Well, the first conflict in Turdetani was followed by a second one against the Vucub Huan Corp; now, there is one difference between the two conflicts: while a week earlier the Turning the Wheel Initiative had to splits its fighting forces between two different systems on the opposite sites of the territories (in LTT 5455 against the minor faction GQ Virginis General Corporation and against the minor faction Uniting Arque during the invasion of Turdetani), during the last week all combatants did meet in only one system, which is the mentioned Turdetani system.

Rearming the vessel, Styx, at one of the local fleet carriers:

A week ago, Aldarion visited combat zones in both systems in conflict or under invasion. In contrast, during the last days he was able to focus on only one system: Turdetani. As a result TDW blasted the forces of Huan Corporation into oblivion with overwhelming forces.

A week before Aldarion winged up with the CMDRs Soandso, Psychoticmosh and Stellar Sundancer to fight high intensity combat zones for TDW. To win such a zone took the four of us mere minutes, since all wing mates were experienced combat pilots using well equipped ships. CMDR Psychoticmosh finally took out his combat Courier, which was equipped with Heal-Beam-Lasers. To me, this was of some advantage since I could put all pips to weapons without the constant need to recharge my more or less weak shields. Some of the NPCs do use engineered vessels nowadays even equipped with Prismatic shields every now and then, which renders the firepower of my Challenger relatively weak.

Wing of two fighting successfully at the high intensity CZs in Turdetani (19th SEPT 3306)

I really like he Midnight Black paint job of CMDR Stellar’s FDL

I do remember one medium intensity zone I fought on my own yesterday: The first opponent I took on was a NPC Elite-Anaconda equipped with Prismatic shields; when I finally came to the point to bring it down to 12 or 11% hull while aiming for its power plant, the NPC started running jumping out of the instance, while I was taking down a second opponent firing off the last rounds of my mechanical weapons, then destroying a third opponent’s ship with energy weapons realizing I had to fall out. Well, aiming for the FSD drive of that NPC Conda probably would have made more sense.

Bounty hunting at HighRez Zones:

When there was no direct confrontation inside this system (Turdetani), I did the usual pirate hunting at the common local spots such as Nav Beacons or inside resource extraction sites at the various rings of the systems being subjected to the undertaking (for me these were HR 4979 – LTT 5455 – Turdetani), while bounties were handed in as demanded per BGS strategy.

Having handed in the last combat bounds and accomplishing the last mission to bring down enemy ships inside the CZ of Turdetani my fellow pilot CMDR Flaw asked me if I were fond of mining.

I was, so I jumped my Fleet Carrier (Shadow Head Q5N-55M) into one of the neighboring systems of the targeted prospection location. Before the carrier jump was initiated I was able to refit the mining equipment on the Cutter Ikarus, which I recently did use for the evacuation mission at the burning Duval station (Tsiolkovski Terminal).

Ring systems could as well be a tourist location, if there were less pirates around (Painite Double Hotspot at Hyades Sector DB-x d1-112):

As a result I was able to earn a little bit over 2 Billion credits from the Painite I had gathered at various Painite Hot spots at Hyades Sector DB-X d1-112 planet 2 (a ringed water world).

I sold the tonnage I temporarily stored on the Shadow Head for 792 Million per unit. This was a decent enough rate to re-balance Aldarion’s private account, which was not that high since buying, equipping and funding the Shadow Head. By the way: I sell Anacondas, Pythons and both types of Kraits on the Shadow Head as well as a multitude of mining equipment. The funds for maintenance and running the carrier were 7 Billion credits originally, so the carrier shall do fine even though I refund it from time to time.

After having generated some more private gains, I jumped back into the Dark Wheel’s sphere of interest to further support the mission to possibly endeavor evidence about Raxxla. TDW made good during the two days of my mining related absence as well; maybe too good, since the successes in Anyanwu System triggered a possible mass expansion from there, which was and is not intended: the intended expansion of TDW shall go into the direction of Sol and/or Lave. We will see what the outcome of this project will have been at the end of this year 3306.

Shadow Head Overview:

Burning Stations, Multitudes of Conspiracy Theories and Simply Rescuing People

With the latest and newly reappearing GalNet Reports Aldarion found out there were four obviously attacked starports deep in Empire territory.

Strange enough: All burning stations belong to the Duval Clan. GalNet reported some so-called ‘terrorist attacks’ related to the Clan’s and the Empire’s history around the rise of Arissa Duval.

