Flightplan and route calculations for the Shadow Head for December 3306:

Latitude and Longitude - November 3306 – Astro Tour: Orion Trip

-- Extract from the Fleet Carrier Daily Reports --

11th to 12th NOV 3306 The FC Shadow Head was moved from its location in the Pleiades further into the South-East fairly close to the Witch Head Sector. The targeted system Witch Head Sector GW-W c1-2 could be reached after two carrier jumps via Synuefe LJ-C B18-0.

All sections report system status as nominal and the night-shifts took over a for an uneventful duty.

NFTR

13th NOV 3306 Successful deployment of the Shadow Head to Garoju System via

Taurus Dark Region ig-x b1-3

Caleta (topping up Tritium at Caleta)

Garoju

All sections report system status as nominal and the night-shifts took over a for an uneventful duty.

The Shadow Head was returned to Garoju on the 13th NOV 2020; on arrival all systems reported nominal; the manager of the Tritium Depot was happy to report a Tritium level of 100% and an additional storage of 561t of tritium in freight section FH-32c; she is looking forward to use section FH-32e and f soon and handed the related requests to the FC management.

Outfitting Management reported the exchange of a cargo rack with a fuelscoop for the Stanislav Lem and the maintenance status off all vessels docked could brought up to 100% too.

Four mechanics had to be sent out on the flight deck for maintaining landing pads 07, 09, 10, 11 and 12. The management is aware of the leaked videos of a commander The Mechanic and assures additional rations of progenitor cells were issued as well as some special paid leave for the rest of the week. Medical Section and Personal Management confirm the related actions. NTFR

-- End of Extract from the Fleet Carrier Daily Reports --

Something reminds me on a Thargoid Interceptor in this image taken from the Orion trip of Drew’s Astro Tour on the 12th NOV 3306; maybe I was too deep into Thargoid territories during the last days, I can’t tell.

-- Personal Logbook Entry Commander A32A –

Still accompanied by Commander Saiti; this is his first trip into space outside of the bubble. I guess he was a little bit shocked about how disperse human activities are inside the Orion space. As well he seemed to be annoyed by the large number of Alien Signal Sources throughout these systems; I should show him how the filtering options on the Navigation Panel do work.

Saiti told me he had to be rescued by a fellow Fuel Rat a couple of hours before after he bought a Chieftain at Hanna Enterprise – yes the same Ocellus star port I rescued personnel from and delivered goods to at the start of this year. I am sure Saiti will find out about best ship roles, outfitting and engineering. I explained a few basics and I guess he is on the right track to inhale all the information and learn how it works best.

Readying for the meeting on Planet 7 (Witch Head Sector GW-W c1-2)

The meeting point on planet 7 was marked by the given coordinates of 9.24 Lat; 169.51 Lon. I asked commander Saiti, who was part of the wing, to try to find out how to reach these coordinates. I hinted as well it could become less easy as it seems and if it would turn out too fiddly I would explain how it works. I asked him not to NavLock on my ship and to try it on his own since I am convinced this is an important part of the learning process; as well: I could not have been sure he wouldn’t touch down at the given point without any problems, so I myself was curious what would happen.

I used the Gun Ship ‘Warzenschwein’ to descend towards the meeting point and boosted it into orbit of planet seven, then following the procedure to pin it down to the coordinates. Saiti followed and I have to state, he was eagerly investing a lot of effort to navigate his Chieftain to the coordinates.

When I reached the coordinates I inspected the scene: slowly descending from around 110km above the surface I saw the meeting point was located right inside the center of an asteroid crater. There was no prominent central peak visible and it occurred to me this crater must have been relatively old since the inner part formed a relatively smooth, slightly convex plain: it seemed like the expected relief energy (for a younger structure) eroded away until the recent day. There was some terrain elevation difference along the inner side of the caldera and the plain leveled down towards the steep slopes of the outer rim of the structure.

