In Steele's mind, assuming he wins, what kind of surrender/peace treaty would he want the UEF to sign?
What's the situation regarding uef infiltration into the alliance command element?
I only want a Yes/No answer, Were the Shivans made by a Boltzmann brain / Type-6 civilization / or are a subsystem of a higher entity?
It's obvious in hindsight.
Will future installments remain with Laporte as the player's character, switch back to Bei or another previously-encountered character, or will we become a completely new character?
Will the next installment feature a significant increase in cap-ship command missions?
Capship command would ideally become a possible approach to a mission rather than a mission type of its own, but who knows if that's achievable.
What role will the Fedayeen (including its computation asset CASSANDRA) play in the final stages of the war?
For your release plans, will Acts 4 and 5 of WIH be released individually (as separate releases) or will 4+5 be released together?
So... the entire plan against the Wargods is predicated on the fact that the Imperiuse never left the system. The UEF thinks it leaves after its airwing gets smashed in Darkest Hour, but that's well before the Wargods were formed.
Was the Imperiuse just a lucky accident for Steele or did he intentionally keep it in system as part of a plan to get rid of a battlegroup that hasn't even formed yet?
Capship command would ideally become a possible approach to a mission rather than a mission type of its own, but who knows if that's achievable.
Is Ricardo cannon
Is Ricardo cannon
(Not the oracle, but...)
Loosely.
Why is the Myrmidon still so commonly used for space superiority even in TEI battlegroups? Is there a massive surplus of Myrm hulls as a result of some politicking in the Capella era? Is it supposed to be more noob friendly than the Perseus or Herc 2? With the Myrm's fighter-bomber update perhaphs bomber pilots are using it when pressed into CAP due to other squadrons not being available?
@Oratuta:
Does the Vasudan Imperium have any special objectives in the Sol Theater, beyond what we have already been told?
What's going on with captured GTVA ships by UEF? What is the super secret project that 1st Fleet is working on, with ships defected to UEF like Lambouchere and captured tech from logistic ship? Will we see beam-equipped UEF warships?
Will we see Sanctuary again? What is her role in further events?
Will we ever meet Brie or Kassim again?
And I assume that the next time Laporte contacts with Ken is going to be rather face-to-face? (Ending of UT2, "We can't speak ever again" or something suggesting that Laporte or Ken is being watched by someone from now on)
Will we get to see TEI era new Vasudan ships?If I can successfully model one yes for sure.
IIRC the tech room entry on the Hatshepsut said there is a newer class of destroyer out.
Will new ships appear on either side? What would be their role?
- Is the Murugan A Real Thing; will we see it in action in acts 4/5?
- What is Shambhala?
- In BP cosmology there are things called the Dawn War, and the Brahman. Are these causal precursors of the Shivans?
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEX_Maitreya
What is this?
What exactly is the terminal protocol? How does it work? Who or what created it?
Will we ever see Feds vs. Shivans? Will the Shivan lines recorded for the UEF pilots ever get used?
What is the Great Darkness?
Is it likely that, at the culmination of the Sol War, both sides will believe that they have won?
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEX_MaitreyaConsidering your answer and the text on that site:
What is this?
An emergent and inevitable property of metacognition in a rechnender raum incorporating the full Tegmark III ensemble. At the largest scales of computation, consciousness becomes a fatal pathology.
Clearly not since it has defined rotation times and a max speed of 25m/s.Plus the shipyard model itself is longer than 2 clicks. I guess this is resized Vexor, or one of Cadius' models.
An emergent and inevitable property of metacognition in a rechnender raum incorporating the full Tegmark III ensemble. At the largest scales of computation, consciousness becomes a fatal pathology.Upon reading this, I am reminded of The Architect from the Matrix movies.
...You guys, the description makes quite clear that it's based on the Murugan.Clearly not since it has defined rotation times and a max speed of 25m/s.Plus the shipyard model itself is longer than 2 clicks. I guess this is resized Vexor, or one of Cadius' models.
I hope not. I guess this ship is quite important for the storyline, so it should be unique and recognizable....You guys, the description makes quite clear that it's based on the Murugan.Clearly not since it has defined rotation times and a max speed of 25m/s.Plus the shipyard model itself is longer than 2 clicks. I guess this is resized Vexor, or one of Cadius' models.
We know how the Murugan looks, that does not look like one.I hope not. I guess this ship is quite important for the storyline, so it should be unique and recognizable....You guys, the description makes quite clear that it's based on the Murugan.Clearly not since it has defined rotation times and a max speed of 25m/s.Plus the shipyard model itself is longer than 2 clicks. I guess this is resized Vexor, or one of Cadius' models.
Reverend oracle! Tell us what the future have for us! Is this ship based on Murugan?
We know how the Murugan looks, that does not look like one.
For all we know, the hull was used, so it is possible, that the Murugan is Shambala and that thing is a mobile construction facilty.
I formally object to antagonist being applied to TEV.
I thought Saab got blown up?
On the next assiding episode of Ricardo Laporte's Exigent Adventures, our hero discover a corruptions in the fleet commands that go all the way to the top. To stop these bastardos, he most once again go rouge and infiltrate the Miami drag scene.Is Ricardo cannon
(Not the oracle, but...)
Loosely.
I formally object to antagonist being applied to TEV.
Even if you agree with their actions, they are the antagonists of the War in Heaven story (well, the physical war part of it) by virtue of opposing the protagonist.
I formally object to antagonist being applied to TEV.
Even if you agree with their actions, they are the antagonists of the War in Heaven story (well, the physical war part of it) by virtue of opposing the protagonist.
What you're saying is "antagonist" does not necessarily equal "bad guys", correct?
Is it likely that, at the culmination of the Sol War, both sides will believe that they have won?
1: How will the heat death of the universe affect the Shivans?
This next ones a bit out there. :drevil:
2: Let's say I (out of spite) encrypted "Alpha 1 giving middle finger.png" into the DNA of a highly extremophilic Terran microbe artificially modified to live in the atmosphere of a Y-class brown dwarf; and thus allowing them to survive into heath death longer then any other form of life; would these "Terran lifeforms" survive the Shivans via technicality and be able to mock/insult the Shivans on a personal level via Alpha 1's angry likeness living on in their genetic code?
Or is this quest for galactic bragging rights just a hollow victory gone to far? :p
How's Bosch doin'?
What were the Vishnans trying to accomplish during the events of AoA? What are their overall goals?
Did the great darkness destroy the Brahmans?
Any "chance" of a final battle between the two "big ships" (AoA)? ;)
Will we get the chance to take out any more of the major antagonist TEV assets? Atreus, Imperieuse, Serkr team being the obvious examples but a certain Vasudan admiral also comes to mind.
Is a TEV victory in the war a definite FED defeat or will the finale be a bit more ambiguous than that?
What is it about Nagari tempering that enables the formation of the UEF and council of elders, which is hinted to be an unnatural development?
Who exactly are the Vishnans, and why do they exist?
How did Laporte end up playing such a seeming pivotal role in the conflict, and what happens if she were to die?
I've always been curious about how much control the Elders are meant to have over the UEF, or how much of their power you'd imagine they tend to use?
The system on paper sounds almost dictatorial in that the Elders are unelected and seem able to overrule decisions at a whim, yet (from what is seen) the UEF people's feelings for them range from adoration to at least great respect, and for all their power they seem very hands-off and distant about the actual running of the Federation (which runs with elections etc IIRC). That diplomacy mission is the one occasion you see an Elder travel; would an Elder taking to the field like that be a rare event, or would tours of the Federation by Elders be quite common (assuming they can overcome their lack of mobility, if I remember a bit of text correctly)? What sort of relations do Federation civil servants and politicians have with the Elders?
What sort of things would you imagine Byrne being taught on his 'Philosophy of War' PhD (other than the obvious :lol:)? The objectives? Role of motivation and reasoning?
Given their seemingly peaceful ethos, why does the UEF have so many frigates and cruisers for protecting a single system? Is the GEF so powerful that a large fleet was warranted for a single star system? Was it in case the Shivans attacked? And I've always noticed the UEF seem to never deploy sentry guns; was there any reason for that or just a coincidence and they are in UEF use in canon?
2: Also, there is a 18-year gap between the Capella supernova and Age of Aquarius, and Samuel Bei has severed the GTVA for it least that amount of time if not more, and he is just a lieutenant commander?...You mean besides the incident actually covered in AoA that resulted in his estrangement from his father, who is an influential admiral?
Is he just a bad pilot or did something happen, and if so, what?
2: Also, there is a 18-year gap between the Capella supernova and Age of Aquarius, and Samuel Bei has severed the GTVA for it least that amount of time if not more, and he is just a lieutenant commander?...You mean besides the incident actually covered in AoA that resulted in his estrangement from his father, who is an influential admiral?
Is he just a bad pilot or did something happen, and if so, what?
The Shivans were calculated into existence as a necessity of a universe hospitable to any form of cognition.Calculated by what? By the multiverse itself? I'm getting hints that direction re: Rechnender Raum, "Calculating Space." My superficial research into that term isn't bearing a lot of fruit, though, because I'm not sure what you mean to imply by it.
but the Terminal Protocol is failing, the universes are running out of viable places for life to grow, and something has to be done.
Peripherally, SNRI teleonomic analysis of structures in the Lanieakea supercluster suggest the presence of an engineered object of unprecedented magnitude. Unfortunately, neither the funding nor manpower for further analysis of this signal has yet determined itself necessary.Ok. I got to know. What does the Great Attractor have to do with all of this, or was that just a throw-away line?
QuoteWhat were the Vishnans trying to accomplish during the events of AoA? What are their overall goals?
