The Quest To Find Raxxla

[Louis Calvert]

Look back at the livestreams where any official staff mentions Raxxla (especially the 2018 codex reveal), tons and tons of people in chat shout "RAXXLA!" and suchlike.

I'm struggling to hold in my head the image of a room full of Elite super-fans (because it's Lavecon, who else goes?), and Brookes himself dropping bombshells about Raxxla, and then no-one talking about and making videos and podcasts and suchlike immediately after. There's a freaking 34 minute biscuit review video from Lavecon 2017 posted, but I'm really struggling to find anyone talking about this alleged Q&A reveal from Brookes.

IF TRUE - It means that we can automatically discount any theory that doesn't take place in a standard solar system. We can discount anything of the more exotic nature (clearly whoever it was didn't notice anything strange). We also have flat-out confirmation that it wasn't permit locked (as of 2017, presumably) - at least. We can also discount any system that wasn't discovered as of 2017 (so no point looking for undiscovered systems, for example).

That's monumental information. For example it rules out the Landscape Signal, it rules out exotic systems with weird stuff, etc etc. it also means we don't necessarily need to pass tests or carry special objects, or find the Dark wheel, etc.

It seems to me that one of the most reliable ways to 'gain more clues' is to verify this alleged Brookes statement.

 

[Emperor]

Look back at the livestreams where any official staff mentions Raxxla (especially the 2018 codex reveal), tons and tons of people in chat shout "RAXXLA!" and suchlike.

I'm struggling to hold in my head the image of a room full of Elite super-fans (because it's Lavecon, who else goes?), and Brookes himself dropping bombshells about Raxxla, and then no-one talking about and making videos and podcasts and suchlike immediately after. There's a freaking 34 minute biscuit review video from Lavecon 2017 posted, but I'm really struggling to find anyone talking about this alleged Q&A reveal from Brookes.

IF TRUE - It means that we can automatically discount any theory that doesn't take place in a standard solar system. We can discount anything of the more exotic nature (clearly whoever it was didn't notice anything strange). We also have flat-out confirmation that it wasn't permit locked (as of 2017, presumably) - at least. We can also discount any system that wasn't discovered as of 2017 (so no point looking for undiscovered systems, for example).

That's monumental information. For example it rules out the Landscape Signal, it rules out exotic systems with weird stuff, etc etc. it also means we don't necessarily need to pass tests or carry special objects, or find the Dark wheel, etc.

It seems to me that one of the most reliable ways to 'gain more clues' is to verify this alleged Brookes statement.

Personally I think this will drive you a little bit crazy... There's some discussion on the Turning the wheel thread about others who were present if you want to keep going down this particular rabbit hole like I did a while back...

"We can also discount any system that wasn't discovered as of 2017 (so no point looking for undiscovered systems, for example)." - Where would you get your information from? external sites only ever had participating CMDRs

and... If someone visited it, they may not have been carrying the right thing or the thing you needed wasn't available at the time and planned for future stories, etc

I get the feeling the most likely explanation was MB was there as he stated he was attending and was not part of any official ED Q&A as he had moved on to his secret project, but as an FD employee was probably in a room with a bunch of people all talking about ED when/if it was mentioned and he probably didn't expect it to create such a buzz or get out to the wider world...

I look at it this way, it's certainly added to the myth...

 

[Louis Calvert]

Actually, check out this post a few replies after the one made by Jorki explaining about Ascorbius and the Q&A:

Thanks @CMDR Davanix

Sadly that blog isn't available, but the wayback machine is... Here's the link.

Here's the quote:

Because of D-d-d-d-david Braben's message overrun and the general enthusiasm in the hall, the Q&A had barely started at 3pm when our second game of Artemis was booked! So the boys and I sneaked out of the hall early. I knew from the past two LaveCon's, no amount of squeezing would get any more info out of Frontier's panel, so I wasn't too worried I'd miss anything. I had this confirmed later by another CMDR.

So this is someone who was so into Elite that their website was literally called elite-dangerous-blog-co.uk and they wrote an extensive blog about Lavecon 2017.

But they never mentioned Brookes at all, and no mention of Raxxla.

For me, this pretty much confirms that Raxxla wasn't mentioned. No-one that's been to three Lavecons, has a blog like this, and is present at a Lavecon where any official staff mentions Raxxla and doesn't say a single word about it.

 

[Adel]

Just a thought: while in bubble we can point to sagittarius A* and the landscape signal can be found in audio recordings.
Did anyone tried to do the opposite, i mean going far from bubble and point to specific system in the bubble and look for any audio weirdness?