Tsiolkovsky Terminal is damaged and burning, probably corroding as well:

So far it is supposed that an opposing group within the clan or the Empire was able to gather military explosives further used to attack the stations.

Obviously the burning space stations do show the same marks and green gunk as they would after a Thargoid attack, which led to the conclusion the attacking group were somehow able to gather Thargoid technology to carry out their plot.

Other, unconfirmed sources, were pointing out the Thargoids undermined the human societies on all levels by the use of human like agents, who were then responsible for the latest attacks.

However, I went to Tsiolkovsky Terminal to support the evacuation of this station. There are several thousands or tens of thousands of people living inside an Orbis spaceport like this.

I can confirm the described type of damage as well as there were plenty of independent pilots involved in the rescue operation too. I also was interdicted by at least two commanders during one SC hop from the rescue ship towards the damaged Tsiolkovsky Terminal.

While I was able to escape the first interdiction and a second interdiction failed to log on to my vessel, I had to admit to a third interdiction a few seconds later. So far as I can tell there were two commanders interdicting. While dropping into normal space when finally admitting to the third interdiction I scanned the opponent, who did use a Fed type ship, namely a Fed Gunship as far as I can tell. Well, the Cutter Ikarus was easily made to boost away without a single shot fired by the opponent, who finally left the instance himself.

This could lead to the conclusion, the Federation is following a covert operation against the Empire; on deeper thought about this I would judge this as a theory, a dangerous theory, which is likely to pull both superpowers into a huge scale war to each other again. As well: so far there would be no evidence too that there were Alien agents involved to reach exactly this state – as there also and of course is no evidence given this were not the case.

Hence all these early theories in the given context to me have the same significance as the statement of a fellow commander: ‘The green gunk originates from the tanks containing the hair gel of Arissa – what the hack… wow, her hair gel seems to be very corrosive.’ (actually, I like this theory a lot).

Green gunk corroding Tsiolkovsky’s main slot

Emergency Protocol into effect at Tsiolkovsky Terminal

Whatever happened here, it created a lot of debris and tons of wreckage floating around in an overheated low gravity environment (Burning Station Interior):

However, I, as many other independent commanders just rescued the inhabitants of the Orbis Station Tsiolkovski Terminal, since these poor souls should not be held responsible to any of the above mentioned possible events as well as these people should not become victims of the hidden dark by whoever (The Club, Alien Agents, Thargoids themselves, the one or the other superpower etc.).

Get them out and get them out quickly:

Queuing up in front of the single L-pad of the rescueship 5Mm off Tsiolkovski Terminal. Since the L-Pad obviously was bugged the question may arouse if there was some subverion going on even on the rescue vessel.

Supporting the Dark Wheel in HR 4979 – LTT 5455 – Anyanwu – LHS 926

Commander Kai Zen developed a theory:

1. There is a non-player faction called the Dark Wheel (TDW) originating from Shinrarta Dezhra, where it is one of the minor factions. The Dark Wheel is known since the earliest days (1984) when the Elite lore started with the booklet to the original game cassette written by Robert Holstock.

In this founding story there was a group called the Dark Wheel, which was believed to know the location of the mysterious Raxxla.

Anthony de la Roche BKS, a planetary installation located in LTT 5455 owned by TDW in early September 3306

2. No-one so far is able to confirm if TDW minor faction and the Dark Wheel from the original story were one and the same entity.

3. Since many Commanders were seeking Raxxla still and we haven’t found it, Kai plotted a plan: The perm-locked Sol system could be home for 7 factions but there are six factions present in this system. Theoretically it might be possible to expand TDW into Sol.

3a. Since Sol is perm-locked, many commanders claimed it were impossible to expand a faction into such a system. For all the player factions we know: this is true. But TDW is a non-player faction and more or less related to the Raxxla problem.

As well it remains true TDW is mentioned in the in-game codex, which might give some further hint to a game and lore based special role of this faction. Again: No-one can say whether this might be true or not. Somehow the player community might clutch the straw but maybe this community is desperate enough to do so after all these years of investigation of the Raxxla mystery, which left us with plenty of further theories but no evidence.

4. The Lave system exists as well since the earliest days of Elite. In the original game it was the starter system for every commander. In this system there exists a planet, which is perm locked too. So Lave as TDW and Sol seem to share some relations to the original story.

5. There is a fifth system, which frequently is mentioned with the multitude of theories: Polaris. Polaris too is perm locked and inside or not too far from the area every commander was able to travel in the original Elite. And, as well, Polaris does have some significance since it is the Northern Star.