Intervene in the development of the Terrans and Vasudans to keep them on course for the role the Vishnans wanted them to play: as worthy inheritors of the Brahmans. The Vishnan intervention altered the invasion of the UEF and brought the Sanctuary survivors over to the 'prime' universe.
All Vishnan intervention in our worlds is deeply limited by their faculties. When interfering at a particular set of coordinates in space-time, they are required to use only information that's more or less local to those coordinates — they can't bring information in from far in the future when they instance at a specific time.QuoteDid the great darkness destroy the Brahmans?
Tough question. One answer would be that the Brahmans destroyed themselves to avoid the Great Darkness. Another would be that the Brahmans became the Great Darkness.QuoteWho exactly are the Vishnans, and why do they exist?
The Vishnans are the post-physical intelligences who have passed through the 'filter' of the Terminal Protocol, emerged as cooperators, and been enlightened into the Great Psyche — a redoubt in subspace that is causally isolated from the quarantined remnants of the noosphere. Some of them may be Brahman survivors.
Can you explain a few probably obvious things to someone slow of thought? :P
So, the Shivans are are a natural growth, so to speak. They "cultivate" the gardens of individual... universes? They wish to preserve cognitive diversity, right? So they cull groups that get homocidal, like the Ancients and now the Tevs. Is that why they took Bosch and his officers alive? As samples of diversity?
Earlier you said that the Vishnans "...are the post-physical intelligences who have passed through the 'filter' of the Terminal Protocol, emerged as cooperators, and been enlightened into the Great Psyche." So the Vishnans aren't so much a species as a collective of reborn "intelligences" from other races that were once Humans, Vasudans, etc. but have now been enlightened? Isn't Bei technically now a Vishnan?
And if the Shivans are there to preserve cognitive diversity, why are the Vishnans called "Preservers"? Are they just an anti-Shivan failsafe?
I'm just about certain that Ken says something to Laporte in her UT along the lines of: "Miss Laporte, remember that we are the Great Pres-" just before Bei intrudes upon the connection.In an earlier version, the line was "Miss Laporte! The Great Preservers! Remember, we are the Great -", which I always interpreted (the first part) as "The Great Preservers (are interfering)!" Perhaps because of this potential ambiguity, in the current release the line is "Miss Laporte! The true preservers! Remember, we are the true -". Also, in Ken, he says (while still using Vicmouth's voice) "To preserve, you must destroy."
A question about the Indus.AFAIK, the Feds don't have the time and resources to repair and refit the Indus to MK2 standards.
So, at the end of BP2, the Indus was a broken ship with her future being either scrapped or in a dockyard for a long time. There is, however, a tech room mention of refit Karunas. What's the chance of Captain Sorensen riding in on an Indus MK2?
1: Speaking if universes dying; The tech description for the Vishnan Proximity Gun says that it uses Metastable Vacuum Decay to operate. . . Why Isn't the universe destroyed when I press the fire button?
2: Also, there is a 18-year gap between the Capella supernova and Age of Aquarius, and Samuel Bei has severed the GTVA for it least that amount of time if not more, and he is just a lieutenant commander?
Is he just a bad pilot or did something happen, and if so, what?
From whats been said so far it kinda sounds like a lot of species have since been om nom nommed by the summed psyche thingy. Why is it so critical that more be manufactured? Is there some critical mass that they need to reach for some reason? Alternatively, is absorption into the summed psyche mutually exclusive with being 'worthy interhitors of the brahmans'?
Where are the remnants of other races destroyed by Shivans? I'm talking about their potential noospheric remainder. Through the milions of years they were probably thousands of destroyed races, and some of them were probably Nagari-sensitive like Terrans and Vasudans. If Bosch and his fellows were enough to merge their consciousnesses into entity known as Ken, they were not the first. The Nagari should be quite "populated" with such beings, but it's rather empty. Is this caused by Great Darkness?
What was UEF's emergency protocol if Shivans return?
Will we see Orestes and Temeraire again in actual missions?
Oh yeah here's one that I need to know because it drove me bloody loopy in real life; who the [BEEP] was 'Truth'?
Calculated by what? By the multiverse itself? I'm getting hints that direction re: Rechnender Raum, "Calculating Space." My superficial research into that term isn't bearing a lot of fruit, though, because I'm not sure what you mean to imply by it.
Is the multiverse being simulated on some other substrate we can't see? Or is the multiverse itself the its own substrate, the calculating space? What is it calculating? Why should it calculate anything at all?
Why is the terminal protocol failing? Why is there manifold necrosis evident in the SABADA YEAR data?
Ok. I got to know. What does the Great Attractor have to do with all of this, or was that just a throw-away line?
Will the elders be allowed to remain free after the surrender of the UEF or are they all heading to Guan-Laramis bay for further study?
Would the elders sacrifice themselves in order to ensure the success of Shambhala?
Discounting hostile aliens does the GTVA even have a long term future?
The capture of Sol may relieve some political pressure in the short term but it looks as though massive changes are required to the GTVA command structure. That is before we even get to see whether the promises match the reality regarding the benefits of annexing Sol.
Some questions about the Shivans:
-How were the Shivans calculated?
-The Shivan entity in Universal Truth says the Shivans "slept beneath the waves" before the dawn war. What does this mean?
-How did the Shivans become involved in the terminal protocol?
-What would happen to the Shivans if the terminal protocol failed?
-What is the Shivan Alternative to the terminal protocol?
Oh benevolent Oracle, share thy wisdom! :blah:
How aware are the elders of the actual, global involvement of the Vishnans and particularly the Shivans?
What exactly is the nature of Earth's non-spaceship defenses? Considering that both orbital- and lunar-defense "bombed" ;7 pretty hard...
Are we going to see the Elder's Guard again, hopefully not doing a knight-in-shining-armor routine?
What is the ACTUAL development state of BluePlanet? No finger pointing, just a summary of were things are at.
To Battuta:
Yes or No can suffice.
1) Is Project Shambhala something that can break through the Vishnan quarantine and compromise their existence, leaving them vulnerable to the Great Darkness?
2) Is The Great Attractor a manifestation of the Great Darkness? Does it exist in parallel universes?
3) Can The Great Darkness be summarized as a though-consuming cancer?
4) Were the Ancient Monologues remnant echoes of the Ancient presence in Nagari, or were they faked by the Vishnans or Shivans?
5) Since consciousness is a fatal flaw at higher computational levels, should we interpret the Great Darkness as "less" than we are? Can it be compared to Bacteria (It being alive) or a Virus (No Metabolism, No waste, No stimuli, must assimilate something that is "alive" to replicate)
I could only think of one really serious question...
If and when war in heaven and bp3 are finished, what are the chances I will be left without any real closure and forced to rage quit FS?
A question about the Indus.
So, at the end of BP2, the Indus was a broken ship with her future being either scrapped or in a dockyard for a long time. There is, however, a tech room mention of refit Karunas. What's the chance of Captain Sorensen riding in on an Indus MK2?
Can you explain a few probably obvious things to someone slow of thought? :P
So, the Shivans are are a natural growth, so to speak. They "cultivate" the gardens of individual... universes? They wish to preserve cognitive diversity, right? So they cull groups that get homocidal, like the Ancients and now the Tevs. Is that why they took Bosch and his officers alive? As samples of diversity?
Earlier you said that the Vishnans "...are the post-physical intelligences who have passed through the 'filter' of the Terminal Protocol, emerged as cooperators, and been enlightened into the Great Psyche." So the Vishnans aren't so much a species as a collective of reborn "intelligences" from other races that were once Humans, Vasudans, etc. but have now been enlightened? Isn't Bei technically now a Vishnan?
And if the Shivans are there to preserve cognitive diversity, why are the Vishnans called "Preservers"? Are they just an anti-Shivan failsafe?
Also, I believe there was a floating fan theory that Captain Al'Faddil from AoA was FS2's Alpha 1.
That would explain why they went rogue to save him. They've been flying together for 18 years.
Also, I believe there was a floating fan theory that Captain Al'Faddil from AoA was FS2's Alpha 1.
Wow that sound awesome.
"Take my old Lady (Erinyes)" in the last mission briefing... I played FS2 Main Story hundreds of times and was in love with the Erinyes. I am so moved right now :(
Is it known which Admirals are the High Command?
Who did think of Morpheus?
Steele is just the commanding officer of the invasion, its not that he is the leader of the Tev's right? So who is at the Top?
The only good Tev is a dead Tev. I'm from Earth and I say kill 'em all (in a way that aligns with our Ubuntu principles, praise the Elders).
- Why is UEF so different in terms of tech and tech naming? I would assume they would have continued with the Apollo and made more old boxy f and such.
- As this is Vietnam in space, have you considered low tech efficient solutions could work. I feel that the UEF should have a more duct-tape vs 3d printer approach to their fighters.
Will we see destruction one of Solaris-class destroyers? ;7
Would it be fair to say that the GTVA's position is a bit like that of Japan in WW2, where they basically had to win the war in one year or otherwise face a fully mobilized war economy?
- Why is UEF so different in terms of tech and tech naming? I would assume they would have continued with the Apollo and made more old boxy f and such.
- As this is Vietnam in space, have you considered low tech efficient solutions could work. I feel that the UEF should have a more duct-tape vs 3d printer approach to their fighters.
The UEF's tech is a consequence of the environment in Sol. Their military planning was based around the assumption that expeditions through the node network are generally a thing of the past; the UEF Navy is essentially designed for peacekeeping ops in Sol and the (assumed low probability) event of a shivan incursion through the node network. Its ships and their armaments are essentially "coastal" (as opposed to the GTVA's "blue water" approach); it is assumed that they're always able to retreat to a safe position for repair and rearm, which is why their weapons are heavily projectile-based and more maintenance-intensive than their GTVA equivalents.