 

[Louis Calvert]

Just a thought: while in bubble we can point to sagittarius A* and the landscape signal can be found in audio recordings.
Did anyone tried to do the opposite, i mean going far from bubble and point to specific system in the bubble and look for any audio weirdness?

Someone... somewhere.... (I'll try to find the post) said they aimed at Earth while on the opposite side of Sag A* and got some very weird audio.

I'm going to try it when I get there just in case I doubt it'll reveal anything. If there's any other systems you want me to do the same for send a list.

 

[Louis Calvert]

As a reminder, this is what Ascorbious said (from this post)

What Ascorbius said to me was:
“It was during a closed Q&A session - I'm trying to recall whether it was Lavecon or the later ECM in Reading. It was the last Q&A Michael Brookes was at.

I'm pretty sure it was Lavecon 2017 in the Q&A. There were a load of things announced there, Crime and Punishment and the early views of AX weapons as well as Search and Rescue.
I've also just checked Michael Brookes announced he was stepping away from Elite at Lavecon 2017 so it's pretty unlikely to be the ECM Reading.

The memory is hazy given that I've been to a few Lavecons and ECMs and recollections after the fact are unreliable but I'm pretty sure it was Lavecon 2017.

But I absolutely was there when he said it, it's sad there's no footage with it being a closed Q&A, but there were a lot of people in the room.

I didn't go to Lavecon 2016 or 2015 so it's definitely not that those.”

More sources (in addition to my previous post) that bring into doubt what Ascorbius says:

From this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-quest-to-find-raxxla.168253/post-5599978

Literally not a single post between June 12 and July 11. Lavecon was June 24th. Unless it's all been deleted, you'd expect to find at least a single person posting here "Hey, Brookes at Lavecon said Raxxla had been visited".

This Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6j8smc

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6j8smc/frontier_qa_panel_lavecon_2017_features_changes/


Lists all the Folks involved in the Q&A panel and what they showed off. Obviously Brookes is not listed, but comparing that to the blog post in my previous post you can see there's a match here with what was reported there, and what Ascorbius said was discussed at the Q&A. Edit: meant to say, there are plenty of people here on the forums and even on that reddit thread there posting after Lavecon 2017 discussing the Q&A, and not a single one mentions Brookes or Raxxla.

Here's the Lavecon 2017 Thread, suspiciously free of Raxxla and Brookes revelations: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/lavecon-2017.358839/page-3

Here's the presentation video from the Q&A Lavecon 2017: No mention of Brookes or Raxxla in the comments. Not a single one.

Nothing about Raxxla or Borookes in any post about Lavecon 2017 that I've found, so Ascorbius very clearly misremembered that entirely.

He does say it might have been ECM in Reading, so I'll have a look for that next I guess! My other next part of this is to try to track the first mention of this "Raxxla was visited" myth.

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

Memory is so fallible! I remember that at Wizards of the Coast, the now Head Designer for Magic: the Gathering, Mark Rosewater, once did a demonstration of it by making a Magic: the Gathering blog post talking about a past blog post that he knew he had never made at the time and people responded with things like 'Oh, yeah, I remember that'. He even went into some depth (I forget the details, appropriately!) that meant people who wanted to look up an article of the name he gave would find something, so that he would only be found out by people that remembered he had not actually written said article at the time! (I think some people also did some digging and found a discrepancy in the web page naming that showed an anomalous sequence as the new pages did not overwrite actual articles written around the date). (In his next blog post he explained what he had done.)

We have no capability to confirm or refute anything said off-camera at any social events, so I do not see that it will help to add any more layers to our speculations.

