All the ancient probes I saw were insanely far away. Nothing else out of the norm on FSS near Galileo/Moon. Only anomaly is the “Other (1)” that shows up on notable signals when I’m by the station. Like out of SC.
The Quest To Find Raxxla
- Thread starter Macros Black
- Start date
I was just at a double Neutron star system that has them literally right next to each other. They are oriented the same way and are rotating really fast if I remember correctly. I would have to go in game to find it. But it's out in that big star field near heart and soul. There are lots of very weird stars like those in this area. I'm currently trying to scan the whole area. It's IC 1805 and the star field near KM Cassiopeia or MWC 50 at one end, if I'm spelling them correctly.
Double Neutron black hole
I also found one of those super bright stars you can see glowing on the galmap that is actually a black hole. I have it marked but I haven't visited yet because I'm scanning a certain area. And It's pretty far away. Maybe I'll visit that next. I looked up the black whole system and I couldn't find any reference. I think it may be unexplored.
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Oh, it’s orbiting the Moon? Couldn’t remember exactly where the station was. Check the Nav Panel - can you see an Unregistered Comms Beacon nearby? (Might be a Listening Post rather than a UCB, can’t remember off the top of my head and would have to look it up, which would be a bit of a waste as you’re in a position to check directly in game!
)
I have been contacted 2 times and did the missions with succes and others before me also then suddenly after the ships update missions did stop
HMm. Interesting. Did they say you had passed the test in any way? Would be pretty significant if they did.
you can see it in this thread old messages from 2015 to 2016
I hope your road to Raxxla will be an exciting one!
Raxxla is within you, always...
Raxxla is within you, always...
It's good to see so familiar faces returning to the new forum. To Raxxla!!
Wasn't somebody in here looking for this sort of thing. These stars have to basically go inside each other at some point.
Blue-White Neutron Star
Blue-White Neutron Star
There is an opinion, that "Raxxla" is a design world for the developer. You know, such places can often be found in games. Usually there is everything in the game. (Example: Fallout, GTA, old Nintendo games, etc.) They are created for different purposes: for the test, creating game videos, fast upgrading testers, checking game mechanics on the combat server, etc. If so, then no one simple player will not get there by legal means (ED is online, and this can upset the balance.). At a minimum, access there is limited, and even if the developer allows the player to visit this place, he first makes sure the player adequacy. If the game is solo, the player can gain access to a place like a promotion at the end of the game. I apologize for my bad English, but I think the idea is clear to you. Based on all the information that I learned about Raxxla for 4 year ED and 2 mouth Elite, there is such a possibility.
Contemporary wisdom would suggest a gas giant has not yet achieved sufficient mass, inward pressure and outward radiant heat for ignition to occur, which is why it's still a gas giant, and not a star, yet. The 1984 movie, "2010: The Year We Make Contact" had an interesting concept on how this process occurs but it's not the only theory / hypothesis out there. Oxford dictionary definition, here.
Contrary to popular be-LIE-f, the Earth's Moon does not have a dark side, she only has the side we cannot see from Earth due to the two body system being tidally locked with the same side of the Moon always facing Earth. The Moon orbits the Earth (technically the Sun) once every 27~30 (synodic vs sidereal) Earth days during which any given point on the Moon experiences roughly two full weeks of uninterrupted daylight (unless there's an eclipse) followed by a fortnight of night in each cycle.
What you might be looking for is the L2 point of a planet orbiting a single star (see previous post a few pages back for Lagrangian points), because if there's a second stellar body it's going to be more difficult to avoid the light of both than just one. As an example, the James Webb telescope was recently launched into the L2 point of the Sun-Earth system where it orbits the Sun at around 1/100 AU from Earth and is constantly within our shadow as this reduces the necessity for liquid nitrogen cooling of the sensory equipment. Due to advantageous gravitational anomalies created by the two bodies it is also cheaper in terms of fuel for the vehicle to maintain it's position.