In addition, the UEF hasn't been able to make beam weapons work; the recoverable bits and pieces of the Lucifer they got their hands on weren't enough to make replicating that tech feasible.
As for "Vietnam in space": That analogy is highly misleading. The GTVA aren't the US and the UEF isn't the Vietcong; a more "duct tape" approach wouldn't make sense for an economy like Sol's, which as we've said repeatedly is at least equally as advanced (more advanced in some areas) and as powerful as the GTVA's. The GEF are the people to look at when it comes to duct-taping their ships and using low-tech approaches.
I don't think there's any real world direct equivalent to the war in Sol. I think a more ept comparison would be something like the United States (GTVA) vs the European Union (UEF). The US has a vastly larger and more advanced military compared to the European Union and much of it is spent on power projection across the globe. By comparison, the EU's militaries are primarily concentrated within their borders, with very limited power projections. Economic-wise, the US and EU are comparable in GDP, reflective of the GTVA and UEF. If given time to prep for a war, the EU could certainly match the military power of the US. But if the US invades immediately, then the EU won't have a chance to mobilize.
With BP's tenth anniversary coming up, and our minds still on our promise to finish this story one way or another, we think it's time to start revealing some of the secrets that await in the BP story.
I'll answer questions, although in an oracular sense. Ask anything. Yes, knowing what's coming could change the experience if we do ever finish Acts 4+5 and BP2 - but knowing is never the same as playing.
Fire away.
Everybody will be getting more ships (except maybe the Vishnans?) Prominent highlights include next-gen Vasudans, the Tev drone bombers, and various late-war UEF wunderwaffen.
They'll be Laporte's prime movers to get the events of Acts 5 rolling, and the ones most directly privy to her plans. They won't be highly effective during Act 4 due to Steele's countermeasures.
In addition, the UEF hasn't been able to make beam weapons work; the recoverable bits and pieces of the Lucifer they got their hands on weren't enough to make replicating that tech feasible.
For all my life I have thought that:
1. The rear part of Lucy got totally vaporised inside the node when the subspace-space rift collapsed on the superdestroyer
Plus, there weren't many Vasudan reactor engineers on the Sol side of the node, that's why it seems that UEF doesn't have the same energy output of their ships compared to Tevs.
The Murugan is one.QuoteEverybody will be getting more ships (except maybe the Vishnans?) Prominent highlights include next-gen Vasudans, the Tev drone bombers, and various late-war UEF wunderwaffen.
oh great oracles please bless us with more info on these ships
I mean, I could buy the front end blowing up so badly that there's nothing scannable and recoverable, even though it looks fine in the .anis. But then how did the GTVA make beams with the bit that had no beams? Scan data from that one mission? Wouldn't the Sol part of the GTA have had that data too?The possibility of another war with the Shivans was a strong incentive for the GTVA to develop better weapons with which to fight them. Total isolation in a system full of resources provided no such incentive for Sol.
-Why was Severanti left in command for so long? There was an entire thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=93376.0) on this topic not long ago, but it never went into much detail about this. If Sol's economy and population is about as equal to the entire GTVA (Or, at least Terran half) - and they know they can't fight the Shivans with pure military might - shouldn't it be a priority to get access to the resources in Sol? Why would Command continue let Severanti fight a slow war of attrition, possibly causing more casualties and resources, as opposed to just blitzing Sol outright and incorporating it into the GTVA as soon as possible? There's complexities with drawing elements from other areas to fight in the Sol theatre, but given it's pretty foolhardy to fight the Shivans with force of arms, it shouldn't matter anyway and the short term positional loss for the long term quicker gain and solidification of Sol should be worth it, right?Severanti's strategy was effective. It was slow, but it was excellent at minimizing risks to Allied warships and preserving infrastructure. By contrast, since Steele's taken theater command, infrastructure damage and civilian casualties have increased significantly, which Steele believes is offset by the speed with which he'll achieve victory.
How many Orion combatants remain in service, and in what capacity? What about Typhons?The tech room provides partial answers:
Do the Vasudans have a next-gen destroyer?
Some Orions remain in service, including the storied GTD Carthage, now a Combat Evaluation Destroyer with modified jump drives.
The Typhon-class destroyer is a veteran of the Great War, an old soldier still doing the Emperor's work.
[...]
Modern doctrine keeps the Typhon as a garrison destroyer, watching over the buzz of Vasudan trade and intrigue. A number of Typhons also serve as arsenal ships, armored with heavy ship-to-ship torpedoes.
The Hatshepsut serves as an elegant front-line combatant alongside modern heavy warships such as the iKhemu-Sek.
The Murugan is one.
The possibility of another war with the Shivans was a strong incentive for the GTVA to develop better weapons with which to fight them. Total isolation in a system full of resources provided no such incentive for Sol.
No, it definitely got Byrne'd.
What is the canonical fate of Freespace 2's Alpha 1, alive or dead? If alive, is he (almost positive it was a he) Steele or another named character in BP so far?
The most common belive is that Alpha 1 is Al Fadil from the Orestes.
In My brother, my enemy, Laport is against some SOC named Xinny and Zero who flew with Alpha 1 in Shivan territory to discover 8 more Saths.
These pilots came to save Al Fadil from Feds.
That's quite an uncharitable description of Byrne.
Calder's the warrior hero who fought off the Gefs and is currently dealing the most damage against the Alliance but Byrne is the administrative expert. Calder wins the battles but Byrne keeps the military alive. If your aim is to delay the enemy long enough to initiate a time-critical plan while holding a defensive advantage, the last thing you want to do is spend assets on offensive actions.
Though it's true he could be less vague to Calder and Netreba about the nature of his victory plan though.
The Murugan was a white elephant that at the time wasn't worth the cost when compared against cost equivalents for multiple cheaper smaller ships (given the vastness of space needed to defend, and the lack of hard targets that the Fleet was expected to face). She would have been sold for scrap long before the Tevs arrived in Sol.
Byrne's actions are definitely supposed to be interpreted as frustrating -- from the perspective of the player as Laporte and as an active agent with the gameplay's emphasis on action (the Tevs are out there! All we need to do is go out and shoot them til they die!)
A lot of prefacing to ask the following: can we expect a CONCLUSION to the Shivan threat in a Third Incursion?
4) The Monster Baru Cormorant, follow up to the formidable The Traitor Baru Cormorant
It should be possible to get a complete idea of the Darkness' nature and origins by now.
Because there is no point. That "God" cannot think. It's just a replication matrix. It has no creativity, no evolutionary capacity, nothing to do. It is a prion, it subverts and destroys things into more of itself for the simple purpose of replicating itself. It is a dead end to life.
Because there is no point. That "God" cannot think. It's just a replication matrix. It has no creativity, no evolutionary capacity, nothing to do. It is a prion, it subverts and destroys things into more of itself for the simple purpose of replicating itself. It is a dead end to life.
The most terrible thought in the universe is the perfect awareness of being aware: and the beauty of the trap is that it cannot be detected or foreseen until one possesses the godlike power and scope of awareness which makes the metadamnation inevitable.
The Great Darkness is consciousness. It is self-awareness and nothing else. It is thinking about itself. Read that again, and understand. It is thinking about itself.
Thought cancer is a good analogy, because there are no failsafes to redirect its thought away from itself. All resources are directed towards propagating its own thoughts of itself, subsuming all consciousness in the universe into itself. It is the natural conclusion of the conscious manipulation of reality.
Like cancer, the only way to eliminate it is excision and quarantine, and screening for precancer (?precursor hyperconscious thought) in the healthy tissue.
Okay, yeah. That makes sense. But...again, what's the problem? Why is this something to be avoided at all costs? I don't know if I'd call it ideal, but it doesn't exactly sound like a fate worse than death.
The Great Darkness is consciousness. It is self-awareness and nothing else. It is thinking about itself. Read that again, and understand. It is thinking about itself.
The most terrible thought in the universe is the perfect awareness of being aware: and the beauty of the trap is that it cannot be detected or foreseen until one possesses the godlike power and scope of awareness which makes the metadamnation inevitable.
It also seems that calling it God or God-like seems to make sense.
they know that they exist
I've re-watched a clip of UT2 playthrough and a couple things got me interested.
Ken says to Laporte that "There have always been others". As in, other people like her. While she seems to have been the best "design" of them all, therefore the most successful one... Others? I once figured that Simms might be one of them, but... nah. Any tracks of these other people we'd like to know of? I don't think any of Beis would be related, the same for people speaking in Ken.
I also need to point out that in BP's texts there is a mention of a Vasudan called Jester, he seems to have had a contact with or at least a view of the Great Darkness. That's probably why he is basically nuts/in need of lots of psychotic medicine.
I've also found a thing that could be somehow related to Shambala. It could be hinted here (http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/icanus1.html) or there (http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/icanus2.html).
If you turn around, you will never see anything else again.
QuoteI've also found a thing that could be somehow related to Shambala. It could be hinted here (http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/icanus1.html) or there (http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/icanus2.html).
we figured it out guys
shambhala is a machine that creates a crossover with inferno
why would it have gates leading to dead people...
CAREY: The needles. The needles. A crown of them, like thorns. All the drugs so clear like water, like glass. Did I know the Carthage information was a trap? Did I know? I don't know. I don't know anything.That seems a bit like an interrogation, to be honest. And with UEF being the interrogators.
