[Ghostavo]

er... your point?

[Flipside]

[Dungeon Master]Sometimes Cavalier, you can be both right and wrong at the same time.[/Dungeon Master]

[Lightspeed]

Swamp Thing:
From my point of view, shivans never lived on any planet. And at least on that part, canon backs me up without the slightest doubt

Originally posted by Flipside
LOL I suppose, at the end of the day, it's like asking how they managed to communicate in the middle of an EMP storm in a Nebula, the excuses could go all the way from 'Ah, but the EMP storm was their communication' to 'Cos' [V] said so'

Simple, Shivans don't communicate like the Terrans would. EMP storms are no problem whatsoever for them. Heck, if they communicated the same way, you could just hear their messages

[Flipside]

Shivan communication seems to occur in the electromagnetic spectrum, though efforts to decode their transmissions have yielded no meaningful results to date.

Now, some could argue that as many Sathanas as that would cause a huge electrical storm simply with their communications

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
Swamp Thing:
From my point of view, shivans never lived on any planet. And at least on that part, canon backs me up without the slightest doubt

Uh? How? Just because GTVA never discovered their home planet, they don´t have one?
I think believing that shivans just spawned in outer space is stretching it a bit. Don´t you?
Can you conceive an inteligent creature to form a huge civilization like that, with thousands of ships, all spawned out of space dust?
I think not.

Even Santa Claus is more believeble that that!

[GoulMeister]

in fs1 the cutscene where they enter the shivan ship, is there not an atmosphere, and how did this hive mind thing come up, they could be as individual as us with crappy governments aswell.

[Flaser]

It was mentioned before that they are ancient - IMHO they are so old, that they don't expand their empire any more, they don't develp new technologies, and their whole economy and society is as static as it can get...

They are so old they probably messed with their own evolution - beyond cybernetics, genemanipulation they also could have created a conscience-net.

Their very brains could be hooked onto a network that way the manner in which you speak of a Shivan and all of them becomes blurry.

There is a conscience of the idividual, however said conscience could partly exist in the whole network, or in others as well.

It could be that thanks to this dissolved state of individual and personality the Shivans don't know death as we do anymore, and the question wheter there is a Hive mind is just as pointless as wheter a Shivan is a single individual, a projection of the whole, or a part of the group mind.

Possibly a Shivan can exist on its, however its own speciman could view such a creature as alien or severly hampered, the way some people speak of invalid and disabled persons.
Possibly separation can be a great trauma for a Shivan, or a Shivan who never experienced the "network" can never develop some mental facilities that are common to the rest of his specie.

For someone like that, us individualistic vermin could be an eyesore or just a selfreplicating virus that may distrupt the network or devolve the Sain Shivan Existence.

Their technology reflects this attitude - I don't care what comes I always preveil, there is no such thing as failure or end of story - so they could build their ships and stuff over centuries, wander for generations in empty space, and then wreak havoc just to ensure their transistency.

Probably if there ever was a Shivan home world or a bound Shivan it could be forgotten or they themselves view the though of bound individual Shivan as sacreligious, and deny the fact that their origins lie inside the gravity well of a planet.

[Vaelinx]

Originally posted by Flipside

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Shivan communication seems to occur in the electromagnetic spectrum, though efforts to decode their transmissions have yielded no meaningful results to date.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, some could argue that as many Sathanas as that would cause a huge electrical storm simply with their communications

Two things, if they do in fact communicate in the electromagnetic spectrum (that gets a lol and a Duh) then they're not too different from us.  The only form of human communication that does not concern the electromagnetic spectrum is...  voice to ear... oh! and those two cups connected by a string...

Anyhow, I think we're all assuming that they've just gone beyond vocal chords and that their brains plug directly into their cell phones...  In which case, an ionizing electromagnetic storm in a nebula could TOTALLY mess them up.  But that depends on of things as there are ways around it (like if the GTVA could shield their freaking electronics better ).  If they communicate in the EM spectrum, and we know what frequencies, then they can be jammed (communications that is, jamming sensing equipment can be more complicated).  Without too much trouble too...  But I'll bet they'd take anything jamming them out faster than you could saiy "Pissed Shivan."  An analogy is you having a converation with some friends in a room, and somebody sets an air-raid siren right in the middle and turns it on...  You'd either run away, or kill the thing...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by GoulMeister
in fs1 the cutscene where they enter the shivan ship, is there not an atmosphere, and how did this hive mind thing come up, they could be as individual as us with crappy governments aswell.

Hive mind theory is a conjecture based on the disarray of the Shivan forces after the Lucifer was destroyed (disorganized and easily defeated).  i.e. that the Lucifer was a hive-mind for the fleet and that they could not function without it.

FS1 intro, IIRC, shows that there is some non-corrosive pressurised atmosphere (i.e. no need for full-body suit), but not a breathable one (soldiers have air masks).  Of course, there's no way to be sure that the freighter wasn't manually pressurised and pumped full of gas by the GTVA to allow the troops to enter.

[Akalabeth Angel]

First of all, let me say this thread is damned funny because the whole lot of you were arguing about freaking insect behaviors for about 3 pages. But anyways . . .

It was mentioned before that they are ancient - IMHO they are so old, that they don't expand their empire any more, they don't develp new technologies, and their whole economy and society is as static as it can get...

         The thing about technology is debunked by the very existance of FS2. If I recall, the main turret on a Lilith has a slightly better punch that the turret on the old one.

