[crizza]

Replayed the mission again, cause there was a frighter there, hauling another container...so:

SAC 3  5: We are your only hope
SAC 3  6: He Waits in the cooling ruin
SAC 3  7: For a daughter made out of war
SAC 3  8: Brothers! Brothers! Paramatma!
SAC 3  9: Why are you so cold?
SAC 3 44: You look to the walls and works
SAC 3 45: We dance in the garden of life
SAC 3 46: You look for the one from many
SAC 3 47: We look for the one above all.

I understand it, that Noemi will not lead the battle against the shivans, she will rather be the counterpart of Sam, perhaps leading the shivans, if she loses herself in the war against the GTVA...I mean, why would the shivans bother telling Sam via containers, what a long term goal is?

[Buckshee Rounds]

Replayed the mission again, cause there was a frighter there, hauling another container...so:

SAC 3  5: We are your only hope
SAC 3  6: He Waits in the cooling ruin
SAC 3  7: For a daughter made out of war
SAC 3  8: Brothers! Brothers! Paramatma!
SAC 3  9: Why are you so cold?
SAC 3 44: You look to the walls and works
SAC 3 45: We dance in the garden of life
SAC 3 46: You look for the one from many
SAC 3 47: We look for the one above all.

I understand it, that Noemi will not lead the battle against the shivans, she will rather be the counterpart of Sam, perhaps leading the shivans, if she loses herself in the war against the GTVA...I mean, why would the shivans bother telling Sam via containers, what a long term goal is?

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra....speaking in metaphors is really hard.

[Scotty]

Just replaying AoA...Concerning Noemi Laporte and her conection with the shivans...
In the mission where you have to protect the vishnan ships against a Moloch, sveral cruisers and strikecraft, there are several containers and after playing Vasagos Dirge I'm very sceptical towards unscanned containers...
After scanning you get the folloing lines, ordered by the numbers:

SAC 3  6: He Waits in the cooling ruin
SAC 3  7: For a daughter made out of war
SAC 3  8: Brothers! Brothers! Paramatma!
SAC 3  9: Why are you so cold?
SAC 3 44: You look to the walls and works
SAC 3 45: We dance in the garden of life
SAC 3 46: You look for the one from many
SAC 3 47: We look for the one above all.

Well paramatma is something like ... consciousness merging with the highest self...well, I don't quite get it, so maybe someone could search Wikipedia, Brahman is mentioned there as well.^^

Theory: "Someone is waiting in the cooling ruins" the cooling ruins could be Capella...and someone is waiting there...the Dante perhaps?
"The daughter made out of war" could be Noemi Laporte...

If this was posted and discussed somewhere, please provide me a link...

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=68469.0

I don't really expect you to go digging up year old topics though.

[SD-Beast]

I recall it being states that, in BP the Shivans can only do their thing under certain rules.
 

Spoiler:

What if Project Nagari is the Fedayeen enacting those rules or conditions that allow the Shivans to operate? Especially given "We are your only hope."

[Luis Dias]

I recall it being states that, in BP the Shivans can only do their thing under certain rules.
 

Spoiler:

What if Project Nagari is the Fedayeen enacting those rules or conditions that allow the Shivans to operate? Especially given "We are your only hope."

God no, that would be so overkill.

[FSW]

At first I was unconvinced that the Vasudans were that "stupid" to believe in such a strange suggestion by Steele. Consider: why wouldn't Steele try to boycott this reunion? That would be only logical. Why would the Vasudan take his advice seriously? Why wouldn't he consider the evidence that UEF tried to put on the table?

Perhaps the Vasudan Admiral was in on the whole thing. Perhaps he, for some yet-undisclosed reason, wanted an excuse to get involved in the war.

[Luis Dias]

At first I was unconvinced that the Vasudans were that "stupid" to believe in such a strange suggestion by Steele. Consider: why wouldn't Steele try to boycott this reunion? That would be only logical. Why would the Vasudan take his advice seriously? Why wouldn't he consider the evidence that UEF tried to put on the table?

Perhaps the Vasudan Admiral was in on the whole thing. Perhaps he, for some yet-undisclosed reason, wanted an excuse to get involved in the war.

Now that's better.

And a by-liner by some of the pilots passing on that speculation would have been great.

[Destiny]

At first I was unconvinced that the Vasudans were that "stupid" to believe in such a strange suggestion by Steele. Consider: why wouldn't Steele try to boycott this reunion? That would be only logical. Why would the Vasudan take his advice seriously? Why wouldn't he consider the evidence that UEF tried to put on the table?

