The Quest To Find Raxxla

[Jorki Rasalas]

I had a bit of a look round - it's the first eight moon gas giant I've found since becoming aware that eight moon gas giants were the thing - but didn't see anything. It's entirely possible, of course, that the big secret dark wheel base is fiendishly disguised as an utterly unremarkable ice moon 60000Ly from Sol.

No, TDW’s 8th moon station is not disguised as an ice moon, it’s just a normal toroidal station orbiting an ice moon but running at much reduced power so it won’t be detected very easily (remember ship’s scanners operate by heat detection), hence the need for visual location.

Raxxla, however, may be a different story. One of my hypotheses is that it’s an abandoned Guardian ark ship which has gathered sufficient cosmic dust & detritus over the millenia that it now resembles an ice moon. Of course it will be totally dead and incapable of any meaningful operational capability!

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

They never lost Raxxla, because they never got there. When Jason Ryder was killed, they lost their only member that may have known the way to get there.

They lost the map, not the place.

Tomayto, tomahto!

 

[Han_Zen]

iPhone markups was the best I can do right now. But just compare the 2 and hopefully you get what I mean. Red is the planet/moon, blue is what looks like the opening/portal between witch space and normal space and yellow is the light (idk why I marked the light lol)

I see what you mean. Difficult to say if it is something or just an effect of the animation.

The best you can do is probably to repeat the jump a few times, to replicate it. If that works, you can change either destination or jump system, to see if you get the same shape in a different size or angle.

Testing over and over is the only way to get a confirmation on something this vague.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

My biggest hint that it's bogus is that comment "It's in the game and we know where it is" Of course they know where it is they put it in the game,

There are ways to guarantee that Raxxla would appear in the game without even the devs knowing which system it will appear in.

For example, it could appear in the five billionth distinct system to be scanned by any player. Frontier would know that this would happen, but wouldn't be able to predict at all ahead of time which system that would be.

There are also some interesting cryptographic ways that Frontier could guarantee it was in a specific system without Frontier knowing what system that was.

So this statement does give slightly more information than just a bare "It's in the game" does.

This stuff about eighth moon of an unnamed gas giant. Is there a log somewhere of gas giants with eight moons? Or any further information by which you can rule out an eighth moon? I ask purely because I've just found a hitherto unknown eight moon gas giant. And I'm probably not the guy you want studying it for clues because I don't know anything.

Eighth moon is a clue to the Dark Wheel station, not to Raxxla specifically.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...the-the-dark-wheel-which-system-is-it.477422/ is a good thread going through the clues - the theory from there is that it's specifically in a red giant or supergiant system (assuming that the Codex picture is actually a screenshot of the Dark Wheel station) - and all the discovered red giant/supergiant systems with an eight moon gas giant in an appropriate orbit have been checked out. (The EDSM third-party tool can be queried to find these)

So my current working theory after that thread: it's in a so far undiscovered red (super)giant system with an eight-moon gas giant orbiting relatively close to the star. That would be a lot rarer than just any eight-moon gas giant (which aren't rare at all) - but still difficult to exhaustively search for without further clues, and still giving thousands of potential red giants to check out near the bubble.

Can we locate GAl 1-8 based on known info involving the in game planets from elite?

Gal 1 as you say, is reasonably obvious - bearing in mind that only the "Old Worlds" systems have stayed constant between Elite, FE2, FFE and Elite Dangerous, and that the relative geographic location of the systems in Elite Dangerous is very different to what they were in Elite, with the exception of the Old Worlds.

I suspect Atius is just a coincidence, because when you get one procedural name generator to throw out 2048 names (Elite) and another to throw out 20000ish (Elite Dangerous) and restrict both to producing vaguely pronouncable short words, there's going to be at least a litle overlap. (And there are four systems starting with the string Atius in Elite Dangerous)

One plausible theory would be that the other seven galaxies are within some of the distant permit-locked spheres. (e.g. places like Bovomit) - I don't believe they're anywhere identifiable within the bubble.

