The Quest To Find Raxxla

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian
Faraway as it currently exists was humanity rebuilding the Talmor Lens. The infrastructure of The Pilot's Federation is wholly dependent on what humans rebuilt. The components are all present and very well known.

  • Orbital stations (especially the large antenna)
  • Orbital outposts (again massive antenna)
  • Surface Ports and Settlements
  • Surface Installations
  • Artificial power sources
  • Artificial structures
  • Myriad array of engineering components and data
  • Our ships form ad-hoc components of the larger network. See Guardian Logs - Technology log. CMDRs are integrated via implants allowing telepresence, galaxy wide comms, and remotely controlling our fleet carrier, ships, SRV, SLFs, and everything else. Seo Jin-ae isn't the only Seraph. That was Project Thunderchild and every CMDR is either a genetically enhanced human, cyborg, or android (look at eyes 👀 in Holo-Me).

We found Raxxla by finding ourselves. Getting to understand the intergalactic travel part is the next stage of this. That and understanding what and where Omphalos Rift is located.

Guardian Data Technology Log 8.png

Oisir-Raxxla Talmor Lens Components_optimized_optimized.jpg
 

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian
I think this quote from the Marvel Cinematic Universe regarding the Soul Stone nicely sums up the true cost Raxxla extracts from those who get moderately far in the quest:

What you seek lies in front of you. As does what you fear."

"What's this?"

"The price. Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say, it is a certain wisdom."

"Tell me what it needs."

"To ensure that whoever possesses it, understands its power. The stone demands a sacrifice."

"Of what?"

"In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul for a soul.
Click to expand...

Discussion between Red Skull, Gamora and Thanos
 

Rochester

Rochester
Han_Zen said:
The system names around Axis Mundi (including Axis Mundi) seem to be based on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mythological_places

Summerland, Lyonesse, Quivira, Thule and Asphodel are very close. Almost all the other places from that list are located in the 100-135 ly below the galactic plane region of the bubble. It's hard for me to see that Holdstock's Lost Realms have been used as a source at all.
Click to expand...
Absolutely correct, and I don’t presume to advocate any of my hypothesis are canon, as I always attempt to apply a standard probability yardstick, where one can never truly be 100% certain.

Again I’ve tried to base my assessments upon correlations observed in game. There always exists a percentage of probability that other assessments exist.

I do personally see a very strong indication that the lost realms are the same as those indicated within the Codex, this is my primary analysis, as to if it’s a Holdstock influence or anything else might simply be irrelevant, but given the various links to Celtic mythology I feel the likelihood of that is, based upon observations in game, to be rather high.

If that were true then it does widen the investigation, and gives us additional context, however it’s true, one has to maintain balance and constantly weight assumptions against bias.

Again I like the Miltonian concept, but equally I feel the aspect of Holdstock alters the relationship of many system names.

There’s no universal truth between these two authors, Milton was not interested in Celtic mythology more so Classical Greek, Holdstock was a writer of fiction, and blurred influences to build something new, he was also very knowledgeable of pan-European migration and old-English mythology.

If the Holdstock connection were true it alters the insight into how FD approached Raxxla. We’ve received indications in this thread that Raxxla was very much the work of Brookes and not Braben, evident again in the galactic tour memorial.

This could be backed up through additional insight from other sources who likewise have said Brookes was very much an advocate for Holdstock whilst Braben was not. That’s speculation.

If we begin to see elements in game which collectively may have a common link then the possibility of this relationship rises. However this is speculation and we are in a realm of speculative analysis because we are operating in a vacuum, with very little evidence, it’s a game, filled with errors, and much of its fiction, written by academics and non-academics alike.

But that’s why we quest, let’s try and prove it wrong, maybe it is?
 
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CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian
Given the multiple potential paths, has anyone been going to these systems and DSS scanning any airless bodies that are landable to see if certain POIs types are more common in certain places. Based on rumors, certain systems should have significantly more interesting types of POIs if they are near parts of the infrastructure for parts of Talmor/Raxxla (including nearby uninhabited systems). Raxxla likely isn't just the Omphalos Rift itself. Though, I would certainly love to be able to travel to satellite galaxies and/or Andromeda. I know in my explorations, I have grown to realize certain star types or orbits can have an impact on stuff observed in the system.
 

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian
Additionally, the Codex Map seems to indicate certain biologicals are linked to something much larger. Take for example the Electricae species. These turn ice worlds into giant power superconductors that are somehow linked to the nebulas.
 

Edelgard von Rhein

E
Something that has been giving me pause for thought this week is that The Dark Wheel missions disappeared as Horizons came out and we got access to planetary surfaces. I wonder if Raxxla was changed at that time to be a surface location rather than space-based.

