The Quest to find Soontill

There's a massive thread out there for people trying to find Raxxla, but I haven't seen anybody seriously trying to find the other great mystery in the game - the real Soontill. Yes, we do have a Soontill in the Galaxy Map, but I think we've been lied to. I think Galnet are hiding something in plain sight, and there is an increasing body of evidence to state that the Soontill you think is Soontill, isn't the real one. There is more information and some clues about it here.

The system we currently call Soontill has a tourist hotspot where a reputed Human-Thargoid project took place:

"This is rumoured to be the site of the CIEP base. Some stories claim a combined Human-Thargoid project took place here."

But the actual Soontill is said to be a fantastical world filled with Thargoid treasures, discovered by pilots from an off-shoot of the mysterious Dark Wheel. It's location was discovered by pirates, and it looks like it was destroyed at some point. Or was it?

There is an interesting clue as to its location on the Research section of the Elite Dangerous wiki page:

"The acronym CIEP could mean Circle of Independent Elite Pilots, an offshoot of The Dark Wheel. They used it as a secret military base before being run off by pirates with fancy military technology. The location of Soontill was found by the pirates because it was close to Grandmort and the origin of the Circle attack force which traveled (out of their way) through Brohman and Lanaest to reach Delta Phoenicis.

The description (abbreviated from the description given by the pirate Robert Gary) upon entering the system is that of a pale purple Brown Dwarf 2AU (998ls) away with a large debris field and “space fog” with a planet hidden inside. That planet was supposedly turned into a volcanic mess by said pirate. This does not sound like the Soontill System listed in the UC database (well maybe the 4th planet)."


My research into possible candidates for the real Soontill centred around a system that would be a relatively short distance from the Grandmort system, and after a lot of digging and searching, I found one system that appeared to be a perfect candidate - HIP 58482.

It fit the criteria perfectly:

1. It was in a totally different location on the galaxy map to the current Soontill.
2. It was a relatively short distance from Grandmort - for pre-engineering pirate ships to jump to.
3. It had a Classy Y dwarf - HIP 58482 1 at *exactly* 998LS distance from the main star upon arrival.
4. The dwarf even has an eerie shine or glow as you approach it.

Alas, it was not meant to be. After waiting patiently for Chapter 4 to drop, I began my scan of the system in a painstaking and methodical manner. I believe I have scanned or mapped every USS, every asteroid belt, every body, in that system. I found nothing on the planets apart from Geological points of interest and the odd Degraded Emissions signals. There was nothing.

This is deeply disappointing, but the search continues. I wanted to share down my findings in the hope that someone else might find this useful, and so they would avoid covering the same ground.

The real Soontill is out there - somewhere...waiting to be found.

o7 Commanders.
 
Unfortunately, as far as ED lore is concerned, the system labelled "Soontill" is "the real Soontill". I would not expect FD to be so convoluted as to put a fake Soontill on the map, then hide the real Soontill under another name elsewhere.

If Raxxla could have been found simply by typing "Raxxla" into the galmap search bar, than that "Raxxla" would have been "the real Raxxla", as far as ED lore was concerned. The "real Raxxla" is (presumably) hidden under a false name, but the "real Soontill" is in the Soontill system.

In ED lore, the "Soontill Relics" are a Rare Good and are presumed to be fake. At least, that's what the Engineer who insists you bring her some keeps saying.
 
Thanks all. That's a bit disappointing. I was really hoping to find some more mystery about this :-(
Ya as shown the ingame Soontill does not match up at all with that in the book. Unfortunatly I was unable to find anything more than that. I was hoping to find Garys Reclamation out there somewhere near Grandmort.. I even tried looking at trade data of the systems in that area.... But i imagine its just an example of inconsistancies between the books which were written before the game was out, and the final product.
 
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There's a massive thread out there for people trying to find Raxxla, but I haven't seen anybody seriously trying to find the other great mystery in the game - the real Soontill. Yes, we do have a Soontill in the Galaxy Map, but I think we've been lied to. I think Galnet are hiding something in plain sight, and there is an increasing body of evidence to state that the Soontill you think is Soontill, isn't the real one. There is more information and some clues about it here.

The system we currently call Soontill has a tourist hotspot where a reputed Human-Thargoid project took place:

"This is rumoured to be the site of the CIEP base. Some stories claim a combined Human-Thargoid project took place here."

