The Quest To Find Raxxla

[Louis Calvert]

Follow up to my previous post investigating the Landscape Signal.

Right folks. I want you all to get a brand new piece of tinfoil from your Pilot's Federation official tinfoil container. Make sure there's no holes in it. Do not re-use an old piece! Fashion it into a sturdy new hat, it's advised that you use two layers for extra protection.

---

I believe the Landscape Signal might be a (partial) map.​

READ THIS TLDR: I've drawn lines over a composite of dozens of recordings of the Landcape Signal taken from many different locations and under many different conditions (total of about 10 hour of recordings). I've picked out the details that occur in the majority of spectrograms. This is, at best, an interpretation of what I'm pretty sure is actually there - but I can't say for sure that I've got this right. I encourage you ALL to do this for yourself. All the software I used is completely free and the rest of this post details the methods I used. Please, please do test this yourself. The below is a work in progress:

There's an alternative which is representative of what's there, but I'm not sure if the additional pillars in the image below are part of the 'landscape image', or are part of the signal coding since similar 'pillars' also appear later in blank areas in the same configuration (still investigating).

Spoiler: Additional pillars

I have compressed the following within Spoilers to keep the physical post short.

What are you looking at here?​

Spoiler: Explanation of the raw image

This is the spectrogram of one small part of the Landscape Signal. It's the most 'famous' 11 second part of a signal that's about 100 seconds long. There is stuff in other parts of the signal, but this is the clearest and most easily done bit. This is a work in progress, subject to change.

The top image is the Left Channel audio, the bottom image is the Right Channel audio.

There seems to be a difference between the left and right. I don't know why. I'm not sure if the difference is intentional, or an artefact of the process. The Right channel audio seems incomplete, In all my recordings I can't resolve the top of the middle peak - although there are suggestions in some of a shape I wasn't confident enough to replicate it. Most notably the two ... horns on either side of the valley aren't present in the Right audio - however again there are suggestions of them in many recordings, I simply wasn't fully confident enough to include them.

How did I get this image?​

Spoiler: Explanation of the process to create this

I used Audacity to record the Landscape Signal (as per my previous posts). I didn't do anything special in the recording, I just did many, many, many of them from different angles and positions, from inside the ship and using the free cam to learn as much as I could about the signal. I got used to what was 'normally there' and what was a transient sound, etc.

I used these settings in Audacity to generate what I feel is the clearest spectrogram of the signal.

I played around a lot with different settings. In creating the composite I also used Noise Reduction in Audacity to remove some of the background 'static' for one or two images simply to test if that revealed more (it doesn't really), the rest don't have any additional filtering. I also saved a range of Spectrograms with different settings which helps to pick out some details while obscuring others. If you're replicating this, I suggest simply playing with all the settings, you can get real-time feedback by pressing 'apply' rather than 'ok'.

I then took screenshots of this section of the spectrogram and pasted it into Krita, a free photoshop-like software. There's no reason you can't use any other software for this, as long as you can add layers with transparency that's really all you need. I'm just familiar with Krita. I expect GIMP will work fine too, I'm just less familiar with that.

Once you've got your working space set up, just copy/paste spectrogram images in as new layers. I made new layers partially transparent so I could then move them to perfectly overlay the layer below using the major features, then reverted the opacity to 100%.

I then made a new blank layer and simply carefully sketched over the features I could see. Then I used the hide/reveal layer toggle to flick rapidly between two (or more) layers of spectrograms, looking for changes. I alternated this with turning off the layer I've drawn on too so that I can see just the spectrograms changing. It took me three days of several hours per day to make sure I was only drawing features that recurred in many spectrograms. The two... tower things... in the valley were a big problem since they are oddly faint, but they do appear consistently in the vast majority of images.

You can even see the 'towers' here in this earlier project where I was trying to determine a method for analysing 'signal strength'. (This project failed to show any differences in signal strength based on location, only angle to the signal source, which was already determined by the IRH investigation years ago.)

I did try Sonic Visualiser, but I struggled to find the granularity in the settings I wanted. I did use several Sonic Visualiser spectrograms to confirm many of the major details though. The 'pillars' are present in that too, they're not an artefact of Audacity or anything like that. They actually seem a bit more visible in Sonic Visualiser actually.

So what is it? (My speculation on what this shows)​

I think it's an image of the "Omphalos Rift" on the surface of a planet. I think the 'towers' are the 'gate', the valley between the two mountains is the 'rift', as in, rift valley.

I do not know why the left and right channels seem to be different. Most notably there's that very weird thing in the top left corner. It appears regularly enough that I'm sure it's there, but it's incredibly hard to see properly, what you see in the image is my current best interpretation, and yes, it seems to be different between left and right. It's possible the difference is just an artefact of the spectrogram processing.

I believe that the signal is incomplete​

This is 11 seconds out of 100-ish seconds of signal. There are traces of other shapes in there but I wanted to get this out here and get feedback on it while I'm working on the rest.

My hope/guess is that the Landscape Signal is essentially a fragmented treasure map.

I wonder if there is more audio that can be found in more specific locations which we can use to 'fill in the blanks' in the Landscape Signal? Much like piecing together a map that's been torn into bits. The key is that the Landscape Signal can only be detected in realspace - how many of us have sat in solar systems in real-space and recorded audio? How many systems? how many planets? I bet not many. Most explorers stay in supercruise most of the time (any why not!)

