The Quest To Find Raxxla

[Diplomacy] Carnegie · Sep 10, 2018

Scytale said:
Very possible that the original "personnal journey" concept has been reduced to the "personnal stumbling onto" mechanic we are "enjoying" since MB left.

And so it remained in the official lore. The poor Old Lady hadn't been "actualized". (RR line untill the end of the arm).
This is one thing that makes me believe that Raxxla is not so close to the Bubble as some interesting and consistent tinfoiling suggests. Old lore puts everything much closer than it actually appears ingame.
Times are a changin', we play "Elite: Dangerous" in a much larger scale than "Elite". I hope I will be here to explore a lot of new galaxies when "Elite: Deadly" is released.

That's why I've made up my own 'personal nareative' - setting out to scan all the real world systems in the game. Naturally this is hampered by permit locks, systems being incorrectly placed 10kLY below the galactic plane and 'invisble' systems (if you search by name, the GalMap takes you to the relevant location, but there's no actual system there to jump to).

Still, it'll keep me busy for another 7 years

Scytale · Sep 10, 2018

metatheurgist · Sep 10, 2018

So, given that MB himself said "Three will be no clues", isn't all this navel gazing pointless?

Jaiotu · Sep 10, 2018

metatheurgist said:
So, given that MB himself said "Three will be no clues", isn't all this navel gazing pointless?

I'd take the statement 'there will be no clues' with a grain of salt. I'd guess that what MB meant was that there would be no clues delivered outside of the game itself or beyond what had already been given. We certainly have been given some clues already: Raxxla has been mentioned in at least three of the official novels and the existence of a faction named 'The Dark Wheel' all serve to underline the fact that Raxxla is still very much relevant to the current game. There are likely other clues hidden somewhere in the game.

Besides ... the 'navel gazing' isn't pointless at all. The point of this thread isn't just about Raxxla. Its about community. You could argue that finding Raxxla itself is kind of pointless or that playing some silly space game is kind of pointless (my wife sure thinks it is). What we gain from all of this is a sense of belonging, our shared faith (and frustration) in a pointless quest played out in a pointless game that we all are, nonetheless, invested in.

metatheurgist · Sep 10, 2018

I like a collaborative effort as much as the next guy. Maybe this is a another example of classic FD communication. I like the idea of Raxxla and that it can be found with a bit of communal brain power and effort but if after all this time there's really no solid evidence of progress maybe we should take MB at his word. The only way it will be found is if someone lands in the right system and decides to drive on the right world, in one of 400B star systems. Unless FD would like to indicate otherwise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

bluecrash · Sep 10, 2018

bluecrash · Sep 10, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T28ZWKyadUc

16min mark "Staring at our navels"

15min mark "Brutality of the vulture"

odd phrases in interview by DB

Jaiotu · Sep 10, 2018

bluecrash said:
It has been indicated that Raxxla was in all the versions.

Indicated where?

The code for the original Elite has been combed through and there's no hint of Raxxla. The lookup table used by the original game's procedural generation to seed the galaxy's with system names would make it impossible for system named Raxxla to have existed. David Braben confirmed in an interview that Raxxla did not exist in the original Elite: http://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=interviews&id_interview=37

When Elite: Plus was released in 1991 it was without The Dark Wheel novella. Instead it came with a novella called Imprint which contained no hint of Raxxla.

The original Elite game was almost entirely complete when Robert Holdstock was hired to flesh out the game universe by writing a very colorful instruction manual and accompanying novella. Holdstock incorporated ideas from his previous works in doing so. GalCop, Raxxla, Thruspace drives, etc. were entirely ideas of Holdstock's. "Thargoids" (a homage to Captain Kremmen) and naming ships after snakes came from Braben and Bell.

Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier First Encounters basically rebooted the Elite universe and very little from Holdstock crossed over to either game.

Jorki Rasalas · Sep 10, 2018

DrewCarnegie said:
That's why I've made up my own 'personal nareative' - setting out to scan all the real world systems in the game. Naturally this is hampered by permit locks, systems being incorrectly placed 10kLY below the galactic plane and 'invisble' systems (if you search by name, the GalMap takes you to the relevant location, but there's no actual system there to jump to).

Still, it'll keep me busy for another 7 years

Which reminds me, the other day I came across a permit locked system quite close to Shinrarta, it was in the nav list while I was collecting Colonia passengers at Tchernobog. But then I had a visitor & didnt get around to checking it out, anyone done so?

Rochester · Sep 10, 2018

Another tin foil theory - excuse if already investigated but has anyone taken all of the locations associated with the Dark Wheel missions and tagged them in the galaxy map to see if they point anywhere or triangulate?

Non Grata · Sep 10, 2018

Jorki Rasalas said:
Which reminds me, the other day I came across a permit locked system quite close to Shinrarta, it was in the nav list while I was collecting Colonia passengers at Tchernobog. But then I had a visitor & didnt get around to checking it out, anyone done so?

Here are the permit locked systems within 80ly of Tchernobog. I think I have permits for most of them.

