[karajorma]

I think I know what Rift is on about. There's a theory that Subspace and gravity are linked. That explains why nodes are only found in systems rather than in the vast interstellar distances between them.

A black hole might not weight any more but it does exert a stronger pull close to the event horizion. That may mean a different/better type of jump node would form near a neutron star/black hole.

[Ghostavo]

But a going to a black hole = certain death + time dilation and going near a neutron star is a bit dangerous especially if it's a pulsar! And in systems with more stars... well... I won't even go to that

Of course you could arrange some technobabble... so... ok I understand

[aldo_14]

Subspace Technology

While travel into subspace is enabled via ship-borne devices (called “subspace engines”, “cores”, or “motivators”), it’s long been known that subspace itself is a naturally-occuring phenomena.  

Subspace, for the intents of this document, is an alternate physical plane of space where the normal limits of relativistic physics and travel don’t apply.  By entering subspace for a relatively brief period of time, a space vessel can emerge in a location in realspace several star systems away.  This technology has allowed the human race to spread across much of the known Galaxy.

There are essentially two modes of subspace travel, inter-system and intra-system.

Intra-system subspace travel is nearly instantaneous, and requires relatively little energy input to enable.  Most of the GTA’s advanced fighters are equipped with intra-system jump motivators, allowing them to travel at will within a given star system.  There is little or no restriction on the beginning and end points of such a subspace “hop,” except that they be in the same star system.  

Inter-system travel via subspace is another matter entirely.  The end points of inter-system subspace jumps are limited to the naturally-occuring focal points of subspace, also known as “nodes.”  These nodes were initially discovered by Prof. J. Whiteside (see McPherson’s Multipaedia  (2557 ed.), pp 1132-1140).  Only between two subspace nodes is the fabric of subspace strong enough to support inter-system travel.  The defense of the physical locations surrounding such nodes proved to be a central part of the 14-year Terran-Vasudan War.

In addition, such massive amounts of energy input are required to open an inter-system node, that only the largest fusion pile reactors in existence are able to sustain it.  As a result, inter-system subspace travel is almost exclusively made by the largest vessels in production.  This fact has made the GTA’s Orion-class destroyer/carriers a pivotal and crucial part to the GTA’s tactical forces during the T-V War.

Needless to say, the ability to deliver ships of war to nearly any pinpointed destination has forever revolutionized the concepts and long-standing tenants of space combat.

(from FS ref bible)

what this suggests to me is that gravitational forces - i.e. within the orbit of a star - are required to move between the planes into that of subspace.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
But a going to a black hole = certain death + time dilation and going near a neutron star is a bit dangerous especially if it's a pulsar! And in systems with more stars... well... I won't even go to that

Of course you could arrange some technobabble... so... ok I understand

Well, we don't know that, do we?  Some people have theorised that a black hole could be used as a medium for time or interstellar travel, IIRC - I'm not sure if there is scientific evidence for this, but then again we've never actually been to one.

[HeX]

Originally posted by aldo_14


*snip*

Well considering the Anchients produced the Knossos technology, which was fairly beyond the grasp of GTVA scientists, I think we can safely say they were fairly advanced, comparitively speaking.

As for beam tech, we don't know if it could defeat the Lucifer. I don't see how it could have seeing as the shield withstood multi-megaton warheads.

The Luicfer itself stands as a bit of an enigma. Was it a special type of ship? A prototype? If not, why didn't other ships carry the shield technology? Surely the Ravana or Sathanas class could have powered such technology. The Lucifer wasn't even as powerful as those two ship classes, only it's shield gave it an advantage.

The Shivans are the origin of shield tech, we got it off their own fighters. They have sufficent advances to shield a single cap ship, why not others? (of course skipping the obvious answer that it would have made the game TOTALLY unfair ).

The Shivans have quite a few alien traits about them. Their thinking most of all. They make a single attempt at devestating the GTA and VPA, then years later, with a fleet that could have easily done what the Lucifer failed to do, they simply blow up a star, seal off a jump lane, and vanish. Leaves many a question.

[HeX]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Well, we don't know that, do we?  Some people have theorised that a black hole could be used as a medium for time or interstellar travel, IIRC - I'm not sure if there is scientific evidence for this, but then again we've never actually been to one.

http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/schww.html

Stuff on wormholes, whiteholes and blackholes. That's the only known connection between blackhole and travel that I've ever heard of.

Everything else involves being crushed like a grape under a planet.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by HeX


Well considering the Anchients produced the Knossos technology, which was fairly beyond the grasp of GTVA scientists, I think we can safely say they were fairly advanced, comparitively speaking.

As for beam tech, we don't know if it could defeat the Lucifer. I don't see how it could have seeing as the shield withstood multi-megaton warheads.

The Luicfer itself stands as a bit of an enigma. Was it a special type of ship? A prototype? If not, why didn't other ships carry the shield technology? Surely the Ravana or Sathanas class could have powered such technology. The Lucifer wasn't even as powerful as those two ship classes, only it's shield gave it an advantage.

