I think the main thing to understand is it is showing us what the golden chain that leads to Raxxla looks like from the system maps perspective. It is possible to rotate the system map from a 2D side view to a side view in 3D. I still think this system is within the Bernards loop and the tour just nudges you to the outer edge.
The Quest To Find Raxxla
- Thread starter Macros Black
- Start date
Just thought it was interesting to see that at a theme park. But Maybe Raxxla is a theme park . lol.I've been looking around for any info on MB's shield but it's hard to search his blog. Did Michael or the artist Luciana Nedelea ever share info on the symbology behind it?
From what I understand this is a viking shield with the central 'boss' handle.
In contrast to his back tattoo depicting a hybrid between biblical and Lovecraftian Cthulu mythos, this artwork is heavily themed around Nordic (maybe even Celtic?) mythology with some christian elements sprinkled in (Michael (archangel? with a halo) in plate armour, the devil figure).
I noticed there is a distinct difference in the gates - there are skulls on it, and there is a 'dark' star shining above it (note the corresponding choice of darkness within the crescent moons and eyes of dragons and skulls).
With so many symbols of death here I'm thinking it is depicting Valgrind, the gates of Valhalla - "the Slain-Gate; Those gates are old, And few know how they may be locked."
Interestingly the devil character is depicted holding up this 'dark omphalos' squatting on something glowing, with 'deathly' vapors rising up from cups (or torches) either side.
So perhaps the garden design is leaning towards referring to three realms - the heavens / otherworlds, the earth realm (universe), and underworld / helheim ?
Perhaps the garden design is a matter of shifting perspective to 'align' to the goal.
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Note that the 4 circles also corresponds with the circle of 4 trees within the cosmos view circle - reinforcing this idea of shifting perspective looking downward and "through".
Perhaps this indicates the Way to Raxxla is in a 'downward' direction???
(or upward depending on perspective)
Edit: another thought:
what if from a certain point, you observe a star in a system with a black hole positioned in front of it (the light bending around it), and there are bodies orbiting - one of which is the location of Raxxla?
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A note for the general audience: Paradise Lost is a cosmic Christian take on the Homeric epic format, hence why Milton asks the Muse for guidance and it starts in medias res after a pivotal point - in this case, Satan losing the war.
(also, it just hits me that his blindness is a possible reason why he decided to run a less Earthly theme...)
Speaking of epics, and reiterating points made some time ago (this thread is approaching the 2000-page mark, we can't help it), the Dark Wheel's toast aligns suspiciously well with the tribulations faced by the original epic protagonist, Odysseus - Circe the witch, the original Sirens, the grief of his father Laertes and woe of his lover Penelope. However, that poem runs contrary to the whole "yearning of our vagabond hearts" thing, which also fits the German noun Fernweh cited by the Codex; the man just wants to return home.
...on the other hand, his words in Canto XXVI of Inferno - as Dante, who depicted Virgil as a literal guide across the Divine Comedy, only knew about him through a less flattering Imperial Roman lens - hit much closer:
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Did a panel at Archipelacon 2 with Diane Duane last weekend where we discussed writing for TV, Games, Film and Radio. One of the audience approached me at the end and said he was the early alpha player for Elite (1984) who was supplying Holdstock with information on how the game worked so the novella would be accurate.
Limited by dislocation, re speed of light. meaning, by the time light that has traveled from across the other side of the galaxy ARRIVES, the system itself it came from, is already 40? 50? thousand light years further around. even 1 year, is enough, to throw you off. Perhaps raxxla is simply something somehow in synch-advance, of it's future location?
i.e. if it IS there,.. but not-where it should be going TO-be by normal estimations, if somehow disjointed in time or slipshod inbetween where it should be, and where it actually is, if moving so much faster than other systems for some reason, that the normal rates of expectation of a system's location, are missing it?
even if it was <200ly , 200 years ago, which some here seem to doubt just because of the original elite's maximum game-space,
then this could also be a solution as to how it "was there", yet was not?