I believe that the key to solving Raxxla is to find additional unique audio in realspace that we can combine with the Landscape Signal to create a full map. I think that's what the Raxxla Logo shows. Possibly even recording the audio while looking towards the Landscape Signal source, which will fill in the blank sections... something like that.

That's all I've got for now. As I said, work in progress, just wanted to share this with you all Happy New Year!

(Please do test this yourselves, I'm very frequently wrong!!! The Landscape Signal is pretty much the same when recording in Sol as it is here right next to the apparent source, so everyone, everywhere in the Galaxy can do this if you want.)

 

[Bushido Brown]

You say the signal is pretty much the same in Sol as near to the "source". Do we have data on that?
I know people have been looking at it for ages and have judged it to be the same, but is it identical beyond reasonable doubt?

 

[Hanerib]

I suspect there may be a reason why comet hunting was banned.

Is comet hunting banned? There isn't really much to see, or do around them, so I can't say I would have been involved in such activity really. But I have a pair of eyes. Sometimes when seeing many signal sources concentrated in a relatively small area, I suspect there could be a comet there, but that's as far as it goes. Uninhabited systems in relatively close proximity to the bubble seem to have signal sources evenly distributed along the orbital plane. In a way it's a miracle Voyager probe was found when it was, just visiting it old school style pre-fss was really difficult.

I believe the Landscape Signal might be a (partial) map.​

READ THIS TLDR: I've drawn lines over a composite of dozens of recordings of the Landcape Signal taken from many different locations and under many different conditions (total of about 10 hour of recordings). I've picked out the details that occur in the majority of spectrograms. This is, at best, an interpretation of what I'm pretty sure is actually there - but I can't say for sure that I've got this right. I encourage you ALL to do this for yourself. All the software I used is completely free and the rest of this post details the methods I used. Please, please do test this yourself. The below is a work in progress:

?

 

[Louis Calvert]

You say the signal is pretty much the same in Sol as near to the "source". Do we have data on that?
I know people have been looking at it for ages and have judged it to be the same, but is it identical beyond reasonable doubt?

I can only say that from my own tests I would probably not be able to tell you where a recording was made from, only whether it was pointing off at and angle, or more towards the source.

Weirdly the Landscape Signal seems to override the normal background noise of the galaxy in everything but the low frequencies. This seems to be consistent regardless of distance. I've tested it from the Pleiades, half-way between the bubble and Sgr A*, and right next to the source, in Stuemeae JM-W C1-5825.

Definitely worth more testing though, there may be small variations worth noting. At the time I wasn't looking for any differences in the signal, only whether it was basically the same, and most of my research so far has been to determine if anything changes the signal at the source (nothing does so far).

Spoiler: Examples of recordings of space

This is a recording looking towards the LMC from the Stuemeae JM-W C1-5825 system:

This is looking towards Sgr A* from the Stuemeae JM-W C1-5825 system

This is looking at the stars in the Stuemeae JM-W C1-5825 system from far away (far enough for them to be bright dots), but still in the same system.

And this is Looking towards the LS signal source from Stuemeae JM-W C1-5825 (which in theory is about .6ly away).

The normal horizonal banding that appears to be consistent (with variations) when you look anywhere else in the Galaxy is extremely minimised to the point where it's not present at all in the Landscape Signal -even when you're recording it through the thickest part of the plane of the Galaxy. It's like it 'clears' the audio out to be more visible.

However, the lowest frequency appears to be the same, there's a sort of background sound to space that's present in the Landscape Signal and any other direction (that's the thick darker band at the bottom of the spectrogram).

More details of the full signal here if you're interested:

Spoiler: Features of the Landscape Signal

However, uniquely to the Landscape signal, there is an overlay of 'singing' in that area, which is these areas:

They're darker horizontal bands, that's the Siren Song component - to be clear, that's not the sound made by the 'landscape' itself, it's a different component entirely.

There's also these little sounds that are weird, almost like distorted bird calls or radio popping sounds, they are also repeating parts of the Landscape signal (not anywhere else) that always precede the main Landscape area. There are quite a few of these, some of the actual sounds/marks are the same in other parts of the signal. Like they're a feature.

There's also these vertical static bands, which appear in otherwise totally blank areas of the signal and aren't present (or aren't visibly present) elsewhere in the galaxy.

There's this section, which appears right after the Landscape, which features several 'columns' that start off quite dark in the low frequencies and fade out towards the high frequencies, they are approximately evenly spaced - these appear very visually similar to the two that appear over the Landscape.

That's followed by this section which looks very similar to the Landscape area, but the angles are slightly different, there are additional features if you change the spectrogram settings, they also look like two mountains framing a valley when composited together, but almost like they're from a different angle or something.

Then there's the slanted "A" which appears twice, about 20 seconds apart. I consider these to probably represent the Start-End of the signal. But that's purely speculation. In compositing this part I think there are additional features here too.

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

So, if I understand this correctly, you think there might be as many as five other landscape signals out there that have not been found because not enough people drop out in normal space and listen whilst their ship is pointing in the right direction?

What other directions have been checked? e.g. M31 Andromeda, M33 Triangulum, the Magellanic Clouds, the Thargoid system that Probes point to in Col 70 Sector, Merope, Gamma Velorum (Regor), the Horse Head Nebula?

Has there been any work done to determine if the signal has a musical origin? Is there an instrument that produces a spectrum like that or is it synthetic?

Sorry for all the questions!

I guess I am wondering why a puzzle would be hidden in this way - is it the key to Raxxla or something else?

