I actually doubt that The Dark Wheel is the shadowy cabal. We know that TDW hadn't found Raxxla in 3300. This was in the guide for the authors. They could have found it later, but that would contradict Rafe Zetters words from the book: "We’ve long suspected that a corps of Elites lives there, and are exploiting the gateway". They’re powerful, twisted men."
I know the book isn't valid lore, but it's the original source of Raxxla. I doubt FD would go against it, when it's easily avoidable by using another shadowy group.
I agree that as far as we know the Dark Wheel splintered due to the fruitless search, but... we don't actually know for sure, just considering possibilities, and FSD might have allowed the faction that continued to find Raxxla finally... who knows?
According to Fdev the books are still canon (Unless they later retracted that statement?).
Consider though: What would the Dark Wheel do with Raxxla if they wrestled it off those that control it? They're a highly secretive group of ruthless murderers, mercenaries and cut-throats... eh, I mean treasure-hunters and adventurers, I'm not sure they'd hand Raxxla to the galaxy as a philanthropic gesture I'd assume if they found it, they'd exploit it just the same as whoever controlled it before - maybe different folks would rise to the top, but... the wheel is always turning, so to speak.
I have, there's only 7 articles that mention it in all this time. To me, it sadly doesn't look like any of the times it's mentioned are really significant, what do you think?
Edit: I asked ChatGPT how to find a secret cabal, it reminded me that by definition, a 'secret cabal' will be hard to find!
Just thinking if they were more in one side of the bubble than any other?
There’s a lot of data there to plot by hand, didn’t want to start anything if it had been undertaken previously.
My suspicion was they were all random, but what if that randomness wasn’t intentional, if that itself was a bug, or it occurred over intentional locations, maybe they propagated in a particular ‘cloud’, or if disorganised, is there an element of order hidden within it? If so - could a base centre be identified…
If that were true, my assumption would be it might marry up with other hypotheses about various locations. Of course more likely it might not…
Just thinking if they were more in one side of the bubble than any other?
There’s a lot of data there to plot by hand, didn’t want to start anything if it had been undertaken previously.
My suspicion was they were all random, but what if that randomness wasn’t intentional, if that itself was a bug, or it occurred over intentional locations, maybe they propagated in a particular ‘cloud’, or if disorganised, is there an element of order hidden within it? If so - could a base centre be identified…
If that were true, my assumption would be it might marry up with other hypotheses about various locations. Of course more likely it might not…
During my recent audio survey of witch-space, I stumbled across something else that seems highly significant. I've been investigating it for this last week.
Apologies for the long post, I'm trying to keep this as short and to the point as I can
EDIT: This was solved - the long-jump systems have more stars in them, it's actually very consistent. The longer the jump time, the more stars there are. Specifically stars, not planets or anything else!. Weird but true Also probably much less noticeable on more powerful computers / using SSD for Elite Dangerous.
Witch-Space Transit times are very consistent:
The amount of time your ships takes to traverse witch-space is 100% constant. It takes between 13 and 14 seconds per jump, regardless of any other factors; origin or destination stars, whether you jump from Supercruise or realspace, the ship you use, your cargo, distance you travel across realspace, neutron boosted, literally anything.
It's exceptionally easy to test this yourself, all you need is any kind of stopwatch. When your spool-up FSD timer hits zero, start the clock. When you "whump" at the star, stop the timer. The spool-up and cooldown at the end are irrelevant. Buckyballers and explorers who talk about this refer to the whole time from when you press 'jump' until your drive finished cooldown, but for us we only care about the time you spend in witch-space. My research shows this has been consistent since at least 2015, (with exceptions). Source 1, Source 2, Source 3.
For my investigation I round-up the jump times to make it easier to chart. So these are "14 second jumps", or "normal jumps", insitead of recording 13.76, 13.81, 13.42, etc.
On almostevery jump you spend just under 14 seconds in witch-space...
... except when you spend longer there, and this is what I discovered:
Long-Jump Stars Investigation #1
When you jump to certain stars, you spend longer in witch-space. This timing is 100% consistent: For example, when I jump to the star Eta Crucis I spend 29-30 seconds in witch-space - every single time I jump there. This is fully repeatable with completely consistent transit times, and can be repeated at any time to test it. I've included a section at the end regarding any concerns about lag, TLDR; it's not lag.
Further, I have catalogued several consistent categories of Long-Jump Stars: 17, 21, 26, 30, 43. To clarify, all these are rounded-up, so a "21" star, is a star that takes between 20 and 21 seconds in witch-space to jump to, consistently, every time you jump there.