Of course now, if it moves faster than other systems, then it could be several hundred years travel,.. more,.. either way (spinward / counter-spinward) , than where it could've been, in the original game. Perhaps a few-MORE hundred ly spinward or C.spinward ahead or behind of Sol? or sideways / up/down even?
. * shrugs *
A gravitational anomaly, might be all it takes, for a system to move in unusual ways, sort of like two magnets of the same polarity, pushing each other away,.. something weird, like that. I know HMO theory states a very high degree of for the lack of a better word, grip, upon massive HMOs,.. but what if a system was super-LIGHT, but high energy for some reason?
A tiny, cold, sun, lots of heavy planets, with more mass than the sun, orbiting at huge distances, cantankerous, like a Bolas, in flight,
[
]
. * shrugs * not specifically that, but something like that, as-to-why, it might move, or not appear on HMO mapping,.. or i dunno,.. be obscured, in terms of particle shadows?
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A little shower-inspired extension to this line of thought:
Ulysses follows with a description of his fateful, fernweh-driven expedition: after gathering his old crew, he crossed the Pillars of Hercules (the rocks located in Ceuta and Gibraltar that separate the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean) to the open sea; then, after five months keeping westward, he saw an enormous mountain in the horizon - and his ship was then immediately wrecked by a whirlpool.
We later find out that mountain is Purgatory - which is described by Dante as diametrically opposed to Jerusalem and composes all the landmass opposite the continents known at the time (Europe, Africa and Asia).
Here is Dante's cosmological model, just to confuse things further.
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Would have been in the submitted text from the person who named it. We didn't get much of a look at that. I do remember subsequently offering to write it into some of the background, but by that point I was pretty much finished with my work.
I'm quite out of the loop on the state of the Raxxla hunt and slowly reading though the topic, but might be pages before I find the answer so I ask:
Has anyone tried to just fly towards the Landscape Signal from the closest system? What happens? Why can't it be a POI very far away from the star?
It is in between systems and flying to it does nothing. Many have attempted looking for it the same way the voyager probes were found. It also doesnt show up as a poi or anything but the sound direction changes. Hopefully that answers your question.
It has it's own orbit and sits out of bounds of reaching it. But yes you can hear it change audio positions dependent of the star system your in that is near it. No ones been able to or figure out a way to reach the sound source. There's a site that has 3D mapped its positions rotations and close to nearby star passings. We now know more about it now these days than some other objects within the Milkyway in game.
Now it all makes sense. The gardens were advanced subliminal messaging by FDev to think about theme parks and buy Planet Coaster
See told you it was a theme park lol. I mean that is an awesome thing to find and if it was really linked that be funny. That's the kinda cheeky humor the old devs for elite had. Good sense of humor.Now it all makes sense. The gardens were advanced subliminal messaging by FDev to think about theme parks and buy Planet Coaster
I think you finally found the map!Now it all makes sense. The gardens were advanced subliminal messaging by FDev to think about theme parks and buy Planet Coaster
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Do you mean it changes inside the system due to ship movement or just over time due to orbit?
Also, do stars system systems ever change positions or is this object "orbiting" something is a unique thing?
if u are in any system near it does not change position even if u fly past it. I was surrly several times >1ly past it even assuming max error still like its burned in to the skybox.
And No star systems never change position.
Yes many times not only the closest system. thankfully i like a 0% paintjob otherwise i would be broke by now.
The face upon the waters
Tiamat, Nefertem, Thetis and Shamash as parallels for the waters of life
The primordial waters of creation were identified in Paradise Lost, were a chaotic sea of matter and energy, these evidently echoed Genesis and the idea of divine order imposed upon the waters of creation.
“Dove like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss / And mad’st it pregnant” Paradise Lost John Milton.
This “Abyss” (the deepest void?) in Milton’s cosmology is later described by him as the zone of turbulent energies and unshaped matter, a lightless and boundless liminal space between Heaven and Hell, and later, between Hell and the newly created pendant globe; our entire universe enclosed in a sphere hanging from the wall of heaven.
