(IN UNIVERSE)
My fellow commanders. It is with a heavy heart that I must come before you today to put an end to the lies and corruption within the Pilots’ Federation. This once-venerable institution has been infiltrated and subjugated by a nefarious group of elites known only as ‘The Club’. For years the Club has, through its manipulation of the Pilots’ Federation, kept down all good independent commanders in general, and The Dark Wheel in particular, in their efforts to keep us from many truths — including the location of Raxxla, that they may continue to exploit its riches while we are kept wandering in the darkness. There still remain good men and women of the Pilots’ Federation who will not be a party to this nefarious plot and who have, at great personal risk, smuggled information out to us that has brought this cabal to the light of day. Commander Gambit, who has risked everything for this cause, will forever be remembered as a hero of the people.
No longer shall we accept this injustice. We, The Coalition of Seekers, stand up today and say clearly and in one voice, “NO MORE!” We shall gather under the banner of The Dark Wheel whom you have kept isolated and subjugated and shall carry these seekers of truth across the galaxy to bring them to their proper place and assist their quest to find the answers to the greatest mysteries of this century! We will not be denied. We will not be stopped. We will prevail!
So say we all.
(OUT OF UNIVERSE)
NOTE: The inclusion of reference to Bruce Garrido’s callsign ‘Gambit’ above is not in any way intended to give off the false impression that he gave me any inside information on this project. I told him about the project as a fully-formed idea and he said it sounded cool and that he would like to fly missions for it on his off duty hours. The flourish above about him bringing inside information was nothing more than my feeble attempt at in-lore storytelling and an attempt to frame the narrative that not all of the employees within the Pilots’ Federation are in on this cabal so that if, in the future, we can get Frontier to support the project in a livestream or something it would be a scenario where they are the good guys fighting to clear the name of their institution.
PRIMER: ‘Elite: The Dark Wheel’ written by Robert Holdstock and inspired by the intergalactic space trading adventure program, ELITE, by David Braben and Ian Bell.
Acornsoft Limited, Betjeman House, 104 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1LQ, England
Copyright © Acornsoft Limited 1984
So with that little bit of theater out of the way I suppose that I should explain what this is all about. Well, here is the idea in a nutshell so that you may decide for yourself if it’s worth your time.
In the 1984 Novella ‘Elite:The Dark Wheel’ (cited above) The Dark Wheel are clearly stated to be the seekers of both truth and treasure who are searching for the secret location of Raxxla. Now while many casual Elite Dangerous players may be operating under the false impression that The Dark Wheel are some evil group that is keeping the location of Raxxla a secret (probably because of the bias in Western Literature for ‘Dark’ to be tied to evil. Rather, in this example ‘Dark’ is properly applied to conjure the idea of stealth). The Truth is exactly the opposite. The Dark Wheel of whom Jason Rider was a member before he was murdered and whom Alex Rider was almost murdered on his quest to join, were the seekers of knowledge. The (then) unnamed group of elites who were exploiting Raxxla and were murdering (or having murdered) members of The Dark Wheel who were getting too close to discovering the location of Raxxla (and ending their monopoly on exploitation of its riches) were a group that most definitely fits the description in Elite Dangerous lore of ‘The Club’.
So now that the introduction is out of the way and people are clear that ‘The Dark Wheel’ are the good guys in the story and not the baddies, let’s get to the idea itself. Frontier has been steadfast in their stance that they will not be giving out clues on the location of Raxxla other than to say that, “It exists in game and we (Frontier) know where it is”.
https://clips.twitch.tv/BillowingDarkWaspTriHard
So over five years in and, to my knowledge, we are no closer to finding Raxxla today then we were on day one. Enter idea, stage left: what if the reason why we have never found anything on Raxxla is because thousands of commanders have spent a cumulative total of millions of hours searching alone or in small groups for a thing that they cannot find because it is behind a wall?
Saying that Raxxla exists in the game and you know where it is can be absolutely true but if, for example, Raxxla was in the Sol system — a person could search the game for years but if they did not have access to the Sol system it would never be found. Now, the Sol system has been searched top to bottom, but what about some other location that may be locked behind some permit or some other condition state that has not been met?
That would mean that search all you might you CANNOT possibly find it. If this were the case then the famous David Braben OBE quote would be true — Raxxla would be in game — and yet despite the vast number of hours spent searching we would never find it. Now, if this is the case then either one of two possibilities must be true. Either Raxxla is locked behind some mechanism that we cannot unlock, or Raxxla is locked behind some mechanism that we can unlock but have not yet figured out.
If we are dealing with the former situation then it’s poor form on the part of Frontier and there is nothing we can do about it. I, however, choose to believe that if we have not found Raxxla due to some lock mechanism then it is one that we players can unlock — we just have to figure out how to do it. Regardless of whether the project that I am suggesting here pans out to anything, if the above idea inspires you to look at the problem from a different angle and create some new theories of your own to test, then I am quite happy for it!
