The Quest To Find Raxxla

[Rochester]

‘THE ASTRONOMY OF MILTON’S ‘PARADISE LOST’​

Re-visiting my studies on John Milton and the Silent Song of the Spheres.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost', by Thomas N. Orchard.

An interesting read which has already expanded my understanding of Milton outside of the classical reading aspect and to appreciate it in context to astronomy rather than religion or Greek mythology.

 

[GURU-951]

OK, hold on tight for some more space madness, these are some very initial thoughts on Astrophel and Stella.

Published in 1591
Stella is Latin for star. Astrophel is from Greek Astro for star and phil for lover.
It has definite astronomical connotations and possible connections with other poets like Pontano writing similar poems with astronomical content around the same time
If anyone can find it, one specialist examination of this from literature is entitled:


Note the name of the author! The small part of this analysis I have seen makes an interesting note as well - "Stella is never far distant" throughout the poem.

Anyway back to the primary source, he is comparing his lover to various heavenly phenomena throughout. For example, in his "fifth song", he states:



Heh, apparently the word br---ts is verboten on the forums, it should read "thy bre-sts the milk'n way".
Hmm, now which constellation contains Cupid, and covers most of the Milky Way? Pisces.



See full description here.

And of course Venus and Cupid, who form the constellation, are lovers, like Stella and Astrophel. But of course they are both fish in Pisces, tied together with a knotted rope to swim away from the monster Typhon (could it represent the Thargoids? Or could this be an allegory inserted by The Club, representing Human-Oresrian cooperation to flee the Klaxians? Or Federation-Empire cooperation to fight the Thargoids?). If Raxxla is in Pisces, we at least have a relatively short list of major stars (in the link above) to check out. I am sure there are many more in Simbad.

But what if it is even simpler than that? Could Cupid's arrow/Stella's fingers be pointing to Raxxla? The arrow of course is not in Pisces (he's a fish there, remember?) but one version of the mythology around the constellation Sagitta has it representing Cupid's arrow: https://www.ramblers.org.uk/news/bl...es-on-spotting-sagitta-in-the-summer-sky.aspx and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagitta Some might contend that the fact that the first link ends with "aspx" is a clear indication that Raxxla can be found in Sagitta, but I think that might be stretching the science a bit too far myself. Again, some interesting Raxxla candidates mentioned in both of those links that are likely worth checking out, and some interesting variable and seasonal stellar appearances in both constellations as well (and some cool historical supernovae and the like too).

But back to the darn question, what is the arrow pointing at? Well, Gamma Sagittae is the brightest in the constellation and also the tip of the arrow, or perhaps the unnamed star just to the left of it on the first link above? Of course Gamma is not on the Galaxy Map. But when you search HD 189319, one of its many other catalog designations, voila, you discover that 12 Gamma Sagittae is in-game.

So, I dunno about you folks, but the heck with those distant dark regions for now, I'm heading to Sagitta and then likely Pisces if nothing turns up around the former constellation.

QED.

Good stuff. Too many big time storyline elements in Elite are connected to constellations, with great intention. The Virgo, Cupid, Venus connection also includes that Virgo has been depicted as Persephone and Demeter as well. Van Maanen's star is a star of Pisces. Given that you earn its system permit from Tau Ceti might be a good indication of Something.

 

[clavain]

Good stuff. Too many big time storyline elements in Elite are connected to constellations, with great intention. The Virgo, Cupid, Venus connection also includes that Virgo has been depicted as Persephone and Demeter as well. Van Maanen's star is a star of Pisces. Given that you earn its system permit from Tau Ceti might be a good indication of Something.

Yes, I think If I finish this and don't find anything the next step may be a Magical Mystery Tour of each of the constellations in game, and visiting/mapping each system in them while reading the various mythology around each. I find the constellation mythology is similar to the Galnet about the Soontill Relics as well, about how early humans, if encountered separately, could have been seen as different species by aliens because of their differing world views, technologies, religions, etc.

I'm in Sagitta now and have noticed a couple of curious things, but no major discoveries yet. Going to take my time and map everything even though of course it has all been first discovered/first mapped already from what I have seen so far. Came across a couple of systems with gas giants and eight moons so far too, but not going to say which ones yet! Also, would a Y Type Brown Dwarf (which "range in size from the most massive gas giants and the least massive stars") with eight planets perhaps also count? Keeping my eyes open for parallaxed stations also in those situations.

And I already have the Van Maanen's star permit as well, from some time ago, conveniently.

