The Quest To Find Raxxla

[CMDRGURU951]

This happened in 7 days exactly. After receiving the 20 courier missions from the bubble to Colonia.
Mind you several of those were not tip-offs. I'm at the point in the story (as I see it) that Alexander goes to the Oracle in the desert to confirm his true identity.
He followed birds to it. I went to Centralis and started at Phoenix Harbor. Saw nothing there. Centralis means center,
but also is a medical term for a portion of the lens of the eye that is defined as a deep depression where focus is the greatest.
The Siwa Oasis (Home of the Oracle in Egypt) is defined as a deep depression in the sand.
Found nothing at Phoenix Harbor. Went to the Phoenix system and found my first crashed ship, then a tip-off.
Went to all the bird named systems, and found 7 ships, +2 Unknown Wreckages. Only 4 of these were tip-off related, most were found in the bird systems.
The rest by going to systems affiliated with Alex and Greece. Finally finished scanning all Colonia inhabited systems and have got no jobs in the last 24 hrs.
I did missions (not much criminal besides smuggling and trespassing) and paid donations for everyone when asked at all times. These would lead to tip-offs at times.
The Bohmshohm reference in the Elite book Nemorensis references paying cash to a secret group to watch their criminal activities.
I don't know what to make of it yet. But I have been on this journey since the codex was introduced and have never had an experience like this the entire time.
Nor have any of my friends, or anyone else that I am aware of.

 

[Bran Lucius]

It's tied to Elysia...Imagine that.

+1 to your investigative work.

My question would be- are these names in game hand placed by FDev or are they result of an algorithm that compounds names and groups them together based on their connections to one another? For example the redudancy of a planet named Kore in the system Persephone.

Another thing Ive been thinking about is what if The Dark Wheel station can only be found by dropping out of supercruise? We already know there is code in the game so when you drop out of SC for example to a Nav Beacon, a bunch of ships appear. As a result in addition to flying around the 8th moon of every gas giant I find, I also drop out of SC and hang out for a few minutes and check radar/contacts just in case. If the station is truly low power and hand placed by FDev there is no reason to assume it will glow like other stations, or even show up in SC.

 

[CMDRGURU951]

My question would be- are these names in game hand placed by FDev or are they result of an algorithm that compounds names and groups them together based on their connections to one another? For example the redudancy of a planet named Kore in the system Persephone.

The Rares associated with them and the host of associations within the Aganippe, for me, are what captivate me the most.
Surely most actual named systems in game are randomly generated, but some in this story required a deeper investigation then just a name.
Demeter appears to not have much at first, til you look for her other names, likewise with Persephone and Nysa. Also the permit locks on the way are compelling.
This may be a small part in the "Investigator" aspect they speak of. Just my two cents.

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

Reading about the Eleusinian Mysteries, this seems more and more relevant. A trial that takes place over 9 days, with themes of 'descent', 'search' and 'ascent', with induction into the mysteries upon completion. A complex task, starting from Aganippe, perhaps, collecting certain rare commodities and also performing some other deeds: dromena ('things done'); deiknumena ('things shown') and legomena ('things said'). With a requirement for participants to be Triple Elite, those who complete the tasks could then be contacted directly by The Dark Wheel, as in given a permit or the location of their base to visit it for confirmation as described in the Codex. So which commodities need to be collected, what deeds should be done and where should they be sold?
Some possibly related rares, aside from those mentioned above: The Waters of Shintara, Eleu Thermals, Diso Ma Corn, HR 7221 Wheat, Wheemete Wheat Cakes?
Great work CMDRGURU951 ! o7

 

[Bran Lucius]

The Rares associated with them and the host of associations within the Aganippe, for me, are what captivate me the most.
Surely most actual named systems in game are randomly generated, but some in this story required a deeper investigation then just a name.
Demeter appears to not have much at first, til you look for her other names, likewise with Persephone and Nysa. Also the permit locks on the way are compelling.
This may be the "Investigator" aspect they speak of. Just my two cents.

I hope its like this (challenging and requireing investigation and effort) vs. it just being something FDev hands to us one day on a silver platter. A real mystery.

 

[Count dEstard]

I‘d like to add a few thoughts of my own:

1) Great to have you back CMDR Guru and thank you for sharing your thoughts. I might comment on those after having reread and stomached your theory.

Concerning the Eleusis theory: Han Zen(?) voiced the idea that perhaps a visit to Raxxla might only be possible at the right time. So we should have a look at when the eleusinian mysteries were held. Here we have the smaller and greater myssteries.

The smaller mysteries (Myesis) were held during Anthesterion which equals to february/march. They consisted of the priests cleansing themselves in Agrai at the river Ilissos and the ritual sacrifice of a pig, as well as the priests cleansing the inititates.