That's not all.
"Long-Jump stars" seem to appear in clusters. 17s are the most common, and usually when I found a 17 there was a higher number within 15-20 lightyears (and vice-versa). For example (numbers in brackets are the jump times):
Eta Crucis (30)
Crucis Sector IH-V B2-4 (21) - 8ly from Eta Crucis
Bentin (17) -10ly from Eta Crucis
Bhil Mina (17) -12ly from Eta Crucis
This means the Eta Crucis group (as all the others so far discovered) seem to be isolated into discreet clusters.
The largest cluster, and the highest witch-space transit time I've discovered so far is in the Pleiades:
To date I have travelled over 13,000 lightyears over 800 jumps testing this. I have identified over 30 Long-Jump Stars. What's more, when a long-jump occurs, the background 'stars' in witch-space spiral incredibly rapidly, it's unmistakable... spiralling stars.
These are ordered into their associated clusters. Some are singular mostly because I picked them up while travelling and haven't gone back to expand the search.
Jackson's Lighthouse (26)
Col 285 Sector SM-F A27-2 (17)
Tiapalan (26)
LFT 764 (17)
Puppis Sector DL-Y D116 (17)
Eta Crucis (30)
Crucis Sector IH-V B2-4 (21)
Bhil Mina (17)
Bentin (17)
Ross 104 (21)
V492 Lyrae (17)
Ross 775 (21)
Ross 671 (17)
Midgcut (17)
Coljana (17)
Karadjari (17)
Beta-1 Tucanae (17)
Mot (17)
Atlantis (21)
I'm asking that everyone here tries this out for themselves to prove/disprove it. All you need is a stopwatch. Testing methodology is below.
Most recently I have started checking all systems within a volume based on target stars, so far in addition to travelling around and charting jumps, I have completed:
Every system within 23ly of Sol.
Every system within 20ly of Lave
Polaris Near Jump List
Pleiades Sector NN-T C3-11 Near Jump List
HR 1185 Near Jump List
Maia Near Jump List
Every system within 25ly of Achenar
(Near Jump List is the list on your navigation panel). You can see all these on my spreadsheet, so if you want to test it easily, go to any of the marked Long-Jump stars and test it out.
Testing Methodology & Eliminating Lag variables:
My method is to jump, time each one using a stopwatch: When the spool-up FSD timer hits zero, start the clock. When you "whump" at the star, stop the timer. If I find a long-jump star I jump to any nearest star on the nav panel list, then back. Do this at least twice. This is enough to eliminate any false-readings from lag.
What is this?
I do not know if this phenomena is related to some underlying coding in the game (like the way the systems are arranged in the code or something?). The more I've found, the more they seem to be intentionally placed and they way they appear in clusters feels significant, but it's also quite early-days in testing this. I don't yet know if anyone else can replicate these results.
There's more I can say about this from my observations, but for now I'd really like other people to test this phenomena and verify it on a range of different computers and connections and suchlike.
During my recent audio survey of witch-space, I stumbled across something else that seems highly significant. I've been investigating it for this last week.
Apologies for the long post, I'm trying to keep this as short and to the point as I can
Witch-Space Transit times are very consistent:
The amount of time your ships takes to traverse witch-space is 100% constant. It takes between 13 and 14 seconds per jump, regardless of any other factors; origin or destination stars, whether you jump from Supercruise or realspace, the ship you use, your cargo, distance you travel across realspace, neutron boosted, literally anything.
It's exceptionally easy to test this yourself, all you need is any kind of stopwatch. When your spool-up FSD timer hits zero, start the clock. When you "whump" at the star, stop the timer. The spool-up and cooldown at the end are irrelevant. Buckyballers and explorers who talk about this refer to the whole time from when you press 'jump' until your drive finished cooldown, but for us we only care about the time you spend in witch-space. My research shows this has been consistent since at least 2015, (with exceptions). Source 1, Source 2, Source 3.
For my investigation I round-up the jump times to make it easier to chart. So these are "14 second jumps", or "normal jumps", insitead of recording 13.76, 13.81, 13.42, etc.
On almostevery jump you spend just under 14 seconds in witch-space...
... except when you spend longer there, and this is what I discovered:
Long-Jump Stars Investigation #1
When you jump to certain stars, you spend longer in witch-space. This timing is 100% consistent: For example, when I jump to the star Eta Crucis I spend 29-30 seconds in witch-space - every single time I jump there. This is fully repeatable with completely consistent transit times, and can be repeated at any time to test it. I've included a section at the end regarding any concerns about lag, TLDR; it's not lag.
