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Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: SF-Junky on November 03, 2013, 05:01:58 am

Title: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: SF-Junky on November 03, 2013, 05:01:58 am
As far as I can see there is no general speculation thread about the UEF's super secret top priority project Shambala. What canon information do we have about Shambhala? Not very much.

Quote from: Nothing is True Command Brief
Henriksson is a physicist and statesman of considerable repute. Her personal records indicate that she was motivated by a desire to end this war rapidly and decisively. She saw the $r Alliance as the inevitable victors.

She expresses regret for the loss of Elder Taudigani, but contends that something termed 'Shambhala' is 'a reprehensible gamble with the lives of billions and possible extinction'.

If she reaches Artemis Station, the sacrifices we have made to enact the Elders' plan will be rendered meaningless.
Quote from: Nothing is True - Dialogue between Svetlana Henriksson and Admiral Steele
H: The project is called Shambhala. It began twenty years ago, but the final breakthroughs were not made until the 14th Battlegroup defectors brought their expertise to bear.
S: Is it a weapon? A warship? A beam-armed battle group? I need specifics.
H: Hahaha! How typical, Admiral. What good would a weapon have done us? You must understand that Shambhala is an answer to a problem that predates this war by decades.
S: Unlike you, Elder, I cannot grasp an entire culture with a few months' study. Make yourself plain.
H: Shambhala is the Elders' plan to end the war without the exercise of mliitary power. It preserves the principles of Ubuntu while satisfying the messy practical need for victory.
Quote from: Universal Truth - Ken
And your Federation has its own designs. Do you think the Elders were blind to the Shivan threat? They knew the Destroyers could rebuild collapsed jump nodes. Their Project Shambhala was an answer to that threat...now it is something more.
Quote from: Universal Truth - Elder Martin Mandho
Byrne is sure Shambhala will work, whether in the first stage or the second. All the simulations agree. But I wonder...are we too late? Is the verdict passed? Perhaps the second Wanderer will know...

That's it. You might want to read the Wikipedia article about Shambhala: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala

Ken seems to give a pretty clear hint at what Shambhala might be. What he says about it makes me think that Shambhala was something that can seal off subspace jump nodes. But not a super-weapon with which to just blow them up. More like a key to simply lock them up like a door. That would also fit with the wiki description if Shambhala describing it as a 'Pure Land' and a 'place of peace/tranquility/happiness' - that would be the Sol system where humanity can live in safety from the Shivans or any other threats.
However, it is said that it is more now. Henriksson calls it 'a reprehensible gamble with the lives of billions and possible extinction'. That doesn't sound like a mere tool to seal jump nodes.

What I'm pretty sure of is that Shambhala is not just a big gun, a big warship or a big bomb. I'd really be surprised if it had something to do with brute force.

What do you think?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: CommanderDJ on November 03, 2013, 05:08:33 am
I'm not sure what I'm basing this on, but I think it's safe to assume the Vishnans have something to do with it.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on November 03, 2013, 06:10:09 am
Quote from: Wikipedia
Hindu texts such as Vishnu Purana mention Shambhala as the birth place of Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu who will usher in a new Golden Age (Satya Yuga).
I think there is a chance the Vishnans will have something to do with it.
Quote from: Universal Truth
The walls are ours as are all those who cross them.
I think 'The Project' is a gateway to Shambhala... and given the massive energy farm at the sun mentioned in the forums, it might involve blowing it wide open into a Vishnan Capella-like transabyssal gate.

According to Wiki, Shambhala is related to Olmolungring (in its Tibetan Buddhist scriptures), which is described as:
Quote from: Wikipedia
... a non-dual spiritual realm (plane or dimension) of the Bon tradition which resides beyond dualism. It is understood to be a timeless perfected realm where peace and joy are the very fabric of being.

Shambhala could also describe the Nagari network, where all minds meld and we can see the 'core' of a person; which is not transmittable through code.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: crizza on November 03, 2013, 09:01:20 am
Just came to my mind: Maybe it's some kind of mind control thing or, taken the 14th in mind, it allows to seal jump nodes or create connections to paralell universes, so they can get reinforcements from those points, combing several GTVAs/UEFs to destroy the shivans...
Makes me wonder...is there a universe where the Terrans and Vasudans were able to defeat the shivan menace?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: BritishShivans on November 03, 2013, 10:18:00 am
Extremely doubtful on the "defeating Shivans" part. The Shivans are multi-universal like the Vishnans - if such a universe exists, it's more likely the Shivans are simply ignoring them for whatever reason.

But either way, I was gonna post a thing but it was similar to An4ximandro's post, so I didn't bother. Shambhala *definitely* has something to do with Nagari, one way or another.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Damage on November 03, 2013, 02:01:47 pm
Just a wild speculation:  What if Shambhala is a method to trigger wide-spread nagari sensitivity in humans--i.e. nagari interaction across the board?  We know that Nagari sensitivity is can be triggered externally, we know that it can be "programmed" into human DNA (for lack of a better description), what if it's already at least partially coded into all humans?  (Or even all sentients--different subject and question.)  I have no idea what the possible benefits to this could be though.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: QuakeIV on November 04, 2013, 04:52:17 pm
Maybe they will try to get the vishnans to gobble up all of the ubuntu humans into the summed psyche.  That would fit the available information I think.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 04, 2013, 05:28:29 pm
Shambhala is a Vishnan endgame-by-proxy which, if carried through to its completion, will result in some arbitrary catastrophe due to their enforced naïveté towards certain greater cosmic hazards.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: swashmebuckle on November 04, 2013, 07:06:32 pm
It's the dance from the Weekend at Bernie's films.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Fury on November 04, 2013, 11:42:44 pm
That's the best you guys could come up with? I'm disappointed, son. :nono:

There is only one question you need to ask yourselves when you think about the possibilities you have thought up. And that is "Is this cheesy, stupid or complete cop-out?". If answer to that question is yes, then you can be certain it's not what Shambhala is.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Droid803 on November 05, 2013, 01:03:52 am
According to the capship command script, the Shambhala is a player-flyable UED Solaris.
Giving that much power to ALPHA ONE is surely 'a reprehensible gamble with the lives of billions and possible extinction', after all.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: BritishShivans on November 05, 2013, 02:34:54 am
spoiler: shambhala is actually a mass-transmogrification device mounted on the UED Solaris that can turn people into ants. the great darkness is in fact a huge, incomprehensible, and ancient termite, and this is why it consumes everything

because it sees everything else as ants

and ants are natural enemies of termites

the elder council's plans are to turn everyone fighting them/against the vishnans into ants so that the great darkness will attack them

(obvious ****post)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Kiloku on November 05, 2013, 02:41:25 am
Extremely doubtful on the "defeating Shivans" part. The Shivans are multi-universal like the Vishnans - if such a universe exists, it's more likely the Shivans are simply ignoring them for whatever reason.

This made me think even more. Part of what brings such great power to the Vishnans and Shivans is their multi-universal nature. Maybe Shambhala would end up making humans multi-universal too, thus bringing them to the level of these great giants. Perhaps this is what the Shivans were trying to stop, while the Vishnans believed they should allow it.
If the Elders make all the UEF reach this level of transcendence, they would easily defeat the GTVA, possibly without much more casualty than the needed to force a retreat out of Sol.

The only thing that ends up left out of the equation are the Vasudans. I think their role has to be bigger than "that other species the humans met", but I have no idea how they'd fit into this line of thought.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mars on November 05, 2013, 03:18:06 am
If the Elders make all the UEF reach this level of transcendence, they would easily defeat the GTVA, possibly without much more casualty than the needed to force a retreat out of Sol.

How would this help them? This hasn't been a major tactical advantage of the Shivans so far, for instance. Their advantage is that they are far more advanced in every way, not simply multi-universal.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on November 05, 2013, 04:44:52 am
The problem of writing about transcendence is that it is as hard to do so in a relatable and understandable way as would be for a monkey to explain to another monkey the complexities of human cultures and dynamics.

Not only you have to bend your own brain around the paradoxes and the solutions to them, but also the consequences that come from these transcendental technologies and new social, intelligent constructs and instantiations, then make the correct iterations for (again) the new problems and the new solutions and so on.... until you got a cohesive and minimally intelligent description of such a system. I fear that at that point though, it's absolutely unrelatable to us humans.

It kinda reminds me the problem of celular automata, that concept where you have to let time go through the iterations for us to really see what the outcome really is, that there is no general quick solutions for the usual problem "in the next trillion iteration, the result in this box will be white or black?", you really do have to run down the entire simulation to get the answer to the problem.

So this difficulty is present in all sci fi. Already the idea that in 2300-2360 there will be still human pilots and human crews in space is mind-boggingly naive and stupid if you think more than a second about it. At the very least, these will be highly modified human beings, at a more "realistic" level, they would be just AIs way faster and more efficient fighters (and actually disposable) than any human could ever hope to be. However, we just pretend that most kinds of developments in the future do not happen at all and just focus on some particulars so our heads do not explode at trying to comprehend a completely unrelatable new world. Freespace then has BEAMZ and FTL and space battles and so on (mind boggling on its own) but it places such battles in the most WW2 way possible, navy-fashion, no AIs whatsoever, all institutions function mostly the same way, etc.

I am not complaining about that. It's efficient and relatable. However, when we are given all this and then are asked to ponder transcendental stuff like Shambala the cracks start to get noticed (the idiotic thing to do at that point would be trying to rationalize away those "non-developed" ways I pointed out. Better to just ignore them).

Shamballa is the general symbolic placeholder for the transhumanist and "singularity" thematic that has been the most hyped about thing in sci fi for decades now. What can be novel about it? What are the new questions we can pose about it?

As far as I could list, here are several few questions I see already at least referenced in the BP series:

 - What is consciousness? What are the landscapes of conscious natures? Does it even include things like anti-consciousness?
 - What is free-will? Are we here to be ordered around by higher forces or do we actually control anything at all? What is even the right way to ask this very question?
 - What is nature? Is the universe just a calculation happening (the cellular automata), or is it something where calculations are bound to happen (the shivans)?
 - What is our place in the universe? And is this very question an oppressing or liberating one? Should we stick to "our place" or should we dare otherwise?


So the stakes are high and the ambitions are great. I hope it delivers, but I won't be sad if it won't. It's not like those are easy questions.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on November 05, 2013, 05:31:46 am
This made me think even more. Part of what brings such great power to the Vishnans and Shivans is their multi-universal nature. Maybe Shambhala would end up making humans multi-universal too, thus bringing them to the level of these great giants. Perhaps this is what the Shivans were trying to stop, while the Vishnans believed they should allow it.
If the Elders make all the UEF reach this level of transcendence, they would easily defeat the GTVA, possibly without much more casualty than the needed to force a retreat out of Sol.
Let's work this line of though a bit.

If the Sham (:P) project is a 'mass-deliverance engine', the Vishnans changed their minds about the whole ascended humanity idea, so says Samuel in UT2. Why? Maybe it's the GTVA. Maybe they'd get sucked in as well and screw up all the Vishnans were planning. They are, after all, warmongering humans; and the Vishnans want builders to restore the trinity. Aside: It would not even surprise me if the Vasudans were the Great Darkness by some evol plot-twist.

Or maybe Shambhala will simply turn out to be a Nagari broadcast of Adm. Robert Bryne playing a guitar in a space concert with Netreba, Calder and Bei (Senior).
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: 666maslo666 on November 05, 2013, 06:09:18 am
Extremely doubtful on the "defeating Shivans" part. The Shivans are multi-universal like the Vishnans - if such a universe exists, it's more likely the Shivans are simply ignoring them for whatever reason.

This made me think even more. Part of what brings such great power to the Vishnans and Shivans is their multi-universal nature. Maybe Shambhala would end up making humans multi-universal too, thus bringing them to the level of these great giants. Perhaps this is what the Shivans were trying to stop, while the Vishnans believed they should allow it.

How about the other way around? Shambhala is a device to permanently seal off our universe from the rest of the multiverse. This would presumably wreak havoc on remaining Vishnans and Shivans, which would decide to attack GTVA space, thereby forcing them to withdraw from the Sol and sign a cease fire with the UEF. The "gamble" would be betting on the attacking Shivans being sufficiently disoriented and weakened by the sudden severance of the connection to the rest of the multiverse as to no longer pose an existential threat to humanity.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on November 05, 2013, 06:21:48 am
Ah yes, this puny civ in the corner of the universe would be able to stop multidimensional travel by multidimensional deep-time deep-thought and deep-space alien species. That's great writing.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on November 05, 2013, 06:37:42 am
That idea is worthy enough of two or three J-Anime franchises though. :warp:
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: cmap38 on November 05, 2013, 12:30:40 pm
I don't know if I've found one theory that is completely satisfying, but the best one so far would seem to be the idea (mentioned above) that Shambhala is a way to connect all humans to the nagari network, perhaps forming some sort of unified psyche. Assuming that humans in the GTVA become connected as well, this could very well be a way to end the war without having to fight it out, as the Elders would seem to prefer.

This idea seems to be in line with a lot of the fiction. For example, as per AoA, the vishnans seem to believe that humans have the potential to reach a state of enlightenment, and by doing so can take the place of the brahmans in some sort of heavenly trinity between the shivans, vishnanas, and humans. It's indicated that the vishnans, through nagari contact with the Elders, are cultivating humanity towards this state of enlightenment. It is therefore plausible that this level of nagari-connectedness between humans is a major milestone on this path to enlightenment. This would somewhat explain why Shambhala wasn't making much progress until the highly nagari-sensitive Samuel Bei showed up with the 14th battlegroup (although it doesn't explain why nagari sensitivity amongst the first alpha one, the vasudan pilots, and the Elders wasn't adequate for this progress).

Obviously Ken has other designs. His deal with the shivans is based on having humanity do the "one thing the shivans can't". Considering the "War in Heaven" that is currently going on between the shivans and vishnans in this story, my best guess is that this task involves injury/desctruction to the vishnans by humans. How could humans, or Laporte in particular, damage/destroy the vishnans? I'm not sure. We know that the vishnans inhabit and control the boundaries between universes, and perhaps subspace as well. We also know that they can communicate through nagari contact.

Perhaps Laporte has been meticulously cultivated by Ken to use her off-the-chart nagari abilities to either "hack" the vishnans, or somehow mess with the boundary world that they inhabit. Perhaps she needs to assemble a large battlegroup (as Ken tells her in Universal Truth) to punch through GTVA space and reach some location where this can be accomplished? Perhaps this location involves that newly discovered ancient Knossos portal in Ross 128 that was mentioned in AoA?

One problem with this theory is that the vasudans play almost no role here. It is mentioned somewhere (a tech entry?) that one of the vasudan Lucifer pilots was invited to visit Emperor Khonsu II. Between this and all the tech info about vasudan mysticism and the Hammer of Light, it seems likely that vasudans will end up playing a huge role in this as well. As a matter of fact, vasudans seem to be more enlightened than humans. So maybe I've got this all backwards, and it's really the vasudans who are supposed to take the place of the brahmans.

One more quick thought: At the end of WiH R1, the two Beis mention that the capture of the Anemoi logistics ship was a big help for Project Shambhala. The Federation also seems to be holding back a huge chunk of the military to aid in its completion. This leads me to believe that, whether weapon or not, whatever they are building must be *very large* (analogous to the Crucible in Mass Effect 3). Why else would they need all those assets?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on November 05, 2013, 04:35:32 pm
That's the best comment so far, cmap. A very little variation on your ideas could have the Vishnans trying for the Zods to become the next Brahmans and the Shivans trying to get the humans to be the next Brahmans. It's an idea first expressed in B5, and they have already promised they won't go for that kind of narrative. It is also possible that the Vishnans were at some particular moment also trying for humans to go for it, but once Sol was polluted with GTVA's own jingoism they ordered the cull. The shivans however somewhat engineered this GTA's insertion to Sol by blowing up Capella, and are somewhat more interested in what comes off of this struggle and thus are not obeying the cull call.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 05, 2013, 06:01:19 pm
OK, so my general theory WRT Shambhala is that, regardless of what Shambhala actually is, it represents the Vishnan's coup de grace in the evident proxy war that we are currently on the wrong end of in WiH; and that the Vishnans are not, contrary to their claims, a formal dual to the Shivans; that they are simply the result of intelligent life evolving under the selection pressure imposed by the existent of blind, omnipotent god-killers.

Integrating this with the theory found on the Great Darkness thread on this forums, that the GD represents some fundamental, ancient corruption of sentience expressed through the Nagari network, and that the Shivans exist with the primary purpose of keeping any budding civilisations from poking too hard into this matter by terminating them with extreme prejudice before they provide it with a prime vector into the physical realm, we obtain the idea that the Vishnans do not, cannot comprehend the thing at the threshold; that their masterplan will simply result in some arbitrarily-terrible apocalypse as it finds the conduit it has been blindly seeking.

And whilst the Shivans do not, cannot care about the Vishnans' pretensions to godhood, they have noticed and have prepared for this. What is an apatic anima? Battuta's summary was that it amounts to Shivan black ops, and that is certainly consistent with its present actions: finding and turning to its advantage the trump card of the Vishnan-thralled Elders, and mopping up that pesky GTVA while they're at it.

/drunkpost
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: BritishShivans on November 05, 2013, 06:41:05 pm
oh god i've been found out

phantom's post is what i seriously think about the BP stuff

how
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on November 05, 2013, 08:34:27 pm
Integrating this with the theory found on the Great Darkness thread on this forums, that the GD represents some fundamental, ancient corruption of sentience expressed through the Nagari network, ...
2 Qs here.

1st: Which thread had that?
2nd: What the hell does that (the italic) mean? Can you elaborate?

I am interested in learning more about this interpretation.

Sorry if it should be obvious, I am tired and about 30mins away from sleep. :p
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 06, 2013, 12:15:17 am
The thread is just called 'Great Darkness (spoilers)'; it started shortly after the release of Tenebra. The theory is that, whatever the GD is — a weapon, an experiment gone wrong, a BreenGrub style infectious meme — it was left behind by some precursor entity, it can be triggered by unwary exploration of the Nagari network and especially by directly investigating the GD itself, and that one of the goals of the Shivans' behaviour is to keep it contained in the network by aggressively eliminating any potential prey.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on November 06, 2013, 08:08:35 am
Yeah I kinda remember that thread. Really crazy ideas were floating there, regarding the ancient apocalypse and so on.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: SaltyWaffles on November 20, 2013, 07:21:37 pm
Maybe Shambhala involves "uploading" humanity and/or vasudans into a purely local (as in, non-multiversal), possibly artificially-created-via-Shambhala Nagari network, thus protecting them from conventional Shivan aggression (and/or conventional Shivan attention/protocol, perhaps) and the GD at the same time? I gather that the GD is multiversal in nature, so a Nagari network that is physically isolated (not firewalled as much as totally disconnected from) from the multiverse might be an acceptable solution.

Granted, there are a number of puzzle pieces that still don't fit that notion, but where does speculation and theorizing go without brainstorming?

---------

I'm also rather confused about the seeming paradox that Shambhala is the Vishnan victory-by-proxy, but the Shivans want Shambhala to succeed and the GTVA to be destroyed (or that Shambhala's success/partial success is in some way necessary to destroy the GTVA). So if both sides want Shambhala to succeed in some way, why would the Vishnans still insist on a cull, if even a partial victory/vindication were still very possible? And why would the Shivans totally ignore it if they were the ones that insisted on the cull in the first place (UT/UT2)? Why would the Shivans have insisted on the cull (UT/UT2) when they intentionally decided to not cull humanity/vasudans during Capella?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on November 21, 2013, 03:50:51 am
Quote
Shambhala is the Vishnan victory-by-proxy

Is it?