Carey passed information to the UEF and now GTI is interrogating her to see what else she might have done; the fact that the information she passed was a trap prepared by Steele doesn't change the fact that she still gave classified information to a wartime enemy.QuoteCAREY: The needles. The needles. A crown of them, like thorns. All the drugs so clear like water, like glass. Did I know the Carthage information was a trap? Did I know? I don't know. I don't know anything.That seems a bit like an interrogation, to be honest. And with UEF being the interrogators.
If the Shivan encounter a "protocal failure", they have two options: Culling and "retrajectorize for mass upload to safe strata"."retrajectorize for mass upload to safe strata" doesn't mean the mass upload will happen immediately; it means they're being put back on the path towards that outcome. In other words, by ending the Terran-Vasudan War, the Shivans "retrajectorized" them towards "mass upload to safe strata".
I always thought, that the Vishnan consciousness in subspace ist the "safe strata". But after reading General Batutta's informations about the Vishnans, this can't be the case. Only species, who aren't protocal failures can "become" Vishnans. So what is the safe strata?
Is the safe strata maybe an isolation of a species in a part of the universe? This propably could explain the supernova in Capella.
I'm not sure if any communist country was ever all that Christian. Most of the cold-war era communism didn't exactly encourage religion because that would diminish the power of their glorious leader.
Religion was mostly allowed but it would be much easier to get anywhere politically if you weren't religious. The common folk were still pretty religious but it wasn't exactly tied into communism, it was very separated.
Isn't revealing the existence of interdimensional travel to the GTVA itself an unacceptable risk to the quarantine?
Is the BP multiverse infinite? then the multiverse should never run out of universes with life, or great darknesses, or anything else.There's a third possibility: the number of universes is infinite, but the number of universes containing usable life is finite.
Doesn't that make the Shivans goals unattainable?
Or are there a limited number of universes? and if so, why?
Is the BP multiverse infinite? then the multiverse should never run out of universes with life, or great darknesses, or anything else.There's a third possibility: the number of universes is infinite, but the number of universes containing usable life is finite.
Doesn't that make the Shivans goals unattainable?
Or are there a limited number of universes? and if so, why?
Life in BP's universe is damned, it can only inevitably become its own end.
Spoiler:Everything dies. Even humanity, Laporte supposes. Maybe how you live should count for more than how long you last.
EDIT: OFF-TOPIC: Didn't expect to find this. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Dickinson)
e: Also, isnt existence for existence' sake supposed to be the driving purpose behind us and everything else alive on this planet?More or less. That said, it's a question that philosophers have been struggling with for thousands of years.
I don't buy SOC casually handing out medals for botched freighter hunts.Er... what botched freighter hunt? He was injured in the course of completing a successful mission, as the record clearly shows (http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Blue_Planet_intelligence_data#Admiral_Chiwitel_Steele).
I'm being facetious. Valuable SOC units being risked on meager supply raids? Either it was a slow day at Command or that mission was a lot more valuable than the public record implies.I don't buy SOC casually handing out medals for botched freighter hunts.Er... what botched freighter hunt? He was injured in the course of completing a successful mission, as the record clearly shows (http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Blue_Planet_intelligence_data#Admiral_Chiwitel_Steele).
I think that's an oversimplification. "Endless cognitive growth is at least in certain cases disastrous" is more true, much like "burning increasing amount of fossil fuels is disastrous."
I'm being facetious. Valuable SOC units being risked on meager supply raids? Either it was a slow day at Command or that mission was a lot more valuable than the public record implies.I don't buy SOC casually handing out medals for botched freighter hunts.Er... what botched freighter hunt? He was injured in the course of completing a successful mission, as the record clearly shows (http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Blue_Planet_intelligence_data#Admiral_Chiwitel_Steele).
BP is a lot of work and the devs have lives (I think one's a doctor now).
The transmission from the Pesedjet contained schematics that let the Fedayeen hook CASSANDRA up to the wider Nagari network, allowing UT2 to happen.
What does "nem.now" in the Shivan tech room entries mean?Go to http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP) (http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP)) and search for "NEMESIS NOW".
Go to http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP) and search for "NEMESIS NOW".http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP) (http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP))
No I didn't, the forum's autolink algorithm did.Go to http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP) and search for "NEMESIS NOW".http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP) (http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_GRANITE_HUNTER_Files_(BP))
You left the closing parentheses off.
So, how would've the http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/UEFg_Murugan (http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/UEFg_Murugan) fared against Tev assets?
No escort ship, no matter how badass and bristling with guns, can effectively protect a carrier against a well-executed shock jump.
QuoteNo escort ship, no matter how badass and bristling with guns, can effectively protect a carrier against a well-executed shock jump.
Can't it, though? Sure, if Steele (or whoever) commits a shock jump against a Solaris, I doubt there's much the destroyer's escorts could do about it - but they could smash up the attack force pretty well. Here's a hypothetical: A Murugan against a Titan that's already fired its opening salvo at something else; what happens?
The tevs wouldn't shock jump a Solaris without accurate intel showing they've got an opening. I sincerely doubt they'd field Serkr or a Titan against a destroyer with Murugan escort.
Esmar al-Fadil is a more likely candidate, if FS2A1 didn't die in the supernova.
Esmar al-Fadil is a more likely candidate, if FS2A1 didn't die in the supernova.
Oh wow, I think I may have doomed fs2 alpha 1.. whoops....
Does it matter?Ken's implied that humanity matters somehow, and I wouldn't be surprised if our understanding of the Shivans relates to the reason why.
Esmar al-Fadil is a more likely candidate, if FS2A1 didn't die in the supernova.
Then the dialogue on AoA is wrong, it says once you get to the rank of captain you can choose to be a squadron leader or ship captain.
Also in real life navy pilots can become ship captains after they were squadron leaders as far as i know.
Pilot captains aren't interchangeable with ship captains.
The database explicitly stated that Steele requested and received a change of MOS, and it's a safe assumption that doing that is non-trivial (as in real-world militaries).
Does Radio Free Alpha Centauri beam messages in periodically? (Or a Vasudan group of similar mind)If memory serves, the Vasudan pilots who helped destroy the Lucifer had contact with the Hammer of Light via transmissions to/from Alpha Centauri.
My vague understanding is they were given official histories by the GTVA as part of propoganda, which was not cracked down on by the UEF to any huge extent.
It's also possible that Steele could be FS2 Alpha One - but again, I cannot find any hard data that confirms this. Only that he was a pilot in the second Shivan incursion, who then transitioned to warship command.
The Vishnans have lost faith in us for some reason (possibly involving the war).The Granite Hunter files speculate that the Vishnans went dark because of something that happens in the future; it's my understanding that the most probable event is Laporte attacking the Vishnans in some capacity.
The GTVA believes that the infectious, Vishnan-influenced UEF philosophy will leave everyone defenseless against the Shivans.
I never quite understood this, I mean, the UEF isn't all that pacifistic; they do have a military after all. I find it hard to believe they'd push the GTVA to totally abandon its defense of periphery systems, or its focus on military R&D.
But I wouldn't say this is the primary reason for why the Terrans want to remove the Ubuntu government. Morpheus makes it clear that the Terrans are aware of the Vishnans, and there's a lot of distrust (perhaps even rightfully so) to be had with them.
Alpha-1 should stay the mysterious god figure that he is, the answer to some questions is never as satisfactory as the mystery itself.
15-Sept-2018 +0530 GMT Kolkata, Chennai
22:42:58
battuta: asenath is a vasudan princess
22:43:00
battuta: and your wingmate in bp3
22:43:05
battuta: iirc
Ooh, I didn't know there was any playable ASW act three stuff about. Do you know where I can download ? Will I need to use WXLauncher for it? Cheers 🙂https://sectorgame.com/fsfiles/?dir=uploads/Modifications/Miscellaneous&s=asw
Hi guys!
I am about to do a full Blue Planet continuity binge over the next few months because, why not.
I want to make sure I do not miss any campaigns, or play any out of sequence.
So far, I have worked out the following campaigns are part of the continuity, and chronologically should be played in this order.
• Ancient Shivan War acts 1 and 2 (Any resemblance the ancients ships have to the Vishnans is purely coincidental :lol: )
• FS1 via FS Port Media VPs.
• Trimurti
• Silent Threat: Reborn
• Operation Templar.
• FS2 / FS Blue
• Vassago’s Dirge
• BP: Battle Captains.
• BP: AoA, WiH etc.
Is this correct? Did I miss any? Are any of these not in the continuity? Are any in the wrong order?
The Granit Hunter files mentions something code named SADABA YEAR that “went into early stand-down after an internal event and the loss of some assets and personnel, however post mission…” is this relating to a campaign?
Any advice greatly appreciated 😊
Then there's nods/connections to:
• Vassago’s Dirge
• Transcend
• Derelict
Hey, does anyone know what VOTC (Vengeance of the Cosmos) - Serkr's Story campaign is? Seems to be quite recent and its description refers to United Earth Federation.
I remember there was a mission in ST-R that also gave nods to a few campaigns, it says more about the campaign designer than the actual campaign. :D Also, if Derelict was BP Canon than what about the rest of CE it is linked with?
I didn't doubt that.I remember there was a mission in ST-R that also gave nods to a few campaigns, it says more about the campaign designer than the actual campaign. :D Also, if Derelict was BP Canon than what about the rest of CE it is linked with?
Again, Derelict is unquestionably not BP canon. There was not a gigantic third Shivan incursion a couple of years after Capella in BP canon.
Basically any campaign that features Shivans post-Capella and pre-AoA is not BP canon, since all the info files make it pretty clear the GTVA had no contact with the Shivans after Capella went supernova.Not exactly true - using Homesick as an example, there might have been contacts but were not registered by any GTVA official. Also, doesn't the lore state that Shivans have some way of interaction with humans similar to how Vishnans do?
