[qwadtep]

so why bother repurposing an old anima, when so much of their basic structure seems to be built to fastidiously avoid consistency and predictability?

Because the Shivans fastidiously avoiding consistency and predictability is itself predictable. A repurposed anima is only a weakness to itself, following a logical algorithm for creating and disbanding new anima would endanger the Shivans as a whole.

[##UnknownPlayer##]

so why bother repurposing an old anima, when so much of their basic structure seems to be built to fastidiously avoid consistency and predictability?

Because the Shivans fastidiously avoiding consistency and predictability is itself predictable. A repurposed anima is only a weakness to itself, following a logical algorithm for creating and disbanding new anima would endanger the Shivans as a whole.

Yeah - it seems like a system which you can depend on to reliably kill off well-adapted components would itself be fundamentally flawed. A sufficiently intelligent (and highly resourced) enemy could show the Shivans just enough to force an adaptation, then bait-and-switch in something which they already know can obliterate that tactic.

For the Shivans, the only way to fight it is to have a lot of resources (which they do - where they get them seems like a big unanswered question) - and a decent chance that an adapted animus element can be deployed to respond efficiently. Which would let them win by attrition, as they are wont to do - over time, your clever strategy still equips the Shivans with all the technology to beat it.

The thing which really bothers me is the resources question. Nothing the Shivans do makes sense unless they have a lot of resources at their disposal - and it's what fundamentally limits the GTVA and UEF in any engagement. It feels, very much, like we'd probably win if we had access to resources the same way the Shivans do since our rate of adaptation is staggeringly fast compared to them.

[QuakeIV]

It certainly seems that way.

One of the big differences between shivan and human behavior seems to be that the humans start out with a guess as to the right way to do things, then adapt accordingly.

The shivans just do random **** until they hit upon the correct solution, unless I misunderstood.

[rubixcube]

I wouldn't quite say random, the Shivans showed up during the T-V war with similar weaponry to the Terrans and VAsudans. Albeit with shields and beam cannons

[qwadtep]

The Great War wasn't a full-blown cull though. The Lucifer fleet was sent to force the Terrans and Zods to get along or die. It was likely equipped according to simulations of what a united GTVA could overcome. Remember what the BP techroom says about Shivan weapons: the Shivans have only ever used them at a fraction of their theoretical power.

Those Dragons have been packing Kaysers since Ross 128. They've just been holding back.

[TheDemon]

"secondary: selective pressure for resumption of panontic function. secondary: suppression of destructive firewall strategies."
"PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE"

There was a hypothesis proposed somewhere else about these lines. The first is the "probe further" Laporte gets when she asks why the Shivans exist. The hypothesis about the second is that it's NOT information being given to Laporte, but rather it's Laporte's line of inquiry being interrupted in real time because she gets too close to a truth she isn't supposed to know. The un- is probably 'underway'.

The proof isn't just in the line. This is the ONLY line of inquiry that results in INTERRUPTED on the Downlink indicator. So in my view, it's almost certain that Laporte probed too deep and her connection to whatever info she accessed had to be cut off.

[Luis Dias]

[22:48] <authortuttaway> there was trouble recently in the form of the ancients; the anima may have been left online to deal with any flare-ups

Somewhat too "teleological" or "rational" for me. I'd rather prefer a line of fiction whereas this anima has either (1) a fixed half-life by "adn design" that just happened to be slightly superior to what was needed to solve the Ancient's problem, (2) still not provoked a reaction from the shivan network for its cull. Being left online to deal with "flare ups" smells of too much forward thinking.

As a counter you could say that from timeless experience, it has been common for anima to have a larger life than required, and this has proven more efficient in dealing with flare-ups. But even then, it exposes a feedback, reasoning and deploying type of thinking... Not entirely incoherent with shivan, but perhaps less positioned to my taste.