EDIT: Shambhala is a project that the Vishnans probably know about. They may even have given approval for it. But that does not necessarily mean that it can only be used in a way that benefits the Vishnan side of things.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: SaltyWaffles on November 21, 2013, 11:48:07 am
But doesn't that imply that the Elders are no longer compromised by the Vishnans and their influence? But given the events of UT2 and their subsequent demand that Laporte be handed over to them, the Vishnans still seem to be actively influencing the Council. So why would they back/approve Shambhala but not bother to ensure that it isn't used against their interests? Short of the Fedayeen swooping in and hijacking Shambhala as soon as it's finished (and somehow knowing exactly how it works/what it does/how to use it differently for a different goal), I don't see how the Shambhala endgame fits the current position of the various factions.

Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 21, 2013, 12:46:20 pm
Quote
Shambhala is the Vishnan victory-by-proxy

Is it?

EDIT: Shambhala is a project that the Vishnans probably know about. They may even have given approval for it. But that does not necessarily mean that it can only be used in a way that benefits the Vishnan side of things.

have you just canon'd my brilliant theory


creys
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: leoben on November 21, 2013, 04:13:02 pm
Salty asked the right questions!

For all the brainstorming and speculation we're doing here, we don't clearly understand the dynamics between the Vs and Ss. Keep in mind - Ken told Laporte she 'has to destroy the GTVA'. Not simply get to somewhere in GTVA space. He wants the GTVA gone. Does that include having the Vasudans gone too? Whatever the Ken entity is, how much of Bosch is preserved in it? How much did Bosch really hate the Vasudans? How much was the NTF just a cover for something much more important?

The Vs have gone quiet, we know that. At least as far as the UEF and the Elders are concerned. The Ss are in some sort of a holding pattern? Why? Who stopped them? Was there really a cull order? Was that by the Vs? But think back to AoA. The Vs told Bei - you do not belong here. And they also said - spread wisdom and bring enlightenment to your race. The Vs were fully aware what the GTVA's intentions were. So let's not kid ourselves - speculating that the Vs 'changed their minds' about humans and ordering the cull would be very silly, and not giving any credit to near-omnipotent beings, who know pretty much everything humans do and then some.

But then what happened? Something changed between AoA and WiH that I don't think we understand or know about yet. I don't at least.

Who is talking to Laporte really - who do they represent? Is she simply being manipulated?

Was she really talking to some echo or shadow of Bei in the last mission? Or not even that, simply being manipulated again? Or was it really Bei, and she got it all wrong and is headed in the 'wrong direction' for humanity?

I have more questions, but I'm starting to sound silly and boring, so I'll stop. Love the discussion though.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Husker on November 21, 2013, 06:26:54 pm
My guess is that the Vishnans do not know about the GD but the Shivans do. It's possible that Shambala has the potential to provide that bridge the GD needs to enter our universe. The Shivans may have touched Henriksson's mind and then she realized what could happen to everything. But it's possible Project Morpheus has an impact on this discussion. Until we find out more about Morpheus, I say we wait and see.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on November 21, 2013, 08:41:31 pm
Ken reveals in the last mission that it is the GTVA's end-state contingency: Purge Sol of Nagari sensitives.

It is why there was never going to be peace. The GTVA sees Nagari as a threat. The UEF embraces it. (Mando's comment to Noemi (I forget the mission, it's the one you receive mail from him.))
The Vasudans may see Nagari the same way as the UEF does, and that could be why they are not too excited about the war.

The GTVA is well deep into willing genocide territory if that is what it would take to end the Nagari threat.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on November 22, 2013, 01:04:17 am
Purge Sol of Nagari sensitives.
You misspelled "humanity".
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: niffiwan on November 22, 2013, 01:09:08 am
 :jaw:

That bad?  Yeah, I agree with Steele, I don't want to know about Contingency Morpheus.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Darius on November 22, 2013, 01:11:43 am
Purge Sol of humanity, got it Command!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on November 22, 2013, 04:22:38 am
(It's 'purge Sol of those under Vishnan influence', of course.)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: SaltyWaffles on November 23, 2013, 09:41:35 pm
Ken reveals in the last mission that it is the GTVA's end-state contingency: Purge Sol of Nagari sensitives.

It is why there was never going to be peace. The GTVA sees Nagari as a threat. The UEF embraces it. (Mando's comment to Noemi (I forget the mission, it's the one you receive mail from him.))
The Vasudans may see Nagari the same way as the UEF does, and that could be why they are not too excited about the war.

The GTVA is well deep into willing genocide territory if that is what it would take to end the Nagari threat.

Why would purging Nagari-sensitives be a good thing, even from the GTVA's perspective? If anything, NS's represent the Alliance's best way to get reliable intel on the Shivans (and Vishnans), which they have known to be extremely important ever since Capella. Nagari-sensitives being vulnerable to manipulation by the Vishnans (not so much by the Shivans, seeing as they have never bothered with doing that, and their very methodology of xenocide of any species that fails to meet its criteria ((as opposed to influencing any species straying from said criteria back to tolerable behavior)) is contrary to such a practice) doesn't seem to be the kind of threat that can only be dealt with through genocide--rather than publicly acknowledged as an alien threat that necessitates imprisonment/supervised treatment.

I thought Morpheus was about eliminating the local Vishnan influence/control over Sol (and potentially elsewhere, but with the main focus being on the existing, major problem in Sol) by effectively eliminating the influence of the major Nagari-sensitives in Sol (as mentioned by careful campaigns to discredit Elders--not purge galaxy of Elders). I had imagined it being something like the use of Nagari "firewalls" or some other kind of extensive, wide-area effect on Nagari-sensitives or local Nagari access/activity.


Purge Sol of Nagari sensitives.
You misspelled "humanity".

I don't get it. How could they possibly purge Sol of humanity? The GTA leadership is already facing massive public dissent for the war itself. Enacting some kind of system-wide genocide seems like the kind of thing that almost no one in the Alliance would ever actually do, and that even attempting it would end in almost instant failure from massive public outcry and everyone refusing to carry out such insane orders.

The other meaning your statement has, though, makes a bit more sense--ALL humans are Nagari-sensitives--but that still raises the question of what separates random Tev #34392348 from Elder Mandho, and why Morpheus is only a real concern if the war goes poorly rather than a contingency that will have to be enacted in some form regardless of how well the war might go.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Husker on November 23, 2013, 11:30:44 pm
That's why I think Morpheus has more to do with this than we currently know. They both have something to do with each other, Morpheus can't be to eliminate Nagari sensitives in Sol, how could they tell a sensitive from a non-sensitive? Eliminating Vishnan influence can't be it's entirety either, again, no way to really tell who's who.

 It may possibly be somewhat Shivan influenced in some way, in order to prevent Shambala from allowing the GD to get in our universe. They may in their own way be protecting the universe from getting eaten by the GD. These two contingencies must be related somehow.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on November 24, 2013, 01:57:13 am
Purge Sol of Nagari sensitives.
You misspelled "humanity".

I don't get it. How could they possibly purge Sol of humanity?
Seriously ?

The point. You missed it.

It was "Purging humanity of Nagari sensitives".
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Aesaar on November 24, 2013, 02:15:56 am
MORPHEUS doesn't really have anything to do with Nagari sensitives.  It's a plan to remove Vishnan-compromised leaders from positions of power, which means the Elders, at the very least.  I seriously doubt all the Elders are Nagari sensitive (if any). 

The GTVA has known about Nagari for a long time, but they evidently aren't concerned enough about it to implement testing of even their military officials, since they didn't have a problem with Bei leading the task force going to Sol.  Or they do test, but they don't see it as a problem.

And if the GTVA has the tech to build an artificial Nagari transmitter/receiver, I'd be really, really surprised if they didn't have an equivalent to what was used to test Laporte in Ken.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on November 24, 2013, 02:27:28 am
Actually, MORPHEUS is a contingency plan that tries to ensure humanities' survival in a universe that has at least one homicidal and weakly godlike entity in it.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Husker on November 24, 2013, 07:33:52 pm
The dev has spoken, now we know.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on November 24, 2013, 09:41:43 pm
Silly E , we all know Shambhala is a party field generator that will make everyone do 'the Shivan' to ease their submission to the omnipresent, acataleptic, Nagari no-god.

Side Note: For "epicness"... Open aney2; Slow it down by 8%; Imagine a slideshow of the leftovers from the battles throughout War in Heaven (Artemis, Earth, Saturn...) [Destroyed wrecks with junk floating around with the occasional decaying corpse] ; Profit  ; Optional: Name a background 'redshirt' craft/pilot after my forum name in honor of this idea. =p
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on November 25, 2013, 01:22:06 am
Silly E , we all know Shambhala is a party field generator that will make everyone do 'the Shivan' to ease their submission to the omnipresent, acataleptic, Nagari no-god.

trufax
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on November 25, 2013, 09:50:54 am
I seriously can't wrap my head around the plot twists, contingencies and the multiple vectors of each faction and sub-faction, all behaving with more knowledge than the player himself (that is us), and this tiny annoyance is repeated ad nauseam throughout BP ("You still don't know what is happening") which gives the series its own detective feel (each chapter giving one more piece of the puzzle for us to suss out), but at the same time continues the Freespace tradition of "**** you you're only a pilot you operate on a need-to-know-basis" shtick.

Which is fine, I don't mind it, with the proper caveat: that the underlying plot actually makes sense and is not filled with holes patched with ever increasing laborious and convoluted writing (creating ever more holes, etc.), only letting the reader / player notice this at the end when all the increasing complexities actually never successfully mesh together up to a concise intelligible narrative. IOW, a kind of a "LOST" problem.

I have high hopes this won't happen. My instincts warned me from LOST in the very first episode where I could smell the lack of any actual plot beneath all the (rather impressive) smoke and mirrors thrown at the audiences. The same instincts tell me that BP will deliver.

Having said all this, I am still shocked at the very high number of weaves and threads that this plot is multiplying at this point, with the many apparent contradictions still afoot and unexplained. If there is a damned criticism I can make against BP at this moment is that it communicates to the player (at least to chapter 3 of WiH) an unnerving feeling of unexplained urgency to do something you don't understand for reasons you weren't told, at the same time you are told to behave nihilistically and amorally because said objectives require such monstruosity of dedication and focus.

It's difficult to have it both ways like that. I can see a player trying to figure out what the hell is going on but maintaining his moral compass of a sort. I can see a player going full "beyond morals" nihilistic fashion "for the greater good", but that requires this "greater good" to be damned well explained and clear in the player's mind (a simple "I'm telling you you either do this or Earth gets it" doesn't cut it, you really have to understand the situation properly).

At the end of WiH chapter 3 I'm left with a lot of confusion in my brain. What the hell is going on? It's clear it's about humanity's own survival, but what the hell is the right course after all? Should we really defeat the GTVA? Sould we believe in Ken? Should we believe in the Elders instead? This confusion is not a bad thing at all, but I fear that the 4th chapter can start with the wrong impression that the only thing the player needs to do at this point is to follow orders by a badass faction.

Seriously guys, watch that thing. If chapter 4 starts like that, my reaction would be numbness. Why should I follow these orders if I don't even know if they amount to something directed to what's good or not? Should I just mindlessly kill anything on sight because I belong to a killing clan and not the other killing clan?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: SaltyWaffles on December 01, 2013, 11:23:10 am
Actually, MORPHEUS is a contingency plan that tries to ensure humanities' survival in a universe that has at least one homicidal and weakly godlike entity in it.

So why does everyone who knows anything about it talk about MORPHEUS as if it's a horrific nightmare of a plan? You'd think that the nightmare would be the circumstances/scenario which would necessitate the plan's implementation, not the plan itself.

Also, how is Shambhala so much of an unknown to everyone outside the Council of Elders? Given that it's implied to be a major logistical project of some kind (as in, has a major impact on the war because of the resources/industry/assets devoted to it instead of the war effort), how do even the Fedayeen, with CASSANDRA and a tap into the Elders' own simulation farm (and various agents that, in some way or another, keep the Fedayeen funded, supplied, and more), know next to nothing about the project? The amount of people needed to move these resources from one place to another should make such a level of secrecy extraordinarily difficult, especially when everyone is actively trying to track every subspace jump in Sol for months straight. CASSANDRA not being able to simulate the destination of all of these resources seems rather jarring to me. I mean, if anyone outside the Elders (and Byrne) would know all about Shamhala, the Fedayeen would. Instead, all they seem to know is the vague goal of the project (not even its specific aims, just an extremely vague goal) and a little about its older (and not entirely relevant) history.

And I'm right there with Luis Dias about the plot. Ken took the opportunity to finally give the much-needed answers and...offered more mysteries. Not very satisfying, nor very encouraging ("you'll know when you need this armada you need to gather, for some purpose to achieve the 'destruction' of the GTVA and/or save the UEF/ensure Shambhala's success (or something, we still don't know what Shambhala is), because of reasons I haven't explained and context I haven't given. Good luck."). It would be nice to go into the climactic endgame of the war knowing what the hell is going on, especially after having gone through tremendous trouble to get some answers. Instead, we simply know we have to stop Steele and save (for whatever definition of "save") the UEF (which we knew before, but now know for sure...probably), because if we don't, something really bad will happen sometime, somewhere, someplace, at the hands of either the Shivans or Vishnans (probably?). We need to do something for the Shivans, but we don't know what that is, when it has to be done, or why any of the current conflict matters in that context.

Good luck gathering that armada, Laporte, when you can't explain when, where, why, and what you need it for.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on December 02, 2013, 04:51:30 am
So why does everyone who knows anything about it talk about MORPHEUS as if it's a horrific nightmare of a plan? You'd think that the nightmare would be the circumstances/scenario which would necessitate the plan's implementation, not the plan itself.

MORPHEUS has several aspects that have "Doing what needs to be done" written all over them, things the GTVA deems necessary, even if there is no guarantee of success. Things that start at "identify all people who have been in contact with, could be contacted by, or may have children capable thereof, then make sure they do not leak anything" and get worse from there.

Quote
Also, how is Shambhala so much of an unknown to everyone outside the Council of Elders? Given that it's implied to be a major logistical project of some kind (as in, has a major impact on the war because of the resources/industry/assets devoted to it instead of the war effort), how do even the Fedayeen, with CASSANDRA and a tap into the Elders' own simulation farm (and various agents that, in some way or another, keep the Fedayeen funded, supplied, and more), know next to nothing about the project?

What the Fedayeen know, and what they choose to tell Laporte (and the player), are two different things.

Quote
The amount of people needed to move these resources from one place to another should make such a level of secrecy extraordinarily difficult, especially when everyone is actively trying to track every subspace jump in Sol for months straight.

A capability the GTVA just did not have for a long time, and arguably does not possess even now. Also note that subspace is just the fastest way to get around in a solar system, not the only one.

Quote
CASSANDRA not being able to simulate the destination of all of these resources seems rather jarring to me. I mean, if anyone outside the Elders (and Byrne) would know all about Shamhala, the Fedayeen would. Instead, all they seem to know is the vague goal of the project (not even its specific aims, just an extremely vague goal) and a little about its older (and not entirely relevant) history.

"There are things I know, things I don't know, and things I can't know."
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 02, 2013, 11:14:05 am
So to sum up my criticism at this point, I can say something safely robust about the story arc: it is in need of a damned good MacGuffin at this point to drive the story. This McGuffin could well be the forecoming invasion of Earth (it is), but we are so wowed by UT2 that the other thing goes right out the window of our mental focus (what was it again? Something about Steele and a fleet somewhere going to do something in a few days ... ?), that it becomes a jarring distraction.

Sorry if I insist on this, I just see a potential issue here of narrative structure. The jarring nature of such interludes are almost always used as the means to invoke a real sense of understood urgency: it's the precise moment when you get the "Lacanian cut" (to use one of Battuta's fav ideas), when the "Real" cuts inside our failed perceptions, we suddenly realise what the **** it's all about and how ****ed up we really are, and that we should really move everything we have in our power to make sure we end up on the other side of the problem.

This interlude however was the exact opposite: it confuses (with beautiful obscuring language I must admit!) rather than elucidates, it distracts rather than focuses, it conveys befuddlement when it should have conveyed clarity.

My hope is that this interlude will be further explored in the future and the needed focused clarity is reached.

As a token well known and digested example of what the hell I was talking about, compare UT2's confused epiphany* with this gem:


* Hey, it's a beautiful confusing epiphany! Don't ever get me wrong!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on December 02, 2013, 11:30:19 am
That whole part in ME was silly. Why does the reaper even bother talking to the ant he's gonna step on ? The only point was to shoehorn in the next part of the story because they couldn't find a proper way for the player to discover it himself other than the big villain explaining his plan, which has to be the worst cliché in the history of tvtropes.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 02, 2013, 11:45:08 am
Yeah I kinda disagree so strongly with you on that one that it's not even funny. It's bordering on mental really.

e: IMO, really, that is the single high point (the pinnacle) of the entire ME series.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on December 02, 2013, 12:08:53 pm
Dude, if the highest point of that series was the most cliché moment in the history of video gaming it would be a very sorry series indeed.

Thankfully for ME it is not.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on December 02, 2013, 12:11:27 pm
I would strongly advise you two to hash out your differences on this topic over PMs.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 02, 2013, 12:12:48 pm
Dude, you're wrong. And your problems with that take are also wrong. (not even)

But that's not the point of the thread nor the point of my embed there, so let's just agree to disagree with that particular irrelevant issue now.

/ninja'd
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 02, 2013, 02:02:25 pm
take it to #bp so i can spectate more readily plx
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Aardwolf on December 03, 2013, 03:19:12 pm
Here's a theory:

Sure, you can use a supercomputer like CASSANDRA to simulate, but why simulate when you can actually boot up the appropriate universe and take a peek?

I propose that Shambhala combines the subspace universe-crossing ability seen in AoA with mass-produced reverse-engineered (I hope) Shivan supercomputer tech to make the ultimate seer's ball. If there's a universe with a good enough outcome, and if the supercomputer has enough time, it can find it and steer us towards it.




Further thoughts / rambling / practically making up my own story here:

But... hm... presumably every quantum event that could happen is a branch into a new multiverse... so the problem state can't be the full domain of possible universes. It can probably only simulate stuff that happens in response to controlled quantum events happening on board the Shambhala station (assuming it's some sort of space station). And even with the "butterfly effect", quantum events on a space station alone probably aren't enough to be enough to change the outcome of a war. In order to make a few quantum events into something that can change history, you'd have to do something like... slave the fleet's orders to whatever the quantum thing says? Even if the station operators could see the outcomes of the fleet following those orders in time to pick the best one... in order for the simulations to have worked, some universes are going to have to sacrifice themselves "for science". Could the interpretation of the quantum events (how the fleet's orders are slaved to them) be optimized over multiple iterations? I don't know if that even makes sense.

Ramble ramble ramble
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 13, 2013, 07:15:58 am
Yeah that would drive the plot towards something more like Dune.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Aardwolf on December 19, 2013, 01:10:33 pm
I am unfamiliar with Dune. Please explain.

Don't burn the heretic plz?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on December 19, 2013, 01:23:31 pm
Fremen don't burn heretics, they declare Jihads. And then take them to the dungeon...
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: niffiwan on December 19, 2013, 04:08:15 pm
I thought they were more likely the render down the heretics to reclaim their water?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 20, 2013, 04:55:29 am
Dune is about predicting the future and how the protagonist is able to not only see different "time landscapes" of possibilities, but to direct them towards some key unstable points... in order to blind his enemies and be able to get victory. You gotta read it.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on December 20, 2013, 05:34:37 am
 I think Luis gave the best summary of the Dune franchise in his post.
--------

Shambhala could be a way to hide from the Shivan's multiversal simulations. The ability to be unseen by an omnicidal god that purges everything which defiles its law. A place where humans will live in harmony and brotherhood in happiness, safe from the harrowing truths of the eldritch nature of the cosmos.

This would tie into the Nagari Firewalls and the usage of the Federation's Nagari space we "see" on the Dreamscape. The Vasudan Imperium might even be turned into an example of what happens when you use Nagari carelessly, given their gate seems to symbolize a far larger imprint left on the network. And it could also be why the Vishnans are so interested in the Federation: they want to be free of the Shivans, to whom they can only pretend to be equal to.