Milton’s Chaos is not just the womb of creation as he describes it, it’s a character too, Satan journeys through this primordial medium and it is here where he meets the umpire of ‘Chaos’ and his consorts, at the base of the zone of chaos which Milton likened to Erebus, which shook as hells gate opened.
‘Th' infernal dores, and on thir hinges grateHarsh Thunder, that the lowest bottom shook of Erebus’. John Milton.
Here Satan asks for directions because he actually had no bearings, he is effectively lost, at this point he’s told by the umpire to go upwards and to that place where he first fell, from that place he will see the pendant globe.
In game the system Erebus is relatively close to a number of systems named after Chaos’s consorts, Nyx (the personification of Night) and Eris (the personification of Discord) hidden in the system Minerva (the goddess of wisdom or rationale).
The Greek primordial Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (Night) were born of Chaos; Eris (Discord) is the child of Nyx.
In game as I’ve previously identified, if one draws a 3D line of sight from the last 2 points of Jacques path (out of hell) before he left the bubble, it can be aligned with Erebus and then extended upwards to align with the genship Artemis, this together forms a perfect alignment to the midpoint intersecting the signals originating first from Nefertem with the ship Thetis, and then Shamash, these like Erebus sit upon an obvious sphere of systems all named after various water and storms deities.
In Mesopotamian lore, Tiamat embodies the chaotic seas of creation, the raw material from which order and cosmos were shaped.
In Greek mythology, Thetis as a Nereid was born of the ancient sea god Nereus, the old man of the sea, a creator deity of life-giving waters, transformation and fate, a divine intermediary.
Likewise the Egyptian god Nefertem is also associated with primordial waters!
In their positions in game with regards the signal, parallels can thus be drawn between Milton, Thetis and Nefertem, as threshold figures as with Tiamat, over the waters of creation, where in Milton’s Paradise Lost Eden (paradise) was formed.
In game in relation to this position of Nefertem is Helios, the Greek god of the Sun and the divination of highest aspect of the sky. Close too it is Yoruba, whose theology replaces the Catholic concept of a golden chain creation mythology.
Assessment:
It is highly likely (80% to >90%) that the alignment of said axis is intentional and that the Thetis / Shamash signal has a correlation with the identified model, identifying it not only has an important position within the Miltonian cosmological model displayed in game, but such positioning supports the existence of said model in game.
It is highly likely (80% to >90%) that the naming conventions identified in game attributed from separate theologies concerning the waters of creation are intentionally partnered and such parallels are thematically consistent with an encoded locational positioning, which corresponds and supports similarly the above identified model, namely establishing a zone of chaos and the aforementioned waters of creation exists in game.
Assumption:
Nefertem and the sphere of influence set by the 2 signals are evidently of importance in the Raxxla narrative due to the identified alignment and theological parallels, set against the a Miltonian model. It’s therefore plausible the storyline broadcast by FD was intended to draw attention to this general location.
A hypothetical alignment between Fortuna (namesake of the Trinkets of Hidden Fortune) and Tyche does align with the signals sphere of influence however, it is far above it.
With these systems outlining the zone of chaos / waters of creation, Milton’s Paradise ought to be above it and upon and Easterly position (based on various academic interpretations of the text previously discussed).
In the FD comedic livestream involving Channel 5 news in October 2020, they joked about an “Ethel Moonshot” as well as other news about Raxxla.
If relevant one potential rearrangement of that name could be ‘TEHOM’ - this is a Hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss". It's used in the Hebrew Bible to describe the primeval ocean, the chaotic waters before creation, the primordial chaos.
Tehom is also a cognate for Tiamat, the Babylonian Goddess of creation.
Ethel Moonshot might if linked, been utilised in that communication FD was intended to draw attention to this general location, the remaining context of Moonshot likewise might have been a motif for a cosmic journey?
‘And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters’.
Is the Chan 5 clue a reference to either Tiamat as the Mother of Galaxies or was it a reference to the wider concept of ‘the waters of creation’ and thus foreshadowing Nefertem, as Ethel said ‘something was around the corner’…?
The Chan 5 broadcast took place on October 2020; the Shamash Murder Signal occurred October 2023.
