The Quest To Find Raxxla

[Thatchinho]

We maybe don't even need to speculate. there's now at least one in-game way to bust whether 7ly was a max limit on a 3125-era cobra.

Jameson's Cobra that's just been found - all you need to do is chart a course from Lave to the crash site, if you can't make that with 7ly jumps, you know the jump range was definitely more. If you can make it, well you know it's at least plausible that 7ly was the max range for a cobra.

Personally I don't think it matters. Ryder's ship didn't use the Quirium drive (or, at the very least, not the later version used in the game), so even if you take 100% of everything in TDW as fact (which is definitely isn't), and even if you take everything in Elite 1 as fact (which it definitely isn't), then the one still doesn't relate to the other, and neither relate to the current hunt for Raxxla. We have no data on the jump-range of any early hyperdrive system, sadly.

Hmm, do we have a date pinned down for Jameson's strike with the Mycoid Missile?

Anyway, while we don't have the jump range of early hyperdrive system's confirmed, in some respects it's not the jump range that's the key thing, it's the distance travellable per unit time that reall.

So we know that Sol -> Achenar involves some distances that are between 8.63 and 8.74 ly, but that's not the critical point.(https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Discussions?p=6159264&viewfull=1#post6159264).

Sol -> Achenar is 139.5 l direct. Hyperspace was discovered in the early 22nd century. Achenar was colonised in the mid 23rd century.

In general the expansion following the discovery of hyperspace was unmanned probes followed by manned craft.

Achenar was specifically chosen by Duval because it had an ELW capable of supporting human life. - that strongly suggest the system had been scouted by unmanned probes first.

It's stated that the journey was long and treacherous, but there's no indication that there was a gen-ship or suspended animation thing going on - Duval chose and lead the settlement of the system (via a convoy of ships, most of which arrived). She also ruled the system for a while before dying in a speeder crash.

So let's pick a range of travel times and that gives us our range of travel distances per unit time.

a. - 1 year = 139.5ly per year
b. - 5 years = 27.9ly per year
c. - 10 years = 13.95ly per year
d. - 50 years = 2.79ly per year

Let's then apply that for travel ranges, assuming for simplicity approx 1,000 years of hyperspace travel prior to the type 2b.

Max range of travel =

a. 139,500 ly
b. 27,900 ly
c. 13,950 ly
d. 2,790 ly

Some obvious assumptions there about there being a sufficient jump success % to make it viable, but Duval's mission in the early days indicate that's a reasonable assumption.

Equally, the above calculations assumes no improvement in hyperdrive tech whatsoever from that used for Duval's journey to Achenar.

So there we go. Some calculations for the maximum distances major colonisation expeditions could have reached by 3150 using only the earliest hyperdrive tech.

All 100% lore and in-game info with maths applied.


It's not unreasonable to assume that hyperdrive tech improved over those 1,000 years either, so those limits can realistically be upped.

And that's colonisation expeditions - the bounds on unmanned and manned exploration can reasonably be put considerably higher.

 

[Thatchinho]

I'm trying to remember. I'm sure I came across something somewhere that said that Raxxla was guarded, there were people living there that would kill to protect the secret. Maybe Reclamation? I will try to find the source, I may have totally made it up...

Not sure about the gen ships having FTL. The ones I know about, didn't. Not sure why a generation ship would need to be a generation ship if it was FTL capable...

There's these which I got my info from:

Here MB seems to have altered the date, he says "from the 24th Century", but there's no specific mention of FTL - though he also says "thousands of lightyears" - and to be fair, this does talk about "the Missing", not just Generation ships, but any and all missing ships/colonies, etc. I suspect 24th might be a typo (since the later Galnet article says 21st), or maybe he was thinking of something specific...

