[Kiloku]

In the Universal Truth mission, (and some others? Don't remember for sure), we get some things that are apparently Shivan communications. Although they are in english, the vocabulary and the structure of the sentences is very very complex (Which I understand was intentional). Can anyone try and explain a little better what they are communicating?

[Luis Dias]

Existem vários threads e posts sobre o assunto...

You could open the mission in VPviewer (and m!m's version!) and then in notepad, copy paste the dialogues and I think a good discussion could come about!

[redsniper]

We kind of already did, but I forget what thread it was in. But yeah, there are a lot of fun words in there, both real and made up.

[General Battuta]

Somebody (I believe TheDemon) dug it all up somewhere.

[An4ximandros]

With the speed of thread death around here, we'd probably do well to start a new one.

[General Battuta]

With the speed of thread death around here, we'd probably do well to start a new one.

I'm not totally clear on how to read this - I assume you're referring to the fact that BP forum threads tend to go a lot longer than in other forums, but I'm not sure how that translates into the need to start a new one.

[General Battuta]

But I can't even find the big effortpost myself

[Doko]

Sorry for the poor formating but there you go. The numeral is just the name of the event trigger in fred. Only put it there to see questions & answers easily but anyone can easily replace it if they feel like it. This is only the node conversations and something might be missing depending on how neat the mission writer was when adding the events.

 ###################################################: s3 ken insects

("The Shivans are not xenocidal insects, Miss Laporte. Neither are they minds as you would recognize. They surpass humanity as humanity surpasses a protein chain."

 ###################################################: s3 ken many things

("They are many things. But above all, they are predators. And their methods do not limit themselves to the crude application of physical force. Watch -"

 ###################################################: s3 ken hunting sense

("They opened this pilot's mind and saw his last minutes through his own eyes. What we call Nagari is a Shivan hunting sense. It is not telepathy, not mystical communion: it is electronic warfare visited upon the neuron. "

 ###################################################: s3 laporte hunting sense

("I've heard the theories about Lieutenant Ash, the Lucifer hero, and the Hammer of Light. But if the Shivans can get into our brains, why haven't they buried us? That's an insurmountable advantage."

 ###################################################: s3 ken great question

("The great question of our time, Miss Laporte: if the Shivans have the ability to annihilate us, why have they not?"

 ###################################################: s3 ken the answer

("Here - these nodes will answer some of your questions. Uncover them now, or bring the data with you for later perusal. Haste is critical. When you are ready to move on, find and signal me."

 ###################################################: s3n1: laporte shivan origin

("Where do the Shivans come from? Who made them?"

 ###################################################: s3n1: response 1

("incursion event and worldline intersect logged at present minus 5 x 10 ^ 9 years"

 ###################################################: s3n1: response 2

("panreal exostosis and enmeshment IMMEDIATE across volumes and layers$semicolon perimeter HOT$semicolon contextualization PARTIAL"

 ###################################################: s3n1: response 3

("totipotent threat response agency prioritized, goal hierarchy heuristic partial slave$semicolon cognition HARDENED"

 ###################################################: s3n1: ken

("The Shivans are eternal. They were not made. They were calculated."

 ###################################################: s3n1: laporte

("Five times ten to the ninth...that's five billion years. Half the age of the Milky Way..."

 ###################################################: s3 nodes: deeper?

("Fire to probe further"

 ###################################################: s3n1b: laporte why

("Why did the Shivans come into being? What are they for?"

 ###################################################: s3n1b: ontovore

("secondary: selective pressure for resumption of panontic function. secondary: suppression of destructive firewall strategies."

 ###################################################: s3n1b: ontovore_

("PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE"


 ###################################################: s3n2: laporte great war

("Why did the Shivans attack us fifty years ago?"

 ###################################################: s3n2 response 1

("reactivate dormant cull component. force binary outcome: xenocultural integration or extermination. terminal protocol assessment underway."

 ###################################################: s3n2 response 2

("regional diversity minimized by pangalactic defect-strategy hegemon culled at present minus eight eight zero zero"

 ###################################################: s3n2 response 3

("bipolar defect-strategy conflict underway: anticipated xenocide and defect-hegemon outbreak (protocol failure). retrajectorize for mass upload to safe strata or exterminate incipients."

 ###################################################: s3n2 laporte huh

("Am I understanding this right? The Ancients were right all along - our crime was...sin? The Shivans were drawn to exterminate us because we couldn't coexist with the Vasudans? Are they really some kind of...judgment? A great filter?"

 ###################################################: s3n2b laporte why

("Why didn't the Lucifer abandon its attack once we allied with the Vasudans?"

 ###################################################: s3n2b ken no mercy

("There is no consideration for good intentions in the Shivan protocol. Strength earns survival. We defeated the Lucifer through cooperation, and so the Lucifer achieved its mission."