An Omphalos Rift at the 'navel of the world', might suggest looking in a conspicuously large impact crater. As to what is there, perhaps the inverted pyramid suggested from the story of the Oisir-Raxxlans? Or at least an obviously artificial structure. This would give a bit of extra focus when searching systems amongst the lost realms.

At the moment I'm out on the perimeter of Barnard's Loop looking for more Guardians sites and will likely be there for the weekend but I should be back in the Bubble early next week.
 

Han_Zen

Han_Zen
Rochester said:
Had a fun 5 min in game this morning, ship stationed by nav beacon at Artemis, and remembered they emit a morse code of the system name. Popped an App on phone and saw the audio signal graphically scroll, then the algorithm translate it in real time…ARTEMIS…

Moments like that are priceless in this game.
Click to expand...
That is cool. Have you tried if the app manages to decode the Thargoid morse as well? 🤔

I almost died this morning. Forgot to log off yesterday and was nearly out of fuel. :oops:
 

Louis Calvert

Louis Calvert
I'm at the core helping with Canonn's Landscape Expedition at present. I've not given much thought to the Landscape Signal in the past, I'd been assuming it was just some background noise, but since Canonn has started a large-scale survey to find the source (or more likely show that there's nothing to find), I've been thinking about it more.

  • The signal was first reported on March 27th 3305 by Commander PublicStaticVoid, but it's assumed to have been there for longer, and it hasn't changed (AFAIK) since discovery.
  • Everyone can hear it from anywhere in the galaxy by looking towards Sagittarius A and listening with music off.
  • 'Spiralling stars' could unquestionably be the galaxy itself.
  • 'Jewel on the brow of the mother of galaxies' could conceivably be interpreted as Sagittarius A.
  • 'Omphalos' could easily be Sagittarius A.
  • Perhaps it could be considered the 'Siren' or the 'Song of the Spheres', since it's an audio signal that does sound a lot like a sort of singing (link to a recording made by Commander Serbanstein).
  • A broader interpretation of Axis Mundi could relate to Sagittarius A too (as in the axis of the 'celestial spheres').
  • I think it was @CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian that speculated that Jaques 'misjump' might have been a hint, and Colonia certainly makes corewards explorations more feasible and drew more people out there, the later bridge project made it even easier to get there, etc...
  • The centre of the galaxy was always going to attract attention from explorers, in the early days it seemed impossibly far away and certainly was an epic journey. It's much easier now of course, but it's still a significant trek. If you wanted people to stumble upon something after a significant journey (including the personal journey to get a ship capable of it) then placing something near one of the most significant points of interest in the galaxy might be a good idea - but not so near that the first person to visit Sag A would immediately find it. The stars are so close there that there's thousands of systems within a few lightyears of Sag A.
  • Narratively, an alien species may construct something near the core of the Galaxy to make it accessible to everyone in the galaxy equally, or place it there to be found by future life since it's likely to attract attention, etc.etc. Plenty of reasons - maybe there's a network of galaxies connected by gates at the centres, so wherever you are you just head to the middle to jump to the next one? That would make a decent intergalactic transit system.

The Landscape Signal originates from a point between star systems (allegedly) only a few lightyears away from Sagittarius A. Canonn's expedition is charting a much wider area, they are expecting to find something orbital rather than planetary since the signal is pre-horizons and hasn't changed.

To me, this feels pretty promising, if only to remove one more thing from the list. If anyone is at a loose end in the game (like I was) and find the Thargoid stuff sadly lacking, and wants to do some exploring, sign up for the expedition, it's just visiting star systems and scanning everything and reporting findings, pretty chill :)

o7
 
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Han_Zen

Han_Zen
Edelgard von Rhein said:
Something that has been giving me pause for thought this week is that The Dark Wheel missions disappeared as Horizons came out and we got access to planetary surfaces. I wonder if Raxxla was changed at that time to be a surface location rather than space-based.

An Omphalos Rift at the 'navel of the world', might suggest looking in a conspicuously large impact crater. As to what is there, perhaps the inverted pyramid suggested from the story of the Oisir-Raxxlans? Or at least an obviously artificial structure. This would give a bit of extra focus when searching systems amongst the lost realms.

At the moment I'm out on the perimeter of Barnard's Loop looking for more Guardians sites and will likely be there for the weekend but I should be back in the Bubble early next week.
Click to expand...
This is quite likely and was probably the plan from the start. There are quite a few indicators that FD kept the original idea that Raxxla is a planet.

1. Rafe Zetter: "Your father was chasing the mythical planet Raxxla" (original)
2. Mission 'Answering the call of adventure': "a certain celestial body". Door, key, myth.
3. Letter from UC:
PLANEt-Raxxla.jpg
4. Codex: "Raxxla has been suggested to be anything from an unremarkable moon to a state of cosmic enlightenment."

