The Quest To Find Raxxla

[Jorki Rasalas]

In addition Brookes Elite Legacy is the only official book which references a ‘children’s story’.

The book is centred on Artemis, but doesn’t really leave that system for anywhere else, some of the other systems named aren’t in game (?). One of the main protagonists is also an obvious self-portrait of Brookes, and that characters burial is mirrored identically by FD, within the current Brookes Galactic Tours.

Legacy uses a lot of references to Artemis and Demeter, the two don’t really have a great deal in common in mythology. However in some texts I believe Artemis was a hand-maiden of Persephone?

A ‘Despoina’ was also thought to be a daughter of Demeter and Poseidon, just as Kore (Persephone) was a of Demeter and Zeus, but it was forbidden to say Despoina real name, of Artemis.

So does ‘Legacy’ tell us to look towards the system Persephone?

Because in the Codex we do have the segment about Cora (Kore aka Persephone) coming home drunk and talking of pirates… not something Persephone did, but her mother Demeter did

<Snipped>

I don’t believe the Codex is being directly literal, so another question could be, what metaphorical or allegory references could Legacy also hold?

Hecate: three-faced goddess of crossroads & boundaries (logo!), key holder of gateways, rulership over earth, sea, and sky, as well as a more universal role as Saviour, Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul, protector of travel and of the crossroads (“trivia” - "three ways"), realms outside or beyond the world of the living. Chthonic and nocturnal character led to her transformation into a goddess heavily associated with witchcraft, witches, magic, and sorcery (whisperer?). Hecate was the "original" and most predominant ancient Triple Moon Goddess (maiden/mother/crone, crescent moon/full moon/ dark moon, Lucina/Diana/ Hecate, realms of heavens/earth/underworld, muse of all true poetry). Some say that Lucina is the goddess of birth, Diana of growth, and Hecate of death. Diana triformis: Diana, Luna (or Selene), and Hecate? In Lucan's work (LUC. B.C. 6:700-01), the witches speak of “Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of our goddess Hecate". Graves explained, "As Goddess of the Underworld she was concerned with Birth, Procreation and Death. As Goddess of the Earth she was concerned with the three seasons of Spring, Summer and Winter: she animated trees and plants and ruled all living creatures. As Goddess of the Sky she was the Moon, in her three phases of New Moon, Full Moon, and Waning Moon...(i.e. Luna- Jewel on brow of Mother (Gaia) of galaxies). As the New Moon or Spring she was a girl; as the Full Moon or Summer she was woman; as the Old Moon or Winter she was hag." Graves said the triad to be Kore, Persephone and Hecate with Demeter the general name of the goddess
- systems Triviatii, Hecate

Hecate system is controlled by Simguru Pranav Antal who said “Sol is the birthplace of our race, the shining jewel of our galaxy” in Galnet 14jun3301 . It has 15 bodies

Pranav Antal has “Acheron Interface” neurological implant, though in Greek mythology, the Acheron was was one of the rivers of the Greek underworld & known as the "river of woe", the "river of pain" or the "river of lost souls", so another Underworld link for Antal; his powerplay region seems to be very much the Underworld!

Of course Legacy could be giving a very direct hint to look for a cargo pod floating somewhere in Artemis (I'd guess in the asteroid belt)...

Triviatii B has 8 moons? Trivia (from Hecate), according to Wiktionary TII means “way, road, path · trip, journey ...” in Võro ( descendant of the old Finnic/South Estonian regional language), so 3-fold path?

Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Goddess_(Neopaganism)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecate
Jewel on brow of mother of galaxies (Sol Mother Gaia/Luna)- Hecate, OR Luna (moon) of Earth & Mother Gaia is the mother of galaxies
Whisperer in witchspace, siren of the deepest void - Hecate
Parent’s grief, lover’s woe (death) - Hecate
the yearning of our vagabond hearts (Demeter/Perephone) - Hecate

Edit:
Though Hecate has a mega ship where the permit to nearby Terra Mater can be obtained. Terra Mater is a lawless system, where Raxxla questions can expect frequent pirate attacks, making the hunt quite interesting, especially if you're carrying Trinkets to trigger an Omphalos Rift! Terra Mater is Latin for "Mother Earth", reminiscent of Mother Gaia which could be the start of the toast...Terra Mater has 4 or 5 planetary belts to make for an extended search!