The Shivans are the origin of shield tech, we got it off their own fighters. They have sufficent advances to shield a single cap ship, why not others? (of course skipping the obvious answer that it would have made the game TOTALLY unfair ).

The Shivans have quite a few alien traits about them. Their thinking most of all. They make a single attempt at devestating the GTA and VPA, then years later, with a fleet that could have easily done what the Lucifer failed to do, they simply blow up a star, seal off a jump lane, and vanish. Leaves many a question.

The Knossos always seemed an incongruity to me...  it seems more advanced than anything even the Shivans have done.  Of course, the Ancients may have been more advanced in subspace than militarily.  Or it could have been created by another, older race (is the Knossos ever conclusively verified as being ancient?  IIRC they only presume it is because its old enough and it's not Shivan).

In terms of beams Vs the Lucifer - if you look at the damage the Helios did to the Sathanas vs the Colossuses beams, then it think it's certain that beams are more powerful.  And there my be a difference between absorbing an explosive shockwave and a photon beam (is there?  I have not a ****ing clue, but I'd expect so).

It's possible that the Lucifer itself is designed for tackling lesser races without the technology to defeat it... i.e. at a certain technological level shielding a capship is counter-productive in terms of energy cost vs the effectiveness against beams.  It doesn;t really explain why the FS1 shivans had no beams, flaks or shields, as you said.  Maybe the Lucifer had shields for some purpose other than defense... possibly to traverse unstable nodes (where the shields would be used in some way to stabilise the subspace tunnel... that could explain why they didn;t work in subspace)

Or, it was just the head of a scout fleet and designed defensively - i.e. to be able to run from a larger foe.  The Shivans obviously have no qualms about sacrificing even their Sathani, so maybe no other ships have shields because they don't care if they're lost or not.

[Black Wolf]

Keep in mind, the Lucifer also had 5 reactors, presumably to power that shield tech. Maybe having that many reactors makes the shield tech impractical on other ships.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
But a going to a black hole = certain death + time dilation and going near a neutron star is a bit dangerous especially if it's a pulsar! And in systems with more stars... well... I won't even go to that

Of course you could arrange some technobabble... so... ok I understand

Actually I didn't say they were going into the black hole. Mearly using the stronger gravitational well it produces to form a new jump node near the black hole that went where ever it is they wanted to go.

[HeX]

I thought the Knossos was mentioned in the Anchient relics discovered. Or at least that's the idea I got from the scenes with Bosch.

It's possible the first Shivan force was older or outdated ships. Perhaps the Shivans determined that shielded ships were too costly or difficult to produce.

I guess if you think about it, a fleet of Sathani is far more dangerous then a Lucifer. Destroying just one Sathanas took more effort the the Lucifer (catch it in subspace and it's a sitting duck, catch a Sathanas anywhere and you're COOKED duck).

[Ghostavo]

Sorry if I miswritten that, I meant going near a black hole

[HeX]

Do stars collapse into black holes IMMEDIATELY following a nova? I thought it took some time for the gravity well to collapse.

[Ghostavo]

It depends on the mass of the star, if it is heavy enough, it will expel the outer layers of a star and collapse unto itself forming a black hole. And gravity wells don't collapse...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by HeX
I thought the Knossos was mentioned in the Anchient relics discovered. Or at least that's the idea I got from the scenes with Bosch.
 

Well, the GTVA doubtless has records (post FS2) of the Knossos portal, but it doesn't mean they built it.

[HeX]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
And gravity wells don't collapse...

Whoops. I think I meant something different but I can't think of what.

[HeX]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Well, the GTVA doubtless has records (post FS2) of the Knossos portal, but it doesn't mean they built it.

I was thiniking about the relics found pre and during FS2 (I think some were found during, weren't they?). I thought there was some allusion to the Knossos technology being mentioned in those.

It's been a while since I played FS2 but the way Bosch was talking sounded like it was pretty much known that the Knossos was Anchient technology.

If not them, then I wonder who. Certainly isn't of Shivan construction, I believe that much is mentioned.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by HeX


I was thiniking about the relics found pre and during FS2 (I think some were found during, weren't they?). I thought there was some allusion to the Knossos technology being mentioned in those.

It's been a while since I played FS2 but the way Bosch was talking sounded like it was pretty much known that the Knossos was Anchient technology.

If not them, then I wonder who. Certainly isn't of Shivan construction, I believe that much is mentioned.

Well, the Bosch monologues; (from karas FAQ)

Monologue 1

Thirty-Two years ago in the Altair system, Vasudan scientists discovered the remnants of an extinct civilisation we now call the ancients. In here we found the secret to defeat the Shivans. How close did we come to being a footnote in the history of a future species that would happen upon our ruins ten thousand years from now. Would they indulge in the fiction of their own immortality until the Shivans came for them, and how long had this gone on?