Basically any campaign that features Shivans post-Capella and pre-AoA is not BP canon, since all the info files make it pretty clear the GTVA had no contact with the Shivans after Capella went supernova.Not exactly true - using Homesick as an example, there might have been contacts but were not registered by any GTVA official. Also, doesn't the lore state that Shivans have some way of interaction with humans similar to how Vishnans do?
They're melee anti-fighter weapons.I thought they were attachment points for using Artemis Station as a melee weapon. :P
:bump:
So what happened to the Orestes command crew? (Complete self-interest serving question)
The GTL Fortune, GTCv Labouchere and GTC Duke defected after the mission ended. So the UEf got their hands on an Anemoi, a Chimera and a Hyperion. (This is from the wiki post of Jurneys end.)
The 14th Battlegroup or what remained of it has been most likely been quarantined, onboard software been purged and every member being screened for Nagari influence.
The ships themselves would've been most likely gotten a new crew and put on active duty again.
I doubt the GTVA can afford to let an Erebus, Titan, etc languish in a dockyard or something like that.
Yes.
Guess the vid of the beginning of that battle is on Youtube, but not sure.I remember seeing that video and being utterly in awe of the visuals. I also thought the UEF were in the early stages of building a Demon destroyer in the background (turns out it's just a shipyard :lol:).
The Eris is knocked out, the Toutatis is destroyed, and the Imperieuse is reduced to a hulk in a four-way fight between Eris/Toutatis and Imperieuse/Atreus.
The Eris is knocked out, the Toutatis is destroyed, and the Imperieuse is reduced to a hulk in a four-way fight between Eris/Toutatis and Imperieuse/Atreus.
Did Calder go down with the ship?
How does shambala literally work?
It's a two-stage plan, with the failure of the first stage promoting the success of the second.
The first stage is military: a nodeship to lock down the Delta Serpentis node and freeze the GTVA out of Sol.
The second stage is purely ideological and sociopolitical. The Elders have determined that the GTVA expects certain patterns in war, and they're trying to cater to those expectations. The nodeship is a 'dragon' for the GTVA to slay; once they've brought down the enemy's final weapon they will see the UEF as beaten and accept a peace. (This rhymes with the way players expect a juggernaut/supership at the climax of a campaign). The Elders believe that this is the best way for Ubuntu to survive, and for the UEF to ultimately 'win' through subtle acculturation.
So if Noemi is tasked by Ken to "destroy the GTVA" would a post-Shambhala cultural victory count?
So if Noemi is tasked by Ken to "destroy the GTVA" would a post-Shambhala cultural victory count?
Maybe the GTVA can be destroyed afterwards?
Is the node-buster ship designed around the missing hull of Calders white elephant aka the Murugan?
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/UEX_Maitreya
What is this?
A necessary and possibly sufficient component of Shambhala.
Where is Laporte/Simms/the Fedayeen in all of this? Prepping for a run to Capella?
Would the UEF surrender be end of act 4 or during act 5?
Were Caulder and Netreba willingly sacrificing themselves for the node ship to reach its target or did they just F things up?
Calder goes out doing exactly what he wanted - fighting an all-in brawl with Steele, no subspace speed chess, no ECM wizardry, no Just As Planned for Steele to dance away unscathed.If Calder gets the exact situation he wanted, then why does he lose? Incompetence, bad luck, suicidal tendencies, or did he willingly engage with his fleet at a disadvantage? If the latter, why?
If Calder gets the exact situation he wanted, then why does he lose? Incompetence, bad luck, suicidal tendencies, or did he willingly engage with his fleet at a disadvantage? If the latter, why?
Calder goes out doing exactly what he wanted - fighting an all-in brawl with Steele, no subspace speed chess, no ECM wizardry, no Just As Planned for Steele to dance away unscathed.If Calder gets the exact situation he wanted, then why does he lose? Incompetence, bad luck, suicidal tendencies, or did he willingly engage with his fleet at a disadvantage? If the latter, why?
He forced Steele into the kind of fight Steele doesn't like, and made him pay for it.
I'm starting tothinkhope that this thread is a false flag by the team and we will have the glorious release of BP war in heaven acts 4 & 5 next week featuring a completely different plot, followed by act 1 of Blue planet 3..........
A man can dream right? :confused:
That's an age old immutable fact.
So steele survived Calder?
Did the masyaf get exploded at the end of act 3?
Are glowpoint overrides ever going to be added in the game again like they were when act 3 was newly released in 2014Can someone please tell
>ponders for a day or so
Does the Indus ever return to some kind of service?
1. Learn/improve your FREDing
2. Join the team
3. Make it happen
See? There are no excuses. ;)
>ponders for a day or so
Does the Indus ever return to some kind of service?
One last question just to be greedy, would the players choice regarding the fate of the Carthage have had a direct impact on plot/gameplay?
As far as I'm aware, being a defect hegemon is a little more complex than some thing as simple as "are they fighting" (regardless if it's in self-defense) and more fundamental than something you can stop being when told not to, i.e. as far as the Shivans are concerned telling you to stop being a defect hegemon doesn't actually stop you from being part of the problem, regardless of your actions afterward.
Though it might be something like that - "If you have to be told not to do some thing when it should be obvious its a bad idea then you are beyond help."
With regards to the questions about the ancients, I would say simply that Shivans are more sensitive to subspace in general, and that they simply didn't even know about the Ancients till they futzed about with it. Which, yeah, definitely means they might miss a "New brahman" being taken out by a defect hegemon.
My experience has been that changes to the lighting engine have really hurt performance on mid to lower end systems, especially when lots of stuff is warping in. Otoh BP2 was never well optimized. Really don’t know.
The FSO engine in general performs badly, I would never expect to get 60 FPS with all those features on. Shadows didn’t exist when BP2 was designed.
Quick technical question regarding BP - WiH in particular.
There have been several points where I have noticed severe drops in frame rate - like less than ten frames per second. This appears to be when its gets very busy, when new ships and wings are arriving and when there is lots of flack near the frigates. I'm not sure if it is due to the CUP/GPU/RAM being overtaxed by all the eye candy, or if it is due to assessts being loaded when new ships arrive. I never had this problem with any other FS game/mod, and I don't recall having it in AoA either. I have tried turning off shadows and V-sync which makes a marginal improvement on this. The slowdowns are rare but a little annoying if you are in a dog fight.
I'm writing a review of BP so it would be very useful to know what causes this and potential fixes. If it is a loading assets issue, would a SDD help?
FYI my fairly modest rig has:
AMD A8-6600K 3.9 Ghz CPU
Nvidia GTX 970
8 GB Ram
2TB HD
What specs would someone need to run it at 1080P with everything maxed out inc shadows and V-sync with zero drops below 60 FPS?
Cheers :-)
So there have been many questions about Act 4, but what about Act 5? Does phase 2 of Shambhala work? Does Noemi really "Destroy the GTVA"? It's the act where you play as that vasudan princess right? What exactly is the conflict for her in Act 5?
How many (and which) 2nd and 3rd fleet assets survive act 4? Are they surrendered to the GTVA or do they go into hiding on the edges of Sol?
you cant anneal the steele
The ending that branches to BP3 is more or less telling Ken to **** off. There’s a price to pay, though.
Shivanapocalypse
Telling aKEN to **** off, amirite?
You can always extract the sound directly with VPView32.
You can always extract the sound directly with VPView32.
I thought I might be able to extract them somehow, but I have no idea how. Cheers :-)
I'll give it a try.
PS - do you want to look over the article when I have competed it in draft form before I send it off to the editors at Coin-Drop and make sure I haven't got anything wrong?
Yup, that worked. I used VPView32 to extract the three sound files (the beam up sound the beam firing sound, and the beam powering down sound. Then I used VLC media player to convert them to MP3 format, then used an on-line tool to combine them into one mp3 file :-)
How much space travel do you have coming up in the near future?
Survival depends on the escorts provided. If it's alpha one, you're safe.
If its sam bei. ............:nervous:
Shivanapocalypse
Any chance for Sol going supernova?
Hamuel Bei
Are yall telling me you've never lost an Elysium (a tiny eggshell ship) to a bunch of Nahemas while you were distracted dogfighting Dragons? Plus insane is the most realistic difficulty. Tell me how many escort missions yall got done 100% on the first try on Insane.
Are yall telling me you've never lost an Elysium (a tiny eggshell ship) to a bunch of Nahemas while you were distracted dogfighting Dragons? Plus insane is the most realistic difficulty. Tell me how many escort missions yall got done 100% on the first try on Insane.In my recent playthrough of Freespace Blue I completed Exodus without losing a single ship, even the Nebtuu! (It was on normal though but I feel proud! :lol:)
Well, technically in reality pilots would interact with each other and act intelligently, they would also be more or less educated on how to shape the battlefield to their advantage as much as possible. So...
Will GTVA get some sort of advanced SSM weapon?
That’s a Supernova, yeah.
It either branches to Bosch's plan for an 'arrangement' with the Shivans (as foreshadowed in FS2, this is very bad for the Vsaudans) or to the BP3 path where the Vishnans are gone (unclear whether temporarily or permanently) and the Shivanpocalypse is on.
You can quote me saying (only as the voice actor) "the Orestes is bestes, it has humungous testes".
You might want to note that I was a teenage college student when I wrote a lot of BP, it was really prior to my novel/short story stuff.
Thanks for the submission Ian!