Bounty hunting in HR 4979 not only supports TDW but also presents some beautiful views of the bright ring systems in this system:

6. Conclusions The plan now is to expand the minor faction TDW by manipulating the Background Simulation (BGS) towards Sol and / or the Lave system and maybe into these two systems (if possible) to trigger some in-game events recovering some evidence about the Raxxla Mystery.

So far, plenty of commanders supported this plan and TDW is expanding towards the two goals. The territory to be covered is growing and the efforts to maintain and further expand TDW do grow significatly.

Testing my Corvette Agamemnon while supporting TDW in HR 4979 – this build is tending to overheat during combat and needs further engineering, though:

The following screenshot does show the two bright ring systems of HR 4979 in one image:

Returning from the Lore Tour Expedition, which brought me to the Zurara and beyond deep into the Formidine Rift, I bought a Lakon Chieftain. That Chieftain then – further equipped and engineered - was of some use in the Pleiades, namely the Delphi and Electra Systems, where I was hunting Interceptors; one could also say the Interceptors were hunting me due to the fact I frequently survived during fights but was not able to get these poor monsters down but finally running and eagerly jumping out of the instances.

I need more training to solo the Interceptors or should join a wing of more experienced AX fighters. CMDR Kuuhey I met on the Lore Tour Expedition seems to be a very good AX fighter and is soloing Interceptors successfully. Yesterday I found out he was hunting Interceptors and we might have the opportunity to do it together in the near future, which obviously means I would learn a lot about timings during AX combat or special AX tactics encountering Interceptors.

I tried to get at least one Cyclops down: for two days I tried hard losing one ship during SC due to module failure, which lead to low oxygen reserves, so my CMDR Avatar was suffocating to death. On the other hand I was learning about Cyclops solo-fights and could escape always, which to me is a small success in its own. Retrospectively I state, I need to learn about the flak triggering and I swapped a few keybindings too; so next time I hopefully will be able to progress further on; maybe one day I will bring one of these Interceptors down too.

When engineering the Chieftain I received a mission by the engineer Ram Tah; I could not remember to have acknowledged that mission but found an active task stored on my ship computer one or two days later.

I found the copy of a handwritten note by one of the chiefs in Ram Tah's team pointing out some mission details:

Since I don’t like to leave accepted missions unfulfilled, I moved East of the bubble visiting and revisiting some Guardian Sights to scan and encrypt the data Ram Tah was asking for. The basic mission pay out was set to 10 Million credits and I finally received 13 Million for extracting and finding various data about the history and society of the Guardians: all together I was able to retrieve and reconstruct 13 messages from two different planets, while being out on a short trip to the closer regions East of the bubble. I stored the relics I used for the mission on my fleet carrier: scanning the Ancient Obelisks normally involves two relics, which have to be carried inside the SRV cargo hold filling it completely.

Each obelisk shows two icons or symbols representing entities of the two relics, which are needed to successfully reconstruct and encrypt the hidden information about the Guardian’s civilization. Once, I found an Ancient Obelisk with one symbol only. Some of the obelisks need two relics of the same kind to get the encryption right and when I was working on the problem, the Guardian Tablet and the Guardian Orb seemed to be less common to be found than the other relics. In fact, I started to investigate in Col 173 Sector JX-K B24-0, where I could not find an orb or a Guardian Tablet; later, in Synuefe XR-H D11-102, I collected these two relics enabling me to return to the Col 173 Sector JX-K B24-102 and retrieve data from the Ancient Obelisks involving one of these two items.

As well – I nearly forgot about this evening – I was winging up with a few commanders of OP I.D.A. hauling and delivering goods before I started my trip for Ram Tah. To do so I made my carrier, the Shadow Head, jumping into the Pleiades area providing some support.

Returning from some surface missions for TDW

Finally: during the last days I tried to support the Dark Wheel and the community goal to expand this minor faction towards Sol. I did some trade to manipulate the Background Simulation (BGS) as well as fighting in numerous Combat Zones throughout HR 4979. No-one knows if the theory about triggering some events revealing news about Raxxla by rising the influence and expansion of the Dark Wheel will finally succeed but at least it is the paradigm parts of the community are following during the last weeks.

During the last few days commander Aldarion was heading out for way point number 7 of the Lore Tour 2020. The target system for this way point is system S171 18, a system dominated by a bright O-class star. It is part of a cluster of systems residing inside a nebula with a greater number of O-class stars. Obviously this nebula is a cradle of young and new born stars: a great number of the stars inside this cluster and nebula are O-type stars. All relatively young, all burning their fuel with a high rate, all very bright and visible as a ‘landmark’ when traveling westward of the bubble.

