That's cool then. I've never felt Raxxla and the Rift are related but whenever someone mentions them both in the same breath (so to speak) it makes me wonder if I missed something :)

I did find something I can't track it down, anyone have any ideas about this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous ED kickstarter page:

"Pledge £35 or more
Download a digital copy of the official sequel to “The Dark Wheel” novel, plus all rewards above."

I also found this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/16354-quot-official-sequel-to-quot-The-Dark-Wheel-quot

Which suggests this book is Elite: Legacy.

Is that confirmed?

I've not yet got round to that one (currently on Lave Revolution), has anyone read Legacy? I know Raxxla and the Ryder family decedents feature heavily in AHTW, but I wondered if there was any continuation of any of the themes from TDW in Legacy?
 
That's cool then. I've never felt Raxxla and the Rift are related but whenever someone mentions them both in the same breath (so to speak) it makes me wonder if I missed something :)

I did find something I can't track it down, anyone have any ideas about this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous ED kickstarter page:

"Pledge £35 or more
Download a digital copy of the official sequel to “The Dark Wheel” novel, plus all rewards above."

I also found this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/16354-quot-official-sequel-to-quot-The-Dark-Wheel-quot

Which suggests this book is Elite: Legacy.

Is that confirmed?

I've not yet got round to that one (currently on Lave Revolution), has anyone read Legacy? I know Raxxla and the Ryder family decedents feature heavily in AHTW, but I wondered if there was any continuation of any of the themes from TDW in Legacy?

IIRC MB said something along the lines of it being more of a spiritual successor of TDW rather than it being a direct sequel. Can't remember where I saw that though.

Haven't read it so can't comment on the actual content.
 
IIRC MB said something along the lines of it being more of a spiritual successor of TDW rather than it being a direct sequel. Can't remember where I saw that though.

Haven't read it so can't comment on the actual content.

My pet operating theory is there are hints spread across all the official books, one per book and good for marketing.
"Gotta get'em all"
 
Merge the raxxla and FR threads?
They seem to be saying the same thing most of the time
It's a white hole.

I don't think there is. Besides..

“Thargoid incursions into the Formidine rift appear to be increasing dramatically.” (From the Rift thread FP. 'Doc' Jaiotu.)

and

If it does, then on Raxxla there’s an alien construct that’s a gateway to other Universes, and all that’s in those Universes in the way of bounty, and treasures, and aliens, and life...

— Rafe Zetter in The Dark Wheel by Robert Holdstock


The door the Thargs take to enter the MW in the Rift coming from Magellan?
Of course, since that, aliens appeared ingame far from the Rift. Raxxla could as well be in Col70 as in a Guardians system. I for myself suspect Raxxla is Merope 5c which is an actual key. But where is the door?
I would add: why in the hell the cultists from The Children of Raxxla are/were so tied to the Formidine Rift narrative ? These far-fetched fanatics have always been very well informed. (< RP)
You mean 5c is a musical key?

So we've been looking for the wrong kind of key!
 
IIRC MB said something along the lines of it being more of a spiritual successor of TDW rather than it being a direct sequel. Can't remember where I saw that though.

Haven't read it so can't comment on the actual content.
Its only a sequel because it's in space. That's the only similarity they have, as far as I can remember.

Looking for Raxxla?

Look down the back of the sofa, everything is always down the back of the sofa.
:D
More likely behind the fridge. If you lose something it's nearly always there.
 

Scytale

Banned
Merge Raxxla, Formidine Rift and The Odd Thread? [yesnod]
And Cass A ! :p
I've not yet got round to that one (currently on Lave Revolution), has anyone read Legacy? I know Raxxla and the Ryder family decedents feature heavily in AHTW, but I wondered if there was any continuation of any of the themes from TDW in Legacy?
Have you read these posts ?
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/50320-Elite-Legacy?p=2566545&viewfull=3#post2566545
Seems the Raxxla-in-game is more a sequel to TDW than to Legacy. But I may be wrong due to my teribble anglich. :eek:
Anyway, there is a BIG similarity between the Rift and the Raxxla storylines ...
Drew W left and the Rift mYsTeRy is off. Michael B left and the Raxxla Quest (Elite missions) is off ... imho
You mean 5c is a musical key?
So we've been looking for the wrong kind of key!
C5 maybe ? But no G Mixolydian system in EDSM...
Perhaps in a system with these planets and orbits ?
Ofgkt6b.png
(That's what I call 'tinfoiling', pal !) [yesnod]
 
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Download a digital copy of the official sequel to “The Dark Wheel” novel, plus all rewards above."

I also found this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/16354-quot-official-sequel-to-quot-The-Dark-Wheel-quot

Which suggests this book is Elite: Legacy.

