The Quest To Find Raxxla

[simulacrae]

Sorry filthy IRL has been keeping me busy...
I have been playing with the witchspace sounds off and on for a while now. I still dont see any obvious signs – however I have not given up hope. Here is my current working structure for the makeup of the sounds of a standard “witchspace jump”:

First off – I think the sounds are broken up into two distinct types… The Whispers and the Flybys as described by FDEV in their 1.3 Patch Notes “Improved mix on hyperspace tunnel whispers and flybys” . The whispers are of course the part we are interested in… however I will give my supposition for the source of the Flybys here.

I think the Flybys have been taken from the British Antarctic Survey Sounds of Space which were brought to the attention of the Sound Team and who indicated that they were incorporated into parts of Elite Dangerous sound tracks (Discovery Scanner). If you compare the flyby shape and frequencies from my recording of jumping into ThorsEye (above) with the waveform of the “whistlers” of the British Antarctic Survey (below) – they look fairly similar. You can go to the Sounds of Space page and listen to the sounds yourself.

So on to the Whispers…. they dont seem to match the other sounds of space although the flybys seem to overlap the whisper sections a little (I do think the chours sound and whistlers are used in the system scan as well). I am not seeing an obvious symbol or code like we have gotten in the past. I believe that if there is to be such a symbol or code it would be as "visible" as the previous ones were. I am currently going under the assumption that the "whispers" section is a placeholder sound that is standard for all jumps – unless we get close to something… when I imagine it would change… but this is all conjecture. All the jumps I have recorded have been the same. The whispers seem to be more prevalent in track1 (left ear I think) and track 2 seems to have better flybys (right ear?). The waveform for ThorsEye jump im showing above is from the track1 and I have included a blowup of the first whispers section below…

Ya thats all ive got for now.

 

[Ski'Thor]

I allways thought (and still thinking), that if you directly point the galaxy map view to Raxxla (or the system where Raxxla is), will give you a special sound. Don't know why... but I think "sound" is so much more in Elite Dangerous. We just didn't figured it out

Good work @simulacrae.

 

[Rochester]

I allways thought (and still thinking), that if you directly point the galaxy map view to Raxxla (or the system where Raxxla is), will give you a special sound. Don't know why... but I think "sound" is so much more in Elite Dangerous. We just didn't figured it out

Good work @simulacrae.

Maybe it’s the only place where there is no sound!

 

[Han_Zen]

Maybe it’s the only place where there is no sound!

I’n not going back to testing things with a broken canopy. Did enough of the with the UA.

 

[Garand1987]

There is a lot to unpack in this thread, and it gets a little heavy replicating everything uncovered so far, ever so often; so my apologies if I’ve skirted over or not answered everything..I’ve unpacked previously, it is a big concept.

"Jewel on the brow" has I would argue been deciphered.

The term is a poetic reference to the John Milton text of his description of what paradise/eden was in Paradise Lost; a physical crystalline sphere, holding within it the sphere’s of our universe… with our solar system at the centre.

This sphere hung by a chain from the Empyrean/heaven. Milton stated this was from the ‘brow’ of the hill that encircled heaven.

Satan upon his return journey did not know where to go, he them stumbled upon and is given direction by the entity Chaos, who calls it the pendant globe and that it hung from heaven by a chain, by this point in Milton’s text it’s technically the second time this description is used.

Satan then moves on, eventually getting to such a lofty vantage point, so as to effectively see the entirety of the Empyrean… it has the appropriate appearance of as if like a galaxy, large and expansive, with a defined border and made of light, and from his new point of view (the readers vantage point), Satan, sees the pendant universe hanging from the Empyrean, as if like a distant star as seen beside of the enormity of our moon as if see from the Earth; tiny but brilliant. In the text this is I recall the third time this description is given.

In other parts of the text the Empyrean is supposedly made of stars and living jewels, and a certain road is implied to be as if like the Milky Way, which is a classical Greek reference.

I suspect the author of the Codex was using a mixed metaphor to describe the Empyrean, as in ‘oh wow that is the mother of galaxies’ as in big / expansive.