Just my current thoughts.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 20, 2013, 07:08:07 am
This is all interesting. Your idea of this slightly crazy variation where the Vishnans are still a young species trying to get by (at least comparing to the Shivans) could tie into the GTI's efforts in the great war of controlling the Shivans. The terrans were able to control partially the shivans due to the lack of a higher anima mind close by, but just like they were able to do so in this smaller scale, so would the Vishnans be able to partially control or manipulate the Shivans in a higher scale, perhaps even to the scale of a few anima. At least "regionally", although I'm very blind to what the size of this word "region" could entail.

This would give a nice reinterpretation of both "Universal Truths" in AoA and WiH, wherein the Vishnans are trying to hack into the regional Shivan's anima and manipulate them in order to let the 14th go back to their home dimension.

The reasons why the Vishnans did all what they did in AoA are still unclear. Thematically speaking, AoA was about a failed attempt by a Godlike species to bring an epiphany of peace and understanding to a warring species before they would commit a grave mistake. In WiH so far we are left with the impression that given such failure, the Vishnans called for a cull to the human species as a whole. This might mean that the Vishnans regarded humans as embedded with a big potential to do "something", but realizing they couldn't manipulate them they called the experiment a failure.

Meanwhile, the Elders and their Shamballa project was the very thing that made the Vishnans interested in the first place, or the means by which they were going to execute their unrevealed plans. The fact that the GTVA was only mildly traumatized by AoA's events and were mostly not manipulated means the experiment has gone haywired. Then they try to hack regional shivans to do the culling for them. This hacking process was identified and stopped by a Shivan process, which is also interested in these events. Enter Ken. Ken is bringing shivan's attention to this problem.

I identify here a possibility that Ken identified the potential in the project and recognizes the fundamental "unmanipulative" nature of human beings. Thus, far from this project being a benefit for Vishnans, who would have in humans a kind of vassal beings doing their bidding, we are in the verge of an uncontrolled "singularitarian" explosion in Sol. Basically, we are ants who have shown the ability to flee the vishnan laboratory. With the fire of Prometheus, no less.

There are higher concerns here of metaphysical natures. The Vishnans try to communicate a concern with things like "Harmony" and "Preservation". Gives me the idea of control freaks who are worried about these annoying smaller species who try to transcend their little niches of comfort. It's all about "knowing your place", holistic philosophies, maintaining the status quo. Shivans are an upper level of unintelligibility. They are more chaotic and random. Revolutions and destruction is part of this randomness.

Lastly, it is also clear that albeit the Shamballa project might be "for the good" against this Vishnan manipulation, we should also be aware of the Sanctuary being able to make it to this universe. This ship might well contain a Vishnan Trojan horse that has penetrated deep circles inside the Shambala project. This possibilty scares the hell out of the GTVA's higher ups and makes the Morpheus contingency so much more interesting in that regard.

Ken might think the exact same thing that Steele thinks about Shamballa and the Sanctuary, etc. However he may well be in possession of certain pieces of information or planning a certain kind of action that profits more from the finalization of the project, while Steele's idea might well just be about destroying the project altogether and finish off any further intrusions from Vishnan's manipulating attempts.

This means the focus of the narrative, the tension is about whether if the project is finalized or not, and while factions believe the war is about Earth (the Mcguffin), the real players know the factions are fighting for either the killing of the project or its conclusion.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 20, 2013, 07:42:14 am
This is all interesting. Your idea of this slightly crazy variation where the Vishnans are still a young species trying to get by (at least comparing to the Shivans) could tie into the GTI's efforts in the great war of controlling the Shivans. The terrans were able to control partially the shivans due to the lack of a higher anima mind close by, but just like they were able to do so in this smaller scale, so would the Vishnans be able to partially control or manipulate the Shivans in a higher scale, perhaps even to the scale of a few anima. At least "regionally", although I'm very blind to what the size of this word "region" could entail.

This would give a nice reinterpretation of both "Universal Truths" in AoA and WiH, wherein the Vishnans are trying to hack into the regional Shivan's anima and manipulate them in order to let the 14th go back to their home dimension.

The reasons why the Vishnans did all what they did in AoA are still unclear. Thematically speaking, AoA was about a failed attempt by a Godlike species to bring an epiphany of peace and understanding to a warring species before they would commit a grave mistake. In WiH so far we are left with the impression that given such failure, the Vishnans called for a cull to the human species as a whole. This might mean that the Vishnans regarded humans as embedded with a big potential to do "something", but realizing they couldn't manipulate them they called the experiment a failure.

Meanwhile, the Elders and their Shamballa project was the very thing that made the Vishnans interested in the first place, or the means by which they were going to execute their unrevealed plans. The fact that the GTVA was only mildly traumatized by AoA's events and were mostly not manipulated means the experiment has gone haywired. Then they try to hack regional shivans to do the culling for them. This hacking process was identified and stopped by a Shivan process, which is also interested in these events. Enter Ken. Ken is bringing shivan's attention to this problem.

I identify here a possibility that Ken identified the potential in the project and recognizes the fundamental "unmanipulative" nature of human beings. Thus, far from this project being a benefit for Vishnans, who would have in humans a kind of vassal beings doing their bidding, we are in the verge of an uncontrolled "singularitarian" explosion in Sol. Basically, we are ants who have shown the ability to flee the vishnan laboratory. With the fire of Prometheus, no less.

There are higher concerns here of metaphysical natures. The Vishnans try to communicate a concern with things like "Harmony" and "Preservation". Gives me the idea of control freaks who are worried about these annoying smaller species who try to transcend their little niches of comfort. It's all about "knowing your place", holistic philosophies, maintaining the status quo. Shivans are an upper level of unintelligibility. They are more chaotic and random. Revolutions and destruction is part of this randomness.

Lastly, it is also clear that albeit the Shamballa project might be "for the good" against this Vishnan manipulation, we should also be aware of the Sanctuary being able to make it to this universe. This ship might well contain a Vishnan Trojan horse that has penetrated deep circles inside the Shambala project. This possibilty scares the hell out of the GTVA's higher ups and makes the Morpheus contingency so much more interesting in that regard.

Ken might think the exact same thing that Steele thinks about Shamballa and the Sanctuary, etc. However he may well be in possession of certain pieces of information or planning a certain kind of action that profits more from the finalization of the project, while Steele's idea might well just be about destroying the project altogether and finish off any further intrusions from Vishnan's manipulating attempts.

This means the focus of the narrative, the tension is about whether if the project is finalized or not, and while factions believe the war is about Earth (the Mcguffin), the real players know the factions are fighting for either the killing of the project or its conclusion.

quoted for monkeytruth
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 20, 2013, 09:34:43 am
A minor addition to the points above. Ubuntu is an ideology that has pervaded throughout Sol, with its most strong infectious symptoms on Earth. Mars and Jupiter haven't yet fully commited to these politics. Consider this, a monolithic ideology focused on peace, understanding and harmony, clearly tinkered and manipulated by the Vishnans themselves.

Consider also the in-game clues we have of the somewhat (locally perceived) inefficiency that this ideology brings into what is actual infighting. Laporte starts having real psychological problems with killing other human beings. The reason she is so effective at it is due to Ken's influence. Then she is brought into the fold of Al-Dawa and the Fedayeen. Al Dawa is founded on a shivan corpse technology, and we know how utterly nihilistic and without moral compromises (as if without any conscience at all) this little group really is. This group stands aside from the larger federation's mottos and it's clear by now why. Feds are compromised morally by the Vishnans, while the Fedayeen are by the Shivans.

It wasn't only the GTVA beyond Delta Serpentis that was afraid of Ubuntu's influence (and whose dangers were more than upgraded when they learnt the Vishnan influence behind it), it was also the Vishnans who were afraid of the GTVA beyond the gate and the "flood" of so many non brainwashed terrans throughout the gate, polluting and utterly compromising their actions.

They needed a "zombified" peace loving brainwashed population for their ends. When they were unable to manipulate the whole of the 14th, they decided the war was over, GTVA would win given the psyche's differences between the two people. The Fedayeen, Laporte, Carter and some others might well disprove Vishnans' predictions with the help of Ken and the Shivans.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: crizza on December 20, 2013, 09:50:59 am
About the Sanctuary:
It could be also possible, that the Shivans let the Sanctuary survive to get some pretty crazed and non-brainwashed people into Shambhala, these people were frozen when Earth was about to be destroyed. Maybe the sleeper are the Trojan hose of the Shivans....
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on December 20, 2013, 09:55:39 am
About the Sanctuary:
It could be also possible, that the Shivans let the Sanctuary survive to get some pretty crazed and non-brainwashed people into Shambhala, these people were frozen when Earth was about to be destroyed. Maybe the sleeper are the Trojan hose of the Shivans....

That would require an amount of planning that Shivans usually do not engage in (seriously, count the steps involved: 1. Let the Sanctuary survive, 2. Wait for someone from the Universe in which Shambhala is developed cross over, 3. Harass them, but do not destroy them until they've managed to get back, 4. Hope that some of the Sanctuary survivors will get near the Shambhala project). That's somewhat more byzantine than Shivan plans usually are.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 20, 2013, 10:18:55 am
I have some deep thoughts about the nature of "animas", how they come to be, how the Shivans build them and the kinds of uses they have for these.

And I started thinking on neat interactions between these anima and the great psyche of the Vishnans. From there it is somewhat straightforward to see what they were trying to accomplish in Sol and with Shambhala. Consciousness as a useful tool for the Shivans regarding regional strategic thinking.

Now to square these thoughts with the common problem of the Great Darkness is less easy. Shivans are consciousless species that apparently use other species' consciousness in jolts and in particular problems here and there, the Vishnans seem a lot more conscious, and the Great Darkness seems like the third big species, sitting in the opposite table to the Vishnans -> anti-consciousness. While the shivans are consciousless, the GD is actually anticonscious.


I have absolutely no idea what this monster is about. Does seem like the perfect lovecraftian terror, but I still can't quite grasp it. In order to suss the puzzle out of what Shambala is, we need to understand what the GD is.

(e: I use "deep" in the chess jargon, that is, within a variation following a very sharp line ahead)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on December 20, 2013, 11:16:19 am
You know, that makes me think about the GD description in the tech room.

And gives me the following idea:

What if the "Brahmans" sought to trump their "realm" of the cosmos, and tired to bridge it towards others through what is referred to as the Nagari network?
They made a mistake, they though they had all the variables of existence... they didn't. And they could only see it once it was too late to stop a reaction from their "counterparts."

EDIT: We need more to give their own perspectives in this thread, dang it!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 20, 2013, 11:39:00 am
What if the "Brahmans" sought to trump their "realm" of the cosmos, and tired to bridge it towards others through what is referred to as the Nagari network?
They made a mistake, they though they had all the variables of existence... they didn't. And they could only see it once it was too late to stop a reaction from their "counterparts."

boring; and therefore, wrong
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 20, 2013, 11:42:22 am
There are some hints it might have some truth in it though. There was some reference to an ancient "holocaust" (apocalypse? I can't remember the actual word used) by the time of the Brahmans.


(But I couldn't agree more with the criteria you use! :D)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 20, 2013, 11:43:51 am
Well I specifically mean the part about them trying to 'bridge' to wherever. It's been done, and I'd prefer something more conceptually interesting than a banal landgrab.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: An4ximandros on December 20, 2013, 12:18:22 pm
Think of the bridging in a more symbolic stance: Expanding their knowledge of existence.

Remember, an apocalypse (one has already occurred) is the uncovering/revelation of something.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on December 22, 2013, 01:38:14 pm
Lotta really good posts in this thread.

I seriously can't wrap my head around the plot twists, contingencies and the multiple vectors of each faction and sub-faction, all behaving with more knowledge than the player himself (that is us), and this tiny annoyance is repeated ad nauseam throughout BP ("You still don't know what is happening") which gives the series its own detective feel (each chapter giving one more piece of the puzzle for us to suss out), but at the same time continues the Freespace tradition of "**** you you're only a pilot you operate on a need-to-know-basis" shtick.

Which is fine, I don't mind it, with the proper caveat: that the underlying plot actually makes sense and is not filled with holes patched with ever increasing laborious and convoluted writing (creating ever more holes, etc.), only letting the reader / player notice this at the end when all the increasing complexities actually never successfully mesh together up to a concise intelligible narrative. IOW, a kind of a "LOST" problem.

I have high hopes this won't happen. My instincts warned me from LOST in the very first episode where I could smell the lack of any actual plot beneath all the (rather impressive) smoke and mirrors thrown at the audiences. The same instincts tell me that BP will deliver.

Having said all this, I am still shocked at the very high number of weaves and threads that this plot is multiplying at this point, with the many apparent contradictions still afoot and unexplained. If there is a damned criticism I can make against BP at this moment is that it communicates to the player (at least to chapter 3 of WiH) an unnerving feeling of unexplained urgency to do something you don't understand for reasons you weren't told, at the same time you are told to behave nihilistically and amorally because said objectives require such monstruosity of dedication and focus.

It's difficult to have it both ways like that. I can see a player trying to figure out what the hell is going on but maintaining his moral compass of a sort. I can see a player going full "beyond morals" nihilistic fashion "for the greater good", but that requires this "greater good" to be damned well explained and clear in the player's mind (a simple "I'm telling you you either do this or Earth gets it" doesn't cut it, you really have to understand the situation properly).

At the end of WiH chapter 3 I'm left with a lot of confusion in my brain. What the hell is going on? It's clear it's about humanity's own survival, but what the hell is the right course after all? Should we really defeat the GTVA? Sould we believe in Ken? Should we believe in the Elders instead? This confusion is not a bad thing at all, but I fear that the 4th chapter can start with the wrong impression that the only thing the player needs to do at this point is to follow orders by a badass faction.

Seriously guys, watch that thing. If chapter 4 starts like that, my reaction would be numbness. Why should I follow these orders if I don't even know if they amount to something directed to what's good or not? Should I just mindlessly kill anything on sight because I belong to a killing clan and not the other killing clan?

This is a really cogent and well-thought out post. As I'm sure everybody knows, we always planned to ship Act 3, 4 and 5 together. We've known what happens through the end of BP3 for a long time now, so I can assure you that it's not a Lost situation, and we're not trying to patch together an ending to a narrative Ponzi scheme that buys a sense of mystery and engagement by answering every question with two and a half questions.

But you're completely right that the ironically named 'Universal Truth' copped out on one thing - it's not explicitly clear what Laporte's mission is or why it's so urgent and vital. The narrative has told us that humanity's destruction is coming unless Ken's bargain is carried through, but we don't know why, when, or how, and in what way Laporte's actions might help avert it.

In retrospect, I wish we'd provided one more piece of information. The notion that Laporte is a deniable asset for the Shivans to use against the Vishnans is thrown out there, but we don't get her ultimate target. She's still a heads-down payload responding to guidance she doesn't understand.

We wanted to draw the narrative focus at the end of Act 3 back to the war, since Act 4 is very focused on the military situation rather than the metaphysics. But I can make two promises:

First, the story going forward is not going to be purely about vast incomprehensible ultraminds manipulating the player. Now that Laporte and her Fedayeen allies have hard information, they can start exerting agency in this game of civilizations. Of course the Vishnans and Shivans are enormously intelligent, and it'd be ridiculous to 'trick' them - but their own capabilities are constrained by each other, which leaves the little players some wiggle room. Blindsight this isn't.

Second, by the end of BP2, we'd like the motives and ultimate goals of each factions to boil down to a couple easily described sentences, and hopefully we can present those goals - no matter how cosmos-spanning - in an easily digested fashion. Obstructionism, portent, and allusion are powerful tools in constructing mood, but in the end we do want players to know pretty much what's going on in the broad scheme of things.

When I read some of the fantastic speculation here, especially the more metaphysical stuff, I actually worry about disappointing people when we provide answers that are merely political, merely comprehensible - 'Ah, I clearly see how this plan functions and what its intended goals are' as opposed to 'I tremble before the awesome scope of this universe-spanning design'. But unlike the writers of Lost, I don't think we feel that awe and grandeur can only be maintained by mystery.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: leoben on December 26, 2013, 07:57:11 am
I'm still not sold on the idea that AoA is a failed Vishnan experiment. What would the optimal outcome have been if the experiment had succeeded? The 14th turning against their GTVA masters? Joining up with the Buntus? Would that have stopped the war? Or only delay it? Wouldn't that still be 'failure' from a Shivan perspective?

The questions I'd like to get answered in the remaining acts are:

What is the nature of the relationship between the Vishnans and the Shivans?

I still think we don't have the full picture here, as much good guesswork I read in this thread and others so far. I'm sure most of you have done some reading on Hinduism, specifically the relationship between Brahma (supreme god of creation), Vishnu (god of maintenance of life) and Shiva (god of destruction and transformation). I have no idea how much the BP story is based on Hinduism - if it's only the names, or some of their attributes as deities. Ancient texts say that sometimes, Shiva comes forward as a god of not just destruction, but with the role of the other two as well (creator and maintainer as well). Some texts say something similar of Vishnu - namely it was responsible for the cycle of life and death of all living things.

Again - I have no idea how much of this is or will be reflected in the coming acts of BP. How were the Vishnans able to 'banish' the Shivans from a realm? Were they left 'in charge' after the Brahmans died? And now the Shivans think they 'went off the reservation'? Do the Shivans think that  what the Vishnans are doing to the humans, they're dangerously close to releasing GD? Is that what the Terminal Protocol is all about? Is that what happened during the First Apocalypse?

Going back to AoA for a second - do we really think the Vishnans were stupid and careless enough to rely on a few thousand humans and their ships (14th) to turn the whole process around of the humans attacking other humans and thereby sealing their own fate? By manipulating a few Nagari sensitives into doing their bidding? Now that's one hell of an assumption that is a showstopper for me. I don't buy that.

Or if it really is the case, then why would we say the experiment had failed? They got a lot of extra resources to beef up the Shambhala project no? Wasn't that the goal? In that regard, it was very successful. If their objective was something else, something that is on a larger scale by order of magnitudes, you would think that manipulating the 14th was not their only option to achieve whatever they're trying to do. I don't know.

I also want to know (as I'm sure everyone else here) what the deal is about that Bosch struck with the Shivans, what is that one thing that that anima wants to achieve using Noemi that the Shivans can't?

- Get rid of the GD once and for all?
- Get rid of the Vishnans once and for all?

What is it the Shivans want above everything else, but can never do?

A lot of raw thought here, some of it may be completely flawed. What are the questions you guys want answered the most in BP?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: leoben on December 26, 2013, 08:19:01 am
Even more so - 'subversion of nooshpere under way'. By whom? GD? Humans?

And how is this an acataleptic event? What is termed 'acatalepsy' by the Shivans?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 26, 2013, 09:11:59 am
I also want to know (as I'm sure everyone else here) what the deal is about that Bosch struck with the Shivans, what is that one thing that that anima wants to achieve using Noemi that the Shivans can't?

Well one of the big things the Shivans can't do is think.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: leoben on December 26, 2013, 10:11:04 am
Can't they? And why would they need a human weapon to be able to think?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: EuclidianGeometry on December 26, 2013, 10:14:18 am
A lot of raw thought here, some of it may be completely flawed. What are the questions you guys want answered the most in BP?


What i want to know is how the Vasudans fit in this cosmic stage. We know that vasudan survivors from "Good Luck" are integrated to Fedayeen, Khonsu's playing a balancing act, and the HOL has aided Fedayeen and got purged for their troubles.

But in the larger scheme, how do they fit? How do the vishnans and shivans view them? There's this Jester Nabirasul guy, whose visions left him psychotic.
What's his story? All communications with the vishnans and shivans in both campaigns rarely mention the vasudans, and does not mention him at all.

What role will the vasudans play?