Perhaps the Vasudan Admiral was in on the whole thing. Perhaps he, for some yet-undisclosed reason, wanted an excuse to get involved in the war.

"One day, it will no longer be said that Earthborn fight like Vasudans, but Vasudans fight like Earthborn."


Remember this from somewhere, hmmmmmmm?

[Buckshee Rounds]

It's an odd set of circumstance for the Vasudans from a practical point of view. If the assembly is successful in conquering and annexing Sol into the GTVA the Terran race will have almost double the population and industrial capacity of the Zods. A GTVA with Sol in it's grasp would make Terrans the undisputed bigger partner in the Alliance, comparable to the "Special Relationship" status between America and Britain in that one side is clearly the master.

On these counts alone the Vasudans should want anything but a Tev victory, not to mention the obvious cultural ties Ubuntu shares with Vasudan society.

I wonder what Khonsu meant by that quote. Was he referring to the Terrans of the GTVA or the literal earthborn, the Feds.

[Mars]

Actually we have no idea what Zod industrial capacity is. It could well be that they already have a much larger capacity than the Terrans - annexing of Sol might make the Alliance more equal.

And I assume the second.

[Ypoknons]

I played around with some assumptions here, but there's too many variables here. What is the rate of growth in a space-age economy, not limited to a single planet? What was the size of the Vasudan economy after the first invasion? What is the degree of the contraction (or stagnation or limited growth) that GTVA faced after the second invasion and exactly what happened in the GTA - UEF transision, with its massive resdistribution and subsequent growth?

[Luis Dias]

I played around with some assumptions here, but there's too many variables here. What is the rate of growth in a space-age economy, not limited to a single planet? What was the size of the Vasudan economy after the first invasion? What is the degree of the contraction (or stagnation or limited growth) that GTVA faced after the second invasion and exactly what happened in the GTA - UEF transision, with its massive resdistribution and subsequent growth?

I think you're quite open for blatant "duck it out of your ass" if you want to. IOW, you can have it as you want it. For instance, freespace universe doesn't mention transhumanism. You'd think that in such a long time, humans would have figured out how to implant cpus and memory chips in their brains, miniscule as a water droplet, powerful as a supercomputer.

In such a case, growth rates in the economy could well achieve north of 20%, 50%, 100% a year. Why not, it's not as if we have precedent over this to get a clue. Notice that in such types of numbers, you are absolutely lost about what is going to happen within ten years. Will your economy be five times bigger? 20 times? A hundred times?

Granted, freespace doesn't seem to be a "transumanistic" universe, but they do have incredible technology, and their growth rates can be anywhere we want them to be.

So it's more up to the demands of the plot for our own entertainment than anything else. Do you want to build a campaign where GTVA is overrun by a maddening race growing their economy 100% a year? Or do you want to make a plot, pretending this is the twentieth nth century, but it's nothing more than a picture of our own time and place (which is what science fiction almost always is)?

Your call, really.

[Mars]

Well, we know for a fact that humans are still bound by the same biases they've always had, although I wouldn't rule out much more educated people on average. We also know that in terms of economy UEF > GTA and the Zods > GTA, but not by how much.

[Luis Dias]

It's also slightly reminiscent of the japanese war against the usa. Japan did good damage at the start, but the economic machine of the states eventually overran japan.

There are significant differences. For one, the fleets of the usa were more comparable and similar to each other than the case in here. For two, the moment war is declared, the whole usa economy was turned into a war machine, and in this case, there are still attempts at appeasement and "other solutions". Americans weren't this hippy-pacifistic.

For three, it seems that Steele has learned from history and guessed correctly that if the GTA prolongues this war too much, there is the chance that the sol economy will eventually overturn the tides of war. So he is pressing before, and I'm paraphrasing a well known japanese expression, the "dormant bear awakes".

[Destiny]

The UEF economy turning the tides of war is something I really, really doubt. In this case you can't use Japan and America as examples. The GTA already managed to move out of their planet, and into space. The GTA (and the GTVA) even managed to colonize many many other systems. The UEF in comparison, had nothing of the sort, only receiving what was of the GTA's work, the Sol system. They're not like countries or territories, the factors are more immense than 'we sail here and put flag'. You should not use WWII as a comparison, in any case...

I'm certain that the GTVA is the dormant bear. If the UEF has been fighting for (I don't remember how many months), why haven't they won, forcing the GTVA back into the node and spreading Ubuntu throughout the GTVA and causing a massive civil war? Because it's the fact that the GTVA can win a war of attrition, and the UEF can't. They are nothing like a dormant bear. Why haven't the entire Sol sector gone into a fury and rage, churning ships and stuff out like crazy after all the 'atrocities' the GTVA committed? The Elders? One is dead because of it.

