Author Topic: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)  (Read 141306 times)

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Offline T-Man

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
I've always been curious about how much control the Elders are meant to have over the UEF, or how much of their power you'd imagine they tend to use?

The system on paper sounds almost dictatorial in that the Elders are unelected and seem able to overrule decisions at a whim, yet (from what is seen) the UEF people's feelings for them range from adoration to at least great respect, and for all their power they seem very hands-off and distant about the actual running of the Federation (which runs with elections etc IIRC). That diplomacy mission is the one occasion you see an Elder travel; would an Elder taking to the field like that be a rare event, or would tours of the Federation by Elders be quite common (assuming they can overcome their lack of mobility, if I remember a bit of text correctly)? What sort of relations do Federation civil servants and politicians have with the Elders?


What sort of things would you imagine Byrne being taught on his 'Philosophy of War' PhD (other than the obvious :lol:)? The objectives? Role of motivation and reasoning?


Given their seemingly peaceful ethos, why does the UEF have so many frigates and cruisers for protecting a single system? Is the GEF so powerful that a large fleet was warranted for a single star system? Was it in case the Shivans attacked? And I've always noticed the UEF seem to never deploy sentry guns; was there any reason for that or just a coincidence and they are in UEF use in canon?
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Is it likely that, at the culmination of the Sol War, both sides will believe that they have won?

At the moment of the UEF's formal surrender, both the UEF Council of Elders and the Security Council will believe they are on track to a victorious resolution, although their criteria are way different.

1: How will the heat death of the universe affect the Shivans?

There's not likely to be a heat death in current cosmology; the Big Rip should come first. The Shivans wouldn't be badly affected by the universe coalescing into a bunch of black holes, although their manifestations would change wildly.

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This next ones a bit out there.   :drevil:

 2: Let's say I (out of spite) encrypted "Alpha 1 giving middle finger.png" into the DNA of a highly extremophilic Terran microbe artificially modified to live in the atmosphere of a Y-class brown dwarf; and thus allowing them to survive into heath death longer then any other form of life; would these "Terran lifeforms" survive the Shivans via technicality and be able to mock/insult the Shivans on a personal level via Alpha 1's angry likeness living on in their genetic code?

Or is this quest for galactic bragging rights just a hollow victory gone to far?   :p

As long as they're not a threat to cognitive diversity they should be just fine.

How's Bosch doin'?

Bosch said he knew humanity's future lay with the Shivans, that a tragic era of hatred and misunderstanding was coming to an end, and (later) that Laporte had to destroy the GTVA. His encounter with the Shivans was obviously violent, but Bosch and several others were taken away to form a component of an apatic anima. If Bosch genuinely believed in Neo-Terra (a dubious proposition), could the destruction of the GTVA somehow serve that goal? Could Bosch still usher in the end of an era of hatred and misunderstanding, presumably to be replaced by the absence of hatred and the presence of understanding? Understanding of what?\

What were the Vishnans trying to accomplish during the events of AoA? What are their overall goals?

Intervene in the development of the Terrans and Vasudans to keep them on course for the role the Vishnans wanted them to play: as worthy inheritors of the Brahmans. The Vishnan intervention altered the invasion of the UEF and brought the Sanctuary survivors over to the 'prime' universe.

All Vishnan intervention in our worlds is deeply limited by their faculties. When interfering at a particular set of coordinates in space-time, they are required to use only information that's more or less local to those coordinates — they can't bring information in from far in the future when they instance at a specific time.

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Did the great darkness destroy the Brahmans?

Tough question. One answer would be that the Brahmans destroyed themselves to avoid the Great Darkness. Another would be that the Brahmans became the Great Darkness.

Any "chance" of a final battle between the two "big ships" (AoA)? ;)

Yes.

Will we get the chance to take out any more of the major antagonist  TEV assets? Atreus, Imperieuse, Serkr team being the obvious examples but a certain Vasudan admiral also comes to mind.

Definite yes on the Imperieuse. Probable no on the others, just to control the branches that have to be accounted for in BP3 — although by the end of that story, who knows!

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Is a TEV victory in the war a definite FED defeat or will the finale be a bit more ambiguous than that?

The Tev victory conditions do not entirely exclude some of the UEF victory conditions. And different factions within the UEF will have different victory conditions by that point.

What is it about Nagari tempering that enables the formation of the UEF and council of elders, which is hinted to be an unnatural development?

