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Starfield

Starfield Easter Eggs: Landing Sites, Scientists, & Skyrim References

By
Craig Robinson

Bethesda is notorious with easter eggs in its games, and Starfield is no different. There are plenty of mysterious locations, and references to games in both the Bethesda IP and outside of it, along with other more trivia-related posts. Here is a list of all the Starfield Easter Eggs we have found so far, ranging from Skyrim & Fallout references, to discoverable POI’s relating to our human timeline, and more.

Starfield Easter Eggs

Honestly, we have found many, so, are going to do a table of contents for all categories of Starfield Easter Eggs we are including. Feel free to jump to the ones that interest you the most:

Alex Hay’s Note

A homage to the late Alex Hay. Immortalized in the game, he was so eagerly looking forward to.

Alex Hay, a Reddit user, posted a message to the forum in 2023, stating that he’s likely not to make it to Starfield thanks to terminal cancer. The heartfelt post hit the readers at the time, and it was later noted that Alex Hay died, battling his health condition a mere month later. Since then, many players have dedicated their character to Alex Hay, with memorial posts such as this. But, they are not the only ones immortalizing the adventures Alex Hay would have. Bethesda added a note as a mural to the fallen Bethesda Vet, with a note to Alex Hay on "The Eye" iconThe Eye. The note explains that Alex Hay’s journey through the stars is not over.

Fallout & Skyrim Easter Eggs in Starfield

(1 of 2) Every rank of Crippling shows the arrow slowly getting closer to the knee. Well played, Skyrim.

Every rank of Crippling shows the arrow slowly getting closer to the knee. Well played, Skyrim. (left), There’s a Fallout 4 easter egg in Starfield found in the museum on Titan. (right)

The old Skyrim meme makes a return, albeit, not with a guard, but an image. The logo of the crippled Skill is one of an arrow entering a knee. Did you really think Bethesda was letting us get away with that one?

For Fallout fans, you’ll find a reference to Diamond city in the museum in new Homestead on Titan. There’s a diamond-shaped pyramid, with a baseball on it, which references the game’s lore of a baseball field.

Earth, Moon, and Mars Landing Sites

(1 of 2) There are plenty of books, and when picked up, read or purchased, they can give you POI landing sites on Eart, Mars and Luna.

There are plenty of books, and when picked up, read or purchased, they can give you POI landing sites on Eart, Mars and Luna. (left), Once you read certain books, you can visit their landmarks. (right)

Throughout the game, you can find various books, cartoons, novels and journal to various modern-day human activities. If you read them, they tend to grant you special landing site access to Earth, Luna, and Mars locations.

Apollo 11 Landing Site: When you visit the lodge in "New Atlantis" iconNew Atlantis, there’s a book called "Sir Livingstone's Second Journal" iconSir Livingstone’s Second Journal. Read it, and you will get activity for a landing site on the moon. This will take you to the moon landing. Take that Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Martian Rovers: NASA has been busy sending all sorts of rovers onto Mars over the last few decades, with many expiring on their missions. There are still Rovers on the red planet to this day, with helicopters, satellites, and ground rovers still knocking around and sending data back to NASA. Yet, when those machines go dark, there’s no one to pick them up, and thanks to Mars’ little atmosphere, the rovers are left on the spot where they die on looking as pristine as possible. If you happen to get the Florida POI on Earth, and visit the NASA launch facility, you can find instructions to where a rover went dark on Mars, and visit it. It’s unlikely the Curiosity Rover, since that machine went dark in 2018 after a sandstorm engulfed most of Mars, and NASA lost contact with it from then on, but it is a cool throwback to modern-day space exploration. Here are the locations we know so far, with many largely thanks to this thread on Reddit.

Earth’s Landing Sites How To Get
Empire State Building, "New York" iconNew York Read “Our Lost Heritage” in the UC president’s office on "New Atlantis" iconNew Atlantis.
"NASA Launch Tower" iconNASA Launch Tower, Florida Get the quest, "Unearthed" iconUnearthed.
Gateway Arch, St. Louis Read “"The Price of Destiny" iconThe Price of Destiny” in the mayor’s penthouse in "Neon" iconNeon City.
US Bank Tower, LA Read “Hope Family Tree”, located in Hopetech in "Hopetown" iconHopetown on Polvo in the Valo system.
The Shard, "London" iconLondon Read “"Oliver Twist" iconOliver Twist”, which can be looted from containers or purchased at Sinclair’s book store in "Akila City" iconAkila City, Cheyenne.
The Pyramids, Egypt Read “"The Ancient Civilization of Egypt" iconThe Ancient Civilization of Egypt”, a book purchased from Sinclair’s in "Akila City" iconAkila City.
Burj Khalifa, "Dubai" iconDubai Read the “Race to the Heavens” on the Siren of The Stars ship in a VIP room. The quest is accessed by the Crimson Fleet storyline, Breaking the Bank.
International "Commerce" iconCommerce Centre, Hong Kong Read “Maurice Lyon’s Journal”, found in new Homestead on Titan, Jupiter, Sol.
Shanghai Tower, China Read “Essentials of Modern Macroeconomics”, found on ECS Constant, a ship you visit as part of the First Contact quest in the Porimma star system near Cheyenne and Volii.
Abeno Harukas, Japan Read “Diary of Kyosuke Nagata” found in the prison on Suvorov, Kryx system

In some of these locations, you can also find snow globes of these locations. If you pick them up, and then drop them later when in your home, outpost or ship, you can then place them as decorations too. We know the NASA Launch Center and the Empire State Building has one, and there are other novelties at the novelty store in "Neon" iconNeon.