Early meeting at the assembling point at the center of the crater at the given coordinates:

The crater we were meeting at is the biggest such structure of several craters inside a massive impact formation of an even older impact event – at least, by eyeing the region underneath during the planetary descend, it occurred to me the found situation matched such possible sequence of events.

After touch down I asked Saiti if he wished to know the trick, which he confirmed. So I talked him through the navigation along the circles of latitude and longitude. For all pilots trying to manually navigate to some given coordinates on a planetary surface in the ED universe: here is the trick (maybe it is a spoiler).

To reach latitude coordinates you need to head towards 0° to increase the latitude; heading towards 180° decreases the latitude. These two directions match a virtual circle on the surface of the planet with its center at the center of the planet; this circle is a circle of longitude so moving along it also means you do not change the longitude, which is given by the second number of the coordinates. That means while holding the longitude constant, you only change the latitude of the moving ship.

While doing so you are closing up to a given latitude. Keep the nose of the ship above the horizon (at zero degrees for the angle towards the surface and above the yellow circle on the HUD. If keeping a negative angle here (nose aiming under the yellow circle) you may reach the level of glide phase and as you know you will then descend quickly).

It is a good procedure to orbit the planet and then slowly spiraling down towards the surface until you reach a point above the glide level, where you are able to follow the above explained method of navigation. Be aware of the fact you might have to correct the angles constantly and the friction between the hull and the atmosphere might cause some noise. Be aware of the following too: the speeds and altitudes vary due to the gravitation.

Now, I told you how to navigate to a set latitude. How you will reach the longitude? Well, after the above said this is easy: Move your ship along a circle of latitude keeping this value constant while changing the longitude. It works out similar as for the latitude. The only difference you have to take care for is the direction. The plain of a circle of longitude has a 90° angle to a circle of latitude, so the directions you have to choose do have a difference of 90° compared to the above mentioned directions: head for 90° to increase longitude and for 270° to decrease longitude.

If this all might puzzle you a little bit, keep in mind:

a) Moving parallel to a circle of longitude (0° and 180°) changes the latitude.

b) Moving parallel to a circle of latitude (90° and 270°) changes the longitude.

– End of personal Logbook entry –

November 3306 – Second Week Investigative Missions – The Dark Wheel – Wreck Sites – Thargoid Interceptors

From 8th to 10th – so far – A32A resumed to support the Dark Wheel with the quest for Raxxla. As he thought before: let alone the huge space and territories TDW has to maintain while, during the same time, to prepare the expansion of the faction into new areas becomes more complex. For the first time plans did not fully work out as hoped while on the other hand the occupied systems need to be managed.

Did anyone expect everything working out as smoothly as during the first two months of the project? Of course not: finally it is not even known, if the foundation of the mission will be achievable within the Elite-World, isn’t it? It has to be stated too: The operation as a whole is overwhelmingly successful due to a great number of independent pilots contributing to its cause.

Nevertheless there are draw backs – as expected by A32A at least – and with a multitude of everyday obstacles has to be dealt with. It remains true still: Overall the mission seems to be on track and is, by all means so far, a huge success; if it will be possible to reach the main objective, the uncovering of further, unknown facts about the subject of the given quest or Raxxla itself, remains a mystery until today. Exciting? Yes, truly fascinating.

Visiting The Pleiades with Commander Saiti:

Supporting TDW A32A focused on LTT 5455; there he fought for GQ General Corporation in the combat zones against the Workers of LTT 5455, a native faction of the system. After four days it seems GQV Corp. will win this conflict as intended by the TDW BGS- strategists.

As an additional task for LTT 5455 the Faction Wolf 562 Inc. is in an election state. So A32A did support their efforts to win the elections, too. It seems the elections result in favor of Wolf 562.

