Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: TDM/JM on December 05, 2001, 07:51:00 pm
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Hey, people. Reading through commentary here and on the VBB, it's obvious that there are a lot of different ideas about the character of Shivan "civilization" and the features of Shivan psychology. The two most popular interpretations are the "hive mind" and the "elemental force" -- "HM" being component intelligence with a core facilitator (a "queen"), and "EF" being a sort of complex instinctual behavior that is quite alien to the human perspective.
My question: are there other alternatives that correlate with V canon? Or, failing that, can you help define "elemental force" in a more usable way? (No offense to folks, and please feel free to try to change my mind, but I'm thinking the hive mind thing has been done to death in SF. The idea of a starfaring civilization based on instinctual programming is interesting, however.) Anyone have any thoughts? The FS 2.9 initiative is going to have to deal with this issue directly -- I think we're already aware of that. So I'm trawling for ideas.
Thanks!
Ascraeus
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well, I'm in favour of the elemental force thinguy (Ace hammered me with that, and eventually he converted me lol).
As any elemental thing, it's not really possible to explain it (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
But I'll try in my campaign ( well, to a certain extent anyway, giving all away would suck and kill the main shivan interesting side: the fact they're so mysterious (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) ).
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Plasma and IceFire have a lot of good ideas that reinforce the elemental force camp, especially Plasma. Dark was a fan of it, and felt that Volition didn't make the Shivans quite terrifying enough as it was (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
The main goal of Volition's writers was to create a foe with no socially redeeming values, you've seen what taking the hive mind concept too far did to the Borg in StarTrek...
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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Yeah, I'm in favor of the elemental force theory as well. The hive mind thing HAS been dont to death (culminating with the Borg as the most famous/infamous example).
Im not sure I know much about EF; "complex instictual behavior" is a rather broad term, too broad for me to comment on becasue I don't know exactly what it means.
When other people elaborate more on this in their posts here, I'll come up with some comments then. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
No socially redeeming values, huh? This should be an interesting conversation...
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
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what with the borgs? (excuse my ignorance, I can't help it, I just won't like ST)
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I'm very much in the hive mind camp, primarily because of the differences between the Lucifer and the Sathanass.
Assuming that both were available at thbe same time, why send the Lucifer, when a fleet of Sathani were available? The way I see it was that they needed to send the lucifer, as it held a queen (or maybe even was a queen) and this assisted in the coordination of attacks. This would explain it's emphasis on defense, as a queen would be protected at all costs, and the fact that after it's destruction, the shivans became disorganized and easily defeated (I haven't heard any good EF arguements which include this).
In FS2 we saw a more cautious, but equally pissed off type of Shivan. Rather than send a queen to coordinate little attacks, they sent a fleet of sathani to wipe out anything in their path by sheer brute force and weight of numbers. This would require less coordination, and so the queen could be kept well away from the front lines.
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"What you egg!" Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 2, Line 80
"Young fry of treachery!" Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 2, Line 81
Member of the Tema Al Diablo ("http://tema_al_diablo.tripod.com") creation team.
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How about genetic knowledge? Do Shivans even have the good ole' deoxyribonucleic? (I have a feeling I missed a few letters in there... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/redface.gif))
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Originally posted by Black Wolf:
I'm very much in the hive mind camp, primarily because of the differences between the Lucifer and the Sathanass.
Assuming that both were available at thbe same time, why send the Lucifer, when a fleet of Sathani were available? The way I see it was that they needed to send the lucifer, as it held a queen (or maybe even was a queen) and this assisted in the coordination of attacks. This would explain it's emphasis on defense, as a queen would be protected at all costs, and the fact that after it's destruction, the shivans became disorganized and easily defeated (I haven't heard any good EF arguements which include this).
In FS2 we saw a more cautious, but equally pissed off type of Shivan. Rather than send a queen to coordinate little attacks, they sent a fleet of sathani to wipe out anything in their path by sheer brute force and weight of numbers. This would require less coordination, and so the queen could be kept well away from the front lines.
waitwait! you say sending a queen in a super destroyer, escorted by 3 lesser destroyers, on their own, was safer than sending a queen in a sathansa, with 79 other sathanas around it, and hundreds of destroyers backing them?
I think I missed the point.
Plus with social insects, when they go at war, there's no way they would send their queen with their armies: w/o a queen, most ant species and termites hives are doomed. hornets and bees are more lucky on this point, coz if the queen dies, they can turn any of them into another queen, but it still is a great loss.I doubt Shivans would be more stupid than insects.
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Does the idea of the Shivans as a "programmed smart weapon" fall under the category of "Elemental Force"? There's a novel by the SF writer Greg Bear called THE FORGE OF GOD, in which Earth is invaded by AI-based smart weapons that are millions of years old. It's a security strategy of an "ancient" species who concluded that the safest universe was one in which they remained the only sentient species. So everytime a species reaches a certain broad technical level, the AI weapons show up and WHAMBAM! Earth is reduced to plasma-laced rubble.
I seem to recall something about the cybernetic qualities of Shivans from a cutscene in FS1. So, are the Shivans a smart weapon created by some as-yet unknown species "further toward the galactic core"?
Should we start planning for FS4? The discovery of the species that wields the Shivans like a sword? (So what's bigger than a Dyson Sphere?) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/rolleyes.gif)
Ascraeus
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If IRC, the 'Aliens' from the ALien series were created as a war force, but became too dangerous and were dumped on the planet in Alien 1...
I think the Shivans are simply a totally malevolant (SP?) force, and they funciton in a hive like fashion. I think they have altered themselves cybernetically... in order to survive in space and kill more efficiently.
Maybe they were even forced to, by another factor in the FS universe.
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(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/nervous.gif)Aldo, stop, you're scaring me...
...born of the flux of subspace, the revenge of an angry cosmos...
This is the way forward, people...
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When I look at the Shivans in the cutscenes, I don't see a hive mind and I don't see an elemental force. I see an artificially bred warrior race, as TDM/JM mentioned.
I don't think that any intelligent species is going to evolve in zero-g and vacuum. The Shivans are either zero-g adapted from something else, or built from scratch. The Greg Bear link is apt, but another one of the Killer Bs gets you a step farther: Gregory Benford postulates a race of AI robots hunting down the remains of a nomadic humanity across a backdrop of the galactic core.
That's the Shivans. A race of intelligent weapons who concluded that the best possible and safest universe is one without life. They wiped out their creators, and they wipe out anything else that they come across. They might be biological, mechanical or cyborg in nature.
Shivans aren't scary because they black and red and fast and uncommunicative. They're scary because they are implacable, unstoppable, and utterly amoral. They are the ultimate fanatics, built and bred and designed with only one purpose, to cleanse the universe. They don't care if you're human or vasudan or Ancient or even their progenitors.
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--Mik
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Those theories are all wrong. The Shivans are obviously partiers who need beer and beer nuts and the GTVA is the only source they've been able to find recently.
Silly people.
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Visit Warpstorm. ("http://www.warpstorm.com") Do it now.
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I know there is a method, but all I see is madness.
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Originally posted by mikhael:
That's the Shivans. A race of intelligent weapons who concluded that the best possible and safest universe is one without life. They wiped out their creators, and they wipe out anything else that they come across. They might be biological, mechanical or cyborg in nature.
Shivans aren't scary because they black and red and fast and uncommunicative. They're scary because they are implacable, unstoppable, and utterly amoral. They are the ultimate fanatics, built and bred and designed with only one purpose, to cleanse the universe. They don't care if you're human or vasudan or Ancient or even their progenitors.
Kinda like the Terminator huh? That's an interesting idea. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) I guess that's the message those Shivan comm nodes were sending: "We'll be back." (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/lol.gif)
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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The warrior race essentially fits the elemental force theory that Plasma get me started on (and Ace, and Dark, and so on...and so forth - I'm really glad you HLP guys took note (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)).
The whole elemental idea sort of focused around two parts.
1) In a litterary sense, the Shivans are the universe embodied
2) In a more scientific sense, the Shivans are a race of highly adaptive and instinctual creatures
This does not rule out that they weren't bred for the role. But it also sort of establishes the Shivans as something that opperate in a pattern of chaos as a natural force of nature.
Linked into all of this is some sort of special emphasis on subspace. They don't have much interests in planets and they place a great deal of emphasis on subspace nodes (this is all from FS1 and FS2's stories and tech room information).
So whatever subspace means to them, its the method for their observation and destruction of species that reach the subspace "age" so to speak.
If the Terrans had never entered subspace. The Shivans probably would never have come. Thats what I get the impression on anyways.
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what with the borgs? (excuse my ignorance, I can't help it, I just won't like ST)
Pretty much with the Borg they went from the unstoppable "We are Borg, you will be assimilated" into needing a diplomat to talk with humans, then having a Queen that talks with humans, to then diplomacy and finally the Borg just being a regular bad guy race with the queen as Janeway's nemesis numero uno. (really overgeneralizing though)
No elemental force theory goes against the Shivan disorganization after the Lucifer's destruction? Well first off you have the Terran and Vasudan fleets in Delta Serpentis regrouping from the attack, and the Shivan fleet was divided over several systems securing nodes for when the Lucifer would have "won." (the blockade of Terran space mentioned in the command briefing of the Altair series of missions was just this) Then you have sub-space nodes being altered and Shivan sensitivity to them.
Just giving some rough examples to show that a queen on the Lucifer isn't the only explanation. (now you see what type of stuff GTVA scientists have been arguing about over 32 years: "They look like spiders! They're bugs, a hive mind, Shivan queen!" "Spiders aren't a hive!" "Your mother was a Vasudan!")
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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Ya, I've noticed the implications about Shivan interest in subspace, particularly in FS1. Hate to leave that issue at "whatever it may be," though. Anybody have an idea? Is there any information in V canon on this?
I'd forgotten about the Benford novels -- ACROSS THE SEA OF STARS, and maybe five others. Interesting idea.
Ascraeus
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Just one point:
I just hate the idea of the shivans being bred, it makes them much less scary, whatever they can do. If they cfan be bred, well... it's the complete opposite of the elemental force, btw (sorry icefire). An elemental force would be born from nature (I don't mean the shivan are the universe hanger and all that bullsh1t, tho). Bred creatures are unatural, you know, genetically enhanced insects, grown up with hormons, hop! I stuck a plasma gun between their shoulders, hop! a super cutting claw, hop, laser eyes! hop, I'm god, I just created a species --> creator is superior to created (since w/o him, the created wpecies wouldn't exist). So shivans= inferiors, so shivans= not scary, even if they can destrooy stars and are billions. It's just the feeling, bred species sux and can't be the bad boys of a story (robots are another story). btw, Aldo, where did you heard the aliens were bred by the other xenos like the one in the Alien1 derelict?
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Good point Venom... plus: I don't remember if it was at the VBB or the VWBB, but I remember reading once where someone mentioned that the word from DaveB is that what we see of the Shivans, are the real Shivans... thereby kinda ruling out that they're just a weapon created by another, superior, race.
And, on a mikhael's saying that: "I don't think that any intelligent species is going to evolve in zero-g and vacuum." I'd have to disagree. 1) because the universe is so vast and we are always learning new and more mysterious things that scientists had thought impossible before, and 2) it adds to the "mystery" factor of the Shivans. How did they evolve in space? Could space-based life evolve in a nebula like gravity-based life evolved in a tide pool? Could that be why the Shivan's were mining the nebula gas, that they eat it like whales filter plankton? Allowing the possibility for the Shivans to have evolved from life born in space (like how we humans evolved from life born in tide pools), allows for the Shivans to be a more complex, and alien, lifeform than most others.
