(Lore) Planet in Radiant Haven & black hole in Omicron Lyrae?

[PilotsBallad]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently writing a fan fiction that takes place between X³:Albion Prelude and X Rebirth. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time and patience to complete the campaign around Ren Otani yet but am preparing to do so in a few weeks. In the meantime, however, I want to continue writing the story, so I'd like it if someone could answer a few questions of mine.

One of the planets that I want to use as a location is the one in the X:R sector Radiant Haven whose surface seems to be largely covered with desert. Did this one receive a name by now? In the X trilogy, most planets never received a name. Understandable, seeing as there were very many of them. With X Rebirth, the amount of planets were drastically decreased, so I hoped the few we've got by now would get some love.

My second question has to do with the massive black hole in the solar system Omicron Lyrae. I know that X:R brought many changes to the universe as we knew it, but I don't remember seeing this in X³:AP. I found a timespan of a few centuries to be a bit short for such a phenomena to happen, though it is possible. Is there a story behind it? Is it mentioned in the campaign? Or is the black hole only supposed to look threatening?

Thanks in advance to those who can provide some clarification on these matters!

[Ezarkal]

The in-game encyclopedia (in-game menu, 2nd sub menu, 5th option) contains some lore about the various systems/sectors of the galaxy. There is some lore about the planet, but I found nothing on the wormhole.

Send us a link when you've got somethin online. I'll be interested to read your story.

Good luck!

[jkflipflop98]

I'm pretty sure that black hole is the leftovers from the blast that shut down the gate network. Remember in x3 tc/ap they added in "Harmony of Perpetuity" zone during a summer sale. That zone had three major stars orbiting one another and the description for the zone said that "The Argon Government has warned against building new stations or visiting in modestly-shielded ships, for fear of another solar event. Some entrepreneurs, looking to exploit the energy of the suns, have completely ignored any warnings."

That Zone was right next door to Omicron in X3. I always assumed they intended that zone to be "ground zero" for the gate shutdown. Two of those three stars went super-nova and took out the third with the blast. When three solar corpses combine, they form a black hole.

Maybe that's why the gates shutdown? They didn't get damaged in the blast of the supernova, but instead the gate in that zone got sucked down into that new black hole and the network shut down as a safety precaution to stop the galaxy from getting sucked inside.

[Raider480]

That Zone was right next door to Omicron in X3. I always assumed they intended that zone to be "ground zero" for the gate shutdown. Two of those three stars went super-nova and took out the third with the blast. When three solar corpses combine, they form a black hole.

Maybe that's why the gates shutdown? They didn't get damaged in the blast of the supernova, but instead the gate in that zone got sucked down into that new black hole and the network shut down as a safety precaution to stop the galaxy from getting sucked inside.

But just because Harmony of Perpetuity was close to OL in the gate map does not mean that it was nearby in terms of real distance. There would be no reason to expect that we could see that black hole from OL unless the sectors were actually near to each other both in terms of some reasonable number of AU and some number of gate hops. If they were that close then we would be able to see the stars of Harmony of Perpetuity from OL in X3, which is not the case.

[jkflipflop98]

Who says you can't see the stars from OL? I think you can. Also, that black hole is sucking down quite the accretion disk of gas that wasn't there before. Where could all of that loose gas come from? I know! Two stars exploding! Amazing.

Thirdly, that black hole is a LONG ways away. it looks that big because the explosion from a supernova creates a gas cloud that's many times the size of a solar system. The black hole in the center would be so small you couldn't make it out even if it wasn't "black".

[spankahontis]

Which Galaxy is Omicron located? The Milky Way?

That Zone was right next door to Omicron in X3. I always assumed they intended that zone to be "ground zero" for the gate shutdown. Two of those three stars went super-nova and took out the third with the blast. When three solar corpses combine, they form a black hole.

If what happened there was the result of several Stars colliding into one another the result would cause a 'Pulsar' and that would be very noticeable if it was next to the Black Hole; A huge beam of electromagnetic radiation.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... res%29.ogv

It would be noticeable.. Plus it would take millions, possibly billions of years to form, in X:R's timeline? Not possible.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Which Galaxy is Omicron located? The Milky Way?

That's a good question. I think the answer will probably turn out to be "yes". At the moment, I've no idea as I think Egosoft have used the term galaxy and universe interchangeably in the past.

So far in Rebirth, all the systems are in the same galaxy as each other. Whereas in earlier games, things seemed more ambiguous. X2: Threat and X3:Reunion talked about the universe but then mechanically, the map is refereed to as both "the galaxy map" and "galaxy/universe map".

[Commander_K]

I found a timespan of a few centuries to be a bit short for such a phenomena to happen, though it is possible.

I thought the shutdown was some 30-ish years ago (From small talk and the fact that Argon military personal is still around, don't remember if there is anything in the plot)? Although I dimly remember before release somebody talked about a longer time span.

[Ezarkal]

I found a timespan of a few centuries to be a bit short for such a phenomena to happen, though it is possible.

I thought the shutdown was some 30-ish years ago (From small talk and the fact that Argon military personal is still around, don't remember if there is anything in the plot)? Although I dimly remember before release somebody talked about a longer time span.

"Every time you try to bring physics to try to explain a world of fiction, god kills a kitten. Think of the kittens"

I can't remember the source of the quote, nor the exact wording, but I thought it fits right in here!

[spankahontis]

Which Galaxy is Omicron located? The Milky Way?

That's a good question. I think the answer will probably turn out to be "yes". At the moment, I've no idea as I think Egosoft have used the term galaxy and universe interchangeably in the past.

So far in Rebirth, all the systems are in the same galaxy as each other. Whereas in earlier games, things seemed more ambiguous. X2: Threat and X3:Reunion talked about the universe but then mechanically, the map is refereed to as both "the galaxy map" and "galaxy/universe map".

Yeah, they do seem to go inter-changeable with each other.

Also, the Spiral Galaxy itself on the Map in Rebirth looks nothing like the Milky Way when you focus on it? Artists blooper or indication that it's not the Milky Way or it's a made-up Galaxy?

[Umbru]

The Giant black hole was in X3 just wasn't anywhere near as impressive looking, I was sure that there was some bit of lore about it being the result of some Xeon super weapon experiment but I can't find the reference anywhere so I could be wrong.

The old gate network spanned several galaxies and the gate connections had nothing to do with the physical locations of the sectors. It is also mentioned that the Paranid and maybe the Terran's had figured out the real word positions of most of the major sectors but pretty much everybody else was clueless.

If you have time the here is the English translation of the Novel its worth a read, also the encyclopedia is out there as a pdf if you go looking for it and that has a lot of lore in it.