Further, I have catalogued several consistent categories of Long-Jump Stars: 17, 21, 26, 30, 43. To clarify, all these are rounded-up, so a "21" star, is a star that takes between 20 and 21 seconds in witch-space to jump to, consistently, every time you jump there.
That's not all.
"Long-Jump stars" seem to appear in clusters. 17s are the most common, and usually when I found a 17 there was a higher number within 15-20 lightyears (and vice-versa). For example (numbers in brackets are the jump times):
Eta Crucis (30)
Crucis Sector IH-V B2-4 (21) - 8ly from Eta Crucis
Bentin (17) -10ly from Eta Crucis
Bhil Mina (17) -12ly from Eta Crucis
This means the Eta Crucis group (as all the others so far discovered) seem to be isolated into discreet clusters.
The largest cluster, and the highest witch-space transit time I've discovered so far is in the Pleiades:
To date I have travelled over 13,000 lightyears over 800 jumps testing this. I have identified over 30 Long-Jump Stars. What's more, when a long-jump occurs, the background 'stars' in witch-space spiral incredibly rapidly, it's unmistakable... spiralling stars.
These are ordered into their associated clusters. Some are singular mostly because I picked them up while travelling and haven't gone back to expand the search.
Jackson's Lighthouse (26)
Col 285 Sector SM-F A27-2 (17)
Tiapalan (26)
LFT 764 (17)
Puppis Sector DL-Y D116 (17)
Eta Crucis (30)
Crucis Sector IH-V B2-4 (21)
Bhil Mina (17)
Bentin (17)
Ross 104 (21)
V492 Lyrae (17)
Ross 775 (21)
Ross 671 (17)
Midgcut (17)
Coljana (17)
Karadjari (17)
Beta-1 Tucanae (17)
Mot (17)
Atlantis (21)
I'm asking that everyone here tries this out for themselves to prove/disprove it. All you need is a stopwatch. Testing methodology is below.
Most recently I have started checking all systems within a volume based on target stars, so far in addition to travelling around and charting jumps, I have completed:
Every system within 23ly of Sol.
Every system within 20ly of Lave
Polaris Near Jump List
Pleiades Sector NN-T C3-11 Near Jump List
HR 1185 Near Jump List
Maia Near Jump List
Every system within 25ly of Achenar
(Near Jump List is the list on your navigation panel). You can see all these on my spreadsheet, so if you want to test it easily, go to any of the marked Long-Jump stars and test it out.
Testing Methodology & Eliminating Lag variables:
My method is to jump, time each one using a stopwatch: When the spool-up FSD timer hits zero, start the clock. When you "whump" at the star, stop the timer. If I find a long-jump star I jump to any nearest star on the nav panel list, then back. Do this at least twice. This is enough to eliminate any false-readings from lag.
What is this?
I do not know if this phenomena is related to some underlying coding in the game (like the way the systems are arranged in the code or something?). The more I've found, the more they seem to be intentionally placed and they way they appear in clusters feels significant, but it's also quite early-days in testing this. I don't yet know if anyone else can replicate these results.
There's more I can say about this from my observations, but for now I'd really like other people to test this phenomena and verify it on a range of different computers and connections and suchlike.
Eta Crucis has 3 main stars and 4 brown dwarves (total 7)
Jackson's Lighthouse has a neutron star and 5 brown dwarves (total 6)
Tiapalan has 3 main stars and 3 brown dwarves (total 6)
43s systems have a truckload of stars
HR 1185 has the titular B star, 8 T Tauris and a black hole (total 10)
Maia has the titular B star, a red dwarf, 6 brown dwarves and a black hole (total 9)
Since both Maia and HR 1185 are controlled by AXI (the former even being its home system) I suspected deliberate Thargoid shenanigans, but the equally controlled Asterope at 14s soon demolished my initial hypothesis.
A preliminary geospatial analysis of your systems I might draw the following assessment.
These particular systems seem to form a chevron.
They are situated right on the edge of a perimeter which I’ve already identified as the zone of Storms… this is very interesting because this zone has a great deal of significance within my current theory (to be published soon).
They are situated very close to the systems attributable to the Norse Norns… if you look through the Greek Fates close by, they align with your systems?
There are three ‘older gods’ very close to your systems, one of them is the system Tawhaki - this is very interesting because Michael Brooke’s wrote a Drabble about it!
Spacially your systems are relatively upon an alignment with a system Ive been watching called Purisaz, it is a weird mis-spelling of a Norse Rune linked to ‘Thorns’.