(also "nabi" and "rasul" are Arabic for "prophet" and "apostle", respectively. Coincidence? :p)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: crizza on December 26, 2013, 10:22:32 am
The VAsudans are preparing to fight the oncoming apocalypse, so I guess Shivans and Vishnans won't like that attitude.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 26, 2013, 10:37:19 am
Can't they? And why would they need a human weapon to be able to think?

They can't; Shivan 'thought' is all handled by animas which are come into being on an ad-hoc basis and basically blindly probe at a problem until they find something that works. They are very thoroughly built to avoid analysing and comprehending the world around them; which is, I think, why they need to bother incorporating a human when necessary.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on December 26, 2013, 10:47:15 am
There are the basal state totipotent response heuristics too, which while not locally efficient are globally quite powerful.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: leoben on December 26, 2013, 11:32:04 am
Phantom - you're scratching the surface of a contradiction. By saying the Shivans can't think themselves and need something external, you're implying they are already capable of independent thought as they're aware of their 'deficiency'. How do you get around that?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 26, 2013, 11:41:04 am
The thing you're talking about is the basal state totipotent response heuristics Battuta just mentioned. But they can't plan and coordinate in the same way or on the same scale as a human, or a gestalt of humans, can.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Husker on December 27, 2013, 07:50:00 am
What if Shambala is a shivan plan to unite the humans in sol into a gestalt consciousness in order to use them as an intelligence to coordinate on a multiversal scale?  :shaking: :shaking: :shaking:
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on December 27, 2013, 07:55:46 am
That would rather defeat the point of being organised the way they are in the first place.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: leoben on December 27, 2013, 07:38:04 pm
I agree with Phantom - Shambala has to be based on something that was intended to be a potential solution for the 'Shivan problem'. And according to Ken, it is now something more than that.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Tegumiril on December 30, 2013, 07:13:01 pm
I freely admit that I read through the first page or two of the discussion, then jumped in at the end in order to say some things that someone else has said at least 7 times.

A: Shambala seems to be a metaphor for utopia, enlightenment, or transcendence. Expect any use or purpose to revolve around this theme. So some groovy new superweapon would not be in keeping with that use of metaphor, or its Ubuntu creators.

B: The Shamwow project would likely be a nagari link to bring humanity into some state of "summed psyche." This seems to be something the Vishnans were intent on doing any how. At least before we pissed them off.

C: The arrival of the GTVA and 14th Battlegroup being a catalyst for the development of this project is explained fairly easily: The 14th BG, and the people in it brought knowledge relating to ETAK and quantum pulse/nagari communications. They also brought along Sam Bei. This would allow several things; non nagari sensitives to communicate with Vishnans/Shivans/Other Nagari sensitives, and some mechanism to bring non-sensitive people into into such a linkage, as well as the vishnan provided expertise to make it happen.

D: If you instantaneously linked the whole of humanity (across the multiverse?) in some form into a melded group consciousness, that'd end your war then and there. An example of such a group consciousness is our good Fedayeen friend Al. Though comprised of many individuals, he is the gestalt of the Fedayeen, and those group consciousnesses end up being melded into a single discreet personality or entity.

C: If the Fedayeen have a gestalt which represents the "Summed Psyche" of the Fedayeen, and at its essence IS the Fedayeen, what would the Gestalt consciousness of humanity look like? That's probably what has given the Shivans cause for concern. Raw human nature is not someone I'd like to meet at night down a dark alley. Such an entity would likely be incredibly powerful in its own right, and upset the balance of power between the Shivans and Vishnans. Which likely strikes directly at the Vishnan's ulterior motives.

E: For my part I hope the Shivans win. Melded consciousness, particularly if forced in some fashion, is an incredibly creepy thought. (We are Ubuntu, resistance is futile!)

Still, BP has till now been a particularly intriguing and thought provoking story. I'm enjoying it.

PS: Feel free to tell me which parts of the wheel I was busy re-inventing.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: BritishShivans on December 30, 2013, 10:31:31 pm
That sounds interesting, but the idea of a relatively young species becoming a gestalt consciousness and then suddenly being able to threaten the balance of power for a billions of year old multi-universal entity is laughable.

Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on December 31, 2013, 05:11:48 am
Feel free to tell me which parts of the wheel I was busy re-inventing.

No problem :D.

A. Yes, this is the main line of analysis.
B. Yes.
C. This might be a novel variation I am not entirely sure. Still I am not looking too much into that variation. The idea that an admiral or the Sanctuary has enough engineering intel about the ETAK project is something that seems stretching to me. It might play a role, however the main catalyst for me is the urgency of the matter (given how the FEDs defeat is inevitable, a matter of time) and the silence of the Vishnans.
D. Of course, this and the consequences of this (for it is unclear for the parties what will happen in this moment to humanity) is a very big motivator for Steele and the morpheus contingency. A kind of "Childhood's End" scenario that could be either the creation of paradise or hell.
E (C?). This is somewhat speculative. Vishnans and Shivans span in multiple universes, while terrans are just some tens of billions of souls in ten or twenty systems. It seems a bit jarring and pretentious the idea that these "ants" would be a threat to any of these species, although the cliché is widely used out there. It is just "something about us humans", etc. What pretentious shenanigan, I have no desire to watch any of that garbage, and I think I can safely say the devs are also very watchful of that blunder.
F (E?). Consider that Ken is such a melded consciousness, consider that Al Dawa is such a consciousness. Clearly the Shivans also indulge in this consciousness melding technology, albeit seemingly to different ends. A minor (though interesting) variation of the possibilities hints at the Vishnans being a very very old Shivan anima themselves that were created either for uplifting a previous living species (like the Brahmans, say), which could have had happened in the so-called "apocalypse" some billions of years ago, or alternatively they were "uplifted" into a summed psyche by the Shivans to solve the Great Darkness problem (again, possibly related to that apocalypse). Because that particular problem is so big, so became the Vishnans. Many possibilities here. The vishnans might have reached independence from the shivans (or were always so), they might be harvesting lower species to get more numbers for their SP, etc.,etc..

Last, welcome to HLPBB!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Tegumiril on December 31, 2013, 05:50:02 pm
Thanks for the welcome!

For my E(C?): I didn't posit that with the idea of "Ameri- err Humanity, **** yeah!" there was some reasoning behind it.

Consider the Vishnans and Shivans as two ancient, multidimensional, and essentially balanced forces that balance each other out.

Also consider the multi-dimensional nature of those entities, and the possibility that nagari links can also span dimensions.

Consider that this would mean a link that encompasses more than a few billion humans in our "Home Layer" but humanity across multiple dimensions.

If humanity was linked across the multiverse (multiple dimensions) any resulting entity would be minor in absolute terms relative to the power of the Vishnans or Shivans

And now to the point:

If the balance of power between Vishnans and Shivans is that fine, then any new disruptive element, even a relatively minor one, could disrupt the balance of power. In essence the straw that broke the camel's back. If the Vishnans have a sneaky ulterior motive, or the Shivans suspect them of one, then this might provide some insight into the activities and motivations of the Shivans.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: leoben on January 01, 2014, 04:09:26 pm
Tegumiril - welcome!

Several dialogues in AoA and WiH point to a relationship a lot more complex, than simply two multidimensional super-races upholding a balance of power. In fact, the Vishnans seemed to be in a position to de facto overrule Shivans in the Summed Psyche at some point. Furthermore, another dialogue hints at the Shivans being eternal, something that was 'calculated', rather than born, or created. Vishnans (to me at least), seem to be a bit more analogous to a transcended super-race, or even a collection of 'uplifted' races.

Imagine these two 'entities' having existed for millions of years. Now even if humanity ascends to a multiversal consciousness, across dimensions, universes, they're still babies, infants being thrown into the big league where the other players may have grown by orders of magnitudes more powerful over millions of years. Don't kid yourself - even so, humanity will still be considered by the Vishnans or the Shivans little more than tiny, harmless insects, in a realm of giants. Maybe just smart enough to avoid annihilation, extinction.

"...Don't kid yourself, we're the ones being hunted, pilot!..."
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on January 01, 2014, 04:41:51 pm
If the balance of power between Vishnans and Shivans is that fine, then any new disruptive element, even a relatively minor one, could disrupt the balance of power. In essence the straw that broke the camel's back.

Yeah, General Battuta has already hinted at this. It's because the Shivans and the Vishnans are so worried with each other we will be able to have a shot at escaping their claws.

Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: perihelion on January 01, 2014, 08:41:29 pm
The creation of a Nagari-inhabiting human gestalt consciousness does not necessarily imply that the humans creating it have to die, if the technology works right.  But humanity would be creating a new free-agent of similar threat level to the Vishnans and Shivans.

Even if it is initially well disposed towards the human "remnant," it might not stay that way.  Odds are its development would not proceed at the same pace as base humanity.

Just some thoughts to stir the pot.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Tegumiril on January 01, 2014, 10:21:20 pm
Hrrm, I concede the point. At any rate, looking forward to part 4.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on November 08, 2015, 05:45:25 pm
Bumping A Good Thread
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: rance on November 08, 2015, 06:19:20 pm
(I'm going to pour oil onto this ember to get it burning)

Shambala is Alpaha !s and theyz gonna ues him to blewd up all teh GTAV pew pew!

But seriously I think to balance both Victory and Ubuntu it has to be some way to stop the war without bloodshed. Now initially I thought this may come in the form of destroying what the GTVA seek, Earth, by threatening to destroy it somehow; however this theory is shattered when given some thought and also when combined with what we currently now about Shambala. Another way to end the war with a UEF victory is for the GTVA being forced to surrender, I believe that if the Vasudans could be turned to the UEF side then the GTVA would have to immediately surrender or face annihilation, however I believe that at this current stage this won't happen for thematic reasons. Here's my current theory. The GTVA started the war to stop Ubuntu influence from 'infecting' their populous, as this would ultimately lead to their downfall. What if Shambala is someway of forcing their populous into an Ubuntu mindset via some kind of Nagari influencing? That would cause the GTVA to collapse and thus end the war. I realize that this theory doesn't match some of our knowledge on Shambala, for example how would this prevent a Shivan attack? But non the less I think this can add to this discussion which is one I'd like to see more of. 

(Please forgive me for any spelling or grammar errors)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: redsniper on November 08, 2015, 10:37:45 pm
It's a way to unleash the Great Darkness and one-shot all Nagari sensitives in Sol. Have to kill ALL of them for it to work. It's the only way to be sure.

Fake edit: I mean that's what MORPHEUS is. Idk wtf Shambala is, nm.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Doko on November 13, 2015, 01:12:43 am
I've been staring at this question for a long time and this is my theory.

Shambala is an artifact / artificial node capable of permanently isolating earth from the rest of subspace, masking its presense or diverting trafic that atempted to emerge somewhere else. How I have no ****ing idea (lucifer tech / vishnans?) But everything else I come up with is either cheesy or involves inter dimensional/galactic travel and that seems too far fetched for the level of technology and maybe power available to terrans at this point.
From what the elder says this would fit the ubuntu ideals, any gtva forces in sol would be stuck there and have no choice but to join. It might keep the shivans away from earth which the vishnans should be happy about considering their previous argument with shiva during UT1 and the shivans couldn't interefere with ubuntu development.

It's not pretty but the information on shambala is so scarse I would feel more confident in making theories about GD at this point, but best not to dwell too much on that. Either way the whole war seems to be about who inherits the right to interpret the text of the terminal protocol and If I had to guess Laporte is "the payload" Capella is expecting as a way to kill the vishnan psyche, if the UEF dies so does laporte due to morpheus, this drops any interest the shivans(ken) might have to keep humanity around after having given the cull order by the vishnans.

I've been thinking about this too much and forgot to try out my new human skin suit, wouldn't want it to get dry... it's gonna itch later.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Leeko on November 14, 2015, 03:03:23 pm
For what it's worth, I'm a fan of the "humanity's summed psyche" theory about Shambhala. Definitely could be considered a "reprehensible gamble", and it would definitely end the war.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Warrior Of Ice on July 17, 2016, 01:17:22 pm
When you take some time to think about it, it becomes painfully obvious what Shambala is. It is the FreeSpace analogue of the Protoss Khala in StarCraft, only designed for people. Just as the Khala ended the lengthy Aeon of Strife that the various Protoss clans were engaged in, so would Shambala unite humanity and help it overcome its petty differences and conflicts. When your every thought and emotion is shared with the rest of your kind, civil war becomes an unimaginable concept. In many ways that would be the epitome of Ubuntu.

As for the technology itself, it is most likely some powerful quantum pulse emitter that is capable of giving Nagari access to all human organisms galaxy-wide. It makes sense that the project would pick up speed after the Elders were joined by the Nagari-sensitive members of the 14th battlegroup.

Why would the Vishnans sponsor such an enterprise? Maybe, as previous posters have suggested, at some point they saw in humanity the potential for enlightenment that could eventually allow them to ascend as the final (and missing) part of the "broken trinity". Or maybe they just wanted to use humankind as pawns for whatever their reasons were.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on July 17, 2016, 02:06:35 pm
One item in there is perfectly correct. I think Shambhala will feel staggeringly obvious when revealed, because it's such a clear product of the themes of Blue Planet vs. FS2 proper - but also a surprise because of its...incarnation of its own diegetic properties in the narrative-player relationship.

Also here's a random factoid for free, the Vishnans like to upload two species into the swarm redoubt in one go for the same reason almost all organisms have sex.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: FrikgFeek on July 17, 2016, 02:12:56 pm
So it will put a star back together and make 80 saths vanish?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 17, 2016, 02:20:43 pm
One reason why I love Battuta is that everytime he writes comments, I learn a new word.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: niffiwan on July 17, 2016, 04:48:07 pm
Also here's a random factoid for free, the Vishnans like to upload two species into the swarm redoubt in one go for the same reason almost all organisms have sex.

Because it feels good?  :nervous:
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: EuclidianGeometry on July 18, 2016, 12:01:21 pm
One item in there is perfectly correct. I think Shambhala will feel staggeringly obvious when revealed, because it's such a clear product of the themes of Blue Planet vs. FS2 proper - but also a surprise because of its...incarnation of its own diegetic properties in the narrative-player relationship.

Also here's a random factoid for free, the Vishnans like to upload two species into the swarm redoubt in one go for the same reason almost all organisms have sex.

Who's the second species in the notional upload of humanity to the swarm redoubt? Vasudans?
Is the Great Darkness some kind of malignancy borne out of the same process, collapsed unintentionally in the Dawn War?

If the second is true, the Shivans, being directly antagonistic to isotropy and hegemony as they are, would I think be somewhat averse to this idea.

So what kind of survival are they offering to humanity?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 18, 2016, 01:09:55 pm
Morrigan in Shadow explains what the GD is pretty well imo
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on July 18, 2016, 01:23:07 pm
The GD is a dominant and degenerate strategy in environments optimized for godlike cognition. It inevitably consumes all those who reach the level of the Council/noosphere/panontos/whatever you want to call the galaxy's first largescale stable civilization. And there's no way to see it coming because it is a product of the very transcendent logic required to confirm its inevitability.

Bosch wanted to end an era of tragic hatred and misunderstanding. Bosch became an understanding. The Shivans don't (usually) hate: but they do 'understand,' now, how humanity might be better deployed...if you'll forgive the implication of intentionality.

What's clear is that both species have accelerated their attempts to intervene. The Shivans have no central intelligence or planning, and the Vishnans are like guys in hazmat suits trying to prod a Petri dish through a pinhole using only echolocation and a million mile long pin. The one advantage humanity and Vasudans have is that they're mostly too dumb to risk infection while active in the hot zone, so they don't have to handicap themselves.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on July 18, 2016, 01:28:17 pm
The Vishnans had big ****in plans for humanity/Vasudanity and pulled some strings to try to get it all to work out. The very very urgent question is why they swapped from "space family Bei please secure peace and enlightenment" to "purge purge purge purge". And the answer is probably already deductible, if you think like a Vishnan. It can't be as inelegant as "well UEF seems likely to lose": they didn't just lose faith over 18 months. Sam is wrong, fatally wrong, when he insists that he just needs more time.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on July 18, 2016, 01:37:31 pm
Once Act 4 resolves the crunchy military aspects of the war Act 5 will make a big effort to clarify the open cosmic mythos questions. The Fedayeen are good at making that **** practical.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: EuclidianGeometry on July 18, 2016, 02:05:13 pm
The GD is a dominant and degenerate strategy in environments optimized for godlike cognition. It inevitably consumes all those who reach the level of the Council/noosphere/panontos/whatever you want to call the galaxy's first largescale stable civilization. And there's no way to see it coming because it is a product of the very transcendent logic required to confirm its inevitability.

Bosch wanted to end an era of tragic hatred and misunderstanding. Bosch became an understanding. The Shivans don't (usually) hate: but they do 'understand,' now, how humanity might be better deployed...if you'll forgive the implication of intentionality.

What's clear is that both species have accelerated their attempts to intervene. The Shivans have no central intelligence or planning, and the Vishnans are like guys in hazmat suits trying to prod a Petri dish through a pinhole using only echolocation and a million mile long pin. The one advantage humanity and Vasudans have is that they're mostly too dumb to risk infection while active in the hot zone, so they don't have to handicap themselves.

Quote
The Vishnans had big ****in plans for humanity/Vasudanity and pulled some strings to try to get it all to work out. The very very urgent question is why they swapped from "space family Bei please secure peace and enlightenment" to "purge purge purge purge". And the answer is probably already deductible, if you think like a Vishnan. It can't be as inelegant as "well UEF seems likely to lose": they didn't just lose faith over 18 months. Sam is wrong, fatally wrong, when he insists that he just needs more time.

I'm sorry if this is getting random or looks like fishing for answers and have many mistakes but here are my thoughts:

> Does that mean that the Humans and Vasudans can use optimized tactics like the Shivans can't because they do not risk GD infection?

> There're mentions of a trigger threshold being crossed or something. The Hush mentioned in GRANITE HUNTER. Is this Bei's mistake? It is generally understood that the Vishnans abandoned humanity but Shivans claimed humanity as their incipients. What did the Vishnan/T2 Deva capability saw that caused this, and why does that threat ahead caused Shivans to choose humanity instead.

Another thought: Am I right in assuming that "Nagari as a provably safe" represents Shivans, while "Nagari as a provably unsafe" represents Vishnans?

I've also been thinking about the unspeakably terrible thing the Jester Nabirasul prophesied. It couldn't have been the GTVA/UEF war, at least in my opinion.

What if it was the infection of Vishnans by the Great Darkness? It has been very subtly implied the many weaknesses the Vishnans have:
- Their technology is highly optimized, and not as scalable (Vishnan Beam Weapons) and not nearly as diverse as the Shivans.
- They have a central weakness that being the Summed Psyche, and the Great Preserver and the Sacred Keeper(s) to a lesser extent.

If we choose to believe Laporte's Universal Truth, the Shivans rebuked the Vishnans pretty decisively. From my interpretation then the Vishnans are 'merely' an ascendant species while the Shivans are borne out of spacetime and is a guaranteed existence as a sort of force of nature.

Therefore the Vishnans exhibits many qualities that would present itself as a prey for Great Darkness, but I understand this conclusion might be incorrect.

Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: niffiwan on July 18, 2016, 04:59:12 pm
idk if I can explain how I got to to this... but maybe Shambhala gives Nagari to everyone, as a result humanity ascends to the Council/noosphere/panontos/whatever; GD eats humanity, and maybe anyone "in contact" with them. Ergo the Vishnans now want humanity purged before they complete Shambhala?  (Did the defection of parts of the 14th BG make Shambhala possible, or just accelerate progress?)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 18, 2016, 05:13:07 pm
i got nothing on why the vishnans want a purge
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: QuakeIV on July 19, 2016, 03:37:14 am
The Great Darkness seems to be some kind of ultimate mutually assured destruction weapon that was deployed in the distant past.  Something to that effect anyways.  The 'hot zone' as Battuta called it would be the once-livable material universe in its entirety, now infested with a civilization eating superweapon trawling the ashes.  If either Humanity or the Vasudans progress to the point where they can be attacked by this entity, the ramifications are somewhat unclear.  Perhaps it will simply murder all of them or perhaps it will do something with them that nobody wants to have happening.  I would guess something akin to the latter, given how keen the Vishans and Shivans are on preventing anyone from progressing too far.  If the Great Darkness just murdered them and then everything returned to the status quo (slow accumulation of entropy), there would be no need for all the drama.  Perhaps it triggers the full activation of the weapon or something, I dunno.  Whatever it is, it implies the Brahmans may have committed mass suicide to block the Great Darkness from achieving its full effect, (since they would qualify as a full civilization) hiding away as much of themselves as they could in the Vishnans.