Astronauts and Scientists Starfield Easter Eggs

(1 of 3) Perhaps the most famous and easily noted starfield easter egg of them all.

The four planetary bodies in Alpha Centauri are named after four known astronauts and cosmonauts that entered space. These are:

  • Chawla
  • Gargarin - The first person in space, a USSR Cosmonaut.
  • Jemison
  • Olivas

Bethesda paid a lot of respect to known Physicists that have helped our study of particles, quantum, laws of the universe, and more. These are typically some of the most distant and far end star systems that Bethesda made up, but, the names are based on scientists. Here are the ones we recognize the most from our exploration so far:

  • Hawking: A Stephen Hawking tribute, known for his work on Hawking radiation and the theory of black holes and other space-time fabric-related physics. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 78.
  • Schrodinger: A Physicist most famous for the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment to explain metaphysics and quantum entanglement and logical chance of the state of atoms.
  • Sagan: Carl Sagan made discoveries on understanding weather and greenhouse effects on other planets. He is also one of the most famous Physicists for converting nerdy maths and space-faring stuff into understandable, beautiful English. There have since been copycats using the power of the English language to describe the beauty of space and science, such as David Kipping, who runs a brilliant YouTube account called Cool Worlds, by the way, and you should check out those videos.
  • Bohr: A Physicist who helped the world understand the structure of atoms.
  • Feynman: A Physicist who helped pave Quantum, Meta, Electrodynamic Superfluidity and Supercooling of atoms and molecules.
  • Heisenberg: No, not Breaking Bad, but a German Physicist who helped pave the way for Quantum mechanics and other laws of the universe through his theory.
  • Linnmeus: An Enlightenment figure, who helped coin the way scientists name things to this day.
  • Copernicus: A Polish Renaissance-era figure who studied space and maths secretly for natural discoveries. He was one of the first to break the Christian canon that the earth is in the center of the universe, and instead proposed we orbit a star, and the star orbits the galaxy we now know as the Milky Way. The theory would have been considered heretical and could have led to ex-communication, a dangerous prospect in that period, so we thank Copernicus for being one of the founding fathers of scientific theory.
  • Fermi: An Italian American Physicist most famous for being attributed to the Fermi Paradox. While he is no doubt not the first to say “if the universe can be full of life, then where are they?”, but he’s the one who got most famous for it. It has since led to many speculative answers of The Great Filter, issues with detection, and new scientific models of Bio and Technosignatures to detect alien life. There’s a YouTube rabbit hole for you.
  • Rutherford: Rutherford discovered the Atomic Nucleus in 1920, finding atoms contain Protons and Neutrons, and then later developed the atomic numbering system alongside Moseley.

Ship Name Easter Eggs

There are some ship name easter eggs in Starfield after other game vehicles and real-life inspirations

  • "Galileo" iconGalileo: The astronomer who discovered four moons of Jupiter, now named the Galilean moons, which are present in Starfield. These are IO, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. You can find the ship purchasable for Stroud shipping services on Neon.
  • "Mako" iconMako: The Mako is another name for a ship in Starfield. The Starfield easter egg here is that it is referencing fellow Space RPG, Mass Effect, as that series used a ground-based vehicle called the Mako. It’s a shame it a ship and not a ground vehicle. You can purchase it from the Ryujin Industries showroom on Neon.

The Apocalypse

12/21 is a notable date for the Mayan calendar and winter solstice on earth.

If you walk around "Akila City" iconAkila City, you can find a sign tucked away in the corner of a street with the dates, 12/21/2002. It’s a little stretch, but 12/21 is very culturally relevant as the Mayan calendar winter solstice day, where the Mayan calendar ended. It could be a dig that the end of the world date is wrong, since Earth’s canonical death was 2202, but it’s there for you to judge.

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Guide Information
  • Platforms,
    PC, XB X|S
  • Genre
    Action Adventure, Action RPG, Shooter
  • Guide Release
    30 August 2023
  • Last Updated
    18 October 2023
    Version History
  • Guide Author

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Starfield is an action role-playing game from Bethesda Game Studios set in a futuristic interpretation of space exploration and colonization. Earth has long been abandoned, but there are plenty of other planets in different star systems where humans have ventured and settled. You have the freedom to create your own character with a unique background, but the main story will take you through a series of adventures as you uncover more information about mysterious artifacts which create gravitational anomalies. Along the way, you can build and customize your own space ship, establish your own outpost, befriend and romance new companions, and more. As a Bethesda game, you can also expect to see a lot of creative mods which have the potential to change your experience of the base game, or take it in an entirely new direction.

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