But the actual Soontill is said to be a fantastical world filled with Thargoid treasures, discovered by pilots from an off-shoot of the mysterious Dark Wheel. It's location was discovered by pirates, and it looks like it was destroyed at some point. Or was it?

There is an interesting clue as to its location on the Research section of the Elite Dangerous wiki page:

"The acronym CIEP could mean Circle of Independent Elite Pilots, an offshoot of The Dark Wheel. They used it as a secret military base before being run off by pirates with fancy military technology. The location of Soontill was found by the pirates because it was close to Grandmort and the origin of the Circle attack force which traveled (out of their way) through Brohman and Lanaest to reach Delta Phoenicis.

The description (abbreviated from the description given by the pirate Robert Gary) upon entering the system is that of a pale purple Brown Dwarf 2AU (998ls) away with a large debris field and “space fog” with a planet hidden inside. That planet was supposedly turned into a volcanic mess by said pirate. This does not sound like the Soontill System listed in the UC database (well maybe the 4th planet)."


My research into possible candidates for the real Soontill centred around a system that would be a relatively short distance from the Grandmort system, and after a lot of digging and searching, I found one system that appeared to be a perfect candidate - HIP 58482.

It fit the criteria perfectly:

1. It was in a totally different location on the galaxy map to the current Soontill.
2. It was a relatively short distance from Grandmort - for pre-engineering pirate ships to jump to.
3. It had a Classy Y dwarf - HIP 58482 1 at exactly 998LS distance from the main star upon arrival.
4. The dwarf even has an eerie shine or glow as you approach it.

Alas, it was not meant to be. After waiting patiently for Chapter 4 to drop, I began my scan of the system in a painstaking and methodical manner. I believe I have scanned or mapped every USS, every asteroid belt, every body, in that system. I found nothing on the planets apart from Geological points of interest and the odd Degraded Emissions signals. There was nothing.

This is deeply disappointing, but the search continues. I wanted to share down my findings in the hope that someone else might find this useful, and so they would avoid covering the same ground.

The real Soontill is out there - somewhere...waiting to be found.

o7 Commanders.

Sorry for resurrecting this.
I visited your candidate system, as I am also on this search...and it nearly fits the bill in a scary way. My only thing being that it's too far from Grandmort? Maybe? Nearly as far from it as Grandmort is to Delta Phoenicis. I supercruise around the rings (inner and outer), and of course scanned both rings...nothing. I don't expect Soontill to be scannable, but found the old way, so I may go back and supercruise much closer to the debris, on lookout for any clouds in the belt.

I only checked two of the belt clusters, too, as I've always suspected Fdev would hide things in them(since nobody goes into them). I checked cluster 1 and 7 but I'll go back to pop into the others.

...And that brings me to another thing. Elite Fandom paraphrases Robert Gray's quote as stating that, "Upon entering the system, is that of a pale purple Brown Dwarf 2AU away with a large debris field and space fog with a planet hidden inside." I'd love to see the original quote, but this can be separate things. It didn't specifically day the "Brown Dwarf had rings," but a debris field. This can still be a system with a Brown Dwarf and a belt cluster. Also, when you do supercruise rings, unless you are very close, you won't see fog, as you're travelling superluminal--too fast. This might call for a manual search....the old, long planetary way.

I agree with he fandom page that the Soontill reported by cartographics may not be the real system, as it does not fit the description and is not close to either Nguri, or Grandmort. Remember too that The Club controls everything...including cartographics and they are the force that CIEP was essentially fleeing from...well pirates sent and outfitted by The Club. As mentioned, the pirates were equipped with "fancy military hardware."

My only two questions, are, what is the significance of Grandmort? As the quote from the pirates stated that Soontill was near "Grandmort and the origin of the Circle attack route." This doesn't mean Grandmort is the origin of the Circle attack route. My second question is how much of the surrounding Grandmort region did you check? I'm literally searching every neighboring system within a 50-100ly radius. Until every neighboring system is marked "visited." And I'm Full System Scanning all of them.
 
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Instead of asking 'where is the real Soontil?' we could also ask 'where did the Soontil planet go?' Maybe it is the real Soontil and the planet was moved, cloaked or destoyed?
 