In game there is I believe, a replication of Milton’s wider cosmology, with the Empyrean at the top. I also believe the author in game is heavily referencing the works of Robert Holdstock as in and around this Empyrean area are a number of female triad goddesses…

In Holdstock’s works he used this triad to mark the doorways to mystical secrets or referenced old Celtic creation myths…. I think the in game author has utilised this to advocate the location of Raxxla. So ‘mother of galaxies’ in game may have a dual meaning?

In game the older dark wheel missions talked about the ‘silent song of the spheres’ and of something being ‘obfuscated on the outer rim’.

In the text Satan walked upon the outer rim of the crystalline sphere on its outer rim…

Later in game within the Brookes Tours FD insert a direct quote from Paradise Lost in the same instance of them talking of Raxxla, this quotation is the description of the Pendant Globe.

So I would argue the first line of the toast is describing the pendant globe. Aka Raxxla is a type of Eden and if the quotation is used accurately in game it hangs from the Empyrean.

The last part of the toast I feel likewise is referring to the same element of the first line and probably is describing Satan as a wanderer trying to find Eden.

I also suspect the in game author is applying a dual metaphor for Satan and the epic of Gilgamesh, because that story was utilised by Holdstock, and it has has a number of mythic / classical similarities. The locations of Gilgamesh are likewise in game…and are in the upper celestial sphere closest to the hypothetical Empyrean.

View attachment 388770

The Jewel that burns on the brow of the mother of galaxies could be system Diadem of the constellation Coma Berenices. It represents Hera's diadem who is, according to Greek mythology anyway, probably the closest thing we have to a mother of galaxies since they believed the milky way was her breast milk.

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

The Jewel that burns on the brow of the mother of galaxies could be system Diadem of the constellation Coma Berenices. It represents Hera's diadem who is, according to Greek mythology anyway, probably the closest thing we have to a mother of galaxies since they believed the milky way was her breast milk.

Was looking there again only a couple of days ago, and first looked about 18 months ago...
Nowt found!

Edit
Also revisited Ithaca at same time which is near to Diadem -from Homer's Odyssey...whisperer in witchspace (Circe), Siren of deepest void (the sirens), parent's grief (father Laertes, mother dead), lover's woe (grieving wife Penelope, beset by suitors) and vagabonds yearning (Odysseus' crew desperate to return home after many years)...
Ditto!

 

[Rochester]

Technically they all are in the hotspot. They’re all good candidates. Have recently been investigating Diadem myself.

I don’t seem able to get Spansh working on my devise - it could be my migraine but considering the garden Theory, I think we need to focus on systems with a minimum of 5 bodies?

How many systems are there in a rough area of the Thetis, Sheela na gig and Fall which have between Four to Five bodies and maybe just one ringed body?

If the garden design is valid its vagueness may not be intentional, it may just be very literal, and its identifying a candidate system, based upon the limited number of bodies unique to that system?

The objective may not be directly apparent (at least initially)…on entering the system, nor either by its naming. Of course having no map legend only Obfuscates interpretation of the garden design (unless that too is likewise hidden in another garden)..

Most simplest interpretation of the Garden Theory - if correct, may indicate it’s on/around/is a singular body in that system, possibly one with a ring and or singular moon. In a system with a maximum of five bodies?

If that’s how we’re supposed to interpret it of course.. it may just be a garden after all…

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

I'd forgotten the garden theory, fallen back on another hypothesis...got a couple of candidate systems to check.

You can't do a triangular search with any tool that I know of, nor a cylindrical search which is what I was looking for last week.You could download the database from EDSM and do a coordinate-based search yourself if you're a programmer...or maybe do 3 spherical SPANSH searches (radius set to their distance apart) on Fall, Sheela na gig & Thetis as the reference systems, import the results into 3 spreadsheets and do some comparison to check for systems that are in all 3. The initial 3 searches could check for those body types.
Edit
Don't forget to add one to the body count for the star!
Just had another look at the garden design & think it's recursive so I'm leaning towards a system with a star and four planets, the third planet being a ringed GG with a single moon. But there are clearly various combinations that design could represent.

 

[Xenogenics]

I think we need a horticulturist

View attachment 387074

Messing about with filters to see if there is any hidden detail and noticed this series of red bushes which seem to snake through the garden, could these be an indication Sinn and Deaths viaduct?

Granted I feel it’s technically in the wrong location. But how far do we want to take these theories?

However I do wonder if a horticulturalist could identify these plants?

