Author Topic: What would a GTI victory look like?  (Read 8710 times)

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Offline CT27

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What would a GTI victory look like?
A while ago we talked about what an NTF 'victory' would have looked like (basically they got Polaris, Regulus, and Sirius...I think that was the consensus).


What would a GTI victory in Silent Threat/STR have looked like?  What would the post-war situation be?

 

Offline Iain Baker

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Ooh, now that is an interesting thought experiment.  :yes:

I imagine it would have had several effects:

1 - the GTA either being taken over by the GTI completely or the remaining GTA and the GTI signing a peace agreement but then immediately entering a cold war scenario. (Fortune would indeed have favoured the bold ;-) )

2 - Relations with the Vasudans would take a nose dive. If some part of the GTA remains then perhaps that part will maintain the alliance with the Vasudans, but I imagine it would be somewhat fraught. If the GTI controls everything, they either go to war with the vasudans again or enter a cold war scenario with them.

3 - The shivan technology and intelligence wouldn't be lost, so the GTI would have a clear technological edge over the vasudans and non-GTI humanity. The Hades may become a whole class of ship with several sister ships. Beam weapons would be in widespread use earlier.

4 - the colossus wouldn't have been built.

5 - ETAK would probably still happen, but possibly earlier on and with greater success.

6 - The NTF probably wouldn't have come into existence since there wouldn't be a perceived need for it since the GTI would be performing that perceived function.

7 - Discovering and opening the GamDrac Knossos may still happen - and possibly earlier on.

8 - Attempting to contact the shivans in the nebular might still happen. It could be a slower and more cautious process since it would presumably have the full weight of the GTI behind it, as opposed to just the Iceni and bosch running from the GTVA. Whether this would change the outcome would be up to the storytellers. Capella may still go boom and the GTI might still have to retreat and sever the nodes to survive, or it could turn out quite differently. :-)

Just my off the top of my head thoughts :-)

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Offline Goober5000

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
There is a failure debriefing for the last mission of ST:R...
Quote
We failed to stop the Hades before it could repair its engines, and the GTI superweapon successfully made the subspace jump to Altair.  It has only been a few short hours since the battle ended, but our worst fears have been confirmed.

We have already started to receive reports on the devastation being wrought in Altair and Aldebaran.  Hundreds of thousands of Vasudans are believed dead, and many of the PVN's highest-ranking officers have committed ritual suicide, including Admiral Amentep, commander of the PVD Guardian and the Vasudan 13th Battle Group.  Most alarmingly, Hammer of Light cells in Altair have begun to change their rhetoric, claiming that the prophesied Great Destroyers are not the Shivans after all, but the Terrans.

Perhaps our victory was not meant to be.  In our battle against the Hades, the odds were against us, and the sentiments of fourteen years are not easily pushed aside by the events of six months.  As we speak, Terran ships across the GTA are defecting to the GTI in large numbers, and members-in-hiding of the intelligence directorate have emerged to seize power in Delta Serpentis.  In the face of overwhelming opposition from our former allies, Admiral Tess and the Soyakaze have surrendered.

Our failure has brought calamity to our ravaged systems.  Though the wars against the Vasudans and the Shivans are now over, we may have paid the price with our souls.

Another interesting scenario is what might have happened if the GTI conspiracy had not been uncovered by the Krios.

 

Offline starlord

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
This got me thinking: is there any campaign in which you fly for the gti insurrection?

 

Offline Iain Baker

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
If there isn’t there should be 😎
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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
From the perspective of a GTA civilian, not much would change I think. The leaders of the GTA would be different, what with the whole coup thing, but it would be very easy for anyone in a position of power to just go back to killing vasudans like they've been doing for over a decade. In the same vein, a collapse of the GTA into smaller nation states still seems pretty likely. Although the Hades can definitely be used to keep various people in line by force, it's hardly invincible and it can not be everywhere at once. It's pretty unlikely that the GTi would somehow be better at keeping everything together. At best there would still be a GTA, but in name only as the various regional powers just do their own thing.

For a Vasudan, however, there's little to do except run or be subjected to becoming second class citizens at best or outright genocide at worst, reflecting the way European settlers treated the peoples they conquered in the Americas.

Eventually a GTA successor state would find the Knossos portal, study it, and then the terrans would get massacred by the Shivans outright since there's no joint terran-vasudan designs and as such no Colossus or meson bomb, or even an organized military since the GTVA was so instrumental in getting the disparate Terran States back together
« Last Edit: August 02, 2022, 03:27:06 am by -Joshua- »

 
Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Was the Hades supposed to have a Lucifer style shield when it was completed? I forget if it was or not.