 

[clavain]

Now that's interesting. The Black Widow Pulsar is in Sagitta. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Sagitta

Been there, done that, got the EB,P T-shirt, but will have to check it out again.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

(Disclaimer : been in Deep Space for 2 months already again... that's about the time weird thoughts start being computed in my head )

Since a long time I've wondered about a System I've scanned a very long time ago :

EDSM - Elite Dangerous Star Map

The Galactic Positioning System of Elite: Dangerous at your service.

www.edsm.net

This was during my pre-EDSM era but I got 1st Discovery tags on everything in the System (estimated in 2015) - except the main Star.

I turned the whole System upside down, scanned and entered every single Asteroid Belt Cluster (+ fired Weapons at each Asteroid), checked the dark side of every Planet... nothing noteworthy found.
Now one question I always had in the back of my mind - but couldn't find any answer for :
Who was "Alpha Backer #2" ?
In my imagination, Alpha Backer #1 essentially would have to be David Braben himself. #2 I'd imagine must be one of the Core Founders of the early FDev ELITE Team.
I found this quite peculiar and odd (apart from the fact that the System couldn't be easily reached during the pre-Synthesis era - it took me two attempts, as my AspX build ended up being too heavy and I was forced to return in a mildly stripped ExploraConda.

One of the reasons this got a bit stuck in my head was the (in)famous and disputed sentence/rumor : "The System had been honked by a CMDR but not scanned"

So I wonder : has anyone seen 1st Discovery tags elsewhere from that mysterious "Alpha Backer #2"?

Wild theory of the Day :
If there's a trail of breadcrumbs (1st discovery tags) left behind by the presence of that CMDR, would it possibly lead to something interesting? What was one of the earliest Alpha Backers of the entire Game checking out there?

 

[Vetinari]

Who was "Alpha Backer #2" ?

Chris Roberts of Star Citizen fame? I know they (DB & CR) backed each others KS. After all, CR must have been playing something while waiting for SC.

I wouldnt get too excited until you discover something discovered by Gan Romero, its that trail we need to follow*

*but its not in game, I still wonder where that story was going or what it was linked to if anything

 

[SergMx]

I can't answer that question, but I can tell you that nothing happens outside the base when you insert three guardian objects (mine being tablet, urn and casket). I put them in, activated the structure, and whipped outside and back in my ship in under 2 minutes. Then I flew up into the outside center part of the base. I could still hear the device buzzing inside, but no visual effects were present from outside the structure.

Thank you very much. Your example showed that all 3 elements can be placed in a single game, so the question about observing THIS from the side makes very little sense, unless it is a time game.
As long as the sky shows you have time to do something, as in the Guardian bases.

 

[CMDR Davanix]

(Disclaimer : been in Deep Space for 2 months already again... that's about the time weird thoughts start being computed in my head )

Since a long time I've wondered about a System I've scanned a very long time ago :

EDSM - Elite Dangerous Star Map

The Galactic Positioning System of Elite: Dangerous at your service.

www.edsm.net

This was during my pre-EDSM era but I got 1st Discovery tags on everything in the System (estimated in 2015) - except the main Star.
View attachment 214092

I turned the whole System upside down, scanned and entered every single Asteroid Belt Cluster (+ fired Weapons at each Asteroid), checked the dark side of every Planet... nothing noteworthy found.
Now one question I always had in the back of my mind - but couldn't find any answer for :
Who was "Alpha Backer #2" ?
In my imagination, Alpha Backer #1 essentially would have to be David Braben himself. #2 I'd imagine must be one of the Core Founders of the early FDev ELITE Team.
I found this quite peculiar and odd (apart from the fact that the System couldn't be easily reached during the pre-Synthesis era - it took me two attempts, as my AspX build ended up being too heavy and I was forced to return in a mildly stripped ExploraConda.

One of the reasons this got a bit stuck in my head was the (in)famous and disputed sentence/rumor : "The System had been honked by a CMDR but not scanned"

So I wonder : has anyone seen 1st Discovery tags elsewhere from that mysterious "Alpha Backer #2"?

Wild theory of the Day :
If there's a trail of breadcrumbs (1st discovery tags) left behind by the presence of that CMDR, would it possibly lead to something interesting? What was one of the earliest Alpha Backers of the entire Game checking out there?

Well I was Alpha Backer #9 so not sure if the numbers collate to devs etc

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

The disappearance of those Elite missions in SD still troubles me somewhat. It may have been due to a retcon, but I’m wondering if a game update obviated them. Does anyone know when they actually disappeared?

I paid my fines after trying, & failing, to hack Adamastor’s transmitter. Now wonder where to start looking. She was fuelled at Chukchan for a 370ly journey but went via the Synuefe LP which is 365ly from Chukchan, so presumably the base out towards Barnard’s Loop should be nearby? I suspect there is more to be decoded in that LP message.

