I rather thought FS2 Terran ships had taken some Vasudan influence, though the GTI idea is interesting too.
I once wrote an entire Economic history of FS that explained (to me) several things in FS universe (like reconstruction GTVA, NTF etc, minus Shivans).
The ancients were a slower-than-light, purely relativistic civilization even when they'd filled their whole galaxy. (Arguably this is canon not headcanon)
I rather thought FS2 Terran ships had taken some Vasudan influence, though the GTI idea is interesting too.
I once wrote an entire Economic history of FS that explained (to me) several things in FS universe (like reconstruction GTVA, NTF etc, minus Shivans).
Do tell?
My guess on this one was that there was some mix-up between galaxy and starsystems.
I rather thought FS2 Terran ships had taken some Vasudan influence, though the GTI idea is interesting too.This is also true. Furthermore terran warships are much more influenced by vasudan designs, than vasudans influenced their new designs with terran technology.
I once wrote an entire Economic history of FS that explained (to me) several things in FS universe (like reconstruction GTVA, NTF etc, minus Shivans).
The ancients were a slower-than-light, purely relativistic civilization even when they'd filled their whole galaxy. (Arguably this is canon not headcanon)
My guess on this one was that there was some mix-up between galaxy and starsystems.
I rather thought FS2 Terran ships had taken some Vasudan influence, though the GTI idea is interesting too.This is also true. Furthermore terran warships are much more influenced by vasudan designs, than vasudans influenced their new designs with terran technology.
I once wrote an entire Economic history of FS that explained (to me) several things in FS universe (like reconstruction GTVA, NTF etc, minus Shivans).
The ancients were a slower-than-light, purely relativistic civilization even when they'd filled their whole galaxy. (Arguably this is canon not headcanon)
My guess on this one was that there was some mix-up between galaxy and starsystems.
You can theorize that but the text is the text. And it's a consistent theory with some nice bonuses; the Ancients wiping out all other life in our galaxy, then being wiped out by the Shivans, left a clean slate for Terrans and Vasudans (and explains why we don't have a bunch of super advanced neighbor species).
I rather thought FS2 Terran ships had taken some Vasudan influence, though the GTI idea is interesting too.This is also true. Furthermore terran warships are much more influenced by vasudan designs, than vasudans influenced their new designs with terran technology.
I once wrote an entire Economic history of FS that explained (to me) several things in FS universe (like reconstruction GTVA, NTF etc, minus Shivans).
Well there are no super advanced neighbor species except for the Shivans. Probably the Ancients managed to get their own share while they could. GTVA has access to about 2 dozen star systems, the chance that they contain civilisations similar to GTVA at timespans of 100 million years is unlikely.
The ancients were a slower-than-light, purely relativistic civilization even when they'd filled their whole galaxy. (Arguably this is canon not headcanon)
My guess on this one was that there was some mix-up between galaxy and starsystems.
You can theorize that but the text is the text. And it's a consistent theory with some nice bonuses; the Ancients wiping out all other life in our galaxy, then being wiped out by the Shivans, left a clean slate for Terrans and Vasudans (and explains why we don't have a bunch of super advanced neighbor species).
I just don't think that the Shivans would give them that much time, maybe 30 years or so after they discovered subspace. Enough to kill an insane amount of people and short enough to perish like all other species before due to the lack of technology to defeat the Lucifer with.
I just don't think that the Shivans would give them that much time, maybe 30 years or so after they discovered subspace. Enough to kill an insane amount of people and short enough to perish like all other species before due to the lack of technology to defeat the Lucifer with.
Compare this to an inflammatory immune response: after the initial flareup and after the initial crisis has been dealt with, the immune system remains sensitive for some time afterward; This sensitivity will decay after some time. We (and, by extension, any other species that started to develop interstellar travel) have bad timing in that the shivans became aware of us while still on alert for us.
Some rules of Fermi Paradox still apply to FS, even if other, intelligent and spacefaring species are known. Both Ancients and Shivans are answers to Fermi Paradox, but there also other factors.
Homo Sapiens exist on Earth from +/- 100 000 years, excluding ancestor species. Overally life on Earth exist from 4 bilions years. We're the only intelligent species on Earth... So the Universe is rarely giving birth to potential candidates to become interstellar powers.