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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What DaveB said was that we aren't seeing any space suits or creatures that live inside other creatures(like ID4)
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Originally posted by joek:
And, on a mikhael's saying that: "I don't think that any intelligent species is going to evolve in zero-g and vacuum." I'd have to disagree. 1) because the universe is so vast and we are always learning new and more mysterious things that scientists had thought impossible before, and 2) it adds to the "mystery" factor of the Shivans. How did they evolve in space? Could space-based life evolve in a nebula like gravity-based life evolved in a tide pool? Could that be why the Shivan's were mining the nebula gas, that they eat it like whales filter plankton? Allowing the possibility for the Shivans to have evolved from life born in space (like how we humans evolved from life born in tide pools), allows for the Shivans to be a more complex, and alien, lifeform than most others.
Perhaps I should amend that to say 'life as we understand it is not likely to evolve in zero-g'. Life, the way we understand it, with a integral vascular system and musculoskeletal system couldn't evolve in zero-g. All life on Earth is built around the idea of beating gravity in some way. The circulatory system, for example, has to maintain a certain internal pressure to fight the effect of gravity.
In the case of a zero-g life form, there would be no need for complex skeletal system. A better evolutionary path would be a tough, flexible hide for containing the internal bits. Physics shows us that the perfect shape for 3d structures is a spheroid, as pressures exerted anywhere upon the surface are shifted outwards from the point of impact. Give such a body a token 'ribcage' for protecting internal organs, and you have a good start for a zero-g body. For locomotion, we can look to our own oceans (the closest you can get to zero-g on earth, as the buoyancy of salt water partially offsets the effects of gravity). Squids, for example, move by means of water-jets. In a nebula, or in space, the use of small jets of compressed gas makes perfect sense, and has the advantage of being simpler to implement.
Notice, however, that the shivan phenotype displays jointed, extended legs with either exoskeletal coverings or possibly worn armor. Further, the body shape is more elongated. These are not the products of a spaceborn evolution. They don't make sense for the environment. If shivans evolved, they evolved under gravity. They run. If they were built, they were built by a species that evolved with gravity or had observed species that did.
I maintain, however, that a Shivan is not a zero-g evolved creature, but a constructed one or one that evolved on a planet.
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--Mik
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Could the Shivans be a completely different non-biological form of life, yet unknown to man? (possibly mechanical but replicating)
Although your hypothesis certainly makes sense; the "walking" motions would imply that they probably were terrestrial beings at some point...
[This message has been edited by CP5670 (edited 12-07-2001).]
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Absolutely. This is, in fact, what I was referring to above, when I mentioned Gregory Benford's novels.
However, even if Shivans are machines, and somehow reproduce themselves, they were made by someone. I recommend reading "The Immortality Option". I can't recall the author right now and I can't look it up because I'm at work. In it, life is found on Titan. Specifically, mechanical life seeded there (accidentally) by a lifeform from a dying solar system. The creators of these machines intended for their vessel to get to a suitable world, set up an entire colony and prepare it for eventual use by colonists who would be sent later. However, the machines were damaged in transit, and much functional data was lost. Factories and the like were set up, but things didn't work properly. The author explains it far better than I, but the crux of the story is that the machines end up undergoing a form of evolution and eventually give rise to proper intelligence.
Shivans could have had a start this way. If they were created as weapons, they could have modified themselves over time, emulating evolution.
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--Mik
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Originally posted by TDM/JM:
Ya, I've noticed the implications about Shivan interest in subspace, particularly in FS1. Hate to leave that issue at "whatever it may be," though. Anybody have an idea? ...
Ascraeus
I will call again upon my library of scifi. In the Conqueror Trilogy by Timothy Zahn, humanity encounters an alien species for the first time and tries to make contact. War breaks out, for some unknown reason.
It turns out that the aliens have an organ in their heads that in sensitive to radio frequency broadcasts, and this organ is vital to their communication. They interpretted the radio signals coming from the human vessel as an attack.
Shivans may be similarly sensitive to subspace. They may not use it for communication, or whatever, but what if the 'mind' of a Shivan exists in subspace in its natural form? What if the 'shivan' body we see is not a Shivan, but an encounter-suit for use in our space? Maybe, they slay races that use subspace because we don't understand that it is their home and in our ignorance, we destroy it wantonly?
In Dan Simmons Hyperion novels, there is a second layer of reality called 'the Void Which Binds'. Any two places in the universe are instantly accessible by ripping a hole through the Void Which Binds. Humanity uses portals to open vast rents in reality to create vast river that flows in a circle across a dozen worlds. They do not know that this gross misuse of the Void is destroying the things that exist there. Eventually, these things reach out and remove humanity's ability to use the Void (mostly).
Maybe that's what the Shivans are. They are constructs created by whatever lives in subspace as a way of making sure we stop trespassing in their backyards. That would explain why the Shivans can seemingly use subspace more efficiently than the GTVA, and it would explain why they seem to be able to out manuever the GTVA at every turn.
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--Mik
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Originally posted by mikhael:
I will call again upon my library of scifi. In the Conqueror Trilogy by Timothy Zahn, humanity encounters an alien species for the first time and tries to make contact. War breaks out, for some unknown reason.
It turns out that the aliens have an organ in their heads that in sensitive to radio frequency broadcasts, and this organ is vital to their communication. They interpretted the radio signals coming from the human vessel as an attack.
Shivans may be similarly sensitive to subspace. They may not use it for communication, or whatever, but what if the 'mind' of a Shivan exists in subspace in its natural form? What if the 'shivan' body we see is not a Shivan, but an encounter-suit for use in our space? Maybe, they slay races that use subspace because we don't understand that it is their home and in our ignorance, we destroy it wantonly?
In Dan Simmons Hyperion novels, there is a second layer of reality called 'the Void Which Binds'. Any two places in the universe are instantly accessible by ripping a hole through the Void Which Binds. Humanity uses portals to open vast rents in reality to create vast river that flows in a circle across a dozen worlds. They do not know that this gross misuse of the Void is destroying the things that exist there. Eventually, these things reach out and remove humanity's ability to use the Void (mostly).
Maybe that's what the Shivans are. They are constructs created by whatever lives in subspace as a way of making sure we stop trespassing in their backyards. That would explain why the Shivans can seemingly use subspace more efficiently than the GTVA, and it would explain why they seem to be able to out manuever the GTVA at every turn.
you should stop applying to shivans what you've read in books. As it has been said before, and has I've seen myself too before, DaveB (from Volition if you wonder who he is), told us that the shivan we saw are the actual shivans, they're not some kind of psychic mind creature or wxhatever, but the arachnid like walking horrors you have seen in the hallfight cutscene. Plus we know they uses some kind of wicrowave to communicate: that's the whole Bosh plot stuff, and it's what the ETAK project was about.
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Originally posted by venom2506:
btw, Aldo, where did you heard the aliens were bred by the other xenos like the one in the Alien1 derelict?
I think it may have been in one of the Dark Horse comic books, actually. Although, I remember there is a (huge)dead other kind of alien (i.e. not the xenos or whatever you call them) in the ship in alien (1), apparently in the control position. This indicates they were being transported, especially with only 1 pilot.
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I'm merely supplying possible explanations, venom. I am no definative source. I don't work for Volition. I don't know Freespace canon my chapter and verse. I'm just this guy throwing out ideas. Those ideas come from a multitude of sources, but mainly from scifi novels. Why? Because FS is a scifi story, and the people that wrote it got their ideas from somewhere, be it scifi movies, books, etc.
Now as for everything else? Okay they communicate via microwaves, the arthropods in the hall-fight are the real shivans. All well and good. That doesn't answer the question about shivan sociology, where they developed and how. I was attempting to answer the question in as intelligent way as possible, without resorting back to "They're Shivans. They exist to kill.", "They're an elemental force.", "They are a hive mind." or some such throwaway notion. Throwaway notions are easy and quick, but they ultimately lack support on further analysis.
Ultimately, the best and only useful explanation will come from Volition and they will tell us exactly what the Shivans are, why they do what they do, and in what manner they do it. Until then, I'm going to keep speculating.
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--Mik
[This message has been edited by mikhael (edited 12-07-2001).]
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you should stop applying to shivans what you've read in books. As it has been said before, and has I've seen myself too before, DaveB (from Volition if you wonder who he is), told us that the shivan we saw are the actual shivans, they're not some kind of psychic mind creature or wxhatever, but the arachnid like walking horrors you have seen in the hallfight cutscene. Plus we know they uses some kind of wicrowave to communicate: that's the whole Bosh plot stuff, and it's what the ETAK project was about.
No, what DaveB said was that what we saw was not the Shivan itself, but a "space suit'. mikhael, I've read some of the same books you have and I do like what perspectives they have tried to offer. None really fit the Shivans perfectly but thats okay.
The key issue with the Shivans I think is that we know virtually nothing about what they really are. Thats a bonus for the story because you get this sense that your fighting against something that just doesn't look at things the same way you do. The whole concept of Shivans is that they do almost nothing conventionally, they are meant to be alien.
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Originally posted by mikhael:
I'm merely supplying possible explanations, venom. I am no definative source. I don't work for Volition. I don't know Freespace canon my chapter and verse. I'm just this guy throwing out ideas. Those ideas come from a multitude of sources, but mainly from scifi novels. Why? Because FS is a scifi story, and the people that wrote it got their ideas from somewhere, be it scifi movies, books, etc.
Now as for everything else? Okay they communicate via microwaves, the arthropods in the hall-fight are the real shivans. All well and good. That doesn't answer the question about shivan sociology, where they developed and how. I was attempting to answer the question in as intelligent way as possible, without resorting back to "They're Shivans. They exist to kill.", "They're an elemental force.", "They are a hive mind." or some such throwaway notion. Throwaway notions are easy and quick, but they ultimately lack support on further analysis.
Ultimately, the best and only useful explanation will come from Volition and they will tell us exactly what the Shivans are, why they do what they do, and in what manner they do it. Until then, I'm going to keep speculating.
hey, didn't mean to be harsh ( I look at my post and I still think I wasn't btw (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) )
I just pointed out a fact that was already written above in the thread and you seemed to have missed, and I just told you about the comm stuff, nothing agressive (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Aldo: hargh, don't take Dark Horse comics for canon! damn, I've seen James Bond against the aliens, in a DH comics (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/lol.gif) !
btw, what I called the xeno (coz I had no other proper name), is that pilot (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
I do think they use the aliens in some kind of way, at least they breed some (hence the egg zone, with the laser layer covering them and all). Anyway, guessing anything about alien is a tricky job, mainly coz absolutely nothing is fixed. For exemple, in the first alien, there was no question about a queen. Eggs came from the captured guys: a removed scene was supposed to show Dallas and that other guy (the one caught while he was searching after the cat). Both were on the landing arm of the land pod that landed on LV426. The first guy was already half egg (I have a pic of the prop, quite disgusting if you ask me), and dallas was still human, but it was too late for him, so he begged Ripley to finish him off ( I think the scene in Aliens with that woman is a kind of easter egg in reference to this).
Oh, a cool thing: at the begining, when the shape of the alien was about the final one, it was supposed to be translucid, you could see blood running through the veins, the guts and all that kind of stuff (the eyes would have been easier to see, too, I bet most people are still wondering where they are (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif) ). Neat, no? They droped the idea because of budget. It would be cool in a sequel to see a new alien "class" like that, with those two huge black eyes staring at you, in the midle of a lot of white flesh, and veins... beuark! (okok, they did it with the alien4 newborn, but this one is more ridiculous than scary (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif) )
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The shivans remind me of those kushans from the nebula in homeworld in the way they guard it, i'm mean when a non-Shivan enters sub-space they polute with there presense(sp) and the shivans then trace them and kill them so that they never again. but i'm surprised no one has mentioned that the shivans have been refered to as the "great presevours"(sp) they basically stoped a more advanced race wiping out the ancients but then the anicents became to advanced and the shivans came for them while another race has the chance to survive.