For instance, are these red bushes ‘thorn bushes’, is the large green tree an Oak or an Ash (Yggdrasil), are the long thin green trees Cedars!

Not currently in game, but seriously now want go visit one of these and get some close up photos of this garden to see what ‘details’ might be hidden.

I’m my humble opinion the ‘Cedars’ could be important, either as map markers or landmarks. Cedars (if they are - they might not be), were a very holy tree. In the garden I think they denote a marker, eg the Third circle is inside the second, the Second circle is inside the first.

Eg
First circle = Milton’s Universe, it shows the pendant globe just below the Empyrean, in game our Sol based on my model is at the centre of the zone of Chaos.
Second circle = Pendant Globe aka the system Raxxla is in, a visual clue to how many bodies there-in, I speculate the 10 lights are likely another reference to the spheres. But not for us to travel through, this is not Sol. It could be a system with either 5 bodies or 4 bodies.
Third circle = the body where Raxxla is/around/on, potentially with a ring and 1 moon?

View attachment 387075

Cedars of God - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Does this not mean something related to RAXXLA can be found in a system with 3 suns? i.e. from the show 3-body-problem

 

[El Saico]

Was looking there again only a couple of days ago, and first looked about 18 months ago...
Nowt found!

Edit
Also revisited Ithaca at same time which is near to Diadem -from Homer's Odyssey...whisperer in witchspace (Circe), Siren of deepest void (the sirens), parent's grief (father Laertes, mother dead), lover's woe (grieving wife Penelope, beset by suitors) and vagabonds yearning (Odysseus' crew desperate to return home after many years)...
Ditto!

The usual suspect is Cassiopeia because of the Andromeda galaxy, but Hera is indeed overlooked!

Also, a key word on Odyssey is nostos - the longing for home, from which derives the word "nostalgia" - which is the exact opposite of the German fernweh.

Meanwhile I was looking up how other mythologies see it and uhhhhh would you look at that:

2011ASPC..441..387H Page 387

articles.adsabs.harvard.edu

A 2011 article from a British historian called "The Milky Way: Path to the Empyrean?" - the title alone triggers all of our alarm bells! - which describes common patterns among some pre-Ptolemaic cosmologies across the world. The Egyptians in particular deserve a good reading, as they believed that human souls could cross the underworld, reach a cosmic tree that provides eternal sustenance and (for the most elevated of them) reach a golden ladder at the top of this tree, which leads to the circumpolar stars.

Also, curse the Mandarin Chinese penchant for words with minimal tonal differences! A while ago I said the Shui Wei sector, notably centered on Achenar, was named after an asterism with no visible relation... but that's the Shuǐ Wèi ("water level") - they added new ones by the late Ming dynasty with help of European star charts, including the Shuǐ Wěi ("crooked running water"), which is composed of Achenar, Zeta Phoenicis and Eta Phoenicis.

 

[El Saico]

All parts of the Odyssey that resemble the toast are on the Apologoi - the middle section of the poem, composed of Odysseus' flashback to the Phaeacians who then sent him home at last.

The jewel on the brow is the hard part, so a good reading of the source might be in order.
The only other female obstacle on his way (and thus candidate for "mother of the galaxies") seems to be the nymph Calypso; though it was the hardest one as she kept him as a lover in Ogygia for seven of those ten years (long followed by Circe who only managed a single year).

EDIT: Perhaps we were looking on the wrong place all along. After all, Paradise Lost was seemingly modeled after the Aeneid - whose plot is in many aspects Homer's epics in reverse, where the gods themselves give the protagonist the duty to reach Hesperia (Italy) so that his descendants can found the city of Rome.

• Aeneas' nostos is described as the longing to return to the ancestral home of the Trojans - a place that he's never seen
• The witch Circe and the Sirens are obstacles here as well, though they're averted with relative ease
• Queen Dido, the legendary founder of Carthage, falls in love with him at one point - but gets reminded of his duty and leaves her, the lover's woe getting so unbearable that she commits suicide in a funeral pyre
• A recurring theme is dying ante ora parentum, or before the parents; an obvious source of parent's grief
• In Ancient Rome, the Forum hosted the Umbilicus Urbis Romae - the navel of the city, from which all distances were measured
  • ...same location of the mundus Cereris, a gateway to another world (the underworld) which they opened three times a year

 

[CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian]

All parts of the Odyssey that resemble the toast are on the Apologoi - the middle section of the poem, composed of Odysseus' flashback to the Phaeacians who then sent him home at last.