 

[Bushido Brown]

Following up my previous follow up to the question of LAWD 26 and Gliese 293 B, support have said:
"We've reached out to our development team and this doesn't seem like something that was intentional. While we try our best to emulate..."
Better language than previously given. Though "this doesn't seem"!!!
Anyway, I guess it's just a pretty accident.

 

[Louis Calvert]

Following up my previous follow up to the question of LAWD 26 and Gliese 293 B, support have said:
"We've reached out to our development team and this doesn't seem like something that was intentional. While we try our best to emulate..."
Better language than previously given. Though "this doesn't seem"!!!
Anyway, I guess it's just a pretty accident.

Excellent! Thanks for clarifying that one, that's at least something else we can probably eliminate from the list!!

 

[Louis Calvert]

It's an interesting theory. If you consider that this Guardian world has a passageway to the Guardian Home systems it would explain many things:

• Raxxla is the passageway and the myths around everything it brought in;
• The source of the tech used by PF (and perhaps other orgas);
• The lockdown near GV/Hen2-333 sectors;
• What this alien species was really guarding;
• What inheritance human species has;
• Why Guardians were added to the ED Universe (they just seem to be another alien species that was added to provide us modules to fight thargoids);
• If it was made by the Exiles, where they went to and what they did afterwards;
• If it was made by the AI, that its new purpose was to create a different species and that it failed (if it was aiming for a peaceful one);

It's even possible to speculate that the founders of the PF had access to Guardian tech for a long time and it might have played a big role in tech leaps over the course of history as the tech was being figured out. It's also safe to say it'd imply that the Guardians exert(ed) some kind of influence or governance in our civilization, secretly.

I like that idea, it does explain why human and guardian tech are so similar in so many ways. Retaining the 'best' technology for themselves would also explain how the PF managed to retain power for over 500 years!

I think too much time and effort was put into the Guardians for them to be simply a blueprint vendor. We have more lore on the Guardians than on almost any individual part of human society!

In the big picture the Elite lore would tell us the story that alien was the root of the mysteries all along and it had direct influence in our progress as a civilization (also how powerful the contact with intelligent life could be, Universally speaking), which is a message that has traction in the real world when trying to explain the origin of our species, i believe it may be called the ancient astronaut theories. I'm not sure the lore creators would want to give this final message though, even being a Guardian enthusiast as i am.

That's a good point. It's known that Michael Brookes was very into Lovecraftian horror though, and in that genre the default assumption underpinning everything is that there are unknowable alien intelligences that exist beyond anything we know, and that interacting with them is often the source of madness and/or death. I can imagine that he might like the idea of some powerful aliens that are god-like that have inadvertently or deliberately shaped humanity

Another point would be, although providing answer to many questions, this theory relies in many layers of speculation, would we have any evidence to back it up?

That's a tough one. I think, for me, there's no direct evidence, but there's a lot of 'evidence by association' that there's been a lot of Guardian-Human interactions for a long time. As mentioned: our ship UI using the Guardian-style triangles when loading, how easily Ram Tah translated the Guardian Monolith Network, how easily Guardian tech integrates with our ships - this includes how we use the scanners to trigger Guardian tech to activate, the proximity of Guardian space to ours, the 'direction of travel' of the late-Guardian expansion pointing pretty much directly towards Sol, the similarity between Guardian biology and social structure to us, the relevance of the 'Guardian Story' to humanity, etc. etc.

The Guardians are so human-like even Ram Tah says they have very similar genetics to us!! At the height of Guardian civilisation humanity was just about entering the 'modern human' era of early evolution, it's possible that we were uplifted by Guardians at that point - as Jorki says, there are many homages to Clarke's 2001 in Elite games, and that's a central theme of that franchise.

What do you think? Is there anything that might be more solid proof?