If so, I bet the Vishnans purpose is to either continue the Brahman civilization somehow, or to utterly destroy their enemies.  Looks like everybody is dead (good job), and the Vishans are still actively doing things, so I will assume the former.  I mean, they could want anything, but the fact that the dawn war lead to such total annihilation implies that there were multiple sides with conflicting goals trying to eliminate eachother.  The Brahmans seemed to be super-civilized, so I think its a safe bet that continuing civilization is all they really want at this point.

The Vishnans seem to be actively manipulating the UEF, rather than immediately killing them to prevent them from turning into Great Darkness zombies (or whatever it is that happens), which implies that the UEF is related to their goals somehow.  Otherwise, why absorb the risk?  So, the UEF is useful to their plans.  I don't recall where exactly, but something in AoA mentioned the Brahmans were in the process of dying as they created the Vishnans.  Maybe their mass suicide as mentioned above.  All of AoA was apparantly an intricate lie to control Bei however, so its not clear how reliable it is.  Anyways, its possible the Brahmans were effectively frantically packing a briefcase when they made the Vishnans, due to the whole impending apocalypse time crunch.  Also, the idea of the 'summed psyche' kindof implies a crappy vector sum was used to try to store the Brahmans as a whole.  This coupled with their interest in the UEF implies they don't have everything they need to resume civilization as it once was.  Implicitly the UEF has something that they need, so they orchestrated its rise to power and were planning some final event to harvest the needed stuff.

Except, something went wrong in the procedure.  Remember how Laporte and Simms were ranting to eachother on the flight over Luna city, about how their civilization was so fantastic and everything was going so great, and then the GTVA kicked the door down and blew it all away?  Remember all of that fancy exposition scattered throughout the game about how especially enlightened the Elders are?  I bet the UEF is on its way to being infected by the Great Darkness, if it hasn't begun already.  The UEF became so good and pure that it made it to the point where it is now the beginnings of a true civilization, to the point that the anti-civilization superweapon has become a factor.  I mean, its a pretty elegant extension of the UEF's characteristics.  Furthermore , though this is less likely in my opinion, its worth noting the UEF was part way through some complex interaction with the Vishnans when this happened.  A lot of people speculated that Shambhala was some kind of attempt to 'ascend into the summed psyche' to paraphrase.  To take that analysis and mess around with it, maybe the Elders are trying to complete the procedure the Vishnans started, under their own power.  If they are already 'infected', or are at imminent risk of infection, maybe the summed psyche and Vishnans are directly at risk as a result of this.  Thats not all that provable though, and from an intuitive perspective is slightly too grand a consequence to fit in with this universe (the destruction or crippling of the Vishnans).  Its fairly likely the Vishnans simply want to purge the infected before they reach the point of being too good.

The GTVA for their part might be fully or partially aware of the full ramifications of the UEF's progression.  This might explain why they are so eager to crush the UEF as quickly as possible, and learn more about what Shambhala is.  If the situation advances to the point of no return, then presumably the Shivans or Vishnans will step in and annihilate Humanity.  Depending on the nature of the Great Darkness' attacks, it may not be possible to be selective and only kill off the UEF.  If the Elders are infected, and the GTVA knows it, then they probably want them dead just as badly as any of the other residents of the galaxy.  It would explain the eagerness to neutralize them.  It could also explain why their society is so screwed up, they are actively trying to avoid becoming valid targets for the Great Darkness.  Of course, its also possible that they simply detected alien manipulation and attacked the UEF on assumption.  "Whatever those good-for-nothing Vishnans are up to, it cant be good!"


e:  Various minor final edits (the final read over after posting found more things I wanted to change)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Nova Terran on July 19, 2016, 11:38:30 am
All these talks about the Great Darkness reminds me of the Exsurgent Virus from Eclipse Phase.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 19, 2016, 02:02:07 pm
I don't know why so much speculation about this subject. Morrigan in Shadow is pretty much conclusive on all these matters.

To sum up:

There are Makers in the Universe. And there are Destroyers. The purpose of the former is to build and make everything about itself. To repurpose other purposes unto its own, to reformulate everything into their wants. It is inherently hollow, cancerigenous. The purpose of the latter is to prey on the former, to use it, to destroy it, to attack it, to recreate chaos. If the former is cancer, the latter is chemotherapy without its teleological trait (and thus a lot more inneficient / destructive).

The Vishnans are Makers. Their interest in the UEF is patently obvious: they want to repurpose their purposes and integrate them onto their own. A kind of totalitarian Borgs. Meanwhile, the Shivans are fighting the Makers. Both humans/vasudans and vishnans are makers, albeit in different scales. The Shivans, through Ken, were able to be smarter and covert in their attack and were able to infiltrate into UEF's key people's psyches. Laporte.

Laporte would be used as a weapon to destroy humanity from within. And, possibly, the Vishnans in the future. Ken's purpose is to have mankind serve as a monster factory for Shivans to use, instead of merely being destroyed.

This is the precise point. When this became obvious to the Vishnans, they decided to purge humanity from their plans. What does a farmer do when a particular corner of his field gets a disease? Well, he may try to cure it, but in the end he may just as well merely cull it: "I have to be more careful next time".

What is SHAMBALA? The fiction doesn't describe it, apart from saying that it failed as a desperate weapon of defense. I'm inclined to agree with Warrior Of Ice's opinion on the matter, although Battuta suggests it will be much more gameplay-friendly, so to speak. IOW, it won't "connect" human psyches all across the board, it may well just connect the ones you want to and make them do exactly what you want. To turn other purposes into your own. I can guess that such gameplay could well be a variation of RTS type of gameplay, where you merely command others to do exactly what you want, regardless of their own wants. I can also imagine this could be an attempt at PSYWAR against the Alliance fighters, wherein whenever some ship gets into a particular spatial sphere of influence, they will be vulnerable to purpose redirection (like the Ordos' Deviator from Dune 2).
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: QuakeIV on July 19, 2016, 02:22:05 pm
Battuta has pointed out that there are major differences between the Morrigan stuff and BP.  He also has used the maker/destroyer concept in several of his other stories, so I tend to assume that he added that into the BP universe when he wrote that rather than revealing its existence in BP itself.  Hence all the extra stuff in my post above.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 19, 2016, 02:31:43 pm
I'm clinging to the idea that the "major differences" refer to the events at Capella and some other parts of the story (mostly all events), but not to the overall issues, themes. The Maker / Destroyer concept wasn't exactly invented by Battuta here, it was established by Darius in Age of Aquarius and basically confirmed in all of War in Heaven so far, and thus it perfectly fits.

I'm easily distracted and my memory is continuously failing me so I kinda am confused about what exactly the Great Darkness is. As I see it today (And my sight is pretty damn bad today), it may well be the cancerigenous totalitarian conscious state of everything, which the Shivans are made to prevent, or it may be the end result of a Shivan cleansing of a certain type of local noosphere "infection". Or it may be a third state/calculation/consequence. I'm inclined to think it's the former.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: QuakeIV on July 19, 2016, 03:05:10 pm
Eh good point, that may very well be the case.

As to the nature of the Great Darkness, all I recall is that its apparantly an existential threat to anything civilized.  That might be a slightly faulty line of reasoning though, since theoretically unthinking critters such as the shivans seem to be actively trying to supress it for presumably selfish reasons. 

Your own description brings an interesting image to mind.  Maybe the Great Darkness is trying to carry out the will of civilized (cancerous) individuals, and its infection would somehow... improve them.  Make them more powerful, in any case.  In that case Shambhala could be a deliberate attempt on the part of the elders to infect humanity.  It would certainly represent a reprehensible gamble with the lives of billions.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 19, 2016, 04:23:08 pm
I actually disagree quite substantially with luis here, more when I get to a proper keyboard/a state where I can write
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 19, 2016, 06:03:09 pm
first note: morrigan in shadow is set in a modified BPverse with the vishnans completely excised; I do not think any conclusions about them can be drawn directly from that story
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 19, 2016, 06:14:48 pm
Directly, you're correct. But the themes seem to map reasonably well. Take this chapter (my bold):

Quote
Cancer, and its relationships to paradise and love:
You build a place without violence or deprivation. A place where anything can have everything it needs to be its finest, fullest self.
This is how cells became organisms. How people became civilizations. How a bunch of misfits and ****ups became a fighting unit almost tough enough to challenge Admiral Steele. A Simms wrote some laws to say: if we pool our energies, we can create a common good. And if you follow the rules, yeah, you, Laporte, if you don’t eat too much common good, if you put in more than you take out, then we can last.
Imagine a Simms-god rampant, organizing the universe, winning the love of all the Laportes. So productive and persuasive that no one notices its ultimate agenda is hollow, self-referential, malignant.
Think about me. Organize everyone and everything to think about me. What am I? I am thinking about how to make everything think about me. I am a tumor, recruiting every system I encounter in the name of my own expansion.
“Whoa, now.” Simms puts a wet finger on the back of Laporte’s neck. “I’m very compelling, sure. Magnetic. But that’s not me.”
“Shh. Let me finish.” Except, Laporte realizes, she is finished. That’s the whole story. “van Aken believes in a cosmic proof: the axiomatic, mathematical superiority of cancer to all forms of containment. An empty thought that consumes intelligent systems and uses them to think about propagating itself.
Given a range of purposes, and a surplus of resources, one purpose would always triumph: the purpose of defeating and incorporating all other purposes. The two ant colonies in Laporte’s garden had to dedicate themselves entirely to war. If one of them spent part of its energy on ant compassion, or ant culture, or ant art, it would lose. Cancer was the destiny of smart systems: empty, voracious, every part of them thinking about nothing but how to expand.
Unless there was someone with a hose to pour water on them.
“So,” Simms says, humoring Laporte’s great mythic rant, “why do we still have a universe? Why are we here, thinking about ourselves?”
“That’s just what I asked van Aken,” Laporte lies. Because she feels that it would be too creepy, too alien, to admit that she understood it right away.
In the part of the story she’s avoiding, in the garden of the seizure dream, Laporte turned on her hose and began flooding her childhood constructs into mud. “The Nemesis are the anti-malignancy measure. They kill Makers. That’s why they’re so noisy and inefficient. So they can escape the models that Makers use to win wars.”
From a distant Nemesis construct, tumbling through the ergosphere of Capella, borrowing the black hole’s energies to hurl charged particles through quantum wormholes into Laporte’s mind, Ken smiled his agreement. Tattooed it into Laporte’s brain.
If you were afraid of intelligent thought consuming the universe, you had to turn the cosmos into an acid bath. An endless war against the triumph of Lorna Simms.

The theme seems to map, regardless of whose "Maker" we are talking about. Vishnans are able to circumvent Shivans to a point, but they too are at war with each other: The vishnans create, the shivans destroy, the first sees the other as a menace to their plans, the latter sees the first as a cancer to purge.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 19, 2016, 06:22:53 pm
I think you're putting the Vishnans in the wrong place here. I don't think they're the cancer, the empty thought; I think they're the result of the kind of complex cognitive life that would otherwise have invented Nagari and fallen to that menace evolving in a universe where the Shivans exist to snip that in the bud. Battuta described, on the last page I think, them as 'guys in hazmat suits poking at things through a pinhole'. The Vishnans aren't a malignancy doomed for the cull, they're what's left after the cancer has been cut out and quarantined.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 19, 2016, 07:13:02 pm
I get your point. I think the "Empty Thought" commentary can be either a reference to the Great Darkness, or simply a deeper poking into the Makers own deep inherent fatal flaw. However, it also makes sense to say that this kind of purpose cancer is the potential danger of all cognitive development in the universe and, say, that the Vishnans were very lucky or very careful to dodge that bullet.

So what is fascinating in this Protocol between the shivans and vishnans is how they deal with a simple difference of opinion regarding whether if this species is to be culled or not. It's really an important matter because if the Vishnans have it all wrong and call for a non-cull on an otherwise too narcissistic a species, the contribution of this species (which apparently must be a duo according to Battuta) might pollute the Psyche and bring forth the Great Darkness, thus destroying the entire purpose of the Protocol.

In AoA, the shivans are really not happy with the Vishnan's decision, but there's another assymetry there: only Vishnans can "see" through different dimensions. The Vishnans are, like you say, "guys in hazmat suits poking at things through a pinhole".

They brought the 14th to their dimension so they could directly intervene in them. But their mission failed, which is crazy in itself... Nevertheless, the Vishnans have probably decided that the human's species is a no-go. Therefore the Protocol is clear: the cull is about to be cast, or has already been cast. Shivans are allowed to kill humans / vasudans. But wait, because now the shivan local anima is Ken, and Ken has a different scheme: to use humans as tools of shivans, and thus make them be part of the shivan toolkit. And thus let them live. Because without this kind of "strategy", local cull would already been in effect and third incursion would have already started. Ken is holding the Shivans back with this bargain.

Now, what the vishnans might be thinking or planning or considering here might be interesting, because they might be witnessing a strange pattern in this dimension that was not how they saw things going. Why aren't the shivans culling them according to the protocol? And what is this weird Laporte doing here in Nagari? They still might intervene in order to check what the hell is going on here.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Grizzly on July 20, 2016, 10:46:08 am
All these talks about the Great Darkness reminds me of the Exsurgent Virus from Eclipse Phase.

It makes me think of Transcend a whole lot. And a distinct urge to stay fixated on what is front of me.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Warrior Of Ice on July 24, 2016, 11:39:36 am
Lately I have been thinking about the dreaded Morpheus contingency and how it is meant as a countermeasure to Shambhala. Something so highly classified and so horrible (as indicated in some of Steele's dialogues) can only be related to system-wide genocide. That means either killing off or mentally disabling (which leads to pretty much the same result) everyone in Sol. So how can that happen?

Theory 1:

Blow up the Sun just like the Shivans did Capella. Yes, yes, I know that our Sun is not nearly as massive as required to go supernova, but let's assume that Shivan tech can compress/disrupt its core enough to produce such an effect. If the GTVA has been able to figure out and reproduce the method used by the Sathanas fleet, then it is a distinct possibility.

Theory 2:

This one has to do with reverse-engineering the ETAK technology and utilizing its quantum principles in order to assault human minds in Sol. The name Morpheus itself suggests tempering with people's consciousness: this could be mind control, mind format or even constructing a Matrix-like dream world where the Federation citizens would remain locked up. However such a scenario would require massive energy and computational resources so I find the first one more feasible.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on July 24, 2016, 11:46:53 am
Lately I have been thinking about the dreaded Morpheus contingency and how it is meant as a countermeasure to Shambhala. Something so highly classified and so horrible (as indicated in some of Steele's dialogues) can only be related to system-wide genocide. That means either killing off or mentally disabling (which leads to pretty much the same result) everyone in Sol. So how can that happen?

Small correction: MORPHEUS is the overall name for a program designed to get humanity to a point where it can counter Shivan (and, after the 14th BG incident, Vishnan) influence. Shambhala, as a UEF program, is not implicitly covered by it.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Damage on July 24, 2016, 12:41:20 pm
Apparently it's a wi-fi password.

https://youtu.be/h7gvFravm4A?t=2m



(sorry--I couldn't stop myself)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 24, 2016, 01:40:02 pm
the MORPHEUS contingency is when you capture martin mando and leave him naked in a glass ball for a century
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Rabid on July 25, 2016, 12:04:42 am
I've actually been curious as well about MORPHEUS

Any spoilers? I've spent at least 2 hours in a single sitting looking up anything I could about it. I recall trying to find info on it at least one other time, not much fruit from FS canon or even the Granite Hunter Files.

If I had to guess - its a way to manipulate subspace in a way that is harmful to Shivans. Possibly directly, in a physically destructive sense-- such as destabilizing a node while ships are in transit, or completely severing
Shivan Ship-to-Ship/Shivan-to-Shivan communications. I think the thing is designed to **** with subspace in a way that could shield allied systems from invasion, possibly up to the point of shutting down a node(s) completely. In this sense, if the weapon was used to permanently seal a GTVA system it would surely spell doom for that system (the colonies seem to be small and depend on one another for resource sharing and etc, overuse of this device could shatter the Alliance completely in itself if the only way to avoid Shivan culling is total isolation of each GTVA system from any other)

The Shivans seem to be bent on preserving the cosmos, first and foremost being the subspace nodes. They don't care if they destroy a planet, or a star, etc. But in the first invasion they seemed only to care about controlling the jump nodes themselves. (to box us in) Also, the Shivans tolerated the Ancients up until right about the time they used Subspace in particular to further their ambitions of conquest.

That seems to be the Shivan theme -- if a species discovers subspace travel and uses it for conquering and subjugating other races, they'll be targeted for culling.
For MORPHEUS to be successful in protecting the Alliance from the Shivan threat in a wholesale sense, I can't think of any other entity that we could hope to manipulate that could remotely accomplish this goal. The one thing more powerful than the Shivans is subspace itself -- Shivans are utterly dependent upon it for travel (and Sathanis class beams and up) and seem unable to counter any of its negatives (shield removal + subspace tracking once discovered -- ((simply tracking an object in subspace means we can target or differentiate different regions of subspace -- likely done with equipment located in normal-space as its unlikely the fighters chasing the Lucifer into subspace had that particular computing power))


Just a hunch. Its not gonna be a Death Star.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 25, 2016, 03:22:09 am
Apparently it's a wi-fi password.

https://youtu.be/h7gvFravm4A?t=2m



(sorry--I couldn't stop myself)

"We're not savages" - that's a really cool Chiwetel line right there.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Damage on July 25, 2016, 04:30:42 pm
I'm pretty sure that counts for bonus points since Steele is at least partly based off one of his characters (from Serenity, if I'm not mistaken?)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 25, 2016, 04:40:20 pm
Correct! It all comes full circle!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on July 25, 2016, 11:09:36 pm
I thought MORPHEUS was the removal of all Vishan-compromised assets from Sol? Like, essentially mass killings? Even Steele calls it a 'nightmare'.

SHAMBHALA is whatever the UEF thinks can end the war while preserving their morals and society, and I think if you fail missions in Tenebra they basically go through with it. Something that messes with subspace seems to be the most obvious option.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mammothtank on July 26, 2016, 02:00:31 am
Time to call the Titan's and crack out the G-3.  :P

But yeah I dunno how the rest of the GTVA would take it if it came to that.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mito [PL] on July 26, 2016, 06:04:56 am
SHAMBHALA is whatever the UEF thinks can end the war while preserving their morals and society, and I think if you fail missions in Tenebra they basically go through with it.
Actually, if you fail One Future... there would be no Elders to go on with it.

All of you are wondering lots about Shivans, Vishnans, GTVA, UEF and how they interact with each other... And where are the Gefs in all of this? Al-Da'wa said something about them being the last hope of humanity surviving in case UEF loses to the Tevs (and Shivans wipe out both sides of the conflict?).
So what, Gefs are something that Shivans/Vishnans did not notice or just don't care about?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 26, 2016, 06:37:12 am
It's just that they have the most quiet and subtle existence of them all. Unlike everyone else, they hide themselves in the Kuiper Belt and try to come up with ways to exist and prosper through genetic design and other strategies with barely no sunlight at all, and perhaps very little subspace activity, if any.

