[admiral_wolf]

I personally cannot see the point in equipping a mere transporter with the devestating firepower of a Sathanas.  It does seem that Shivans are hellbent on domination and extinstion of anyone who dares to cross subspace so my personal theory was the Sathani were deployed as revenge for taking out their planatary destroyer The Lucifer.  After all, does it not say on the box of Freespace 2 "They want to know what happened to their scouting party".

Going back to The Ancients monologues, I realise I'm clutching at straws here, but I personally believe that the Sathani are only a somewhat recent developments created 100s, not 1,000s of years ago.  In their 2nd monologue, it says "when the destroyers came for us we attacked, never had we been defeated.  They were like the others.... only  these were not like the others; they did not die".  I therefore believe that The Ancients only encountered A if not The Lucifer type destroyer. 

I say this as is it not claimed that The Ancients were the same as us techologically, and so therefore may not have developed weapons to counteract shield techology; "We have the knowledge, but not the means. and so this is our legacy.  In subspace they cannot use their shields and into subspace they can be tracked".

[FreeSpaceFreak]

The firepower would be a side-effect of the huge available reactor power for the subspace stuff. Like:
- Shivan Engineer 1: Hey, we put several huge reactors in that huge ship, to get its subspace device working.
- Shivan Engineer 2: Great, how about putting some huge beam cannons on it? Energy enough.
- 1: Good idea, we could make it a blockade runner and have it anything in front of it!
- 2: *drools*

[Snail]

I wholeheartedly agree with that statement.

[Gamma_Draconis]

I think a more reasonable explanation would be the Sathanas is the only Shivan ship capable of carrying and generating enough power for the subspace device. This is true because the military typically modifies the chassis for weapons platform instead of designing an entirely new vehicle. The Lucifier might have been able to generate the subspace rift or whatever it is, but due to the planetary bombardment weapons it had loaded and the relatively small chassis meant that there was no room left.

[castor]

I don't think it makes much sense that the most powerful warship of the fleet would be a transport.
Ok, it doesn't matter as long as shivans are fighting a race like humans or vasudans, but the mixed role won't work at all in case they meet a military power on par with their own.

[Admiral_Stones]

I personally cannot see the point in equipping a mere transporter with the devestating firepower of a Sathanas.  It does seem that Shivans are hellbent on domination and extinstion of anyone who dares to cross subspace so my personal theory was the Sathani were deployed as revenge for taking out their planatary destroyer The Lucifer.  After all, does it not say on the box of Freespace 2 "They want to know what happened to their scouting party".

Going back to The Ancients monologues, I realise I'm clutching at straws here, but I personally believe that the Sathani are only a somewhat recent developments created 100s, not 1,000s of years ago.  In their 2nd monologue, it says "when the destroyers came for us we attacked, never had we been defeated.  They were like the others.... only  these were not like the others; they did not die".  I therefore believe that The Ancients only encountered A if not The Lucifer type destroyer. 

I say this as is it not claimed that The Ancients were the same as us techologically, and so therefore may not have developed weapons to counteract shield techology; "We have the knowledge, but not the means. and so this is our legacy.  In subspace they cannot use their shields and into subspace they can be tracked".

A bit offtopic, but...

GODDAMN!

PLURAL OF SATHANAS EQUALS EITHER TO SATHANAI OR SATHANES!

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I don't think it makes much sense that the most powerful warship of the fleet would be a transport.
Ok, it doesn't matter as long as shivans are fighting a race like humans or vasudans, but the mixed role won't work at all in case they meet a military power on par with their own.

Who said it's the most powerful ship of their fleet? After the Great War, the GTVA thought that the Lucy was their single most powerful ship, and then they came up with 80 Saths. You're making the same mistake here. The Sath may or may not be the most powerful ship they ever made. THE most powerful one is up to your imagination...

[Admiral_Stones]

Seconded. Who ssaid BFReds are actually strong? Maybe they're just crappy Shivan Blob Turrets.
Don't want to see the REAL BFRed though. That would be Galaxy pwnage.

[castor]

Fair enough. Still, you have to wonder, why then are Shivans throwing just rocks at the GTVA? They way I see it, if Sath was intended mostly as a transport, the the rest of the fleet they've used in their offensive appears underpowered.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Underpowered to our logic, yes. But if you have uber-transports of 6km, your fleet composition will change. Trust me.
And - I know this is clichéd - perhaps the bulk of the Shivan fleet was fighting elsewhere. These 'rocks' they threw at the GTVA still smashed us big time, so they didn't need to send in anything else.

BTW, Stones, the Shivans shouldn't be overestimated either. They're part of an even bigger problem, remember?

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Ah yes. Speaking of which...

Think about this. Let's just say that Admiral Petrarch was right; that the Shivans were searching for a way back home. Considering that just flying around is pretty meaningless (seeing that they've been doing it for several millenniums) , maybe the Shivans had an idea that using weapons would create the cataclysm that would enable them to return home. Maybe their presence in GTVA systems all these years was to find such a way.