Which leads us to another problem in the Raxxla hunting: everything is speculation as we don't have any objective evidence, leads, clues that are lacking investigative work to decode like we have in the Guardian sites for example, we know it's there for sure, and that it's related to guardians for sure, but we don't know what they're doing there.

True! The investigations on this thread and elsewhere over all these years by so many dedicated people have eliminated quite a lot though, and I think we're left with a relatively narrow range of solutions at this point. Sort of like panning for gold from a river - you have to get rid of everything that isn't gold...

I really appreciate the entirety of your quoted post, the information and the links are very interesting! I only heard about the Omphalos Rift, can you recommend a way for me to start learning about this lore?

The ED wiki is very handy as a starting point although you have to check every source for accuracy, of course. The Pilot's Federation lore is entirely in the Shinrarta Dezhra system's tourist spots. The Dark Wheel Novella text can be found here, though it's not cannon it's been shown many times that Fdev used it as inspiration for Elite Dangerous lore, the sections on Raxxla are very similar to the Raxxla Codex text. I also find the Galnet archives useful, and the actual Galnet posts (though not searchable). There's this spreadsheet collated by the Children of Raxxla which has a lot of info on what's already been checked. This spreadsheet contains a list of all known tourist beacons. The Canonn site is very handy as an archive of past discoveries, including audio recordings and pictures.

 

[Bushido Brown]

You can search Galnet by proxy though.
For example on duckduckgo I'll type:
site:community.elitedangerous.com/galnet/ "Raxxla is in Sol"
To bring up specifically that string

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

There are no Belt Clusters in Artemis, despite what the System Map shows.
In the book, Freeholm was surrounded by them and it took a long time in normal flight to get clear of them but in-game Freeholm did not even exist at launch. It was one of the first asteroid bases to be added.

 

[Rainbro]

You can search Galnet by proxy though.
For example on duckduckgo I'll type:
site:community.elitedangerous.com/galnet/ "Raxxla is in Sol"
To bring up specifically that string

https://elite.drinkybird.net/ is a godsend for this, just to shill it.

 

[Louis Calvert]

https://elite.drinkybird.net/ is a godsend for this, just to shill it.

Oh that's brilliant, I never know about this before, thanks!

 

[SergMx]

I think that in a procedurally generated game, developers are forced to block formulas in key places. This sometimes shows up as a bug elsewhere in the game. On the screen below, for some reason translated the name of the Alioth system and as a result of this engineer can not show the distance and switch to him on the map.
What is remarkable system Alioth ?

Spoiler

P.S. I wonder if it's the same in other languages ?

 

[Bushido Brown]

I guess that it's possible, but I've noticed recently some things happening due to what I assume is a translation oddity. In open I'll see Federal Logistics, FÖderale ... Logistica ... All sorts of variations. Maybe I've missed it all these years but it looks like if someone's in the same instance as me then some NPCs might gain these name variations - what I'm guessing is their local language.

 

[ClaraRulesSpace]

Came across this in my notes. Worth reposting here IMO for those not familiar with it.

Michael Brookes said in the Elite: Dangerous Fiction Diary #1:


MB lists three "known sentient species" here:
1. Extinct Archenar Aliens (Mudlarks)
2. Alien artefact found on Mars
3. Thargoids

This was vid made before Guardians were discovered. Since we know that (1) is a known extinct, and (3) is currently menacing the bubble, then it's possible that (2) is Guardian, the only other sentient alien race yet discovered.

Having said that, if Brookes was writing this now in 3309 then he may have #4 listed as Guardian.

But! I think this does go a long way to showing that Brookes was thinking that the Martian artefact isn't Thargoid. So that does lean towards its either Guardian or some (as yet) other unknown alien.