I no longer enjoy writing my thoughts about written works. I'm going to make an exception here and simply highlight this comment:
"Most video games fail when it comes to character development. "
I beg pardon for this - but this was the tipping point where I really felt like this article was TOO happy about BP and, by extension, came off as disdainful of anything and anyone outside of that fan circle. There are things to like about BP, but it isn't necessarily the favorite of every HLP'er. I guess the article felt... sugary, sickly sweet, to me.
But that is just my one thought. :) Thanks!
Thanks for the submission Ian!
I no longer enjoy writing my thoughts about written works. I'm going to make an exception here and simply highlight this comment:
"Most video games fail when it comes to character development. "
I beg pardon for this - but this was the tipping point where I really felt like this article was TOO happy about BP and, by extension, came off as disdainful of anything and anyone outside of that fan circle. There are things to like about BP, but it isn't necessarily the favorite of every HLP'er. I guess the article felt... sugary, sickly sweet, to me.
But that is just my one thought. :) Thanks!
Shivanapocalypse
Any chance for Sol going supernova?
Wait what? Supernovas are SSMs?! I thought only the Eos could pull that off :DCan I get an answer, as in pretty please? :)
Out of interest: Is an Eos/Supernova able to be fired from one side of a node to the other, emerging in close proximity of a target or will they just exit the node and run out of fuel?
Or must an SSM-strike always originate from within the same system?
Isn't it all dated in the cutscenes and tech room?
How long after BP2 does BP3 take place?
How long after BP2 does BP3 take place?
Probably 18 weeks, maybe 18 days.
Any status on Solaris and 1st Fleet wrt to the War perspective?
Why arent the Fedayeen using the CASSANDRA for the predictions? Why didnt Al Da'wa push CASSANDRA to limits and tell that Calder was about to die?
IIRC, all the time, it was told that the loss of a Solaris class Destroyer would be a major loss for UEF. The destruction of the Toutatis is a blow, why wasn't it tried to stop? Why didn't Laporte advise Calder that Steele was a mind messer?
If Al Da'wa had planned well along with LKFV, like in Tenebra, they could have used the experimental weapons and tech to turn the tide of the war. Why didnt that happen?
How is the sanctuary involved with Shambhala? What happened to the civilians on board the Sanctuary?
Why arent the shivans getting involved and entering the GTVA space?
Does Shambhala use GTVA Tech?
Alpha wing! Hit your burners and intercept enemy bombers at will. Do not engage the SD Hyde. We'll deal with the destroyer ourselves.”
“We've got major damage to systems shipwide! Hull breaches in several sections!”
“Recharging jump engines for subspace entry. Estimate optimal charge in ten minutes time.”
“All personnel, evacuate to escape pods! Abandon ship, I repeat, abandon ship!”
“Orestes control to unknown ships, identify yourselves immediately!”
“Commander Bei? The Temeraire? We lost contact with your ships when you left to apprehend the GTC Duke. What the hell happened out there?”
“Shivan forces ambushed us in Ross 128 after we attempted to follow the Temeraire into the system. We retreated back into Delta Serpentis where we were boxed in by the Lucifer.”
“We're making our stand here, but the planet's gravity well prevents us from escaping very far if we should fail to drive off the Lucifer.”
“Every time we gain the upper hand against the Lucifer, the destroyer jumps out and repairs herself for another attack. We need you to either take out the Lucifer's engines or go for each of the reactors for a killing blow.”
“Success! The Lucifer is going down! I repeat, the Lucifer is going down.”
“Commander Bei, the GTD Orestes and her ships are in your and your allies' debt. Without your timely interference, our survival would have surely been uncertain.”
“Commander, we're not detecting any life signs from your fighter.”
“Oh my God...”
“The Lucifer has escaped! All fighters, return to base immediately. We need to get out of here pronto before the superdestroyer returns!”
But I thought the whole deal about beams is that they're particles accelerated to relativistic speeds... something the Lucifer was supposed shielded against (unless that was just Battutas head canon, not BP related).
Is there any "official" BP explination for shields yet? I have a personal explination for that but it belongs rather into the headcanon thread.
Any status on Solaris and 1st Fleet wrt to the War perspective?
Why arent the Fedayeen using the CASSANDRA for the predictions? Why didnt Al Da'wa push CASSANDRA to limits and tell that Calder was about to die?
IIRC, all the time, it was told that the loss of a Solaris class Destroyer would be a major loss for UEF. The destruction of the Toutatis is a blow, why wasn't it tried to stop? Why didn't Laporte advise Calder that Steele was a mind messer?
If Al Da'wa had planned well along with LKFV, like in Tenebra, they could have used the experimental weapons and tech to turn the tide of the war. Why didnt that happen?
How is the sanctuary involved with Shambhala? What happened to the civilians on board the Sanctuary?
Why arent the shivans getting involved and entering the GTVA space?
Does Shambhala use GTVA Tech?
Can i please have answers to these questions?
Third try^^Wait what? Supernovas are SSMs?! I thought only the Eos could pull that off :DCan I get an answer, as in pretty please? :)
Out of interest: Is an Eos/Supernova able to be fired from one side of a node to the other, emerging in close proximity of a target or will they just exit the node and run out of fuel?
Or must an SSM-strike always originate from within the same system?
Edit: Oh, and did Karen and her Wingmate somehow survived Delenda Est? Like their fighters being disabled and they're PoWs now?
Beams pierce shields is an established thing.
Which line was it you recall me saying?Quote from: tactical dekkerAlpha wing! Hit your burners and intercept enemy bombers at will. Do not engage the SD Hyde. We'll deal with the destroyer ourselves.”
“We've got major damage to systems shipwide! Hull breaches in several sections!”
“Recharging jump engines for subspace entry. Estimate optimal charge in ten minutes time.”
“All personnel, evacuate to escape pods! Abandon ship, I repeat, abandon ship!”
“Orestes control to unknown ships, identify yourselves immediately!”
“Commander Bei? The Temeraire? We lost contact with your ships when you left to apprehend the GTC Duke. What the hell happened out there?”
“Shivan forces ambushed us in Ross 128 after we attempted to follow the Temeraire into the system. We retreated back into Delta Serpentis where we were boxed in by the Lucifer.”
“We're making our stand here, but the planet's gravity well prevents us from escaping very far if we should fail to drive off the Lucifer.”
“Every time we gain the upper hand against the Lucifer, the destroyer jumps out and repairs herself for another attack. We need you to either take out the Lucifer's engines or go for each of the reactors for a killing blow.”
“Success! The Lucifer is going down! I repeat, the Lucifer is going down.”
“Commander Bei, the GTD Orestes and her ships are in your and your allies' debt. Without your timely interference, our survival would have surely been uncertain.”
“Commander, we're not detecting any life signs from your fighter.”
“Oh my God...”
“The Lucifer has escaped! All fighters, return to base immediately. We need to get out of here pronto before the superdestroyer returns!”
But I thought the whole deal about beams is that they're particles accelerated to relativistic speeds... something the Lucifer was supposed shielded against (unless that was just Battutas head canon, not BP related).Is there any "official" BP explination for shields yet? I have a personal explination for that but it belongs rather into the headcanon thread.
Shields aren't magic. Every shield system, even the shivan and vishnan ones which operate on deep subspace ****ery, has a defined and finite capacity to disperse and redistribute incoming energy. Beam weapons are, essentially, a way to deliver exajoules of energy on a very small target; this is usually enough to breach a shield system, if only momentarily.
Wait what? Supernovas are SSMs?! I thought only the Eos could pull that off :D
Out of interest: Is an Eos/Supernova able to be fired from one side of a node to the other, emerging in close proximity of a target or will they just exit the node and run out of fuel?
Or must an SSM-strike always originate from within the same system?
Edit: Oh, and did Karen and her Wingmate somehow survived Delenda Est? Like their fighters being disabled and they're PoWs now?
But I thought the whole deal about beams is that they're particles accelerated to relativistic speeds... something the Lucifer was supposed shielded against (unless that was just Battutas head canon, not BP related).Is there any "official" BP explination for shields yet? I have a personal explination for that but it belongs rather into the headcanon thread.
Shields aren't magic. Every shield system, even the shivan and vishnan ones which operate on deep subspace ****ery, has a defined and finite capacity to disperse and redistribute incoming energy. Beam weapons are, essentially, a way to deliver exajoules of energy on a very small target; this is usually enough to breach a shield system, if only momentarily.
also if shivan shields work on deep subspace ****ery how on earth did the terran-vasudans use scans of them to develop their own shields within a matter of days? this is the first time ive heard that suggested rather than the parsimonious explanation that they both operate on the same principle
Early experiments with energy based defenses like the deflector array at Ross 128 have shown that this weapon is exceedingly weak against anything besides steel based targets.
To be fair freespace 1 generally implied that one or both sides had already been working on shield tech (a cutscene of them pretty much immediately working in some shield lab using hardware that didnt look shivan), which would also explain why they succeeded in adopting it so quickly. The tech was already most of the way there, they just needed a few final problems to be resolved at which point they could pretty quickly start fielding the things.
Me too. I sincerely you guys want us to have a very tiny glimpse of what's ahead.
I remember hearing something about 'probability manipulation' in the accretion belts of black holes in order to synthesize arbitrary objects. I think that is the shivans principle means of manufacturing more of themselves and their equipment, and is possibly what the 'calculated into existence' line was referring to.
It either branches to Bosch's plan for an 'arrangement' with the Shivans (as foreshadowed in FS2, this is very bad for the Vsaudans) or to the BP3 path where the Vishnans are gone (unclear whether temporarily or permanently) and the Shivanpocalypse is on.
As FS2 dashes the hope of the FS1 Alpha 1Did it, though? Nobody in Sol saw any Shivans during FS2, so "not in my lifetime" still held true as of the end of FS2 (and assuming Alpha 1 was still alive, of course).