System		Allegiance	Population	Powerplay	Distance ly
Tiliala	4	Independent	39,200,000	E: Felicia Winters	30.12 ly
Shinrarta Dezhra	5	?	85,206,935	-	31.36 ly
Crom	1	Independent	15,000	E: Arissa Lavigny-Duval	36.93 ly
Hodack	2	Federation	5,000	-	39.53 ly
Pi Mensae	2	Independent	50,000	E: Arissa Lavigny-Duval	46.24 ly
Hors	2	Federation	50,000	-	57.54 ly
Beta Hydri	6	Federation	6,000,000,000	E: Felicia Winters	69.75 ly
HIP 54530	8	Federation	8,041,203	-	73.73 ly
Isinor	1	Independent	36,999,999	E: Edmund Mahon	76.09 ly
Ross 128	2	Federation	20,000	Contested	79.94 ly

Han_Zen · Sep 10, 2018

Good to see people tinfoiling.

A few points on what might be relevant in the lore.

According to John Harper and Drew Wagar, non of the writers got any info on Raxxla. Soontil was specifically created because John was not allowed to touch Raxxla.
John has also confirmed that the Dark Wheel never found Raxxla and that at the start of ED, they did not know i where(or what?) it is.

Fast, cloaked DBXs is 90% confirmed to belong to Black Flight. A private military unit, operating in the Pleiades.
Black flight uses almost exclusively engineered DBXs and their call sign matches the first reports.
This is probably the group that kidnapped Palin. It's quite likely that these guys work for the Club.

Jah'bastah II · Sep 10, 2018

taotoo said:
Here are the permit locked systems within 80ly of Tchernobog. I think I have permits for most of them.
(*table*)

The french hors is loosely tied to the place that isn't a place and other universe threads, since it means outside (outside is too big to be a specific place, except when its a name for some specific place and if it contains Raxxla, might be leading to the 'outside' space, witch space). Thoroughly searched that one?

Hanerib · Sep 10, 2018

Nobody has HIP 54530 permit as far as I know. HIP 22460 either. I used to try entering Witch's Reach by scanning wake scans in Donner, but couldn't enter. Before the Aegis moved, I would find meta-alloys in Sol, degraded signal source threat 4. Federal navy corvettes called it alpha site, if I remember correctly. That was near Ariel, as I was interested about recent iteration of seeking for luxuries signal sources. I used to search for Tanya Blaine in HIP 82964, and Colonia. A fixed signal source near Asellus Primus B had a Type-9 called Augustine in it, but many Type-9s are called that. Voyager 2 took some nice pictures of Ariel. The earth-like world in CD-43 11917 is called Ares. Aries is a winged ram. Phobos and Deimos are missing, and Beagle 2 landing is an ocean. The Robotic Avian has a nature. Trinkets of hidden fortune are grave offerings. I will dump this data here, in case I will not survive. The Thargoid assault has not ceased, and they still serve cold tea on-board the Gnosis. My ship is called Tau Ceti.

Scytale · Sep 10, 2018

Rochester said:
Another tin foil theory - excuse if already investigated but has anyone taken all of the locations associated with the Dark Wheel missions and tagged them in the galaxy map to see if they point anywhere or triangulate?

Started around Mariyacoch, then moved successively to three other "clusters" in the Bubble rim, all three at ~190 Ly from where they started, drawing a sphere and his center and/or a regular tethraedron and his center minus one vertex. Find the missing one ?
Ended/were stopped in Varati... yes, the very Canonn Varati. All this is in the FP.

metatheurgist said:
So, given that MB himself said "Three will be no clues", isn't all this navel gazing pointless?

https://player.twitch.tv/?volume=0.8&video=v66487974&time=1h40m30s

Although, I bet nobody here knows what he is doing since E/F missions disappeared.
Which is called

metatheurgist · Sep 10, 2018

Scytale said:
https://player.twitch.tv/?volume=0.8&video=v66487974&time=1h40m30s

That's worse. He says it's obvious but the brains trust still hasn't found it in 4 years. Not even a general quadrant to scour!

Scytale · Sep 10, 2018

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Find-Raxxla?p=6908451&viewfull=1#post6908451
...

DMClements · Sep 10, 2018

I was pretty sure at some point in this thread it was mentioned that there is a full size replica of a cobra. Anyone have pictures of the inside, my thinking is maybe if it is a 100% replica like cockpit and all maybe it has some valuable information pulled up on the nav panel.

Han_Zen · Sep 10, 2018

DMClements said:
I was pretty sure at some point in this thread it was mentioned that there is a full size replica of a cobra. Anyone have pictures of the inside, my thinking is maybe if it is a 100% replica like cockpit and all maybe it has some valuable information pulled up on the nav panel.

I'm pretty sure the replica Cobra is 1:3 scale, not full size.

Not that it makes a difference.

HunterwithGreenScales · Sep 10, 2018

Han_Zen said:
Good to see people tinfoiling.

A few points on what might be relevant in the lore.

According to John Harper and Drew Wagar, non of the writers got any info on Raxxla. Soontil was specifically created because John was not allowed to touch Raxxla.
John has also confirmed that the Dark Wheel never found Raxxla and that at the start of ED, they did not know i where(or what?) it is.

Fast, cloaked DBXs is 90% confirmed to belong to Black Flight. A private military unit, operating in the Pleiades.
Black flight uses almost exclusively engineered DBXs and their call sign matches the first reports.
This is probably the group that kidnapped Palin. It's quite likely that these guys work for the Club.

I had no idea the "Secret" military outfit actually had a name. Also to (possibly) connect them to the Dark Wheel, we know this 'Black Flight' has quite the reach of influence. The Crashed Type-9 in Colonia specifically mentions that it was carrying Occupied Space pods full of people from the Pleiades. And then it was attacked by an advanced military group strongly implied to be from the same region. No loose ends.