So answer for your questions Batts, is: Because there were none more in this sector of space. Intelligent life in space is rare. I always liked how ASW portrayed Ancients. Their Empire was much bigger than GTVA, they had multiple juggernaut-grade ships, but overally they were not tremendously big. I guess they destroyed 7-10 interstellar species before Shivans annihilated them. Only 7-10 just because they never encountered any more.
In months the extermination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path.
GTVA possibly managed to live longer than most species by surviving the Lucifer armada (and although there are 2 instead of 1 species) but still they expanded to only 30 systems; I doubt that other species (except the Ancients) could get their hands on significantly more systems before being discovered and eliminated by the Shivans.
The notion that the Ancients explored 100 billion stars and covered an expanse 150,000 ly in diameter on sublight drives is so ludicrous it can't be anything but hyperbole. By the time a ship got from one end to the other, they might not even be the same species anymore.
Not if you take relativistic time dilation into account... but if they had become too good at sublight missiles they simply would bombard the Shivans with relativistic missiles.
If you take a radius of 5-10 lightyears (Alpha Centauri is 4.37 ly from Earth) the number of systems is highly limited and it takes a long time to reach them but you still can stay in contact with them.
Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered the Ancients in their infancy, and eliminated them, just surely as they eliminated countless billions of others.
It's not ludicrous at all. It simply requires a psychology and culture very different from humanity's. Thousands or millions of years of internal conflict between branching sects of Ancient descendants could produce the instinctive, competitive, universal xenophobia the Ancients exhibited. They were 'a proud race, and always the strongest'; once one subgroup of Ancients got subspace, they would have such a total advantage over the rest that they could probably rule by sheer threat. And their history of internal competition would make their instant, xenocidal expansion natural and normal for them.
...Subspace gave us the galaxy; I think we can put paid to the theory that the Ancients had the galaxy before subspace.
They're depersonalized, collective, and 'racial', without much sign of individual subjectivity or perspective. They don't feel very human to me....Subspace gave us the galaxy; I think we can put paid to the theory that the Ancients had the galaxy before subspace.
They were running out of available systems, so they either had most of the galaxy before subspace, or they had filled up a large galactic structure (like a spiral arm, or a globular cluster, or one of the orbiting clouds) that for some reason they were unable to leave.
Once you are expanding between stars it's hard to not fill up the galaxy, so any theory of the Ancients has to provide a good reason they're not in full control of the galaxy before subspace. One theory I favor is that they'd filled up the galaxy but not in a united fashion; there were lots of Ancient subspecies in competition. The one that got subspace first became the galactic hegemon.
They're depersonalized, collective, and 'racial', without much sign of individual subjectivity or perspective. They don't feel very human to me.
Once you are expanding between stars it's hard to not fill up the galaxy, so any theory of the Ancients has to provide a good reason they're not in full control of the galaxy before subspace. One theory I favor is that they'd filled up the galaxy but not in a united fashion; there were lots of Ancient subspecies in competition. The one that got subspace first became the galactic hegemon.
Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest. For thousands of years our empire expanded. For so long we could imagine ourselves alone in the universe. For so long never did we encounter advanced life. And we travelled faster and further, spreading in our galaxy and before long we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited. And then there would be nowhere else to go.
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy and it gave us the universe. And we saw other advanced life. And we subdued it or we crushed it. In months the extermination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path. With subspace, our empire would surely know no boundaries.
It's not ludicrous at all. It simply requires a psychology and culture very different from humanity's. Thousands or millions of years of internal conflict between branching sects of Ancient descendants could produce the instinctive, competitive, universal xenophobia the Ancients exhibited. They were 'a proud race, and always the strongest'; once one subgroup of Ancients got subspace, they would have such a total advantage over the rest that they could probably rule by sheer threat. And their history of internal competition would make their instant, xenocidal expansion natural and normal for them.
They were spreading in the galaxy, but there's no need to conclude they had thousands of systems before they discovered subspace.