Intelligence gaps:
“Ethel Moonshot” could equally be a throwaway pun, not a published puzzle or hint; the above assumption may be an example of retro-fitting due to conformational bias due to the absence of developer confirmation and a 3 year gap between it and the storyline.
Assumption - some more:
Eris and Minerva as way-markers
The use of the bodies Eris and Minerva can be read as an example of dialectic orientation, where their polarity may have been intended to draw attention to them, as narrative way-markers upon the boundary of chaos aka the Waters of Life,
Of note I did map all of the locations provided by @Macros Bkack from the Removed Missions, of which the majority do focus upon this area of space?
Shamash as a threshold figure
In Mesopotamian mythology Shamash is a sun god, twin to Ishtar and a devine judge who dwells upon a mountain, crossing the sky by day and descending into the underworld by night to judge the dead.
In relation to the in game cosmological model, Shamash’s position might symbolise order presiding over the abyss, potentially reinforcing the concept of a boundary layer (as with Tiamat, Nefertem and Thetis) over chaos (the deep) and Empyrean above (light and order) a liminal threshold, a judge over the Waters.
Garret’s Role as a liminal threshold
Within Shamash there is Garrets Outpost whose etymology originates from old French guerite meaning watchtower or sentry box, it also means attic or a top floor room in middle English.
In relation to the positioning regarding Shamash, Helios and Yoruba, this could be seen as reinforcing the concept of a vantage point at an apex, similar in respect to the dove above the abyss’s edge, an elevated, watchful threshold between chaos and cosmos.
Recommendations:
Exploration of the sector of space between Fortuna and above Nefertem.
Exploration of the sector of space between / around Erebus, Minerva and the generation ship Artemis.
Tiamat, Nefertem, Thetis and Shamash as parallels for the waters of life
The primordial waters of creation were identified in Paradise Lost, were a chaotic sea of matter and energy, these evidently echoed Genesis and the idea of divine order imposed upon the waters of creation.
“Dove like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss / And mad’st it pregnant” Paradise Lost John Milton.
This “Abyss” (the deepest void?) in Milton’s cosmology is later described by him as the zone of turbulent energies and unshaped matter, a lightless and boundless liminal space between Heaven and Hell, and later, between Hell and the newly created pendant globe; our entire universe enclosed in a sphere hanging from the wall of heaven.
Milton’s Chaos is not just the womb of creation as he describes it, it’s a character too, Satan journeys through this primordial medium and it is here where he meets the umpire of ‘Chaos’ and his consorts, at the base of the zone of chaos which Milton likened to Erebus, which shook as hells gate opened.
‘Th' infernal dores, and on thir hinges grateHarsh Thunder, that the lowest bottom shook of Erebus’. John Milton.
Here Satan asks for directions because he actually had no bearings, he is effectively lost, at this point he’s told by the umpire to go upwards and to that place where he first fell, from that place he will see the pendant globe.
In game the system Erebus is relatively close to a number of systems named after Chaos’s consorts, Nyx (the personification of Night) and Eris (the personification of Discord) hidden in the system Minerva (the goddess of wisdom or rationale).
The Greek primordial Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (Night) were born of Chaos; Eris (Discord) is the child of Nyx.
In game as I’ve previously identified, if one draws a 3D line of sight from the last 2 points of Jacques path (out of hell) before he left the bubble, it can be aligned with Erebus and then extended upwards to align with the genship Artemis, this together forms a perfect alignment to the midpoint intersecting the signals originating first from Nefertem with the ship Thetis, and then Shamash, these like Erebus sit upon an obvious sphere of systems all named after various water and storms deities.
In Mesopotamian lore, Tiamat embodies the chaotic seas of creation, the raw material from which order and cosmos were shaped.
In Greek mythology, Thetis as a Nereid was born of the ancient sea god Nereus, the old man of the sea, a creator deity of life-giving waters, transformation and fate, a divine intermediary.
Likewise the Egyptian god Nefertem is also associated with primordial waters!
In their positions in game with regards the signal, parallels can thus be drawn between Milton, Thetis and Nefertem, as threshold figures as with Tiamat, over the waters of creation, where in Milton’s Paradise Lost Eden (paradise) was formed.