If FD wanted to be as close as possible to the original, it fits to put the 'alien construct that’s a gateway to other Universes' on the ground.

Another option is that FD used their original Raxxla idea for the Guardian sites and had to make a new Raxxla concept. This would have made the missions redundant.
 

Rochester

Rochester
Interesting assessment of Paradise Lost, especially in relation to the description of the pendant world.

The outside Shell of Milton's World on JSTOR

Allan H. Gilbert, The outside Shell of Milton's World, Studies in Philology, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Oct., 1923), pp. 444-447
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

www.tor.com

John Milton the Space Poet: Early Traces of Science Fiction in Paradise Lost - Reactor

One of the many ironies of Paradise Lost, John Milton’s retelling of the Book of Genesis as an epic poem, is Milton’s trashing of Calliope, the Ancient Greek muse of epic poetry. In Book 7 of the poem, he references Calliope’s failure in mythology to save her son’s life and calls her “an empty...
www.tor.com www.tor.com

If we take the FD recent memorial quote referencing Milton as a clue, in the absence of any other information, then the jewel which burns, is likely the pendant world, but it ought not sit on the brow of a mother of galaxies, but from the rim of the encircling wall of heaven or the Empyrean.

In Paradise Lost the empyrean is described in part to be made of stars (unsure it’s a metaphor), likewise heaven might also be described like a mountain?

lithub.com

What John Milton’s Heaven Has to Offer the Soul—According to Ken Jennings

John Milton set just as much of his 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost in heaven as he did in hell—which isn’t a theological problem, but it’s definitely a literary one. Satan is a terrible role model, b…
lithub.com lithub.com

Within the Codex, the text ‘Mother of’ may simply relate to 'the biggest or largest of ‘something big’; the biggest thing? And ‘of’ may inform this to be ‘plural’?

The text could be referencing a particular galaxy, maybe seen from a certain perspective? Or again is this, like the jewel that burns, poetic license and they are not talking of an actual galaxy, just something truly enormous and brilliant - like a galaxy, ergo the Empyrean?

I’m simply looking for poetic examples where the author may have made an allegory between the Empyrean and mountains?

Mountains were a key element in the journey to the ‘Otherworld’. Referenced both in Holdcroft and M Brookes.

Is the Mother of galaxies not a reference but a metaphor or allegory for a type of mythic mount or point, does the pendant world hang or sit upon said system, named after a particular mount; because mountains do have brows!

Celtic burial mounds likewise were regarded as passages to this ‘Otherworld’. Are there any systems named after such monuments?

That is of course if the ‘Holdcroft’ hypothesis is correct ;)
 
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Louis Calvert

Louis Calvert
Rochester said:
Interesting assessment of Paradise Lost, especially in relation to the description of the pendant world.

The outside Shell of Milton's World on JSTOR

Allan H. Gilbert, The outside Shell of Milton's World, Studies in Philology, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Oct., 1923), pp. 444-447
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

www.tor.com

John Milton the Space Poet: Early Traces of Science Fiction in Paradise Lost - Reactor

One of the many ironies of Paradise Lost, John Milton’s retelling of the Book of Genesis as an epic poem, is Milton’s trashing of Calliope, the Ancient Greek muse of epic poetry. In Book 7 of the poem, he references Calliope’s failure in mythology to save her son’s life and calls her “an empty...
www.tor.com www.tor.com

If we take the FD recent memorial quote referencing Milton as a clue, in the absence of any other information, then the jewel which burns, is likely the pendant world, but it ought not sit on the brow of a mother of galaxies, but from the rim of the encircling wall of heaven or the Empyrean.

In Paradise Lost the empyrean is described in part to be made of stars (unsure it’s a metaphor), likewise heaven might also be described like a mountain?

lithub.com

What John Milton’s Heaven Has to Offer the Soul—According to Ken Jennings

John Milton set just as much of his 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost in heaven as he did in hell—which isn’t a theological problem, but it’s definitely a literary one. Satan is a terrible role model, b…
lithub.com lithub.com

Within the Codex, the text ‘Mother of’ may simply relate to 'the biggest or largest of ‘something big’; the biggest thing? And ‘of’ may inform this to be ‘plural’?

The text could be referencing a particular galaxy, maybe seen from a certain perspective? Or again is this, like the jewel that burns, poetic license and they are not talking of an actual galaxy, just something truly enormous and brilliant - like a galaxy, ergo the Empyrean?

I’m simply looking for poetic examples where the author may have made an allegory between the Empyrean and mountains?