 ###################################################: s3n2b answer 1

("external heuristic injection: mandate node severance fallback. force binary isolation/extinction outcome"

 ###################################################: s3n2b laporte external?

("External heuristic injection...? What's external to the Shivans?"

 ###################################################: s3n3 laporte tech

("Tell me about Shivan technology and tactics. Why aren't all their ships shielded like the Lucifer? Why are their fighter guns so weak?"

 ###################################################: s3n3 answer 1

("totipotent threat response agency prioritized. basal state neutral. tactical and strategic heuristics neutral. capabilities neutral."

 ###################################################: s3n3 answer 2

("accept strategic input. propagate shocks through least-vulnerable-cognition network: generate noise output: optimize: recurse"

 ###################################################: s3n3 ken secret

("Do you see? Do you understand why they seem so alien?"

 ###################################################: s3n3 laporte formless

("At first they're formless...it's the nature of their opponent that shapes them. Everything done to hurt them simply hones their response. They act at random, then select the most effective tactics..."

 ###################################################: s3n3 laporte wasteful

("But that's mad. Wasteful. They should use their biggest guns and their most effective tactics right from the start."

 ###################################################: s3n3 ken sheaf

("The Shivans span eternity and infinity. Their challengers are unimaginably diverse, armed with weapons that shatter stars and tactics devised by galaxy-spanning minds. To be optimal is to be predictable."

 ###################################################: s3n3 ken optimal

("And so, like the cells of a tumor, the Shivans are infinitely mutable. They contain all weapons and all strategems, waiting in the dark. To attack them is to teach them your strengths and failings. Each blow turns back upon you."

 ###################################################: s3n3 ken short term

("It is a weak tactic in the short run, in a given year, a given system. But they have time to spare."

 ###################################################: s3n3 laporte my god

("So in the long run...what could stop them?"

 ###################################################: s3n3 ken godslayers

"They are godslayers."

 ###################################################: s3n3b laporte think

("But I don't understand. Can't the Shivans plan ahead? Why don't they evolve faster? How do we ever manage to beat them?"


 ###################################################: s3n3b ken assume

("You assume that thinking quickly and planning well is not itself a fatal weakness."

 ###################################################: s3n3b ken dwell

("This is a topic we cannot dwell on. The risks are catastrophic."

 ###################################################: s3n4 laporte capella

("Why did the Shivans destroy Capella? Why didn't they move on to the rest of the GTVA?"

 ###################################################: s3n4 answer 1

("local autonomous strategic response underway. no additional cull triggered: threshold inflamed but external heuristic injection HOLD."

 ###################################################: s3n4 answer 2

("strategic impulse: orion arm arteria threatened: coagulate, coordinate, repel"

 ###################################################: s3n4 ken conflict

("The NTF alone was not enough to trigger a cull. Shivan aggression in the Second Incursion was an autonomic response, at first...until their priorities changed."

 ###################################################: s3n4 laporte show of force

("Why did they destroy Capella? Was it just a show of force? A warning to back down?"

 ###################################################: s3n4 ken truth and untruth

("Part of the truth...but not all the truth of it.."

 ###################################################: s3n4b laporte truth capella

("Why the Capella star? Why a supernova? What really happened there?"

 ###################################################: s3n4b answer

("apatic anima disseminate: engineer transabyssal gate. strategic transitional event imminent. notify exostotic elements. cognicide contingency to active."

 ###################################################: s3n4 answer 3

("apatic anima supervisory issues covert resolution: execute roadblock. generate transabyssal connection. stand by."

[QuakeIV]

Here are the messages I would assume he is referring to with associated messages:

 ###################################################:
"Why did the Shivans destroy Capella? Why didn't they move on to the rest of the GTVA?"

"local autonomous strategic response underway. no additional cull triggered: threshold inflamed but external heuristic injection HOLD."

"strategic impulse: orion arm arteria threatened: coagulate, coordinate, repel"

 ###################################################:
"The NTF alone was not enough to trigger a cull. Shivan aggression in the Second Incursion was an autonomic response, at first...until their priorities changed."

 ###################################################:
"Why did they destroy Capella? Was it just a show of force? A warning to back down?"

"Part of the truth...but not all the truth of it.."

"Why the Capella star? Why a supernova? What really happened there?"

"apatic anima disseminate: engineer transabyssal gate. strategic transitional event imminent. notify exostotic elements. cognicide contingency to active."

"apatic anima supervisory issues covert resolution: execute roadblock. generate transabyssal connection. stand by."

[An4ximandros]

The converstions depend on concepts tied to the words. Transposing the discourse has greater chances of retrogressing understanding, it's impracticable to "metamorphose" the dialogue without loss of meaning.