When solving a chain mission for Wolf 562, which meant a huge gain of influence for the faction in LTT 5455, Director Ysabella Harmon, the faction leader of Wolf 5455, provided a hint for A32A, which appeared to be promising: her message contained the system name, planet designation and coordinates of a wreck; Ysabella mentioned as well there had been no recovery team at the given site as well as there were an active data core, some commodities and materials to be found within the wreck. The given location was: Pleiades Sector IH-V c2-16 d2; Lat.: -4.54 – Long.: 138.94

Planetary scenery at the given coordinates:

A32A made the decision to seek out that that wreck, once finished the fighting in LTT 5455. Why not returning to The Pleiades after having been there lately (last week) joining Drew’s Astro Tour?

When making this decision Aldarion was in conversation with another commander, CMDR Saiti, who seems to be a young and yet not experienced commander. A few days before, Aldarion met commander Saiti in the Fuel Rat's Lounge in Fuelum supporting him to solve some of his first missions taken from mission boards at stations in and around Cuebo system.

Aldarion asked Saiti if he wanted to see some new stuff, mentioning the wreck site message and pointing out the Pleiades are known for Thargoid activities, which became noticeable later. Saiti agreed to join the mission to investigate the wreck and Aldarion prepared his fleet carrier Shadow Head to travel to the destination system. Commander Saiti would have needed a longer travel time given the jump ranges of his Eagle and newly bought Dolphin were not the longest. So the carrier became handy and useful to travel quickly.

Arriving in the Pleiades Sector A32A asked Saiti if he ever saw Thargoids, which Saiti denied. So a couple of explanations and advises later Aldarion targeted some Alien Signal Sources (5) to visit. Turned out the first drop on such a signal had some wreckage inside the usual corrosive cloud as well as an occupied rescue pod but the interceptor had left already (the rescue pod was handed to the IDA installation on the surface of planet D2 later).

Thargoid Sighting together with CMDR Saiti (Pleiades Sector):

Finally, after combing the system, commander Saiti was able to see two interceptors for the first time, which, in itself, made the trip worth to be done. Anyways, the wreck on planet D2 was not investigated, yet. On the other hand CMDR Saiti got an invitation by Elvira Martuk, since he did travel further than 400ly from his starting system, which was a nice detail too (first engineer invitation).

The wreck site presented the two commanders with a beautiful view under the companion planet of planet D2, which is one of two closely orbiting rocky planets of similar size and composition. The wreckage seemed to have been an Anaconda looking like parts of the belly structure of that ship. In any case the wreck must have been a huge ship, once. The iron oxide colored reddish dust and sand covered most of what was left by the once proud ship. Within the wreckage there were a few materials and a container of corn, one ton of brandy and a container of scrapped material, ironically. Reading the data core Aldarion found out the ship’s pilot survived the crash and was able to repair the SRV leaving the crash site. Operation IDA runs a planetary base in a distance of 79 km, maybe the pilot was able to reach it (TII Research Facility).

Meeting at a wreck site at Pleiades Sector IH-V c2-16, planet D2:

Docking at the close base of two planetary installations, TII Research Facility, which belongs to and is run by IDA, Aldarion handed over the occupied rescue pod asking Saiti, if he were keen on visiting the Maia Black Hole in the neighboring system: agreed and done.

Another crash site at Mia B3D - in the background, over the horizon at the centre of the image there is the position of Maia B star, the singularity in the system; it can be spotted due to the distorsion of the bright dust in this area bent by gravitational lensing (at the right of Maia B the Andromeda Galaxy is visible):

The Black Hole in Maia is placed in a distance of over 300kly from Maia A, the main star of this system. After we were staying at Maia B (the Black Hole) and scanning the tourist beacon Aldarion received a message from the manager of the IDA installation the wing visited before. They were missing a ship crew of four souls and requested further investigation.

Aldarion agreed and finally was able to locate and recover all four rescue pods on another crash site on the surface of Maia B3D returning them safely to the IDA installation in the neighboring system, then calling this eventful day a day signing off duty.