A few of us actually think there might’ve been survivors. There were two conflicts at the end of the species we called Guardian, the first one a group was exiled. They were cybernetic, and the logs actually say that the AI software recognized they were vulnerable and dependent on the network, so it built hardware for them. They are never mentioned again after that. And the war after they left lasted over a century.
The real war that started after this started over the schism between what to do with the AI. The logs say that most of the colonies were pulled into the conflict. Not all of them. Plus when you consider the mass of their numbers after being in space for 8000 years according to the ships computer, there could very well have been refugees. The main body of constructs would be useless because a lot of them were remote controlled. But the AI constructs probably would have developed further. They were sentient at this point. A new life form.
We also are looking strongly at trapezium, and wregoe where are you have a squadron of thargoid ships scattered across the surface between two guardian sites. We believe this is the result of an EMP blast from the guardians sites that slapped the squadron out of orbit and caused them to crash on the surface. The pattern they crashed in kind of looks like this would be the case. And the crashed ships have biological materials in them still which makes them seem more recent than the war they had with the guardians.
We are wondering if the AI or some kind of automatic process that recognizes the enemy technology is slapping them out of the sky. There are many processes we see evident at the sites that don’t seem to ever have been triggered or figured out.

 

[selbie]

<Snipped>

Hecate: three-faced goddess of crossroads & boundaries (logo!), key holder of gateways, rulership over earth, sea, and sky, as well as a more universal role as Saviour, Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul, protector of travel and of the crossroads (“trivia” - "three ways"), realms outside or beyond the world of the living. Chthonic and nocturnal character led to her transformation into a goddess heavily associated with witchcraft, witches, magic, and sorcery (whisperer?). Hecate was the "original" and most predominant ancient Triple Moon Goddess (maiden/mother/crone, crescent moon/full moon/ dark moon, Lucina/Diana/ Hecate, realms of heavens/earth/underworld, muse of all true poetry). Some say that Lucina is the goddess of birth, Diana of growth, and Hecate of death. Diana triformis: Diana, Luna (or Selene), and Hecate? In Lucan's work (LUC. B.C. 6:700-01), the witches speak of “Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of our goddess Hecate". Graves explained, "As Goddess of the Underworld she was concerned with Birth, Procreation and Death. As Goddess of the Earth she was concerned with the three seasons of Spring, Summer and Winter: she animated trees and plants and ruled all living creatures. As Goddess of the Sky she was the Moon, in her three phases of New Moon, Full Moon, and Waning Moon...(i.e. Luna- Jewel on brow of Mother (Gaia) of galaxies). As the New Moon or Spring she was a girl; as the Full Moon or Summer she was woman; as the Old Moon or Winter she was hag." Graves said the triad to be Kore, Persephone and Hecate with Demeter the general name of the goddess
- systems Triviatii, Hecate

Hecate system is controlled by Simguru Pranav Antal who said “Sol is the birthplace of our race, the shining jewel of our galaxy” in Galnet 14jun3301 . It has 15 bodies

Pranav Antal has “Acheron Interface” neurological implant, though in Greek mythology, the Acheron was was one of the rivers of the Greek underworld & known as the "river of woe", the "river of pain" or the "river of lost souls", so another Underworld link for Antal; his powerplay region seems to be very much the Underworld!

Of course Legacy could be giving a very direct hint to look for a cargo pod floating somewhere in Artemis (I'd guess in the asteroid belt)...

Triviatii B has 8 moons? Trivia (from Hecate), according to Wiktionary TII means “way, road, path · trip, journey ...” in Võro ( descendant of the old Finnic/South Estonian regional language), so 3-fold path?

Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Goddess_(Neopaganism)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecate
Jewel on brow of mother of galaxies (Sol Mother Gaia/Luna)- Hecate, OR Luna (moon) of Earth & Mother Gaia is the mother of galaxies
Whisperer in witchspace, siren of the deepest void - Hecate
Parent’s grief, lover’s woe (death) - Hecate
the yearning of our vagabond hearts (Demeter/Perephone) - Hecate

Edit:
Though Hecate has a mega ship where the permit to nearby Terra Mater can be obtained. Terra Mater is a lawless system, where Raxxla questions can expect frequent pirate attacks, making the hunt quite interesting, especially if you're carrying Trinkets to trigger an Omphalos Rift! Terra Mater is Latin for "Mother Earth", reminiscent of Mother Gaia which could be the start of the toast...Terra Mater has 4 or 5 planetary belts to make for an extended search!