Purisaz is aligned with another Norse Rune system within the Lost Realms zone…
Purisaz is of interest to me because Robert Holdstock used the ‘Rune of Thorn’ to denote the location of a mystical secret in his book Ragthorn!
Technically my new theory goes towards identifying potentially locations where the Pendant world ought to hang in relation to Paradise Lost, the systems your have identified are slap-bang in one of those locations!
I will be publishing my hypothesis very soon, here is your example overlayed.
Since both Maia and HR 1185 are controlled by AXI (the former even being its home system) I suspected deliberate Thargoid shenanigans, but the equally controlled Asterope at 14s soon demolished my initial hypothesis.
The pattern here seems to suggest that the hyperspace animation will aim to complete in approximately 13 seconds, but if it's not able to, it then re-polls to see if it can complete at approximately 4 second intervals, possibly because of how the sound or animation for the "extension" is looped.
I do not recall star-heavy systems slowing jumps before, though - and certainly not to anything like 30/43 seconds. Admittedly, I haven't been doing many hyperspace jumps to high-star systems lately either.
(Of course, if it's a "time to generate system" indicator, then it might be reproducible on any specific PC but completely different on one with a different performance profile)
I think there is one thing to be wary of here and that is the fact that, for hand-crafted systems, they are not being procedurally generated - instead it is my understanding that the information has to be pulled out of a database. That would mean that increased loading times are a sign that you are jumping to a hand-crafted system. I am not sure if the number of bodies in the system influences the loading time, or to what extent - Jackson's Lighthouse has few bodies but an increased loading time, for example. (I remember Maia, a system with many bodies, has always had a long loading time - raced through there several times! Why HR 1185 should have the same loading time, I don't know).
This does not mean that loading times are to be dismissed! It could still be a clue - especially if the visuals are different jumping into those systems.
I'm going to be spending some time around the Lost Realms this month but am struggling to manage my time this week. I can think of some other people who may be doing the same, so I'll make discreet enquiries as to any oddities in the hyperspace tunnel or loading times.
not to throw a wrench into this discussion , but on my way out to Colonia (arrived last night), but yesterday, I had a star that took FOREVER to load in witchspace, well over 30 secs...
and when it loaded.... one star... NOTHING else... 1 signal in FSS, nothing else.....
so loading times are not about the "stuff" in the system itself.....
I assumed it was network lag yesterday, but I'm now thinking it's somthing to do with how the galaxy was "seeded" in the game.... systems that have a longer seed number, probably take longer to calculate and display, regardless of their contents....
that's my 2 cents at this time, but definitely it took well over 15/17secs, atleast 30, before I dropped into what was essentially an empty system in the gap about 1000ly from Colonia...
also, I've dropped into new systems that I get the discovery credit for, with over 40 body's, and those systems also load in normal 15sec jump times.... so yea, just saying....
also also, lol, the game doesn't download each system from fdev, it uses the seed number to build it right in your PC, no download from fdev except for market info ect...
uummm... I think this may have been discussed awhile ago, but if not....
does anyone else see what I see in this img of Jacques Station interior....? I've only just noticed this on a mail slot, every time I've seen previous raxxla logo discussions and stations, it was about the antenna at the back, not the doorway...
look at the "strip" lights around the mail slot first, not the spot lights....
I see a center spot for ships...
a round center circle around the ship spot...
there partial lines, part of their own circle, with 32 lines/divisions...
a glass? segmented ring, with 6 corners (spot lights)...
6 straight supports with "V" arms holding that ring...
To me, looks an awful lot like the Raxxla logo....
unfortunately I think the Raxxla logo may be literally telling us one thing and only one thing;
it's outside XD
in space... somewhere, out...... there ------
or worse yet, Raxxla is literally any Exit port for ships and MB thought it was clever;
Raxxla is where anyone can find it, more than once, but we don't what it is...
lord I hope that's not true but who knows anymore....
for me it conjures mental imgs of;
a place that isn't a place,
a door that is also the key,
a siren calling for us to go explore,
grief, woe, and yearning,
getting more abstract, the mail slot "burns" with light and sound as ships pass thru, and it could be the jewel of the human race, as without it, mass scale long distance space expansion would never have been possible...
Ok, tinfoil is cooking my brain...
someone just tell me I'm nutz lol
3D Modeling App lets you easily design 3D content on the go using gestures on iPhone or iPad. No need to use the Apple Pencil, but you can, if you want to. Tons of features: 1. Fast workflow: - Move, Rotate, Scale objects and camera by gestures switching between them on the go. - Easily...
not to throw a wrench into this discussion , but on my way out to Colonia (arrived last night), but yesterday, I had a star that took FOREVER to load in witchspace, well over 30 secs..