The greater mysteries you are referring (Teletai) were held during Boedromion which equals to August/September. They started with the procession from Eleusis arriving at Athens carrying Demeters holy symbols.

The next steps in Athens were cleansing the priests at Phaleron, having a bit of celebration and finally assembly at the cemetery of Kerameikos at Athens (reminds me of Tionisla) and the start of the procession back to Eleusis which had the notable part of paying respect to Iambe (there is a system called Jambe). After the procession arrived at Eleusis the myteries began with fasting and after that imbibing Kykeon (maybe psychotropic but no evidence). After that the procession went on to the Telesterion where they were shown Demeters artifacts and holy symbols. After that a great feast was held and the initiates danced on the Rharic fields (legend has it they were the first place to grow cereals in greece). Then the mysteries commenced and people returned home.

So: If there actually is a time vector now would be the time to get cleansed and August wolf be the time to start the holy procession.

BUT there is one thing that keeps me wondering: The story of Demeter/Kore is mainly a modified reproduction of Ceremonies much more amcient like those of Tammuz/Astarte. Those ceremonies were celebrated in march. So as the topic of death/rebirth are recurrent maybe march is fine as well IF there is a time vector.

2) To those using EDSM or Inara as a source for their research. I have been wondering whether some kind of inverted search might be more successful.

Reason: All the data provided there stems from CMDRs who have scanned the systems listed there. So I guess the probability of finding amything of interest in those systems is quite small. My suggestion is going to systems not listed there.

And here is what I‘m about to do: I‘ll refit my Cobra MK III to a full explorer built and return to SOL. I will then plot an economic route to Tau Ceti the place mentioned in the Codex and have a look for systems unexplored (yes have now made again enough money to make up for Exploracondplodations, so I‘m back).

3) A further word on Delphi: Delphi makes no sense if the myth originated with human spacefarers. Delphi was too far away in 2296. It would only make sense if the myth originated from Mars relic or left behinds from ancient Astronauts on earth like in v. Dänikens theories.

O7 & fly safe

 

[Han_Zen]

test

 

[Count dEstard]

test

Worked.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

test

icle

 

[Cunder]

I‘d like to add a few thoughts of my own:


3) A further word on Delphi: Delphi makes no sense if the myth originated with human spacefarers. Delphi was too far away in 2296. It would only make sense if the myth originated from Mars relic or left behinds from ancient Astronauts on earth like in v. Dänikens theories.

O7 & fly safe

Far? probably not far enough for the advancement of at the time. Drew mention on his youtube if they followed the rules of 7 lys of the earliest ship that is proximity 51 jumps to Delphi from Sol which is 357lys away. Still possible there were a lot of dedicated explorers even before the existence of Engineers look at the Megaship The Zurara in Formidine Rift the last log is the best example which was also mention in Elite Dangerous Premonition.

You can't rule out the clues of Delphi as it has a lot of the clues interconnected with Omphalos. Even the patch itself which change that system into Delphi to the addition of the codex was made to set an example that everything is connected.

It was already mention that by someone that once there is no progress made to look for something FD kick tiny clues to push the story.

Exploration is and has always been a huge thing in humanity they would go far out into space looking for things clues that would lead them into something they could take credit for. it's human to exceed our abilities to do things.

At this point I been reading along the Astrophel and Stella sonnets with someone translating the meaning and describing what the sonnet may be about.

 

[Thatchinho]

Far? probably not far enough for the advancement of at the time. Drew mention on his youtube if they followed the rules of 7 lys of the earliest ship that is proximity 51 jumps to Delphi from Sol which is 357lys away. Still possible there were a lot of dedicated explorers even before the existence of Engineers look at the Megaship The Zurara in Formidine Rift the last log is the best example which was also mention in Elite Dangerous Premonition.

You can't rule out the clues of Delphi as it has a lot of the clues interconnected with Omphalos. Even the patch itself which change that system into Delphi to the addition of the codex was made to set an example that everything is connected.

It was already mention that by someone that once there is no progress made to look for something FD kick tiny clues to push the story.

Exploration is and has always been a huge thing in humanity they would go far out into space looking for things clues that would lead them into something they could take credit for. it's human to exceed our abilities to do things.

At this point I been reading along the Astrophel and Stella sonnets with someone translating the meaning and describing what the sonnet may be about.

Pretty sure Drew didn’t actually say that 7 ly was the limit of very early hyperspace jumps.

 

[Spaceman Si]

Pretty sure Drew didn’t actually say that 7 ly was the limit of very early hyperspace jumps.