Just noticed something funny in the list of original game systems. No systems start with F,H,J,K,N,P,W,Y.(8 letters) Those are numbers 6,8,10,11,14,16,23,25.(adds to 113, a prime.) That is only 18 letters of the alphabet. Does this have to do with 8-bit games. Maybe two 8-bits with an extra bit each.

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite_planet_list#Where_do_these_crazy_names_come_from.3F explains the Elite name generation algorithm.

I expect they just kept modifying the LEXEGEZA string until it gave some good sounding results and no expletives

 

[ArchEmperor]

If you constantly are looking for something specific. That something will eventually slowly manifest into existence.

 

[Hanerib]

Is the Dark Circle a secret order of galactic gynecologists ?

I am the soul of darkness, Abrasax, the eternal one, Michaēl, but my true name is Thōouth, Thōouth.

"Above the seven planetary spheres was an eighth, the sphere of the fixed stars. In the eighth sphere, these Gnostics taught, dwelt the mother to whom all these archons owed their origin, Sophia"

We used to recite the names of the 365 rulers of heavens and make our nuclear technology based on basilidian numerology. Sophia and Dynamis! Ours emblem is the monad and the supreme majesty of a star. Ho! Sax, Amun, Sax, Abrasax; for thou art the moon the chief of the stars!

I miss those days in the Archambault Terminal, I really do. Good times.

 

[Macros Black]

Hey Macros,

I don't have the in-game time to be able to assist materially with verifying 'Operation Less Than Three' personally, however I have been keeping a rolling list of factions that The Dark Wheel has missions for/against for a while now to see if I can collate any data points that might help narrow the focus a bit.

I'm trying to verify if there are a select few factions that remain on their constantly 'active' mission listing so I can focus on these myself.

I thought it might help you out a bit as I started this before your first posting about OL3.

/ Ra.

