[mikhael]

 

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

[CP5670]

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).]

[mikhael]

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

[mikhael]

 

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

[Nico]

 

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.

[aldo_14]

 

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.

[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.


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--Mik

[This message has been edited by mikhael (edited 12-07-2001).]

[IceFire]

 

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.

[Nico]

 

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   )
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  

Aldo: hargh, don't take Dark Horse comics for canon! damn, I've seen James Bond against the aliens, in a DH comics   !
btw, what I called the xeno (coz I had no other proper name), is that pilot  
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   ). 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   )

[Apothess]

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.

[Eishtmo]

 

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.  Do it now.

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I know there is a method, but all I see is madness.

[mikhael]

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.

----------

--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*

[Raven2001]

Well, basically I'm with the Elemental force idea  

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  

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...  

[IceFire]

 

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  

[Ace]

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.

------------------
Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
 http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/

[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?  

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.

------------------
FRED Zone's 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

[Nico]

 

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?      

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  
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   That's what I remembered, and Ace confirmed the thing, and I have to say I'm more pleased with that  

[This message has been edited by venom2506 (edited 12-07-2001).]

[jonskowitz]

 

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.

[Su-tehp]

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.)
------------------
FRED Zone's 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).]

[joek]

Damn it's nice to see nice and long discussions going on.

 

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*

 

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.

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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