For a single player, I wonder if it would be quicker to head out to the Rim and pan across the Milky Way rather than survey the whole sky from within the Bubble... .

My next task for when I'm able to get in-game is to make sure I've visited more / the rest of the systems I mentioned a few days ago and to check for places that stand out just below them. Interesting system or planet/station names, something giving a clue that it might be close to Raxxla, if you know your Robert Holdstock, which I think will be crucial. (I think I have visited all the tree-runes as well but I can check that).

 

[Bushido Brown]

I was listening to various places yesterday while floating in the void. I thought I heard consistent noises from Barnard's and other nebulae.
I assumed this was all well documented somewhere!

 

[Louis Calvert]

So, if I understand this correctly, you think there might be as many as five other landscape signals out there that have not been found because not enough people drop out in normal space and listen whilst their ship is pointing in the right direction?

Yes - the number is a guess though. I suspect 6 (I think the Landscape is the "base" signal) that more is added to. To clarify, in the logo I think the Landscape Signal in the central circumpunct with the three radial brackets representing sound, and the six surrounding hexagons represent fragments of the map. I suspect the dotted line represents "though" as in, listen through things.

What other directions have been checked? e.g. M31 Andromeda, M33 Triangulum, the Magellanic Clouds, the Thargoid system that Probes point to in Col 70 Sector, Merope, Gamma Velorum (Regor), the Horse Head Nebula?

There's no other sound like the Landscape Signal out there. From the source you can "put it to your back" and listen across the entire galaxy in every direction and there's nothing else out there.

I suspect the other signals are more local, like specific to planetary systems or even stellar bodies themselves, maybe nebula when you get close enough. As you know, sounds don't travel outside solar systems (you can't hear Sgr A* outside the system, for example). The Landscape Signal is unique in that you can hear it everywhere - but, that doesn't mean there aren't more local sounds engineered in similar ways.

I personally think that the reason for this is so that you can aim at the Landscape signal with something between you and it (like say a moon or planet) and the signals of both combine to fill in one of the blank areas in the Landscape signal.

I have tried doing this will all Guardian Objects and the Thargoid Sensors, and there's no changes. It might work with other objects, but I suspect it's stellar objects/locations rather than cargo items, or it wouldn't require much travelling and exploring to do.

Has there been any work done to determine if the signal has a musical origin? Is there an instrument that produces a spectrum like that or is it synthetic?

I'm not an expert, but I've done my best to look into that a bit (more research is always better though). I've also recorded audio from planets and stars and generally had it recording while flying around and there's nothing else that even comes close to being similar. From what I can tell nothing should 'naturally' make things that look like that in audio tracks - again, no expert - but from what I've found it appears very deliberate and is done so as to make an image, not a sound.

I've also filtered the Landscape Signal to remove noise and listened to the 'mountains' themselves and they're barely discernible as just faint rising or falling notes, very artificial. Look up Audio Steganography, you can see vids of people using software to encode images in sounds. From what I have seen so far, the sounds present in the Landscape Signal sound basically the same (sort of a synthetic tone).

As for the other features - the singing and low frequency 'warbles', the singing sounds like real singing notes, and the warbles sound sort of like distorted birds to me (though I'm sure they're synthetic notes). I don't know if they serve a purpose, but since they're present, repeating, and you can hear them, I assume they are there intentionally. The singing I think it related to it being a 'siren', and is there to encourage investigation.

Sorry for all the questions!

No no! this is good. I shared it specifically because the more people looking at this the better It'll either turn out to be nothing, or something...

I guess I am wondering why a puzzle would be hidden in this way - is it the key to Raxxla or something else?

For a single player, I wonder if it would be quicker to head out to the Rim and pan across the Milky Way rather than survey the whole sky from within the Bubble... .

I suspect the other locations are found via solving other clues. Maybe there are some location clues in the Landscape signal as a starter, and I suspect there might be some in the Codex. As with most map puzzles once you get parts of it, it tends to then power itself along. It's entirely possible the Codex is simply one clue that's intended to give us a start, figure that out, combine it with the Landscape Signal, and you get the next clue.... and so on.

 

[Rochester]

Follow up to my previous post investigating the Landscape Signal.

Right folks. I want you all to get a brand new piece of tinfoil from your Pilot's Federation official tinfoil container. Make sure there's no holes in it. Do not re-use an old piece! Fashion it into a sturdy new hat, it's advised that you use two layers for extra protection.

---

I believe the Landscape Signal might be a (partial) map.​

READ THIS TLDR: I've drawn lines over a composite of dozens of recordings of the Landcape Signal taken from many different locations and under many different conditions (total of about 10 hour of recordings). I've picked out the details that occur in the majority of spectrograms. This is, at best, an interpretation of what I'm pretty sure is actually there - but I can't say for sure that I've got this right. I encourage you ALL to do this for yourself. All the software I used is completely free and the rest of this post details the methods I used. Please, please do test this yourself. The below is a work in progress:

View attachment 379775

There's an alternative which is representative of what's there, but I'm not sure if the additional pillars in the image below are part of the 'landscape image', or are part of the signal coding since similar 'pillars' also appear later in blank areas in the same configuration (still investigating).

Spoiler: Additional pillars

View attachment 379779

I have compressed the following within Spoilers to keep the physical post short.

What are you looking at here?​

Spoiler: Explanation of the raw image

This is the spectrogram of one small part of the Landscape Signal. It's the most 'famous' 11 second part of a signal that's about 100 seconds long. There is stuff in other parts of the signal, but this is the clearest and most easily done bit. This is a work in progress, subject to change.

