Anybody tried out the new Python yet?
I wonder if it was all the ship's snake names that reminded MB of Paradise Lost?
I wonder if it was all the ship's snake names that reminded MB of Paradise Lost?
The Quest To Find Raxxla
- Thread starter Macros Black
- Start date
As for the Raxxla logo indicating a station that provides some kind of gateway to a parallel universe - every station does that.
Each time people log into solo or private group modes or an open instance, they are effectively in another universe.
And each time they affect the BGS, trade on the market, hand in combat bonds or sell exploration data, a gateway to other universes is used.
This gateway can transfer goods on the market, modify the BGS and tag bodies with commanders' names - and people in other universes can observe the effect.
The stations form gateways to all parallel universes.
Raxxla could be the handwavium to explain different game modes and instances.
I don't like the idea very much, though.
In my opinion, finding Raxxla should involve jumping around for no apparent reason, hoping to find some rare visuals.
Assembling a bunch of words may add some spice to the journey, but it can hardly be the goal.
Each time people log into solo or private group modes or an open instance, they are effectively in another universe.
And each time they affect the BGS, trade on the market, hand in combat bonds or sell exploration data, a gateway to other universes is used.
This gateway can transfer goods on the market, modify the BGS and tag bodies with commanders' names - and people in other universes can observe the effect.
The stations form gateways to all parallel universes.
Raxxla could be the handwavium to explain different game modes and instances.
I don't like the idea very much, though.
In my opinion, finding Raxxla should involve jumping around for no apparent reason, hoping to find some rare visuals.
Assembling a bunch of words may add some spice to the journey, but it can hardly be the goal.
Yes I have...
It's going to be my principle Pirate hunter/CZ ship now once I get the weapons up to snuff.
Love the way it flies and handles, but I don't think it will make a very good exploration ship. Internals are a bit limited...
I don't think it is a human station. The Coriolis isn't developed until the 2700s (four centuries too late). Pilot's Federation launched in 2805. Lave is first full-size one in 2752. The prototype is developed in Vetitice (Facece) prior to that.
Funny, I thought The Club conspiracy would be able to remember their own version of history. Shibboleths are wonderful little things. They seem so innocuous but are so good at locating the outsiders amongst us.
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I'm simply suggesting that someone who knows how to do it - I don't know how - unpack the original 1984 BBC or the first Commodore 64 version of Elite (a single file named ELITE-E.D64) into whatever was used before compressing. There should be easy to find Raxxla in hex, a line or two. I can do that search.
It was there, in the original 1984-85 versions for various computers. Ian Bell confirmed it, saying it's gone from the later versions. "I don't know. The missions vary across the platforms. There is no Raxxla functionality in the 6502 versions AFAICR."
There's the origin, plain and simple. Might give an important clue. Maybe, just maybe, DB played the oldest trick in the book - sending researchers all over Galaxy, while leaving Raxxxla-whatever-it-is somewhere in the starting core systems (Lave, Leesti, Riedquat etc) as a trick, something to be activated and summoned. There, in that starting micro-bubble from 1984.
It was there, in the original 1984-85 versions for various computers. Ian Bell confirmed it, saying it's gone from the later versions. "I don't know. The missions vary across the platforms. There is no Raxxla functionality in the 6502 versions AFAICR."
There's the origin, plain and simple. Might give an important clue. Maybe, just maybe, DB played the oldest trick in the book - sending researchers all over Galaxy, while leaving Raxxxla-whatever-it-is somewhere in the starting core systems (Lave, Leesti, Riedquat etc) as a trick, something to be activated and summoned. There, in that starting micro-bubble from 1984.
Something interesting about the Delphic omphalos it that it has an Abrahamic counterpart in Jerusalem: the Foundation Stone, at the center of the Dome of the Rock.Yes ultimately this gateway can’t logically take us anywhere physically outside the ED galaxy, FD has effectively confirmed that, your correct.
The lore does exist to back up this concept of an alternate reality, the Guardian network is simply a digital alternate reality, in the same ilk so is Utopia’s Sim Archives… this is a game, with limitations, so such information is not just arbitrary nor irrelevant (unless FD remove it) it’s intentional, and within the narrative, so it ought to have some relevance!