Spoiler: Dark Wheel Mission Faction List

System	Faction	Player Faction	Government Type	Allegiance	Origin
LHS 317	44th Vulture Syndicate	Yes	Corporate	Federation	LHS 317
AENEAS	Aeneas Labour	No	Democracy	Federation	AENEAS
AENEAS	Aeneas Organisation	No	Corporate	Independent	AENEAS
AENEAS	Aeneas Resistance	No	Democracy	Federation	AENEAS
LP 908-11	Affiliates of Rhea-Sol Entrepreneurial Society	Yes	Confederacy	Federation	LP 908-11
CD-33 8748	Alliance of CD-33 8748	No	Confederacy	Federation	CD-33 3748
Arro Naga	Arro Naga Gold Society	No	Anarchy	Independent	?
LTT 5212	Bevan's Hope Family	No	Anarchy	Independent	?
Bunda	Bunda Bridge & Co	No	Corporate	Federation	BUNDA
Bunda	Bunda Crimson Organisation	No	Anarchy	Independent	?
BUNDA	Bunda Focus	No	Dictatorship	Independent	BUNDA
ARRO NAGA	Bureau of Arro Naga League	No	Dictatorship	Independent	?
CD-33 8748	CD-33 8748 Values Party	No	Democracy	Independent	?
ARRO NAGA	Celestial Horizon Corp	No	Democracy	Independent	ARRO NAGA
AENEAS	Chontantici Confederacy	No	Confederacy	Federation	CHONTANTICI
LHS 332	Collective of Independent Agents	Yes	Corporate	Federation	LHS 336
LTT 5212	Confederacy of Akandi	No	Confederacy	Federation	AKANDI
Arro Naga	Constitution Party of Arro Naga	No	Dictatorship	Independent	?
Nuenets	Constitution Party of Nuenets	No	Dictatorship	Independent	?
LP 908-11	Crew of LP 908-11	No	Anarchy	Independent	LP 908-11
SOLATI	Dominion of Solati	No	Dictatorship	Independent	SOLATI
FONG WANG	Elite Space Rangers	Yes	Democracy	Independent	FONG WANG
Solati	ER 8 Gang	No	Anarchy	Independent	?
GNOWEE	ER 8 Purple General & Co	No	Corporate	Federation	?
KATTA	Eravarenth Alliance	No	Confederacy	Federation	ERAVARENTH
GNOWEE	Family of LTT 5212	No	Anarchy	Independent	?
SOLATI	Federal Reclamation Co	Yes	Corporate	Federation	DELKAR
AKANDI	Fong Wang Future	No	Democracy	Independent	?
FONG WANG	Fong Wang Limited	No	Corporate	Federation	?
ARRO NAGA	Future of Arro Naga	No	Democracy	Federation	ARRO NAGA
KATTA	Gnowee Energy Limited	No	Corporate	Independent	?
LDS 413	Gnowee Independent Consulate	No	Patronage	Independent	?
GNOWEE	Gnowee Partnership	No	Confederacy	Federation	GNOWEE
LTT 5131	Green Party of LFT 926	No	Democracy	Federation	LFT 926
LFT 926	Heveri Legal Solutions	No	Corporate	Federation	HEVERI
Solati	Hodack Prison Colony	No	Prison Colony	Independent	HOLDACK
Katta	Katta Collective	No	Cooperative	Independent	KATTA
LHS 2477	Kwazahui Future	No	Democracy	Federation	KWAZAHUI
V886 CENTAURI	Law of Demeter	Yes	Democracy	Independent	V886 CENTAURI
LDS 413	LDS 413 Bureau	No	Dictatorship	Independent	LDS 413
AENEAS	LDS 413 Partners	No	Corporate	Federation	LDS 413
LDS 413	LDS 413 Resistance	No	Democracy	Federation	LDS 413
HEVERI	League of Logoni	No	Confederacy	Federation	?
LFT 926	LFT 926 Blue Hand Gang	No	Anarchy	Independent	LFT 926
LFT 926	LFT 926 Interstellar	No	Corporate	Independent	LFT 926
LTT 4487	LHS 2477 Jet Fortune Corp.	No	Corporate	Federation	LHS 2477
FONG WANG	LHS 2477 Purple Raiders	No	Anarchy	Independent	LHS 2477
LP 908-11	LHS 317 Future	No	Democracy	Federation	LHS 317
LP 908-11	LHS 317 Travel Exchange	No	Corporate	Federation	LHS 317
LHS 332	LHS 332 Coalition	No	Confederacy	Federation	LHS 332
LHS 346	LHS 346 Federal Exchange	No	Corporate	Independent	LHS 346
LHS 346	LHS 346 Partnership	No	Confederacy	Federation	LHS 346
LHS 2477	Lords of LHS 2477	No	Feudal	Independent	LHS 2477
LHS 317	LP 906-9 Blue Natural Group	No	Corporate	Federation	LP 906-9
LP 908-11	LP 908-11 Independents	No	Democracy	Federation	LP 908-11
LTT 4497	LTT 4487 Industry	No	Corporate	Federation	LTT 4487
LTT 4487	LTT 4487 Stakeholders	No	Cooperative	Independent	LTT 4487
LTT 4497	LTT 4497 Life Solutions	No	Corporate	Federation	LTT 4497
CD-33 8748	LTT 5131 United Ltd	No	Corporate	Federation	LTT 5131
LTT 4487	LTT 5212 Crimson Netcoms Corp.	No	Corporate	Independent	?
LTT 4497	Mafia of LTT 4497	No	Anarchy	Independent	LTT 4497
LTT 4497	New Solati Liberals	No	Democracy	Federation	SOLATI
NUENETS	Nuenets Blue Crew	No	Anarchy	Independent	?
NUENETS	Nuenets Corp.	No	Corporate	Federation	NUENETS
NUENETS	Nuenets Jet State Limited	No	Corporate	Independent	NUENETS
FONG WANG	Official LTT 5212 Party	No	Dictatorship	Empire	LTT 5212
KATTA	People's Bunda Independents	No	Democracy	Federation	BUNDA
LTT 5131	People's LTT 5131 Green Party	No	Democracy	Federation	?
NUENETS	Revolutionary Party of Nuenets	No	Democracy	Federation	NUENETS
LTT 5212	Solati Galactic Services	No	Corporate	Federation	SOLATI
SOLATI	Solati Jet drug Empire	No	Anarchy	Independent	SOLATI
LTT 5212	The Dark Wheel	No	Democracy	Independent	SHINRARTA DEZHRA
LHS 317	Traditional LHS 317 Dominion	No	Dictatorship	Independent	LHS 317
LHS 346	Union of ER 8 Alliance	No	Confederacy	Federation	ER 8
V886 Centauri	United V886 Centauri Autocracy	No	Dictatorship	Independent	?
V886 Centauri	V886 Centauri Corporation	No	Corporate	Federation	V886 Centauri
V886 CENTAURI	V886 Centauri Family	No	Anarchy	Independent	?
NUENETS	V886 Centauri Future	No	Democracy	Federation	V886 CENTAURI
SKEGGIKO O	Workers of Skeggiko o Labour	No	Democracy	Federation	SKEGGIKO O