The fact that the Elders have been in communion with the Vishnans means that they are able to make decisions which guide their society towards enlightenment and eventual union with the Vishnan Great Psyche. It is, so to speak, 'against the rules' for the Vishnans to interfere in the development of species this way, but the Terminal Protocol is failing, the universes are running out of viable places for life to grow, and something has to be done.

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Who exactly are the Vishnans, and why do they exist?

The Vishnans are the post-physical intelligences who have passed through the 'filter' of the Terminal Protocol, emerged as cooperators, and been enlightened into the Great Psyche — a redoubt in subspace that is causally isolated from the quarantined remnants of the noosphere. Some of them may be Brahman survivors.

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How did Laporte end up playing such a seeming pivotal role in the conflict, and what happens if she were to die?

Laporte has been engineered to provide the Shivans with a capability they can't provide themselves. If she were to die the Shivans would lose that capability and would need to fall back on more basic methods.

I've always been curious about how much control the Elders are meant to have over the UEF, or how much of their power you'd imagine they tend to use?

The system on paper sounds almost dictatorial in that the Elders are unelected and seem able to overrule decisions at a whim, yet (from what is seen) the UEF people's feelings for them range from adoration to at least great respect, and for all their power they seem very hands-off and distant about the actual running of the Federation (which runs with elections etc IIRC). That diplomacy mission is the one occasion you see an Elder travel; would an Elder taking to the field like that be a rare event, or would tours of the Federation by Elders be quite common (assuming they can overcome their lack of mobility, if I remember a bit of text correctly)? What sort of relations do Federation civil servants and politicians have with the Elders?

I don't want to step on this too hard, in terms of closing out creative range, but my feeling is that the Elders are basically grandparents to the UEF, if the UEF were a healthy adult: you don't have to listen to them, but you're on good terms and you respect them so much that you'll give their opinion a lot of weight. Plus they have money, and probably political strings to pull, and a legally ordained rule as a long-term steering committee — and they're good people who have earned the public's love. And as things have gotten more intense, strategically, the Elders have been forced to be more and more heavy-handed.

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What sort of things would you imagine Byrne being taught on his 'Philosophy of War' PhD (other than the obvious :lol:)? The objectives? Role of motivation and reasoning?

That war must always be considered as a means to a humane end, or else war is not worth conducting.


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Given their seemingly peaceful ethos, why does the UEF have so many frigates and cruisers for protecting a single system? Is the GEF so powerful that a large fleet was warranted for a single star system? Was it in case the Shivans attacked? And I've always noticed the UEF seem to never deploy sentry guns; was there any reason for that or just a coincidence and they are in UEF use in canon?

The Shivans might come back! Sentry guns aren't super useful for defending against 'soft' infrastructural attacks like sabotage, bombings, misdirection, and even theft by unarmed noncombatants. The UEF fleet is probably small in proportion to their economy: consider that their economy matches the entire GTVA, then compare fleet sizes...

 

Offline CT27

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Since Severanti was kicked out of Sol, how is he doing as a teacher?

 

Offline DefCynodont119

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
 
1: Speaking if universes dying; The tech description for the Vishnan Proximity Gun says that it uses Metastable Vacuum Decay to operate. . . Why Isn't the universe destroyed when I press the fire button?

I don't doubt the Vishnans could somehow contain the quantum chain-reaction, but. . . what if the fighter's weapons subsystem is damaged? or It's hit by an EMP? or the gun jams? they would LITERALLY be betting the universe's existence on the infallibility of a flak cannon's safety systems. . .




2: Also, there is a 18-year gap between the Capella supernova and Age of Aquarius, and Samuel Bei has severed the GTVA for it least that amount of time if not more, and he is just a lieutenant commander?
Is he just a bad pilot or did something happen, and if so, what?


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Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
2: Also, there is a 18-year gap between the Capella supernova and Age of Aquarius, and Samuel Bei has severed the GTVA for it least that amount of time if not more, and he is just a lieutenant commander?
Is he just a bad pilot or did something happen, and if so, what?
...You mean besides the incident actually covered in AoA that resulted in his estrangement from his father, who is an influential admiral?
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Offline QuakeIV

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
From whats been said so far it kinda sounds like a lot of species have since been om nom nommed by the summed psyche thingy.  Why is it so critical that more be manufactured?  Is there some critical mass that they need to reach for some reason?  Alternatively, is absorption into the summed psyche mutually exclusive with being 'worthy interhitors of the brahmans'?
« Last Edit: June 26, 2017, 11:49:31 pm by QuakeIV »

  

Offline DefCynodont119

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
2: Also, there is a 18-year gap between the Capella supernova and Age of Aquarius, and Samuel Bei has severed the GTVA for it least that amount of time if not more, and he is just a lieutenant commander?
Is he just a bad pilot or did something happen, and if so, what?
...You mean besides the incident actually covered in AoA that resulted in his estrangement from his father, who is an influential admiral?