https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/node/353

"Putting on my story hat for a moment the sharp eyed amongst you have noticed a story in GalNet about ‘The Missing’. In brief The Missing is an encompassing term for everyone who has disappeared without trace in deep space. This includes colonists on the ancient generation ships, lost colonies, disappeared scientific expeditions and a host of others. Some will know from our timeline that many thousands of ‘generation ships’ left the safety of Earth beginning in the 24th century onwards, and headed out into what was then largely unknown – with just some data from probes to guide them. The process was completely unregulated, and many were not as well prepared as they should have been. In those days when faster-than-light communication didn’t exist, many of these potential settlers faced terrible risks alone, travelling thousands of light years into the black, not unlike the wagon trains that set out across continental US in the 18th and 19th centuries before them. Not all were successful at founding new worlds. Most were not. Some managed to return with tails of their adventures. Some were lost in deep space, the dead hulk of their ship carrying on an almost endless trajectory ever deeper into space. Others managed to land and survived for many decades before being overtaken by some local disaster. Some may still be alive, just restricted to low power light speed communications, or no comms at all, as their equipment has failed over the centuries in between. We say they have disappeared without trace, but just maybe some will find some traces of them that are still out there…

The plight of The Missing is just one of the things that will become more prominent over the coming year and the Commanders of the Pilots Federation will be pivotal in solving these mysteries. You can expect more news on this soon!"

Contains various info, some questionable, some old, etc. http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Generation_ships#cite_note-4

Obviously Galnet: https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/19-AUG-3302 Interestingly this one does say "in the centuries that followed...". This is what informed some of my speculation that early FTL was bad (difficult/slow/expensive, etc) since it seems that even after FTL was invented, STL generation ships still went out. I imagine it to be a slow decline in STL ships as FTL ships progressively got cheaper and safer, etc. Much like for decades after cars were invented people still mainly used horses until cars became cheaper and easier to own.

I suspect that if Raxxla was found, it (probably) wasn't a generation ship, but an early FTL ship. But, it may well have been a Gen ship - this made me think of it: https://imgur.com/a/gTOht They mention a "signal" from an uninhabited planet 15ly away that caused chaos... It sounds like some sort of neural virus - how cool would that be to keep Raxxla safe, anyone that gets near enough to pick up your signal gets infected...

Took a bit of finding, but here you go:

Post from CookieJarviz

"You people seem to forget that the missing can only go as far as 1000ly. and you say the ancient's might be the missing/ a lost cononly. but they specifically went for systems with ELWs"

Reply from Michael Brookes:

"That's not strictly true. Most of the missing aren't on generation ships - they're just the most famous - and oldest. The later generation ships were also capable of FTL."

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...9-The-Canonn?p=4862189&viewfull=1#post4862189

 

[Louis Calvert]

Hmm, do we have a date pinned down for Jameson's strike with the Mycoid Missile?

Anyway, while we don't have the jump range of early hyperdrive system's confirmed, in some respects it's not the jump range that's the key thing, it's the distance travellable per unit time that reall.

So we know that Sol -> Achenar involves some distances that are between 8.63 and 8.74 ly, but that's not the critical point.(https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Discussions?p=6159264&viewfull=1#post6159264).

Sol -> Achenar is 139.5 l direct. Hyperspace was discovered in the early 22nd century. Achenar was colonised in the mid 23rd century.

In general the expansion following the discovery of hyperspace was unmanned probes followed by manned craft.

Achenar was specifically chosen by Duval because it had an ELW capable of supporting human life. - that strongly suggest the system had been scouted by unmanned probes first.

It's stated that the journey was long and treacherous, but there's no indication that there was a gen-ship or suspended animation thing going on - Duval chose and lead the settlement of the system (via a convoy of ships, most of which arrived). She also ruled the system for a while before dying in a speeder crash.

So let's pick a range of travel times and that gives us our range of travel distances per unit time.

a. - 1 year = 139.5ly per year
b. - 5 years = 27.9ly per year
c. - 10 years = 13.95ly per year
d. - 50 years = 2.79ly per year

Let's then apply that for travel ranges, assuming for simplicity approx 1,000 years of hyperspace travel prior to the type 2b.

Max range of travel =

a. 139,500 ly
b. 27,900 ly
c. 13,950 ly
d. 2,790 ly

Some obvious assumptions there about there being a sufficient jump success % to make it viable, but Duval's mission in the early days indicate that's a reasonable assumption.