Damn autocorrect...
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Offline Novachen

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Eventually a GTA successor state would find the Knossos portal, study it, and then the terrans would get massacred by the Shivans outright since there's no joint terran-vasudan designs and as such no Colossus or meson bomb, or even an organized military since the GTVA was so instrumental in getting the disparate Terran States back together

They would have projects like ETAK in a much bigger scale though.

I mean, many knowledge of GTI was lost when the Hades and Jotunheim exploded. Bosch was able to built an ETAK device with the data that was left by GTI... now imagine which technologies they had 2367 if the complete knowledge had been available.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2022, 09:46:22 am by Novachen »
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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Was the Hades supposed to have a Lucifer style shield when it was completed? I forget if it was or not.

Damn autocorrect...

Both the Hades and Lucy have their HP doubled from FS1 to FS2 (400k to 800k) what would imply it did to make up for the "invulnerable flag" Lucy had in every mission, and as a way to take their unique shielding account when combating beam weapons (with ~50% being repelled by the shield).

That being said, I doubt that would make sense in game lore. Constructing the Hades must've been under way for several years, long before the Shivans were ever encountered, and while GTAs tech was sufficient to have many warships refitted with beam weapons rather easily, I doubt that would work for shields too. The Hades didn't have the 5 reactors Lucy had which I'd presume were primarily required to run the shield, so at best GTI could've protected some sensitive spots.

However, I'd presume GTIs HQ on Earth might have significant more insights into Lucys shields and likely share it with whoever governs Sol.

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
#1 Has the PVE retained a second strike capability?

We know from canon that the conventional forces of the PVN were decimated between the HoL and the Shivans, both in terms of units destroyed and units defected. However, early on in the FS1 campaign, the PVN appears to have sophisticated ability to deploy forces in at least one system marked as green on the early star maps, Betelgeuse. If you extrapolate that our to fourteen years, the PVE might have developed a system by which to deliver retaliatory attacks in the event of an overwhelming enemy offensive.


#2 "Holding on to a prize as vast as [the Parliamentary Vasudan Empire] isn't going to be easy. It's going to require an enormous number of ships, a massive occupation army, and constant vigilance."

Granted the character in the show I ripped that quote from was talking about an adversary multiple magnitutes beyond a handful of star systems, but they were also able to command much more ressources than the GTA/GTI would. Remember, FS2 canon states that Sol remained the economic heart of the GTA. Unless the GTI would complete a genocide of the Vasudan species (which would be strategically unwise - more on that later), they would need forces to control the defeated PVE. And it would need support those forces, esspecially considering that due to the Vasudans different biology, the Vasudans can occupy habitats that would a challenge for humans - making it difficult for the occupied to supply the occupiers (which also posses a security problem).

Additionally to the capability of maintaining an occupation, the question has to be asked if the political will do so exist. STR establishes that despite having forecasting models the GTI did fail to make a case for their course of action with a considerable number of the GTA's command level officers as well as the rank and file - extend that the general population, which might be warweary and contain a percentage of anti-war dissidents who left Sol in protest. Add to that the military mindset which assumes compliance historically has failled to manage the frictions of civilian administration (e.g. be failing into ever increasing repression), the GTI might not be as good at riding the horse they are sitting on as they might assume.
The fracturing the GTA into local power blocks might just go on as it did in canon as a result.


#3a An occupied PVE might become a breeding ground for radicals

Holding the PVE under occupation will eventually breed resistance, the presence of foreign troops throughout history always inspired resistance by the occupied. However unlike historical examples, there is no evident technological gab between occupier and occupied here - while the ressources to build such things as high-yield weaponary and subspace drives maybe controlled, the knowledge to manufacture both would remain with the Vasudans. All it would take would be blind spot of the occupation force for a radical group to grow and develop the capability for large scale attacks.
And there is already a ready made blind spot, as the Hammer of Light would persist.


