[Romanmolf]

Torpedoes, I think

[Droid803]

I would be more inclined to believe that they are "colossal railguns".

[Darius]

At the moment, they're a capship version of the Grenade Launcher.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Ooo...new weapon?

[General Battuta]

I believe you can actually see it in the Solaris preview trailer. It's the gun fired by the player at the beginning -- the one that goes chunkchunkchunk.

[eliex]

So I guess that Earth is more projectile orientated in their weaponry?   

[Rodo]

seems so... projectile kings and boarding party onslaught 

[colecampbell666]

Mainly because they never reverse-engineered beams.

[Colonol Dekker]

I like the UEF, they're my kind of people.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I like them too.

Also note how "eastern" most of the UEF ships are, be it on the hull or in the ship designation.

[eliex]

Wow. I just noticed that.

[Colonol Dekker]

Civil war with western civilisation destroyed? Or maybe the west won and it's just a tribute. /me crosses fingers.

[General Battuta]

I think that the people of Earth have reached a stage of spiritual development that's taken them past killing each other. It's a shame the GTVA can't live up to it.

Or maybe I'm wrong!

[Darius]

They're nearly there, but not quite yet. Else they wouldn't need a military at all if they had moved past killing one another.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Calling the UEF heads "Elders", however, causes my interest level to explode.

[-Norbert-]

They're nearly there, but not quite yet. Else they wouldn't need a military at all if they had moved past killing one another.

I disagree...
Just because they stopped fighting among each other doesn't mean they are perfectly safe. Who knows how many other species are out there (not even considering the constant threat of the Shivans). And if the Humans have no military at all, any of those "spiritually less advanced" races could just conquer or annilihate the Humans at their leisure if they don't resist.

And since the Humans, to my knowledge, don't know how jump point come into being, they can't just assume they are perfectly safe, since anytime a new jump point can form that connects them to another races terretory, or worse Shivan terretory.
After all the Humans in Sol know nothing of the reasons for the Shivans hostility or the Shivan-Vishnan relations. They just know the Shivans want to annihilate them.

[General Battuta]

I'm guessing Darius has probably accounted for that, yes.

[Darius]

I have, but it's a good discussion point.

Ok, let me rephrase it They wouldn't need a military if they as an entire culture had achieved true spiritual enlightenment/evolution. Once you get to that stage you can't destroy the society through military means because they're at a stage where their power has moved beyond mere earthly military ability (somewhat like the transcended Teek (Ironheart) from Babylon 5 without the overt "energy being" status he gained). Ultimately it's a process that's going to take a while to achieve.

Until then, yes, maintaining a military would be justified but it would be unpopular with the spiritual leaders for what it implies.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

So you mean the UEF are close to either:

1. having Shivan-like strength; or
2. attaining god powers?

[General Battuta]

I think the kind of ascendance Darius is discussing is more subtle than that. Something spiritual.

Oh, and, I lied: the gun that goes 'chunkchunkchunk' in the preview is the Storm Fire secondary, not the grenade launcher. The grenade launcher is the one that makes flak-like bursts; you can see it fired against the bomber attack early in the vid.