[sunnyB]

Is there any hypothesis's as to why there was only ONE Lucifer in freespace 1? I mean the Shivans had 80+ Sathanas's, so why not have 80+ Lucifer's?



And also, why was there no Lucifer in Freespace 2?

[headdie]

There are several theories, off the top of my head they are summarized as.

Lucifer is a ludicrously resource/cost high technology for application
Lucifer is a discontinued line stranded in the local subspace region
Lucifer was deployed as a scaled response to the local situation which did not anticipate an alliance between the local species
Shivans are no longer able to create more Lucifer destroyers for whatever reason

I think thats it...  could be wrong though

[General Battuta]

That's not quite it 

[Bobboau]

I've always leaned towards option 3, more specifically it's purpose built to wipe out planets and is only deployed when they want to do specifically that. FS2 did not have them wanting to do that yet.

[Aardwolf]

FS1: Lucifers and Saths perform different roles; they only ever need one Lucifer (possibly in total, or possibly per x unit of Shivan-patrolled space)
FS2: If they deployed additional super-shielded super-ships, it would result in us blowing up more jump nodes, and they don't want that. Although this explanation is kind of unnecessary if you go with the "different roles" theory.

"What are these roles of which you speak?" Idunno, make something up.

[NGTM-1R]

Lucifer is a ludicrously resource/cost high technology for application
Lucifer is a discontinued line stranded in the local subspace region
Lucifer was deployed as a scaled response to the local situation which did not anticipate an alliance between the local species
Shivans are no longer able to create more Lucifer destroyers for whatever reason

The Shivans in FS1 and FS2 are not actually the same group.
Lucifer is not deployed against civilizations that have demonstrated the capacity to destroy it.
Lucifer is expeditionary, Shivan fleet in FS2 is not.
Lucifer isn't expeditionary, Shivan fleet in FS2 is.
Lucifer fleet is newer or older than Shivan fleet in FS2 and reflects different doctrine or technology base.
Lucifer is considered flawed design after its destruction prevented the Shivans from completing their attempts to destroy Earth. (Something they apparently had a shot at doing, c.f. Hellfire in Silent Threat.)

[Deepstar]

They do not need it. The Lucifer is not very suitable for space warfare. Its strongest "weapon" was its shielding technology, which is, as far as we know, useless against beam-weaponary.
And without its shield, the Lucifer has "only" countless ships in its hangar bay, but is nearly defenseless against enemy attacks, because it has too less turrets for a ship of its size.

Maybe it is simply easier to reequip a Demon destroyer with better weaponary than to rebuild the Lucifer class with more turrets .

[qwadtep]

Maybe Lucifers simply aren't a common model and the whole Capella thing escalated to juggs before one could take the field.

[Megawolf492]

Lucifer is a discontinued line stranded in the local subspace region

I agree with this. Specifically, I say that the Lucifer was a prototype world-killer that was put through its paces on the local civilizations. When the Ancients found the Shivans (and subsequently retreated) via the Knossos network, the Lucifer fleet followed. The fleet did its job by wiping the Ancients, but were stuck in this region of space when the first Knossos was shut down. Since the fleet was made up of mostly military ships, they didn't have too much in the way of R&D. So they didn't know how to or care to reopen the Knossos.  And the only beams they had were the primitive beams on the Lucifer.

On the other side, the main Shivan presence scrapped the Lucifer for the Sathanas. They got rid of the shielding system for more (and better) beams, which they put on all their ships. The Sathanas prototype did a better job at killing civilizations than the Lucifer, so they started making them en masse. I think that the Lucifer could have done the same thing the Sathanas did if there 80+ of them, if only less efficiently.

[headdie]

given the behavior we see I personally believe the sath's destructive power as a side effect of a specialised purpose involving stars of an as of yet undetermined special type whereas the Lucifer is a military vessel.

[Luis Dias]

FS1's shivans were headed straight to Vasuda Prime and Earth to destroy them. FS2's shivans were headed towards Cappella to supernovae it and create a wormhole. Different purposes, different designs.

[0rph3u5]

The Lucifer is puzzlebox; if a civilization is able to figure out how to destroy the ship they earned their survival.... at least that was theory I had been working with.

[Snarks]

I like the theory that Shivan ships are organic  (but not necessarily carbon-based life). The Lucifer was just a genetic anomaly that never got to take off. And since (with more speculation of course) Shivan capital ships take thousands of years before hitting reproductive stage, it never caught on.

[Mikes]

That's not quite it 

And for people who didn t get it, click Battuta's sig for a more elaborate answer than the ones above

[General Battuta]

The Lucifer is puzzlebox; if a civilization is able to figure out how to destroy the ship they earned their survival.... at least that was theory I had been working with.

I think this is a super cool theory. It's even a bit metatextual.

[Luis Dias]

You yourself used that theory in BP.

[Dovahkiin2132]

The Lucifer is puzzlebox; if a civilization is able to figure out how to destroy the ship they earned their survival.... at least that was theory I had been working with.

The best answer here. I like the idea that was mentioned in Blue Planet in the last mission,that the Shivans are endlessly diverse,and that they adapt to their enemies.Lucifer was sent because of the war between Terrans and Vasudans,it's cause to bring them together in a fight for survival. Sorry if i got something wrong haven't played FS2 in a while.

[General Battuta]

You yourself used that theory in BP.

It even gets namechecked in canon, I think. Maybe a bit glancingly and I don't instantly recall where.

[cahdoge]

And there is a other very important reason.

If in FS1 would have been multiple Luciferclass-destroyers the Terran-Vasuidan Alliance would never be able to beat the Shivan fleet.
They hardly managed to destroyed the singel one.

[headdie]

And there is a other very important reason.

If in FS1 would have been multiple Luciferclass-destroyers the Terran-Vasuidan Alliance would never be able to beat the Shivan fleet.
They hardly managed to destroyed the singel one.

the question basically is why were there no more in FS2 given that virtually every other shivan ship gets an outing and that the force would appear to be many magnitudes larger