[CT27]

A while back I made a topic asking about how the Shivans dealt with loss.
This is kind of going in the other direction.


Do you think the Shivans discern among themselves the difference between pilots who do okay and pilots who become aces?  In FS2 for example, the Blue Lions were recognized as an elite squadron.  Do the Shivans have something similar?

Would a Shivan with only three kills look up to the Dragon pilot with 20 for example?

[qwadtep]

I bet the Shaitan is a punishment posting.

[procdrone]

Why do you even try compare aliens to our, human ways?

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Because why not ?

I wouldn't be surprised if they kept track of how well an individual pilot performs, and then put those that do well on better crafts. Or take them apart to figure out what makes them better or something, you know the alien equivalent of rotating your aces back to form your new recruits.

[NGTM-1R]

I tend to hold the view that individual Shivans are not self-aware as we would understand the term and do not engage in cognitive problem-solving as we do.  Their behavior owes more to real ants and revolves around tenacity, instinct, and simple cues.

However large groups of Shivans, such as warship crews, are augmented by a human-like intelligence capable of complex communication with other intelligences and planning. It is able to influence the crew and nearby fighters through their existing cues and to communicate with other controlling intelligences in a more complex fashion. The result is an unholy mashup of playing Simant and a co-op version of The Blade Itself.

Shivan pilots are incapable of recognizing if one of them is exceptionally effective, and the controlling intelligence will see them all as interchangeable in most circumstances; it may not track such things. If it does, it will probably not attribute such effectiveness to an exceptional pilot as exceptional circumstances and study in an effort to determine if they are recreate-able. (And then I add another idea to the list that will never be done; Armored Trooper SHIVAN and a Shivan plan to generate Abnormal Survivors.)

[Phantom Hoover]

do bees look up to the bee which collects the most honey

[Spoon]

Has it ever been confirmed that shivan fighters are actually manned?

[NGTM-1R]

Has it ever been confirmed that shivan fighters are actually manned?

Pretty sure FS1 CBAni did.

[StarSlayer]

do bees look up to the bee which collects the most honey

Didn't you know?  Those stripes are actually kill count hashes.

[General Battuta]

Some morphs are born, maaade to wave the flag
Oooo, their red, black and blue
And when the ship says 'boarded by Terrans'
Oooo, they point the cannon at you

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no anima one
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't got cognition

[Gee1337]

IIRC, the canon states that Shivans are a "hive mind", therefore I don't believe that they would believe in things such as "aces" or recognise superior individual skill in their own hierarchy or society. The best simile that I can think of is something akin to the Star Trek's "borg".

[General Battuta]

The canon actually suggests we should be skeptical of the hive mind theory, and not to jump to it as the leading hypothesis.

Xenobiologists know very little about Shivan society. A leading hypothesis is the hive mind theory, arguing that Shivan society is broken down in specialized functions driven by a collective intelligence. The most convincing evidence supporting this theory is the behavior of Shivan forces following the destruction of the Lucifer, the turning point of the Great War. Other experts caution against attributing insectoid properties to the Shivans, regardless of their appearance and behavior. Shivan communication seems to occur in the electromagnetic spectrum, though efforts to decode their transmissions have yielded no meaningful results to date.

I'm strongly against Borg analogies!

[NGTM-1R]

Of course in the context of a briefing for pilots it could be seen merely as an admonishment not to underestimate the skill of Shivan pilots or assume they are incapable of higher-order coordination.

[CT27]

For those who are saying the Shivans are like the Borg...does that mean they have a "Queen"?

[General Battuta]

Shivans aren't like borgs and don't have a queen. Interestingly, queens in real insect colonies aren't centralized sources of command and control - they have a very tense relationship with the rest of the colony!

[karajorma]

Shivans aren't like borgs and don't have a queen. Interestingly, queens in real insect colonies aren't centralized sources of command and control - they have a very tense relationship with the rest of the colony!

In fact in many cases the queen is nothing more than a brood mare exploited by the workers to produce more of their kind.

[Snarks]

If we treat Shivans as if they were a species of ancient space ants, then we can probably accept that there is no internal valuation of Shivan aces. But ant colonies have different ants with different roles, some arguably more essential than others depending on the situation. So maybe instead of an "elite" fighter squadron, they would have a "nest guard" fighter squadron. Those pesky Dragons probably fit the bill.

In a campaign (assuming we're playing as humans), Shivan aces can exist even as a story mechanic. Similar to how people might have prized beetles for bug tournaments, there might be prized Shivans that are just really good at killing opposing fighters. So while the Shivans may not recognize their Shivans, we probably would (if we can somehow identify it from the rest of the Shivan swarm.)

[Mongoose]

Even avoiding the hive mind, it may be possible that there isn't necessarily any behavioral differentiation between Shivan pilots.  If, say, they all start as genetically-identical individuals that all undergo the same "training"...or perhaps even better, have the same tactical information uploaded to them cybernetically.  (I know kung-fu!)  I could very much see the Shivans conducting analysis of particular engagements, and then "patching" in tactical updates to every individual pilot simultaneously.

[Gee1337]

I don't particularly like the Borg analogy, but it just seemed to be the best example to use for a Hive mind.

For me, I believe Shivans have a hive mind like the Borg but there are also other qualities like those of the Shadows, although not necessarily the evolution part! Perhaps the hive mind could be something a bit more like the Geth where a queen is not needed but a consensus is used to make decisions, and the more Shivans there are then the more intelligent they become. Perhaps the role of the Shivans is to spread and multiply to increase their intelligence?

With regards to Shivan aces, I still don't believe that they are recognised as the evolution of the Shivans suggest that they have advanced to the level where individual superiority has become irrelevant in their society, hive mind or not.