Equally, the above calculations assumes no improvement in hyperdrive tech whatsoever from that used for Duval's journey to Achenar.

So there we go. Some calculations for the maximum distances major colonisation expeditions could have reached by 3150 using only the earliest hyperdrive tech.

All 100% lore and in-game info with maths applied.


It's not unreasonable to assume that hyperdrive tech improved over those 1,000 years either, so those limits can realistically be upped.

And that's colonisation expeditions - the bounds on unmanned and manned exploration can reasonably be put considerably higher.

That's some nice thoerising. You're almost certainly right and it was probably early FTL - I don't think you need FTL to make that trip though.

Option e: It was a fleet of early STL ships using cryo-stasis and high-G drives (something like an advanced version of an Orion drive, or antimatter drives (no clue if they exist in ED)).

Explanation:

Spoiler

The Federation was formed as early as 2060 - so it's possible Duval left Sol before 2100. Assume it was exactly 2090 (giving her 30 years to be born under Federation rule after WW3 and become dissatisfied and amass whatever she needed, plenty of time.) Achenar is 139.5 ly away - given technology of the 2100's it's entirely possible that space-telescopes could detect the presence of an ELW at that range, or at least the high probability of one.

Duval leaves Earth with a fleet of retrofitted STL stasis ships in 2090. They make the 139.5ly journey in 160 years by continual hard acceleration and deceleration the whole way. Since they were in stasis, they could have accelerated fairly rapidly to some appreciable percentage of lightspeed before decelerating hard without worrying much about the G's (Time dilation would also reduce some of the stress on the life-support requirements). They arrive and establish the early Empire in 2250-ish. It's pushing the limits of science, but then FTL totally smashes science, so I guess everything is a bit "sci-fi"

Regardless of the exact travel method of Duval's Empire fleet - I don't think your calculation for the range of human expansion based on that reflect the reality of ED (while I do totally agree they accurately reflect the theoretical speeds of FTL given the distances involved etc.).

Explanation:

Spoiler

There must have been some limiting factor to human expansion, otherwise we'd continually be finding people all over the place - the Bubble is only about 3-400ly across, even now. As I've said before, some factor must have limited that, whether that was limited FTL or a wide-scale conspiracy, or aliens, whatever it was, we can't have had any sort of fast-cheap-safe-widespread-FTL until very recently. That means 1000 years of very slow FTL, or, 1000 years of very expensive FTL, or 1000 years of very dangerous FTL, or 1000 years of very limited FTL availability, or all four together. Whatever it was, it must have happened because until 3300 we literally didn't have any (known) colonies outside the bubble - (I totally believe that at least one permit lock region contains a "lost" human colony btw.)

Your ideas of long-range/fast/commonplace FTL dating back to the foundation of the Empire basically mean we should have already been where we are now, in terms of having little colonies all over the place, a little bubble over here, a little bubble over there, etc. The Guardian ruins would already have been very old news to everyone, they're right next door, well within even your slowest FTL calculation range (discovered around 2800, very conservatively). Unless the Thargoids are Extra Galactic and only recently arrived (I believe this is the case, but that's not a common viewpoint), then we would have encountered them before the 3100's since they're basically next-door, again, well within the slowest FTL limit you've given. etc.

Yet we know for a fact that things like the Dynasty expeditions of the 3270's were unprecedented and went further than anyone had before - and that was within the last 50 years using the latest iteration of the 2b Hyperdrive an prototype AFMU tech - And yet even those expeditions are within your slowest FTL rate from the dawn on interstellar travel (and they didn't make it back, that's how dangerous it was, even 50 years ago!).

So - If you're right and humanity had FTL capable of travelling even 2.79ly per year in the 2200's (and it just kept getting better from there), then it means there's been an external factor limiting human expansion (i.e. Aliens, Illuminati, etc.) since there's some reason that we stopped expanding around 150-200ly from Sol for most of the last 1000 years, and whatever that reason was has now gone.