I am aware of that but I did not think one admiral could be able hold back one pilot for that long. Especially sense he is implied to have been in a different fleet under a different admiral. . . And only flew under his father again* once he joined the Sol expedition.
+ His father was a captain when it happened, his influence would have been far more limited at that point in time. so. . .  :confused:  How influential are we talking here? :p


EDIT: *I looked into it, Bei was originally with the 3rd fleet.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2017, 12:06:02 am by DefCynodont119 »
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Offline QuakeIV

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Is it really that crazy?  Im not overly familiar with the ranks involved here, but as I understood it unless there was a lot of attrition to the command structure then advancement would be fairly rare.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Bei probably just didn't have the heart to make it. He was pretty ****ed up and I doubt the GTVA has 'up or out' policies, so he could languish a while and stew in his own guilt. Doesn't AoA imply a little about his recent service? Not sure.

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Some of the Granite Hunter files say he basically only made it due to his excellent flight record and popularity amongst pilots he flew with. He had no motivation to move up and his psych exams were probably a complete mess. He would've been discharged if the GTVA didn't need more good pilots.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2017, 09:58:13 am by FrikgFeek »
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Why I bet those damn Vishnans were pulling strings at the promotion board

 

Offline Nyctaeus

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Where are the remnants of other races destroyed by Shivans? I'm talking about their potential noospheric remainder. Through the milions of years they were probably thousands of destroyed races, and some of them were probably Nagari-sensitive like Terrans and Vasudans. If Bosch and his fellows were enough to merge their consciousnesses into entity known as Ken, they were not the first. The Nagari should be quite "populated" with such beings, but it's rather empty. Is this caused by Great Darkness?

What was UEF's emergency protocol if Shivans return?

Will we see Orestes and Temeraire again in actual missions?
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Offline T-Man

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Oh yeah here's one that I need to know because it drove me bloody loopy in real life; who the [BEEP] was 'Truth'?

I had two theories; Laporte (quickly worked out was not the case) and Christopher Snipes (because he seemed the sort to know a lot and it occoured to me one of his lines in FS2, 'they didn't save me because they like me' before Into the Lion's Den could be interpreted as saying he does not massively like his side).

I worked my butt off for them, became unable to trust anyone and ended up so deep cover I became suspicious of myself! Whoever they were, they bloody owe me a pint (...annnd maybe political asylum... I kind of just blew my cover... will work for food...)! :lol:
« Last Edit: June 27, 2017, 01:12:49 pm by T-Man »
Also goes by 'Murasaki-Tatsu' outside of Hard-Light

UEF fanboy. Rabid Imagination.

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Someone on IRC advanced the theory that they were a leaker within GTVI, which seemed very convincing at the time.
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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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The Shivans were calculated into existence as a necessity of a universe hospitable to any form of cognition.
Calculated by what?  By the multiverse itself?  I'm getting hints that direction re: Rechnender Raum, "Calculating Space."  My superficial research into that term isn't bearing a lot of fruit, though, because I'm not sure what you mean to imply by it.

Is the multiverse being simulated on some other substrate we can't see?  Or is the multiverse itself the its own substrate, the calculating space?  What is it calculating?  Why should it calculate anything at all?

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but the Terminal Protocol is failing, the universes are running out of viable places for life to grow, and something has to be done.

Why is the terminal protocol failing? Why is there manifold necrosis evident in the SABADA YEAR data?

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Peripherally, SNRI teleonomic analysis of structures in the Lanieakea supercluster suggest the presence of an engineered object of unprecedented magnitude. Unfortunately, neither the funding nor manpower for further analysis of this signal has yet determined itself necessary.
Ok.  I got to know.  What does the Great Attractor have to do with all of this, or was that just a throw-away line?
« Last Edit: June 27, 2017, 11:25:06 pm by perihelion »
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Offline Gray113

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Will the elders be allowed to remain free after the surrender of the UEF or are they all heading to Guan-Laramis bay for further study?

Would the elders sacrifice themselves in order to ensure the success of Shambhala?

Discounting hostile aliens does the GTVA even have a long term future?