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Originally posted by IceFire:
No, what DaveB said was that what we saw was not the Shivan itself, but a "space suit'.
Actually, I think you're wrong Ice, from what I recall, the Shivans were never in space suits. What we see is the Shivans themselves.
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Visit Warpstorm. ("http://www.warpstorm.com") Do it now.
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I know there is a method, but all I see is madness.
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I had completely forgotten about that!
Maybe they just go after races that get out of hand and start subjugating/killing others? That neatly explains why they've come after both Vasuda and Earth. Of course, that sets up the Shivans as either an elemental force (an idea that really doesn't appeal to me) or they are the instruments of someone or something that takes offense at lesser races not playing nice in its playground.
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--Mik
PS: No problem Venom. I'm just argumenative by nature. Feel free to hit me with a chair if I act like an *** . I'll take the hint. Honest. *heh*
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Well, basically I'm with the Elemental force idea (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
From what I gather from the FS series, the shivans are the universe great destroyers, but also the great perservers... if you hear the ancients, they say that they knew that were trespassers when they begun using subspace, they also say that, in the verge of their extinction, they realise that if it wasn't for the Shivans, they woul've been wiped out in their younger ages by another species that were like they were in the end...
From this I can only conclude that the Shivans have an "eternal mission", that is to protect lesser species, and protect the universe... I gather that the universe is both the "real" space and subspace, being subspace some kind of frame for the real universe, that makes that the more we use subspace, the more we destroy the real universe...
I really don't see the shivans as a species, but more like some kind of a personification of the universe... imagine the universe as a human bodu, the shivans are the universe's white globes (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
About how we see the shivans in the mve's, they don't look like mechanical to me... the plasma arm opens bending the material that covers it... they may have some kind of armour around them, but it can be natural, like a roach shell...
I really defend the idea that the Shivans exist only to protect the universe, preventing its extinction due to the use of technology, like the earth's environment is being destroyed by pollution, that only exists due to advancements in technology... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Actually, I think you're wrong Ice, from what I recall, the Shivans were never in space suits. What we see is the Shivans themselves.
No, im pretty sure DaveB said that we had never really seen a Shivan and we'd just seen an outer layer of them. An encounter suit if you watch B5 and a space suit for the rest.
If he said otherwise, then I'm wrong and I'll freely admit that, but my feeling is that I am right in this instance. If not, I'm not (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Actually ETAK is quantum pulses, which is just bending the fabric of space-time itself subtely for communication, which also would probably slightly distort sub-space.
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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I like the "elemental force" idea, and the idea that the Shivans are the "cosmic destroyers."
Something else occurred to me: Could the Shivans regard all other races as "lessers" until such a time as members of a "lesser race" manage to communicate with them? Bosch and his lieutenants talked with the Shivans using ETAK and thus were no longer considered "lessers". This could explain why the Shivans took Bosch and his closest subordinates away in a transport while the rest of the Iceni was slaughtered...
And since the Terran/Vasudan Alliance defeated the Shivans twice, could this have affected the Shivans' opinion of us?
And if the Shivans are the cosmic destroyers, could the Andarta be considered an elemtal force as well? Shivans = cosmic destroyers while Andarta = cosmic preservers?
I can go with the idea that the Shivans are cosmic destroyers, but I don't buy the idea that they are cosmic preservers. The death and destruction they've caused doesn't convince me that they aspire to any kind of "noble" ideals...quite the opposite, in fact. The fact that because of the Shivans younger races get to mature long enough to achieve subspace travel seems incidental to me.
Shivan vs. Andarta; red vs. blue, old vs. new; evil vs. good; Republican vs. Democrat? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/lol.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Still, the idea of the Shivans as the universe's "white blood cells" does hold SOME appeal for me and does seem to fit the Shivans...
Just food for thought.
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
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Originally posted by Su-tehp:
I like the "elemental force" idea, and the idea that the Shivans are the "cosmic destroyers."
Something else occurred to me: Could the Shivans regard all other races as "lessers" until such a time as members of a "lesser race" manage to communicate with them? Bosch and his lieutenants talked with the Shivans using ETAK and thus were no longer considered "lessers". This could explain why the Shivans took Bosch and his closest subordinates away in a transport while the rest of the Iceni was slaughtered...
And since the Terran/Vasudan Alliance defeated the Shivans twice, could this have affected the Shivans' opinion of us?
And if the Shivans are the cosmic destroyers, could the Andarta be considered an elemtal force as well? Shivans = cosmic destroyers while Andarta = cosmic preservers?
I can go with the idea that the Shivans are cosmic destroyers, but I don't buy the idea that they are cosmic preservers. The death and destruction they've caused doesn't convince me that they aspire to any kind of "noble" ideals...quite the opposite, in fact. The fact that because of the Shivans younger races get to mature long enough to achieve subspace travel seems incidental to me.
Shivan vs. Andarta; red vs. blue, old vs. new; evil vs. good; Republican vs. Democrat? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/lol.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Still, the idea of the Shivans as the universe's "white blood cells" does hold SOME appeal for me and does seem to fit the Shivans...
Just food for thought.
what you say (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
excepted one thing: I don't consider the GTVA beat the shivans in fs2. the shivan came, toasted some ships, a solar system, then went back home. They didn't lose, IMHO. They fulfiled their goels, and the NGTA was only a spectator.
btw, icefire, it's indeed the other way: those ARE shivans, and not spacesuits (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) That's what I remembered, and Ace confirmed the thing, and I have to say I'm more pleased with that (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
[This message has been edited by venom2506 (edited 12-07-2001).]
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origionally posted by mik:
Ultimately, the best and only useful explanation will come from Volition and they will tell us exactly what the Shivans are, why they do what they do, and in what manner they do it. Until then, I'm going to keep speculating.
Of course "useful", "best", and "cannon" don't neccisarily mean "good" (remember the borg! Damn you Roddenberry!) The borg were only scary until we had something to communicate with (the queen). After that they were no more frightening than the Romulans, the Kazon, or even Wesley Crusher.
I still liked my theory on the Borg (which could also be applied to the Shivans I guess). The behavior of any one unit is decided/ influenced by the behavior, information, and instructions gathered by all the units around it. So long as all of the units remain in commucications with each other they all function as a huge brain, guiding the actions of the whole with the information from the individuals. It also explains why away teams can simply board without attracting much attention so long as they don't draw the attention of too many of the individual Borg to themselves.
It's the communications part I find interesting, and best explains the apparent disorganization of the remaining shivans once the Lucifer was lost. If the Lucy was operating as a communications hub for such a race then her loss would have disrupted the entire network of beings. They would be acting and reacting without the information from it's fellows (which follows nicely with cannon, they still fought very hard, but with little coordination between elements).
I hate the whole "Queen bee" concept simply because now you have a central authority that can be reasoned with or (failing that) targeted and destroyed. So long as there is no central "descision-maker" the Shivans can remain enigmatic and dangerous.
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What about this? I just came up with this idea.
There might not be ONE "queen bee" but SEVERAL "queen bees" in all of Shivan "society." Rather than have all the Shivans ruled by some sort of "central authority" in one nexus, (like the queen of the Borg), Shivan society could be separated into several hives, each with their own autonomous ruler. Rather than have the Shivans emulate the Borg by having only one collective, Shivan society could be made up of several hives all working in tandem towards the same goal(s). This could help explain what happened with the Lucifer: The Lucifer fleet could have been a hive unto itself and the Lucifer was the "queen bee" (or the queen was onboard the Lucifer, perhaps) of that fleet (and that fleet only). Once the Lucy was killed, the rest of the hive couldn't coordinate and were subsequently defeated (but it still wouldn't have been easy to defeat the First Great War-era Shivans, at any rate).
In FS2, another Shivan fleet was encountered in the nebula and perhaps that fleet was led by the first Sathanas. (I don't think it was led by the 1st SD Ravana, because after the GTVA killed that ship, Shivan activity intensified, not diminished, and they showed no sign of being disorganized.) Once we killed that Sathanas, that small Shivan fleet might have been disorganized, but that didn't matter to the Shivans because they were already deploying 90 more juggernauts (one or more of which might have been carrying a "queen").
Each Shivan fleet/clan/hive/whatever could have its own leader/queen/coordinator running the logistics of the fleet, while all the other Shivans go about their tasks of fighting.
This ties into Ascraeus' "clan theory" in his outline. Each Shivan in its group could be somehow compelled to follow the orders of its "queen". So if the "queen" of a fleet/clan/hive wanted to defect to the GTVA, then all the Shivans under its command would have to follow that order. (Hypothetical Query: Could this compulsion be genetic programming of some sort? Or maybe something else?)
For lack of a better term, we can call this the "multiple hive theory." As to how many hives there are and how big each hive is (how many Shivans and how many ships, etc.), this still remains open to speculation.
Perhaps the hives are of different sizes. The Lucifer fleet in FS1 could have been a relatively small hive, but the juggernaut fleet, including its support ships, was likely a very large (but not nearly the largest?) hive, judging by how they all managed to work in tandem. We can assume the Shivan ships all worked in tandem because while the juggernauts spent three or four days creating the Capella supernova, the corvettes, destroyers and cruisers directly fought the GTVA fleet and kept the Terrans and Vasudans at bay in the meantime.
Second hypothetical query: If there are multiple hives, what is the potential for civil war in Shivan society? One idea is that civil wars in Shivan society might be VERY rare. If the Shivan hives are so focused on completing their goals (whatever they might be), then it would make sense for all the hives to cooperate, especially if the Shivans are still fighting an epic war the Andarta. Depending on how long the Shivan-Andarta War has been going on (10,000 years? 100,000? Perhaps longer?), it could be tens of thousands of years since the last Shivan civil war. Such a long period of cooperation would make the defection of the SJ Anhuradha VERY shocking, perhaps even heretically diabolical, to Shivan society at large.
The "elemental force" theory might be able to tie into my "multiple hive" theory somehow (I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive), but I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Maybe some of you can come up with a suitable idea.
Any comments?
(Ascraeus, please see also my post in the "Node map" thread as well; I made some important suggestions there about Shivan-Andarta Space being in a completely different galaxy from Terran-Vasudan space.)
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 12-07-2001).]
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Damn it's nice to see nice and long discussions going on. :D
Originally posted by Su-tehp:
Something else occurred to me: Could the Shivans regard all other races as "lessers" until such a time as members of a "lesser race" manage to communicate with them? Bosch and his lieutenants talked with the Shivans using ETAK and thus were no longer considered "lessers". This could explain why the Shivans took Bosch and his closest subordinates away in a transport while the rest of the Iceni was slaughtered...
Yes, nice idea. And Bosch probably didn't try to stand up for them, saying to the Shivans "don't kill them", because, as we heard in one of his previous monologues... he thinks they're just dumb cattle and he used them to complete his plan.
But I've also got another idea about Shivans taking Bosch... dissection. :) If you take a lot of conspiracy-like sci-fi, what does the government do when aliens land? Dissect them. So, what might the Shivans have done when this lesser species can talk to them (like your dog suddenly talking to you), they probably stuied and dissected Bosch and them to find out how they could communitate with the high and mighty Shivans.
Originally posted by Su-tehp:
And since the Terran/Vasudan Alliance defeated the Shivans twice, could this have affected the Shivans' opinion of us?
...
I can go with the idea that the Shivans are cosmic destroyers, but I don't buy the idea that they are cosmic preservers. The death and destruction they've caused doesn't convince me that they aspire to any kind of "noble" ideals...quite the opposite, in fact. The fact that because of the Shivans younger races get to mature long enough to achieve subspace travel seems incidental to me.