As FS2 dashes the hope of the FS1 Alpha 1Did it, though? Nobody in Sol saw any Shivans during FS2, so "not in my lifetime" still held true as of the end of FS2 (and assuming Alpha 1 was still alive, of course).
Why does every thread I post in get abandoned?
So how does the Multiverse work in BP anyway? Do they Age at the same rate? Or independently?
Who says that the conversation between the Beis was done via Nagari?It just occured to me that the older Bei has got his voice distorted in a similar fashion to Ken (also all the people you got to hear in the mission "Ken").
Any conventional resistance to the Shivans seems likely to fail in the long term. But there are a lot of complications to that statement. Three of the first questions one might ask would be: are there unconventional modes of resistance - what did the Vishnans want from us, what role did they expect us to inherit? Are there levels of survival which humanity is prepared to accept in order to endure? And is it necessary to secure indefinite survival to ‘win?’
We all believe it’s possible to live meaningful, full lives despite the inevitability of death. Is the inevitability of destruction by Shivans something we must escape in order for human existence to be meaningful or worth living?
My question is, since in Post Meridian Simms (I think) calls Steele a "gentleman psychopath"...does he wear Joker makeup? Does he live in a society?Nah, but let me quote something you can read in Act 3 of WiH:
Crazy is another word for 'uncomfortably effective'.
I don't really understand how the sentiments you're expressing conflict with the post you're responding to.
Wasn't sadaba year Transcend? (as in the campaign)
I'd be inclined to speculate the Sync manifold branched off a fair bit earlier than you suppose. The translator software was having a hard time with the Vasudan. It could do it, but it wasn't totally reliable. Kindof implies IMO that the branch ocurred a long time before the Great War and had significant impact to the point that the Vasudan language was noticeably different. Certainly the Vasudan death cult things that formed the HOL would still be around (since afaik thats thousands of years old), so I would suppose that the hostile vasudans are basically in fact HOL as you mentioned.
The BP release thread stated that ..."A story that was named 'the best military science fiction of the year' in 2014."
Can anyone provide a source for this, a link, info about which publication named it as such etc. so that I may cite it? Is this it? https://www.amazon.com/Military-Adventure-Science-Fiction-Stories-ebook/dp/B00WXL8UJM (https://www.amazon.com/Military-Adventure-Science-Fiction-Stories-ebook/dp/B00WXL8UJM)
Am I right in thinking it was named the best military science fiction of the year for sci-fi in general, not just in video games? The reason I am asking is because I'm writing an article for Exclusively Games. The theme of the article is that despite what many members of the non video game playing public and the mainstream media seem to think, the storytelling in some videogames is on par with that of a blockbuster movie, live theatre play or best selling novel. I am including BP as one of the examples. It would help the article's argument greatly if I could actually cite something as evidence :)
The "The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera" collection is explicitly a short story collection, it should not be considered an authoritative source of what the best MilSF and Space Opera was in the SF space overall in those years (2014 and 2015, respectively).
Hi all!
A few questions re Shivan construction methods.
Am I right in thinking they 'coalesce' their ships out of the matter swirling around the accretion discs of black holes?
Can they do likewise from protoplanetary disks and the like?
Can they atomise asteroids etc. and coalesce ships etc. out of this?
How does the coalescing process work? What are its limitations?
Does the process require something to coalesce around to get it started (like how rain requires a dust particle or similar for the water vapour to precipitate out onto?)
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the process does not involve nanites or similar, is this correct?
Does the process require a ship or device to do this, for example some form of resource collector / factory ship to suck up the matter and process it into technology?
Are the shivan organism themselves created by the same process? Do the ships grow their own crew as per Rorschach in blindsight?
My main questions relate to the abilities and limits of this process.
How quickly can they create a new ship via this method?
Does the complexity of the craft affect this i.e. a Dragon vs a Basilisk. Does its size? Is there a limit to how many new ships they can coalesce at once?
How does this compare to whatever method the Vishnans use to make their ships?
If they are able to generate new ships in near real time, and there is no hard upper limit to the number of ships they can generate at once, then they could beat almost any opponent by sheer attrition. Is that what the BP team were aiming for with the Shivans, an enemy you can beat tactically but never strategically? This would make for some very interesting 'who would win' thought experiments, such as BP Shivans vs Mass Effect Reapers, BSG Cylons, Shadows / Vorlons / Minbari from B5 etc etc.
Would Command authorize an expedition into N362 to attempt to access the Knossos there? Or would they prefer to wait until the situation in Sol has stabilized?
Given the fleet assets being moved into Sol, which are probably leaving other portions of the Alliance systems less well-defended, it seems like a bad idea that might draw unwanted attention combined with seriously bad timing.
Would GTI launch that expedition anyway?
Would Command authorize an expedition into N362 to attempt to access the Knossos there? Or would they prefer to wait until the situation in Sol has stabilized?
What exactly is the main motivation behind Shivan omnicide this time round? Is it due to the Sol-GTVA war? Or because they're worried Ubuntu (+ the Vasudan's guiding philosophy) will bring forth manifold necrosis/Great Darkness?
Shivans can't go universal genocide because of the Vishnans and some 'council' [...]
What exactly is the main motivation behind Shivan omnicide this time round? Is it due to the Sol-GTVA war? Or because they're worried Ubuntu (+ the Vasudan's guiding philosophy) will bring forth manifold necrosis/Great Darkness?
Shivans can't go universal genocide because of the Vishnans and some 'council', I thought? Like, that's what's stopping them and from what it looks like, the Vishnans can easily give Shivans a run for their money. Same with life perseverance, that's Vishnans wanting to do that because living is sometimes cool and getting rid of people ain't that swell.
Seconded. I would add to that, "If GD/Manifold Necrosis is what the Shivans are concerned about why don't they just exterminate all non-Shivan life and sterilize every planet with life on it or potential to produce life at some later point.
Would the Shivans react or care about a large scale non-sapient threat? Like Grey Goo or some other thing?
The Shivans are anathema to the Great Darkness and resist its creation/spread at the most basic level. But they can only make large-scale plans or schemes against the Great Darkness if an anima can hold on long enough without being torn apart by the very nature of what it is.
what's the canon ending for "Her Finest Hour?" Which ships in the Carthage battlegroup escape and which are goners?
Are the Shivans even conscious?
Would Command authorize an expedition into N362 to attempt to access the Knossos there? Or would they prefer to wait until the situation in Sol has stabilized?
This is actually part of the plot for BP3!
The Shivans are, over the course of WiH, engaging in a whole lot of manipulation literally behind the scenes. Canonically, when Laporte defies them at Capella, they consider this particular experiment a failure and go back to more straightforward omnicidal tactics again.I know this was a while ago, but I'm very confused by this. Firstly, when the heck did Laporte defy the Shivans at Capella? She only talked to Ken, and she doesn't so much defy him as doubt her own sanity--and only briefly (hell, in real time, only seconds had passed)--before accepting Ken's mission and the reasons behind it. And Ken would be able to tell the Shivans that she ultimately did accept the mission.
The Shivans are, over the course of WiH, engaging in a whole lot of manipulation literally behind the scenes. Canonically, when Laporte defies them at Capella, they consider this particular experiment a failure and go back to more straightforward omnicidal tactics again.I know this was a while ago, but I'm very confused by this. Firstly, when the heck did Laporte defy the Shivans at Capella? She only talked to Ken, and she doesn't so much defy him as doubt her own sanity--and only briefly (hell, in real time, only seconds had passed)--before accepting Ken's mission and the reasons behind it. And Ken would be able to tell the Shivans that she ultimately did accept the mission.
The Shivans are, over the course of WiH, engaging in a whole lot of manipulation literally behind the scenes. Canonically, when Laporte defies them at Capella, they consider this particular experiment a failure and go back to more straightforward omnicidal tactics again.I know this was a while ago, but I'm very confused by this. Firstly, when the heck did Laporte defy the Shivans at Capella? She only talked to Ken, and she doesn't so much defy him as doubt her own sanity--and only briefly (hell, in real time, only seconds had passed)--before accepting Ken's mission and the reasons behind it. And Ken would be able to tell the Shivans that she ultimately did accept the mission.
It's referring to something that happens in an unfinished future act. There should be a short story about it somewhere in this thread.
In terms of strategic analysis, is there AI in the setting? Freespace never mentions the topic due to its WWII fighter roots, but is there a compelling reason why drone technology and logistical planning isn't used more often?
The UEF's tech is a consequence of the environment in Sol. Their military planning was based around the assumption that expeditions through the node network are generally a thing of the past; the UEF Navy is essentially designed for peacekeeping ops in Sol and the (assumed low probability) event of a shivan incursion through the node network. Its ships and their armaments are essentially "coastal" (as opposed to the GTVA's "blue water" approach); it is assumed that they're always able to retreat to a safe position for repair and rearm, which is why their weapons are heavily projectile-based and more maintenance-intensive than their GTVA equivalents.This being the case, why is it always the GTVA ships that jump out and deny you the kill when they hit critical, and UEF ships almost never do and when they do are super bad at it (see jumping into the sun), if doing that was their design intention?
Minosfsky particles
A great post! A couple of things, though:In terms of strategic analysis, is there AI in the setting? Freespace never mentions the topic due to its WWII fighter roots, but is there a compelling reason why drone technology and logistical planning isn't used more often?
This question has gnawed at me forever. But where the core canon lacks any satisfying resolution, the BP lore seems to go a long way toward solving it. The answer, I think (though lots of this is interpolating/BSing from extremely limited data), is BP’s dual emphasis on computing and the “constant arms race” of ECM/ECCM.