Back to actual searching:
I visited Bohmshohm, where the mountain-themed moon Kaliash has a very unusually-named station orbiting it: Putzi Opk's Haven. The system description says that it is the home of Low Profile Workshops, whose motto is 'Blending in is a statement'. I docked but found nothing otherwise odd about the system to report. It does make me think if these system descriptions, which were in the game at launch (player-made factions seldom, if ever, have mottos iirc and are written differently), are giving hints.
Near Bohmshohm is Zephyrus, so I stopped by at the station Eyo6, which orbits Violet World. Here the system description is simply: Lensher Reclamation are based in this system. 'Finished with it? We're just starting.'
Looking around I visited a few more systems that I had not been to and then noticed Chronos, about 25 LY from Nefertem. Unlike many uninhabited systems with interesting names, this one has something in it: 8 planets and one moon (2a). It occurred to me that Chronos might be a match for the third line of The Dark Wheel toast. The parent's grief, the lover's woe and the yearning of our vagabond hearts might all be referring to time - it causes children to grow up and leave home, or the parents to die and leave children behind, tears lovers apart and yearning, vagabond hearts need time to wander and find what they are looking for. So I flew to Tiamat (possible match for line 1 of the toast), then Siren (line 2) and then Chronos, where I mapped all the bodies, and flew down to the largest crater of the moon 2a but saw nothing there. Planet 3 has bacterium and the landables all have first footfall and multiple Odyssey temporary POI. I checked all the signal sources and they were all Degraded Emission (Threat 0) - I keep an eye out for Threat 2 or 3 as they can have something interesting in (AI Relics are the rarest, though I'm not sure they are found everywhere, only ever got two, and also 'gold traps' where something valuable is amongst other containers and you get jumped by a wing of pirates as you get close).
I may hang out in Chronos a bit longer; I'll see what else occurs to me. I have a race to run starting this weekend! (Obfuscated in the Outer Rim, banner and link in my sig).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

My other next part of this is to try to track the first mention of this "Raxxla was visited" myth.

Poking around the forum search, the first mention I can find is https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-quest-to-find-raxxla.168253/page-406#post-7800401 in this thread in May 2019 ... which - I had to laugh - mentions it as if it was an old rumour that everyone already knows about, and gives a different convention as an original source.

Going back to actual 2017, nothing I found on various keywords fits, but there are three separate things which could easily have ended up combined in people's memories a couple of years later:
1) Various quotes or paraphrases from DB and/or MB along the lines of "Raxxla is in the game and we know where it is"
2) Lots of player speculation that the system might have been visited but only honked
3) Someone (or possibly two different someones at different times) claiming to have found Raxxla in a system that had already been visited

(Any forum searches for "Raxxla" and another keyword seem to be pretty quiet throughout most of 2017/2018 - the Codex release seems to have been the spark to really get people interested in it again)

 

[Enzix]

With all the theories, research etc. in which region do you think Raxxla is?
With 42 regions its a lot of ground to cover.

My gut tells me it is somewhere in Empyrean Straits... Don't know why and can't back it up but something tells me there is more to discover there.

 

[Hanerib]

With all the theories, research etc. in which region do you think Raxxla is?
With 42 regions its a lot of ground to cover.

My gut tells me it is somewhere in Empyrean Straits... Don't know why and can't back it up but something tells me there is more to discover there.

You know, I've been planning to visit around there for some time now, touring Eta Carina, Dryman permit locked bubble, Norma Arm and coreward across the Arcadian Stream. Star density becomes huge in regions adjacent to the core, and there are many rarely visited planetary nebulae hidden beneath the stars. There's nothing quite like the feeling of being thousands of lightyears away from civilization, though I suppose all regions have service fleetcarriers or some such these days.

 

[Louis Calvert]

With all the theories, research etc. in which region do you think Raxxla is?
With 42 regions its a lot of ground to cover.

My gut tells me it is somewhere in Empyrean Straits... Don't know why and can't back it up but something tells me there is more to discover there.

Personally, my latest idea is that there's something significant to find in the Galactic Centre region... so right next door to your idea!... relatively speaking.

Love to hear more about what you think there might be there? I just visited some Guardian sites in the Empyrean Straits

 

[Spidermustdie]

Hello, I'm a long time lurker. I just wanted to share a reddit post I saw a few years ago. A CMDR logged back in to his ship inside a star. My point is that the flare effects he saw look identical (in my opinion) to the artifacts that show up at The Star of India and other stars.

https://www.reddit.com/r/eliteexplorers/s/tq0vekVoP7

In my opinion I think these can be dismissed as only graphical errors, if not a bit creepy to see.

 

[Louis Calvert]

Hello, I'm a long time lurker. I just wanted to share a reddit post I saw a few years ago. A CMDR logged back in to his ship inside a star. My point is that the flare effects he saw look identical (in my opinion) to the artifacts that show up at The Star of India and other stars.

https://www.reddit.com/r/eliteexplorers/s/tq0vekVoP7

In my opinion I think these can be dismissed as only graphical errors, if not a bit creepy to see.

Excellent find

 

[Han_Zen]

Hello, I'm a long time lurker. I just wanted to share a reddit post I saw a few years ago. A CMDR logged back in to his ship inside a star. My point is that the flare effects he saw look identical (in my opinion) to the artifacts that show up at The Star of India and other stars.

https://www.reddit.com/r/eliteexplorers/s/tq0vekVoP7

In my opinion I think these can be dismissed as only graphical errors, if not a bit creepy to see.