Yup, as stated, we didn't really defeat them in FS2. But, as I've said other places, I don't think the Shivans were after us in FS2. If you consider the idea of them preventing species from abusing lesser species, then it can still make sense. In FS1 they came after the Terrans and Vasudans because we were fighting with each other, each (as far as the Shivans know) trying to take each other out (like the Ancients did to so many others), the Shivans came to destory us, sure to stop us from destroying each other (a pretty weird way to do that), but also so that we don't go destroying other lesser species.
But what happened at the end of FS1, we destroyed the Lucifer. After that (and after we cleared out the rest of the Shivans), the Shivans probably saw how we joined together. Terrans and Vasudans stopped fighting each other and learned to work together. From the Shivan point of view, their job was still done, we no longer became a threat to each other, and because we could learn to work together, we probably wouldn't mistreat other lesser species we would encounter.
And so maybe that's why we didn't hear from the Shivans in 32 years. We didn't what the Ancients couldn't: different species working with each other rather than conquering each other. So why FS2? Why did the Shivans come back. Well, I think that we really did stumble onto them. Do you really think that when that first Shivan ship came through the Knossos, that the GTVA pilots didn't panic and fire on the Shivans first, thereby restarting the hostilities?
Originally posted by Su-tehp:
And if the Shivans are the cosmic destroyers, could the Andarta be considered an elemtal force as well? Shivans = cosmic destroyers while Andarta = cosmic preservers?
*cough* *cough* Revelations *cough* *cough* :D
Originally posted by jonskowitz:
I still liked my theory on the Borg...
Just a side note about Borg, I too had an initial theory: in ST The Movie, that guy and girl join with V'Ger... I just thought they went back to that world of living machines and introduced biomatter to them.
Originally posted by jonskowitz:
It's the communications part I find interesting, and best explains the apparent disorganization of the remaining shivans once the Lucifer was lost. If the Lucy was operating as a communications hub for such a race then her loss would have disrupted the entire network of beings. They would be acting and reacting without the information from it's fellows (which follows nicely with cannon, they still fought very hard, but with little coordination between elements).
I like this idea also. Like that the Lucifer had all those reactors, not just to work the shields, but also the comm systems. Like those big comm nodes you find in FS2, if they relay communications, maybe the Lucifer had the same functions as those, for mobile communications. With the Lucifer lost, it wasn't a Queen bee being lost, but the top general of the expidition, or the ability to coordinate because the comm hub was lost, or maybe just the "oh #&@$!" factor. :D
And one more before I go...
Originally posted by mikhael:
Perhaps I should amend that to say 'life as we understand it is not likely to evolve in zero-g'. Life, the way we understand it, with a integral vascular system and musculoskeletal system couldn't evolve in zero-g. All life on Earth is built around the idea of beating gravity in some way. The circulatory system, for example, has to maintain a certain internal pressure to fight the effect of gravity.
In the case of a zero-g life form, there would be no need for complex skeletal system. A better evolutionary path would be a tough, flexible hide for containing the internal bits. Physics shows us that the perfect shape for 3d structures is a spheroid, as pressures exerted anywhere upon the surface are shifted outwards from the point of impact. Give such a body a token 'ribcage' for protecting internal organs, and you have a good start for a zero-g body. For locomotion, we can look to our own oceans (the closest you can get to zero-g on earth, as the buoyancy of salt water partially offsets the effects of gravity). Squids, for example, move by means of water-jets. In a nebula, or in space, the use of small jets of compressed gas makes perfect sense, and has the advantage of being simpler to implement.
Notice, however, that the shivan phenotype displays jointed, extended legs with either exoskeletal coverings or possibly worn armor. Further, the body shape is more elongated. These are not the products of a spaceborn evolution. They don't make sense for the environment. If shivans evolved, they evolved under gravity. They run. If they were built, they were built by a species that evolved with gravity or had observed species that did.
I maintain, however, that a Shivan is not a zero-g evolved creature, but a constructed one or one that evolved on a planet.
You're right (and got some cool ideas of zero-gee evolved life :)). But I'd still like to leave open the idea that Shivans' physology(sp?) could still be advanced evoloution of zero-gee born life. Look how different we look from amebas(sp?) :).
Basically with Shivan physiology, you've got two paths you can take (OK, maybe more, but my brain is getting tired): 1) they were born from space (or subspace, make that a third probability) and the adapted limbs and stuff (with some bioengineering) to manipulate matter (then just lost their free-floating ameba ways like the way our ancestors came from the ocean, but it doesn't mean every human can swim :)), or 2) they were gravity-born (like us), and as they ventured forth into space, they continued to evolve until they adapted to zero-gee (with some bioengineering) like if we were to adapt hands to the ends of our legs to better live in zero-gee.
OK, nap time :)
Joe.
PS, smiles off... too many images???
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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I'm thinking about all of this and will respond to various comments tomorrow, after I've gotten some sleep.
For now, a further question: Perhaps I missed earlier discussions, but does the "character" of the Shivans follow from the descriptive cosmology of Hinduism? Hinduism is the source of GTVA names for all things Shivan, of course, and I'm assuming that this is where the "elemental force" idea comes from. But how far did the V-people go in emulating or gaining inspiration from Hinduism in creating the FS universe? V-people do know Hinduism, perhaps better than I do, as some of them are of that faith. So, do the Shivans play the same role in the FS universe that Shiva plays in many incarnations in the Hindu "universe"?
In Hinduism, Shiva performs the cosmic dance of creation and destruction, and maintains the harmony of the universe by balancing the two acts. He is the Great Lord of the Hindu godhead. As the balance on which the universe rests, Shiva has antithetical (opposite) sides. When incarnated with his wife, Shakti, he is both giving and loving (devi), and fierce and punishing (deva). He can also be incarnated as Mahadeva Shiva, Lord of Death and the Underworld, and Yoga Shiva, Lord of Wisdom and Calm. As Rudra Shiva, he is identified with the stars, particularly Sirius, and is the Supreme Hunter of All Living Things. And he has an army of bhairavas, all of whom are terrifying reflections of himself.
Hmmmm. If the Shivans are deva, then there might exist another advanced species that is devi. . . . This may be starting to make some sense.
Ascraeus
[This message has been edited by TDM/JM (edited 12-07-2001).]
[This message has been edited by TDM/JM (edited 12-07-2001).]
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As Rudra Shiva, he is identified with the stars, particularly Sirius Hrmm... NTF tie in here, Polaris as the Compass, Sirius as the anchor, Regulus as the bridge... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Needless to say, Volition has given a whole lot of answers in little symbolisms, though they don't seem to mean much, they do.
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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Yeah.... too much. Like seriously, it's all too pat. Or perhaps too blatant, if you want to look at it that way. I find it a bit hard to swallow that everything would just fall into place like that. But that's just me.
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I don't think hinduhism (sp)? has anything to do with how shivan behave, in volition's "mind". First, hindus names are not that used: manticore, basilisk, sathanas, mephisto, cain, lilith,... should I go one? basically no hindu name apart from the wing names lol.
Plus, terran names are from the greeck mythos, and they don't behave at all like the olympus gods I think, same thing for the vasudans. I think the elemntal force theory doesn't come at all from that, but is just an interpretation (sp?) of what the big V guys told us.
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Oh dear. I`m a bit late to this topic so I`ve got a lot to say.
There's a novel by the SF writer Greg Bear called THE FORGE OF GOD, in which Earth is invaded by AI-based smart weapons that are millions of years old. It's a security strategy of an "ancient" species who concluded that the safest universe was one in which they remained the only sentient species. So everytime a species reaches a certain broad technical level, the AI weapons show up and WHAMBAM! Earth is reduced to plasma-laced rubble.
I take it you`ve read the sequel "ANVIL OF STARS"? If not beg, borrow or steal a copy. That book has a lot about fighting on an intersteller scale.
Re: shivan hive minds
I agree that the biggest mistake that Star Trek ever made was to make the borg more human. Why repeat that mistake by giving the shivans a queen or even several queens.
I love the idea of shivans being a hive mind with no centre. Each shivan forms a link in the giant hive mind. There is no queen or she is no more important than any other drone (easily replaced if she dies).
This makes the shivans more terrifying. No matter how many shivans you kill they can still turn any random surviving shivan into a queen and repopulate.
The Sirius Insect League from the game Warhead had interesting property for a hive mind. A single insect wasn't sentient. You needed hundreds before intelligent actions started to occur.
The shivans are without a doubt more intelligent than that but what if they do become more intelligent the more shivans they have in a system? The loss of the lucifer or a sathanas would be a big loss to their tactical abilities.
Re: communication
All this talk about communication gives me an idea about Capella. The real question isn`t why the shivans destroyed Capella but why they ONLY destroyed Capella.
Suppose that shivan high command (what ever that is) sent the sathanas fleet off with orders to destroy Capella. They plan to send to send the fleet on from Capella to destroy the rest of the GTVA but the orders don't get though cause some SOC four man mission blew up the communication nodes.
The fleet blow up Capella and then return home instead of touring through the GTVA and exiting at Ross 128.
Re: shivans as cosmic protectors / destroyers
On major thing people forget is that the shivans may be religious. That would perfectly explain the discrepancy between the times they seem to be protecting weaker races and the times they try to exterminate them.
This is especially true if the shivans don't care about converting other races to their religion just as long as their own race follows the rules.
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I think that they only destroyed Capella because they knew of something that they had to stop, before it was too late... they destroyed Capella to prevent that thing from hapenning, and then they vanished, leaving the GTVA alone... why did they leave us alone? Simple, because we weren't the same assholes that wanted to destroy anything that was in disagreement, and we posed no threat to the natural evolution of other species... The shivans aren't bad guys at all... Also, by destroying Capella they even prevented the extinction of both human and vasudan races...
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Oh, btw, who are the Andarta?????
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Originally posted by Raven2001:
Oh, btw, who are the Andarta?????
This is Ascraeus' website for his "FS2.9" project that he's working on:
http://faculty.concord.edu/manzione/fs3.htm ("http://faculty.concord.edu/manzione/fs3.htm")
It looks to be a Freespace user campaign with great potential. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
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Originally posted by karajorma:
Re: shivans as cosmic protectors / destroyers
On major thing people forget is that the shivans may be religious. That would perfectly explain the discrepancy between the times they seem to be protecting weaker races and the times they try to exterminate them.
This is especially true if the shivans don't care about converting other races to their religion just as long as their own race follows the rules.
"War of Pacification" from SFC 2.
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...Silence...
...even more silence...
...absolute silence...
...BOO!
[This message has been edited by MasterJ (edited 12-08-2001).]
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Originally posted by Raven2001:
I think that they only destroyed Capella because they knew of something that they had to stop, before it was too late... they destroyed Capella to prevent that thing from hapenning, and then they vanished, leaving the GTVA alone... why did they leave us alone? Simple, because we weren't the same assholes that wanted to destroy anything that was in disagreement, and we posed no threat to the natural evolution of other species... The shivans aren't bad guys at all... Also, by destroying Capella they even prevented the extinction of both human and vasudan races...
mmh, I wonder where did you get that. If it's what I think, don't be more precise (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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Originally posted by MasterJ:
"War of Pacification" from SFC 2.
Means nothing to me I`m afraid.
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ok, funny idea, what if the shivans are broader. For example, with the hive-mind theory, the shivan's we encounter are the hunter-killer or police force of a greater race, the greater race creating the shivans. (Now we have a perfectly valid reason to use dyson spheres (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)) There could also be other sub-sets for the 'shivan' race as a whole. Or (as I posted in 2nd subspace topic) the shivans we fought are following the programmed hive command to return home, and the only way for some of them to return home is to blow up a star with certain properties, to form a special subspace tunnel...