You can easily analyse this through some darwinian lenses. Given that the hotspots are always close to the stars, not only how easy planets are to spot near them, but also how subspace strenght seems to align itself quite perfectly with stars' locations; given how shivans seem to really care about subspace first and foremost; given how decentralized and sparse something called "The Kuiper Belt" really feels like, it does mean that in the event that humanity gets wiped out by a third shivan incursion, these GEFs will at least be the very last ones to be culled, and probably some centuries after all others.

If they could eventually, through the decades or even centuries, start to thrive on their own in dark space between the stars and treat those hotspots as "no-go areas", they could become... something else. A species adapted to dark space. Something way bigger than the GTVA has ever been. Something that could even survive the shivans long enough to be able to escape its cull. Quite the tall feat, given how shivans are "GodSlayers", but hey it could be its own story.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Grizzly on July 26, 2016, 08:16:37 am
Quote
but also how subspace strenght seems to align itself quite perfectly with stars' locations;

It's not just seemingly, actually. From the FS2/BP techroom entry:

Quote
First, an intrasystem jump can occur between two points in a star system. Most small, space-faring vessels are equipped with motivators capable of these short jumps. The presence of an intense gravitational field is required, prohibiting travel beyond the boundaries of a star system.

Or, in short, go "beyond" a star's gravitational field and you go beyond the reach of subspace. If I am allowed to speculate, the reason why we have jumpnodes is because there is still some sort of subspace beyond a stars gravitational field, but it is more affected by eachother gravity thus forming those jumpnodes - a bit like how waterdrops tend to attract eachother.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on July 26, 2016, 09:04:08 am
euphemistic facetiousness loses yet another round
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: logomancer on July 30, 2016, 04:57:14 pm
I've always been operating under the assumption that Shambhala was a means of mass-uploading the minds of everyone in Sol into a rechnender raum -- either the Vishnans' or their own. Either will be hilarious to look upon if it succeeds, as I'm quite sure the Vishnans will take issue to this.

Consider: The Vishnans and the Shivans work according to a deal set out by the Brahmans, the Terminal Protocol. Presumably, something happened involving the Brahmans and the Great Darkness, and the two races were tasked to make sure it didn't happen again. The idea was to keep any civilization from reaching that point in development. Either the Vishnans used Nagari shenanigans to bring the civilization to "enlightenment" and merged them into the Summed Psyche -- a Vishnan rechnender raum where thinking about a Great Darkness was an impossibility -- or the Shivans would cull them.

While the UEF was on schedule for Vishnan enlightenment and upload, the Elders, afraid that the Shivans would return, started Shambhala as an insurance policy to preserve humanity. When the Tevs declared war, humanity was written off by the Vishnans. So the UEF had no choice but to push forward with Shambhala, and hope they finish it before the Tevs destroyed them.

MORPHEUS, meanwhile, approached the problem from another angle -- how to free humanity from Nagari influence. It's entirely possible this involves forcefully preventing humans from being Nagari-receptive. Steele's dreams may be a clue here; when he said Morpheus was "a nightmare you don't get to wake up from", he may have been speaking literally. The UEF, to him, is a polity run by compromised individuals. Thus, they need to be toppled.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on July 30, 2016, 08:06:43 pm
Your posts are so good!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on July 30, 2016, 08:53:43 pm
I don't think Steele speaking so literally about it works. For me, at least. I like it as a nice little nod to his morality, that even for a 'gentleman psychopath' like him, there's something about actually having to conduct MORPHEUS that leaves him unsettled.

IIRC, Steele's dreams were about walking the perimeter, checking the six, because 'they' sneak in through dreams.

SHAMBHALA is Byrne's secret project, yeah? And what he needs all the captured GTVA warships for?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: logomancer on July 31, 2016, 12:58:20 pm
Your posts are so good!

*bows*

I don't think Steele speaking so literally about it works. For me, at least. I like it as a nice little nod to his morality, that even for a 'gentleman psychopath' like him, there's something about actually having to conduct MORPHEUS that leaves him unsettled.

IIRC, Steele's dreams were about walking the perimeter, checking the six, because 'they' sneak in through dreams.

SHAMBHALA is Byrne's secret project, yeah? And what he needs all the captured GTVA warships for?

It's pretty clear that the reason Steele's dreams are like that is that he's been inoculated with Nagari countermeasures. "They sneak in through dreams" obviously refers to the Vishnans. Also -- morality? Ha. He's been in SOC for over 20 years...

Shambhala is a project of the Elders. Remember, Byrne is the military representative of the Elders. And he studied directly under Martin Mandho, whose idea Shambhala probably was in the first place; in fact, I suspect that he was the catalyst for aligning the UEF with the Vishnans.

As for why Shambhala needs the 14th BG and the Agincourt -- it's a huge project. We're talking about the mass upload of billions of minds to a computer. If said computer lets people think all the faster, then this needs to happen at the same time or risk huge personality clashes between uploads. Were it not for certain discoveries, it probably would have been beyond their tech level; as it is, even with the massive industry of Sol behind it, it is just massively hard. They needed the logistics ship -- which can field-repair a destroyer, down to the fusion reactors and subspace motivators -- for supplies and equipment, since the rest of Sol is involved with a shooting war and they needed to accelerate their timetable.

As for the rest -- The Sanctuary is the most obvious. They have 10,000 people who have been shaped by Vishnan Nagari activity for 50 years; they could serve Shambhala in all sorts of ways, from technical support to shepherding the people into "enlightenment". Of the other ships of the 14th, the only ones we know defected were the Duke and the Solace. The Solace did not become part of Shambhala; they were sent to Second Fleet as a supply ship. The Duke's disposition is less clear; nothing she has to offer is as obviously useful to Shambhala, except for maybe some computer records and maybe her Vishnan-touched crew.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 31, 2016, 01:02:59 pm
I can't really believe that with the absolute juggernaut that is Sol's peacetime economy, the UEF would need a GTVA logistics ship to build a load of computers. GTLs are, as you said, there to hold missiles and warship parts and fuel refineries for a fleet on the run from a legion of Sathanai. They're not chip fabrication plants.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: perihelion on July 31, 2016, 01:51:59 pm
Maybe this computer the Elders intend to upload us all to is mobile, but once it starts the upload process, it will essentially be broadcasting its location and be unable to move if attacked.  The 14BG, 1st Fleet, and the captured logistics ship could be for nothing more than buying time once Shambalah Station unzips its fly? The process probably isn't instantaneous.

One of the logistics ships may well be Shambalah Station! They are large and mobile and you can fit a lot of people and equipment on them.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: logomancer on July 31, 2016, 04:05:52 pm
Iif it's mobile, I'd assume it wouldn't be one of the logistics ships, or the Sanctuary, since the project was active before the Tevs entered the system. But if it had a presence in the physical universe, wouldn't the Shivans be able to find it and destroy it? It takes a lot less to destroy one ship or station, however well-armored, than it does planets.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Scotty on July 31, 2016, 07:16:53 pm
I feel like it's required to mention that the "they" Steele mentions in his dream is not required to be Vishnans.  It's possible that SOC personnel (among others) have been exposed to Shivan Nagari incursions, 'peaceful' or otherwise.  It occurs to me that this may be something particularly related to the Shivan Comms Node.  The metaphorical representation of Laporte's subconscious Nagari broadcast in Ken is a Shivan Comm Node, after all.  She has no reason to know that such a thing even exists, nevermind accurately simulate one in her subconscious.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on July 31, 2016, 08:25:36 pm
It's pretty clear that the reason Steele's dreams are like that is that he's been inoculated with Nagari countermeasures. "They sneak in through dreams" obviously refers to the Vishnans. Also -- morality? Ha. He's been in SOC for over 20 years...

Absolutely. His repeating phrases are basically a ritual to ward off demons.

I still think Steele needs some glimmer of humanity. His SOC record - while no doubt impressive -doesn't preclude that. I don't see why MORPHEUS would be something that Steele calls a 'nightmare' if it's just, basically, turning off Nagari sensitivity. And I don't see why he'd phrase it so ominously to Lopez, unless he's deliberately messing with her. I always thought MORPHEUS was something like genocide (purging all Vishnan compromised elements in Sol), although I can't remember where I picked that up.

Quote
Shambhala is a project of the Elders. Remember, Byrne is the military representative of the Elders. And he studied directly under Martin Mandho, whose idea Shambhala probably was in the first place; in fact, I suspect that he was the catalyst for aligning the UEF with the Vishnans.

Yeah. I was just remembering (I think) Calder calling it Byrne's special project. Mandho's also the guy who tells Laporte to listen to Ken as the Elders sometimes hear similar voices, and to explicitly trust Ken. Good catch.

Quote
As for why Shambhala needs the 14th BG and the Agincourt -- it's a huge project. We're talking about the mass upload of billions of minds to a computer. If said computer lets people think all the faster, then this needs to happen at the same time or risk huge personality clashes between uploads. Were it not for certain discoveries, it probably would have been beyond their tech level; as it is, even with the massive industry of Sol behind it, it is just massively hard. They needed the logistics ship -- which can field-repair a destroyer, down to the fusion reactors and subspace motivators -- for supplies and equipment, since the rest of Sol is involved with a shooting war and they needed to accelerate their timetable.

As for the rest -- The Sanctuary is the most obvious. They have 10,000 people who have been shaped by Vishnan Nagari activity for 50 years; they could serve Shambhala in all sorts of ways, from technical support to shepherding the people into "enlightenment". Of the other ships of the 14th, the only ones we know defected were the Duke and the Solace. The Solace did not become part of Shambhala; they were sent to Second Fleet as a supply ship. The Duke's disposition is less clear; nothing she has to offer is as obviously useful to Shambhala, except for maybe some computer records and maybe her Vishnan-touched crew.

Very good point about the Duke. I always forgot about that little ship.

I feel like it's required to mention that the "they" Steele mentions in his dream is not required to be Vishnans.  It's possible that SOC personnel (among others) have been exposed to Shivan Nagari incursions, 'peaceful' or otherwise.  It occurs to me that this may be something particularly related to the Shivan Comms Node.  The metaphorical representation of Laporte's subconscious Nagari broadcast in Ken is a Shivan Comm Node, after all.  She has no reason to know that such a thing even exists, nevermind accurately simulate one in her subconscious.

I'd say it points more to them than the Shivans, though. The Shivans have only seemingly done dream stuff to Laporte, but even then it seems to be more through waking hallucinations. The Vishnans, on the other hand, seem to embrace slippery dream manipulation more than their black and red counterparts.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mito [PL] on August 01, 2016, 07:42:12 am
It's pretty clear that the reason Steele's dreams are like that is that he's been inoculated with Nagari countermeasures. "They sneak in through dreams" obviously refers to the Vishnans.
I have always felt a bit different about that. Maybe Fedayeen. That would be a lot like them, instead going for enemy fleet assets (which is damn hard at the time) just go for the commander, the most dangerous of all enemies, himself. Force him into an error, push him into sleep deprivation, something like that - actually EWAR, but directed at people, not vessels.
If Steele would simply go nuts, he would be replaced for sure. A lot of stuff started to go really bad for the UEF sine Steele took over Severanti's role in this war. I really doubt that GTVA could find someone comparable to him - thus, if that would happen, UEF would actually have a chance of winning.

Very good point about the Duke. I always forgot about that little ship.
There is something more about the Duke. I've read somewhere, that it was the only vessel to actually posses in its memory banks the code needed to activate the Knossos portal in N362. That would make sense - firstly, the vessel with its entire crew has been (aggressively!) possessed by an alien influence (Vishnans? maybe). Then, it went to N362 and as soon as it arrived there, it sent a message to the Knossos portal, activating it. No other people anywhere around to intercept it. The only place it is stored is the Duke itself. Which defected to UEF.

Someone out there said that Shambala is actually a lot simpler concept that it would seem (or I misunderstood that).
So it's safe to assume that the Vishnan-influenced Elders are in possession of both the Duke and the key to N362 portal (with its presence in our realm actually confirmed by some Tev intel data), and at least 10.000 people that actually have been out there, through the portal. It is also unclear, how many people in Sol have been influenced by Vishnans, but we can safely assume that it's the entire Council of Elders with their surroundings, and at least Byrne and his flagship crew. Maybe even a large portion of 1st Fleet.
Plus the Agincourt, Sanctuary and some Tev units - just as military assets. And the Murugan dreadnought that appeared lately on Dan Bell's channel on YouTube. And Byrne "saving up" military forces to his project.
From this point of view it looks like Shambala is not some mystic sentience uploader, but a military project. To create a powerful fleet, gather all of the V-influenced population, shove all of them up that Tev artificial jump node in a single, big and unexpected strategic push, and then just punch through to N362, open the portal... And then what? Physically join the Vishans? Or simply "invite" them into our space?

Whatever would happen right there, it would really attract Tev attention (if we assume that MORPHEUS is really going to wipe out everyone related to Vishnans in Sol). Maybe they would just go chasing Shambala and leave Sol, since they have no interest in sitting there, since their targets have left the system, which could free up resources needed for Laporte to gather a fleet.
That would seem to be correct with Morrigan in the Shadow story.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on August 01, 2016, 08:52:37 am
Quote from: VILLAGE PEOPLE
We have the codes from the Duke. We have the location of the portal and ships in position for SMOKEJUMP. We have fledgling MORPHEUS countermeasures. We could insert a team. No more SADABA YEAR bull****: a realspace run. Good old-fashioned recon.

So the Duke wasn't the only copy of those codes.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on August 01, 2016, 09:09:57 am
That doesn't hurt Mito's theory, though! The point is that the UEF does have a copy.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mito [PL] on August 01, 2016, 04:40:55 pm
That's even better! Not only there's a redundancy for the code UEF possesses, just in case if any traitor or agent erases them, but there is a possibility of forcing Tevs to open the portal themselves and set up a blockade on the far side (pure tactical purposes: it's better to beam the enemy units to death when they leave a jump node than stand still in a fixed place in space and repel enemy attacks, especially if you only have a small force to use).

Thanks for pointing that out! :P
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: logomancer on August 02, 2016, 07:48:35 am
I have always felt a bit different about that. Maybe Fedayeen. That would be a lot like them, instead going for enemy fleet assets (which is damn hard at the time) just go for the commander, the most dangerous of all enemies, himself. Force him into an error, push him into sleep deprivation, something like that - actually EWAR, but directed at people, not vessels.
If Steele would simply go nuts, he would be replaced for sure. A lot of stuff started to go really bad for the UEF sine Steele took over Severanti's role in this war. I really doubt that GTVA could find someone comparable to him - thus, if that would happen, UEF would actually have a chance of winning.

This would make sense...except if they could do that, they could hit a lot of other, softer targets (like Lopez or Leinonen), disrupt Steele's well-laid plans, and throw him off-balance considerably. And yet, there's no evidence of this in Tenebra. I'm not sure if they had the equipment or information to do that. It's clear some long-range communications are taking place, but is that because the Fedayeen have the capability to transmit, or because they are receiving transmissions from those who do?

Someone out there said that Shambala is actually a lot simpler concept that it would seem (or I misunderstood that).
So it's safe to assume that the Vishnan-influenced Elders are in possession of both the Duke and the key to N362 portal (with its presence in our realm actually confirmed by some Tev intel data), and at least 10.000 people that actually have been out there, through the portal. It is also unclear, how many people in Sol have been influenced by Vishnans, but we can safely assume that it's the entire Council of Elders with their surroundings, and at least Byrne and his flagship crew. Maybe even a large portion of 1st Fleet.
Plus the Agincourt, Sanctuary and some Tev units - just as military assets. And the Murugan dreadnought that appeared lately on Dan Bell's channel on YouTube. And Byrne "saving up" military forces to his project.
From this point of view it looks like Shambala is not some mystic sentience uploader, but a military project. To create a powerful fleet, gather all of the V-influenced population, shove all of them up that Tev artificial jump node in a single, big and unexpected strategic push, and then just punch through to N362, open the portal... And then what? Physically join the Vishans? Or simply "invite" them into our space?

Whatever would happen right there, it would really attract Tev attention (if we assume that MORPHEUS is really going to wipe out everyone related to Vishnans in Sol). Maybe they would just go chasing Shambala and leave Sol, since they have no interest in sitting there, since their targets have left the system, which could free up resources needed for Laporte to gather a fleet.
That would seem to be correct with Morrigan in the Shadow story.

Not sure if I buy the entire Solaris crew being influenced. Putting that aside, the plan sounds insane. If Steele had a half dozen Mjolnirs for station defense, it's safe to say that the Tevs would throw up node blockades every step of the way. How many Mjolnir hits can a Murugan take, even if they took over the project from the Jovians? And how useful would the Sanctuary, a destroyer with Great War technology, be as a military asset? Even with an overwhelming force -- the remnants of the 14th, most of First Home Fleet, and maybe a Murugan or two -- it's hard to say they'd put up much of a fight against the rest of the GTVA fleet. They'd have to plow through at least two (http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_Orders_of_Battle#13th_Fleet_--_Ross_128) battlegroups (http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blue_Planet_Orders_of_Battle#10th_Fleet_--_Laramis) -- assuming Steele or the 19th doesn't give chase -- to get to N362 to do...what? There's no solid proof the Vishnans are there, or that the system is special to them. Why go to N362 to do something you could do at Earth?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on August 02, 2016, 09:14:32 am
The GH files suggested that the Vishnans needed to physically deliver the Sanctuary into Sol in order to (retrocausally) bootstrap their Ubuntu program there, like some sort of inoculation. Perhaps the plan was to deliver the reciprocal payload back from Sol.

Tenebra made it pretty clear that the UEF is now in schism: 1fleet and the Elders on one side, and 2fleet, 3fleet and the Fedayeen with Laporte. Presumably both sides have their own endgame gambits; Shambhala for the former, and whatever Ken's planning for the latter? In Shadow, Shambhala fizzled out offscreen and we got a straightforward explanation of Ken's strategy, but none of that stuff applies to BP according to Battuta.

Steele's attack from the Tenebra ending cutscene will most likely result in a costly GTVA victory (it was premature and expedited by the threat CASSANDRA posed; he wanted to go in some time later), after which a lot of assets will likely be tied down by MORPHEUS. I think the UEF would have a decent shot at managing a Hail Mary. Remember that the GTVA also puts a high priority on having fleets ready for a Shivan threat, and their forces have been torn between that and the Sol theatre. I wouldn't count on them having a huge amount of assets ready to stop a UEF endrun.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Damage on August 02, 2016, 11:27:23 am
Except that if the UEF makes a run out of Sol, they'll basically be telegraphing their intentions.  What other possible destinations could they have except N362? -- And GTVI already knows what's there (if not what's beyond it.)


(Although we might get to see a sort of inverted version of "Journey of a Thousand Miles...")
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Darius on August 02, 2016, 11:36:23 am
Act 5 is basically forced entry x 5 in a row.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: General Battuta on August 02, 2016, 11:38:40 am
Revenant :black101:

Shadow does propose one possible UEF endgame involving an end run out of Sol. And it would fit the 'you must choose'/'you must destroy the GTVA' Ken foreshadowing.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on August 02, 2016, 12:05:52 pm
Act 5 is basically forced entry x 5 in a row.

I swear every time you say anything about BP I can never tell if it's a stunning revelation or some dumb joke

Shadow does propose one possible UEF endgame involving an end run out of Sol. And it would fit the 'you must choose'/'you must destroy the GTVA' Ken foreshadowing.

Yeah, plus somewhere there's a mention that the Shivans at Capella might be waiting for some payload to be delivered. I'm pretty sure that'll happen in BP. But I can't see there being two different "dash through the GTVA to get to the aliens" missions, so that just leaves me back to having no leads on Shambhala!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Damage on August 02, 2016, 01:25:54 pm
I suppose it could be a choice in place for the player.

Option 1, dash from Sol to N362 and attempt to contact the Vishnans direct.
Option 2, dash from Sol to attempt to get to Capella....for whatever reason. 

Except the known Capella/Vega node is gone...which leaves us a plot snag.