This concept holds with the general idea for the Celtic Otherworld. It is not an actual afterlife, but a location that exists in an alternate dimension. So in effect FD has essentially probably already told us what Raxxla might reveal, access to and probably communion with the Guardians, themselves the ‘tribe of the gods’, a version of The Tuatha Dé Danann.
This is why the Empyrean concept works, where I hypothesised it is someplace close to the Morrigans, it ties in with the Starship One encounters with the ‘caretakers’. Who I believe are one and the same - in game.
This makes sense to me, it’s evident FD altered a previous narrative, our knowledge of the Guardians etc was handed to us after the fact via the Update, I do presume the original narrative would have likewise ‘hinted’ at this, but it was dropped in favour of this current trajectory..
Again I love this concept of Raxxla as it actually reflects upon the original source material from Holdstock perfectly. In his DW novella RH talks of alternate realities too, this in itself was not arbitrary, but an extrapolation of his existing lore linked to concepts of Celtic Otherworlds.
Thinking abstractly there’s no great leap of logic to presume the Sim Archive is based upon the Raxxla technology, potentially alluding we might all be in a VR reality (which we are)… ultimately that’s not very original, but it’s ‘achievable’ to represent in game.
If the DW and Raxxla could be one and the same, if not then logically it’s inclusion ought to give more information on Raxxla. We have to entertain the possibility Raxxla is already known to some and exploited, which might be hinted at through existing clues, it could have been built into a station.
The Miltonian aspect, I believe gives it a location, and again ties it neatly back in Holdstock mythic origins for Elite. The text of Paradise Lost may likewise have given shape to Raxxla, in so much as the ‘Pendant’ globe does have a dimensional gateway - possibly two; to Heaven and the other to Eden…
The Raxxla logo, I might presume is showing us this concept, an omphalos at the centre of something, its boundaries described by a hexagon, and its portal, it’s gateway, much like the passage from the crystalline sphere into our universe, represented by another hexagon, I sometimes imagine the logo is a graphical representation of what Satan saw when he looked down from his initial vantage point.
I still think we’re incredibly close.
Celtic Otherworld - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
View attachment 392454
Tuatha Dé Danann - Wikipedia
View attachment 392455
It's said to have been the site of the Holy of Holies - a place where God's presence can be particularly felt - on Solomon's Temple and its successor Second Temple; and could only be accessed once a year, on Yom Kippur, by its High Priest (the only such occasion where YHVH's true name could be pronounced!)
Jewish tradition explicitly holds it as an axis mundi for this reason, and Muslims believe that Muhammad visited Heaven by ascending in the same general area. Not to mention the Well of Souls, a cave accessible by a hole in that rock, where Crusaders mistakenly believed the Holy of Holies to be.
(I've been meaning to talk about it for a while, but this is the first time I feel it's relevant)
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That contradicts what FD (I think DB) said that ED is the first game to implement Raxxla. I believe the code of the first game has been extensively analysed.
"...to implement."
Something Raxxla WAS in the original(s) code at the beginning. Not working as a feature (I made Elite rank in 1985 on C64, knew it inside out, no Raxxla whatsoever ingame) but it was written in .
Ian Bell confirmed it was there (written in a code), and removed for the later editions.
So I'd gladly hex the crap out of the original, if only someone can unpack it.
A single line "Raxxla xyz" would make a breakthrough.
No thats not what IB nor DB stated.
IB in the text you allude to does not ‘affirm’ its existence, he simply is stating the obvious, it wasn’t in any of the code and that there were various iterations of the game, which he didn’t port, the title was marketed by the publisher.
DB similarly affirmed it wasn’t, in an 80s magazine (below).
Raxxla was never part of the game officially. It was purely an invention of Robert Holdstock who wrote the accompanying book. That book was not what we now call canon, it was his work, IB and DB did not tell him what to do, other than ‘show him’ the game.
Much of how Raxxla is described is in fitting with RH previous work. He is like many authors contextually repurposing his lore for that text, developing it.
Technically Raxxla never appeared in game officially until Elite Dangerous. Technically never until the Codex.
Here is IB statement:
“What secrets can be found in eight bit Elite versions? What are difference between them and does in any of these exist a planet named Raxxla?”
“I don't know. The missions vary across the platforms. There is no Raxxla functionality in the 6502 versions as far as I can recall.”