Hecate has some VERY compelling linkages with the codex and Raxxla.
Reiterating a few ideas from that list:
Astrophel and the Spiralling Stars - Hecate and the 3 Charites / Graces reminds me of the spiralling Triskelion symbolism or divine triad.
Fernweh - Hecate linked to crossroads implies a traveller must make a choice which direction to choose - always giving up one option for another.
Door that is also the key - Hecate embodies the boundaries and the liminal spaces between worlds, holder of the keys that can unlock the gates between realms.
Place that isn't a place - this very much could be a riddle for a doorway or interstitial space in architecture, one that is not associated with being a place (like a dining room), but one that a person can be present within - ie. you can be standing in a doorway, or standing GUARD in this case.
Every fibre in my body is screaming that this means a link to the Guardians, and that Raxxla is either something they created, an unfinished goal (journey), or something the Guardian Constructs made to completely overpower their living creators or even 'steer' the development of younger civilisations in order to prevent another Guardian 'infestation'.

Perhaps in order to gain access to Raxxla, you must therefore present the "guardian" with a key that represents the guardian? Just like a guard dog would recognise you as a friend if they detected their master's scent / trace elements.

Of course Legacy could be giving a very direct hint to look for a cargo pod floating somewhere in Artemis (I'd guess in the asteroid belt)...

The image could just be an artistic choice by the devs but I remember the black boxes from the old missions had three orbs

Spoiler: Black box orbs

On another side note, the red mullet was also significant in the cult of the witch goddess Hecate.
It 'delighted in polluted things', and 'would eat the corpse of a fish or a man'. Blood-coloured itself, it was sacred to the blood-eating goddess Hecate. It seems a symbolic summation of all the negative characteristics of the creatures of the deep. - we know of a certain red-coloured omnivorous species don't we?

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

I spent a long time looking in both Hecate and Terra Mater, with & without Trinkets in the ship's hold. But I didn't try with Guardian Ancient Keys...what you say makes sense so might be worth someone trying! I'm still enjoying Starfield...

still got to find a power, kill the terrormorphs, destroy the Va'ruun battleship, investigate the distress call in Charybdis, locate the missing galbank treasure ship, provide evidence against the Crimson Fleet pirates, and find the last couple of artefacts.

 

[Shadowsnog]

we know of a certain red-coloured omnivorous species don't we?

i knew it! they arent considered pinnacle of evolution for nothing...

Spoiler

 

[SergMx]

I spent a long time looking in both Hecate and Terra Mater, with & without Trinkets in the ship's hold. But I didn't try with Guardian Ancient Keys...what you say makes sense so might be worth someone trying! I'm still enjoying Starfield...

still got to find a power, kill the terrormorphs, destroy the Va'ruun battleship, investigate the distress call in Charybdis, locate the missing galbank treasure ship, provide evidence against the Crimson Fleet pirates, and find the last couple of artefacts.

I've always thought the Guardian beacons were more than just a device to give us an old key.

 

[Rochester]

A place that is not a place, a door that is also the key

A place that is not a place

In Celtic myth the Otherworld was a realm which existed alongside our own, it was never separate, it was believed to have been all around us and yet not always accessible, nor visible to us. It was not just one place either and potentially contained multiple realms, ascribed by various names.

A door that is also the key

Access to the Otherworld, was by invitation or abduction by some deity. Those who entered by themselves were only able to do so at certain times of year, when the boundaries were lowered, or through giving or owning some type of offering, such as a magical apple or a branch bearing apples, which acted like a key.

Various references indicate there were certain entrances as well, certain trees (thorn, apple, ash, oak); fog, or water; hills; ancient burial mounds; and or mountains.

 

[Darrack]

In Celtic myth the Otherworld was a realm which existed alongside our own, it was never separate

The 'Otherworld' is also regarded by Druids as being at the centre of the cosmo's, some pagans also believe it is beneath the sea, hence the ties with water and the afterlife.
Life is a circle between all realms, a continuing path, the Otherworld (Annwn) is seen as the pathway to the terrestrial realm Abred (Midguard) where mortals live.

Access to the Otherworld, was by invitation or abduction, by some deity.