Sorry for resurrecting this.

My only two questions, are, what is the significance of Grandmort? As the quote from the pirates stated that Soontill was near "Grandmort and the origin of the Circle attack route." This doesn't mean Grandmort is the origin of the Circle attack route. My second question is how much of the surrounding Grandmort region did you check? I'm literally searching every neighboring system within a 50-100ly radius. Until every neighboring system is marked "visited." And I'm Full System Scanning all of them.


I would suggest reading the book And Here the Wheel - its a good read and has the whole story. And ya this is filled with spoilers so stop and read first.
But Grandmort was significant because it was the only place where these weird idols were made and they found them. Also Roberts dad (A CIEP leader) had one... been to Grandmort. Arouca is where Robert grew up while his dad was in the CIEP... Brohman was where the CIEP flieet initally gathers .... so somewhere near these three systems...

Since this keeps coming up I figured Id fix the old drawing -

2ydG46k.jpg
 
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If you follow the instructions in 'And Here the Wheel' on the subject of locating Soontil, you will find that the in-game system is exactly where it states in the book.
That's entirely incorrect, Soontil on GalMap is nowhere near the book's description. Although, the instructions from the book are definitely not precise, I'd not call them instructions at all tbh.

BUT, that doesn't mean the in-game Soontill isn't the real one. FDev is known to be of their lazyness and I guess they've just placed Soontill wherever.
 
I would suggest reading the book And Here the Wheel - its a good read and has the whole story. And ya this is filled with spoilers so stop and read first.
But Grandmort was significant because it was the only place where these weird idols were made and they found them. Also Roberts dad (A CIEP leader) had one... been to Grandmort. Arouca is where Robert grew up while his dad was in the CIEP... Brohman was where the CIEP flieet initally gathers .... so somewhere near these three systems...

Since this keeps coming up I figured Id fix the old drawing -

2ydG46k.jpg

Very informative! Thanks very much for this!

It's funny, too because the figurines almost remind me of the Trinkets of Hidden Fortune. A cannisters of trinkets that sound to consist of nicknacks, some of which may be figurines(?) And which may contain messages in them. I originally took them to be a key to finding a hidden thing.

I guess I didn't know you could still read the original game book. Nice!
 
Very informative! Thanks very much for this!

It's funny, too because the figurines almost remind me of the Trinkets of Hidden Fortune. A cannisters of trinkets that sound to consist of nicknacks, some of which may be figurines(?) And which may contain messages in them. I originally took them to be a key to finding a hidden thing.

I guess I didn't know you could still read the original game book. Nice!

Thanks! Ya there were several books written by different authors as part of the release.. Ive read a few and they definitely add to the game. Im sure you can get it other places but here is the Amazon Link.
 
That's entirely incorrect, Soontil on GalMap is nowhere near the book's description

"Draw a line from Delta Phoenicis to Grandmort and another through Delta Phoenicis, Lanaest and [*][Brohman].' Two near straight lines materialised like a narrow 'V'. Robert closed a fist and smiled. 'Extrapolate that one out, would you Thwaites?"
Soontil is described as being within the 'v'. Its a bit vague... Soontil, if memory serves, is the bookmark behind Nguri right inside the 'V'. I've put a red dot there. Also, ignore the HIP system at the top. Nothing to see here :D

Eckee, the issues are several.
1: You're answering a comment made two years ago.
2: You would never find Soontil based solely on the given data, and neither did Garry - he had a couple of possible systems to narrow it down to.
3:The direction in which to look is not actually specified, BUT you can make the instructions line up with Soontil as shown. Given that the book was written before the game released, that is a damn fine piece of galactic positioning. What has changed is the structure of the system thanks to the generation engine.
4: This 'plan', the system name and the in-system beacon support this system being soontil. That's 3 individual bits of evidence. Soontil is Soontil. There is no evidence for it being another system.
 