And on returning from Coalsack after collecting Carver’s team and their findings her hyperdrive failed when at HIP 69200, which is NOT on the way to BLoop, but approximately at right angles to that route, back towards the bubble but missing the centre, so she must have been headed to another facility! So I think there are two Azimuth sites to be found, and one of them may have the wreck of the Hesperus after a Goid (Klaxian?) encounter. That may be more likely to be at the BLoop site.

 

[clavain]

Some more Sagitta factoids...

• It directly borders the Great Rift
• It directly borders Vulpecula Dark Region (and that constellation), which oddly was not listed as part of the Great Rift
• Bayer's representation of it attached here has Gamma, the brightest star, where the paw of Vulpec is grabbing the arrow, and the tip of the arrow is closer to Eta, while the arrow itself points to Theta (just above the tip). Ptolemy of course had Gamma as the tip of the arrow.
• Using Simbad, and looking at stars near Gamma in the Aladdin viewer, it would seem that Eta is what is being pointed at, if Gamma is the tip of the arrow of course. Gamma is marked in the Aladdin screenshot with a small green cross, the bright yellow star left and above of centre. Eta is the smaller bright white star to it's left, and I think Theta is the even smaller star up above it (not confirmed yet, but easily done by moving that cross onto the star in question, getting the coordinates in the top left, and popping them into a coordinate search in Simbad)
• Edit: and here is what it looks like on Galmap with most of the brightest stars bookmarked. Sham is Alpha. There are also named systems on the edge of the Bubble around Eta and Theta.
• Edit: HIP 99351 is Theta B (* tet Sge B in Simbad terms). I think this is probably the unamed star immediately above Theta in Bayer and on that stargazing link that was in the first post.
• Note: The Galmap stellar objects in each system of course do not match the real life stellar objects (and in a couple of instances known planets). So far at least.

Exploration and theorizing continues...

 

[clavain]

The disappearance of those Elite missions in SD still troubles me somewhat. It may have been due to a retcon, but I’m wondering if a game update obviated them. Does anyone know when they actually disappeared?

Wasn't it when 1.3 hit? Going by my very poor memory of course.

 

[clavain]

And on returning from Coalsack after collecting Carver’s team and their findings her hyperdrive failed when at HIP 69200, which is NOT on the way to BLoop, but approximately at right angles to that route, back towards the bubble but missing the centre, so she must have been headed to another facility! So I think there are two Azimuth sites to be found, and one of them may have the wreck of the Hesperus after a Goid (Klaxian?) encounter. That may be more likely to be at the BLoop site.

Simulacrae has a good map of this I think upstream.

 

[Vetinari]

The disappearance of those Elite missions in SD still troubles me somewhat.

Me too, not 'troubles' but I know what you mean and aint quibbling over words. I can only reach a few conclusions / ideas.

1. It was part of a storyline that got paused / pulled / redacted / changed
2. It was an accidental 'release' of those missions at that time and wasnt meant to happen until later
3. It was a 'test' of some kind for Frontier, a test of how they would introduce these missions later on (hence i fell for the DW 'invite' RP with another streamer on their birthday, so well done it absolutely 100% fooled me, not in a bad way i enjoy being fooled like that. The first time I saw Blair Witch was on a dodgy VHS pirate copy and had no idea how 'true' it was either, when it came out at the cinemas a few months later i realised )
4. The missions are supposed to be active now and not supposed to be pulled at all
5. Any other reason anyone can think of?

So why did it get pulled? If story got pulled or changed, meh, but fair enough, presumably we'll hear more in the future. If an accident it went on for a long time. If a test then from my POV nothing went wrong so why not continue? Did it create salt like the 'pure lore' stories ala Gan Romero, did players complain they were wasting their time?

Why did those missions disappear and what were they about in the first place?

which is NOT on the way to BLoop, but approximately at right angles to that route, back towards the bubble but missing the centre, so she must have been headed to another facility! So I think there are two Azimuth sites to be found, and one of them may have the wreck of the Hesperus after a Goid (Klaxian?) encounter

A few suggestions

1. They didnt take a direct route to CSN. Could be to throw off 'followers' or obfuscate their real destination. DB likes his ships and Navy so its the same as a submarine heading out to see in one direction and opening sealed orders to find their real objective or getting to a certain pre-set position and receiving orders by 'radio'. So it could be the same on the way back, they were going to 'dog leg' it back to obfuscate where they had come from. Assuming they were returning to same system they left from.
2. They were meeting another ship before heading back....maybe even the Hesperus, it left at a similar time according to GalNet. Maybe a transfer maybe just a refuel.
3. They were heading somewhere else, but that probably wouldnt be on a straight line unless emergency, which it wasnt when they set off, the FSD didnt start malfunctioning until later according to the logs. Or they were heading directly to another LP for further orders. The problem with this is that the auto-pilot brought it back to the origination system implying this was the pre-programmed destination all along.
4. They were running from something and just jumping any direction to get away before setting the right course.