#3b An PVE targeted for genocide would loose all inhibitions

As I mentioned before, a campaign of genocide would be strategic mistake, and not "just" unmititaged ethical downfall. It would also remove all inhibitions for those who remain fighting to fight to even more extremes, and those who have no been fighting before to pick up the fight. Sure the GTI might have won the contest of arms, but the question then comes are they capable of stopping a completely inhibited enemy forces that does not give thought of their own survival?
We never quite got an answer for the FS1 era by which rules of engagment the GTA and PVE fought their war - but the duration of fourteen years, may hint that certain tactics and weapons were prohibited. Chemical and biological warfare would be esspecially devastating in an interspecies war - and both these types of weapons actually have a low threshold of delivery beside their indiscriminate nature. A "victorious" GTI would probably have to content with unconventional assault or its aftermath.
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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Eventually a GTA successor state would find the Knossos portal, study it, and then the terrans would get massacred by the Shivans outright since there's no joint terran-vasudan designs and as such no Colossus or meson bomb, or even an organized military since the GTVA was so instrumental in getting the disparate Terran States back together

They would have projects like ETAK in a much bigger scale though.

I mean, many knowledge of GTI was lost when the Hades and Jotunheim exploded. Bosch was able to built an ETAK device with the data that was left by GTI... now imagine which technologies they had 2367 if the complete knowledge had been available.

Right. But then, I still think the GTA would be at a technological disadvantage. The GTVA is fielding Shivan tech with the Kayser and with beam cannons, so they obviously did not bury all research. And although Bosch had high hopes for Etak, there's no saying that a more advanced version of the technology would help. It's not like things ended well for the NTF.



All good points Orpheus

 
Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
The absolute pivot would be to strip the Vasudans of their space-Navy. After that, they'd be at the mercy of the GTA (assuming that GTI would not face a Terran civil war at the same time), and no longer able to fight back efficiently.

#1 Has the PVE retained a second strike capability?

Thats an interesting point. However, even though I think that Vasudan resistence would last for quite a while,
one should keep in mind that "resistence in space" follows entirely different rules than, say, fighting for the liberty of your occupied country on 20th century Earth. It requires high-tech if you want to keep up any kind of credible threat, which you cant find around every corner and could easily be brought under control of a Terran occupation - like, you'd literally have to build nuclear weapons in your garage to fight this kind of war. So in the end, any resistence group would run out of ships and ammunition and ultimately rather fight whatever Vasudan puppet government has been set up instead of the Terrans themselves. 32 years after (FS2 time), there'd be likely no resistance left.

#2 "Holding on to a prize as vast as [the Parliamentary Vasudan Empire] isn't going to be easy. It's going to require an enormous number of ships, a massive occupation army, and constant vigilance."

Perhaps GTA would occupy the the Vasudan planetary capitals to install puppet regimes, but in the long run there'd be probably little difference between collaborateurs and "independent" governments if the Terrans controlled the access to space/subspace and hence all interstellar comm/transportation/trade. The only thing Terrans would have to occupy would be the key sectors of the economy - ship construction, and maybe the fusion powerplants to turn them into a pre-industrial civilisation again just by flipping the powerswitch. Occupying habitats possibly doesn't even matter if you can sit in your spaceship and threaten to nuke the planet into a radioactive wasteland.

As the Terran colonies were still poorer than the Vasudan ones, occupying them would be both possible (manpower becoming available due to unemployment as Earth being cut off would still cause a rupture) and immensely profitable (industrializing Terran colonies by ripping off the Zods). Seizing Vasudan resources would help a GTI-run GTA to become popular with the public, and help the central government to gain addontional influence over the GTA-systems and blocks by distritbuting them as they see fit. Furthermore, GTI would have accomplished in a few months what GTA couldnt in 14 years - eliminate the Zods as a strategic threat.


#3a An occupied PVE might become a breeding ground for radicals

As above, whether the Terrans sit in orbit, occupy keypositions, implement a puppet government or capture the entire local government (colony) may not even matter in the end due to the global balance of power. As such, dealing with radicals would be the problem of the local (likey Vasudan) government.

The point is that without high-yield weaponary and subspace drives you are simply unable to fight effectively except maybe occasioal terrorism. Knowing how a computer chip is made and being able to make one are 2 fundamentally different things. Space-ready technology may be very widespread in 24th century but you probably won't be even able to randomly build your own fusion reactor, leave alone a whole military-grade fighter.

The only way to truely hurt the Terrans would be where there own interest would be threatend - like blowing up the shipyards that would've been gradually be rearranged to produce Terran parts or research groups that add to Terran science/R&D; but that would also deminish the Terran desire to keep them in existence in general.


#3b An PVE targeted for genocide would loose all inhibitions

They could not do anything about it if they'd loose their navy and GTA would drop a couple hundred Harbingers on their planet. It would not in Terran interest, though.