Not sure if he did or not as I didn’t watch all the video, but either 7 or 8 was what the limit was in the original game. (At 35 years into the past at this point, my memory is slightly hazy on whether it wa 7 or 8 )

 

[Rochester]

Firstly a big thanks to Cmdr Poet Starwind who initially brought this amusing alignment to light: an odd formation of 5 stars near Sol which spell out RAX-LA.

Link: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/168253-The-Quest-To-Find-Raxxla/page324

My initial interest was peaked due to a likelyhood of a Raxxla clue being relatively close to Sol, based on early exploration distances, a tenuous one at best.

Although I personally dont think its in the bubble and more likely its on the other side of nowhere this was as good a place to start than any other, and I had nothing better to do.

I also noticed that these stars all aligned in a spiral which unlikely as it may be, could be the fabled 'spiralling stars'. So I overlayed an actual archimedean spiral and there was alignment, there was also triangulation.

After a prolonged but entertaining distraction off Tau Ceti I decided I'd resolve this little mystery for science and for my own amusement.

Initially this meant scanning every system between those targeted areas, leaving nothing unturned, got a bit obessed with a void I thought I found, then I triangulated two areas from those stars and drilled upwards and downwards.

All of which heralded absolutely nothing. Albeit one tip-off mission, which was interesting as I hadnt had one of those in many moons but still nothing of note, nor along the archimedean line or withn two areas I triangulated. The entire sector has also been well and truely mapped by others.

Now there could in theory be something there which I missed due to sleep deprivation or which sat off the shores of where I was searching or even a crashed ship perchance, but generally even with the new scanners nothing really stood out as out of the ordinary.

Its been a hoot, one of many personal objectives I'm checking off...so there you go; another place where it probably isn't.

 

[Jaiotu]

Pretty sure Drew didn’t actually say that 7 ly was the limit of very early hyperspace jumps.

The 7 light year hyperspace limit was based purely on the amount of quirium fuel that the Cobra Mk III was capable of carrying. From the Space Trader's Flight Training Manual: "The ship is highly maneuverable, has a good C-holding factor during hyperspace transit, can hold sufficient Quirium H-fuel for a 7-light-year single jump". The ship was also capable of performing a Galactic Hyperspace jump.

I would presume that for other ships the jump range would be constrained by how much fuel they could carry. Basically, we don't have sufficient information to know exactly what that generation of thruspace drives were fully capable of.

 

[Cunder]

I came across a Blogger and Professor of Hanover College Jonathan Smith that goes over Astrophil and Stella sonnets
and uses another person notes that goes by the name Ducan-Jones

at this site https://blogs.hanover.edu/astrophil/2013/06/13/astrophil-and-stella-sonnet-25/

Sonnet 25

The wisest scholar of the wight most wise,
By Phoebus’ doom, with sugared sentence says,
That virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise;
But for that man with pain his truth descries,
While he each thing in sense’s balance weighs,
And so nor will, nor can, behold those skies
Which inward sun to heroic mind displays:
Virtue of late, with virtuous care to stir
Love of herself, takes Stella’s shape, that she
To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her.
It is most true, for since I her did see,
Virtue’s great beauty in that face I prove,
And find the effect, for I do burn in love.

" Reading notes: the third and fourth feet of the eighth line require elision, and I think the best course is to join the word “to” with the first syllable of “heroic”; and similarly, the second foot of the final line is an elided “th’effect.”

Structurally, the entire poem has “outie” (ABAB) rhymes and weak fulcrums (primarily after line 11, secondarily after line 8) with no real change of direction in the argument; the (quite deliberate) result is something that roughly parallels a dialogue of Plato, moving inexorably toward a logical conclusion. This impression is of course undercut by the humor and irony of the poem’s “punch line.”

As Duncan-Jones’s note on the poem details, the first line refers to Plato, the “scholar” of Socrates, the wisest man (“wight”) in the view of the Delphic Oracle, i.e., the priestess of Phoebus Apollo (who, by the way, is god of both the sun and wisdom). Lines 3 and 4 (gently mocked as “sugared sentence”) express the well-known Platonic idea from The Apology,* that the soul is drawn toward its own good by falling in love with virtue, when drawn to it by its beauty.

The second quatrain is a generalization about “mankind” (“his truth” could arguably refer back to Plato, but on reflection, it makes more sense that it refers to the generic “man” earlier in line 5) which obviously applies to the speaker himself: since “sense” (= appetite, or the life of the senses) filters everything, it is very difficult (“pain”) to get at the soul’s “truth,” or the “skies/Which inward sun [the soul, connected back to Apollo by this metaphor] to heroic mind [i.e., the mind that can overrule “sense”] displays.”