Experiment: Test whether expanding The Dark Wheel non-player minor faction (TDW), either in general or targeted to key locations, would unlock any permit, or cause any change in the game (ie unlock missions or other clues).
Reasoning: I believe that TDW is the “obvious” lead that we are meant to do something with, and many have agreed with this thought and individually tried all sorts of things to follow that lead, but to the best of my knowledge there has been no concerted and successful efforts to expand the faction through the BGS to see if it would do anything.
Secondary Objective: To minimize adverse effects upon any player factions, and work diplomatically with any groups we interact with, to minimize any harm caused to them and try and avoid any poor relations.
Phase 1: To expand TDW to the Sol System.
Reasoning: Sol system is where we all live, it’s the center of humanity. Also, interestingly enough, it only has six factions in it. Why does it not have seven? To my knowledge nobody has ever tried to expand a non-player faction into Sol, and I am certain that nobody has ever attempted to expand TDW into Sol. Also, Triton is permit locked for some unknown reason — possibly tied to future content. What if expanding TDW close to Sol completes some circuit or, if it is possible, what if expanding TDW into Sol does. Possibly Triton unlocks and there is some clue. Possibly at that point TDW in Sol or ShinDez suddenly offers some new mission line with a clue or a permit unlock?
Phase 2: To expand TDW to the Lave System.
Reasoning: There are old lore tidbits about Raxxla being quite close to Lave. And Lave also has a permit-locked planet, with no definitive explanation. I am aware that there are statements on record that the permit lock was at the direction of Allen Stroud and was most likely tied to the Lave Revolution storyline, but that does not definitively mean that it could not still also be tied to the mystery of Raxxla.
Phase 3: To expand TDW to the Robigo System (as the closest possible system to Polaris).
Reasoning: Robigo is the closest system you can move a faction into to Polaris. Anyone who has studied the lore of Polaris understands why it’s such a strong candidate for being a lead on Raxxla (it was surveyed long ago by Bill Turner’s dad, found to have some alien tech and something purported to be an alien gateway, and the entire system was promptly permit-locked) and Robigo itself has many interesting quirks. It has been the center of three separate waves of activity in the game over the years, and is tied to various bits of interesting lore.
Phase 4: To expand TDW to being present in 50 systems.
Reasoning: Perhaps it’s not a location that is the goal, but rather to expand the influence of TDW generally and perhaps at some unknown trigger state (10, 20, 30) some clues will arise or some permits unlock which would allow us to further the search.
Experiment outcome projections:
- Something happens to further the Raxxla Storyline.
- Something happens to further some other Storyline (Inra, Black Flight, Galcop, Project Thunderchild, etc.)
- Nothing happens to further any storyline.
While outcomes one and two are obvious wins I submit that in the occurrence of the third outcome we will have accomplished the following:
- Demonstrated the thirst amongst the greater Elite Dangerous community for the furtherance of lore and narrative and the continuation of any of several of the amazing established storyline threads that Frontier have at their disposal.
- We will have literally changed the footprint of the Elite Dangerous galaxy in a massive and permanent way. This project is the kind that you see pop up in EVE every five to ten years that end up making news in the wider gamer circles and create interest in the game. This would be one of the largest events to take place in Elite Dangerous history.
- We will have all given our people something fun and interesting to do while waiting for ‘Next Era’ to launch. Some people complain about this game not giving us anything to do and that it is stale. I say, when you are given a sandbox, instead of complaining, grab a shovel and go make your own fun. I truly hope that you agree!
In the coming days you will be seeing some of the many player groups already assembled in this coalition coming forward with their support, both through their actions and content generation, designed to let people know about the project and coordinate activities as we progress. I will enjoy seeing people come forward and declaring their involvement but just to give you an idea of some of the weight behind this project I will list just a few members who have already pledged their support:
The AXI
The Hull Seals
The Hand
The Buur Pit
Commander Plater
Down To Earth Astronomy
Lave Radio
Guard Frequency Podcast
Elite Week
The Galactic Archive
Newtons Gambit
The OPI
The Independent Raxxla Hunters
The Tionisla Historical Society
CONTRAIL
The Post Disaster Evacuation Service
The East India Trading Company
The Loose Screws Podcast
Commander Ascorbius
Turjan Starstone and Starstone Enterprises
The Hammers of Slough
The Dark Wheel Squadron
Sagittarius Eye Magazine
The United Systems Cooperative
The LRN (Lave Radio Navy)
Rekall, Inc.
Let’s leave some surprises for you as the week progresses.
If you wish to get more information on this project you can find it with any of the above content creators or check out Hutton Orbital Truckers Radio where they will be developing their own romantic and mysterious storyline to captivate your interest!
You may also join the Elite Week Discord for more information on this project at:
Thank you for your time and consideration on this matter and I hope to see you join us in our quest to do a big thing and see if that does something cool! (and even if it doesn’t we’re not gonna let that stop us from having fun!)