The jewel on the brow is the hard part, so a good reading of the source might be in order.
The only other female obstacle on his way (and thus candidate for "mother of the galaxies") seems to be the nymph Calypso; though it was the hardest one as she kept him as a lover in Ogygia for seven of those ten years (long followed by Circe who only managed a single year).

EDIT: Perhaps we were looking on the wrong place all along. After all, Paradise Lost was seemingly modeled after the Aeneid - whose plot is in many aspects Homer's epics in reverse, where the gods themselves give the protagonist the duty to reach Hesperia (Italy) so that his descendants can found the city of Rome.

• Aeneas' nostos is described as the longing to return to the ancestral home of the Trojans - a place that he's never seen
• The witch Circe and the Sirens are obstacles here as well, though they're averted with relative ease
• Queen Dido, the legendary founder of Carthage, falls in love with him at one point - but gets reminded of his duty and leaves her, the lover's woe getting so unbearable that she commits suicide in a funeral pyre
• A recurring theme is dying ante ora parentum, or before the parents; an obvious source of parent's grief
• In Ancient Rome, the Forum hosted the Umbilicus Urbis Romae - the navel of the city, from which all distances were measured
  • ...same location of the mundus Cereris, a gateway to another world (the underworld) which they opened three times a year

There's an Aeneas system in game. I don't know if I have passed through or not. Per INARA it has an unnamed (no proper name) gas giant with 8 moons (Aeneas 4). Is this in the right region? Also, as former Latin student for many years (way back in highshool - some 20+ years ago), I love this idea. It uses Odyssey from Greece but flips the story. It is great way to hide something in plain sight.

Aeneas - star system | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

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inara.cz

 

[CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian]

Queen Dido, the legendary founder of Carthage, falls in love with him at one point - but gets reminded of his duty and leaves her, the lover's woe getting so unbearable that she commits suicide in a funeral pyre

From Wikipedia entry on Dido:

Dido (/ˈdaɪdoʊ/ DY-doh; Ancient Greek: Διδώ Greek pronunciation: [diː.dɔ̌ː], Latin pronunciation: [ˈdiːdoː]), also known as Elissa (/əˈlɪsə/ ə-LISS-ə, Ἔλισσα),[1] was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in Tunisia), in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (located in Lebanon) who fled tyranny to found her own city in northwest Africa. Known only through ancient Greek and Roman sources, all of which were written well after Carthage's founding, her historicity remains uncertain. The oldest references to Dido are attributed to Timaeus, who was active around 300 BC, about five centuries after the date given for the foundation of Carthage.

Port Elissa in Carthage - station | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

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inara.cz

Carthage - star system | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

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Is there a chance that this is a reference to Elyssia Fields from the TDW novella? Especially given Elissa is so very similar to Elyssia. Yes, I realize it is reference Elyssian Fields.

‘Who are you?’ Alex asked, irritated by her levity and keen to find out why Rafe Zetter had summoned him here? Where was the old man?

‘Trader Fields’, she said, and touched the heel of her right hand to her left shoulder by way of salute. ‘My given name is Elyssia. Elyssia Fields.’ She smiled again. ‘My brood mother’s little joke. She discovered Greek mythology at age 9 when she was incubating her first cluster.’

Brood mother? Greek? Incubating clusters? That meant that Elyssia Fields was from Teorge, the so-called ‘clone-world’. Alex struggled to remember what he’d been taught about Teorge… an inhabited world… settled by two colony ships that had proceeded to clone a select few of the crew and colonists, killing the others. For centuries Teorge had been a world apart, cut off from the normal flow of trade and commerce, and banned from sending representatives into space.

Elyssia Fields was clearly a fugitive.

Interesting. The Elyssian Fields were also known as the Asphodel Fields/Meadows.

 

[El Saico]

From Wikipedia entry on Dido:

Port Elissa in Carthage - station | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

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inara.cz

Carthage - star system | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

The companion site for Elite:Dangerous with the game database, market data, trade routes, outfitting, engineers, blueprints, crafting, Thargoid war, squadrons, logbooks, galleries, galaxy information and much more...

inara.cz

Is there a chance that this is a reference to Elyssia Fields from the TDW novella? Especially given Elissa is so very similar to Elyssia. Yes, I realize it is reference Elyssian Fields.