But unlike the Council of Elders and the Ubuntu Party, which had been only a minor splinter faction at the time of the Lucifer’s destruction and earned power by popular appeal, the GTVA had been reborn as a primarily economic and political entity, rather than a cultural force. This focus on ‘hard power’ and military defense had left the GTVA vulnerable to internal ideological rifts, first during Reconstruction and then during the turbulent Neo-Terran Front rebellion. The Terran identity had become characterized by militarism and fear, and – as one Elder put it – these were traits that could sustain an army, not a people.

The capture of Sol may relieve some political pressure in the short term but it looks as though massive changes are required to the GTVA command structure. That is before we even get to see whether the promises match the reality regarding the benefits of annexing Sol.

 

Offline Snarks

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Maybe I missed this, but what is the Terminal Protocol?

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)

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What were the Vishnans trying to accomplish during the events of AoA? What are their overall goals?

Intervene in the development of the Terrans and Vasudans to keep them on course for the role the Vishnans wanted them to play: as worthy inheritors of the Brahmans. The Vishnan intervention altered the invasion of the UEF and brought the Sanctuary survivors over to the 'prime' universe.

All Vishnan intervention in our worlds is deeply limited by their faculties. When interfering at a particular set of coordinates in space-time, they are required to use only information that's more or less local to those coordinates — they can't bring information in from far in the future when they instance at a specific time.

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Did the great darkness destroy the Brahmans?

Tough question. One answer would be that the Brahmans destroyed themselves to avoid the Great Darkness. Another would be that the Brahmans became the Great Darkness.


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Who exactly are the Vishnans, and why do they exist?

The Vishnans are the post-physical intelligences who have passed through the 'filter' of the Terminal Protocol, emerged as cooperators, and been enlightened into the Great Psyche — a redoubt in subspace that is causally isolated from the quarantined remnants of the noosphere. Some of them may be Brahman survivors.

I... think I understand BP's cosmology now. The only missing piece is the Shivans

Some questions about the Shivans:
-How were the Shivans calculated?
-The Shivan entity in Universal Truth says the Shivans "slept beneath the waves" before the dawn war. What does this mean?
-How did the Shivans become involved in the terminal protocol?
-What would happen to the Shivans if the terminal protocol failed?
-What is the Shivan Alternative to the terminal protocol?
« Last Edit: June 29, 2017, 04:04:59 am by Garfield »

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Oh benevolent Oracle, share thy wisdom!  :blah:

How aware are the elders of the actual, global involvement of the Vishnans and particularly the Shivans?
We have the surviors from the initial invasion attempt, we know that there is a plan involved and that there is at least sporadic contact of unknown nature. But for example, the Fedayeen do seem to act independent of the general control of the elders and they have a semi-live Shivan which is probably not known to them. And of course, there is Laporte and the threats made by the GTVA condemning them to be under outside influence.

What exactly is the nature of Earth's non-spaceship defenses? Considering that both orbital- and lunar-defense "bombed"  ;7 pretty hard...

Are we going to see the Elder's Guard again, hopefully not doing a knight-in-shining-armor routine?

What is the ACTUAL development state of BluePlanet? No finger pointing, just a summary of were things are at.

Is the next Baru Novel going to be as brilliant as the first? By the way, please accept some late birthday congrats. And stop twittering so much nonsense and give me more cat pictures  :hopping:

Want to see more BluePlanet, with great gameplay and writing  :nod:  The sooner the better  :nervous: But alas, all of us know how modding works and what a regular job does to a free-time based development hobby.
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Offline An4ximandros

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
To Battuta:

Yes or No can suffice.

1) Is Project Shambhala something that can break through the Vishnan quarantine and compromise their existence, leaving them vulnerable to the Great Darkness?

2) Is The Great Attractor a manifestation of the Great Darkness? Does it exist in parallel universes?

3) Can The Great Darkness be summarized as a though-consuming cancer?

4) Were the Ancient Monologues remnant echoes of the Ancient presence in Nagari, or were they faked by the Vishnans or Shivans?

5) Since consciousness is a fatal flaw at higher computational levels, should we interpret the Great Darkness as "less" than we are? Can it be compared to Bacteria (It being alive) or a Virus (No Metabolism, No waste, No stimuli, must assimilate something that is "alive" to replicate)

Sorry my questions aren't interestingly phrased, I tried to boil them down to essentials.

PS: The writing has my congratulations! This is way better cosmicism than H.P. Lovecraft ever made.