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apologies - stream of consciousness, not had my morning cup of tea!
The issue of Power Play may not be related, I suspect the two (Raxxla and PP) were developed separately.
I suspect Raxxla was very much MB concept, and a homage to Holdstock and the historical lore of the game, whilst PP was very much a DB concept.
I can’t recall the timelines of development roll out but believe PP came later, I suspect they were rolled out with no regard to each other. So if certain sectors such as with the Alliance are relevant ( which I do suspect) then I actually disregard PP, as I don’t think it’s related simply because it is in flux, mailable and probably came in after the fact.
The ‘lost realms’ sector (as I’m now rebranding it) fall in an odd underbelly in the PP map. Most of the powers encompass it on all sides, but not below it.
Again the mythic lost lands have not all been located - I’m seeing certain deities upon the same alignment, but which don’t have a shared relationship eg they are not part of a larger shared pantheon.
My current tin-foil theory is these surround or mingle within the ‘underworld’ sector and are hypothetically Brookes allusion to Miltonian demons.
If true and not just pattern bias then it may widen the area of this ‘underworld of lost realms’ as such I do wonder if it leads us elsewhere?
It does seem odd FD would hide Raxxla in such a busy area, the level of traffic would make me initially suspicious. But one of the very first things I did in game was circumvented the bubble, just below the celestial hemisphere where there wasn’t much action, it was filled with numerous undiscovered worlds no one had ever mapped…
And the Brookes tours do stretch out considerably, so anything is possible, the underworld area may be lower/deeper than expected… looking at PP my GIS mind can’t help but notice the weird void below it, it’s not uniform…
You see I’m conflicted because my Miltonian mindset’s tells me Raxxla ought to be higher up, on the outer side of our bubble, closer to heaven. This would tie-in with Brookes own allegory of heavenly gates in his imagery!
But now I’m convinced Brookes saw ‘paradise/eden’ as the goal, not heavens gate. This didn’t occur to me at all untill FD published their recent memorial, and my reading of Holdstocks Lost Realms.
FD statement in my opinion clearly paints Raxxla as a Miltonian Paradise aka Eden.
Lost Realms associates Eden with other lost kingdoms. These just so happen to be in game, tightly packed, around Axis Mundi, seemingly in alignment with a hypothetical 2296 sphere of influence etc etc!
To me it says Brookes obfuscated Raxxla on the outer rim, eg hidden Raxxla in a plethora of other hidden or lost realms… so Raxxla may actually be hanging from a golden thread downwards not necessarily up from this realm!
One thing that struck me too was that, now if we associate Raxxla with Milton’s Paradise, the Omphalos Rift begins to acquire context.
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Paradise is only accessible via one entry point, surrounded as it is via an impregnable crystalline and featureless dark shell. This opening is at its apex, the allegory for me now seems to shift, because I wrongly thought Brookes focused upon Lucifers journey to heavens gate.
I now suspect that Raxxla is either in or below this sector of Lost Realms… but there are other elements which conflate things. All I know is these Lost Realms are in game, and I would stake my reputation on them being an intentional Holdstock Easter egg, linked to Raxxla.
Now one aspect of Milton’ Hell, which has a link to Holdstock’ Lost Ream’s, was that Hell was a perversion of Heaven.
Holdstock likewise uses this quote on page 57 “
As Above, So below”.
I wonder more than ever how much big an influence Holdstock had on defining what/where Raxxla is! Initially when I was following my investigations into Milton, the one thing which prevailed was - if this is too literal it’s going to come across as very religious… it makes sense that Brookes utilised such abstract elements gleamed from various influences, to build something new, but at the same time so referential.
Raxxla therefore might not totally align with the traditional Miltonian universe concept. This ‘Underworld’ and ‘Yggdrasil’ may be a twisted allegory, as above, so below…
What else there is remains an unknown.