In game in relation to this position of Nefertem is Helios, the Greek god of the Sun and the divination of highest aspect of the sky. Close too it is Yoruba, whose theology replaces the Catholic concept of a golden chain creation mythology.
Assessment:
It is highly likely (80% to >90%) that the alignment of said axis is intentional and that the Thetis / Shamash signal has a correlation with the identified model, identifying it not only has an important position within the Miltonian cosmological model displayed in game, but such positioning supports the existence of said model in game.
It is highly likely (80% to >90%) that the naming conventions identified in game attributed from separate theologies concerning the waters of creation are intentionally partnered and such parallels are thematically consistent with an encoded locational positioning, which corresponds and supports similarly the above identified model, namely establishing a zone of chaos and the aforementioned waters of creation exists in game.
Assumption:
Nefertem and the sphere of influence set by the 2 signals are evidently of importance in the Raxxla narrative due to the identified alignment and theological parallels, set against the a Miltonian model. It’s therefore plausible the storyline broadcast by FD was intended to draw attention to this general location.
A hypothetical alignment between Fortuna (namesake of the Trinkets of Hidden Fortune) and Tyche does align with the signals sphere of influence however, it is far above it.
With these systems outlining the zone of chaos / waters of creation, Milton’s Paradise ought to be above it and upon and Easterly position (based on various academic interpretations of the text previously discussed).
In the FD comedic livestream involving Channel 5 news in October 2020, they joked about an “Ethel Moonshot” as well as other news about Raxxla.
If relevant one potential rearrangement of that name could be ‘TEHOM’ - this is a Hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss". It's used in the Hebrew Bible to describe the primeval ocean, the chaotic waters before creation, the primordial chaos.
Tehom is also a cognate for Tiamat, the Babylonian Goddess of creation.
Ethel Moonshot might if linked, been utilised in that communication FD was intended to draw attention to this general location, the remaining context of Moonshot likewise might have been a motif for a cosmic journey?
‘And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters’.
Is the Chan 5 clue a reference to either Tiamat as the Mother of Galaxies or was it a reference to the wider concept of ‘the waters of creation’ and thus foreshadowing Nefertem, as Ethel said ‘something was around the corner’…?
The Chan 5 broadcast took place on October 2020; the Shamash Murder Signal occurred October 2023.
Intelligence gaps:
“Ethel Moonshot” could equally be a throwaway pun, not a published puzzle or hint; the above assumption may be an example of retro-fitting due to conformational bias due to the absence of developer confirmation and a 3 year gap between it and the storyline.
Assumption - some more:
Eris and Minerva as way-markers
The use of the bodies Eris and Minerva can be read as an example of dialectic orientation, where their polarity may have been intended to draw attention to them, as narrative way-markers upon the boundary of chaos aka the Waters of Life,
Of note I did map all of the locations provided by @Macros Bkack from the Removed Missions, of which the majority do focus upon this area of space?
Shamash as a threshold figure
In Mesopotamian mythology Shamash is a sun god, twin to Ishtar and a devine judge who dwells upon a mountain, crossing the sky by day and descending into the underworld by night to judge the dead.
In relation to the in game cosmological model, Shamash’s position might symbolise order presiding over the abyss, potentially reinforcing the concept of a boundary layer (as with Tiamat, Nefertem and Thetis) over chaos (the deep) and Empyrean above (light and order) a liminal threshold, a judge over the Waters.
Garret’s Role as a liminal threshold
Within Shamash there is Garrets Outpost whose etymology originates from old French guerite meaning watchtower or sentry box, it also means attic or a top floor room in middle English.
In relation to the positioning regarding Shamash, Helios and Yoruba, this could be seen as reinforcing the concept of a vantage point at an apex, similar in respect to the dove above the abyss’s edge, an elevated, watchful threshold between chaos and cosmos.
Recommendations:
Exploration of the sector of space between Fortuna and above Nefertem.
Exploration of the sector of space between / around Erebus, Minerva and the generation ship Artemis.
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