In relation to EMP hazards, newer satellites in Earth orbit are able to retract their solar panels and power down completely during cosmic storm events because the danger of overload and damage to the system is significantly higher in equipment that is powered and functioning than it is when it's off. This can also occur on Earth when lightning strikes overhead power or telephone lines. The surge can burn out any connected phones, routers or other electrical equipment that is not earthed and start fires at the consumer end. If your computer isn't plugged in, it won't notice the spike.
Such events have also been known to knock out circuit breakers and blow transformers going back towards the supply end of the system which may suggest a major CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) such as the Carrington Event of 1859 could cause catastrophic damage to the centralised energy grid of today, with distribution lines covering significantly more of the landmass. If you were dealing with a station, such as the Dark Wheel, orbiting any single moon of a gas giant which is itself orbiting the local star, avoiding such events becomes even more difficult. Even if the moon is tidally locked to the host planet it's only going to spend a small fraction of it's orbit in the planet's shadow and the rest in direct starlight.
Consider that the only time when our Moon is completely within the shadow of the Earth is during a Lunar eclipse, there isn't one every mo(o)nth due to her tilted orbital path and they don't last long, only a few hours. Add a second stellar radiance and they can only occur when all four bodies are in conjunction, with one star behind the other, creating a single light source and the planet perfectly aligned between the stars and it's own moon, assuming that planet is sufficiently large and close enough to the moon to completely block the light.
Mind bent yet? Celestial mechanics is fascinating stuff!
Does anyone think there's something to this? There are 6 subjects in TDW toast, every in-game symbol related to them or Raxxla is hexagonal, and they do love their mythology at FDev.
To the jewel that burns on the brow of the mother of galaxies! To the whisperer in witchspace, the siren of the deepest void! The parent's grief, the lover's woe, and the yearning of our vagabond hearts. To Raxxla!
So I think we are looking for each of those six things. Jewel, whisperer, siren, grief, woe, yearning. It would be impossibly obscure if these weren't tied together in some fashion, so I think we are looking for a myth that ties stars of certain constellations together in a pattern that will point us somewhere.
Cassiopeia is promising (and has been scoured already for that reason). Mother of galaxies (she's the mother of Andromeda). Perseus and Andromeda were lovers, her parents Cassiopeia and Cepheus died in the story (on top of being punished by gods), nereids/Poseidon were involved (sirens of the deepest void?), and most of the characters in this story ended up in constellations. The names of the stars in the Cassiopeia constellation were derived from Arabic words for body parts, Schedar is "breast", Caph is "palm", Ruchbah is "knee". No "brow" or "head" unfortunately. Trying to find out where her head or brow would be is kind of a fool's game I think... people can't even agree which way is up in that constellation lol.
The Raxxla entry mentions the Omphalos Rift, which everyone on this forum I'm sure has read up on. That is another promising story in this case. The Omphalos stone in Delphi, the system Delphi had it's name changed to Delphi after the Oracle station arrived. The Omphalos stone was given to Cronus by Rhea who ate it, later vomiting it up when Zeus poisons him along with a bunch of other gods. Lots of myths to review to see if it fits the toast.
I don't have anything solid, just ideas that seem promising. Let me know what you think.
To the jewel that burns on the brow of the mother of galaxies! To the whisperer in witchspace, the siren of the deepest void! The parent's grief, the lover's woe, and the yearning of our vagabond hearts. To Raxxla!
So I think we are looking for each of those six things. Jewel, whisperer, siren, grief, woe, yearning. It would be impossibly obscure if these weren't tied together in some fashion, so I think we are looking for a myth that ties stars of certain constellations together in a pattern that will point us somewhere.