Saving Engineer Liz Ryder (Lizzy)

From Sunday, 4th October 3306, to Thursday, 8th October 3306, I was fighting to protect engineer Liz Ryder (Lizzy). This conflict took place in Eurybia System, the engineer’s home system.

The Empire tried to take the engineer Liz Ryder into custody. She was blamed to be responsible for the attacks on the four Imperial Stations a few weeks before without any substantial proof. Whoever tried to blame the engineer started this conflict with the aim to cover up the real responsibilities.

Interestingly the assassination of Prince Harold Duval took place during the same time and – so far – was not investigated: instead the following funeral ceremony produced headlines throughout the bubble. The Empire is under pressure but from what side and for what purpose is not completely known while the big players are moving their pawns and the opening game now is completed.

A great number of independent pilots (8871 independent commanders, to be exact) took their part in the defense of the engineer and Blue Mafia Syndicate, which officially supported and protected Liz Ryder, was able to deter the forces being raised against all Imperial traditions to bring down a respected member not only of the Empire itself but of the Galactic community as a whole.

Of course I paid my tribute to the defense of Liz Ryder handing in 24.521.691cr of combat bonds resulting from the fight for freedom and truth.

As well I proved my medium fighter Styx is able to survive and win high intensity combat zones without being part of a wing.

Returning Styx to its carrier Shadow Head:

Protocol 3rd OCT 3306 – status: most secret

Contents: Following: Personal logbook entry by Commander Aldarion 3TwoAlpha

“Aldarion, we do know each other for over two decades: one of my skippers hired you as navigational assistant for my campaign over at the Pleiades. You were a young, energetic man filled with enthusiasm and idealism. I observed your way since these days and saw you retrieving the Pilot’s license when you finally left my services as an system integration officer.

I saw you growing older, gaining experience and trading a good part of the idealism for realism; I saw you making your mistakes, while I did mine, I saw your raise within the Imperial society too.

Saying all this, I know you always tried to find your own path through existence and I am convinced you are an honorable but even more honest person.

Now, while I am confirming your efforts for your support of the funeral of Prince Harold, knowing you rescued several thousands of innocent Imperial Citizens from that burning space port a few weeks ago, you are telling me you will go to fight back Imperial Forces to protect your friend Liz.

Well, we both know the effect of such an engagement in a local conflict on your reputation with the Empire as a whole most certainly will be temporal and not changing our personal relationship at all since I know your situational assessment of this diplomatic charade is correct at least for the most parts.”

While talking the Senator verified his recent upload to the closest central imperial data core buried somewhere deep down inside Oterma Station, after having sent some special reports to Hoover Colony orbiting Baal B 10.

“You just filed your special reports, Senator. We both know there were Fed Ships bringing down some of the rescue vessels a few weeks ago. You included my contact reports and ship scans as well as the analysis indicating the abnormalities I found hidden inside these data.

One I know for sure: Liz herself never would have supported these attacks of neutral grounds killing innocent people. We could or could not discuss her agenda but whatever will be the official narrative: the true story – in a best case scenario - might slightly cover some aspects of what is going on but – in the most likely case scenario – the official narrative will hide the true nature of this aspect within the grater picture. The Galactic society with all its people will be distracted from the grand scheme by raising – or should I better say constructing - certain details of public interest. We both know, distractions and the fogs of war always are the tools used in these situations.

All the given views will, of course, depend on who will be the narrator and what the intentions of the forces controlling the narrator might be. So I prefer to follow my own agenda and act as dictated by what I humanly can know and do; in this case my friend needs protection, Senator.”

Raising up both of us bent down as described by Imperial Protocols and the Senator finally added: “Go and serve loyalty and Imperial traditions: defend your friend, Aldarion.”, then typing on the device sewed on the sleeve of his left arm signaling the Guards outside to open the doors.

I left heading back to my docked AspX Honest Tuck intending to buy another Cutter in Zeta Horologii at May Port.

– End of entry --

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: