intend to. The live roleplaying game New World Order had perhaps the most comprehensive briefs ever devised for a game in the United Kingdom. Honourable mentions should also go to the Empire wiki, the Lorien Trust fantasy race briefs (I wrote some of these), Grand Design, and plenty more.

My own interest lies in the analysis and development of guide material like this, looking at processes that work, intentions, effects, usage and more. All of this path of background writing has led me to write The Loremaster's Guide for Chaos Reborn, as the principle component of my final Ph D. submission.

Knowledge amongst fans creates hierarchies. Some are hierarchies of privilege ("I know - you don't"), but others are hierarchies of release ("Ask her, she always knows"), both are ultimately serving of those above and those below. The latter by receiving information, the former by retaining the position that they value as a gatekeeper. Of course though, if you give away all the goodies, eventually you lose your place.  


Henry Jenkins' Spoiling Survivor chapter in Convergence Culture explains how fans of the show became so obsessed with knowing information about it first and divulging that information as a scoop that they placed the existence of the show in jeopardy. Some were obtaining satellite images of the secret camp, others talking to crew members, etc. Its an interesting read and certainly goes some way to explaining why a commercial company has to be careful with information attached to its IP. 

You can see similar hierarchies emerge in other fan cultures. Sometimes individuals do know things, or have conversations implying they know things, each methodology reinforces a higher position within the fan community. This can be self glorifying, but isn't inherently a bad thing at all. After all, we're human and there are always going to be those who know and those who are curious.

The Loremaster's Guide for Chaos Reborn is the longest and most comprehensive of these texts that I've made. All of my previous material has prioritised the devising of further material by recipients - so acting as a macrotext and primer - for a small enabled group. That group then become a part of the hierarchy of a community around the game/fiction/world.

For Chaos Reborn, the focus has shifted as a large proportion of the playerbase are engaged with devising realms for others to play as part of the game. This dual role of being content deviser and content consumer is different in parity to much of the other work I've looked to cover. Similarly, the game itself only covers a portion of the life of its characters, so the guide attempts to dramatise other parts and fill in the gaps. 

The Loremaster's Guide is designed to create Loremasters - people who can be knowledgeable about the world, but also be inspired to imagine, question and be curious. A Loremaster is not a definitive expert or decision maker, they are a person who has read and released what they can to establish their position in a hierarchy of information which others value. The advantage to any fiction is that these knowledgeable folks become enablers for others introducing them to a game/fiction/world in a much better way than any manual might.

Additionally, The Loremaster's Guide recognises that these empowered readers are also players and so works to develop the mythology of the world. In the original Elite we had space dredgers, Thargoids and generation ships to hunt for across eight galaxies. Now, we have a detailed plethora of mysterious characters, items, creatures, magical methods and powers. Who knows whether they will be found or who will find them?


Currently the guide is 52,000 words. I hope to have the draft version ready by the end of my research week. After that, it goes to Julian Gollop and the Snapshot Games Team to comment on. They already have a draft, so the process is pretty organic.