Did the ancients stumble upon the monoliths and the tombs of their predecessors in this distant corner of space, dismissing the warnings carved into the walls of the sepulchre. And when the destroyers came at last what did the ancients think as they sifted the cremation of dust and bones, staring into the mute remains for a key, some solution to their plight.

What if there had been countless races, stretching back into infinity and like the nine cities of Troy, each civilisation had been built on the rumble of the one that came before, each annihilated by the Shivans?

The ancients died eight thousand years ago, as humanity emerged from its Neolithic infancy, they believed their voyage across the sea of stars awakened the dragon that slept beneath the waves, that the Shivans were birthed in the flux of subspace and their destruction was the revenge of an angry cosmos.

Monologue 2

I hear my enemies speculate about my motives, my ambitions. Who is Admiral Aken Bosch, and what is that old scoundrel up to. The tragedy of my life is that I will be remembered as the butcher of innocents, and this assessment is not unfair. I cannot argue with their condemnation or with the verdict of history.

The Neo Terran Front is an army of stupid cattle, driven by their hatreds, their fears and insecurities. Ignorance is the greatest weapon of tyranny and old wounds open all too easily. I am merely a fool who created a monster I am now powerless to stop and so I will play my role to the bloody end. I have given the lost generation something to die for, and now my legacy will be crowned with infamy.

What my enemies will never understand is that my rebellion is about my love for humanity and not my hatred of Vasudans. In the Gamma Draconis system the destroyers have returned and soon the alliance will learn the method behind my madness.

Monologue 3

Why does the ancient portal lead us here? Have the Shivans been waiting for us for thousands of years? This odyssey, this exodus, do we journey towards the promised land or into the Valley of the Kings?
Three decades ago I envisioned a new future for our species and now that we are on the brink of realising my dream I feel only solitude and regret. Has my entire life's work been a fool's crusade?

Have I led my people into this desert, only to die?

My regime has caused nothing but savagery and suffering but I cannot turn back now. I must find the destroyers that lurk behind this veil of clouds or I must wait for the destroyers to find me.

The nebula is the remnant of a supernova thousands if not billions of light years from Earth and I wonder now if our ancestors witnessed the death of this star erupting over an Egyptian landscape, blazing with the brilliance of four hundred million suns Even in their divinity no pharaoh could have imagined this.

Monologue 4

This is the final entry in the personal log of Admiral Aken Bosch, supreme commander of the Neo Terran Front. Our encounter with the Shivans has vindicated all I have fought for these past thirty years. My life's work has been achieved. I have created the technology to enable communication between the Shivans and the human race. Although our first contact was rudimentary and crude, I have initiated the first phase of a new alliance with the destroyers. An alliance upon which the fate of humanity depends.

As a young pilot I battled against the rebels of the great war, the Galactic Terran Intelligence whose research of shivan technology and biology would form the cornerstone of my project. The Terran-Vasudan alliance buried this knowledge but I resurrected it. I alone realised our species had no future with the Vasudans. If we are to survive, our destiny must lie elsewhere.

As I make this final entry my crew is preparing to scuttle the Iconic and board the shivan transports. We embark on a miraculous journey towards a new horizon. This tragic era of hatred and misunderstanding between our races is over. On this day, for the first time in my life, I am filled with joy.

There's nothing to indicate whether the Ancients built the Knossos.  The italics bit raises an interesting pointas to whether the Ancients, like the GTVA stumbled onto new technology - in their case the Knossos.


If you want to go into the realms of Stargate, perhaps some forenunner - or even the Ancients themselves -  created the node network, and the knossos' are their legacy, left over.  As the node remained in GD remained open after the Knossos was destroyed, maybe there once was a Knossos at every node.... and maybe the Shivans destroyed those with the ancients.  

Which would raise the question - why just this (GTVA) space?  The Shivans, after all, control at least 2 Knossos' (or is it Knosses) in the nebula and the unnamed system beyond it, IIRC.

[jdjtcagle]

You forget Aldo
It was speculated by the GTVA that Bosch was in Deneb studying Ancient artifacts to activate the device...

So is that what he was doing in Deneb?
If so that would of ment he found instructions for a device on Ancient ground

Oh and happy birthday

[Gloriano]

Originally posted by jdjtcagle
You forget Aldo
It was speculated by the GTVA that Bosch was in Deneb studying Ancient artifacts to activate the device...

He was there studying Ancient aritifacts that's why his secret base in Deneb

Maybe Sathanas Fleet was Shivans colony ships finding new home
for Shivans, after GTVA did go Gamma Draconis and triggered something

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by jdjtcagle
You forget Aldo
It was speculated by the GTVA that Bosch was in Deneb studying Ancient artifacts to activate the device...

So is that what he was doing in Deneb?
If so that would of ment he found instructions for a device on Ancient ground

 

That said, the speculations were only aired after the Knossos had been described as Ancient in origin.

Personally though, I think the fact that it was pretty much accepted in the storyline that the Knossos was an ancient artefact, then it probably was an Ancient artefact. I can;t see V throwing us a curveball on that one.