Nebula of O Class Stars out of the distance

Aldarion watched this cluster numerous times and now it was time to visit it up close. The planned route led him to the Elephant’s Trunk Mines roughly 1kly north of the nebula. So the direction taken for the first leg of this tour went out straight west, reaching Elephant’s Trunk Mines, then turning towards the south heading for way point number 12. Both, the mines and way point 12 are roughly equally far away from the bubble in a distance of about 3kly.

Elephant Trunk Mines are located inside an Asteroid Base set inside a rocky ring:

Once reaching and scanning system S171 18, Aldarion inspected one of the multitudes of biological surface signals inside the system: Luckily it turned out this signal was an array of the so-called Space Pumpkins, which was nice due to the fact this were the first time Aldarion visited such a site up close.

Space Pumpkins on a moon inside system S171 18

Glow of Space Pumpkins in the shadows of the central O class star of S171 18

Bird's eye view of the landing site with Space Pumpkins

When finishing this excursion, he decided to drop out inside the ring spinning around the Brown dwarf of S171 18 just for enjoying the views and vistas of this beautiful site before turning north-east on his way back towards the bubble.

Ring around the Brown Dwarf

During Drew Wagar‘s Lore Tour 3306 I visited numerous Guardian Sites eastward of the bubble. All together I inspected 13 sites in this area but I guess there are some more sites located even in this region.

The following sequence presents a few impressions and screenshots.

The so-called ancient keys can be used to unlock Guardian Fighter blueprints but the keys itself look awesome as well (Guardian Beacon at Synuefe IL-N C23-15 2 A)

At Vela Dark Region KR-W C-1-24 there are three sites on one moon. Two of these sites feature theater like structures, where no sentinels are spawned. These sites are good locations to gather Guardian Data Patterns since there are numerous active obelisks to be found close together:

At IC 2391 Sector HG-X B1-B there is a beautiful site to be seen; the altar here can be used to produce fighter blueprints when dropping the correct Ancient Key after the pylons are activated. Once one collects an ancient key at one of the Guardian Beacons, there will be a message by Palin nominating the correct place to use the gathered key.

Overview of the Guardian Structure at IC 2391 Sector HG-X B1-B

During daylight or nightfall this site provides some stunning images:

As well the site at shows some architectural features and ornaments I saw for the first time:

It is said Guardians were humanoid creatures: I would say as well some of their structures do remind me on various relic sites on planet earth. The next three images show a party of Lore Tour participants meeting up at System Synuefe XR-H D11.

Convoy through a Guardian Site

Ship Assembly during Lore Tour 3306

Guardian Structure at Vela Dark Region KR-W C-1 24 at night time

Bird's eye view during night of the Structure at Synuefe EN-H D11-96 7 A

Guardian Orb: Scanning this orb will give some Guardian Module Blueprints:

Lore Tour WP 8 – Alioth aka Epsilon Ursae Majoris

Alioth could be a FusionForge system run by the Debian project until the end of the second decade of the 21st century, isn’t it?

As true as this may be, Alioth primarily is the name of a star system inside our Milky Way Galaxy in a distance of approximately 83 light years from Sol (in 2020).

Everyone knows Alioth

I like one of the possible descriptions of the position of Alioth: How one may find Alioth at the earth sky? Alioth is the star, which, from earth, is seen as the star in the Great Bear’s tail closest to the body of the bear.

This system can be seen from most parts of the earth by the naked eye as part of the ‘Great Bear’, which is the translation for the Latin name of the constellation, Ursa Major. The Great Bear and its Epsilon star Alioth is visible from the whole northern hemisphere but also from a good part of the southern hemisphere if the location is not too far from the equator of planet earth. Alioth is the brightest of the seven stars of the constellation Ursa Major.

Alioth belongs to this constellation (Ursa Major) and is numbered as the fifth star out of the seven stars forming the constellation of the Great Bear, hence it is the Epsilon of this constellation.