Interesting. The Elyssian Fields were also known as the Asphodel Fields/Meadows.

The Elysian Fields themselves appear halfway through the Aeneid.
Aeneas, our hero, wants to see his late father Anchises in the underworld; to enter, he needs to show Charon a golden bough (meant as a gift for Proserpina). Then, upon reaching Elysium, he finds his father by the river Eridanus.

We could say then that every superpower capital represents a paradise of its own: Sol as Eden for obvious reasons, Achenar (as one of the endings of Eridanus) on the Elysian Fields and Alioth for the celestial Northern pole, to which the pyramids aligned - Mizar and Kochab, specifically, as the joint pole stars of that time - as the pharaohs hoped to join it.

(speaking of which, Mizar CD 1 is a gas giant with nine moons...)

 

[Rochester]

Just popping this here in the hope a CM can inject some guidance, I know we’ve covered this before, but I don’t seem able to get through the FD Support anymore… I’ve been thinking a lot about the DW Codex, especially in respect to the perspectives presented for potential new players, in that the text is either counterfeit or obsolete.

@Paul_Crowther and @PhilWeeks I was wondering if FD could confirm if the references in the Dark Wheel Codex is ‘currently’ accurate or broken?

The codex is seemingly ambiguous to the point of being counterintuitive. In that it doesn’t really establish anything, other than the DW faction in game, may or may not be applicable.

Anything else is purely speculative, except the new data of a gas giant location, granted such information is however equally insignificant in the context these locations are in fact prolific.

I am not sure if FD are aware, but there are certain statements online where persons have confirmed on separate occasions, that they know officially that the faction is or was intended to be bogus, which ties into the implied context of the codex.

Likewise I asked this question some time ago and was told the faction handed out a special mission, but when I questioned this against previous statements, about those same missions I was told they were actually removed?

So logically either the codex is incorrect, or intentionally misleading or something is broken?

I wonder if FD could elaborate on the purpose and intent of the DW codex, if it doesn’t give out any actual information is it just an example of environmental storytelling and not part of any current game mechanisms or is it now simply redundant?

Many thanks in advance O7

 

[El Saico]

Tinfoil time! (and a little experiment with Pratchett-esque footnotes)

If the Dark Wheel is an allusion to Aeneas and his Trojan fleet¹, with Raxxla being the site of Rome, the Pilots Federation might very well represent Carthage. Assuming the DW faction is the real deal², them being together is a distraction from duty not unlike the love of Aeneas and Queen Dido³.
Also, the Codex explicitly states that the Shinrarta Dezhra faction emerged in 3300 - the starting point of ED, just like the Aeneid begins with the Trojans' arrival in the city.

Which means that taking control of Raxxla could make them the PF's greatest enemies - and the cause of their downfall.
Foederatio Nautae delenda est, I suppose...

¹ On a less serious note, perhaps a way to infiltrate them would be sending a horse-shaped megaship as a "gift" - though I'm not sure they would fall for the same trick twice
² Which Grandma Farseer's quote in their Codex entry seems to imply
³ Notoriously caused by divine interference, similar to the onsets of fernweh which are suspected to be of Guardian origin

 

[El Saico]

AH!

The historical nucleus of Rome is composed of seven hills, with the central Palatine Hill as its foundational point:

A central point surrounded by other six? Now where did I see that before...?

According to Virgil, by the time of Aeneas there used to be a city there: Pallantium, founded by Greeks of Arcadia. Yes, the same Arcadia that inspired the namesake work of Sir Philip Sidney - author of Astrophel and Stella, whose "canonical" version was in fact included on later versions of the former!

 

[Astro13]

I know at some point this probably has come up, But what if the Guardian sites have something to do with Raxxla, because the Dark Wheel missions lead to the guardian sites, Makes it sound like Raxxla is a guardian device. Do the locations of the guardian sites have any correspondence with the mythology map thingy you guys have?

 

[Rochester]

The DW missions spawned randomly.

 

[Astro13]

Ah, I see. Must have misremembered. Still, has there been any connection made between your Miltonian Map and the locations of the guardians?