The top image is the Left Channel audio, the bottom image is the Right Channel audio.

There seems to be a difference between the left and right. I don't know why. I'm not sure if the difference is intentional, or an artefact of the process. The Right channel audio seems incomplete, In all my recordings I can't resolve the top of the middle peak - although there are suggestions in some of a shape I wasn't confident enough to replicate it. Most notably the two ... horns on either side of the valley aren't present in the Right audio - however again there are suggestions of them in many recordings, I simply wasn't fully confident enough to include them.

How did I get this image?​

Spoiler: Explanation of the process to create this

I used Audacity to record the Landscape Signal (as per my previous posts). I didn't do anything special in the recording, I just did many, many, many of them from different angles and positions, from inside the ship and using the free cam to learn as much as I could about the signal. I got used to what was 'normally there' and what was a transient sound, etc.

I used these settings in Audacity to generate what I feel is the clearest spectrogram of the signal.
View attachment 379776

I played around a lot with different settings. In creating the composite I also used Noise Reduction in Audacity to remove some of the background 'static' for one or two images simply to test if that revealed more (it doesn't really), the rest don't have any additional filtering. I also saved a range of Spectrograms with different settings which helps to pick out some details while obscuring others. If you're replicating this, I suggest simply playing with all the settings, you can get real-time feedback by pressing 'apply' rather than 'ok'.

I then took screenshots of this section of the spectrogram and pasted it into Krita, a free photoshop-like software. There's no reason you can't use any other software for this, as long as you can add layers with transparency that's really all you need. I'm just familiar with Krita. I expect GIMP will work fine too, I'm just less familiar with that.

Once you've got your working space set up, just copy/paste spectrogram images in as new layers. I made new layers partially transparent so I could then move them to perfectly overlay the layer below using the major features, then reverted the opacity to 100%.

I then made a new blank layer and simply carefully sketched over the features I could see. Then I used the hide/reveal layer toggle to flick rapidly between two (or more) layers of spectrograms, looking for changes. I alternated this with turning off the layer I've drawn on too so that I can see just the spectrograms changing. It took me three days of several hours per day to make sure I was only drawing features that recurred in many spectrograms. The two... tower things... in the valley were a big problem since they are oddly faint, but they do appear consistently in the vast majority of images.

You can even see the 'towers' here in this earlier project where I was trying to determine a method for analysing 'signal strength'. (This project failed to show any differences in signal strength based on location, only angle to the signal source, which was already determined by the IRH investigation years ago.)

View attachment 379777

I did try Sonic Visualiser, but I struggled to find the granularity in the settings I wanted. I did use several Sonic Visualiser spectrograms to confirm many of the major details though. The 'pillars' are present in that too, they're not an artefact of Audacity or anything like that. They actually seem a bit more visible in Sonic Visualiser actually.

So what is it? (My speculation on what this shows)​

I think it's an image of the "Omphalos Rift" on the surface of a planet. I think the 'towers' are the 'gate', the valley between the two mountains is the 'rift', as in, rift valley.

I do not know why the left and right channels seem to be different. Most notably there's that very weird thing in the top left corner. It appears regularly enough that I'm sure it's there, but it's incredibly hard to see properly, what you see in the image is my current best interpretation, and yes, it seems to be different between left and right. It's possible the difference is just an artefact of the spectrogram processing.

View attachment 379780View attachment 379781

I believe that the signal is incomplete​

This is 11 seconds out of 100-ish seconds of signal. There are traces of other shapes in there but I wanted to get this out here and get feedback on it while I'm working on the rest.

My hope/guess is that the Landscape Signal is essentially a fragmented treasure map.

I wonder if there is more audio that can be found in more specific locations which we can use to 'fill in the blanks' in the Landscape Signal? Much like piecing together a map that's been torn into bits. The key is that the Landscape Signal can only be detected in realspace - how many of us have sat in solar systems in real-space and recorded audio? How many systems? how many planets? I bet not many. Most explorers stay in supercruise most of the time (any why not!)

I believe that the key to solving Raxxla is to find additional unique audio in realspace that we can combine with the Landscape Signal to create a full map. I think that's what the Raxxla Logo shows. Possibly even recording the audio while looking towards the Landscape Signal source, which will fill in the blank sections... something like that.

That's all I've got for now. As I said, work in progress, just wanted to share this with you all Happy New Year!

(Please do test this yourselves, I'm very frequently wrong!!! The Landscape Signal is pretty much the same when recording in Sol as it is here right next to the apparent source, so everyone, everywhere in the Galaxy can do this if you want.)

My initial thoughts on seeing this drawing are the same as when I first saw the landscape signal visual interpretation, namely it made me ask: is this just exactly that - a visual representation of an actual mountain range?

You tracing’s only bring this into focus for me, and again make me consider is this simply just a pictorial representation, but actually of some ‘famous’ mountain range?

The additions of your ‘smudges’ actually reminded me accidentally of trees, Cedars in fact, and further reminded me of the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ of which some part of which was set in the very real ‘Cedar Forests’ supposedly in the Zagros Mountains or alternatively those of the Lebanon mountains, and the seat of Ishtar - a system in game (relatively close also to Shibboleth)!

Cedars we’re considered holy, in the time of Gilgamesh, and I believe this context is referenced in Paradise Lost as Eden is described as being encircled by a hill of cedars.