It's not ludicrous at all. It simply requires a psychology and culture very different from humanity's. Thousands or millions of years of internal conflict between branching sects of Ancient descendants could produce the instinctive, competitive, universal xenophobia the Ancients exhibited. They were 'a proud race, and always the strongest'; once one subgroup of Ancients got subspace, they would have such a total advantage over the rest that they could probably rule by sheer threat. And their history of internal competition would make their instant, xenocidal expansion natural and normal for them.
It would take thousands of years just to receive news of the ships you sent out a million years ago. On this sort of timescale, discussing the Ancients as though they were a single species just doesn't work.
I suppose you could say that all the 'aliens' the Ancients found were actually earlier Ancients that had sufficient time to evolve that they were basically aliens. Maybe that's what Humans and Vasudans are?
Don't know, but if you colonize the Milkyway at sublight speed you have atleast 100.000 years to develope a working target system. RKVs probably don't cause any subspace disturbance and the projectile arrives the fraction of a second after its own light, so the Shivans most likely don't know that something's coming.
Why would they need to know something’s coming? With slower than light technology how do you possibly get your projectile on target before the Shivan jumps to, say, 1km away from your unarmored starship and blows it up?
And don’t forget that Shivan ships are stealthy.
100k years of relativistic tech don’t make you less vulnerable to a radically different tech base, they make you more vulnerable. Everything about the FS1 Shivans seems adept at utterly annihilating a relativistic civilization.
Even with thousands of years to expand, travels with sublight speed are too slow to allow colonisation of entire galaxy. Milky Way has diamater of over 100.000 light years. Monologue doesn't says about other galaxies if i understand it correctly - it is rather a poetic use of "universe" term. Personally i always imagined Ancient empire as controlling at least hundreds, maybe thousands of star systems.
The long time of ancient sublight era always made me wonder - does some of the civilisations they destroyed would not be... another ancient colonists, from ships send reeeealy far away, and changed by millenias of isolation.
The Ancient monologues definitely talk about 'conquering and colonizing in galaxies where we had no place'.
Sublight speed isn't too slow to colonize the Milky Way. In fact, one of the more baffling things about the galaxy is that it's not already full of life. It only takes about a million years to fill up the whole galaxy and there have been lots of millions of years before us.
before long we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited. And then there would be nowhere else to go.
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy and it gave us the universe.
And we saw other advanced life.
For thousands of years our empire expanded. For so long we could imagine ourselves alone in the universe. For so long never did we encounter advanced life. And we traveled faster and further, spreading in our galaxy and before long we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited.
It takes much more than "thousands of years" to colonize an entire galaxy at sublight speeds. It takes 100k years just to sent a lightspeed message to the other end of the galaxy, never mind getting a reply back. So this notion that Ancients were a galaxy spanning empire that would soon bump against the edges of it is quite absurd.
Look up "Von-Neumann-Probe" and "exponential growth". It is absurd, yes. About as absurd as an FTL drive that moves you from one inertial reference frame to another.
Look up "Von-Neumann-Probe" and "exponential growth". It is absurd, yes. About as absurd as an FTL drive that moves you from one inertial reference frame to another.
Even exponentially growing von neumann probes cannot colonize a galaxy like Milky Way in "thousands of years", as they are still limited by the speed of light. At best they can approach the 100k years limit.
This is, again, a very anthropomorphic reaction. But consider what must be true about a civilization that can colonize a galaxy using STL travel. One of those things, almost certainly, is that such a civilization would move, culturally speaking, much much slower than any human civilization. Think "ents" rather than humans; It would be reasonable to assume that the shivans were, on all axes of interaction, an Outside Context Problem for the Ancients -- They use FTL rather than relativistic travel, they use it far more freely and adeptly than the Ancients, they are utterly immune to whatever weapons the Ancients have and almost invisible to their sensors, they can iterate on strategies in a matter of minutes rather than days or years.
Did the ancients canonically have shields? Not in my head.......
Absolutly agree with the galactic time scale thing, but if they have the population to fill the entire galaxy they have incredible industrial and scientific resources thousands upon thousands of times larger than the GTVA. Despite being ridiculous small in terms of size Terrans and Vasudan are probably only a few decades away from catching up with the Shivans in most technological aspects minus supernova (Sol isn't even part of that).