This opens up some interesting possibilites
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-Analazon
Creator of the mod that will not be coming for a while
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I dont know about Freespace 2.9, Shivans asking for asylum in the GTVA because the clan was told to commit suicide. Seems pretty far-fetched.
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I dont know about Freespace 2.9, Shivans asking for asylum in the GTVA because the clan was told to commit suicide. Seems pretty far-fetched.
Thats my biggest gripe with the FS2.9 plot but I'm told that it was adapted from the BEL outline rather than part of the initial 2.9 outline.
If Shivans are as we say they are (hive minded or elemental) there really isn't the possibility for defection. That again makes them less alien and more human. They should be totally mindless (in one sense of course) and completely unified in their objectives.
The Shivans didn't show any problem with destroying some of their own ships in the Capella supernova.
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Maybe one of the humans from bosch's ship could have something to do with the defection?
Not bosch himself but maybe one of the others. Depends on what you`ve decided happened to them.
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Originally posted by TDM/JM:
Does the idea of the Shivans as a "programmed smart weapon" fall under the category of "Elemental Force"? There's a novel by the SF writer Greg Bear called THE FORGE OF GOD, in which Earth is invaded by AI-based smart weapons that are millions of years old. It's a security strategy of an "ancient" species who concluded that the safest universe was one in which they remained the only sentient species. So everytime a species reaches a certain broad technical level, the AI weapons show up and WHAMBAM! Earth is reduced to plasma-laced rubble.
I seem to recall something about the cybernetic qualities of Shivans from a cutscene in FS1. So, are the Shivans a smart weapon created by some as-yet unknown species "further toward the galactic core"?
Should we start planning for FS4? The discovery of the species that wields the Shivans like a sword? (So what's bigger than a Dyson Sphere?) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/rolleyes.gif)
Ascraeus
Whoa! I missed out on a lot! I'll have to divide things into multiple replies, so sorry in advance. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
In my favorite ST book, Vendetta, Peter David merges the original Trek episode with the Doomsday Machine with the Borg. The short version is that an ancient race (the Preservers perhaps) were at war with the Borg eons ago. While battling it out on the front lines, they were developing an ultimate weapon as far away from the Borg as they could - the planet killer. The war started to go very badly, so they released the prototype they had completed, which was the Doomsday Machine that Kirk encountered. They also raced to complete the final version, but came just short when the Borg managed to exterminate them.
Anyway, an lady wth a big vendetta against the Borg gets ahold of the final version, finishes the thing, and goes for the Borg.
So the theory was that the planet killer was a last-chance doomsday weapon programmed to wipe out the Borg.
The cool thing was how the 2 stories meshed. The Borg would travel the galaxy, leaving behind them ravaged hunks of radiated rocks instead of planets. The doomsday machine would then use those hunks of rock as fuel, thereby turning the Borg's "garbage" against them. It's a really cool read.
Originally posted by mikhael:
A better evolutionary path would be a tough, flexible hide for containing the internal bits. Physics shows us that the perfect shape for 3d structures is a spheroid, as pressures exerted anywhere upon the surface are shifted outwards from the point of impact. Give such a body a token 'ribcage' for protecting internal organs, and you have a good start for a zero-g body.
Actually, the reverse is true:
The sphere is the most efficient shape in terms of surface area to volume. A spherical object will contain the largest volume for the least surface area. So, in space, where there is virtually no outside pressure, the sphere would be the worst shap for containing gases or bodily organs, as the pressure difference would be at its extreme.
On the other end of the spectrum would be an object completely composed of extremely long spikes, thereby giving the most surface area with the least amount of internal volume, minimizing the pressure differences.
Hmmm... spiky.... Shivan ships are spiky... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wtf.gif)
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America, stand assured that Israel truly understands what you are going through.
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar ("http://www.geocities.com/sandvich/index.html"), the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)
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Originally posted by mikhael:
...Maybe, they slay races that use subspace because we don't understand that it is their home and in our ignorance, we destroy it wantonly?
In Dan Simmons Hyperion novels, there is a second layer of reality called 'the Void Which Binds'... Humanity...do(es) not know that this gross misuse of the Void is destroying the things that exist there. Eventually, these things reach out and remove humanity's ability to use the Void (mostly).
Maybe that's what the Shivans are.
In its own way it's like the beings that exist in the DS9 wormhole, and the discovery that high warp travel damages the fabric of subspace (both in Trek).
Originally posted by IceFire:
The key issue with the Shivans I think is that we know virtually nothing about what they really are. Thats a bonus for the story because you get this sense that your fighting against something that just doesn't look at things the same way you do. The whole concept of Shivans is that they do almost nothing conventionally, they are meant to be alien.
This is the primary factor in the FS universe storylines. The Vasudans were, in the beginning, the devil that humanity already knew. While they were a threat, they weren't terrifying, simply because they were a "known" factor to humanity.
Then came the Shivans. They were the unknown, their purposes and origins were and still are a complete mystery. That is what made them terrifying.
If that unknown factor is completely removed or explained away in a campaign, the Shivans will become just another enemy. Perhaps more powerful than the usual, but no longer will they be the devil we don't know.
Originally posted by jonskowitz:
The borg were only scary until we had something to communicate with (the queen). After that they were no more frightening than the Romulans, the Kazon, or even Wesley Crusher.
I still liked my theory on the Borg (which could also be applied to the Shivans I guess). The behavior of any one unit is decided/ influenced by the behavior, information, and instructions gathered by all the units around it. So long as all of the units remain in commucications with each other they all function as a huge brain, guiding the actions of the whole with the information from the individuals. It also explains why away teams can simply board without attracting much attention so long as they don't draw the attention of too many of the individual Borg to themselves... So long as there is no central "descision-maker" the Shivans can remain enigmatic and dangerous.
I agree with you here - the Borg got totally screwed up as the ST shows progressed - they needed to be kept "leaderless". (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
The idea of the Lucy not being the "queen's" ship but a mobile communication device makes sense to me. AFAIK it fit's all the facts, whether yo go for hive mind or elemental force. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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Originally posted by Su-tehp:
There might not be ONE "queen bee" but SEVERAL "queen bees" in all of Shivan "society." Rather than have all the Shivans ruled by some sort of "central authority" in one nexus, (like the queen of the Borg), Shivan society could be separated into several hives, each with their own autonomous ruler. Rather than have the Shivans emulate the Borg by having only one collective, Shivan society could be made up of several hives all working in tandem towards the same goal(s).
...
For lack of a better term, we can call this the "multiple hive theory." As to how many hives there are and how big each hive is (how many Shivans and how many ships, etc.), this still remains open to speculation.
About the Borg and the multiple hive thing, in Shatner's ST book, The Return, he theorizes that the Borg are not a single hive, but what you said: a multiple-branch hive mind. This explains why the Borg kept on exsisting after First Contact. Sort of... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
It's late here (almost 6am - thanks, guys! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/mad.gif) ) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/lol.gif), so I'll stop here. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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America, stand assured that Israel truly understands what you are going through.
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar ("http://www.geocities.com/sandvich/index.html"), the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)
[This message has been edited by sandwich (edited 12-08-2001).]
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Originally posted by sandwich:
About the Borg and the multiple hive thing, in Shatner's ST book, The Return, he theorizes that the Borg are not a single hive, but what you said: a multiple-branch hive mind. This explains why the Borg kept on exsisting after First Contact. Sort of... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Yeah, I read this book, too, but my theory is slightly different. While the collective may have several "tentacles", there is only one collective with one queen. All the "tentacles" lead back to her. Shatner's book "The Return" was a good read, but it was written before the appearance of the Borg queen in "First Contact". The Star Trek TV shows and movies never mention Kirk and company's attack on the Borg "homeworld" and the Central Nexus computer that was located there. The TV shows and movies always maintain that the Queen WAS the collective so SHE, and not some mysterious supercomputer at a faraway neutron star system, was the center of the Borg.
The Borg have only one collective. It may be a collective with several tentacles, but it's still one collective. My hypothesis is that the Shivans have several collectives all working in tandem. It's not quite the same thing.
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
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Of course there's nothing that says that the Queen (as encountered) wasn't the computer's avatar (sort of like "Rommie" in the show 'Andromeda') (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
This would (largely) explain why she could be killed again and again (there are three documented cases of her death during a TNG episode, the final Voyager episode and 'First Contact') and still come back to make a nuisance of herself.
Of course we don't know what happened to the collective after Voyager, but the damage was caused by a computer virus (I think, can't remember off the top of my head) so even if they were destroyed by that event it could just as easily be the supercomputer got infected with said virus as the queen entity (quite likely if they are one and the same).
[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 12-08-2001).]
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Originally posted by venom2506:
waitwait! you say sending a queen in a super destroyer, escorted by 3 lesser destroyers, on their own, was safer than sending a queen in a sathansa, with 79 other sathanas around it, and hundreds of destroyers backing them?
In an invincible super destroyer, yes, I am sying that.
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"Young fry of treachery!" Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 2, Line 81
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Originally posted by Su-tehp:
Shatner's book "The Return" was a good read, but it was written before the appearance of the Borg queen in "First Contact". The Star Trek TV shows and movies never mention Kirk and company's attack on the Borg "homeworld" and the Central Nexus computer that was located there.
Erm, are you sure it was written before? I could have sworn it mentioned incedents from the First Contact movie...
Either way, it doesn't really matter: as far as the canon episodes are concerned, nothing in the books ever occurred - they are just as "official" as user-made campaigns for FS2. The only exception are those books that are based on the TV episodes directly - novelizations of them.
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America, stand assured that Israel truly understands what you are going through.
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar ("http://www.geocities.com/sandvich/index.html"), the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)
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Originally posted by sandwich:
On the other end of the spectrum would be an object completely composed of extremely long spikes, thereby giving the most surface area with the least amount of internal volume, minimizing the pressure differences.
Hmmm... spiky.... Shivan ships are spiky... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wtf.gif)
Oh yeah... also like (yarg! another ST reference (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)) the crystaline entity.
Originally posted by sandwich:
If that unknown factor is completely removed or explained away in a campaign, the Shivans will become just another enemy. Perhaps more powerful than the usual, but no longer will they be the devil we don't know.
Yeah, but so many of us do want to explain the Shivans. Even if our campaigns do try to explain them away and take away that terror factor, it's OK because we might not have any follow up campaigns, and (most importantly) it's not the official word from (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif), so they Shivans could still be mysterious because (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif) hasn't taken away the mystery.
Also, about all of this hive-mind, multiple-hives, queen-bees, etc. I'd like to pull over some sci-fi references I made in the FS3 thread.
Originally posted by joek:
... You could consider them telepathic, or mentally linked via technology. Where as thinking this would make them "hive mind" as the Borg, it could also not. In "The Light of Other Days" (by Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter) and the "Forever..." series by Joe Haldeman ("Forever War", "Forever Peace", and "Forever Free"), the authors deal with the idea of people linking their minds together through technology. In both "The Light of Other Days" and "Forever Peace" people retain their individuality, but the mental link can provide them with like an Internet built into their minds. They can talk and discuss ideas with other people in fractions of a second. They can share memories and feelings of other people, while still having their own and their own individuality...
What I'm saying here is that a "collective" doesn't have to be hive like. Imagine having your own personality, but you can look up and know what every other personality in the collective is doing and thinking.
... although... with that idea, being communicative like that would allow for the Shivans to be more coordinated even in just fighter wings. Like flocks of birds or school of fish, they would all be able to turn at the same time and be much more effective than Alpha 1's wingmen (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif). So, maybe the Shivans aren't like that, or maybe, refering to after the Lucifer was destroyed, they are, but all the communication has to go through a hub to be as effective.