Thank you very much for the list, CMDR. A quick eye-comparison tells me that there's a nice overlap of factions between our lists. Obviously factions are in flux when expanding/retracting to and from systems, so I'm considering how to capture this information.

As I have noted in the benevolent mission table, it appears that TDW in some instances gives both beneficiary and non-beneficiary missions to the same faction, which is a bit puzzling.

Is this something you have experienced?

 

[Kungfumaniac]

They never lost Raxxla, because they never got there. When Jason Ryder was killed, they lost their only member that may have known the way to get there.

They lost the map, not the place.

Why would they kill the only person that might know where it is? Just asking your thoughts.

 

[wetwire]

Figured i would bring this up here as an odd coincidence that could raise further investigation.
While i was doing some Raxxla research with "Princess Astrophel and the Spiralling Stars" , "Omphalos Rift" and "Astrophel Stella" relationships
I took the information that Omphalos being Delphi. Plugged Delphi into Astrophel Stella which indicated it means Wisest Man, or something similar.
This led me to a passage in the book that i continued to focus on.
This passage notes Phoebos which has a direct relation to Apollo.
When i noticed Apollo was a system i figured i would head there and take a look to get started.
This is when i was given a random mission critical mission quest out of no where. With associated signal source in the system.
Upon investigating it turned out to be a simple fetch quest to collect 72 units of some type of oil and hand it in at the station nearby, but what interested me was it was for Elite Trader status only.
Having seen the rumors that Elite status was required to find Raxxla this raised my suspension.

So my question is, are the random missions biased on your current rank and is this a common event that just happened to show up while i was in the Apollo system?
Or is this a unique instance that warrants further investigation?

 

[Macros Black]

Figured i would bring this up here as an odd coincidence that could raise further investigation.
While i was doing some Raxxla research with "Princess Astrophel and the Spiralling Stars" , "Omphalos Rift" and "Astrophel Stella" relationships
I took the information that Omphalos being Delphi. Plugged Delphi into Astrophel Stella which indicated it means Wisest Man, or something similar.
This led me to a passage in the book that i continued to focus on.
This passage notes Phoebos which has a direct relation to Apollo.
When i noticed Apollo was a system i figured i would head there and take a look to get started.
This is when i was given a random mission critical mission quest out of no where. With associated signal source in the system.
Upon investigating it turned out to be a simple fetch quest to collect 72 units of some type of oil and hand it in at the station nearby, but what interested me was it was for Elite Trader status only.
Having seen the rumors that Elite status was required to find Raxxla this raised my suspension.

So my question is, are the random missions biased on your current rank and is this a common event that just happened to show up while i was in the Apollo system?
Or is this a unique instance that warrants further investigation?

That is a good question about the rank. I think that if you stay in a system long enough, missions will pop up.