FS1 intro, IIRC, shows that there is some non-corrosive pressurised atmosphere (i.e. no need for full-body suit), but not a breathable one (soldiers have air masks). Of course, there's no way to be sure that the freighter wasn't manually pressurised and pumped full of gas by the GTVA to allow the troops to enter.

      If the GTVA pressurized the ship, why wouldn't the fill it with breathable air? And why pressurize a whole ship when you can just put on a space suit.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel

      If the GTVA pressurized the ship, why wouldn't the fill it with breathable air? And why pressurize a whole ship when you can just put on a space suit.

Lack of a sufficient breathable air supply, probably.  If they have suitable breathing apparatus, there's no need to waste all that oxygen.  And a space suit is usually bulky and difficult to manuever in - simply due to multiple protective layers to seal against vacuum - plus it's vulnerable to a single piercing impact.  So it wouldn't be ideal for a hostile situation - one strike and BLAM! - decompression.

Secondary issue could be pumping in air (gas, rather) as either a biological weapon (very unlikely as nothing would be known of Shivan physiology at this point IIRC), or simply to check structural integrity (pinpoint leaks in the hull).

That's not to say that they did pump it full of gas - it's more likely that was simply the Shivans preferred atmosphere (or even controlled conditions to protect equipment / cargo or similar)- but it's not completely infeasible either.

[Lightspeed]

Originally posted by Flipside


Now, some could argue that as many Sathanas as that would cause a huge electrical storm simply with their communications

Well, GTVA knows little or nothing about the shivans. It may well be that what they think to be their communications is merely something like their targetting system. Who knows?

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing


Uh? How? Just because GTVA never discovered their home planet, they don´t have one?
I think believing that shivans just spawned in outer space is stretching it a bit. Don´t you?
Can you conceive an inteligent creature to form a huge civilization like that, with thousands of ships, all spawned out of space dust?
I think not.

Even Santa Claus is more believeble that that!

I'm backed up by the very fact that it says in the tech room descriptions that it's very probable that shivans spent their evolutionary process (if they had one, that is) in a zero-g environment, which in turn neglects the presence of a large object (planet). And for myself, I don't think they "spawned out of space dust" or anything, they simply evolved in subspace, and build little robotic hulls especially designed for zero-g environments to allow them kicking some GTVA arse.

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
The thing about technology is debunked by the very existance of FS2. If I recall, the main turret on a Lilith has a slightly better punch that the turret on the old one.
 

Nah. See, I'm one of those people that believe, that even at the time of FS1, the shivans had their complete Sathanas fleet already. It's not a progression of shivan technology, they merely send stronger ships, because the GTVA has undergone a major technological upgrade.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Lightspeed

I'm backed up by the very fact that it says in the tech room descriptions that it's very probable that shivans spent their evolutionary process (if they had one, that is) in a zero-g environment, which in turn neglects the presence of a large object (planet). And for myself, I don't think they "spawned out of space dust" or anything, they simply evolved in subspace, and build little robotic hulls especially designed for zero-g environments to allow them kicking some GTVA arse.

I'm of the opinion that the Shivans did evolve on a planet, to be honest.

  Except that they left it millenia ago (either through choice or destruction by another race), and have evolved into cyborg organisms designed to live in space -  and that they choose to live in space because planets are a weakness, i.e. a static target.

[Lightspeed]

That's a valid option, yet I don't believe this.

Shivans are too much based around subspace. And the game title drops us a hint. It's called Freespace, which is no more than another term for subspace.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
I'm backed up by the very fact that it says in the tech room descriptions that it's very probable that shivans spent their evolutionary process (if they had one, that is) in a zero-g environment, which in turn neglects the presence of a large object (planet).

Yeah but we all know how much science [V] remember from school

The shivan form is completely wrong for a creature that evolved in zero G.

Besides if the shivans have a evolutionary process it kind of messes up your subspace made manifest theory doesn't it? Evolution requires both hereditory and natural selection to work. How would subspace made physical need either?

That said I tend to be a live and let live sort when it comes to shivan origins

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
That's a valid option, yet I don't believe this.

Shivans are too much based around subspace. And the game title drops us a hint. It's called Freespace, which is no more than another term for subspace.

But the ending of both games, and the first in particular, involves subspace/freespace anyways.   And both titles centre around battles 'for' subspace in a sense, be it the battle to destroy the Lucifer in subspace or capture (and then destroy) the Knosso subspace node.

Plus there's the question as to why the Lucifer is vulnerable in subspace, rather than stronger.  Surely the Shivans of all would know how to protect a ship in subspace?

And how did the Shivans developed both mechanical and biological engineering to the extent that they could create vast ships and complex organic-cybernetic 'vessels'.  Also, if they could build vessels in some form of teleketic manner (not having physical form), or even 'manifest' them (not having any apparent access to metal in subspace itself, and not being able to leave it without a ship), then why do they use conventional weaponry?

I don't buy the 'born of subspace' thing, to be honest.  Migrated to subspace, I can handle.  

(hell, you've seen the Reci storyline, you'll know my main theory anyways....)

[NGTM-1R]

Whatever signs of "evolution" the Shivans show are...well, effectively erased by the fact that they're living in cybernetic shells these days, and so we don't know what the original Shivans looked like.

[magatsu1]

they may be borq-stylee cyborgs though. Other than Hall Fight and a few bits 'n' bobs we don't really know. Not for sure anyway.