In either case, the GTVA isn't going to just let them walk through.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on August 02, 2016, 02:40:40 pm
toxx clause, if BP lets you do a choose-your-own-ending on something that important i will bake a pie too big for aesaar to eat
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: perihelion on August 02, 2016, 02:53:40 pm
Who is to say that your objective isn't to get to Capella through the back door? The Knossos network was connected at one point in time.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Trivial Psychic on August 02, 2016, 03:52:25 pm
I don't recall any indication that you can connect one Knossos to another.  The only option I can forsee, is to use the N362 Knossos, and assume that if you backtrack a few systems you can find your way into the FS2 nebula from there.  After all, in FS1 the Shivans came from somewhere, and where else than through the N362 Knossos.  If that is the assumption, then somehow this area of space must connect through Shivan space to the Nebula, and by extension, Capella.  That leaves the question of who let them in though N362 in the first place, but that doesn't take much imagination *cough*GTI*cough*.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mito [PL] on August 02, 2016, 05:28:13 pm
As expected.

This would make sense...except if they could do that, they could hit a lot of other, softer targets (like Lopez or Leinonen), disrupt Steele's well-laid plans, and throw him off-balance considerably. And yet, there's no evidence of this in Tenebra. I'm not sure if they had the equipment or information to do that. It's clear some long-range communications are taking place, but is that because the Fedayeen have the capability to transmit, or because they are receiving transmissions from those who do?

Lopez was been "used" by UEF twice, and both successful attempts did not require Fedayeen mocking with her (at least we know of none). Those were simple strategies, which used her personal flaws.
The point here is simple: if you would take control of a vessel's captain and forced him/her to disobey an order from the Admiral (we need to remember that Steele gives the orders and any Tev commanding officer in Sol is just following them, not running on their own), you would most likely cause a mutiny (I doubt that one man could oppose entire crew, consider that they also aren't mindless pawns) or marking the vessel as traitor and destroying it by Tevs. But remember that Steele has a pretty large amount of assets already in Sol, and he still receives a constant flow of them from the GTVA. Losing several units would barely slow him down, as shown twice in Act 3 (first mission and HFH). Yes, there was a possibility of actually winning the war by UEF in Delenda Est, but there the loss of a destroyer-sized asset wouldn't force Steele to back down - it would be the political disappointment of the rest of GTVA, probably showing him making even worse mistake than Severanti did.
We also need to remember that, if the Fedayeen are behind Steele's visions, the only piece of equipment to cause them would be Cassie. While it is simply amazing, it has its own limitations for sure - and since Fedayeen seem to use it rather extensively, there might not be much resources remaining to torment people in their sleep - so they just point them at the most valuable target they can.
And I wouldn't call this a long-range communication. From what we know of Nagari, we can tell that it is a way of communicating without any distance degrading it anyhow. Something like means of coordinating a multi-galaxy wide empire (Brahmans? Shivans? Vishnans?) without any lag. And since Steele is inside Sol all the time, Fedayeen may be using something far less advanced against him. Heck, they might be doing it accidentally, without knowing it.

By the way, the only long-range (meaning to/from outside Sol) comms having place in Fedayeen Dreamscape seem to be HoL (but not the Tev crewmen, if they even employ Zods, but rather the survivors of the attack against the Lucifer, which returned to their brethren after AoA), Greenfly Gef cell, some funky funky stuff if Laporte decides to go behind those firewalls and, of course, UT2 - but thanks to special transmitter created especially for that opportunity. Besides that Dreamscape seems to be confined only to Sol itself.

Not sure if I buy the entire Solaris crew being influenced. Putting that aside, the plan sounds insane. If Steele had a half dozen Mjolnirs for station defense, it's safe to say that the Tevs would throw up node blockades every step of the way. How many Mjolnir hits can a Murugan take, even if they took over the project from the Jovians? And how useful would the Sanctuary, a destroyer with Great War technology, be as a military asset? Even with an overwhelming force -- the remnants of the 14th, most of First Home Fleet, and maybe a Murugan or two -- it's hard to say they'd put up much of a fight against the rest of the GTVA fleet. They'd have to plow through at least two battlegroups -- assuming Steele or the 19th doesn't give chase -- to get to N362 to do...what? There's no solid proof the Vishnans are there, or that the system is special to them. Why go to N362 to do something you could do at Earth?
First, remember what an Oculus can do to Tev beams. Anyone who seen it in action (Aristea, Delenda Est, Her Finest Hour) should agree that someting like that would cause serious problems to Tev armament. Especially if we get to mount a lot of this stuff onto bigger ships.
Second, the Sanctuary was in hands of First Fleet for over 18 months. That's more than enough time to make at least a partial refit (which should be easy since UEF tech seems to be pretty compatible)... or disassemble the vessel for supplies (to build something else).
Third, an insane plan is the best plan, especially when the enemy is blocking you from using any sane plans. I think Phantom Hoover explained this well in his post, and with Shambala providing muscle/speed/other to punch through to N362... it might work.
<What if Shambala is just a pocket Knossos with the ability to be aimed at any star system? So that there is no need for a brutal push?>
Why N362? Because Knossos. It's been there in an alternate reality (or not exactly), with a half of 14th BG using it, and its presence there in our realm has been confirmed in GH files, with GTVI considering a scouting run using MORPHEUS countermeasures. It seems that both sides are sure that Vishnans are on the other side.
Why move and not do it on Earth? Probably because thin resources. Remember what the Fedayeen needed to push Laporte into Nagari? A comm device, the Idun's Dictionary, CASSANDRA and someone on the "other side" to help with a temporary transfer. How many of those do Elders have? The comm device design was been given to Laporte by some HoL agent, and if someone there actually went through her personal files to find it, that would be Fedayeen for sure. If a copy of the Dictionary was all the time in Council's hands, Fedayeen may have had a chance of obtaining it from them, not from Jovian gas platform. And there seems to be only one Cassie in existance. And Vishnans do not seem being eager to help with that.
<What if Shambala needs to do *something* really close to Vishnan "bodies"... and they are going to order a cull because of fear of *this* happening?>
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on August 02, 2016, 07:20:49 pm
As far as going to Capella, well...

"He wait in the cooling ruin, for a daughter made out of war."

Might relate to Universal Truth, might not.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Nova Terran on August 03, 2016, 12:19:34 am
As far as going to Capella, well...

"He wait in the cooling ruin, for a daughter made out of war."

Might relate to Universal Truth, might not.

Well, we did meet him in Nagari Representation of the Capellan Black Hole/Transabyssal Gate.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on August 03, 2016, 03:47:44 am
All great speculations, but I have to admit the authors were indeed able to keep everything under wraps pretty well so far.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on August 03, 2016, 04:18:46 am
As far as going to Capella, well...

"He wait in the cooling ruin, for a daughter made out of war."

Might relate to Universal Truth, might not.

Well, we did meet him in Nagari Representation of the Capellan Black Hole/Transabyssal Gate.

Yeah, exactly. But it could also mean physically meet (as his alternate-reality counterpart does in Morrigan in Shadow).
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on August 03, 2016, 11:30:59 am
Throwing a silly cool idea that came to mind:

What if Shamballa is indeed a Nagari weapon of some sort (I'll be loose on any detail), that forces everyone important to be present within Nagarispace and that the whole mission be played in that very space, fighting TEVs inside this virutal spirit world?

Rules could be completely different. Partial winstates could relate to certain objectives that would be irrelevant in "realspace", but here are absolutely important. Rules could be both quite logical and understood and yet quite novel and original, almost abstract-like. The territory and its aspects could become surreal and ever changing, making it the tripiest mission ever.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: logomancer on August 04, 2016, 11:21:04 am
I know that Nagari is non-local. But the Fedayeen don't seem to be able to make a connection outside of their own Nagari LAN (the Dreamscape). It takes Laporte's schematics for them to build an ETAK device, as you said. The Idun Dictionary seems to only be necessary to decode Shivan/Vishnan transmissions. So there's nothing really stopping the Fedayeen from doing Nagari shenanigans after UT2, but before then they don't have what they need.

Shambhala as a means to move the battlespace to Nagari is plausible, but if the Fedayeen needed the HoL (via Laporte) to get the ETAK schematics, where would the Elders have gotten them?

Refitting the Sanctuary makes sense. And I'll admit that pushing through to N362 is doable (though would still be difficult -- The Feds have trouble downing one destroyer, let alone three). But why are people so sure that the Vishnans are past the N362 Knossos in the main universe? The Tevs haven't done any recon; they just figure they (or the Shivans) are there because they were there in another universe and the Knossos was last activated 50 years ago. That's pretty thin evidence. And it seems out of character for Byrne and the Elders to risk a huge force on a hunch.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Luis Dias on August 04, 2016, 11:39:42 am
I don't even understand what exactly this rushing through N362 even accomplishes. Although it would be fun, a bit like Bosch's own run through GTVA space into the nebula but now played from "the other side". How much can you sacrifice? How many friends are you ready to let be killed? Are your loss calculations correct? Are you losing too many people while being harassed from every possible angle? Crazy full blown chessboard gambit in order to have that single pawn into the last row.

Thing is, I just don't see what that engame looks like. Vishnans be like:

"wtf is wrong with you? we shut off comms with you, why would you even come here for?"

"you mean we sacrificed hundreds of thousands of people, all of our fleet in order for some handful of cruisers or fighters reach you and this is all you have for us?"

"what did you expect? That us would solve all of your horrendous issues? gtfo our lawn already. Helmsman, target their cruiser, let our aspects fly..."

"but waaaait!"

"no more talking"
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Damage on August 04, 2016, 06:57:45 pm
That is a dilemma for me as well.  Every scenario I run through my head ends "Well, we're here, now what?"

COLDMORN seemed to feel there might not be anything to be found.  Village People thought otherwise.

I have to imagine there's at least a watchful eye on the Knossos in N362.  Would it be just a huge surprise if it turned out to be Shivan and not Vishnan?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on August 04, 2016, 07:14:19 pm
Like I said, while the N362 endrun idea is pretty fun I'm aware it has various issues and, more importantly, clashes with the (much better supported) endrun to Capella.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: SaltyWaffles on August 05, 2016, 06:30:37 pm
How exactly would there BE an end-run to Capella, given that all of the jump nodes were severed back in FS2? It'd require the UEF to know the exact location of a dormant Knossos portal in GTVA space that leads to Capella, which assumes that such a portal even exists, and that it would even still work in a system that recently went supernova.

Besides, the name Shambhala--and the various hints we've received about it so far--indicate that it is nothing so conventional as a blockade run through GTVA space. It's almost certainly Nagari-related, a massive construction, and intended to be deployed/activated within Sol.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on August 05, 2016, 06:42:03 pm
The Capella endrun scenario is— look, have you read Morrigan in Shadow?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on August 05, 2016, 08:01:36 pm
The thing about Shambhala being a massive construction - a ship or installation or etc. - is that I always think that more people would know what it is (at least having some kind of idea), Steele would probably know where it is if not what it is, and it would have been a factor in the Blitz when everything in Earth orbot was hit by the Tevs.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Nova Terran on August 13, 2016, 01:52:52 am
The thing about Shambhala being a massive construction - a ship or installation or etc. - is that I always think that more people would know what it is (at least having some kind of idea), Steele would probably know where it is if not what it is, and it would have been a factor in the Blitz when everything in Earth orbot was hit by the Tevs.

The Shamhala's most likely location is somewhere near Mercury, which, I believe, was described by developers as one of the most heavily fortified region in Sol (due to its antimatter factories).
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on August 14, 2016, 12:12:02 am
The thing about Shambhala being a massive construction - a ship or installation or etc. - is that I always think that more people would know what it is (at least having some kind of idea), Steele would probably know where it is if not what it is, and it would have been a factor in the Blitz when everything in Earth orbot was hit by the Tevs.

The Shamhala's most likely location is somewhere near Mercury, which, I believe, was described by developers as one of the most heavily fortified region in Sol (due to its antimatter factories).

Ugh, of course! I honestly forgot that there's planets in the 'inner system' beyond Earth. Egg on face. I am Admiral Cyrus Severanti.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on September 04, 2016, 10:30:21 pm
Thinking about Shambhala, I have a feeling it's something to do with subspace and nodes.

What we know about it is that it's an answer to the threat of Shivans rebuilding nodes, would end the war and do it without sacrificing Ubuntu morals. However, Henriksson found it terrible enough that she would willingly defect to the GTVA.

My thought is that it's a subspace weapon that utterly collapses nodes past the point of repair. We've seen nodes destabilised by capital ship destruction, but we've never seen them utterly erased. The Shivans, for example, can travel through unstable ones or have the capability to restore them (Knossos, Sathanas, etc). An important thing to note may be the Capella 'transabyssal gate' but I feel fairly safe in assuming that it was not a regular jump node, nor a replacement for them.

It eliminates the threat of nodes being restored by wiping them from existence and then propagates down the whole node network. It would end the war by denying the Tevs their logistics and by making the greater war pointless. It would, in essence, turn every star system into a singular entity much like how the Federation exists - which means Ubuntu is probably fine with it as its a nice pluralistic solution. However, the GTVA systems probably depend on vast amounts of trade between nodes which would reflect the gamble with billions that Henriksson speaks of. Byrne's fleet is kept back so that, when this goes through, he can sweep up the Tevs that are left.

I have no idea how this fits into the Vishnan stuff, however. But I'm also not convinced it's a sudden upload device or anything like that. This is because what we've seen of the Nagari network is a pretty terrifying, hostile place where momentary safe spots exist amidst a dark and terrifying sea. It's a place where the reality and consciousness devouring Great Darkness "stalks the cold roads" and it's a place where the Transcendent seems to want to home in on you so he/it can find you and "eats your soul" (to quote FRED). It's not a place where you want to shove people into, really!

edit: Also, it's interesting that Shambhala apparently was the birth place of Kalki (Kalki being the new name for the SJ Dante, IIRC).
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Erebus Alpha on November 12, 2016, 08:47:11 pm
Here's my theory:

Shambhala is a way to control Shivan activity. It's a way of uploading instructions to the Nagari network. The UEF thinks they have a way to hack the Shivans. Laporte and the Fedayeen have the hardware.

Supporting facts from BP:

Ken talks about an external heuristic injection, when describing the Shivans. Laporte asks "What's external to the Shivans?" Why, I'm glad you asked, Laporte! It's Shambhala.

Ken also explains the nature of Nagari, being "Electronic warfare visited upon the neuron". At one point, he even tells Laporte "All systems can be compromised". Does that include Shivan neurological systems? Especially since the UEF & Fedayeen have a live specimen?

Henrikkson describes Shambhala as a gamble with the lives of billions. Pissing off the Shivans through a failed hacking attempt seems like the fastest way possible in the BP universe to kill billions of people.

Shambhala is described as a way to win without giving up the principles of Ubuntu. But Ubuntu is all-peace, no war. There is no destruction aspect to Ubuntu. Shambhala adds that last terrifying piece of the puzzle, but outsources the nasty bits to some aliens who are really really good at destroying things.

Why is it so incredibly important for MORPHEUS to proceed? Why the GTVA's declaration of total war? What is so horrifying that Steele calls MORPHEUS "a nightmare you don't get to wake up from"? How about the UEF with the Shivans on a leash?

Why does Byrne need all of first fleet, all the defecting GTVA ships, and two anemoi logistics vessels? I haven't quite figured that one out. Maybe they need the computing power. Maybe if the GTVA attacks Earth, they need to be able to flee to some dark corner of the solar system until they complete Shambhala and hack the Shivans. Maybe they just need to build a super-CASSANDRA, because controlling the Shivans will not be done with a Pentium-II laptop.

Henrikkson says that the UEF was aware of the Shivan threat, and that Shambhala was a countermeasure against it. Laporte asks Ken what could destroy the Shivans in the long run, to which he replies "They are godslayers". You cannot beat the Shivans, but you might be able to hack them.

Ken, who is also (not sure how to add spoiler tags, but if you've played it, YOU KNOW WHO KEN IS!!!), had a similar idea of uniting with the Shivans.

And finally, Laporte is an instrument in Ken's design.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on November 12, 2016, 10:05:29 pm
Ken talks about an external heuristic injection, when describing the Shivans. Laporte asks "What's external to the Shivans?" Why, I'm glad you asked, Laporte! It's Shambhala.
Except it happens way too early for Shambhala or even a Shambala-precursor to reasonably exist, unless you suppose that GTI knew a hell of a lot more about the Shivans than anyone else thought, before the Great War started; the most obvious candidate is that it was the Vishnans.

Why is it so incredibly important for MORPHEUS to proceed? Why the GTVA's declaration of total war? What is so horrifying that Steele calls MORPHEUS "a nightmare you don't get to wake up from"? How about the UEF with the Shivans on a leash?
It's pretty explicitly stated that the GTVA declared total war because UEF society is heavily Vishnan-influenced (see this quote from the Granite Hunter files):
Quote
Can you get me hard evidence that the Ubuntu project is fundamentally predicated on Threat Two communication? We sold MORPHEUS on the certainty that Ubuntu was compromised. Where is the proof?
(For anyone not already familiar, "Threat Two" is the Tev, or at least Tev Intelligence, term for the Vishnans.)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: HLD_Prophecy on November 20, 2016, 08:53:45 pm
...because controlling the Shivans will not be done with a Pentium-II laptop.


I'm going to quote this.  :p

Seriously though, great brainwork!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Rheavatarin on November 21, 2016, 09:39:18 am
... controlling the Shivans will not be done with a Pentium-II laptop.

How about a PowerBook 5300? It worked in Independence Day. RISC architecture is gonna change everything.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mito [PL] on November 21, 2016, 12:06:12 pm
Just a random thought about the war.

If you read Fiction -> What is Ubuntu? on blueplanet.hard-light.net (http://blueplanet.hard-light.net), you can find something interesting about the Fedayeen.
Quote
[...]In a society built on openness, transparence, and general nonviolence, the function of the Fedayeen is unclear and puzzling. The existence of the Fedayeen was a major aspect of the GTVA's decision to go to war.
Let's think of it. It seems that the existence of the Fedayeen itself seems to be somehow terrifying for Tevs. Quite some people in Sol were exposed to Vishnans, and became Nagari sensitives. Thus, they also became potentially exposed to Shivans... How do you think, does GTVA see Fedayeen as proof for Shivan mockery in the UEF?

And take a look at Laporte's DNI data in Ken mission. Am I the only one to recall Laporte 's joy reading rocketing up out of the scale at some point? Is the Nagari influence somehow... addictive to people? That could explain something, according to one of my theories.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Darius on November 23, 2016, 08:45:15 pm
This post does not contribute anything new to this thread. None whatsoever.

This is just to say that this is some high quality thread and to continue the good work!

No new information has been made available. There are no American tanks in Baghdad. Thank you!
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Grizzly on November 24, 2016, 05:14:19 pm
Just a random thought about the war.

If you read Fiction -> What is Ubuntu? on blueplanet.hard-light.net (http://blueplanet.hard-light.net), you can find something interesting about the Fedayeen.
Quote
[...]In a society built on openness, transparence, and general nonviolence, the function of the Fedayeen is unclear and puzzling. The existence of the Fedayeen was a major aspect of the GTVA's decision to go to war.
Let's think of it. It seems that the existence of the Fedayeen itself seems to be somehow terrifying for Tevs. Quite some people in Sol were exposed to Vishnans, and became Nagari sensitives. Thus, they also became potentially exposed to Shivans... How do you think, does GTVA see Fedayeen as proof for Shivan mockery in the UEF?

I think that the angle of psy-warfare is less of an issue here, and more the notion that the Fedayeen are basically a huge red flag. The Fedayeen are an indication that Earth is not as peacefull as advertised, that Earth very much has the power to militarise and dictate terms to the GTVA, and that Earth politics may not be as stable as advertised as the Fedayeen are certainly powerfull enough to interfere with Sol politics. It turns Earth from a extremely powerfull ally to a huge wild card, and the GTVA can not afford another one of those.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: The E on November 25, 2016, 09:38:13 am
I think that the angle of psy-warfare is less of an issue here, and more the notion that the Fedayeen are basically a huge red flag. The Fedayeen are an indication that Earth is not as peacefull as advertised, that Earth very much has the power to militarise and dictate terms to the GTVA, and that Earth politics may not be as stable as advertised as the Fedayeen are certainly powerfull enough to interfere with Sol politics. It turns Earth from a extremely powerfull ally to a huge wild card, and the GTVA can not afford another one of those.