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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Originally posted by Black Wolf:
In an invincible super destroyer, yes, I am sying that.
excepted the lucifer is not invincible at all. The GTA had troubles with it coz they didn't have beams. Now a Lucifer is much less dangerous than a sathanas, coz a couple destroyers can come close and toast it, while they won't even have time to come near the big S.
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The Lucifer also had a special kind of shield though (FRED2 invulnerability tag (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)), which made it much harder to destroy. I think the Lucifer is a ship specifically designed to go after other species and destroy their planetary settlements. (Vasuda Prime was destroyed by a Lucifer, as was Altair I, and Earth came close) I guess the Sathanas might be for destroying stars or something, but I have no idea about that...
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Originally posted by CP5670:
The Lucifer also had a special kind of shield though (FRED2 invulnerability tag (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)), which made it much harder to destroy. I think the Lucifer is a ship specifically designed to go after other species and destroy their planetary settlements. (Vasuda Prime was destroyed by a Lucifer, as was Altair I, and Earth came close) I guess the Sathanas might be for destroying stars or something, but I have no idea about that...
There's no proof altair was destroyed by a lucifer. Vasuda was turned into a radioactive rock, Altair is a pretty green planet. With only our average nukes, earth would be rendered unhabitable for dozens of milleniums, and Altair was destroyed only (!) 4 milleniums ago...
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Originally posted by joek:
... although... with that idea, being communicative like that would allow for the Shivans to be more coordinated even in just fighter wings. Like flocks of birds or school of fish, they would all be able to turn at the same time and be much more effective than Alpha 1's wingmen (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif).
Just like Timothy Zahn's Copperhead Corvines in the Conqueror's trilogy. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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America, stand assured that Israel truly understands what you are going through.
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar ("http://www.geocities.com/sandvich/index.html"), the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)
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Originally posted by venom2506:
There's no proof altair was destroyed by a lucifer...
No... didn't the command briefing or something (too busy to look it up now) say that there was evidence of Lucifer's beams on artifacts at Altair?
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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Originally posted by joek:
No... didn't the command briefing or something (too busy to look it up now) say that there was evidence of Lucifer's beams on artifacts at Altair?
Joe.
radiations that could be of shivan origin, the lucifer isn't mentionned I think (too busy to check too tho, but I can remember more or less).
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Originally posted by venom2506:
mmh, I wonder where did you get that. If it's what I think, don't be more precise (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
What were you thinking about????
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Found it:
sm3-04a.fsm Command Briefing:
I say this because it is immediately apparent that this planet was also destroyed by Shivan weapons. This is difficult to believe, considering the age of the remains, but the evidence is conclusive.
And since the Ancients knew about the Lucifer (and left us with knowledge how to defeat it). So I guess you can assume that the Lucifer beat up Altair... although you know what happens when you assume. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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Originally posted by joek:
Found it:
sm3-04a.fsm Command Briefing:
And since the Ancients knew about the Lucifer (and left us with knowledge how to defeat it). So I guess you can assume that the Lucifer beat up Altair... although you know what happens when you assume. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Joe.
How do you know they knew about the Lucifer (hehe)? They talk about a capship with shields. As far as I know, we may know only 1% of all the shivan ship classes.
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And since the Ancients knew about the Lucifer (and left us with knowledge how to defeat it). So I guess you can assume that the Lucifer beat up Altair... although you know what happens when you assume. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
LOL you are just like me; after reading venom's post I was searching through FS1 command briefings, the last ancients movie and the FS2 ancients animation for almost half an hour. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif) I had typed up my post but the stupid IE froze before I got a chance to post it and I had to get off the computer then, so I decided to hold off on it. :P
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Originally posted by CP5670:
Could the Shivans be a completely different non-biological form of life, yet unknown to man? (possibly mechanical but replicating)
Horta!
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Originally posted by venom2506:
How do you know they knew about the Lucifer (hehe)? They talk about a capship with shields. As far as I know, we may know only 1% of all the shivan ship classes.
Yeah. Cause you could also think that they Altair was the furthest Ancients outpost (the one they thought would be least destroyed by Shivans), and so there they put all the info they learned about the Lucifer--which only destroyed their homeworld. From FS1, we see the Lucifer only going after home worlds (with the occasional blast into an Arcadia and Orion). So sure, maybe it was other non-Lucifer ships that bombarded other Ancient worlds. I could imagine that.
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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Say the ancients built a self-sustaining ship could they do a intrasystem jump to some remote part and hide?
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I am ignored rather fluently aren't I?
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We've never seen Altair have we (at least on in an offical mission)? So who's to say that it isn't a brown lifeless mess?
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'The more women there are about, the softer a wise man steps.' Saying in Arad Doman.
'Well, since the whole loaf won't be mine, I will settle for whatever slices fall my way.' - Mazrim Taim
Why not visit the Time of Change website? Well once I get back up that is.
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Originally posted by Tar-Palantir:
We've never seen Altair have we (at least on in an offical mission)? So who's to say that it isn't a brown lifeless mess?
it's shown in a CB anim, if I remember well, and it's a pretty blue and green planet, just like ours (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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And yet, we know that it got toasted by the Lucifer- errr, by some Shivans. I wonder what kind of damage would be detectable after so very long (8k years?) that distinguished it as Shivan battle scars. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/confused.gif)
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From Setekh:
And yet, we know that it got toasted by the Lucifer- errr, by some Shivans. I wonder what kind of damage would be detectable after so very long (8k years?) that distinguished it as Shivan battle scars.
I dunno. You do enough damage to raze an entire planetary surface from orbit, I think that's going to leave a lasting mark.
Heck, look at the chunk of debris that hit Mars and created Tythonus Chasma (the largest canyon in the solar system). Its age is estimated, conservatively, at over 500 million years. And that was just a rock hitting once. The Shivans steamrolled an entire planetary surface.
On sheerest speculation, let's say the Shivans used high energy weaponry to crack the mantle in several places. That would create distinct scarring that would outlast the resulting cataclysm.
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--Mik
[This message has been edited by mikhael (edited 12-14-2001).]
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I'd rather look at what would happen with our nukes. The radiation left by nukes would stay for about a dozen of milleniums, I've read, but they would remain only in zones where they couldn't have been cleaned by weather, erosion and stuff like that (caves, deep forests). The shivan weapon most likeky generates very particular radiations, easily recognizable by the GTVA
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t's been a while since I played FS1 what exactly did the shivans do to Vasuda Prime?
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Originally posted by karajorma:
t's been a while since I played FS1 what exactly did the shivans do to Vasuda Prime?
See big Lucifer superdestroyer. See big Lucifer superdestroyer with big beams.
See big Lucifer superdestroyer with big beams fire on Vasudan homeworld. See Vasudan homeworld become big radioactive ball of sand and glass.
Don't be a Vasudan homeworld. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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FRED Zone's ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fredzone/home.shtml") Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God
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Well, the destruction of a planet could be put down to 2 things - accident/disater or an attack.
If the planet was not destroyed by a cataclysm, the natural assumption would be the Lucifer was repsonsible - as it was the only known class of ship able to destroy a planet at a time. When you take into account the Sathanas fleet, it's just as possible that they razed Altair - or another similar craft type did.
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Originally posted by Su-tehp:
See big Lucifer superdestroyer. See big Lucifer superdestroyer with big beams.
See big Lucifer superdestroyer with big beams fire on Vasudan homeworld. See Vasudan homeworld become big radioactive ball of sand and glass.
Don't be a Vasudan homeworld. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Somehow I just don't buy it. Unless the lucifer has a higher setting to its beams. It would have taken months or even years to "paint" the entire surface of a planet with beams. Those beams don`t have much width to them and considering the amount of damage they do to capships they wouldn`t have a huge amount of power by the time they got through the planets atmosphere.
Seems much more likely that they'd just open a hatch and rain down nukes (or even just asteroids).
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Originally posted by karajorma:
Somehow I just don't buy it. Unless the lucifer has a higher setting to its beams. It would have taken months or even years to "paint" the entire surface of a planet with beams. Those beams don`t have much width to them and considering the amount of damage they do to capships they wouldn`t have a huge amount of power by the time they got through the planets atmosphere.
Seems much more likely that they'd just open a hatch and rain down nukes (or even just asteroids).
Unless, of course, the Shivans sent more than one. Or if they just boiled it's atmosphere. Or they just punched a needle thin beam through the mantle into the core and then widened the aperture. It could have been a combination of all these things.
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
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Originally posted by karajorma:
Somehow I just don't buy it. Unless the lucifer has a higher setting to its beams. It would have taken months or even years to "paint" the entire surface of a planet with beams. Those beams don`t have much width to them and considering the amount of damage they do to capships they wouldn`t have a huge amount of power by the time they got through the planets atmosphere.
Seems much more likely that they'd just open a hatch and rain down nukes (or even just asteroids).
they used alternate shots, it seems: the beam that destroyes the city in the CB anim is blue/white, not yellow.
Btw, i think the Luci just destroyed cities, the planet is rendered unhabitable because of the resulting radiations, not because it has been completly leveled.
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Might I remind you that it only took TWO hits from the Lucy's main beams to eviscerate the Galatea. That SOB is several kilometers long and made of stuff that (quite literally) laughs hysterically at nuclear weapons!?!
Also, you're forgetting that the passage of the particle beam would cause firestorms created by the surrounding superheated atmoshpere that would cause massive collateral damage to a wide area, not just the point of beam impact (likely, what we're seeing in the 'Bombardment of Vasuda Prime' video is this superhot atmosphere and not the beam at all).
[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 12-15-2001).]
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Originally posted by mikhael:
I dunno. You do enough damage to raze an entire planetary surface from orbit, I think that's going to leave a lasting mark.
Heck, look at the chunk of debris that hit Mars and created Tythonus Chasma (the largest canyon in the solar system). Its age is estimated, conservatively, at over 500 million years. And that was just a rock hitting once. The Shivans steamrolled an entire planetary surface.
On sheerest speculation, let's say the Shivans used high energy weaponry to crack the mantle in several places. That would create distinct scarring that would outlast the resulting cataclysm.
What I meant was in reference to Venom's recollection of Altair (well, the razed planet) being 'pretty blue and green planet, just like ours'. If everything was looking rosy, how could we tell it had been nuked by the Shivans? Planets tend to heal themselves - Earth isn't marked by meteorite craters as much as Mercury or the Moon - but if Altair had healed itself up as far as looking similar to Earth in terms of ocean and greenery, how could we tell what damage had been caused? Indeed, what damage would be visible?
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Originally posted by Setekh:
What I meant was in reference to Venom's recollection of Altair (well, the razed planet) being 'pretty blue and green planet, just like ours'. If everything was looking rosy, how could we tell it had been nuked by the Shivans? Planets tend to heal themselves - Earth isn't marked by meteorite craters as much as Mercury or the Moon - but if Altair had healed itself up as far as looking similar to Earth in terms of ocean and greenery, how could we tell what damage had been caused? Indeed, what damage would be visible?
You should come to the US and visit Meteor Crater (a mile across and several hundred feet deep). The Earth is marked by such things, but our atmosphere handles most of the biggest debris. Altair might be a pretty, blue-green world now, somewhere on the surface, there's going to be something like Tythonus Chasma or Meteor Crater.
If, as I speculated, they pierced the mantle, the resulting geological upheaval would produce a distinct, easily recognizable set of geological features: anamolous, enormous slabs of basaltic rock, lava beds and the like. Those tend to last a good long time. Think of the tectonic shearing along the new superfault created by a slasher beam designed to punch a hole like that. At the very least, you're going to have extremely suspicious looking wall-like mountain ranges, I think.