Does the image match any actual ‘real’ topography?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Forest

Post in thread 'The Quest To Find Raxxla'
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-quest-to-find-raxxla.168253/post-10210796

 

[Louis Calvert]

a system in game (relatively close also to Shibboleth)!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Forest

Not sure if you know, but Shibboleth is the system featured in the official novel Nemorensis. I assume it's the author's custom system, same as Peregrina, Soontil, etc. There's a section where one of the characters goes into detail about Shibboleth (there's an animal living on the world called the Shibbolethi), the plot gets there about the half-way mark. The Book title links to the whole thing, etc. Not sure if that helps

My initial thoughts on seeing this drawing are the same as when I first saw the landscape signal visual interpretation, namely it made me ask: is this just exactly that - a visual representation of an actual mountain range?

You tracing’s bring this into focus for me, and again make me consider is this simply just a pictorial representation, of some famous mountain range?

Yeah, I think it's literally showing us the Omphalos Rift location. My assumption is that once we get there we'll be able to line up the location and see the same view 'for real'

If we'd found this way back when, before the new scanning systems we'd have to Mk I eyeball the landscape right? This is what we'd be looking for. Maybe we still need to even now we have new planet-scanning tools!

 

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

I believe that the signal is incomplete​

This is 11 seconds out of 100-ish seconds of signal. There are traces of other shapes in there but I wanted to get this out here and get feedback on it while I'm working on the rest.

My hope/guess is that the Landscape Signal is essentially a fragmented treasure map.

I wonder if there is more audio that can be found in more specific locations which we can use to 'fill in the blanks' in the Landscape Signal? Much like piecing together a map that's been torn into bits. The key is that the Landscape Signal can only be detected in realspace - how many of us have sat in solar systems in real-space and recorded audio? How many systems? how many planets? I bet not many. Most explorers stay in supercruise most of the time (any why not!)

just another random thought...

have you tried pointing to and listening to the signal, from the opposite side of a Black Hole?
So while pointing at the signal thru the black hole, so a magnifying glass kinda idea, but with sound? maybe more detail would be visible?

 

[Louis Calvert]

just another random thought...

have you tried pointing to and listening to the signal, from the opposite side of a Black Hole?
So while pointing at the signal thru the black hole, so a magnifying glass kinda idea, but with sound? maybe more detail would be visible?

I have done it from Sgr A* but sadly there's no changes. It's a good idea that I wish worked I've no idea if other black holes may get different results though.

 

[Bushido Brown]

Louis, you said you were recording while flying around - have you got a handy setup where you can watch a spectrogram on one monitor as you play? because that sounds like a great help.

 

[Rochester]

Not sure if you know, but Shibboleth is the system featured in the official novel Nemorensis. I assume it's the author's custom system, same as Peregrina, Soontil, etc. There's a section where one of the characters goes into detail about Shibboleth (there's an animal living on the world called the Shibbolethi), the plot gets there about the half-way mark. The Book title links to the whole thing, etc. Not sure if that helps


Yeah, I think it's literally showing us the Omphalos Rift location. My assumption is that once we get there we'll be able to line up the location and see the same view 'for real'

If we'd found this way back when, before the new scanning systems we'd have to Mk I eyeball the landscape right? This is what we'd be looking for. Maybe we still need to even now we have new planet-scanning tools!

That’s brilliant I did not know that. That changes things somewhat.

I already was suspicious of Shibboleth as Cannon related it was linked to a player Galnet story as well.

I found shibboleth fascinating because of its separate link to the Finnish story of the Sampo, and the system Ahti, which does draw a very nice line of association between certain other systems.

I’ve long wanted these systems to have some greater relevance but ignorance my biases out of the desire for these patterns to fit I think has blinded me.

Based now on the Shibboleths artificial insertion, as part of at least two player fictions, I conclude it’s now irrelevant.

Ignoring Shibboleths entirely then my ‘Mountain’ theory still holds up to a certain degree, granted it doesn’t effectively lead us anywhere as there still exists gap’s between this concept - of a passage in a mystical mountain, tied to the Celtic Otherworld or Gilgamesh, there is nothing in the Codex to ascribe to this presently either I feel…

On its own we need consider the landscape signal may just be an historical artefact, it may certainly point to Raxxla, but whose to say that clue is up to date? We know the original path was changed…

My assumption was does it try and tell us to look at the story of Gilgamesh…

But listening to the Galaxy it’s evident various radio sources exist from various points of interest, I suspect your correct in that there may be alternate signals which need to be compared in conjunction.

The fact that the signal does not originate from an actual system I long suspect means it’s not a homing beacon, at most it’s window dressing, to entice people into the void, but yes certainly those voices singing certainly advertises that there is some additional purpose to it, as you’ve elaborated - a carrier signal.

 

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

Louis, you said you were recording while flying around - have you got a handy setup where you can watch a spectrogram on one monitor as you play? because that sounds like a great help.

Not sure about Louis,

but I've done something similar to that for other reasons in life, years ago, cant even honestly remember why,
and I had to re-Google the instructions just now on how to do it, and I'm not sure if it works with Audacity because I don't use it and have no idea if Audacity does Spectrum from live Microphone input...

But for anyone, including yourself who wants to try, you can do this in Native Windows;

Spoiler: SPOILER

Go into the "Sound" control panel applet, (e.g. Start -> Run -> mmsys.cpl, or Sounds in Control Panel)

select the "Recording" tab,

Then right-click on and enable the "Stereo mix" device.