That whole idea, in turn, is contained within a “because” clause (introduced by “for that,” which idiomatically means “because”), which is answered in the first half of the sestet; thus, to paraphrase: Because an ordinary man (like the speaker) has trouble grasping wisdom or virtue, Virtue herself (personified) tries to take more visible form by assuming “Stella’s shape.” As a result, Plato’s point is proved, but only in a joking way. We know already (from previous sonnets) that Stella’s virtue is not at all a quality the speaker admires, and the well-chosen verb “burn in love” (also linked in jest to the earlier sun imagery) is the very opposite of the Platonic wisdom it is superficially claiming to illustrate.

* Duncan-Jones suggests that Sidney may actually have received the idea second-hand, from Cicero. "

I tried looking for notes from Duncan-Jones but had no luck finding it as of now.

Edit: I found out that it was Katherine Duncan-Jones

is an English literature and Shakespeare scholar. She was a Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge (1965–1966) and then Somerville College, Oxford (1966–2001). She was also Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford from 1998 to 2001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Duncan-Jones

Edit 2:

I found a book that Notes quite a bit of what is said in Poems it also notes Delphi that someone scanned this also in includes some interesting markings on pg 22 of the book. Everything here is searchable using Ctrl F I'll leave a link below.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/first/en121/sidney_astrophel_and_stella_1888.pdf

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

I've updated my earlier post with the full details from searching for the systems from the first 4 original Elite galaxies (I'm burned out for the moment, so won't be doing the other 4, especially when EDSM searches have turned up a blank) https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Find-Raxxla?p=7463488&viewfull=1#post7463488
I've included the names of all megaships and installations and, where I remembered to record them, the body each orbits.
How meaningful this is also depends upon whether these systems were included in FE2 and FEE. I think they did a straight port of the FFE database but had to change a few locations as the ED galaxy is wider than in FFE.

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

If anyone wants to get allied with the Low Profile Workshops faction in Bohmshohm, now is a very good time: they are in a state of both Boom and Outbreak and even though they don't own any assets in the system, they are generating many donation and data delivery missions and there are also missions in nearby systems to deliver basic medicines to them. Once your rep is friendly+, then you may also find well-paying missions to deliver cargo in-system to one of the bases on the moon Kaliash.

 

[Rudolphus]

Pretty sure Drew didn’t actually say that 7 ly was the limit of very early hyperspace jumps.

When you read the original Dark Wheel novella you read when Alex Ryder did travel from Xezaor to Ciraq the jumps he did make was between 6-8Ly afcorse he was loaded with cargo
"At nineteen light years from Xezaor, the Nemesis had made two refuelling stops, and as they came into System Space they had energy enough for a two-light-year jump only. The nearest world, Alex knew, was more than twice that distance away"

 

[Thatchinho]

The 7 light year hyperspace limit was based purely on the amount of quirium fuel that the Cobra Mk III was capable of carrying. From the Space Trader's Flight Training Manual: "The ship is highly maneuverable, has a good C-holding factor during hyperspace transit, can hold sufficient Quirium H-fuel for a 7-light-year single jump". The ship was also capable of performing a Galactic Hyperspace jump.

I would presume that for other ships the jump range would be constrained by how much fuel they could carry. Basically, we don't have sufficient information to know exactly what that generation of thruspace drives were fully capable of.

Yeah, but my point was that those aren't the early hyperspace jumps, and I don't think Drew was saying anything about the actual early hyperspace jumps, i.e. those that took place in the 22nd century. (Though I'm sure Drew will correct me if I'm getting that wrong! )


We don't really know anything about the early days in terms of actual information about the drives and jumps, just what was achieved using them. (I'm not saying that to you particularly btw Jaitou, as I'm sure you're well aware of it, just more of a lead in to a further discussion.)

One thing I think we can safely say though is that they weren't Quirium based. The Quirium formula being lost with the collapse of Galcop means that it can't have been known to anyone outside of a select few in Galcop, which isn't really compatible with it being what was developed on Earth and used for early hyperspace travel.

I would also hazard a guess that the type 2b wasn't so much a new development as a reversion to earlier tech. With the loss of Quirium there would have been a desperate rush for alternatives and one would think that using old tech would be the most pragmatic option available.

 

[Thatchinho]

When you read the original Dark Wheel novella you read when Alex Ryder did travel from Xezaor to Ciraq the jumps he did make was between 6-8Ly afcorse he was loaded with cargo
"At nineteen light years from Xezaor, the Nemesis had made two refuelling stops, and as they came into System Space they had energy enough for a two-light-year jump only. The nearest world, Alex knew, was more than twice that distance away"

Yeah, I know, and way back in the thread is my attempt to work out where Cirag should be in ED using the info from TDW. However, TDW is set nearly 1,000 years after the discovery of hyperspace and the start of hyperspace travel.