 

[wetwire]

That is a good question about the rank. I think that if you stay in a system long enough, missions will pop up.

The mission arrived the moment i jumped into system. i was not even finished fuel scooping.
I did the mission by picking up the request from another nearby system. upon return to deliver , again i got the mission critical message the moment i entered the system.
once i deliver the goods i stop getting missions. i even stays in supercruise for a long time to see if i got another and nothing.

Edit: What caught me off guard was how fast the mission came in, and that it only happened in the Apollo system. none other that i jumped to.
I have seen these pop up before like you stated but i had been in system awhile before i was messaged. not the moment i entered the system.
Maybe someone else with elite status in trade or any i guess could jump into apollo to see if they get a mission critical notices right after jumping in.
Assuming they have not already done it. because mine stopped right after completing the quest.

(also of note, the Apollo system was unknown to me at the time, i had no system data available. so i do not feel it was a chain mission for that system.)

 

[Noobilite]

1. I found another system in galaxy 6. Aten.
2. What if we have to feed Raxxla backwards through one of the name generators logic and spit it out the newer one somehow. Was the name in the original games generator attached to location? I don't understand the wiki pages info enough to figure out.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

1. I found another system in galaxy 6. Aten.

Aten is most plausibly in Elite Dangerous because it's the name of an ancient Egyptian deity - there are several other systems on that theme.
(This could also apply to Ra, which of the galaxy 1 systems in Elite Dangerous is a long way from the fairly tight cluster of the others, and therefore might also be a coincidental match)

2. What if we have to feed Raxxla backwards through one of the name generators logic and spit it out the newer one somehow. Was the name in the original games generator attached to location? I don't understand the wiki pages info enough to figure out.

To simplify, each system in the original game started out as a 4-byte number, which was used as the starting state of a basic (and not actually very good, since it it had to fit into 80s hardware) random number generator, and various operations on both the number itself and the output of the RNG were used to determine the system properties - including both name and position. So there is a connection between the name and position, but it's not one that you can use to go between the two: knowing the position doesn't give you enough information about the system's internal number to determine its name (and there are a few examples of systems occupying the exact same coordinates), while systems of the same name can be generated in different positions (check Inzaan and Inzaan in Galaxy 8, for example, or Xeer and Xeer in Galaxies 1 and 5) ... as I said, the Elite RNG wasn't actually all that random.

However, RAXXLA is not a possible name for a system in the original Elite, because names in that game are made up of digrams (letter pairs) and because of the formation of the LEXE string, all digrams consist of one of:
- vowel then consonant
- consonant then vowel
- special case: the letter A alone (which is how systems with an odd number of letters are generated) represented as A' (A-apostrophe) in the LEXE string.
So LAVE = LA + VE, TIONISLA = TI + ON + IS + LA, and so on

RA and LA are valid digrams used in many original Elite system names - XX is not. So there's no way that you could "pick the right number" to get RAXXLA as a system in the original Elite.

 

[Han_Zen]

Why would they kill the only person that might know where it is? Just asking your thoughts.

The Cobra that killed Jason Ryder was probably working for 'the wicked men' that are on Raxxla(according to Rafe Zetter).

It would not surprise me if 'the wicked men' and the Club are the same thing.

The Cobra that killed Jason was also responsible for enslaving Elyssia Fields and her sister and killing the rest of her family as they escaped from Teorge. That could be a connection to Drew's clone ladies. Rebecca was part of the Club, long ago.

 

[Scytale]

I keep thinking the discovery of Raxxla is tightly bound to interacting with TDW. It was so when the E/F missions were running and it must be so since the Codex suggests to work for them/ allies/ interests untill they invite you.

 

[Macros Black]

Went to Apollo, no missions offered. Visited a High Intensity Combat Zone, and one of the HazRes'. Back to OLT3.

 

[wetwire]

Went to Apollo, no missions offered. Visited a High Intensity Combat Zone, and one of the HazRes'. Back to OLT3.

Thanks for checking that Macros, having confirmation helps so i dont get stuck looking down a rabbit hole.

