X4 sectors are not (all) in our galaxy - evidence

[Ryba]

Have you ever wonder if all of X4 sectors are placed inside our galaxy ? I did some research and found out, that at least one of the system is placed out of the Milky Way.

Take a closer look at Matrix #451. You will notice that in the background some sort of galaxy can be observed. There are two possibilities:
1) It is our galaxy (so it's obvious that the system is out of our galaxy)
2) It is unknown galaxy visible not from our galaxy. Why ? - Correct me, but there are few visible galaxies from Milky Way, and all of them are very, very small regardless the position of viewer inside Milky Way. There are no such a big galaxies visible from any point of Milky Way. So it means, that sector Matrix #451 is not placed inside Milky Way and visible galaxy is of unknown origin.

[Axeface]

There is a sector in X3 (I think you get to it with the unfocused jumpdrive) where you can see the milky way, but its much bigger in the view than this one you are showing.
Ide say its more likely this is simply a mis-step by a sector artist, you are right that there are no galaxies that are that close to ours, even our satellite galaxies should appear as a dot. Ide suggest they make it much, much bigger in the view if they want to imply its the milky way. Is the rest of the skybox completely black there?

Is it possible theres a star system that far from the milky way, yet still bound to it? But it stretches the bounds of X3 lore to imply the gate system could send you so far, no?

[Peanutcat]

Jumpgates are all over the place in the games lore. Spread across numerous galaxies.

Edit: The X Encyclopedia (Rebirth edition) says this on page A-2:

The basis of all the stories set in the X Universe is a epic, interwoven tapestry of events involving the human race and numerous alien species spanning more than a millennium and several galaxies. Each of these races has its own history and defining characteristics, and historical figures from all of them cast long shadows and influence events even centuries after their death.

[Axeface]

Jumpgates are all over the place in the games lore. Spread across numerous galaxies.

Edit: The X Encyclopedia (Rebirth edition) says this on page A-2:

The basis of all the stories set in the X Universe is a epic, interwoven tapestry of events involving the human race and numerous alien species spanning more than a millennium and several galaxies. Each of these races has its own history and defining characteristics, and historical figures from all of them cast long shadows and influence events even centuries after their death.

Dont you think it's possible thats just misuse of the word galaxy? (which is quite common). I think it would be immensely weird for the gate network to span galaxies.

Edit: The gate encyclopaedia entry in X4 says "the gates are spread throughout the entire galaxy and possibly beyond".

[Peanutcat]

Jumpgates are all over the place in the games lore. Spread across numerous galaxies.

Edit: The X Encyclopedia (Rebirth edition) says this on page A-2:

The basis of all the stories set in the X Universe is a epic, interwoven tapestry of events involving the human race and numerous alien species spanning more than a millennium and several galaxies. Each of these races has its own history and defining characteristics, and historical figures from all of them cast long shadows and influence events even centuries after their death.

Dont you think it's possible thats just misuse of the word galaxy? (which is quite common). I think it would be immensely weird for the gate network to span galaxies.

Edit: The gate encyclopaedia entry in X4 says "the gates are spread throughout the entire galaxy and possibly beyond".

Possibly? That part has been untouched as far as I know and said galaxies throughout all the different releases of the encyclopedia but there are other spelling and grammatical mistakes in the text so it can't be ruled out that it could be a mistake. The contradiction with the in game encyclopedia doesn't neccessarily mean anything big, it's been like that throughout all the games. The in game encyclopedia roughly represents what the Community of planets know, whereas the encyclopedia is the complete universe lorebook with details that in game people don't know and with the information in the encyclopedia I wouldn't think it out of place at all if the network is spread across galaxies.

[Pesanur]

See, for somewhat is called X-Universe, and not X-Galaxy.

[spankahontis]

Possibly Andromeda Galaxy which is on a 2 billion year collision course towards Earth.

[KrYcHokE]

You can't see andromeda from milky way in this perspective. Also in some sectors you can see more than one galaxy...

[csaba]

You can't see andromeda from milky way in this perspective. Also in some sectors you can see more than one galaxy...

Triangulum's perspective is something like this. The third and final spiral galaxy in the Local Group to our current knowledge. However you would need to view it from inside Andromeda to be this large.

Worth to note that we cannot see behind the plane of Milky Way. It's quite possible something like this is hiding there.

I doubt much thought was given to this background lore wise.

I also don't support the Multiple galaxies approach as both Xenon and the Paranid sought out ways to reach destinations inside the network without using the gates. So I'd say it's constrained to the Local Group tops but rather think it's just the Milky way.

[nhaines]

I do believe that the novel *X3: Yoshiko* addresses this point very briefly.

Suffice to say that there are a couple errors in the English translation of the X Encyclopedia, but this may not be one of them!

[Aken_Bosch]

You can't see andromeda from milky way in this perspective. Also in some sectors you can see more than one galaxy...

Triangulum's perspective is something like this. The third and final spiral galaxy in the Local Group to our current knowledge. However you would need to view it from inside Andromeda to be this large.

Worth to note that we cannot see behind the plane of Milky Way. It's quite possible something like this is hiding there.

I doubt much thought was given to this background lore wise.

I also don't support the Multiple galaxies approach as both Xenon and the Paranid sought out ways to reach destinations inside the network without using the gates. So I'd say it's constrained to the Local Group tops but rather think it's just the Milky way.

We have ways of looking through and beyond the Milky Way plane, just not at optical wavelengths. And in any case, if something that massive was near enough to be visible with that angular diameter, 1) we could see it anyway from above and below the galactic plane dust and 2) we probably wouldn't have any galactic plane, both galaxies would be warped beyond recognition by their mutual gravities.

That galaxy is an edited version of object M51 (the Whirlpool galaxy) with its companion galaxy cropped away. It's easily visible with very moderate equipment from a dark sky, between Canes Venatici and the "handle" of the Big Dipper, at an estimated distance of 20-25 million light years.

As you correctly pointed out, these are just space backgrounds with things "spaaace" to be taken at face value, nothing to hard-lore about. X has never been about astronomical fidelity anyway, for that, Elite is end of the corridor, second door to the left.