(If "Stereo Mix" isn't being shown, then right-click in the white space or on one of the listed devices and ensure that "show disabled devices" is enabled)

You should now be able to set that Stereo Mix as a source for recording. i.e. it should show up now as an alternative "input" or "microphone" device in the app you are using.

Then in Audacity, or any software, set your microphone as the input, and bing bang boom, should have live ED Audio output fed into that program. *but also, windows system sounds and anything audio you output, so disable those if needed, ect.

 

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

Also, random thoughts...

Has anyone ever taken Ancient Keys, from the Guardian Beacons, to the Anomalies?
Or Thargoid stuff for that matter?

Try flying around, see if they behave differently, jettison them and test....

Anomalies​

• E-Type Anomaly
• K-Type Anomaly
• L-Type Anomaly
• P-Type Anomaly
• Q-Type Anomaly
• T-Type Anomaly

Maybe somthing might happen...?
I realize I might just have opened a can of worms, but someone with Corrosion experience and some time, could check it out XD

I'm certainly unable too XD im still out near Beagle Point... and I'm not in the best of situations XD after repairs in BP, I headed out... and lost an SRV...annndd Passed Out on the surface of a planet.... "-_- Oi my life...
Lost all my exo-bio scans since BP, which isnt fun considering those were the first i ever did, ever, lol, lost an SRV, and all for what?
Lol, So I could stand WAY to close to a Lava Gyser in a basic Artemis Suit without any shields turned on.... XD OOOPS lol
Anyways, off to the next adventure lmao....

Headed to a DSSA Fleet Carrier next, on route to the large, oddly shaped Permit Locked Region out here by BP... it has me curious... just wish I had a Key from a Beacon with me for some Guardian theory chasing...


P.s. - Note to Devs.
THANK YOU F.DEV !!! for not having me completely die on the surface of that planet, and lose my ship and go to the great unknown with none of my exploration data...!
I havnt sold the vast bulk of my ships nav data since I left the bubble, expecting a huge payout for first discovered systems with full system scans... was about to rage quit forever after I passed out and thought it was all gone!
Thank You F.dev!
And Happy New Year to All!

 

[Bushido Brown]

That's really helpful, thank you!

 

[selbie]

Also, random thoughts...

Has anyone ever taken Ancient Keys, from the Guardian Beacons, to the Anomalies?
Or Thargoid stuff for that matter?

Try flying around, see if they behave differently, jettison them and test....

Anomalies​

• E-Type Anomaly
• K-Type Anomaly
• L-Type Anomaly
• P-Type Anomaly
• Q-Type Anomaly
• T-Type Anomaly

Maybe somthing might happen...?
I realize I might just have opened a can of worms, but someone with Corrosion experience and some time, could check it out XD

I'm certainly unable too XD im still out near Beagle Point... and I'm not in the best of situations XD after repairs in BP, I headed out... and lost an SRV...annndd Passed Out on the surface of a planet.... "-_- Oi my life...
Lost all my exo-bio scans since BP, which isnt fun considering those were the first i ever did, ever, lol, lost an SRV, and all for what?
Lol, So I could stand WAY to close to a Lava Gyser in a basic Artemis Suit without any shields turned on.... XD OOOPS lol
Anyways, off to the next adventure lmao....

Headed to a DSSA Fleet Carrier next, on route to the large, oddly shaped Permit Locked Region out here by BP... it has me curious... just wish I had a Key from a Beacon with me for some Guardian theory chasing...


P.s. - Note to Devs.
THANK YOU F.DEV !!! for not having me completely die on the surface of that planet, and lose my ship and go to the great unknown with none of my exploration data...!
I havnt sold the vast bulk of my ships nav data since I left the bubble, expecting a huge payout for first discovered systems with full system scans... was about to rage quit forever after I passed out and thought it was all gone!
Thank You F.dev!
And Happy New Year to All!

Has anybody tried bringing the artifacts near the Brain Trees to see if their sounds change at all? BTs seem to be heavily associated with Guardian systems so I wonder if they react in any way. Additionally their tech is nano-bot based so the items themselves may respond or change?

Follow up to my previous post investigating the Landscape Signal.

Right folks. I want you all to get a brand new piece of tinfoil from your Pilot's Federation official tinfoil container. Make sure there's no holes in it. Do not re-use an old piece! Fashion it into a sturdy new hat, it's advised that you use two layers for extra protection.

---

I believe the Landscape Signal might be a (partial) map.​

READ THIS TLDR: I've drawn lines over a composite of dozens of recordings of the Landcape Signal taken from many different locations and under many different conditions (total of about 10 hour of recordings). I've picked out the details that occur in the majority of spectrograms. This is, at best, an interpretation of what I'm pretty sure is actually there - but I can't say for sure that I've got this right. I encourage you ALL to do this for yourself. All the software I used is completely free and the rest of this post details the methods I used. Please, please do test this yourself. The below is a work in progress:

View attachment 379775

There's an alternative which is representative of what's there, but I'm not sure if the additional pillars in the image below are part of the 'landscape image', or are part of the signal coding since similar 'pillars' also appear later in blank areas in the same configuration (still investigating).

Spoiler: Additional pillars

View attachment 379779

I have compressed the following within Spoilers to keep the physical post short.

What are you looking at here?​

Spoiler: Explanation of the raw image

This is the spectrogram of one small part of the Landscape Signal. It's the most 'famous' 11 second part of a signal that's about 100 seconds long. There is stuff in other parts of the signal, but this is the clearest and most easily done bit. This is a work in progress, subject to change.