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"Draw a line from Delta Phoenicis to Grandmort and another through Delta Phoenicis, Lanaest and [*][Brohman].' Two near straight lines materialised like a narrow 'V'. Robert closed a fist and smiled. 'Extrapolate that one out, would you Thwaites?"
Soontil is described as being within the 'v'. Its a bit vague... Soontil, if memory serves, is the bookmark behind Nguri right inside the 'V'. I've put a red dot there. Also, ignore the HIP system at the top. Nothing to see here :D

Eckee, the issues are several.
1: You're answering a comment made two years ago.
2: You would never find Soontil based solely on the given data, and neither did Garry - he had a couple of possible systems to narrow it down to.
3:The direction in which to look is not actually specified, BUT you can make the instructions line up with Soontil as shown. Given that the book was written before the game released, that is a damn fine piece of galactic positioning. What has changed is the structure of the system thanks to the generation engine.
4: This 'plan', the system name and the in-system beacon support this system being soontil. That's 3 individual bits of evidence. Soontil is Soontil. There is no evidence for it being another system.
Nice! Ya I forgot to include the "V" diagram description... You have the description right but Soontill is no where near the "V". - see my map

It is very obvious that Soontill was supposed to be somewhere in between Grandmort/Brohman/Arouca from how the story describes things and just as obvious that the in game Soontill does not fit that description. Probably due to FD putting it where they wanted instead of the Author..

For Fun:
Arouca 104.96875 / -6.53125 / -4.40625
Brohman 142.03125 / -25.875 / 49.90625
Grandmort 134.71875 / 13.71875 / 88.34375
Projected centerpoint of those three systems : 127.24 / -6.23 / 44.61
Soontill 249.65625 / -45.34375 / 120

Distance to projected CP from Grandmort: ~48.67ly / Arouca: ~53.75ly / Brohman: ~25.14ly
Distance to Soontill (ingame) from Grandmort ~133.07ly / Arouca ~194.63 / Brohman ~129.74
 
Nice! Ya I forgot to include the "V" diagram description... You have the description right but Soontill is no where near the "V". - see my map

It is very obvious that Soontill was supposed to be somewhere in between Grandmort/Brohman/Arouca from how the story describes things and just as obvious that the in game Soontill does not fit that description. Probably due to FD putting it where they wanted instead of the Author..

For Fun:
Arouca 104.96875 / -6.53125 / -4.40625
Brohman 142.03125 / -25.875 / 49.90625
Grandmort 134.71875 / 13.71875 / 88.34375
Projected centerpoint of those three systems : 127.24 / -6.23 / 44.61
Soontill 249.65625 / -45.34375 / 120

Distance to projected CP from Grandmort: ~48.67ly / Arouca: ~53.75ly / Brohman: ~25.14ly
Distance to Soontill (ingame) from Grandmort ~133.07ly / Arouca ~194.63 / Brohman ~129.74

The description is not looking for a centre point... simply that the system appears within an extrapolated 'V' . It can't be triangulated - that is not its purpose. It simply highlights one of six (I think) possible systems from information not available to the player. Soontil is Soontil.


With regards to the 'fake relics', the relics are fake, as in not of alien origin, but that doesn't prove that Soontil is fake. Its like making little Statue of Liberty models and someone claiming that New York is a myth....

The story is clear. There is no ambiguity of whether Soontil is Soontil. If you think otherwise, please provide detailed supporting evidence. Read the book, enjoy the story and be thankful that some of it is reflected in the game.
 
The description is not looking for a centre point... simply that the system appears within an extrapolated 'V' . It can't be triangulated - that is not its purpose. It simply highlights one of six (I think) possible systems from information not available to the player. Soontil is Soontil.


With regards to the 'fake relics', the relics are fake, as in not of alien origin, but that doesn't prove that Soontil is fake. Its like making little Statue of Liberty models and someone claiming that New York is a myth....

The story is clear. There is no ambiguity of whether Soontil is Soontil. If you think otherwise, please provide detailed supporting evidence. Read the book, enjoy the story and be thankful that some of it is reflected in the game.

In the book it indicates that those three points are probably close to Soontill..for various reasons already mentioned. And yes while the V description leaves alot to be desired .... ingame Soontill is nowhere even remotely near that V.

Since we have no idea what the relics are... we cant make any assumptions other than whats published in galnet... and the fact that they are coming from Ngurii... which does have Gary Reclamations operating there...

I think your analogy of a famous city is apt ... but you seem dead set on making Moscow Idaho into Moscow Russia based solely on the name... absolutly nothing else matches Soontill ingame vs the book. Ample evidence of that has already been provided. Ya i think enjoying the story is what we are doing here.
 
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