[##UnknownPlayer##]

[22:48] <authortuttaway> there was trouble recently in the form of the ancients; the anima may have been left online to deal with any flare-ups

Somewhat too "teleological" or "rational" for me. I'd rather prefer a line of fiction whereas this anima has either (1) a fixed half-life by "adn design" that just happened to be slightly superior to what was needed to solve the Ancient's problem, (2) still not provoked a reaction from the shivan network for its cull. Being left online to deal with "flare ups" smells of too much forward thinking.

As a counter you could say that from timeless experience, it has been common for anima to have a larger life than required, and this has proven more efficient in dealing with flare-ups. But even then, it exposes a feedback, reasoning and deploying type of thinking... Not entirely incoherent with shivan, but perhaps less positioned to my taste.

Being evolutionarily driven is itself a form of organization though - its behavior you can rely upon the Shivans exhibiting. At some level they still have to obey logic. The Shivans just seem to be subvert the expectations of most intelligent species - most being the operative term, because they're clearly afraid of something.

[redsniper]

For the Shivans, the only way to fight it is to have a lot of resources (which they do - where they get them seems like a big unanswered question)...

The thing which really bothers me is the resources question. Nothing the Shivans do makes sense unless they have a lot of resources at their disposal...

They..... they.... they just warp stuff in from other universes. Those trans-abyssal gates, man....

[An4ximandros]

 Seeing how in AoA jumping 'verse merely required a standard jump node with some extra engine power and comparing it to a transabyssal gate... I'd say it leads to some unglimpsable form of existence.

 EDIT: I can't believe how no one else seems to have noticed that the Trans-gate looks like the GTVA logo.

[Phantom Hoover]

yeah because the trans-universal jump in aoa clearly couldn't have had any outside interference

[An4ximandros]

 What I mean was: In AoA the Vishnans only needed a "standard" node and overcharged meson reactors to make their shenanigans happen. Since the Shivans are implied to be on their sameesque level, why would they need a gigantic super portal for the same thing? It clearly goes to Shivantown!

[qwadtep]

Throughput? I'd imagine that sending a dozen or so ships of destroyer-class or less is much simpler than storming a hundred juggs through Capella. One's a small dirt road, the other's a highway.

As an aside, I had a random thought earlier. We know that time is of no consequence to the Shivans, and that they only invaded Capella because their "priorities changed"--what if the Sathanas fleet in Universal Truth is the same one from FS2, scrambled through a star to engage the Vishnans years later?

[Luis Dias]

there was a better theory in an old random thread. it involved the cappella sun being a time jump from the shivans to warn the humans in the past about the shivans, who in turn are humans from the future, just to speed **** up I guess.

Seriously though, the Shivans are way superior to a 80 Sathanas fleet, and so are the Vishnans. We know this since AoA: UT.

[qwadtep]

Well yeah, obviously. But the Second Incursion node tells a story of its own.

strategic impulse: orion arm arteria threatened: coagulate, coordinate, repel
So the Second Incursion is the Shivans responding to defend what's apparently a significant strategic/logistical route. Straightforward enough. We can also conclude that if the Shivans need to move a fleet around, it's only natural that they'd pass through here.

The NTF alone was not enough to trigger a cull. Shivan aggression in the Second Incursion was an autonomic response, at first...until their priorities changed.
Why did their priorities change? There's obviously something going on here.

apatic anima disseminate: engineer transabyssal gate. strategic transitional event imminent. notify exostotic elements. cognicide contingency to active.
And now we can confirm that the juggernaut fleet destroyed Capella as a means of deploying elsewhere. Assuming that transdimensional travel is normal for the Shivans, it might be simpler to hop between the same region in two universes than it is to travel vast distances within the same universe. In this regard, the Capella system might have been a convenient route between the GTVA's universe and AoA's universe, which the Shivans were previously unable to exploit due to the node being closed by the Ancients.

apatic anima supervisory issues covert resolution: execute roadblock. generate transabyssal connection. stand by.
The use of "covert" here is what really bugs me. Why covert? From whom? There's no need to be covert around the little fleshy pink things and less-little but equally fleshy yellow things, they don't get it anyway. From the other Shivans? That doesn't make any sense. From the Vishnans? Now there's an interesting thought--the Shivans using the premise of a roadblock to make strategic movements without drawing the Vishnans' attention. And the only reason I can think of for them to do so is AoA:UT, in which the Destroyers finally clash with their Preserver counterparts.