The top image is the Left Channel audio, the bottom image is the Right Channel audio.

There seems to be a difference between the left and right. I don't know why. I'm not sure if the difference is intentional, or an artefact of the process. The Right channel audio seems incomplete, In all my recordings I can't resolve the top of the middle peak - although there are suggestions in some of a shape I wasn't confident enough to replicate it. Most notably the two ... horns on either side of the valley aren't present in the Right audio - however again there are suggestions of them in many recordings, I simply wasn't fully confident enough to include them.

How did I get this image?​

Spoiler: Explanation of the process to create this

I used Audacity to record the Landscape Signal (as per my previous posts). I didn't do anything special in the recording, I just did many, many, many of them from different angles and positions, from inside the ship and using the free cam to learn as much as I could about the signal. I got used to what was 'normally there' and what was a transient sound, etc.

I used these settings in Audacity to generate what I feel is the clearest spectrogram of the signal.
View attachment 379776

I played around a lot with different settings. In creating the composite I also used Noise Reduction in Audacity to remove some of the background 'static' for one or two images simply to test if that revealed more (it doesn't really), the rest don't have any additional filtering. I also saved a range of Spectrograms with different settings which helps to pick out some details while obscuring others. If you're replicating this, I suggest simply playing with all the settings, you can get real-time feedback by pressing 'apply' rather than 'ok'.

I then took screenshots of this section of the spectrogram and pasted it into Krita, a free photoshop-like software. There's no reason you can't use any other software for this, as long as you can add layers with transparency that's really all you need. I'm just familiar with Krita. I expect GIMP will work fine too, I'm just less familiar with that.

Once you've got your working space set up, just copy/paste spectrogram images in as new layers. I made new layers partially transparent so I could then move them to perfectly overlay the layer below using the major features, then reverted the opacity to 100%.

I then made a new blank layer and simply carefully sketched over the features I could see. Then I used the hide/reveal layer toggle to flick rapidly between two (or more) layers of spectrograms, looking for changes. I alternated this with turning off the layer I've drawn on too so that I can see just the spectrograms changing. It took me three days of several hours per day to make sure I was only drawing features that recurred in many spectrograms. The two... tower things... in the valley were a big problem since they are oddly faint, but they do appear consistently in the vast majority of images.

You can even see the 'towers' here in this earlier project where I was trying to determine a method for analysing 'signal strength'. (This project failed to show any differences in signal strength based on location, only angle to the signal source, which was already determined by the IRH investigation years ago.)

View attachment 379777

I did try Sonic Visualiser, but I struggled to find the granularity in the settings I wanted. I did use several Sonic Visualiser spectrograms to confirm many of the major details though. The 'pillars' are present in that too, they're not an artefact of Audacity or anything like that. They actually seem a bit more visible in Sonic Visualiser actually.

So what is it? (My speculation on what this shows)​

I think it's an image of the "Omphalos Rift" on the surface of a planet. I think the 'towers' are the 'gate', the valley between the two mountains is the 'rift', as in, rift valley.

I do not know why the left and right channels seem to be different. Most notably there's that very weird thing in the top left corner. It appears regularly enough that I'm sure it's there, but it's incredibly hard to see properly, what you see in the image is my current best interpretation, and yes, it seems to be different between left and right. It's possible the difference is just an artefact of the spectrogram processing.

View attachment 379780View attachment 379781

I believe that the signal is incomplete​

This is 11 seconds out of 100-ish seconds of signal. There are traces of other shapes in there but I wanted to get this out here and get feedback on it while I'm working on the rest.

My hope/guess is that the Landscape Signal is essentially a fragmented treasure map.

I wonder if there is more audio that can be found in more specific locations which we can use to 'fill in the blanks' in the Landscape Signal? Much like piecing together a map that's been torn into bits. The key is that the Landscape Signal can only be detected in realspace - how many of us have sat in solar systems in real-space and recorded audio? How many systems? how many planets? I bet not many. Most explorers stay in supercruise most of the time (any why not!)

I believe that the key to solving Raxxla is to find additional unique audio in realspace that we can combine with the Landscape Signal to create a full map. I think that's what the Raxxla Logo shows. Possibly even recording the audio while looking towards the Landscape Signal source, which will fill in the blank sections... something like that.

That's all I've got for now. As I said, work in progress, just wanted to share this with you all Happy New Year!

(Please do test this yourselves, I'm very frequently wrong!!! The Landscape Signal is pretty much the same when recording in Sol as it is here right next to the apparent source, so everyone, everywhere in the Galaxy can do this if you want.)

The recordings you provided have definitely cleared up a lot of things for me in terms of what is part of the signal and what is noise. They also show much more detail in the shapes and lines. There are definite repeating elements (the mountain is exactly the same in each iteration during the spectrogram), however, the hard part is figuring out what the common factor is for the repetition - I have a feeling the "original" signal is intermittent and what we receive is quite literally very fuzzy incomplete clue to point us to an idea or place.
If it is a place, perhaps it's located at one of the systems nearby its origin and we just need to figure out which mountain range it's pointing to shouldn't take too long...........

 

[CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian]

If you are in the Bubble, there is a potentially related effort underway due to an NPC faction named The Link. They are presently 2nd in terms of influence in NLTT 46621. A war just broke out for control of the system this morning. There should be ample space and ground combat opportunities. Anyways, this is why we are pushing to get them in power and have anyone interested get allied. The hope is there are Raxxla-linked missions for this particular faction.