And, even given that - It means Raxxla is definitely still in the Bubble, since whatever it was that stopped humanity expanding would have similarly prevented anyone finding Raxxla if it was outside the bubble.

It's far more likely that FTL was just really expensive, dangerous and hard to use for a few hundred years, so there wasn't much fast expansion. The Faraway network allowed more expansion safely, but it was slow (because of the need to go ahead to set up the beacons) and presumably it was primarily used to link-up colonies and develop trade routes rather than push into dangerous and unknown space. Then around 200 years ago we finally started to get safe-fast FTL, but it was short range and fairly expensive and Thargoids were lurking in Witchspace so that probably scared people into playing safe with exploration. Then 100 years ago we got long-range FTL, but it was slow and still expensive and fairly dangerous (prone to misjumps if not regularly maintained), so that still limited expansion (but we did start using it to push outwards), and now finally we have fast-cheap-safe-long-range FTL (the magic combination) and BOOM expansion all over the place. Again, the natural conclusion is still that Raxxla is most likely in the bubble.

The only way I can think of that Raxxla is not in the bubble is this (haven't read this theory before, but I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere):

A freak accident (Hyperdrive failure, wormhole, alien abduction, whatever!) transported someone or many someones to Raxxla (for this let's call them the Robinson Family because I loved the Lost in Space TV series as a kid). They arrive, and don't know where they are, they can't get home and the ship crashes. They explore and make a home. During this time they transmit distress call(s)... That call(s) contains the Robinson Family logs detailing Raxxla, a planet full of awesomeness.

The distress call take a while to get back to the Bubble (no FTL comms on the Robinson's crashed ship). It's received by someone in the bubble, let's say in 2814. BAM. Raxxla discovered, but not discovered. You can't get there because all you've got is a description, mysterious logs and a vague location where the transmission came from. You can maybe tell when it was sent, given the transmission date, and therefore you can maybe tell how far it's travelled - but, what if the Robinsons don't know when they are? Say they suffer a Hyperdrive malfunction in 2350 and it plops them in orbit of Raxxla 300 years in the past - would they know? If they don't know where they are, they probably can't calculate when they are... right?

So - then this radio call is picked up by a group and they listen to it, and what's being described is a planet of wonderous alien tech, etc. They start searching. TDW is born. The logs that are detailed in this thread could easily be things like recordings of the distress call that detail Raxxla stored on data crystals "maps" of possible origin sources for the signal, that sort of thing. Maybe the radio transmission is known to come from the outer rim of the Galaxy somewhere, but the exact location can't be discerned since all that exist now are recordings - obfuscated in the outer rim...

You could evensay that's what Ryder found - he discovered the recordings, and maybe worked out that if he took an FTL ship away from the origin point he could jump ahead of the signal wave and pick up the recordings "fresh" - if he did that with a team of people in different parts of the galaxy, each collecting the recording he would be able to triangulate the origin point... hence, he discovered a clue to the lcoation.

It's even possible that - for example - the signal that was picked up by the Dynasty expedition was that distress call, they essentially FTL'd past the wavefront...maybe that was a clue to how to find more clues - you need to travel to where the Radio wavefront will be and listen, if you get the timing right you'll hear it... so we know the Zurara went out there around 3270, so if they picked up the signal around then, you need to travel approximately 30ly further out and just listen...

 

[Louis Calvert]

Took a bit of finding, but here you go:

Post from CookieJarviz

"You people seem to forget that the missing can only go as far as 1000ly. and you say the ancient's might be the missing/ a lost cononly. but they specifically went for systems with ELWs"

Reply from Michael Brookes:

"That's not strictly true. Most of the missing aren't on generation ships - they're just the most famous - and oldest. The later generation ships were also capable of FTL."

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...9-The-Canonn?p=4862189&viewfull=1#post4862189

Awesome

Also BTW forgot to mention, Jameson's Mycoid attack was around 3150-3151 since that's when the war ended and all Thargoids vanished (Sarasvati logs).

 

[Jaiotu]

Where's the stuff about The Dark Wheel actually knowing the location of Raxxla coming from? In TDW, Jason never actually found it, and according to And Here The Wheel, The Dark Wheel never found Raxxla.