The numbers of members of a constellation usually is represented by the small Greek letter at the index of the Greek alphabet, which equals the number. Consequently The constellation of the Great Bear / Ursa Major is represented by the following stars:

• α Ursae Majoris aka Dubhe (Arabic for ‘the bear’)
• β Ursae Majoris aka Merak (‘the lions of the bear’)
• γ Ursae Majoris aka Phecda or Phad
• δ Ursae Majoris aka Megrez (‘the tail’s root’)
• ε Ursae Majoris aka Alioth (‘black horse’), the brightest star of the constellation
• ζ Ursae Majoris aka Mizar (‘girdle’)
• η Ursae Majoris aka Alkaid or Benethnash (‘tip of the tail’)

The asterism correlating to the constellation of the Great Bear also is referred to as the ‘Plough’ or the ‘Big Dipper’ in English language as well as the (Great) Wagon, which interestingly is the same in the German language, where it is known as ‘großer Wagen’ and ‘Großer Bär’ too. The asterism of a constellation is the commonly known pattern of a group of stars visible from the earth but it not necessarily is equal to the official constellations recognized by the IAU.

The constellation of Ursa Major is or was important for navigation on the surface of earth due to the fact that the extension of the line between Beta and Alpha Ursae Majoris (the line visually connecting Merak with Dubhe) by five times the distance between these two stars over Dubhe is pointing at Polaris, the North Star indicating true North in regard to the earth’s surface. I learned this fact as a small one, when my father explained it to me during a cold winter’s night with clear skies decades ago). Of course Polaris, as all the other stars mentioned here, does exist in the Elite Milky Way too. Then again, Polaris represents the tip of the tail of the Small Bear (Ursa Minor).

Today I visited the orbit of planet earth to check if the constellation Ursa Major is seen from the in-game perspective. I found it indeed, right there, appearing in front of my ship. The following image shows what I could see (I marked the position of the constellation).

Ursa Major From Earth Orbit

Elite Lore of Alioth and the Alliance

The Alioth system in 3306 is the home system of the youngest of the three human major powers in the Elite Universe: The Alliance, founded in the year of 3230, roughly 70 years before the recent in-game date. Compared to the Federation and the Empire its age is young: some individuals do remember the first years of the Alliance still due to the fact, its age is shorter than the average life span in 3306.

As it is known, the Federation was defeated by the rising Empire in Achenar in 2380. The Empire was the then young superpower and it took 850 years until the third superpower could be formed. Why took it 850 years to found the Alliance, what happened during these centuries and how it came to the rise of the third superpower at all?

After the Federation did loose a significant number of systems to the Empire there was the need to replace the lost resources of these systems inside the imperial territories. The industries of Sol and the Federation could not survive without replacing the lack of resources.

Planet Argent's Claim, an Earth-like world in Alioth System (Epsilon Ursae Majoris)

Thus it was decided to find, colonize and connect new, so far mostly unknown systems to the federal space. The technological achievements and the then existing development of space drives and propulsion systems allowed for the search within a given maximum radius from Sol due to the longer duration and higher risks of space travel during this era. The growth of federal territories towards Achenar and the imperial territories was blocked and neither feasible nor wanted and the Federation orientated its colonization efforts towards the outermost sectors of the reachable space in the opposite direction, aiming for systems as far away from the Empire as possible.

18 years after the end of the first war between the Empire and the Federation, the latter was able to sent the first wave of colonists into the new direction. 54 years later (2452) Alioth could be populated for the first time and the richness in resources of this system accelerated the federal efforts to found and incorporate the newly found territories: the industries ruling the Federation were keen on gathering resources now due to the fact both, the Empire and the Federation did recover from the exhaustion after their war. The name Alioth derived from the ancient Arabic word ‘alyat’ which could be translated as ‘the tail of a fat sheep’, which during the rise of the 25th century remained a true metaphor still: The newly incorporated systems proofed to be richer in resources than expected during the early reconnaissance. As a result the Federation could re-establish its former power and survive.

These new Colonies later came under pressure by the growing Empire and the Federation again, which led to numerous conflicts in Alioth and its neighboring systems due to the intersecting spheres of interest of the two superpowers. Alioth remained the focal point of this clash during the early 33rd century until the year of 3230 marked the independence of Alioth and its surrounding systems with the declaration of the Alliance.

Planet A1 at Alioth, a class IV gas giant

GalCorp which was founded by a number of systems belonging to the Old World Systems within the region can be seen as the predecessor of the later Alliance. GalCorp became exhausted by the first Thargoid war and vanished while the two superpowers fought in rivalry for the domination of the rich systems laying between their main territories. It took many years afterwards until the Alliance became a possibility and finally reality with the foundation of the Intergalactic Alliance of Independent Systems.

The Alliance underwent a fast expansion and many independent pilots were fighting for its cause during the last years; as a result, currently the Alliance incorporates around 840 star systems.