We know that the Shivans and Vishnans both possess a capacity for simulation that borders on prescience. If the Fedayeen can project ahead 30 years using a single Shivan corpse, how far ahead must the Shivans themselves see? 20 years would be nothing--the equivalent of an ambush in a war that had yet to begin.

[redsniper]

Yeah but what about "exostotic elements" and "cognicide contingency?" We've got bone-growing Shivans with plans to deal with thought killing. O_o

I guess if there's talk of arteries being travel routes or something, then exostosis here would be building some kind of foundational structure in the galaxy, but... wth would that be? Cognicide sounds a lot to me like what the GD would do to you. Just outright destroys minds or consciousness.

[perihelion]

My take on "exostotic elements" is that exostosis refers to budding of new bone growth from existing bone.  In the context of the Shivans, I've got two possible thoughts.
1) This could be budding new elements off of existing ones (existing ships growing new ones, or budding off new ones that will grow on their own?)
2) This one's a bit more radical.  The idea has been proposed that the Shivans are a naturally arising property of the universe itself.  Could this be a command for the universe itself (or whatever computational strata the Shivans naturally reside in) to make more of them?

Either way, I'm thinking that they are creating additional elements that can be deployed in the larger conflict ahead.

"Cognicide contingency" strikes me a little funny as well, since that was also my impression of the threat the Great Darkness represented.  Maybe the Shivans are worried that the GD is about to break loose and are preparing a contingency to deal with that?  Engineering a transabyssal gate certainly does not seem to require the death of a star in AoA.  Given the "covert" bit, now I'm wondering if the destruction of Capella was to mask their movements from the Vishnans?

[Shivan Hunter]

"secondary: selective pressure for resumption of panontic function. secondary: suppression of destructive firewall strategies."
"PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE"

There was a hypothesis proposed somewhere else about these lines. The first is the "probe further" Laporte gets when she asks why the Shivans exist. The hypothesis about the second is that it's NOT information being given to Laporte, but rather it's Laporte's line of inquiry being interrupted in real time because she gets too close to a truth she isn't supposed to know. The un- is probably 'underway'.

The proof isn't just in the line. This is the ONLY line of inquiry that results in INTERRUPTED on the Downlink indicator. So in my view, it's almost certain that Laporte probed too deep and her connection to whatever info she accessed had to be cut off.

Previously, Ken told Laporte she had to "think of something else. Now." because whatever was in the nagari network was tracking her (and it almost got to her- it does if you turn around). This leads to a conclusion that this thing (the "deepness" as it's called in the only BP lore that refers to it - the "Great Darkness" as HLP has started calling it) can detect whenever it's referenced over nagari.

This probably includes communications/thoughts transmitted through the Shivan nodes. In that second line, it's likely that either the GD itself detected and shut down this signal, or the Shivans shut it down to hide it from the GD.

The NTF alone was not enough to trigger a cull. Shivan aggression in the Second Incursion was an autonomic response, at first...until their priorities changed.
Why did their priorities change? There's obviously something going on here.

There are a couple mentions of "External heuristic injections", the first during the Great War and the second during FS2. I think this second one, and the change in priorities, is Bosch trying to communicate (is there any data on how many other civilizations have successfully communicated with the nagari network?)

[Phantom Hoover]

press ctrl+shift+s in the techroom, the name 'great darkness' is canon

[General Battuta]

It's a canonical techroom name!