Here’s DB statement:
“A couple of years ago, when there on speccy scene was so much hype about Elite, some magazines wrote - there in game Elite is secret planet Raxxla. Is it true?”
“[!] No.”
Recollection
www.atlantis-prophecy.org
Many of us old enough have known this to be the case for some time. In so much, that such a context probably did bias many into not believing it initially wasn’t in the ED game either.
Maybe this ought to be included on page one? Probably is, can’t recall…
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So I have been looking at Horizons… and it has sent me back over well traveled paths … Bear with me here.
To the jewel that burns on the brow of the mother of galaxies!
Taking this in context - it is fairly obvious what this is… so i will address this last.
To the whisperer in witchspace, the siren of the deepest void!
This references several things - one, the sounds in witchspace. Two, the sirens in Holdstocks book. Three, the Sirens in Greek Myth - specifically the Odyssey, and The Myth of Er in the Republic. - The call of exploration and its inherent dangers…
The parent's grief, the lover's woe, and the yearning of our vagabond hearts. To Raxxla!
Specifically speaking to the family woes of Odysseus. The grief induced suicide of his mother and the grief stricken life of his father.
The lovers woe I assume is related to the struggles his wife has.
The yearning of our vagabond hearts would indicate a desire to explore…. But we know that Odysseus wanted nothing more than to return…. Home.
And now back to the Jewel on the brow…
There is an overarching theme to the narrative arc of ED and i think it might be The Odyssey…
Quoting from the Odyssey:
But when the Star of Eve with golden light
Adorn’d the matron brow of sable night…
The evening star being of course Hesperus… Venus….. Lucifer ( technically the morning star… but ya vesper doesnt work)
So to be clear I am looking for the Dark Wheel here. And i see two obvious search targets….Venus and Lucifer.
The garden axis could be construed to fit the Sirius system….
I know we have looked at Sirius from the beginning- but i dont ever recollect us doing a hard search around Lucifer for a dark station. Could it be the station we keep seeing at the startscreen? - might be worth a look.
To the jewel that burns on the brow of the mother of galaxies!
Taking this in context - it is fairly obvious what this is… so i will address this last.
To the whisperer in witchspace, the siren of the deepest void!
This references several things - one, the sounds in witchspace. Two, the sirens in Holdstocks book. Three, the Sirens in Greek Myth - specifically the Odyssey, and The Myth of Er in the Republic. - The call of exploration and its inherent dangers…
The parent's grief, the lover's woe, and the yearning of our vagabond hearts. To Raxxla!
Specifically speaking to the family woes of Odysseus. The grief induced suicide of his mother and the grief stricken life of his father.
The lovers woe I assume is related to the struggles his wife has.
The yearning of our vagabond hearts would indicate a desire to explore…. But we know that Odysseus wanted nothing more than to return…. Home.
And now back to the Jewel on the brow…
There is an overarching theme to the narrative arc of ED and i think it might be The Odyssey…
Quoting from the Odyssey:
But when the Star of Eve with golden light
Adorn’d the matron brow of sable night…
The evening star being of course Hesperus… Venus….. Lucifer ( technically the morning star… but ya vesper doesnt work)
So to be clear I am looking for the Dark Wheel here. And i see two obvious search targets….Venus and Lucifer.
The garden axis could be construed to fit the Sirius system….
I know we have looked at Sirius from the beginning- but i dont ever recollect us doing a hard search around Lucifer for a dark station. Could it be the station we keep seeing at the startscreen? - might be worth a look.
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And if alioth wiki is correct and the Coriolis is the old one, why do we only find those in ED but none of the newer Dodecahedral stations??? – OK retcon. But can I trust alioth wiki about the old stuff?
Read properly first, then ask! (never mind)
If memory serves me correctly from talking to folks on Discord, forums, and general research, the first game was written in 6502 assembly code. Even if you know how to get at underlying code, good luck making any sense of it. Yes, I know programming. No, I won't help. Not getting banned over this foolishness.
Obviously, don't do this. Frontier Developments Elite Dangerous TOS forbids (though would assume this applies to all prior games too):
... translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the Game or use, reproduce, distribute, translate, broadcast, publicly perform, store in a retrieval system or otherwise deal in the Game or any part thereof in any way;
TL;DR: Just don't.
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Gotcha 
For clarity, per the original manual, it actually states Dodo and Iconic Coriolis are TWO different designs.