The Vasudans have already shifted into full-scale logistics support. If the GTVA decides to pull out all stops...you know.



Edit: I think I know why, and why you should smack Byrne in the balls for it.

[Luis Dias]

No, sure, I agree that the analogy is lost in the middle of the war, and is blown to shreds in Delenda Est. Your point about they being interstellar territories is irrelevant for this point, for it is an analogy, not a direct translation. And I'm sure that historians would slap you too if you deflated WW2 as a "we sail here and put flag".

I'm certain that the GTVA is the dormant bear

Yes, that's right, in terms of actual firepower. My point was an economical one. In WW2, when japan attacked the US, their naval fleet was also superior to the american one. What made the difference was the relative economics between those countries (given they had time to make up for the difference in firepower).

If the UEF has been fighting for (I don't remember how many months), why haven't they won, forcing the GTVA back into the node and spreading Ubuntu throughout the GTVA and causing a massive civil war? Because it's the fact that the GTVA can win a war of attrition, and the UEF can't.

This is a non-sequitor. The UEF cannot win the war due to various factors, one of which is the lack of willingness to do so, and another one is the lack of defensive confidence to back up such an attack. The GTVA fleet is a pure attacking one, resting in a system where they have to defend nothing but themselves. The UEF has to defend their own industries, their planets, their base stations. This assymetry causes one fleet to be defensive and the other to attack. But this is perpendicular to the attrition issue. The GTVA also has "attrition issues", since they are fighting "their own people" in a shameless war without too much of a justification. People back on the other systems may start not to like it that much.

I mean, just witness what the shebang it was in the war on iraq, and that was a war against a very lunatic, mad, egomaniacal, criminous douchebag. How can you maintain the support for a war against pacifists without political backslash in GTVA territories for so long? Propaganda, sure, but even that has its own limits.

So in terms of "attrition", I'd say that both teams have their own issues. The GTVA might not hold public approval for too long, and the UEF might just not hold on in terms of actual logistics and army maintenance due to actual physical attrition.

Who will get to that cracking point before? The "logical bets" would be on UEF just going down now pretty fast, but this is a novel, a fantasy, a good adventure, and the hero is in the UEF. So my actual bet is that the UEF will win with a ****ing bit twist, and hopefully not a deus ex machina (surely, the writers are good).


I mean, if Sheppard alone can destroy a whole fleet of reapers all by him/herself, why the **** not?

[Jellyfish]

the hero is in the UEF

Hardly a reason to have the UEF win. This may be fantasy, but it is quite realistic, and heroes die in war as anybody else. See the rogue SOC squadron Laporte and Simms destroyed.

[Snail]

the hero is in the UEF

Hardly a reason to have the UEF win. This may be fantasy, but it is quite realistic, and heroes die in war as anybody else. See the rogue SOC squadron Laporte and Simms destroyed.

The rogue SOC squadron weren't the protagonists. Laporte is. Protagonists usually win.


Of course the BP guys are super cool and I'm sure they won't go down any formulaic route.

[Destiny]

So...who is Xinny and Zero in that SOC squadron? I was decimated on every try, even the first.



So what's with the lack of orbital planetary defenses? There is simply nothing like weapon satellites (no, no! Don't look at that giant one -Sara- made!) or giant magnetic accelerator cannons...not even a Morningstar-armed sentry gun? It's Earth, you know! Earth...well, Earth. The most important place or something. There's no mention of Earth firing Ground to Space missiles either, while Mercury does.

[General Battuta]

the hero is in the UEF

Hardly a reason to have the UEF win. This may be fantasy, but it is quite realistic, and heroes die in war as anybody else. See the rogue SOC squadron Laporte and Simms destroyed.

The rogue SOC squadron weren't the protagonists. Laporte is. Protagonists usually win.

But uh that's like the worst example ever because the rogue SOC squadron can win that mission. You can get shot down and not kill them and proceed with the campaign.

So...who is Xinny and Zero in that SOC squadron? I was decimated on every try, even the first.

They're Alpha 3 and Alpha 4 from 'Into the Lion's Den' in FS2.

So what's with the lack of orbital planetary defenses? There is simply nothing like weapon satellites (no, no! Don't look at that giant one -Sara- made!) or giant magnetic accelerator cannons...not even a Morningstar-armed sentry gun? It's Earth, you know! Earth...well, Earth. The most important place or something. There's no mention of Earth firing Ground to Space missiles either, while Mercury does.

Why put something on the ground when you can put it in space? Sticking a weapon at the bottom of a gravity well is not going to make it more effective.