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
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Okay, never mind me, I'm an idiot. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Hey, wait there. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif) (I'm a sucker for punishment.) Who says it couldn't have been another type of weapon? An Ancients one, for example. The scientists that crash-landed made a positive ID that it was Shivan battle-damage. Gee, this roaming band of Vasudans must've know their Shivan weaponry pretty well, or else someone in Intelligence (GTI? PVI? There was no GTVA back then...) did some serious research. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Oh it could have been an Ancients weapon. I just think those crazy Vasudan scientists were looked at the remains of a planetary *****slap and immediately associated it with the Shivans. After all, who else would have slapped down an entire planet?
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
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Lol! A planetary *****slap... well said. Mmm, good point there. Gee, the Ancients could have had a mighty big civil war. Except the artifact the scientists found - the one with the Ancients monologues in it, which we showed how to track Shivans into subspace - doesn't have any clues towards that, but instead supports the Shivan planetary *****slap possibility. Oh well. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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About this talk about Altair... so I smell a render coming on? (Not by me but by someone with render talent). A planet the looks like the moon Miranda (all fractured and beat up), but is now covered with green forests and rivers cascading off miles-high creavases and canyons. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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Originally posted by Setekh:
What I meant was in reference to Venom's recollection of Altair (well, the razed planet) being 'pretty blue and green planet, just like ours'. If everything was looking rosy, how could we tell it had been nuked by the Shivans? Planets tend to heal themselves - Earth isn't marked by meteorite craters as much as Mercury or the Moon - but if Altair had healed itself up as far as looking similar to Earth in terms of ocean and greenery, how could we tell what damage had been caused? Indeed, what damage would be visible?
Radiations signatures I guess.... wasn't there some mention of that in the briefing after Ross 128 was destroyed?
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Originally posted by joek:
About this talk about Altair... so I smell a render coming on? (Not by me but by someone with render talent). A planet the looks like the moon Miranda (all fractured and beat up), but is now covered with green forests and rivers cascading off miles-high creavases and canyons. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Joe.
Setekh: pay attention to this guy (p-p-p-please, Eddie!). (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) I would LOVE to see something like that. *heh* Heck that would make a great world in which to base an RPG. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Did I just quote Roger Rabbit? Eviscerate me now.
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
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*charges the Eviscerator* Any last words?
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Please don't kill me! I'll give you the pods! No cargo is worth my life!
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Originally posted by mikhael:
Setekh: pay attention to this guy (p-p-p-please, Eddie!). (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) I would LOVE to see something like that. *heh* Heck that would make a great world in which to base an RPG. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Heheh, I'll add it to the list of about 20 render ideas I have sitting next to me. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) Sounds like a challenge... good. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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The Shivans are an elemental force. It's not a theory, it's said on the Freespace 1 cutscenes.
I don't know if anyone will pay attention to this, but here it goes anyway:
Everyone here knows the Freespace universe quite well. I'm surprised, then, that one possibility - one that I find extremely probable - wasn't brought up: the Shivans are an elemental force, but they were not born as one. What made the Shivans into the unstoppable force was understanding. They understood the very existance of the universe, it's real reason, and what must be done to protect it. And that's why they're the Great Destroyers, but also the Great Preservers.
The fact that Bosch could communicate with them also points towards that direction - Bosch was a genius (as hard as it is to believe), and perhaps he ultimately understood the Shivans. Perhaps he, by understanding the Great Destroyers, had a glimpse of understanding the universe itself, for when the Shivans unveiled what could be described as the ultimate mystery, they became a part of the very universe they belonged to.
Maybe someone came before the Shivans. Maybe someone will come after them. But the Great Destroyers and Great Preservers will always be there, to make sure the universe becomes what it's supposed to. And maybe, just maybe, the Shivans are not the enemy - they're just the tool and we couldn't realize the truth yet.
Makes sense?
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Originally posted by Styxx:
The Shivans are an elemental force. It's not a theory, it's said on the Freespace 1 cutscenes.
I don't know if anyone will pay attention to this, but here it goes anyway:
Everyone here knows the Freespace universe quite well. I'm surprised, then, that one possibility - one that I find extremely probable - wasn't brought up: the Shivans are an elemental force, but they were not born as one. What made the Shivans into the unstoppable force was understanding. They understood the very existance of the universe, it's real reason, and what must be done to protect it. And that's why they're the Great Destroyers, but also the Great Preservers.
The fact that Bosch could communicate with them also points towards that direction - Bosch was a genius (as hard as it is to believe), and perhaps he ultimately understood the Shivans. Perhaps he, by understanding the Great Destroyers, had a glimpse of understanding the universe itself, for when the Shivans unveiled what could be described as the ultimate mystery, they became a part of the very universe they belonged to.
Maybe someone came before the Shivans. Maybe someone will come after them. But the Great Destroyers and Great Preservers will always be there, to make sure the universe becomes what it's supposed to. And maybe, just maybe, the Shivans are not the enemy - they're just the tool and we couldn't realize the truth yet.
Makes sense?
I don't buy it.
I would think the term 'elemental force' means 'intrinsic to the structure of the universe, like gravity. If the Shivans are what you suggest, they're not elemental, they xenocidal fanatics with a huge load of arrogant belief in the superiority of their vision of the universe.
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
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Originally posted by Styxx:
The Shivans are an elemental force. It's not a theory, it's said on the Freespace 1 cutscenes.
I don't know if anyone will pay attention to this, but here it goes anyway:
Everyone here knows the Freespace universe quite well. I'm surprised, then, that one possibility - one that I find extremely probable - wasn't brought up: the Shivans are an elemental force, but they were not born as one. What made the Shivans into the unstoppable force was understanding. They understood the very existance of the universe, it's real reason, and what must be done to protect it. And that's why they're the Great Destroyers, but also the Great Preservers.
The fact that Bosch could communicate with them also points towards that direction - Bosch was a genius (as hard as it is to believe), and perhaps he ultimately understood the Shivans. Perhaps he, by understanding the Great Destroyers, had a glimpse of understanding the universe itself, for when the Shivans unveiled what could be described as the ultimate mystery, they became a part of the very universe they belonged to.
Maybe someone came before the Shivans. Maybe someone will come after them. But the Great Destroyers and Great Preservers will always be there, to make sure the universe becomes what it's supposed to. And maybe, just maybe, the Shivans are not the enemy - they're just the tool and we couldn't realize the truth yet.
Makes sense?
That is basically what I also think about the Shívans. I think the line from the last cutscene in FS1 pretty much sums up what the Shivans are: "The Shivans are the great destroyers, but they are also the great preservers."
Pez
[This message has been edited by Pez (edited 12-19-2001).]
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Originally posted by Pez:
That is basically what I also think about the Shívans. I think the line from the last cutscene in FS1 pretty much sums up what the Shivans are: "The Shivans are the great destroyers, but they are also the great preservers."
Pez
[This message has been edited by Pez (edited 12-19-2001).]
So do I.
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Very true.
Actually the entire underlying theme of "The Babel Effect" is how ambition fogs truth.
Certain elements are so die-hard on saving humanity that they fail to realise that their means will lead to a greater issue. (hrmm.. possible sequel? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) )
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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Has anyone here played Alpha Centauri? The Mind Worms are similar in role to the Shivans in that they are a tool/ more than a civilisation. But they were constructed, by the Progenitors. Maybe the Shivans were too? I can't remember... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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Originally posted by Setekh:
Has anyone here played Alpha Centauri? The Mind Worms are similar in role to the Shivans in that they are a tool/ more than a civilisation. But they were constructed, by the Progenitors. Maybe the Shivans were too? I can't remember... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
well, just like the protoss and the zergs in starcraft were created by the Xel'naga (sp?), but I don't remember why they created them.
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I think they were destined to become bred together to create the perfect being - I remember the Overmind droning on about how 'they were created pure of form, and we were created pure of essence' - and how Duran created the Hybrid, seeded it across worlds, and called it 'the completion of a cycle'. Man, I so want SC2. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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Originally posted by Pez:
I think the line from the last cutscene in FS1 pretty much sums up what the Shivans are: "The Shivans are the great destroyers, but they are also the great preservers."
Yeah, but that was just the Ancients talking wasn't it? I mean to we take it as (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif)'s words about who the Shivans are, or as the Ancients words as to who they think the Shivans are?
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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Originally posted by Setekh:
Has anyone here played Alpha Centauri? The Mind Worms are similar in role to the Shivans in that they are a tool/ more than a civilisation. But they were constructed, by the Progenitors. Maybe the Shivans were too? I can't remember... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
I never got the impression that the mindworms were created by the Progenitors. Maybe I should go back and replay the game (if I can get it to install again. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif) My CD seems to have a scratch in a critical place.)
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
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Originally posted by joek:
Yeah, but that was just the Ancients talking wasn't it? I mean to we take it as (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif)'s words about who the Shivans are, or as the Ancients words as to who they think the Shivans are?
Joe.
That's a human speaking in the last cutscene, possible yourself? But I agree it's not V's words. But it seems like [V] puts in little clues everynow and then in cutscenes and ingame. And I think that the line I wrote above is one such little clue.
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Starwing's theory about why the Shivans do what they do:
I can see the holes myself, but I still like it, somehow.
The Shivans where created by another race, let's call them Titans (fathers of the gods (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)) They built them to guard their borders, which are, in space, subspace nodes.
Over time, the Titans developed, and with them also the Shivans. One sunny day, the Titans started to fear their own creations, because they had grown too strong. So they tried to wipe them out. But the Shivans didn't let the Titans wipe them out. They fought back and retreated into the nebula. This was the beginning of a war between Titans and Shivans. But over time the Titans grew more powerful than the Shivans because Shivans are warriors, they are not able to develope themselves. So they started to raid other races. For example: Ancients where experts of subspace physics, as they built the Knossos gates. Shivans came and wiped them out and got hold of the advanced subspace technology.
And they did another thing: playing god. They pop up with a almost unstoppable force and force other races to evolve to be able to stop this force, then the Shivans steal the technology the other race developed. Like: Titans have unbeatable shielded ships, so Shivans go after ancients with Lucy to force them to find a way how to kill Lucy. They didn't find it in time, so Shivans come back and attack Terrans. Lucy is killed, and while the fleet distracts the Terrans the Shivans take subspace tracking device to kill Titans.
They also present their technology to the Terrans: shields, beams, and so on. Years later they return to look if their seed has grown. It has, as Terrans now have beam weapons. They take whatever they could use (probably advanced Vasudan reactor cores?) and present another piece of tech, the supernova weapon.
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You guys are still strange...
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Noo, no other race created the Shivans! The Shivans were born from the flux of subspace!
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Originally posted by Zeronet:
Noo, no other race created the Shivans! The Shivans were born from the flux of subspace!
pff, neither they did. They are a common species that just followed an unusual developement, IMHO.
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Originally posted by Starwing:
The Shivans where created by another race, let's call them Titans (fathers of the gods (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)) They built them to guard their borders, which are, in space, subspace nodes.
I kinda like that theory. To me it makes more sense to me than the manifestation of the universe theory that seems so popular.
If the shivans really are the manifestation of the universe why fight them? We all know who is going to win that battle! Sooner or later the universe will win.
On the other hand this theory does explain why only one lucifer was sent against us. The shivans had learned all they could about fighing shielded ships. Now they were trying to learn something else (how to fight a numerically superior enemy?)