 

[Planewalker]

There is another feature that is unique, to my knowledge: an orbital line about 50 Ls distant from the only star that only shows up in the FSS scanner but not on the HUD or orrery view. I flew a couple of orbits along this line, or as close as I could, but saw nothing like a point of light that would have suggested a body not showing on the scanner.

If that is not a bug, something is orbiting so the question is how to find whatever it is.

 

[Louis Calvert]

Louis, you said you were recording while flying around - have you got a handy setup where you can watch a spectrogram on one monitor as you play? because that sounds like a great help.

Yes. I use Audacity and a virtual cable. Output game sound to virtual cable, input virtual cable to audacity, then output sound from audacity to my headphones (or speakers or whatever). I have Audacity running on my second monitor with the sound running through it so I can see the spectrogram forming as I do stuff. You can also use a window overlay software to essentially make a little window appear over your game screen if you only have 1 monitor connected, the one I used is called "OnTopReplica".

I've not tried Merlin's way but that seems great too, I think there's a lot of ways to work these things and I'm not expert, I did my setup for other reasons too

Based now on the Shibboleths artificial insertion, as part of at least two player fictions, I conclude it’s now irrelevant.

Well, the addition was still made by Fdev (presumably Brookes since Drew talked about how Brookes worked on the system names and stuff). So it might be that it was convenient for him as part of a wider plan? Also, I'm not sure if the story itself is relevant, but the plot is interesting in many ways four us as Raxxla hunters (I'll spoiler it in case anyone wants to read the book for themselves).

Spoiler: Nemorensis Plot

It features 13 non-human sentients that are made of "thought". They infect humans and sort of remote-control them by compulsion to fit into their species mating cycle. There are 12 Hunters and 1 Runner, their species propagates by one Hunter Killing the Runner, then the Hunter becomes the new Runner and 12 more Hunters are born from the merger and drift through space until they find a suitable mind to latch onto, turning them into Hunters.

The 'hero Hunter' in the story explains that this has been happening for millennia, and the ancient story of Rex Nemorensis is based on them - On EARTH! - and when humans expanded into space the aliens went along and have been finding it increasingly hard to do the cycle because Runners can now Run so far away. The alien 'minds' grant the humans certain gifts, one of them is immortality while the Hunt continues. This particular grop has been Running/Hunting for about 20 years and the characters haven't aged since then.

It's interesting to me that Brookes/Fdev approved this plotline for many reasons. It's n example of non-human sentient life, though it's unclear if it's truly alien or simply another form of life that evolved on Earth...

It has me me wonder what else lurks in the less well known novels. I'm going to try to read more of them

Ignoring Shibboleths entirely then my ‘Mountain’ theory still holds up to a certain degree, granted it doesn’t effectively lead us anywhere as there still exists gap’s between this concept - of a passage in a mystical mountain, tied to the Celtic Otherworld or Gilgamesh, there is nothing in the Codex to ascribe to this presently either I feel…

Well, there's the mountain range in the Landscape (assuming that is representing Raxxla), and the Rift allegedly leads to other Universes so I'd say that's pretty spot on

On its own we need consider the landscape signal may just be an historical artefact, it may certainly point to Raxxla, but whose to say that clue is up to date? We know the original path was changed…

True, but I think it ties in with the Codex very, very neatly. I'll do a post shortly on how I think it all fits together. The Landscape Signal is essentially an in-game representation of the Siren Song that causes Fernweh in some people.

Has anyone ever taken Ancient Keys, from the Guardian Beacons, to the Anomalies?
Or Thargoid stuff for that matter?

That's a very good idea. I don't have Ancient Keys (they're too recent IMO), but I have all the Guardian junk and Relics, and two Thargoid Sensors with me, I'll see if I can find any nearby Anomalies and see if that does anyhting!

Has anybody tried bringing the artifacts near the Brain Trees to see if their sounds change at all? BTs seem to be heavily associated with Guardian systems so I wonder if they react in any way. Additionally their tech is nano-bot based so the items themselves may respond or change?

I always assume someone has in the past, but it's always worth trying stuff like that.

The recordings you provided have definitely cleared up a lot of things for me in terms of what is part of the signal and what is noise. They also show much more detail in the shapes and lines. There are definite repeating elements (the mountain is exactly the same in each iteration during the spectrogram), however, the hard part is figuring out what the common factor is for the repetition - I have a feeling the "original" signal is intermittent and what we receive is quite literally very fuzzy incomplete clue to point us to an idea or place.
If it is a place, perhaps it's located at one of the systems nearby its origin and we just need to figure out which mountain range it's pointing to shouldn't take too long...........

Hehe, yeah! I suspect the "where" is found through other clues, or by filling in more of the sound. I totally agree that it seems like we're being given a 'weak' or incomplete version and I've tried everything I can think of to get a stronger signal to no avail. That makes me feel like it's deliberately incomplete -a puzzle!

I think about the earlier puzzles. You have a Listening Post that spits out coded audio at specific times. Decode that Audio to find more Listening posts and assemble the complete message from several of them (3 usually). Combined they give you a location to search for something. Then you have to go there and manually eyeball the surface of a planet to find the specific location.

The fact that the signal appears to represent a planet surface does make me wonder if Raxxla was implemented fully in Horizons, and maybe Braben and Brookes didn't want it solved before then - maybe that's why the Dark Wheel missions were pulled, so as to slow down the hints?