We don't know for a fact that Jason didn't find Raxxla. He died before he was able to deliver all of the information he had to the rest of The Dark Wheel. Rafe knew, through Jason's last words to Alex, that Jason had found evidence that Raxxla was real. We don't know with any degree of certainty just what evidence he'd managed to uncover. He could have found Raxxla itself ... or maybe he just found archival evidence proving that Raxxla was real.

This is typically what we mean when we say that Jason found Raxxla. Whatever he found had got him pretty excited ... maybe even more excited then I was when I stumbled on Steven Eisler's The Alien World and found out that Raxxla predates the Original Elite and The Dark Wheel novella by a number of years.

It really doesn't matter if Jason actually stumbled on Raxxla itself or simply uncovered evidence that would lead to it's discovery. Either way it's the springboard for our current quest and one of the few tenuous references to Raxxla that we have.

 

[Han_Zen]

Regarding the 7ly jump range of the Cobra in Elite. As far as I remember, it was a fuel limit. If you jumped 7ly, the tank was empty. If you jumped 3ly, you had fuel left for a 4ly jump.

Fitting a bigger tank would probably have given more range.

 

[Jaiotu]

Regarding the 7ly jump range of the Cobra in Elite. As far as I remember, it was a fuel limit. If you jumped 7ly, the tank was empty. If you jumped 3ly, you had fuel left for a 4ly jump.

Fitting a bigger tank would probably have given more range.

Great observation Han.

I've always looked at the 7 light-year limit as being a feature of the Thru-Space drive but you are absolutely right. The limit was based on available fuel. I'd rep you twice if I could.

 

[Thatchinho]

I'm trying to remember. I'm sure I came across something somewhere that said that Raxxla was guarded, there were people living there that would kill to protect the secret. Maybe Reclamation? I will try to find the source, I may have totally made it up...

That'll probably be the people that had Jason Ryder assassinated. From the last page of TDW (following directly from the quote I posted above):

"'But why?' Alex asked. 'Why kill him for finding Raxxla?'

'Because there are people on Raxxla already. This is only a guess, mind you, but from what
happened to Jason I'd say it was close to being right. We've long suspected that a corps of élites
lives there, and are exploiting the gateway. They're powerful, twisted men. Powerful enough to hire
an assassin to kill the threat to their dominance.'"

 

[Thatchinho]

Great observation Han.

I've always looked at the 7 light-year limit as being a feature of the Thru-Space drive but you are absolutely right. The limit was based on available fuel. I'd rep you twice if I could.

Agreed, it's a great point. And I'm already out of rep!

Forgot the golden rule of Elite - never do a jump that doesn't leave you some in the tank. (Well not without saving immediately beforehand anyway)!

 

[Thatchinho]

We don't know for a fact that Jason didn't find Raxxla. He died before he was able to deliver all of the information he had to the rest of The Dark Wheel. Rafe knew, through Jason's last words to Alex, that Jason had found evidence that Raxxla was real. We don't know with any degree of certainty just what evidence he'd managed to uncover. He could have found Raxxla itself ... or maybe he just found archival evidence proving that Raxxla was real.

This is typically what we mean when we say that Jason found Raxxla. Whatever he found had got him pretty excited ... maybe even more excited then I was when I stumbled on Steven Eisler's The Alien World and found out that Raxxla predates the Original Elite and The Dark Wheel novella by a number of years.

It really doesn't matter if Jason actually stumbled on Raxxla itself or simply uncovered evidence that would lead to it's discovery. Either way it's the springboard for our current quest and one of the few tenuous references to Raxxla that we have.

Fair point!

And that's made me wonder.... how would the actions of the people on Raxxla have differed in the two different scenarios of Jason finding Raxxla vs Jason finding evidence of Raxxla's existence, and is there's anything we can deduce from that...

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Fair point!

And that's made me wonder.... how would the actions of the people on Raxxla have differed in the two different scenarios of Jason finding Raxxla vs Jason finding evidence of Raxxla's existence, and is there's anything we can deduce from that...

