[Prophet]

Well done indeed. All reasonable theories in a form that makes perfect sense.

[Nuke]

i think somone read my posts

[Mongoose]

That just might be the best first post in history.

[The Spac]

I was working on a Freespace 1 campaign this weekend so I descided to come online to see if anyone still played it lol. And to my surprise yes lol.

[karajorma]

I hate to be the voice of dissention but I have a few problems with your explaination The Spac (Although I do agree that generally it's pretty good).

1) The Ancients homeworld was most likely destroyed before the second Luci was killed. If they knew how to kill the Lucifer before that it's likely that they would have done so with the bigger threat to them first.

2) I don't buy that the Shivans spent 8000 years wondering around past Ross 128 and only just happened to come back to get to GD. Especially as the Lucifer doesn't appear to have been heading in the direction of GD (In fact it appears to have been heading the other way at several points in the campaign).

3) I doubt that the Shivans blew up Capella because they wanted to wipe out the Terran and Vasudan races. They had enough to have wiped both out easily yet instead they blew up Capella (at the loss of several saths!) and gave both races insights into even more powerful subspace technologies than they already possessed.

Whatever happened at Capella it wasn't an attempt to wipe out the GTVA. The shivans could have done that with much smaller losses.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by karajorma

3) I doubt that the Shivans blew up Capella because they wanted to wipe out the Terran and Vasudan races. They had enough to have wiped both out easily yet instead they blew up Capella (at the loss of several saths!) and gave both races insights into even more powerful subspace technologies than they already possessed.

Whatever happened at Capella it wasn't an attempt to wipe out the GTVA. The shivans could have done that with much smaller losses.

They could have been being really systematic, though; if (and it's a pretty big...bloody huge if),for example, the Vasudans were descended from the Ancients, then the Shivans might have went for the scorched earth policy of nuking every star in the GTVa and wiping out all life.

IMO it's not a particularly novel or good storyline, but it's still possible, I think; the Shivans were moving to attack the nodes out of Capella according to the briefings IIRC (although this could be just as likely an attempt at a diversionary 'feint' to avoid any disruptions to the plans of the Sathanas fleet - or even forcing the GTVA to evacuate Capella).

[karajorma]

Originally posted by aldo_14
They could have been being really systematic, though; if (and it's a pretty big...bloody huge if),for example, the Vasudans were descended from the Ancients, then the Shivans might have went for the scorched earth policy of nuking every star in the GTVa and wiping out all life.

Pretty stupid of them to have started with Capella though. They managed to blockade one of their major routes into GTVA space.

[The Spac]

We still don't know how big the ancients space is on the GD side exactly. Were not sure if it even joins up with Shivan space by normal routes, otherwise why would the shivans wait for us to open GD, why not send another fleet.

The lucifers movements after they ran into the terrans again was not to get back to GD, but was to wipe them out. They did head straight to the Vasudan homeworld as if they already knew where to strike.

They were just heading back that way initially until they ran into em.

Yeah it seems abit weird that the first lucifer wasn't killed but something had to disable that node so I'm assuming that was it. Maybe the first lucifer had already penetrated too far into their space, and the attack on the 2nd one was just an attack of oppertunity, like payback lol?

If the Ancients could have continued to explore space through normal subspace nodes I believe they wouldn't have bothered with Knosses devices cause there would have been no need.

Yup all this is just theory and stuff, plus I havn't played FS2 in 5 years so I need to "catch up" on it's story line but I remember most of it heh.

In FS1 the Ancients talk about how they have exploited all their reachable systems which I believe is every system they managed to get to before they created knosses. They created knosses cause they had no where else to go.

Maybe the lucifer was just patroling that side of space and has gone past terra and vasudan tones of times in the past 8000 years, but they hadn't been a threat until they trespased into space.

The shivans only care about Space, they consider it theirs, they don't care what happens on the planets until those planets harbour life that has trespased.

As for capella, yeah I have to play FS2 again but that was a theory as I remember and probably my crappiest theory.

When the 2nd Shivan fleet attacked they could have assumed that their original fleet failed, and that the ancients still existed. Probably why they went to such an extreme in capella, and I believe 80 sanths are nothing to the shivans

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by karajorma


Pretty stupid of them to have started with Capella though. They managed to blockade one of their major routes into GTVA space.

We don't know a) if the nova would have destroyed the nodes (without the GTVA intervention on that front) or b) if the jumping out Sathani could have made the next system, though.

It's not my theory, of course, but I think it can be made to make sense.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by karajorma


Pretty stupid of them to have started with Capella though. They managed to blockade one of their major routes into GTVA space.

no, the GTVA blockaded teh path by blowing the nodes. There is no way the Shivans could have known what the GTVA was planing to do...
But I do agree that nuking capella was a wierd move. It cost them several Sathanases...but then again, shivans never showed much interest in their own safety or losses.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TrashMan


no, the GTVA blockaded teh path by blowing the nodes. There is no way the Shivans could have known what the GTVA was planing to do...
But I do agree that nuking capella was a wierd move. It cost them several Sathanases...but then again, shivans never showed much interest in their own safety or losses.