The Fedayeen are also an outfit with a lot of very high-powered ressources that is not part of the chain of command and is explicitly empowered to do what they feel is necessary to safeguard the Federation.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Neptune on November 27, 2016, 07:05:15 pm
This post does not contribute anything new to this thread. None whatsoever.

This is just to say that this is some high quality thread and to continue the good work!

No new information has been made available. There are no American tanks in Baghdad. Thank you!

I knew I should have been more suspicious when you posted! (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEX_Maitreya)

I tried searching for the list of the GRANITE HUNTER...codewords? Names? But couldn't find what they stood for. (I wasn't around for the files). So out of the description there - what do we know, and what don't we know?

Quote
And the headache is, this black hole needed a half-built battleship for some reason. It's got to be destroyer-scale. Any smaller and they'd just dig up one of the Purusha hulls in storage.

I found this bit particularly interesting. It's going to project a singing space Byrne and subdue the Tevs with song.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on November 27, 2016, 10:35:18 pm
This post does not contribute anything new to this thread. None whatsoever.

This is just to say that this is some high quality thread and to continue the good work!

No new information has been made available. There are no American tanks in Baghdad. Thank you!

I knew I should have been more suspicious when you posted! (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEX_Maitreya)

I tried searching for the list of the GRANITE HUNTER...codewords? Names? But couldn't find what they stood for. (I wasn't around for the files). So out of the description there - what do we know, and what don't we know?

Quote
And the headache is, this black hole needed a half-built battleship for some reason. It's got to be destroyer-scale. Any smaller and they'd just dig up one of the Purusha hulls in storage.

I found this bit particularly interesting. It's going to project a singing space Byrne and subdue the Tevs with song.

Well, is this ship the entirety of Shambhala or just a component of a larger ensemble? I'd say that Shambhala has to be more than a single ship, so, this thing could be some sort of delivery mechanism?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: EuclidianGeometry on November 28, 2016, 12:38:14 am
BULWARK is a military intelligence group that was mentioned in the revamped Purusha techroom file as the group that published the Strategic Intelligence Paper, cornerstone of the nascent UEF Navy. DARK CLOUD is mentioned alongside BULWARK in the Karuna techroom description as providing refinements to the new Karuna design. MIDWINTER is less clear, but ships named Midwinter 5-1 and 5-2 are present in the early missions of Tenebra.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Neptune on November 28, 2016, 01:15:07 am
I'd laugh if we were all off the mark and Shambhala is actually a UEF Pocket-colossus loaded with all sorts of goodies, like beams, shields, active armour, and sprint drives, hence Byrne's need to hoard all the tech that's captured.

Quote
I'd say that Shambhala has to be more than a single ship, so, this thing could be some sort of delivery mechanism?

I'd say it's likely it's some kind of delivery mechanism, but it's plausible it's a single ship:

Quote
Shambhala is ruled over by Maitreya, the future buddha.

I'm also not sure what the -X suffix in UEX stands for. Similar to the Custos-X? eXperimental?

Quote
BULWARK is a military intelligence group that was mentioned in the revamped Purusha techroom file as the group that published the Strategic Intelligence Paper, cornerstone of the nascent UEF Navy. DARK CLOUD is mentioned alongside BULWARK in the Karuna techroom description as providing refinements to the new Karuna design. MIDWINTER is less clear, but ships named Midwinter 5-1 and 5-2 are present in the early missions of Tenebra.

Ahh, thank you. Having not being immersed into the GRANITE HUNTER files what you've mentioned seems to make it a bit clearer that the entry is written by some kind of ranking UEF personnel.



 Maybe not quite a relevant question for here, but were these ever implemented into a release, or just put up on the wiki? I downloaded my install not that long ago and my Purusha/Karuna entry doesn't mention anything about it.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: EuclidianGeometry on November 28, 2016, 01:31:12 am
I'd laugh if we were all off the mark and Shambhala is actually a UEF Pocket-colossus loaded with all sorts of goodies, like beams, shields, active armour, and sprint drives, hence Byrne's need to hoard all the tech that's captured.


The thing is that GTVA has at least four Erebuses and perhaps thirty other destroyers to throw at such a problem  :lol:

Right now I'm leaning towards the ship-borne delivery mechanism of Nagari, perhaps like the Advent Deliverance Engine of SoASE in function.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Neptune on November 28, 2016, 01:56:49 am
Quote
The thing is that GTVA has at least four Erebuses and perhaps thirty other destroyers to throw at such a problem

Hey, I never said that I found Byrne (and his doctrine) to be particularly...competent.  ;)

Quote
Right now I'm leaning towards the ship-borne delivery mechanism of Nagari, perhaps like the Advent Deliverance Engine of SoASE in function.

Assuming that's the case - why would it need to be destroyer scale, and why would it specifically need as much Tev tech as possible?


Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: EuclidianGeometry on November 28, 2016, 02:32:41 am
The things that come to mind are:

- Logistical independence (Anemois ho!)
- Meson technology (if they are aiming for alternate dimensional ****ery then this is pretty mandatory. Remember the fluctuations in the 14th's meson reactor in AoA)
- Perhaps computational tech, though maybe the UEF has already surpassed the GTVA in this regard.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on November 28, 2016, 07:27:44 am
Assuming that's the case - why would it need to be destroyer scale, and why would it specifically need as much Tev tech as possible?

Not sure about the latter, but it obviously would need to be mobile and to defend itself. But what does it need that it couldn't get from a frigate chassis? Power generation? Flight decks? Bigger guns? Logistics support? Somewhere to cram everything they took from the Agincourt? A huge hull so Byrne can insist "I'm not owned, I'm not owned!"? All of these could be true, really.

Hmm. I'm just going to repost the conversation between Elder Hendrikson and Steele.

ELDER: "The project is called Shambhala. It began twenty years ago, but the final breakthroughs were not made until the 14th Battlegroup defectors brought their expertise to bear."

(Twenty years ago was Capella, right? Did the Elders know? Could the Vishnans have whispered something to them? The expertise from the defectors makes me think of it having something to do with the data they must have gathered during their odyssey beyond time and space. One of the most startling things pre-Capella was the Shivan ability to travel down unstable node paths, which could place the Vishan UEF experiment/plan in jeopardy. But I'm not sure this fits.)

STEELE: "Is it a weapon? A warship? A beam-armed battle group? I need specifics."

ELDER: "Hahaha! How typical, Admiral. What good would a weapon have done us? You must understand that Shambhala is an answer to a problem that predates this war by decades."

(Probably not solely a warship. My assumption is that the problem she mentions is the the existential threat of the Shivans. What problems predated the war by decades?)

STEELE: "Unlike you, Elder, I cannot grasp an entire culture with a few months' study. Make yourself plain."

ELDER: "Shambhala is the Elders' plan to end the war without the exercise of military power. It preserves the principles of Ubuntu while satisfying the messy practical need for victory."

(What would allow the UEF to claim victory without a military offensive? And, at the same time, preserving the humanistic principles of Ubuntu? My take on this scene was that she was more concerned with the people outside Sol than the people inside the system, that she was concerned with Humanity-as-whole and not Humanity-as-UEF.)

She also believes that Shambhala is 'a reprehensible gamble with the lives of billions and possible extinction' and the knowledge she could give to Steele (its location? What it is? A countermeasure?) would win the war for the GTVA. So, it's something of a secret trump card. By the sound of it, it seems like it is something that the Elders and Byrne could roll out and end the war with virtually instantaneously, once it is ready.

To me, it still feels like something that'd affect the nodes and or subspace. I'm not convinced it is a Nagari upload, just because of how she phrases it: preserving Ubuntu while satisfying the need for victory. I don't think running away to the Nagari hellscape seems like it'd preserve the principles of Ubuntu, nor be considered a practical victory. Are the billions being gambled with the people in Sol, or out amongst the GTVA's colonies? Or both?

If you cut the nodes, the GTVA can't bring in its reinforcements nor sustain their logistics umbilical and they collapse (as Simms says back when the Wargods take the Agincourt). The UEF could then conceivably defeat the GTVA forces in Sol and claim victory. But where does the gamble come into it? How does it relate to the Shivans? Why did they start it twenty years ago? Why would just cutting the Serpentis-Sol node again be seen as reprehensible?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Mito [PL] on November 28, 2016, 12:34:44 pm
Hah. That's nice.

Quote
Maybe not quite a relevant question for here, but were these ever implemented into a release, or just put up on the wiki? I downloaded my install not that long ago and my Purusha/Karuna entry doesn't mention anything about it.
It seems to be a very recent BP Wiki update.

Quote
The thing is that GTVA has at least four Erebuses and perhaps thirty other destroyers to throw at such a problem  :lol:
Tevs cannot mobilise such a great force against the UEF, as the UEF aren't the Shivans. I'd say that they cannot push more than a couple destroyers into Sol, there were about two mentioned that were already underway to be sortied. GTVA can't leave its systems unprotected in case Shivans come back - and there's a lot of mystical Nagari stuff going on lately which could make them respond to it. In their typical way. Heck, even Shambala might get their attention, and probably GTVI knows of this. Plus, the Sol gate has a pretty low capability of transferring vessels, the limitations of new technology and lack of energy to imitate a "normal" jump node. If the UEF takes control of the Sol side of the node, they could just wreck anything that passes through, and the gate's limitations would make the flow of enemy units really slow. And political reasons - if Carthage would die in Delenda Est, political disapproval could force Tevs to halt their war machine. A similar thing, but on a bit bigger scale might do the same at the "current" BP timeline moment.

Quote
ELDER: "The project is called Shambhala. It began twenty years ago, but the final breakthroughs were not made until the 14th Battlegroup defectors brought their expertise to bear."
It's not like UEF didn't know of Nagari before Capella. They seemed to research it even before Sol was stranded in space (GTI had some interesting discoveries like the Idun Dictionary), which could mean they were a bit into Nagari already. They could have got some subspace readings of Capella, detect Shivan Nagari activity from there, or get a "hint" from either Vishnu or Ken (it seems he's got some wide influence - Laporte, some "others", presumably like her, and probably also the Hammer of Light, remember what did one of them give to Laporte?).
What did 14th bring to the project? Well... Possibly meson, beam or/and subspace technology, but also a load of Nagari-sensitives and data from the entire AoA. And one more thing - some say, that it is a war machine, others that it involves a lot of mystic stuff... Since the UEF is already barely standing, I have a suggestion: why not both?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on November 28, 2016, 06:14:51 pm
Quote
ELDER: "The project is called Shambhala. It began twenty years ago, but the final breakthroughs were not made until the 14th Battlegroup defectors brought their expertise to bear."
It's not like UEF didn't know of Nagari before Capella. They seemed to research it even before Sol was stranded in space (GTI had some interesting discoveries like the Idun Dictionary), which could mean they were a bit into Nagari already. They could have got some subspace readings of Capella, detect Shivan Nagari activity from there, or get a "hint" from either Vishnu or Ken (it seems he's got some wide influence - Laporte, some "others", presumably like her, and probably also the Hammer of Light, remember what did one of them give to Laporte?).

Absolutely. There's no doubt they know about Nagari before that time, but what was the catalyst for the Shambhala plan twenty years prior? If we assume it is related to the Shivans, some contingency to handle them, then what exactly? What did the Shivans do during the Second Incursion to catalyze the UEF - thought to be secure and safe - into some huge decades-spanning plan?

Ken wouldn't have spoken to the Elders, I think is safe to assume based on the words of Bei and the Elders throughout WIH.

Quote
What did 14th bring to the project? Well... Possibly meson, beam or/and subspace technology, but also a load of Nagari-sensitives and data from the entire AoA. And one more thing - some say, that it is a war machine, others that it involves a lot of mystic stuff... Since the UEF is already barely standing, I have a suggestion: why not both?

The usage of expertise makes me think it was something more ephemeral than technology - knowledge or data.

But what are the principles of Ubuntu? Well, according to the GTVA...

Quote
Politically: to maximize free speech, minimize government power, and work behind the scenes through the gradual adjustment of social and economic trends. In the long run, to unite mankind, end armed conflict, and develop new technologies that will allow a return to the stars.

Economically: to use sophisticated models to regulate and maximize the output of the free market, through subtle controls rather than by regulation or intervention.

Socially: to promote understanding, open-mindedness, and peace. To eliminate physical and mental illness through scientific treatment. To establish the equality of all human beings. Most controversially, to promote individual moral autonomy and freedom.

Philosophically: to move mankind towards a state of enlightenment, where human beings will function as a coordinated, competitive/cooperative system in which each individual human is actualized to maximum his or her own output. Every person should, it is believed, have the means, the drive, and the hope to make him or herself better.

Religiously: to allow all faiths to coexist.

Ubuntu relentlessly promotes exploration, discovery, and human creation. The colonization of Io is an example of Ubuntu's devotion to laborious human endeavour.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: niffiwan on November 28, 2016, 06:30:51 pm
Quote
ELDER: "The project is called Shambhala. It began twenty years ago, but the final breakthroughs were not made until the 14th Battlegroup defectors brought their expertise to bear."
It's not like UEF didn't know of Nagari before Capella. They seemed to research it even before Sol was stranded in space (GTI had some interesting discoveries like the Idun Dictionary), which could mean they were a bit into Nagari already. They could have got some subspace readings of Capella, detect Shivan Nagari activity from there, or get a "hint" from either Vishnu or Ken (it seems he's got some wide influence - Laporte, some "others", presumably like her, and probably also the Hammer of Light, remember what did one of them give to Laporte?).

Absolutely. There's no doubt they know about Nagari before that time, but what was the catalyst for the Shambhala plan twenty years prior? If we assume it is related to the Shivans, some contingency to handle them, then what exactly? What did the Shivans do during the Second Incursion to catalyze the UEF - thought to be secure and safe - into some huge decades-spanning plan?

Ken wouldn't have spoken to the Elders, I think is safe to assume based on the words of Bei and the Elders throughout WIH.

Ken met the Shivans, perhaps that event triggered a response from the Vishnans, perhaps part of that response was the Vishnans contacting the Elders & telling that to start Shambhala?
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on November 28, 2016, 07:10:08 pm
Quote
ELDER: "The project is called Shambhala. It began twenty years ago, but the final breakthroughs were not made until the 14th Battlegroup defectors brought their expertise to bear."
It's not like UEF didn't know of Nagari before Capella. They seemed to research it even before Sol was stranded in space (GTI had some interesting discoveries like the Idun Dictionary), which could mean they were a bit into Nagari already. They could have got some subspace readings of Capella, detect Shivan Nagari activity from there, or get a "hint" from either Vishnu or Ken (it seems he's got some wide influence - Laporte, some "others", presumably like her, and probably also the Hammer of Light, remember what did one of them give to Laporte?).

Absolutely. There's no doubt they know about Nagari before that time, but what was the catalyst for the Shambhala plan twenty years prior? If we assume it is related to the Shivans, some contingency to handle them, then what exactly? What did the Shivans do during the Second Incursion to catalyze the UEF - thought to be secure and safe - into some huge decades-spanning plan?

Ken wouldn't have spoken to the Elders, I think is safe to assume based on the words of Bei and the Elders throughout WIH.

Ken met the Shivans, perhaps that event triggered a response from the Vishnans, perhaps part of that response was the Vishnans contacting the Elders & telling that to start Shambhala?

I don't think the Vishnans are aware of Ken, though. I think Ken states during Morrigan's mindtrip through time and space that if the Vishnans were to learn about him they would both perish.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: niffiwan on November 28, 2016, 08:32:47 pm
Sure, but the Vishnan's don't need to know about Ken, they just need to know that the Shivans changed in response to something. i.e. Vishnan behaviour change based on the observed Shivan behaviour, not on what triggered the change in Shivan behaviour.

Is that important, or am I just being pedantic? (probably pedantic :D)
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Azrael15 on November 28, 2016, 10:39:14 pm
Sure, but the Vishnan's don't need to know about Ken, they just need to know that the Shivans changed in response to something. i.e. Vishnan behaviour change based on the observed Shivan behaviour, not on what triggered the change in Shivan behaviour.

Is that important, or am I just being pedantic? (probably pedantic :D)

Probably, but I was also thinking that as I made that post, so, you've got a good point.  ;)

I'll admit I'm not so good on the relationship and interactions between the Shivans and Vishnans, however.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Rogue Assassin04 on April 02, 2017, 08:17:28 am
Project Shambala may be the UED Murugan (Its there on YouTube), which may have a Quantum Pulse Transmitter, CASSANDRA type of entity, Lots of firepower (Ken says that Laporte must have an Armada...). Or since Admiral Bei and Samuel Bei defected to the UEF and given details, it may even have an experimental beam weaponry and plasma cannons.

Or like some say, Fedayeen is destroyed (Credits part of Tenebra shows unknown type of bombers approaching the Masyaf) and the Fedayeen crew and Data with CASSANDRA is aboard the UED Murugan, which will crush the GTVA with the UED Solaris battlegroups.

Here is the YouTube Link:
https://youtu.be/kkL1PlB1ZpQ
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Makhpella on April 02, 2017, 08:45:57 am
I doubt Shambhala is something as...well, as basic as a fleet of vessels, whatever the class. Mainly because it would go against Ubuntu, but also because that was a pre-Narayana design. Maybe there is a Murugan somewhere, unrevealed yet, but I doubt it would be a trump card.

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEFg_Murugan

Also, those were Gorgon bombers, and they mount warheads that fire beamz. But I doubt the Masyaf has been destroyed.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on April 02, 2017, 11:19:52 am
http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEX_Maitreya
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Makhpella on April 02, 2017, 11:30:22 am
http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEX_Maitreya

Forgot about that. It'll probably be as similar to the Murugan as the Vindicator is to a regular Custos, so I wasn't completely off course. Maybe.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: xenocartographer on April 02, 2017, 03:53:00 pm
Someone (Battuta?) has said that Shambhala will interact with the narrative diegesis in a novel way. That rules out a supership.



My theory is that it involves rewriting local physics and/or metaphysics somehow. I know that's a little bit out there, but think about what we know:
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Rogue Assassin04 on April 27, 2022, 01:32:32 pm
NOTE: this message contains answers, read it with your own discretion! (highlight to read)
The answers were found in the BP Oracle thread (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=93646.0) and on Discord BP channel (https://discord.com/channels/223511295431933953/255067124836335616/968807862216294450)

After the helpful inputs from a few members of the community and enough reading the answers are here:


Shambhala is a project undertaken for node denial. It has the hull of the Murugan repurposed into a single powerful ship: the UEX Maitreya (https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/UEX_Maitreya).

The ship is supposed to be massive and it is the Ace card that the UEF has, that will be used to shutdown the node and eventually preserve the UEF.
In the event of the destruction of the UEX Maitreya by the GTVA, the UEF would surrender and allow a "cultural victory" by the spread of Ubuntu ideology throughout GTVA's failing control over their citizens.

By using this, the UEF wins either way.


Credits:
Kestrellius
MageKing17
Rhymes
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: manwiththemachinegun on April 27, 2022, 11:33:19 pm
It makes sense given the holy grail of Shivan tech is subspace manipulation, even if they're subject to its same rules while using it.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: Wachenroeder on May 23, 2022, 08:19:11 am
Batuta has confirmed that Shambala is a ship that can be used to close and open subspacenodes. So your theory is an actual fact.
Title: Re: [Spoilers] What is Shambhala?
Post by: TechnoD11 on May 26, 2022, 12:29:29 am
[Snip]

ya might wanna spoiler that one mate