So these sites and their logs are all fascinating! Like the Conflux sites. Remember those?
In fact, one area, four sites: alpha, beta, gamma, delta. Far from the core worlds, from the bubble. Crews had no idea what they were doing out here and don’t seem to have gotten back home. It’s exactly the same as the Conflux sites…1
What’s it all about?
They needed more exploration to see what else was out here, competitive CGs even. The Federation tried to out bid the Rifters so they didn’t get the exploration data. Didn’t work though!2
Community Goal: Competing Appeals for Exploration Data
17 NOV 3302
The Federal astrocartography department has issued a public request for exploration data. Mark Devene, head of the department, elaborated on the nature of the appeal:
“We are looking for data from three specific zones in order to verify certain hypotheses. We want high-quality information on system configurations, planet types, spectral classes and compositions.”
“We are looking at the following coordinates: PLAA AEC IZ-N C20-1, PRU AESCS DL-W C15-37 and EAFOTS EU-R C4-1. Explorers might be more familiar with the colloquial names for these areas – Hawkin’s Gap, the Conflux and the Formidine Rift. Pilots should travel to one of these locations and investigate out to a radius of 200 light years.”
The Tau Ceti Crimson Legal Solutions has volunteered to coordinate the Federal operation. Meanwhile, mysterious organisation The Children of Raxxla has issued an identical request, claiming the data will be used to prove the innocence of the group’s leader, Kahina Loren.
Both campaigns begin on the 17th of November 3302 and will run for two weeks.
Galactic News: Exploration Data Appeals Conclude
01 DEC 3302
A spokesperson for The Children of Raxxla has announced that its appeal for exploration data has received the enthusiastic support of the galactic community, which delivered large quantities of astronomical data to Sereborv Terminal over the past two weeks. A competing initiative from the Federation proved less popular with the galactic community.
In a brief statement, the spokesperson thanked those who had contributed to the initiative, and continued to say:
“We know there are secrets buried in this data. We only hope we can unlock them in time.”
Pilots who contributed to the initiative are now free to collect their rewards from Sereborv Terminal in the HR 6421 system.
And a little while later, we got a report.
Galactic News: Children of Raxxla Release Report
03 FEB 3303
The Children of Raxxla, based in the HR 6421 system, have released an analysis of the exploration data recovered by the galactic community in November last year.
A spokesperson for the organisation said:
“There was a vast amount of data to sift through, but our analysis led to some notable discoveries in the Formidine Rift, the Conflux and Hawkin’s Gap. There are indications that some kind of covert mission took place in these regions back in the 3270s. So far we have found shipwrecks, beacons and abandoned settlements dating from that time, and logs and records relating to this strange mission.”
“It appears that a fleet was despatched, over 30 years ago, to install a series of beacons in the region. None of the ships returned to their point of origin. It seems that this mission was called ‘the Dynasty Project’. The purpose of the mission isn’t yet clear, but it was evidently a massive undertaking, particular given the technological limitations of the time – it would have taken a year to complete that journey 30 years ago.”
The spokesperson was asked if the data supported the organisation’s belief that Kahina Loren was innocent of the attempted assassination of Admiral Denton Patreus.3
“Unfortunately there is nothing in the data that throws new light on Salomé’s demise. But before she was arrested, she indicated that these three sectors were significant. We now believe that that is why she was killed.”
Hundreds of players were exploring the Rift at this point. Looking for the purpose, the organisers.
It’s a lot of space to cover though. Months went by and, frankly, Drew needed to finish the book Elite: Premonition.4
A new Galnet article gave us a clue, not an easy one to solve if you ask me, but people did it within 2 days! Hundreds and hundreds of Commanders on the forum, in Discords, all looking for the answers.
This clue wasn’t supposed to happen, but due to delays with the development of the game and players not catching on as fast as needed, Drew decided to release this so we got the next bit of content before the finale of the Premonition story.567
Galactic News: Curious Message Discovered
17 APR 3303
A group of EM-transmission technology enthusiasts in the Tionisla system claims to have found a message in the exploration data gathered last year as part of a campaign organised by the Children of Raxxla.
A spokesperson for the group, which calls itself The Hamsters, said:
“It was inside one of the beacon modulator wave harmonics, and it seems to be some sort of rhyme. We’ve studied it but have come up with nothing, so we thought we’d share it with the galactic community.”
The message is reprinted in full below.
The river to the underworld
Gaia’s daughter all unfurled
Fourth minor bear in vain
By viper’s sting was slain
Also known as Nemesis
The doom of Chimera
She is tasked with soothing pain
Suckling Odysseus from afar
Mother of the mother of
Leader of the Titans
He transformed into a hawk
A daughter of Daedalion’s
The piercer was how he was known
Mother of Ulysses
Ruler of the winds
God of night, primordial flees
Zeus’ namesake now lies in Sol
Achilles’ favoured horse
Women of vengeance infernal
The vain queen rides not forth
A final word, a course to follow, a poor miser’s sum
If you would understand it all, seek Fibonacci’s Zephyrum
Want the answer? Right On, Commander…
Drew’s Footnotes
- The logs here tell of a strange conspiracy dating back several decades. ↩︎
- When I first discussed this idea with the Dev team and MB, I was told it wouldn’t work because players always go with the money. I said, let’s try it and make the Federal CG more lucrative… but the CoR less lucrative… but indicate that the CoR is the “right thing to do”. The CoR CG won. I think it’s one of the only examples of a competitive CG where the underdog won. Players changed the galaxy that day. 🙂 ↩︎
- At this point Salomé had been arrested by Senator Patreus and was being sentenced via a kangaroo court. Player factions actually attacked Senator Patreus’ flagship and forced it out of his home system. No small feat with the less powerful ships of the time. ↩︎
- The delays in spawning the bases due to the patch problem was the main issue here. We had a skip a clue that would require players to visit all the Greek myth “EBP” tagged systems, because there wasn’t any more time in the dev cycle and Frontier wanted the book published in the summer. So we had to issue an “fast track” clue. ↩︎
- Each of these names are spread across the ED galaxy in various please and were, at the time, connected with EBP clues in text descriptions. Unfortunately a lot of them have been replaced now, so it’s not possible to find and follow the original clues. However, the intention was for players to visit the various locales, find the EBP… slowly assemble the bits and then get the final location as a result… ↩︎
- As far as I know, nobody actually did though. It was probably a bit too obscure! ↩︎
- So this “fast track” clue was issued to allow players to decode the final destination. ↩︎