Again it does depend on what side of the pagan fence you are on, to me (a Druid) its a natural progression from the spirit realm (our true home) to the mortal realm, yet to others at the behest of a deity which you really have no control over, a bit like the two realms in Norse mythology:

"Warriors who die in battle end up in one of two places. Half go to join the Goddess Freyja in her heavenly realm of Fólkvangr.
The other half go to Valhalla, Odin’s glorious afterlife hall. It’s the job of the Valkyries to choose among them and bear them to Valhalla"

O7

 

[Rochester]

The question is - how is the reference implemented in game?

The phrase only appears in ED via the older now removed PF/DW missions. Apart from that it’s only other use was from the original Elite games, accompanying story by Robert Holdstock, it was not an invention of Bell nor Braben.

Contextually, that phrases construction was very likely influenced by Holdstocks other works, focused upon these Celtic/Old English mythologies.

Currently, in ED if we agree the Lost Realms zone in game is a Holdstock easter egg, and given their respective relative close locations and shared relationships, I believe that’s a certainty.

These realms by Holdstock’s description are representative of lost paradises, and that the Christian ‘Eden’ taken in this consideration, was likewise another example of a lost realm. In game I believe that collectively that zone in game represents an abstract Holdstockian Otherworld.

FD then utilises two Miltonian references to describe Raxxla. A ‘jewel burning on the brow’ and the direct Milton quote about a ‘pendant world’. Together these describe the Miltonian concept of a model universe, hanging from the mountainous walls (brow) of heaven.

If Raxxla is in this zone then I believe Brookes, designed Raxxla to be another direct Holdstock reference, but he merged it with his own love for Milton; Eden as an Otherworld.

This pendant model of Milton’s had access to two portals at its zenith, one was to the gates of heaven via a retractable stair case, the other was a portal down into the interior of the encapsulated universe. That portal had no direct name, other than being a no-place situated close to the Jasper sea, the waters of creation.

The textual reference of a door/key/place/not place; I believe fits perfectly with the above Holdstockian and Miltonian concept of an Otherworld.

If this is true, and taking the perception that we now have the eyes to see this Holdstockian Otherworld, what clues exist in and around that Lost Realms zone which might illuminate Raxxla against them, or which might direct us towards it?

Holdstock talked of portals and passages to various realms in his works, particularly Ragthorn, which reflected upon the Celtic concept of Thorn trees as accessible points, or of triad goddesses, acting as guardians. In one passage he identified a missing alter, or key, which literally was a door.

Spacially when I’ve mapped these zones they do converge, logic e we oils indicate a focal point ought to be the zone of interest, but I’ve of late not found anything (in Legacy).

Is the Otherworld as a whole ‘Raxxla’; is it below this zone, hanging from its walls; is this zone simply representative of a collective ‘afterlife’ and Raxxla is actually above it, upon the path Persephone trod, or the fall of Satan, is it even higher up, past Chaos, and hangs still upon heavens brow!

A place that is not a place, a door that is also the key

I believe this phrase still has relevance in game, but how?

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

A place that is not a place, a door that is also the key

A place that is not a place

In Celtic myth the Otherworld was a realm which existed alongside our own, it was never separate, it was believed to have been all around us and yet not always accessible, nor visible to us. It was not just one place either and potentially contained multiple realms, ascribed by various names.

A door that is also the key

Access to the Otherworld, was by invitation or abduction by some deity. Those who entered by themselves were only able to do so at certain times of year, when the boundaries were lowered, or through giving or owning some type of offering, such as a magical apple or a branch bearing apples, which acted like a key.

Various references indicate there were certain entrances as well, certain trees (thorn, apple, ash, oak); fog, or water; hills; ancient burial mounds; and or mountains.

Just re-reading Terry Pratchet's Lords and Ladies - - - you're looking for a standing stone circle!
(Matches Omphalos as a "navel"! )

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

I've always thought the Guardian beacons were more than just a device to give us an old key.

I've long thought FD put a lot of design effort into those beacons for the only result being an Ancient Key...might be worth further research! Perhaps we were just taking the key out of the keyhole?