Right. But then, I still think the GTA would be at a technological disadvantage. The GTVA is fielding Shivan tech with the Kayser and with beam cannons, so they obviously did not bury all research. And although Bosch had high hopes for Etak, there's no saying that a more advanced version of the technology would help. It's not like things ended well for the NTF.

Despite the economic disruptions, scientific progress didn't halt as far as I can see that. As long as the Terrans not deliberately kill all Zod scientists, the outcome would be roughly the same.

We neither know whether the knowledge about the Shivans (or parts of it) was actually lost when GTI HQ was destroyed.

 
Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
I disagree: the Vasudan scientists would've to be willing to work together with Terran scientists. That can't be forced, especially not when the guys you would be working for are the people who couped the folks you enjoyed working with! I feel like the value and necessity of co operating with the vasudans has been very well established in both fs1 and 2 at this point

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
To answer the questuon, "what would a GTI victory look like"?



A glorious Zod-free future.

That is all.   :p
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
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-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
I disagree: the Vasudan scientists would've to be willing to work together with Terran scientists. That can't be forced, especially not when the guys you would be working for are the people who couped the folks you enjoyed working with! I feel like the value and necessity of co operating with the vasudans has been very well established in both fs1 and 2 at this point

The "value of cooperating" would simply be that they'd face severe repressions by whatever government would be in charge. Perhabs not the best enviroment  for cooperation, but rewarding them with a beneficial place in their state should be reason enough to get results.

FS1 and ST made rather clear that that cooperation was seen as more favorable than to continue fighting but also that there were people who not shared this opinion. FS2 presents what ultimately happened but it is by no means the only possible outcome.

To answer the questuon, "what would a GTI victory look like"?

A glorious Zod-free future.
That is all.   :p


 
Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Quote
The "value of cooperating" would simply be that they'd face severe repressions by whatever government would be in charge. Perhabs not the best enviroment  for cooperation, but rewarding them with a beneficial place in their state should be reason enough to get results.

That has, historically (meaning irl history, not fs history) not really worked out all that well. The Nazis famously relied upon forced labour to build a lot of their advanced equipment (ie tanks and fighters), and that equiment faced frequent sabotage as a result.

Putting Vasudan scientists in positions of power in a society that they have very good reason to oppose means that an opressor, at the best, has to be constantly looking for signs of sabotage and betrayal, and at worst simply doesn't see the sabotage until its too late. You're not going to get good results in such an enviroment.

 
Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Again, I would not compare a 24th century setting with 20th century warfare. The main point of collision would be if the Terrans forced the Vasudans to build Terran ships, what would result in a comparable situation as stated by you; but even though sabotage may be painful, it likely wont stop the entire warmachinery in a significant way. Also, spaceship construction could be arranged in a way that by outsourcing only certain parts (such as subsystem manufacturing) you could delegate the influence eventual sabotage may have upon Vasudan contractors by leaving the inspection of the produced goods to Terran companies - ultimately they'd only be cutting their own legs.

The rest would be mostly how the Vasudans would react to having their access to space restricted/removed by the Terrans. Would a society of scholars and philosophs drop all endeavors for knowledge if it was not for their (collective) benefit, when it was one of the few sources for individual wealth? Probably not. Being a scientist means that you are in a slightly better position than an average citizen, but by no means in a position to effectively mingle with government affairs, especially if they'd run into Terran interests (ie, the people who run your power grid, control your economy and hold massive influence of all institutions of the planteray governments).

  

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
Good point, there would be massive sociological changes by then.  It'd be as different as 300-400 years ago society is to us.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Offline Lorric

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
People talking about opening the knossos, but with the xenophobia of the GTI, I'm thinking there's a good chance they'd just blow the knossos as soon as they found it, and hunt down and exterminate any remaining Shivans that had infiltrated terran space. It would also fit their typical MO of "sanitising" areas. Humanity might never even know there had been a second Shivan incursion with the GTI covering it up.

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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Re: What would a GTI victory look like?
It's rather hard to tell what could happen IMO. On one hand, the militant state likely resulting from a GTI takeover could come to be so backwards technologically without the Vasudans and while keeping its entire population under its foot that it would've been wiped out even without a single Sathanas emerging. Maybe just the Ravana would've been enough.

On the other hand, I'd expect the GTI to drop an unparalleled amount of resources into military R&D, including Shivan research and ETAK-adjacent tech... Possibly to the point of either becoming capable of a conventional victory against even the Sathanas fleet we've seen in FS2, or possibly even avoid the entire incursion with ETAK bull****tery.


So, whatever the writer imagines will happen. Just make sure it's consistent with itself :P
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