The design in this game is apparent "Dodo" not "Iconic Coriolis". Furthermore, we have an even newer variant with newb-hammers to demolish unwary CMDRs.
That said, the current game lore only deals with "Coriolis". From the Brewer Corporation entry:
Strictly speaking, via very careful and deliberate linguistic gymnastics this doesn't invalidate ANY of the prior lore. Which leads us back to some interesting observations:
- Timothy Brewer is apparently an alias of Jaques as he built the first Coriolis per "..All that Glisters".
- Similarly, GASEC or "Galactic Astronautic Astronautic and Space Exploration Centre" is an alias for Brewer Corporation. Brewer Corporation is ANCIENT.
- Brewer Corporation/GASEC is an Imperial Corporation.
- Jaques is QUITE A BIT OLDER than he claims. I believe in "..All that Glisters" he claims to have been "born some three hundred years before, and had been a cyborg for over two hundred and seventy of those years". In 3200, that would only put him back to 2900. However, the first full scale station was built in Lave in 2752. GASEC R&D of the design occurs before 2752. At a very minimum, this puts good ol' Jaques at somewhere around 500 years old in 3200.
- All stations currently in use appear to have originated under the Imperials.
- GalCenter G1 was not the Federation - it was the Empire. Everything is centrally run by the Imperials at the time of the first game. Current lore between the Hengist Duval codex and "Tyrell Biggs Election" beacon in Sol puts the unification thereabouts of 3008. However, this would have happened under Gaylen Trasken Duval.
- The Coriolis is described this way by the "The Dark Wheel" novella: "A Coriolis station is nothing less than a vast city built on six planes and spread, around the wide empty sky of its interior, facing inwards. From South City, the roof on the world is North City. At night, the lights that glow above your head are the lights of streets and buildings.". Six sides means approximately like a cube (not exactly but close).
Toroidal pretty much torpedoes it being an Iconic Coriolis. Toroid would be approximately donut-shaped. I think we are looking for a Stanford Torus.
Stanford torus - Wikipedia
Extending this to the Omphalos Rift and stretching the structure with 6 giant pylons with the exterior side covered solar panels and the interior covered in living space (basis is Raxxla logo) and you get Citadel from Mass Effect or something exceedingly similar.
Raxxla logo (looking inwards towards the central ring):
Comparison to Omphalos Stone:
Though, strictly speaking a Halo Ring or supergate isn't out of realms of possibility.
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Yep I noticed it the other day and caught a screenshot.
It opens with the ship flying past the silhouetted lettering.
Despite it paradoxically being a newer station design than Coriolis, the Orbis station was determined in the past to be an exact match of the codex image for TDW including toroidal living structure. To me this communicates that TDW station is separate from what Raxxla is and so the logo is an entirely different beast to decipher.
Of course, there is a chance the codex station image is a red herring and FDev just picked a similar station to the description but I feel like that would be too clumsy or misleading considering the difficult task of finding such a stealthy object.
Have you tried comparing it with the old loading screen? (The video is available if you have Horizons Legacy). It might be interesting to compare star backgrounds..if they haven't changed then it might be significant for location of that station...
The extent of obfuscation around Raxxla has become fairly evident during @Rochester 's analysis of the Paradise Lost cosmology embodied in-game. The codex TDW entry phrasing around "Lyta Crane"' heavily suggests that may be false, or at least intentionally misleading.
To my knowledge FD have never explicitly said that the "DW Orbis" picture (that image is obviously heavily manipulated-see earlier discussion in this thread) and the "Raxxla logo" are valid nor representative, or in any way pertinent - that is our assumption. Even if TDW station is real and in-game (I'm not at all convinced...I suspect that whole storyline was deleted) the image of an Orbis could be intentional obfuscation that it is actually a Coriolis, which could make more sense against the lore given the purported age of TDW and the introduction date for more recent station types.
Caution young padawan, suspicion is a necessary attribute in a Questor!
Ironically it’s little things like this, that tempt me to flip back to PC and 4.0, from Legacy not necessarily EDO. My old backers dino is rotting in dry doc. Ironically I rather enjoy Legacy now, it’s nice and quiet and feels like the ‘old’ Elite, which technically it is
but it’s nice to see the title look a little smatter.
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