[deathspeed]

I have not played WiH yet, but this dialog reminds me of the Hybrid in the Cylon basestars.  I got this excerpt from Wikipedia:

Two protons expelled at each coupling site creates the mode of force the embryo becomes a fish that we don't enter until A-plate we're here to experience evolve the little toe atrophy don't ask me how I'll be dead in a thousand light years thank you thank you Genesis turns to its source reduction occurs stepwise though the essence is all one end of line. FTL system check diagnostic functions within parameters repeats the harlequin the agony exquisite the colors run the path of ashes fifty-two percent of heat exchanger cross-collateralized with hyper-dimensional matrix upper senses repair ordered relay to zero, zero, zero, zero.

[General Battuta]

The Hybrid talks in a meaningfully different way, though - it's all metaphor and stream of consciousness. The Shivan material here is perfectly direct, closer to telemetry than consciousness.

[Phantom Hoover]

All the stuff about animas is referring to the Shivan system of organisation and tactical command, which I don't think has ever actually been publicly discussed except on IRC. The gist of it is that the Shivans have little to no global organisation (just how little is unclear based on what I've heard); when they need to do things, they create centralised, specialised nodes of computation called animas, custom-built for whatever goal they're meant to achieve. The two known types are apatic and holocide: holocide is for culling undesirable species (the Ancients were wiped out by one, and the Lucifer fleet was controlled by another); apatic is for 'black ops' (the name comes from the Greek for 'deception'), and Ken is incorporated into one in some unclear sense. Beyond that I'm not really sure, although I have a fair bit of extra speculation I might type up tomorrow at a less ungodly hour.

_{There are also shadowy rumours of a third 'metagenesis' anima, so secret that even Battuta doesn't know what it is.}

[General Battuta]

The holocide anima on the Lucifer was the same one that culled the Ancients.

[Phantom Hoover]

BUT I DON'T WANT THAT TO BE TRUE 

[An4ximandros]

Accept the truth and you may learn the meanings of the cosmos. I am begging you. Make the right choice, Mister Hoover.

 Do Animae get "dismissed" once their work is complete? Or are they put on a dormant state? (Was the AncAnima an exception?)

[QuakeIV]

I'd imagine they don't really have a standard operating procedure, as you would expect of essentially the physical embodiment of unpredictability.

If for whatever reason their heuristic says to hold onto an anima then they keep it intact.  Otherwise I'd imagine it would be discarded.  It could even be random, if their normal approach to problems is what they apply to the long term as well.

[Apollo]

BUT I DON'T WANT THAT TO BE TRUE 

Why not?

The holocide anima on the Lucifer was the same one that culled the Ancients.

Thought so.

Do they bother upgrading individual ships? The Lucifer Fleet's armament suggests they don't, but that might just be a result of how old and relatively weak they were.

[cmap38]

I don't know if the following ideas have been discussed much elsewhere (they seem pretty obvious from the posted dialogue), but they're interesting to me at least.

This dialogue leads me to suspect that the Capella star was supernova'd as a way to prevent further incursion of humans/vasudans into the FS2 nebula without actually xenociding the offending parties. The cull threshold potential was approached (or perhaps reached), but was ignored due to the "external heuristic injection" (from the Vishnans, Brahmans, Great Darkness, or whatever). So instead we observe a sort of "coagulate" response where the "orion arm arteria" is sealed off from humans and vasudans via the destruction of the entire star system.

Interesting implication of this interpretation: the FS2 nebula is in the Orion arm (I had no clue if it was even in the Milky Way prior).

It's also pretty clear from the dialogue that the Shivans value diversity, and that the Ancients hindered this diversity, resulting in their cull: "pangalactic defect-strategy hegemon culled at present minus eight eight zero zero". Due to the Terran-Vasudan War, the Shivans anticipated a similar, xenocidal, diversity-reducing hegemony would be asserted by the victors (be they Terrans or Vasudans); rather than simply exterminating Terrans and Vasudans, the Shivan response gave us an opportunity to "retrajectorize" our development, or face a cull if we did not. With the destruction of the Lucifer, this retrajectorization was, apparently, successful.

As far as why the shivans exist, this is harder to parse from the dialogue, and probably deserves its own post, so I will stop here.

[Kopachris]

As far as why the shivans exist, this is harder to parse from the dialogue, and probably deserves its own post, so I will stop here.

"secondary: selective pressure for resumption of panontic function. secondary: suppression of destructive firewall strategies."

"PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE"

I would guess that their reason for existing is to help other species live, to preserve diversity.  Primarily, to reverse a species' self-destructive lethargic tendencies, and secondarily to stop tendencies of a species to destroy other species.