I suspect if he’d found Raxxla they would have killed him there, whereas if he had merely found evidence if its existence they would have sent an assassin after him.

mmmmm

unless he was killed at Raxxla, except it must be off the beaten track to require an expedition to find it, so he wouldn’t have taken his son there.....

 

[Jaiotu]

Looking for confirmation.

To the best of my knowledge any mention of Raxxla is completely missing from Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters, correct?

 

[Han_Zen]

I suspect if he’d found Raxxla they would have killed him there, whereas if he had merely found evidence if its existence they would have sent an assassin after him.

mmmmm

unless he was killed at Raxxla, except it must be off the beaten track to require an expedition to find it, so he wouldn’t have taken his son there.....

Jason Ryder was killed i Leesti.

 

[Evoflash]

" We've long suspected that a corps of élites
lives there, and are exploiting the gateway. They're powerful, twisted men. Powerful enough to hire
an assassin to kill the threat to their dominance.'"

Maybe that's what happens to all those players who go AWOL!!

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Jason Ryder was killed i Leesti.

Yes, that was the point I was (rather playfully) suggesting. There is no sign of Raxxla in Leesti, is there?? 2189ls out??
Could be a grand double bluff by FD to plant it at was supposedly the start of the search.

 

[Louis Calvert]

Looking for confirmation.

To the best of my knowledge any mention of Raxxla is completely missing from Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters, correct?

Yes.

Raxxla was never mentioned in any game ever. Actually, it's not ever been in any game prior to ED (and afaik it's still never been actually mentioned in game).

EDIT: Sorry, let me qualify this a bit:

Raxxla wasn't in Elite, FE2 or FFE as a named object (no-one found it via data-mining or anything like that).
It wasn't mentioned in the FE2 Gazeteer or FFE Journals.

I don't believe it was mentioned elsewhere, but it's possible it was mentioned in the short stories that accompanies both games - though I don't think so (been a while since I read them), and I haven't been able to find the searchable version of the FE2 journals to check, but I don't think it was in there either.

 

[Wishblend]

If it is in the game, it will have a different name to stop data miners or keyword searches, going of frontier's comments, they say it is a journey all have to make on there own I say it is that players will have to search for it the old fashioned way.

 

[Scytale]

If it is in the game, it will have a different name to stop data miners or keyword searches, going of frontier's comments, they say it is a journey all have to make on there own I say it is that players will have to search for it the old fashioned way.

imho the quest goes through obtaining rank, rep and permits. Only things we have to make on our own in this game.

 

[Jaiotu]

Yes.

Raxxla was never mentioned in any game ever. Actually, it's not ever been in any game prior to ED (and afaik it's still never been actually mentioned in game).

EDIT: Sorry, let me qualify this a bit:

Raxxla wasn't in Elite, FE2 or FFE as a named object (no-one found it via data-mining or anything like that).
It wasn't mentioned in the FE2 Gazeteer or FFE Journals.

I don't believe it was mentioned elsewhere, but it's possible it was mentioned in the short stories that accompanies both games - though I don't think so (been a while since I read them), and I haven't been able to find the searchable version of the FE2 journals to check, but I don't think it was in there either.

Good point. While Raxxla isn't mentioned "in game" in the original Elite it is central to the accompanying Dark Wheel novella ... which, given the state of 8 bit games in 1984 I take accompanying literature as on par to an in game reference. None of the literature accomanying Elite 2 & 3 mentions Raxxla so what I intended to clarify is whether there are any oblique references to Raxxla in the games (2&3) themselves.

My understanding is that the only references to Raxxla in the Elite universe is TDW and a short mention in John Harper's And Here The Wheel.

 

[HexCube]

Well, I've become pretty interested in this mystery recently, and emailed FDev asking (maybe) for a Christmas hint, here's the response I got back: https://imgur.com/gallery/X3EpE

I haven't logged on since, but if anything's changed when I do, I'll be sure to let you guys know. I don't think this email proves or hints at anything, but maybe it does and someone can decipher it