That said I still prefer the theory that the shivans evolved somewhere and take down enemy races because it furthers their own goals (which we haven`t figured out yet)
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Styxx said what there was to say... yep (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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[rant]Does anyone else just wish that (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif) would release the full story to us... kinda like what the Smashing Pumpkins did with "Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music". (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif) could just email us fans the story (call it FS3: The Friends and Enemies of Interplay :lol (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) and we'd all be happier.[/rant]
OK, my rant's over, back to topic:
Should we maybe start go categorize all these theories. Make it like a break down of theories. Example:
- Shivans are environmental
- Shivans maintain balance
- Shivans try to evolve us into "perfect" species (and killing the errors: Ancients)
[/list=a]
- Shivans were created
- By other species to fight with Ancients
- By other species to conquer the universe
[/list=a]
- Shivans were born
- In space and evolved and gave themselves limbs
- On a terrestrial surface and evolved into space travelers
- And were kicked out of their home by the Ancients
- And fight big tough species to give little species the same chance they had
[/list=a]
- In some subspace flux and fight now to protect their home
[/list=a]
[/list=a]
[edit] What UBB lists doen't nest? Fine, HTML lists [/edit]
Something like that... so that we can begin to focus all of our ideas and even see where some new ones can come in.
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
[This message has been edited by joek (edited 12-21-2001).]
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You guys all think too much. I'm not sure im following... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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"We have a responsibility to the coming generations"
"What responsibility???"
"To keep track of the mistakes we made as a species."
"We need to remember to spread the word,and that's what keeps me alive."
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Originally posted by BD:
You guys all think too much. I'm not sure im following... (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
I think about this because it makes the game more meaningful. If you're just shooting down aliens because they're in front of you, you might as well play Space Invaders. On the other hand, if you let yourself go, if you 'step' into the game, it becomes something greater.
When you're out there in the inkyblack, jinkin and dodgin and ventilating Shivans because you're angry over what they did (we didn't do anything to them, why are they killing us?) or scared because of what they represent (they're inky black and bloody red and they crept out of the night and slaughtered our men), it means morep. It goes from being just a game to a full experience. A story is told and emotions are raised and the primal thrill of a victorious hunt comes to the fore.
Maybe I do think too much, but only so I can enjoy it that much more.
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
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...and I thought I was the only lunatic who did that (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/spineyes.gif), glad to know I'm not alone (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 12-21-2001).]
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Originally posted by jonskowitz:
...and I thought I was the only lunatic who did that (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/spineyes.gif) , glad to know I'm not alone (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 12-21-2001).]
you're definitively not the only one (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif) count me in (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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Originally posted by mikhael:
I never got the impression that the mindworms were created by the Progenitors. Maybe I should go back and replay the game (if I can get it to install again. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif) My CD seems to have a scratch in a critical place.)
Well, they might not have been created specifically, but the Progenitors created the entire planet, and its ecology, with the goal of bringing an entire planet to sentience. But, after the Tau Ceti Flowering, they realised how catastrophic this Planet could be - so came to stop it, basically. But anyway, I'm guessing since they created the planet, its ecology, and the xenofungus that could gain sentience, I took it that they created the whole bundle too - including Mindworms, Locusts of Chiron, and Isles of the Deep. Just my guess, anyway. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Originally posted by Setekh:
Well, they might not have been created specifically, but the Progenitors created the entire planet, and its ecology, with the goal of bringing an entire planet to sentience. But, after the Tau Ceti Flowering, they realised how catastrophic this Planet could be - so came to stop it, basically. But anyway, I'm guessing since they created the planet, its ecology, and the xenofungus that could gain sentience, I took it that they created the whole bundle too - including Mindworms, Locusts of Chiron, and Isles of the Deep. Just my guess, anyway. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Wait: is this stuff revealed in the Alien Crossfire expansion? You're talking about a lot of stuff I don't remember at all. I never picked up Alien Crossfire. :/
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
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Oh, you haven't played Crossfire! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/redface.gif) My bad... yeh, a lot of what I was saying occurred in Crossfire, when the Progenitors returned to Planet. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Originally posted by Setekh:
Oh, you haven't played Crossfire! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/redface.gif) My bad... yeh, a lot of what I was saying occurred in Crossfire, when the Progenitors returned to Planet. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
*heh* And I was going along thinking that Charon was developing sentience naturally. Transcendence is such a kickass way to win.
I'll pick up Crossfire one of these days when I see it on the bargain rack with SMAC included. My CD has a horrific scratch that makes it unreadable. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
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Originally posted by mikhael:
*heh* And I was going along thinking that Charon was developing sentience naturally. Transcendence is such a kickass way to win.
I'll pick up Crossfire one of these days when I see it on the bargain rack with SMAC included. My CD has a horrific scratch that makes it unreadable. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Transcendence is definitely the best. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) Who do you play? I'm a researcher myself, so I'm always the University.
Oh and you know what? I was trying to find Crossfire in my local EB for a friend but was disappointed to find that they'd discontinued stock. And guess what? Firaxis.com discontinued too. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
And for your CD... have you got some Mr. Sheen around? Or can you get your hands on some? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Originally posted by Setekh:
Transcendence is definitely the best. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) Who do you play? I'm a researcher myself, so I'm always the University.
Oh and you know what? I was trying to find Crossfire in my local EB for a friend but was disappointed to find that they'd discontinued stock. And guess what? Firaxis.com discontinued too. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
And for your CD... have you got some Mr. Sheen around? Or can you get your hands on some? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
I have two different factions, each because I like my rather twisted take on their goals/methods.
My first, and favorite, is Chairman Shenjii Yang of the Human Hive. I figure that he's got a simple goal in mind: Everyone is a part of the Hive, everyone is a cog in his Great Machine. Everything will be done, anything will be sacrificed for that goal. The people will be his hands and eyes. He will be their brain. The Empath Guild and the Living City are two of his most important posessions. The Hive is One and that One is Chairman Yang. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/drevil.gif)
On the other hand, I also like to be the Stepdaughters of Gaia. I don't like their usual green bent though, and naturally twist it about. I make them aggressive and expansionist. Anyone, anything, that gets in their way will be left on the field of battle to feed the trees. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
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Originally posted by Setekh:
Transcendence is definitely the best. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) Who do you play? I'm a researcher myself, so I'm always the University.
I always play the Peacekeepers. They're just so neutral that I find I can do just about anything with them. And having double votes in planetary elections is just too good to pass up. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Joe.
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(http://www.joek.com/cgi-local/fs2rev_image.pl) ("http://www.joek.com/other/freespace/")
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Originally posted by joek:
I always play the Peacekeepers. They're just so neutral that I find I can do just about anything with them. And having double votes in planetary elections is just too good to pass up. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Joe.
When you control the Empath Guild, and your hives cover Planet, you already control the elections. Not even the Peacekeepers can challenge you. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/drevil.gif)
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
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Originally posted by mikhael:
I have two different factions, each because I like my rather twisted take on their goals/methods.
My first, and favorite, is Chairman Shenjii Yang of the Human Hive. I figure that he's got a simple goal in mind: Everyone is a part of the Hive, everyone is a cog in his Great Machine. Everything will be done, anything will be sacrificed for that goal. The people will be his hands and eyes. He will be their brain. The Empath Guild and the Living City are two of his most important posessions. The Hive is One and that One is Chairman Yang. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/drevil.gif)
On the other hand, I also like to be the Stepdaughters of Gaia. I don't like their usual green bent though, and naturally twist it about. I make them aggressive and expansionist. Anyone, anything, that gets in their way will be left on the field of battle to feed the trees. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
You sure are twisted, dude. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) I must admit, the Hive are pretty cool - I find their perimeter defences invaluable, and as you know, he can make some mean sacrifices to achieve his goals, so you don't want to be on his bad side! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
The Gaians I liked for a while too, especially for their Mindworm capture skills. I tended to fill up the map with Demon Boils mindlessly wandering along the Xenofungus, searching for other Mindworms to devour. In fact, that was my main source of income (the Planetpearls from the worms' husks), more than solar/tidal power and commerce. But then, with the correct social settings and appropriate research to back them up, the University can produce the same 75% mindworm capture chance. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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Originally posted by Setekh:
You sure are twisted, dude. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) I must admit, the Hive are pretty cool - I find their perimeter defences invaluable, and as you know, he can make some mean sacrifices to achieve his goals, so you don't want to be on his bad side! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
The Gaians I liked for a while too, especially for their Mindworm capture skills. I tended to fill up the map with Demon Boils mindlessly wandering along the Xenofungus, searching for other Mindworms to devour. In fact, that was my main source of income (the Planetpearls from the worms' husks), more than solar/tidal power and commerce. But then, with the correct social settings and appropriate research to back them up, the University can produce the same 75% mindworm capture chance. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Income? I never worry about income in the late game. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif) By that point, I'm also not looking to capture mindworms. I'm breeding Demon Boils of Locusts. The mindworms are yet another extension of Our Will, Our Mind. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/drevil.gif)
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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM
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The shivans Might have only been as far as the lucifer destroyer-wise during the great war. It takes time to biuld massive ships. Sathanas ships are easily produced by the shivans due to their superior technology, and their size. It probably took the shivans those 20 years to build the 80 juggernauts. Since Terrans and Vasudans are inferior to the shivans technology-wise and boilogical-wise, we would have had a more difficult time building a juggernaut.
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ok, heres my theory from the top:
Shivans evolved orignally on a low-g planet/moon, hence the generally small body and long limbs. This also would make it easy for them to adapt to 0-g. When they became a space fairing race, they eventually adapted to zero-g. Their movement in 0-g conditions and their long limbs support the theory that they are specifically adapted to such an environment.
This does not rule out the possibility of artificial enhancement, and certain characteristics of shivans go a long ways to prove that. The nice spiffy plasma cannons they mount on their shoulders is most definitely artificial in origin, yet the way they are attached to the arms suggests not a mear snap-on attachment, but a more permanent one. Also, the armor plating on their bodies do not appear to be organic, infact, they are very metalic looking. This also suggests that the shivans are possibly enhanced in ways more complex than cosmetically applied plating.
It is very possible that shivans are cybernetically enhanced to be speciallized killers. Their control over the shoulder mounted plasma cannons suggests at the very least a cybernetic interface allowing the brain to send commands to the weapons without the use of an appendage to pull the trigger.
As for the hive mind idea, if shivans were composed of a hive mind then there would be no need for communications subsystems on their ships, or comm nodes because they would already be connected. Also, shivans were highly disorganized after the destruction of the Lucifer the tech archives say, were they a hive mind then they would still have been able to reorganize and cooridnate.
Thats my two cents, nothing more.
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Originally posted by LtNarol:
ok, heres my theory from the top:
Shivans evolved orignally on a low-g planet/moon, hence the generally small body and long limbs. This also would make it easy for them to adapt to 0-g. When they became a space fairing race, they eventually adapted to zero-g. Their movement in 0-g conditions and their long limbs support the theory that they are specifically adapted to such an environment.
I agree with you on the low-g evolution thing and go further to suggest an arboreal origin as well. Those legs and arms at those odd angles are very well suited for climbing.
... Also, the armor plating on their bodies do not appear to be organic, infact, they are very metalic looking. ...
You may never have seen terran arhropods such as certain box and wolf spiders, or many scarab beetles. Some species of terran arthropods have metallic chitin. Whereas a black widow spider has glossy black chitin, there are species of box spider that have golden, glittering patches on their's. Some south american scarab beetles and at least one north american scarab beetle, are entirely metallic, mandible tip to tail tip. I don't see any reason to presuppose that the plates are not natural. I agree that they are cybernetically enhanced, and the plasma weapons are very likely add-ons.
As for the hive mind idea, if shivans were composed of a hive mind then there would be no need for communications subsystems on their ships, or comm nodes because they would already be connected. Also, shivans were highly disorganized after the destruction of the Lucifer the tech archives say, were they a hive mind then they would still have been able to reorganize and cooridnate.
Bah. The hive mind theory bites. I don't have a better way to put it. I firmly believe that Shivans are all individuals. They have civilians with jobs in the Shivan version of burger joints. There are Shivan office workers and janitors and panhandlers. They're just like us, but they look different, and they have a different agenda, which includes their military introducing us to hard vaccuum early and often.
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