So the conversation I had with a couple of people I know on an MMORPG basically centered around fiction and stars. The discussion centered around a fictional universe in which there are a ton of "new elements" not exactly found on the current periodic table. In my argument, I pointed out that the elements that we do know about are actually pretty clear; we also understand the process that went into creating these elements, more or less. The point was brought up that we simply aren't sure; I brought up spectroscopy and how it can tell the chemical (and thus elemental) make-up of a star, but this was generally seen as irrelevant. The point was, that we simply don't know what's out there in the universe. In the case of Dark Matter, I would definitely agree! However, how do we know that the periodic table is sound? How do we know that we will not run into other strange elements out there in the universe? Note that I'm not talking about new ways of combining elements, but new elements altogether.