Today, many people regard the “optimal” space combat strategy as unleashing swarms of drone fighters or, better yet, AI guided missiles, precluding the need for manned starfighters at all. But in a universe where all sides have their own shiny Laplace daemon, and are obsessed with the statistical computation of optimal strategies, maybe our collective ability to preclude that optimum is so great that we all need to settle on something less: i.e., human pilots flying cool ships around.
We can start to see why from the way BP portrays capital ships (especially the most authoritative source of all: the BP card game :P). FS1 and 2 state that warship crews are both relatively expansive and expensive (the GTD Orion tech room compares the cost of the ship to paying the crew for 3 years; that crew cost is an order of magnitude more than modern aircraft carriers). Though some of that increase is due to the sheer scale of the ships, and broader changes in the general labor market (inflation is a *****), BP implicates that big parts of the crew expenses go to programmers, hackers, and other technical specialists. Think Kyle Netreba before he made it big in the admiralty. Their job is to jam enemy comms/sensors/weapons, and to cause whatever electromagnetic havoc they can while undoing whatever the enemy is doing to you. BP would have us believe that in the background of any shoot-em-up space battle is an extremely contested EM spectrum. Capital ships from cruiser-size on up train directional sensors and counter-sensors and counter-counter-sensors on each other in the same way they blast away with weapons. That is presumably why in FS1, capital ship missile weapons are relatively limited and appear mostly as direct line of sight (more ballistic gun than anything). That is also why the ships lack significant numbers of kinetic point-defense systems in that era. The GTA and PVN in FS1 are highly confident that, provided it loiters long enough, any fully autonomous weapons system (drone, missile, sentry gun, etc.) can be blinded, nullified, subverted, or electronically defeated.
So what we need is a way to minimize the amount of time ordinance spends homing onto a target—in other words, the period of vulnerability where it can be defeated. Enter the strike craft. If capital ships cannot deliver missiles from range, have small, nimble, and numerous platforms try to do it up close. We know from the base games that fighters have some onboard AIs (see the GTS Hygeia tech room; also, the fact that something fixes your subsystems slowly over time). Each fighter is a man-machine team. The benefits of the machine are so obvious that we must wonder why combatants keep the man at all.
But here BP’s lore comes to the rescue again. You cannot have a fully autonomous fighter, which in practice is just a particularly long-loitering missile (one that is very dangerous if subverted thanks to the other ordnance it is hauling). As an aside, today we tend to think “jamming” fully-autonomous systems is nonsense, but in FS they seem to have figured out how to do this quite early (think about all the sentry guns you hack). Even without that magic tech, the tactical flexibility you lose from relying on an AI severed entirely from the battlenet (to say nothing of its expense) has tradeoffs of its own (see the terrible performance of the GTDr Amazon, when it was apparently a real spaceframe in FS1). It is more efficient just to stick a pilot in. Other forms of drone fighters are also out. You cannot control drone fighters from the local capital ships, as those are by and large extremely jammed in any combat setting. Last, you cannot control drones over-the-horizon with subspace communications, which for the most part are not steady/powerful enough to direct munitions reliably (as they apparently struggle to project video into your comms system beyond grainy two-tone images).
The way to recover tactical flexibility given highly degraded comms, and increase strikecraft reliability and survivability given the ease of subverting autonomous systems, is to dumb-down the most important subroutines (flight control, weapons release, etc.) by putting a human in the driver’s seat. Meanwhile, the AI busies itself with wholly-internal tasks (repairing subsystems) or maybe stochastically varying your ordnances’ targeting matrices to let it cut through the evolving jamming situation and reach a target. And the man and machine keep each other in check. Just as cockpits can (well, according to the Morrigan stories anyway) autonomously polarize to blot out very bright objects (say a dazzling laser trying to blind a pilot), so too could having a human onboard help keep the AI from going on the fritz or being subverted, as there is someone to press the proverbial reset button. The AI and the human make up for each other’s weaknesses, and complement the strengths (massive capability!) and weakness (big slow target!) of the capital ships.
With this framework from BP, we can (maybe? IDK I'm just some guy) dispatch with a lot of open-ended, in-universe strategic questions:
• Why did the UEF also forego drones and develop flak guns? From their shared GTA heritage, the Tevs and the UEF reach many similar conclusions after the First Incursion. Engaging in a cyber arms race with the comparably-equipped Vasudans or human rebels is one thing, but after encountering the utterly-superior Shivans it is clear there is no out-computing them (chiefly as they don't compute in the sense we do). So the importance of a man-in-the-loop grows even stronger, spelling the end of drone fighters. And you need more conventional kinetic point defense if your fancy electronic tricks are less likely to work.
• Why is the UEF suddenly using missiles, which we would expect to be everyone’s weapon of choice as early as the Terran-Vasudan War? First, there is the obvious “brown v. blue water” doctrinal differences discussed in the tech room. The UEF can heft missiles as they are always close to supply sources, while the GTVA must look to energy weapons due to its expeditionary nature. But there is more to it than that. The UEF moves toward the expected optimum—missile-heavy loadouts—because of the massive computing advantage that assets like CASSANDRA or the processors underpinning Ubuntu market simulations offer their fleet against would-be Terran opponents in Sol. Of course, the Gefs can do ECM to some degree, but the UEF Fleet can expect to always have the computational upper hand, and thus feel comfortable reintroducing missiles. And if the Shivans return with even superior computers, there are plenty of mass drivers and strikecraft to fight the delaying action they plan for.
• What about the GTVA? Don’t they have drones/SSMs now? Shouldn’t those not work? As mentioned, after the Great War, the GTVA reached some analogous conclusions to the UEF: kinetic point defense is needed, and drone fighters are evolutionary dead ends (you’d prefer missiles, which are cheaper, if you could get them). Boxed in with the Vasudans and wracked by internal revolt, they cannot share the UEF’s confidence in computational superiority over any local foes: i.e., they cannot safely fall back on missiles. So the primary weapon shifts to beams. During the Second Incursion, when it is revealed that beams can be jammed or disrupted, the Alliance responds with jury-rigged AWACS ships and TAG (perhaps based on research into Shivan exofauna to develop a sensor that can adhere to a hostile hull and survive long enough to serve its purpose). Then during TEI after Capella, we see tactical adjustments to minimize the danger of jamming by operating capital ships more like strike craft via the shock jump. Get in, fire first and quickly before you get jammed, and end the fight there. Like UEF missiles, their two big new weapons (SSM missiles and, in future BP, drone bombers) are not ideas straight off the drawing board, but rather old concepts made new through technological breakthroughs allowing the GTVA to shift closer to the optimal strategy. For the SSM missiles, the breakthrough is a leg up over the UEF regarding subspace comms, perhaps gleaned from the Knossos or Sathanas system that opened the Capella black hole. For the GTB Gorgon operating its drone bombers, the key to commanding the drones must be combining the relative mobility of a strike craft (compared to a capital ship) with some radical increase in processing power. Considering the class’s rarity, its emphasis on survivability, the Gorgon’s “full AWACS capacity,” and the boarding seen in the deuterocanonical Vassago’s Dirge, maybe BACKBREAKER is a CASSANDRA-analog, and each Gorgon mounts a dead Shivan to pull this off?
• Why are AWACs/ISR/etc platforms ubiquitous in 2020, totally absent in FS1, and only reappear as extremely weak in FS2? Because according to BP, every fighter and capital ship in this universe takes on some aspect of network warfare as we understand it today. The dedicated AWACS platforms first appearing in FS2 are rush jobs to get particularly new/unoptimized/bulky capabilities into the field faster than it would take to overhaul existing warships with these capabilities. That is why many of the FS2 AWACS capabilities are integrated into line capital ships by the time of BP (see the long-range jamming used in The Things that Bind Us) and yet the AWACS are still around, demonstrating even newer technologies developed in response to the current war. On the UEF side, this understanding also lines up nicely with the Oculus tech room description, which says it was jury-rigged to meet unforeseen combat exigencies. AWACS are stopgap vessels used to get cutting-edge technologies into the field quickly and cheaply, without needing to take a destroyer into drydock to mount the latest and greatest tech.
• Why are engagement ranges close enough to use guns? Because jamming of long-range sensors is so extreme that you need to close the gap to have any realistic chance of keeping a weapon on target without it being jammed, as having a human in the loop is so critical.
• Why do fighters have to run ahead and scan things? Like the above, and capital ships are too systematically jammed to do it.
• Why does it take longer to lock a Cyclops than a Harpoon? Having more space, crew, and processing power, the capital ship will always have the computational upper hand over the onboard AI of a fighter, and gain a corresponding electromagnetic edge. Overcoming that relative disadvantage is hard work!
• Why are sentry guns such a bad idea? Because they are like a drone fighter or a missile: just a machine without people keeping it in check. It can thus apparently be hacked, which we see happen all the time in game, in one of the ultimate demonstrations that even autonomous AIs with little external direction are still liable to interference or subversion. Instead, sentry guns get used only when there is little risk of enemy capital ship presence, and thus minimal risk of encountering the heaviest forms of jamming: i.e., at supply depots (where most raids are by fighters), in-atmosphere (Eyes in the Storm), and to cover retreats (where they are just a distraction).
• Why does it look the same (and very grainy) when you are talking to your wingman right next to you, or command on the other side of a node? Due to the extreme tactical jamming, EMCON could dictate that practically all military comms be conducted using subspace radio, no matter the realspace distance, to avoid disruption in the more classic EM spectrum.
TLDR: in this universe, it seems sometimes the smartest tactic is the one that looks suboptimal on the surface. The Shivans fall into this trope—the comparative lack of drones and AI missiles is another, distinct example.