We have to assume that they were getting refuelled along the way due to the initial 370LY range being well exceeded. That initial range and BLoop vector was purely to get us to the LP which was meant to point us to CSN, not to BLoop in my opinion. (tiny bit obvious so players know what they are doing applies to more than Raxxla, it must be solvable and they wanted / expected it solved a mere few hours later than we did according to the LS at the time, it was a Halloween mystery meant to be solved at the time....and lead into more mysteries and questions to be solved later on as part of the bigger picture, we didnt even know about the Hesperus sister ship until recently).

We (the players) solved it out of order due to the Stones message giving us CSN and a player being on the right planet at tick, and the LP not working at all for first 24 hrs then messing up the 8 code so it didnt make sense at first. It was meant to go

1. Go to system and find Adamastor logs and local GalNet pointing max 370LY in direction of BLoop - leading us to the LP specifically
2. LP to point us towards CSN by breaking the code
3. Logs in CSN and combined with original Adamastor logs about Star type to point us towards system where trouble happened
4. From that system back to original system where Adamastor ended up

Seen like that its a self-contained mystery with all destinations given and following on from each other logically in order giving us the story. The unknowns left are what happened exactly in that last system and what exactly happened to all the people and cargo. We can take educated guesses or speculate based on what we do know however.

 

[EdzUp]

<Joke>I have found Raxxla it was in me glovebox all the time, sorry guys</joke>

 

[simulacrae]

Well I was Alpha Backer #9 so not sure if the numbers collate to devs etc

Club member confirmed

Simulacrae has a good map of this I think upstream.

Thanks - ya if i remember right the Adamastor was heading vaguely towards Barnards loop before it got called back to help in the coalsack. Also (this is from memory as im not at my desk) if you take the distance traveled from chuckchan to the listening post and add it to the distance from the listening post to the coalsack.... you get the approximate distance to the Witchhead nebula.... again im going from memory here but might be worth checking. Maybe the Adamastor and Hesperus were both heading out towards the witch head.... still no explanation for the dogleg return of the adamastor to chuckchan... maybe their navigation computers were fried.

 

[CMDR Alexander Sarethi]

Vetinari​

I think they removed them because possible content behind them was changed (TWD and Raxxla).
They probably blocked missions when they had plan for interactions with engineers.
Right now only engineers have 'invite' mechanics. Also they had huge impact on lore like Palin, Ram Tah etc

 

[Vetinari]

Well I was Alpha Backer #9 so not sure if the numbers collate to devs etc

Just out of interest. Did you discover any system and get your 'name' on them as #9? Did they update after when you got your 'proper' name or are they still there as #9? Just wondering if #2 never played again lol

 

[CMDR Davanix]

Club member confirmed



Thanks - ya if i remember right the Adamastor was heading vaguely towards Barnards loop before it got called back to help in the coalsack. Also (this is from memory as im not at my desk) if you take the distance traveled from chuckchan to the listening post and add it to the distance from the listening post to the coalsack.... you get the approximate distance to the Witchhead nebula.... again im going from memory here but might be worth checking. Maybe the Adamastor and Hesperus were both heading out towards the witch head.... still no explanation for the dogleg return of the adamastor to chuckchan... maybe their navigation computers were fried.

If I was a club member...I can safely say we know as much as everyone else.....nothing lol

 

[CMDR Davanix]

Just out of interest. Did you discover any system and get your 'name' on them as #9? Did they update after when you got your 'proper' name or are they still there as #9? Just wondering if #2 never played again lol

I am unsure, i have never came across my first discovery's back then and due to my travel logs being wiped when the game went live I wouldnt even know where to begin unfortunately, however I haven't came across my number since but have came across my name but that could have been from a long time ago and cant confirm, i didnt do much exploration until near the end either anyways was more testing the powerplay and combat, I only took one long trip which was towards Bovomit cant remember how far I had gotten, The not playing again is doubtful, most if not all the original backers are very well still in game ;-)

 

[Thatchinho]

The disappearance of those Elite missions in SD still troubles me somewhat. It may have been due to a retcon, but I’m wondering if a game update obviated them.

My personal suspicion on this is simply that the actual rate of people getting an Elite rank far exceeded the forecast rate which those missions had been designed to tie in to.

Could be wrong about it being the cause of removal, which could very well have just been down to a bug, but I'd bet the actual situation is as per above, and a rethink was needed at some point.