I had this happen a couple years ago, on my first big exploration. I thought it was really odd and scanned the whole system, which was quite big IIRC. Couldn't see anything odd so I bookmarked it and moved on.
I really don't know why I didn't test it more on that trip out but I did go back, months later!! Normal load time, multiple attempts - so I'm guessing sometimes it is just lag.
Eta Crucis has 3 main stars and 4 brown dwarves (total 7)
Jackson's Lighthouse has a neutron star and 5 brown dwarves (total 6)
Tiapalan has 3 main stars and 3 brown dwarves (total 6)
43s systems have a truckload of stars
HR 1185 has the titular B star, 8 T Tauris and a black hole (total 10)
Maia has the titular B star, a red dwarf, 6 brown dwarves and a black hole (total 9)
Since both Maia and HR 1185 are controlled by AXI (the former even being its home system) I suspected deliberate Thargoid shenanigans, but the equally controlled Asterope at 14s soon demolished my initial hypothesis.
I think there is one thing to be wary of here and that is the fact that, for hand-crafted systems, they are not being procedurally generated - instead it is my understanding that the information has to be pulled out of a database. That would mean that increased loading times are a sign that you are jumping to a hand-crafted system. I am not sure if the number of bodies in the system influences the loading time, or to what extent - Jackson's Lighthouse has few bodies but an increased loading time, for example. (I remember Maia, a system with many bodies, has always had a long loading time - raced through there several times! Why HR 1185 should have the same loading time, I don't know).
This does not mean that loading times are to be dismissed! It could still be a clue - especially if the visuals are different jumping into those systems.
I'm going to be spending some time around the Lost Realms this month but am struggling to manage my time this week. I can think of some other people who may be doing the same, so I'll make discreet enquiries as to any oddities in the hyperspace tunnel or loading times.
The pattern here seems to suggest that the hyperspace animation will aim to complete in approximately 13 seconds, but if it's not able to, it then re-polls to see if it can complete at approximately 4 second intervals, possibly because of how the sound or animation for the "extension" is looped.
I do not recall star-heavy systems slowing jumps before, though - and certainly not to anything like 30/43 seconds. Admittedly, I haven't been doing many hyperspace jumps to high-star systems lately either.
(Of course, if it's a "time to generate system" indicator, then it might be reproducible on any specific PC but completely different on one with a different performance profile)
Thanks, I can't believe I didn't think check the stars!
Right at the start I checked the number of overall bodies and the system traffic reported on EDSM, and also looked at the overall size of the system, population, number of objects including stations, etc., but never looked at how many stars there were specifically.
It does seem like that's what it is. It's probably more pronounced for me cos my computer is old!
Well thanks for replying and helping to solve that, I don't think I'd have figured that one out, I really thought for a second there it was some sort of map to Raxxla hidden in the fabric of the galaxy
uummm... I think this may have been discussed awhile ago, but if not....
does anyone else see what I see in this img of Jacques Station interior....? I've only just noticed this on a mail slot, every time I've seen previous raxxla logo discussions and stations, it was about the antenna at the back, not the doorway...
look at the "strip" lights around the mail slot first, not the spot lights....
I see a center spot for ships...
a round center circle around the ship spot...
there partial lines, part of their own circle, with 32 lines/divisions...
a glass? segmented ring, with 6 corners (spot lights)...
6 straight supports with "V" arms holding that ring...
To me, looks an awful lot like the Raxxla logo....
unfortunately I think the Raxxla logo may be literally telling us one thing and only one thing;
it's outside XD
in space... somewhere, out...... there ------
or worse yet, Raxxla is literally any Exit port for ships and MB thought it was clever;
Raxxla is where anyone can find it, more than once, but we don't what it is...
lord I hope that's not true but who knows anymore....
for me it conjures mental imgs of;
a place that isn't a place,
a door that is also the key,
a siren calling for us to go explore,
grief, woe, and yearning,
getting more abstract, the mail slot "burns" with light and sound as ships pass thru, and it could be the jewel of the human race, as without it, mass scale long distance space expansion would never have been possible...
Ok, tinfoil is cooking my brain...
someone just tell me I'm nutz lol
(Unless they later retracted that statement?). 
I'd assume if they found it, they'd exploit it just the same as whoever controlled it before - maybe different folks would rise to the top, but... the wheel is always turning, so to speak.