Mountains were a key element in the journey to the ‘Otherworld’. Referenced both in Holdcroft and M Brookes.

Is the Mother of galaxies not a reference but a metaphor or allegory for a type of mythic mount or point, does the pendant world hang or sit upon said system, named after a particular mount; because mountains do have brows!

Celtic burial mounds likewise were regarded as passages to this ‘Otherworld’. Are there any systems named after such monuments?

That is of course if the ‘Holdcroft’ hypothesis is correct ;)
Click to expand...
The Landscape signal is so called because it looks like mountains:
SignalSegment.png


EDIT addition:
Oh interesting thing I found while looking up Sagittarius.
  • John Milton was a Sagittarius (according to astrology)
  • The WOW! Signal was received from the direction of Sagittarius.
  • The New Horizons probe is leaving the Sol system in the direction of Sagittarius - that probe was added to the game (admittedly so were the Voyagers).
These are almost certainly random coincidences :) ... probably
 
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CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian

CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian
Rochester said:
Interesting assessment of Paradise Lost, especially in relation to the description of the pendant world.

The outside Shell of Milton's World on JSTOR

Allan H. Gilbert, The outside Shell of Milton's World, Studies in Philology, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Oct., 1923), pp. 444-447
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

www.tor.com

John Milton the Space Poet: Early Traces of Science Fiction in Paradise Lost - Reactor

One of the many ironies of Paradise Lost, John Milton’s retelling of the Book of Genesis as an epic poem, is Milton’s trashing of Calliope, the Ancient Greek muse of epic poetry. In Book 7 of the poem, he references Calliope’s failure in mythology to save her son’s life and calls her “an empty...
www.tor.com www.tor.com

If we take the FD recent memorial quote referencing Milton as a clue, in the absence of any other information, then the jewel which burns, is likely the pendant world, but it ought not sit on the brow of a mother of galaxies, but from the rim of the encircling wall of heaven or the Empyrean.

In Paradise Lost the empyrean is described in part to be made of stars (unsure it’s a metaphor), likewise heaven might also be described like a mountain?

lithub.com

What John Milton’s Heaven Has to Offer the Soul—According to Ken Jennings

John Milton set just as much of his 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost in heaven as he did in hell—which isn’t a theological problem, but it’s definitely a literary one. Satan is a terrible role model, b…
lithub.com lithub.com

Within the Codex, the text ‘Mother of’ may simply relate to 'the biggest or largest of ‘something big’; the biggest thing? And ‘of’ may inform this to be ‘plural’?

The text could be referencing a particular galaxy, maybe seen from a certain perspective? Or again is this, like the jewel that burns, poetic license and they are not talking of an actual galaxy, just something truly enormous and brilliant - like a galaxy, ergo the Empyrean?

I’m simply looking for poetic examples where the author may have made an allegory between the Empyrean and mountains?

Mountains were a key element in the journey to the ‘Otherworld’. Referenced both in Holdcroft and M Brookes.

Is the Mother of galaxies not a reference but a metaphor or allegory for a type of mythic mount or point, does the pendant world hang or sit upon said system, named after a particular mount; because mountains do have brows!

Celtic burial mounds likewise were regarded as passages to this ‘Otherworld’. Are there any systems named after such monuments?

That is of course if the ‘Holdcroft’ hypothesis is correct ;)
Click to expand...
This still sounds like an Earth/Sol reference.

Gaia is and always will be a universal mother. Further, Earth is humanity's ancestral home.

www.merriam-webster.com

Definition of EMPYREAN

empyreal… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com www.merriam-webster.com

If we take the FD recent memorial quote referencing Milton as a clue, in the absence of any other information, then the jewel which burns, is likely the pendant world, but it ought not sit on the brow of a mother of galaxies, but from the rim of the encircling wall of heaven or the Empyrean.
Click to expand...
The pendant world is Earth.

Milky Way Galaxy - you are here.png
 
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Louis Calvert

Louis Calvert
Darrack said:
Well he was also technically in old money (like myself) Ophiuchus, 29th November to 17th December.
No idea whether it makes a difference but its always been an interesting diversion from the mainstream :p

O7
Click to expand...
Whaaaat?! well it's almost like this astrology stuff means nothing at all, and the arbitrary position of celestial objects at your time of birth have no relevance to anything o_O
 

Darrack

Darrack
Louis Calvert said:
astrology stuff means nothing at all
Click to expand...
Now your getting it ;)

But joking aside the Babylonians who invented this drivel, cut the signs that the Earth travels through from 13 to 12 around 3000 years ago, this had pretty much no effect on folks around here as we knew nowt about it as we were still guided by seasons and nature rather than constellations and the first real calendars.

O7
 
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