Is that confirmed?

Yes. Elite: Legacy is "the official sequel" to The Dark Wheel though, as others have pointed out, there doesn't appear to be any continuation of The Dark Wheel storyline in Legacy.

John Harper's And Here the Wheel plays a much better sequel to Holdstock's novella. We get introduced to the descendants of the Ryder clan and a little bit of the drama regarding The Dark Wheel and the quest to find Raxxla. Since The Dark Wheel is no longer considered canon in and of itself And Here the Wheel was the only canonical reference for Raxxla or any of The Dark Wheel's characters until the release of Drew Wagar's Premonition.
 
“… The explorers of the sky, the pioneers
Of science, now made ready to attack
That darkness once again,
and win new worlds.”

--Alfred Noyes, Watchers of the Sky
 
On the night/morning of November 1st/2nd 1917 the Hooker 100 inch observatory saw first light. The aperture was directed toward the planet Jupiter and, to the horror of those in attendance, six fuzzy images of that planet filled the eyepiece indicating a flaw. Investigation into the problem revealed that workmen during the day had left the observatory open. The sun itself may have shown directly on the mirror ... thus heating it and warping the focal point.

There was nothing to be done but wait for the telescope to cool. For three or more hours they waited nervously. Jupiter had slipped over the horizon and so the telescope was turned toward a new target. A star. The image in the eyepiece was crisp and clear!

I need your help folks. I need to know which star that was!
 
On the night/morning of November 1st/2nd 1917 the Hooker 100 inch observatory saw first light. The aperture was directed toward the planet Jupiter and, to the horror of those in attendance, six fuzzy images of that planet filled the eyepiece indicating a flaw. Investigation into the problem revealed that workmen during the day had left the observatory open. The sun itself may have shown directly on the mirror ... thus heating it and warping the focal point.

There was nothing to be done but wait for the telescope to cool. For three or more hours they waited nervously. Jupiter had slipped over the horizon and so the telescope was turned toward a new target. A star. The image in the eyepiece was crisp and clear!

I need your help folks. I need to know which star that was!
Unfortunately I've not got a clue :(
 
<snip>

C5 maybe ? But no G Mixolydian system in EDSM...
Perhaps in a system with these planets and orbits ?
(That's what I call 'tinfoiling', pal !) [yesnod]
Well, yes, maybe a lot of tin is involved, however, it's a more interesting lead than searching every system with in x klys of the bubble ;)

One of the missions is called "silent songs of the spheres"....

Can the discovery scanner sound be tuned to different notes?! (yes, this is madness)

Maybe using the ship sounds to play a tune related to the word "door" (break on through to the other side by The Doors?) in the correct key in the correct system whilst carrying (or targeting) a SAP 8 core container, trinkets of hidden fortune (or some of the other weird cargo) might just show us the way?
 
Okay. So. The logic:

In 1980 Robert Holdstock's The Alien World, written under the pseudonym of Steven Eisler, is published. This is the first known reference to something named "Raxxla" and also contains a reference to a people collectively known as The Dark Wheel. A people who had been displaced in time and space by passing through a wormhole.

In 1981 Robert Holdstock's Where Time Winds Blow is published. As the name suggests Time Travel is a key element within the narrative. It may just be possible that Holdstock was aware of a very obscure time travel novel published in 1939 by, of all people, a nun named Sister Mary Catherine. This particular novel, now long out of print and largely forgotten, had a very interesting title: The Dark Wheel.

The title page of S.M.C.'s The Dark Wheel contains a quote:

"Not thine to understand
How the two worlds accord,—
The will of Love, our Lord,
With this dark wheel of Time."
--The Torch-Bearers

As it turns out "The Torch-Bearers" is a Trilogy of poetic verses by Alfred Noyes. Noyes had been invited to attend the "first light" of the Hooker Telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory. Book I of this Trilogy, Watchers of the Sky, opens with a prologue subtitled as "The Observatory" and chronicles this event. After the prologue comes seven poems dedicated to seven scientists: Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and William and John Herschel.

The second book of the Trilogy, The Book of Earth, starts in ancient Greece with Pythagoras and Aristotle, it then moves to the Middle East for Farabi and Avicenna. The scene then shifts successively to Italy for Leonardo, France for Guettard, Sweden for Linnaeus, France again for Buffon, Lamarck, Lavoisier, and Cuvier, and then Germany for Goethe, before ending in England with Darwin.

The third book, in which we find The Dark Wheel quote, chronicles a ship at sea on which a young girl is dying. Her chances aren't good ... until it is discovered that a specialist from John Hopkins is on another ocean liner that is within wireless range. This specialist can talk the surgeon through the operation leading to the possibility that "they" may save her after all.