 

[Noobilite]

Aten is most plausibly in Elite Dangerous because it's the name of an ancient Egyptian deity - there are several other systems on that theme.
(This could also apply to Ra, which of the galaxy 1 systems in Elite Dangerous is a long way from the fairly tight cluster of the others, and therefore might also be a coincidental match)


To simplify, each system in the original game started out as a 4-byte number, which was used as the starting state of a basic (and not actually very good, since it it had to fit into 80s hardware) random number generator, and various operations on both the number itself and the output of the RNG were used to determine the system properties - including both name and position. So there is a connection between the name and position, but it's not one that you can use to go between the two: knowing the position doesn't give you enough information about the system's internal number to determine its name (and there are a few examples of systems occupying the exact same coordinates), while systems of the same name can be generated in different positions (check Inzaan and Inzaan in Galaxy 8, for example, or Xeer and Xeer in Galaxies 1 and 5) ... as I said, the Elite RNG wasn't actually all that random.

However, RAXXLA is not a possible name for a system in the original Elite, because names in that game are made up of digrams (letter pairs) and because of the formation of the LEXE string, all digrams consist of one of:

• vowel then consonant
• consonant then vowel
• special case: the letter A alone (which is how systems with an odd number of letters are generated) represented as A' (A-apostrophe) in the LEXE string.

So LAVE = LA + VE, TIONISLA = TI + ON + IS + LA, and so on

RA and LA are valid digrams used in many original Elite system names - XX is not. So there's no way that you could "pick the right number" to get RAXXLA as a system in the original Elite.

Maybe XX marks the spot. what about replacing XX with all possible lexecon combinations and see if any system names or galmap results pop up.

Oolite planet list - Elite Wiki

wiki.alioth.net

"ABOUSEITILETSTONLONUTHNOAL" (used by the planet description string)

RAXXLA:

RAabLA
RAboLA
RAouLA
RAusLA
RAseLA
RAeiLA
RAitLA
RAtiLA
RAilLA
RAleLA
RAetLA
RAtsLA
RAstLA
RAtoLA
RAonLA
RAnlLA
RAloLA
RAonLA
RAnuLA
RAutLA
RAthLA
RAhnLA
RAnoLA
RAoaLA
RAalLA

and " ' 'LEXEGEZACEBISOUSESARMAINDIREA'ERATENBERALAVETIEDORQUANTEISRION" (Planets and systems)

RAleLA
RAexLA
RAxeLA
RAegLA
RAgeLA
RAezLA
RAzaLA
RAacLA
RAceLA
RAebLA
RAbiLA
RAisLA
RAsoLA
RAouLA
RAusLA
RAseLA
RAesLA
RAsaLA
RAarLA
RArmLA
RAmaLA
RAaiLA
RAinLA
RAndLA
RAdiLA
RAirLA
RAreLA
RAeaLA
RAa'LA
RA'eLA
RAerLA
RAraLA
RAatLA
RAteLA
RAenLA
RAnbLA
RAbeLA
RAerLA
RAraLA
RAalLA
RAlaLA
RAavLA
RAveLA
RAetLA
RAtiLA
RAieLA
RAedLA
RAdoLA
RAorLA
RArqLA
RAquLA
RAuaLA
RAanLA
RAntLA
RAteLA
RAeiLA
RAisLA
RAsrLA
RAriLA
RAioLA
RAonLA

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Maybe XX marks the spot. what about replacing XX with all possible lexecon combinations and see if any system names or galmap results pop up.

There are only six known inhabited systems in Elite Dangerous which have the pattern ra??la

Arabela
Aurawala
Branglal
Draualang
Kaurawalaga
Yuragala

All of them have at least one extra letter, so it's probably nothing to do with any of them.


In the original Elite, Rainla (Galaxy 4) is the only one to fit the pattern, and the order of events involved in the writing of The Dark Wheel means that this is almost certainly coincidental.

 

[Noobilite]

It could be a planet though.