This is interesting :) - how do you know that they would for a fact develop at a cultural crawl? Have we seen an STL galaxy-spanning species develop? Not saying you're wrong, it could certainly be, but I'd like to hear why you say it's a near certainty that they'd develop slowly rather than at the same rate or even a faster rate than human civilizations as we know them - why "must" that be true?
Did the ancients canonically have shields? Not in my head.......
What difference do you see between colonizing the entire galaxy and ‘a bunch of people ending up everywhere’?
What difference do you see between colonizing the entire galaxy and ‘a bunch of people ending up everywhere’?
That there's a plan what to do after arriving at their target.
It is possible, reading the canon, that the Ancients met the Shivans as soon as months after discovering subspace.
For us, an interstellar, STL culture is unimaginable. Our experience shows that we would lose much of whatever commonality we started out with in just a few decades of isolation.
But if we assume that the Ancients could built an interstellar society that way, then that must mean that their culture is much more static than ours is. That they can remain recognizably "Ancient" even if they've been out of touch with their homeworld for thousands of years.
To me, that suggests that they are slow to develop new ideas, and somewhat reluctant to adopt them when they do.
On the subject of STL interstellar war, I highly recommend the Forever War if you haven't read it.
For us, an interstellar, STL culture is unimaginable. Our experience shows that we would lose much of whatever commonality we started out with in just a few decades of isolation.
But if we assume that the Ancients could built an interstellar society that way, then that must mean that their culture is much more static than ours is. That they can remain recognizably "Ancient" even if they've been out of touch with their homeworld for thousands of years.
To me, that suggests that they are slow to develop new ideas, and somewhat reluctant to adopt them when they do.
Aha, an excellent point. :nod: Thanks!
Headcanon. Using the hallfight cutscene for scale reference, in particular the marines against the door of the Elysium- I imagine Orions to be very very cramped for 10'000 crew.
Headcanon. Using the hallfight cutscene for scale reference, in particular the marines against the door of the Elysium- I imagine Orions to be very very cramped for 10'000 crew.
Do you mean with that how the interior is built? Because 10000/2000m makes 1 crewman every 5 meters, but the ship is hundreds of meters wide and has dozens of decks.
Nope. Just FS stated that an Orion is an nuclear (fusion-powered) submarine
Given their size and sheer inner volume I don't think it would be designed in a way it would be particular uncomfortable, though any kind of luxus would be a waste of space that'd be bad on the battlefield.
The reference bible (https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/FreeSpace_Reference_Bible) refers to an Orions "Fusion Pile Genrators".
Fleet carrier/destroyer. Not cramped man-can.
The FS1 (and silent threat) mainhalls seem quite spacious.
Considering a Nimitz carries 9000 crew at only 300m long a 2km long Orion should have no problem with 10000.
The Orion's cavernous hanger bays easily accommodate more than two dozen fighter or bomber wings
Of course, to be accurate I should calculate the actual volume difference but I can't be bothered
Ps- I always felt the bastion meson bomb refit command brief had a bit of artistic licence to it regarding the bomb placement within the hull.
This is interesting :) - how do you know that they would for a fact develop at a cultural crawl? Have we seen an STL galaxy-spanning species develop? Not saying you're wrong, it could certainly be, but I'd like to hear why you say it's a near certainty that they'd develop slowly rather than at the same rate or even a faster rate than human civilizations as we know them - why "must" that be true?
Our own experience with culture is one of rapid shifts. A hundred years ago, our lived experience was fundamentally different from our lives now; we assume that a hundred years from now, our experiences will be different still.
For us, an interstellar, STL culture is unimaginable. Our experience shows that we would lose much of whatever commonality we started out with in just a few decades of isolation.
But if we assume that the Ancients could built an interstellar society that way, then that must mean that their culture is much more static than ours is. That they can remain recognizably "Ancient" even if they've been out of touch with their homeworld for thousands of years.
To me, that suggests that they are slow to develop new ideas, and somewhat reluctant to adopt them when they do. They probably took a long time to switch from newtonian physics to Einsteinian, and probably even longer to adopt the utter mind****ery that subspace would have to be for them -- but when they did, they could disseminate that tech quickly because they knew that all the colonies out there were still thinking roughly the same way and still speaking the same language, something humans could not.