Cassiopeia is promising (and has been scoured already for that reason). Mother of galaxies (she's the mother of Andromeda). Perseus and Andromeda were lovers, her parents Cassiopeia and Cepheus died in the story (on top of being punished by gods), nereids/Poseidon were involved (sirens of the deepest void?), and most of the characters in this story ended up in constellations. The names of the stars in the Cassiopeia constellation were derived from Arabic words for body parts, Schedar is "breast", Caph is "palm", Ruchbah is "knee". No "brow" or "head" unfortunately. Trying to find out where her head or brow would be is kind of a fool's game I think... people can't even agree which way is up in that constellation lol.
The Raxxla entry mentions the Omphalos Rift, which everyone on this forum I'm sure has read up on. That is another promising story in this case. The Omphalos stone in Delphi, the system Delphi had it's name changed to Delphi after the Oracle station arrived. The Omphalos stone was given to Cronus by Rhea who ate it, later vomiting it up when Zeus poisons him along with a bunch of other gods. Lots of myths to review to see if it fits the toast.
I don't have anything solid, just ideas that seem promising. Let me know what you think.
Awesome job.
Let me add some restrictions regarding finding Raxxla and the Dark Wheel. Keeping these restrictions in mind might make it easier to approach the mysteries.
1. The Dark Wheel and Raxxla are two different things, often confused. The Dark Wheel is after all a physical station rather than the more mythical thing of Raxxla.
Separating the hunt for these two things is important so that we do not confuse the clues for them.
2. Either mystery might have a time-based aspect to it. Is the Dark wheel within the shadow of a planet, always in the dark? Or does it move between systems on a schedule? Hints for such a theory could be in the Astrophil and Stella -text for example. Is Raxxla only visible at certain times when the planes align?
3. Either mystery could be route-dependent, ie that the discovery requires you to travel in a certain way to find it. That would make it theoretically available for all but very unlikely to be found by accident. Are there hints to which systems would be required to travel to, and in what order?
4. The game mechanics limits some aspects and keeping that in mind helps keep focus. Examples: The game does track time and location but it did not have engineers until fairly recently. Therefore, any puzzle-like aspect to the mystery is more likely to center around actual real-life digging and problem-solving rather than in-game missions, characters and factions. The books, codex entries and back-story are a better source than in-game factions, missions and such.
And a few of my current thoughts
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5. One in-game thing not being focused on: Asteroid fields are often overlooked, in the game since day 1 and so many that hiding something in them is child's play.
6. Some parts of Astrophil and Stella could very well signify a specific order that you should travel between planets in the Sol system. Jove, Ganymede and so on. From what I gather, one of the few times Stella's position is mentioned is when the text refers to her resting her head in Cupids lap.
The myth of Atlas and Pleione seems relevant too. Pleione gave birth to the Pleiades, Hyades, and Hyas (mother of stars). The Pleiades also have been central to the Thargoid thing too (Merope and Maia are Pleiades). Just another of an endless list of myths we could tie into this. Gotta find a relevant one lol.
A slightly different tack, if it hasn't been torn to pieces already...
Whenever I've seen DB questioned about Raxxla on a livestream he seems to find it exceedingly difficult to refrain from giggling like a school boy. So, what's so funny?
It's already been reported earlier in this thread and on the wiki that the first mention of Raxxla was in the 1980 book: "The Alien World: A Complete Illustrated Guide by Steven Eisler". The next mention was in "The Dark Wheel" novella distributed with the original Elite game on release in 1984, and written by the same author, under their real name Robert Holdstock.
While Raxxla may not have been included in the original Elite game, considering it ran in less memory than the the average forum post, and didn't contain any space dredgers or colony ships despite them being mentioned in the instruction manual, it has been confirmed by MB to be live in ED. So, while it might not directly assist in locating the "Dark Wheel" station or Raxxla itself, whatever form that takes within our 21st century digital playpen, it might be worth attempting to hack our way into the mind of the more youthful DB while he actually was a school boy and wrote the original game.