Don't know what the cost of the Sathanas is (relative) to the Shivans, though.

Albeit.... the Shivans could have anticipated the GTVA would destroy (or try to) the nodes; either Bosch knew, or they simply guessed it from basic tactical knowledge (and observation of the GTVA trying to close the GD-nebula node).  The Shivans did launch a 'massive attack' on the Vega node in the 2nd last mission, after all; perhaps they wanted to secure it and scupper the GTVAs plan.

[Nuke]

remember how the bosh monolog placed the supernova that created the nebula at about 8000 years before? it makes me think that the ancients faced a sathanas fleet as well. there were 2 lucys sent past to scout out the ancients' worlds and destroy them. perhaps they entered subspace as a pair, the anciets attacked but only had time to destroy one. the other lucy makes it out and the node is sealed. the lucy blows the remanants of the ancients to oblivion. because she and her fleet cannot return home, they exit the ancients system and lie dormant in another system, unil once again they feel the tearing of subspace created by the t-v war and come back to do something about it.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by aldo_14
We don't know a) if the nova would have destroyed the nodes (without the GTVA intervention on that front) or b) if the jumping out Sathani could have made the next system, though.

It's not my theory, of course, but I think it can be made to make sense.

Their inaction after the Epsilon Pegasi node was destroyed however is another matter. They didn't make any serious attempt to grab the Vega node even though it must have been pretty obvious that the GTVA were going to close that next and if we're going by The Spac's theory that was in fact the only remaining way for the Shivans to get into GTVA space.

Besides immediately after a supernova the nebula would be at thosands of degrees for quite a while. Even if the nodes aren't closed it's doubtful that even Shivan ships could survive that for long enough to jump from Gamma Draconis to anywhere else.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by karajorma

2) I don't buy that the Shivans spent 8000 years wondering around past Ross 128 and only just happened to come back to get to GD. Especially as the Lucifer doesn't appear to have been heading in the direction of GD (In fact it appears to have been heading the other way at several points in the campaign).

I agree that that's somewhat tenuous, but what about a modification whereby they were sort of hibernating in Ross 128 (given that there was no way back), and were woken up by GTI experimentation (which I believe was happening prior to the Great War) and then started attacking these "new" species that had appeared in what was uspposed to be secured Shivan space? Kind of like the Wraith in Atlantis.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by karajorma


Their inaction after the Epsilon Pegasi node was destroyed however is another matter. They didn't make any serious attempt to grab the Vega node even though it must have been pretty obvious that the GTVA were going to close that next and if we're going by The Spac's theory that was in fact the only remaining way for the Shivans to get into GTVA space.

Besides immediately after a supernova the nebula would be at thosands of degrees for quite a while. Even if the nodes aren't closed it's doubtful that even Shivan ships could survive that for long enough to jump from Gamma Draconis to anywhere else.

They did make a serious attempt to attack GTVA forces around that node to Vega, though; hence the whole 'massive attack' line in the briefings.  

I don't know about the supernova heat issue, although it could be solved if the Shivans can point-jump into the subspace node and rapdily jump through it.  If they had a tactic of that sort of 'nuke-star, move on' warfare, I'd imagine they'd have a solution to that end, though.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by aldo_14
They did make a serious attempt to attack GTVA forces around that node to Vega, though; hence the whole 'massive attack' line in the briefings.

There were no destroyers, though.  If they wanted to hold the node, surely they would have had a destroyer blockading it.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Goober5000
There were no destroyers, though.  If they wanted to hold the node, surely they would have had a destroyer blockading it.

Maybe they didn't win their attack?

[The Spac]

Since most of my missions will be prequal or following on from freespace 1 and 2 and the time in between, I am trying to create a time line which is as acurate and plausable as I can get it. With these forums I hope to mold my original timeline which I have alreayd posted into something a bit more plausable so I will be adjusting it as I see good ideas from everyone. Then I will repost the updated version.

Appreciate any help. Especially with things that have to do with the ancients vasudans and shivans.

[Mongoose]

The "hibernating Shivans" idea is pretty good.  After all, the state of Terran, and presumably Vasudan, society/technology 8000 years ago was at such a low level that it's plausible that the Shivans just completely ignored them.  If the deactivation of the Knossos portals did strand them in current GTVA space, there wouldn't be much point in flying around aimlessly for who knows how long.  Inducing some sort of hibernation would make sense in terms of saving resources.  Thanks to Silent Threat, we know the GTI was up to something strange in Ross 128; as it said, it's possible that they knew of the existence of Shivans before the incident at the Riviera installation.  Maybe GTI snooped around the Shivan fleet a little too much and mistakenly hit the big red button.

Regarding the comment about the nebula being formed around 8000 years ago, I've honestly never thought of that.  That opens up a whole new area of speculation...who says talking about this game is getting old?

[StratComm]

I'm honestly not sure where the 8000 figure came from, but between the implied age of the Ancient ruins on Altair in FS1 and Bosch's comments about some ancient Pharaoh watching the supernova from Earth lead credance to several thousand years being appropriate.  Though we really don't know what system the nebula is supposed to be, and thus how long it would have taken earth to see the light from its nova.