Age of Aquarius
* I still don't understand the whole deal that Earth was completely destroyed in the beginning, and then at the end it wasn't?
There's a lot of, what should I call it.. Mythology, illusions going on with Shivans, Ancients. Can someone explain this?
When the 14th Battlegroup travelled through the portal to Sol, they entered a parallel universe where the Lucifer actually reached Sol without being intercepted in subspace. At the end, the Vishnans rig up a portal to the 14th's home universe.
* At the end, I still don't understand why GTVA would attack UEF. Why not just go back to a united nation, or an alliance? Why does it have to be war? At the end of Freespace 2, they stopped the shivan advance and destroyed the Capella jumpnode. But the Shivans still very much exist and if they had almost 100 Sathanas Juggernauts, who knows what else they're hiding. They probably have huge forces lying around, and they'll find a way into GTVA territory eventually. Wouldn't the war and attack the UEF deplete massive forces on both side?
There is a lot of supplementary material in the tech room that explains this, but the basic background is that, during the isolation period, society in Sol developed in ways that, as far as the GTVA Security Council is concerned, are incompatible with the strategic goals of the GTVA. The 14th being derailed by 2 weeks meant that their original plan, which was to essentially put the 14th into Earth orbit and using it as a gun pointed at the Council of Elders' collective heads was unworkable; with the various defections at the end of Age of Aquarius, the GTVA saw a military conquest as the only viable way forward.
* Is there a summery of the Age of Aquarius storyline somewhere? Preferably just explaining the most major and important events, to get the gist of the whole campaign.
Well, there's the
Wiki page...
* How come GTVA ships have such extremely well-designed subspace drives and the UEF dont? The jump in and out, again and again and again. What happened with these huge ships needing recharge time or else they blow up? At a few points the pilots are stunned that some GTVA ships manage to jump so fast again and turn the tide of a battle. So how come it's like this? At the last large fleet battle, why didnt all of them crash jump? GTVA can jump whereever they want and however they want, but not UEF... I don't get it.
Different strategic priorities leading to differences in ship design. The modern GTVA fleet is built around high subspace maneuverability as a primary component of their defensive and offensive concepts; The sprint drives mounted on Atreus and Carthage allow them to do two jumps in quick succession, but no more. This is basically the GTVA's attempt to duplicate shivan tactics, the idea being that a ship like Atreus would act as an ambusher and overwhelm enemy capital ships with its massive beam firepower (much like the Ravana does).
The UEF, on the other hand, was handicapped by a few things. For one, they do not have the advanced power generation tech that the GTVA does, so their power budgets are somewhat lower than those of an equivalent GTVA ship. Two, the UEF has spent most of its development budget on improving its fighters and bombers; on a class-for-class basis, UEF fighters are vastly superior to GTVA ones, and their bombers are terrifyingly powerful (you don't see them in the released missions that much, but believe me, they're bad-ass). This stems from the fact that the UEF Navy is very much a "coastal" one as opposed to the GTVA's "blue water" fleet: For the UEF, major shipyards are just one intrasystem jump away, whereas the GTVA is built around long missions on remote stations.
Also, is there any update on War in Heaven act 4 and 5? I'm dying to see how this end.
It will happen when it will happen.