To that end, I've been attempting to discover what might be so amusing about the Raxxla mystery, way back then, where it started and the first, most obvious references that occur across the entire franchise, right under our noses are the combat rankings. If you happen to have the first edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and you look up the entry for Earth it only contains one word: "Harmless". If you continue to read the 5 book "trilogy" you later discover that Ford Prefect submitted a new entry after being marooned here for 15 years which added one more word: "Mostly". Further, a brief mention in the original Guide novel, and later becoming a 1984 publication titled, "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" seems to have carried over to the current game. For those who recall when the early engineers required various difficult to find commodities, during beta they only wanted "Fish" which were available at the local station so testing was a bit easier.
Other works of literary and comedic genius by Douglas Adams include scripts for several four episode Doctor Who series during the Tom Baker reincarnation including one that was never completed or aired, titled "Shada". Adams also worked on several games, and contributed material for Monty Python productions, and the Python (ship) was also included in the original game. A stretch maybe, but if you look up where the Monty Python team cut their teeth prior to the Flying Circus you'll find it was at the same Cambridge University that contained the Footlights theater, St John's College attended (much earlier) by Adams and Jesus College where David Braben met Ian Bell and worked on the original Elite together. While poking around in David's deep, dark past I didn't really come across any mentions of a specific interest in ancient mythology or astrology although I wouldn't discount this direction in terms of actual placement within the current Milky Way generated by Stella Forge and the "Cobra" engine but I would suggest the thinking behind this placement is more current, as in since the original game was published.
Elite has been listed by several games franchises as an inspirational source, but where did David get his inspiration? It must have been prior to the original game and novella in 1984 and after 1980 for Raxxla itself, while he was in university and in relatively close proximity to some of the individuals mentioned above, and paths may have crossed? Hitchhikers was originally a 1978 radio series, back when the only wireless in the house belonged to your father, and you had to huddle close around it with your mates and the volume way down so your parents couldn't hear... And giggle your knee high socks off! Monty Python was on the radio and in the movies during the 70's while David was a teenager, and the Doctor Who scripts were on telly once a week so there's a good chance there was some influence on his thinking, perhaps a lot. I already reviewed a lot of this data and while listening to one of the audio books I stumbled across a list of places in the Hitchikers universe, of particular interest was the mythical Magrathea...
Um, better post this wall of text before I get carried away...
[Edit: See what happens when the forums are offline for a few days...]
Whenever I've seen DB questioned about Raxxla on a livestream he seems to find it exceedingly difficult to refrain from giggling like a school boy. So, what's so funny?
It's already been reported earlier in this thread and on the wiki that the first mention of Raxxla was in the 1980 book: "The Alien World: A Complete Illustrated Guide by Steven Eisler". The next mention was in "The Dark Wheel" novella distributed with the original Elite game on release in 1984, and written by the same author, under their real name Robert Holdstock.
While Raxxla may not have been included in the original Elite game, considering it ran in less memory than the the average forum post, and didn't contain any space dredgers or colony ships despite them being mentioned in the instruction manual, it has been confirmed by MB to be live in ED. So, while it might not directly assist in locating the "Dark Wheel" station or Raxxla itself, whatever form that takes within our 21st century digital playpen, it might be worth attempting to hack our way into the mind of the more youthful DB while he actually was a school boy and wrote the original game.
To that end, I've been attempting to discover what might be so amusing about the Raxxla mystery, way back then, where it started and the first, most obvious references that occur across the entire franchise, right under our noses are the combat rankings. If you happen to have the first edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and you look up the entry for Earth it only contains one word: "Harmless". If you continue to read the 5 book "trilogy" you later discover that Ford Prefect submitted a new entry after being marooned here for 15 years which added one more word: "Mostly". Further, a brief mention in the original Guide novel, and later becoming a 1984 publication titled, "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" seems to have carried over to the current game. For those who recall when the early engineers required various difficult to find commodities, during beta they only wanted "Fish" which were available at the local station so testing was a bit easier.