What you see in pic. 1 and three, is the same you see when you check these phenomenon in VR. The system map is fully 3D even in monitor view. In VR you can move inside the phenomenon and see them close.

 

[Enzix]

Personally, my latest idea is that there's something significant to find in the Galactic Centre region... so right next door to your idea!... relatively speaking.

Love to hear more about what you think there might be there? I just visited some Guardian sites in the Empyrean Straits
View attachment 378864

Before we received FSS and had to visit the planet up close for a scan I was exploring Empyrean Straits in a semi-engineered Anaconda.
There were talks about the guardian sites on this forum and there was a saying that brain trees indicate that there is a guardian ruin nearby (within 50ly if memory serves me correct) and I happen to stumble upon on them far away from the current sites in the Empyrean Straits region.

This leads me to believe that there is more to it in this region. After looking at the heat maps at EDAstro it does not look that much explored considering the star density of the region.

Unfortunately I was a noob at that time and crashed on that trip, losing a year of exploration data.
To make matters worse I didn't even use EDMC, EDSM, Inara or any kind of helper tool to track my progress and/or travel path.
In my attempt to recover the systems visited I found out about these tools and started using them ever since.
Unrelated to Raxxla I ragequit the game for some time, on return I did other activities.

The exploration itch kicked in and now I'm heading in this region in an attempt to find something with my carrier, all exploration ships that I have with various modules equipped and some thargoid/guardian items just in case its needed for some experiment.

 

[Louis Calvert]

Unfortunately I was a noob at that time and crashed on that trip, losing a year of exploration data.

Ouch! Sorry to hear that.

The exploration itch kicked in and now I'm heading in this region in an attempt to find something with my carrier, all exploration ships that I have with various modules equipped and some thargoid/guardian items just in case its needed for some experiment.

I hope you find something awesome

The Empyrean is interesting, as a word, I often wonder if Fdev was thinking about specific things when they named some places. Some were definitely named by the community, but others weren't.

 

[Philip Coutts]

Soooo, went out to Yoruba scanned al the planets, had a poke about and found exactly nothing! I do think there is a tourist beacon or some clue that we need to find to start a chain of events or unlock some kind of map but where it starts I don't now. I think I might head for the old worlds from the original Elite (lave etc) and have a poke about. o7 Commanders, never give up the hunt!

 

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

Slightly off-topic but related:

Are the HIP stars in game, supposed to be at their real location, RA/Declination they are at in the HIP catalog IRL?

Because I only just noticed one that isn't... it was complete chance that I bothered to check, but there is an HIP star IRL that is also in-game, but at a different RA/Declination... just wondering if this is common or strange and figured CMDRs here would know best XD

Edit: or would systems have moved due to the time between now and 3308? By enough to seriously alter the RA/Declination location displayed in-game?

 

[Ravenloft45]

Slightly off-topic but related:

Are the HIP stars in game, supposed to be at their real location, RA/Declination they are at in the HIP catalog IRL?

Because I only just noticed one that isn't... it was complete chance that I bothered to check, but there is an HIP star IRL that is also in-game, but at a different RA/Declination... just wondering if this is common or strange and figured CMDRs here would know best XD

Edit: or would systems have moved due to the time between now and 3308? By enough to seriously alter the RA/Declination location displayed in-game?

Almost all of them are hand picked in RA/DEC coordinates. But the thing is, some star names are different in catalouges, and in game some of their names are not false, but incomplete. Check https://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/ or https://www.universeguide.com/ for alternative names, maybe something is wrong, or misnamed.

 

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

Almost all of them are hand picked in RA/DEC coordinates. But the thing is, some star names are different in catalouges, and in game some of their names are not false, but incomplete. Check https://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/ or https://www.universeguide.com/ for alternative names, maybe something is wrong, or misnamed.

Yea, confirmed its got the same HIP name and RA/DEC in both of those catalogs as well now,
So literally everywhere except in-game I can find, it's got the same Name, and same coordinates.
It's just in-games that's got a different coordinate/ RA/DEC

I thought the base of the game was the HIP and HID catalogs ect, using their IRL info, and then the galaxy propagated out with ProcGen based on NASA/ESA star density calculations/estimates ?


Does anyone know of a website that can change time? LOL
As in, enter a star coordinate now, and see where it will have moved in relation to Earth over 1300 years?