Reflecting on this the poet realizes that "They" are all the seekers and discoverers of scientific truths through the ages – people like Harvey, Pasteur and Lister in the field of medicine or Faraday, Maxwell and Hertz in the development of the wireless.

Circling back around ... if there is a connection tying Holdstock to Noyes through Sister Mary Catherine then it is quite possible that whatever star the Hooker Telescope beheld on that November night 101 years ago just might be a key to finding Raxxla.

...or I could be overestimating Frontier entirely. :)
 
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Well.

That's an incredible set of links. Reminds of BBS Radio 1's "tedious link" they used to do, which was never tedious and always entertaining!

Honestly, FDev have gone to great lengths to make the puzzles for the UAs, UPs, Millionaire's treasure hunts etc require a lot of out of game tools and information sources, so it's entirely plausible that this is how they expect us to find Raxxla.

So if we go there and play "Break on Through" with our ship sounds to a barrel of trinkets then we'll find Raxxla!
 
... That's an incredible set of links. Reminds of BBS Radio 1's "tedious link" they used to do, which was never tedious and always entertaining ...

I'm not familiar with Tedious Link but I remember an old BBC television program from the 1970s that would play here in the States on PBS. "Connections" was hosted by James Burke and would trace how something like the motion picture camera could be traced back to advancements in castle fortifications in the middle ages.
 
Okay. So. The logic:

In 1980 Robert Holdstock's The Alien World, written under the pseudonym of Steven Eisler, is published. This is the first known reference to something named "Raxxla" and also contains a reference to a people collectively known as The Dark Wheel. A people who had been displaced in time and space by passing through a wormhole.

In 1981 Robert Holdstock's Where Time Winds Blow is published. As the name suggests Time Travel is a key element within the narrative. It may just be possible that Holdstock was aware of a very obscure time travel novel published in 1939 by, of all people, a nun named Sister Mary Catherine. This particular novel, now long out of print and largely forgotten, had a very interesting title: The Dark Wheel.

The title page of S.M.C.'s The Dark Wheel contains a quote:

"Not thine to understand
How the two worlds accord,—
The will of Love, our Lord,
With this dark wheel of Time."
--The Torch-Bearers

As it turns out "The Torch-Bearers" is a Trilogy of poetic verses by Alfred Noyes. Noyes had been invited to attend the "first light" of the Hooker Telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory. Book I of this Trilogy, Watchers of the Sky, opens with a prologue subtitled as "The Observatory" and chronicles this event. After the prologue comes seven poems dedicated to seven scientists: Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and William and John Herschel.

The second book of the Trilogy, The Book of Earth, starts in ancient Greece with Pythagoras and Aristotle, it then moves to the Middle East for Farabi and Avicenna. The scene then shifts successively to Italy for Leonardo, France for Guettard, Sweden for Linnaeus, France again for Buffon, Lamarck, Lavoisier, and Cuvier, and then Germany for Goethe, before ending in England with Darwin.

The third book, in which we find The Dark Wheel quote, chronicles a ship at sea on which a young girl is dying. Her chances aren't good ... until it is discovered that a specialist from John Hopkins is on another ocean liner that is within wireless range. This specialist can talk the surgeon through the operation leading to the possibility that "they" may save her after all.

Reflecting on this the poet realizes that "They" are all the seekers and discoverers of scientific truths through the ages – people like Harvey, Pasteur and Lister in the field of medicine or Faraday, Maxwell and Hertz in the development of the wireless.

Circling back around ... if there is a connection tying Holdstock to Noyes through Sister Mary Catherine then it is quite possible that whatever star the Hooker Telescope beheld on that November night 101 years ago just might be a key to finding Raxxla.

...or I could be overestimating Frontier entirely. :)

That's my kind of tinfoil.

Hooker Telescope is located in Mount Wilson Observatory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Wilson_Observatory

Sadly although I've found a dozen or so references to it in various places that wiki page seems to contain all the info that I can find, I can't find any that say which star it was pointed at. I guess if anyone lives in LA and can go visit it's possible the staff there might know more than is in the online materials: https://www.mtwilson.edu/visiting/

The telescope is interesting for a few things too:

"Edwin Hubble performed his critical calculations from work on the 100 inches (2.5 m) telescope. He determined that some nebulae were actually galaxies outside our own Milky Way. Hubble, assisted by Milton L. Humason, discovered the presence of the redshift that indicated the universe is expanding"

He pegged Andromeda as a galaxy outside our galaxy.
 
Couldn't something like Space Engine allow us to turn back time, go to that location at that time, and see what star it lines up with? I want to try this but am at work :(

Would suck that Frontier would be needing us to use external tools to make this leap but then it's not like that precedent doesn't exist!
 
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