Other works of literary and comedic genius by Douglas Adams include scripts for several four episode Doctor Who series during the Tom Baker reincarnation including one that was never completed or aired, titled "Shada". Adams also worked on several games, and contributed material for Monty Python productions, and the Python (ship) was also included in the original game. A stretch maybe, but if you look up where the Monty Python team cut their teeth prior to the Flying Circus you'll find it was at the same Cambridge University that contained the Footlights theater, St John's College attended (much earlier) by Adams and Jesus College where David Braben met Ian Bell and worked on the original Elite together. While poking around in David's deep, dark past I didn't really come across any mentions of a specific interest in ancient mythology or astrology although I wouldn't discount this direction in terms of actual placement within the current Milky Way generated by Stella Forge and the "Cobra" engine but I would suggest the thinking behind this placement is more current, as in since the original game was published.
Elite has been listed by several games franchises as an inspirational source, but where did David get his inspiration? It must have been prior to the original game and novella in 1984 and after 1980 for Raxxla itself, while he was in university and in relatively close proximity to some of the individuals mentioned above, and paths may have crossed? Hitchhikers was originally a 1978 radio series, back when the only wireless in the house belonged to your father, and you had to huddle close around it with your mates and the volume way down so your parents couldn't hear... And giggle your knee high socks off! Monty Python was on the radio and in the movies during the 70's while David was a teenager, and the Doctor Who scripts were on telly once a week so there's a good chance there was some influence on his thinking, perhaps a lot. I already reviewed a lot of this data and while listening to one of the audio books I stumbled across a list of places in the Hitchikers universe, of particular interest was the mythical Magrathea...
Um, better post this wall of text before I get carried away...
[Edit: See what happens when the forums are offline for a few days...]
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Yeah he does have possibly the worst poker face ever when the convo turns to Raxxla. It’s always struck me as he feels there is something terribly clever about how they’ve hidden it, and that there’s something equally clever he’s just bursting at the seams about about there being some in game hint about how to go about finding it.
I've thought that also. It would fit both the time they let one person into the system we know they develop from that is off the galmap. It also fits the thing about someone having been in the system and not scanning but only refueling and leaving. It could have been the same thing. And it would explain nobody doing it since. The only way to test it would be to get a lot of fuel rats and try to get ships near the system and the edge of the galmap to actually jump to it. Not sure how long that would take. Several years? Max speed is 2001c.... Probably have to get maxed out anacondas or corvettes or whichever has the maximum fuel capacity. Maybe a mix of them and try to fly and have fuel rats fly in and reset back to base and keep refueling along a chain of other ship if it's even possible. You could probably brute force to it's location if you really wanted too. Unless the time is too great. Call it the Raxxla Initiative.
You would have to leave one ship behind and keep going to it to refill. probably sending many ships at once or leaving meany ships behind to save time. Then have one ship go to the next while a group of other ships leaves ships at the next location and follow the line or ladder step to the next locations. Pre planning would save lots of time too. It would be funny to see fdevs reaction as a massive fleet of ships lowly makes it way to their hq in space!! ><
If you can get really fuel efficient ships you could send cutters as fuel depots and then have the most fuel efficient ship in supercruise simply follow and refuel over and over as other ship refuel along the way. Does that even make sense?! Actually a maxed out anaconda only needs 8 tons of fuel. So, you would be fine as long as you can get enough cutters in line and refuel on the way. It should last quite a while as a supply depot. I was thinking filing the anaconda with max fuel for travel. I wonder what ship gets the most milage in supercruise. I never did go over that aspect of the game.
Edit: why is the word nobody filtered out. I'm assuming this is a british filter and it's getting rid of the word ... no body is filter at the first three letters. That is a bad filter design.
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Sadly you can’t Supercruise between systems, you just end up at a marker in space that says you’re right there, but aren’t until you actually jump.
That three letter word is an insult in British slang (and with some Americans), but it’s a horrible filter to filter based on partial matching that way...
That three letter word is an insult in British slang (and with some Americans), but it’s a horrible filter to filter based on partial matching that way...