[Mobius]

Maybe a Knossos has a self-defense system. It moved into subspace and remained there for a while, who knows...

[TrashMan]

It would be like a door going trough itself ....

[Marcus Vesper]

Another possibility is that the Knossos was installed after-the-fact in order to "lock the door" as the Ancients retreated.  This, of course, presupposes the controversial theory that Knossoi can act as node destabilizers.

Can you really call it a theory when there's absolutely no data at all that supports it?  It's more like a "crazy counterintuitive notion" then a theory.

Logic my good man. Konososs stablises nodes that already are there.. and nodes only form in systems, near the presence of strong gravity wells.
So yeah, it has to be relatively close.

And the Knossos was either constructed after the star went kablooie or the star that went kablooie wasn't in the same systems as the knososs. Those are hte only logical explanations I can think of.

You misread my post, I was replying to the "Knossos as a node destabilizer" hare-brained notion, which has absolutely no information anywhere in canon to support it, and actually directly contradicts every canon source on the Knossos, hence my disparaging it even being called a "theory". 

Occam's Razor suggests the nebula was already there when the Knossos was constructed, who said the Shivans had to have blown it up?  Lots of supernovas happen without xenophic aliens triggering them.

[Mustang19]

Occam's razor doesn't apply to fiction. Stories try to establish connections between episodes, which is why Volition is likely trying to imply that the Shivans created the nebula.

@N1ghtmr: I should have been more clear, but yeah. If the Sathani "may" have survived the Capella explosion, then a Knossos may have done so as well.

[BlackDove]

One thing that piques my interest is, why the Xenophobic aliens that destroy all and kill all, end planets and suns - leave Knossos portals intact?

[terran_emperor]

Excuse me but i never caught the implication that the Shivans made the nebula. The only evidence for that is that they are capable of makings stars go BOOM!. But other than that, all you've  are assumtions.

[TrashMan]

Occam's razor doesn't apply to fiction. Stories try to establish connections between episodes, which is why Volition is likely trying to imply that the Shivans created the nebula.

Does Occam's Razor really apply to anything? It's jsut a theoretical mumbo-jumbo with no preactical value whatsoever.

[Hyper Ion]

Excuse me but i never caught the implication that the Shivans made the nebula. The only evidence for that is that they are capable of makings stars go BOOM!. But other than that, all you've  are assumtions.

The implication was made by Bosch, to some extent. He said the nebula may be the result of a supernova caused eight thousand years ago. This timeframe is strikingly close to the fall of the Ancients, and the Capella supernova ties it all together.

[BlackDove]

Occam's razor doesn't apply to fiction. Stories try to establish connections between episodes, which is why Volition is likely trying to imply that the Shivans created the nebula.

Does Occam's Razor really apply to anything? It's jsut a theoretical mumbo-jumbo with no preactical value whatsoever.

Indeed, no preactical value.

Practical though, abounds.

[darkdaej]

One thing that piques my interest is, why the Xenophobic aliens that destroy all and kill all, end planets and suns - leave Knossos portals intact?

As I mentionned early in the thread, I do not believe the shivans would do anything to destroy jump nodes.  Maybe they werent sure if the node a knossos is stabilizing would destabilize once its destroyed.   Shivans can stabilize nodes anyway, and given the time-frame, the Sathanas must have already been in-transit from the Nebula to Gamma Drac.  My guess is the Sath managed to stabilize the node as a last-ditch effort to survive and succeeded, thus making the knossos useless to keep the node stable.

As for the subject, the 2nd knossos itself, my belief, as stated before, is that the nebula was already there.

and as for the size of the nebula, the guesses arent in the thousands of light years.  In the first nebula mission (forgot name, but its the fifth non-training mission of the game) one of the pilots launches a guess: "This nebula could be 10 or 20 light-years in diameter, finding a single ship would be impossible"

[Mustang19]

Occam's razor doesn't apply to fiction. Stories try to establish connections between episodes, which is why Volition is likely trying to imply that the Shivans created the nebula.

Does Occam's Razor really apply to anything? It's jsut a theoretical mumbo-jumbo with no preactical value whatsoever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

[Occam's Razor]  is often paraphrased as "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."

This is hardly pure theory considering that we use this concept every day in our lives. It's just a formal definition of common sense.

[TrashMan]

The implication was made by Bosch, to some extent. He said the nebula may be the result of a supernova caused eight thousand years ago. This timeframe is strikingly close to the fall of the Ancients, and the Capella supernova ties it all together.

ROUGHLY..as well as ROUGHLY the guesstimate of the ancients demise. A error margin of 100-200 years is quite a lot mind you

Quote from: Wikipedia
[Occam's Razor]  is often paraphrased as "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."

This is hardly pure theory considering that we use this concept every day in our lives. It's just a formal definition of common sense.

Not really.. a simple solution is no more likely to be true than a more complex one.

[Mustang19]

Alright. Take two coins. Flip them. You have two predictions as to what's more likely to happen:

A) At least one coin will be heads
B) Both coins will be heads

Now which do you think has the higher probability? B, the complex, or A, the simple?

Occam's razor (when applied to probability) just says that the answer with the least "moving parts" is "less likely to be unlikely". I don't see what you're getting at.

[BlackDove]

He's getting at religion, and it's just not working

[Marcus Vesper]

Excuse me but i never caught the implication that the Shivans made the nebula. The only evidence for that is that they are capable of makings stars go BOOM!. But other than that, all you've  are assumtions.

The implication was made by Bosch, to some extent. He said the nebula may be the result of a supernova caused eight thousand years ago. This timeframe is strikingly close to the fall of the Ancients, and the Capella supernova ties it all together.

Taking anything Bosch says as fact, apart from his explanations of the NTF and his own actions, isn't exactly a firm basis for conclusions.  We're listening to his personal logs, so that's just him musing about what "could be".  I'd contend that quite a few of his conclusions are incorrect, and thus the entire basis for his alliance with the Shivans was founded on flawed premises, but that's me.  Regardless, he's not a source for firm canon background info (apart from it being canon that he said it).

As for Occam's Razor not applying to fiction,  I didn't say it's the basis for fictional design, as simple explanations aren't always good reading.  No, here it applies because there obviously wasn't any conflict in Volition's view of those missions and their setting or they wouldn't have put 2 additional Knossos devices in, now would they?  Thus logic dictates that the perceived paradox created by their existence is a result of us leaping to mistaken conclusions, and that positing silly "self-defense subspace systems!!!" to compensate for the initial mistaken conclusion is just making it worse (and stupid).  So once again: If the only way you can reconcile your theories with established canon material is to make them convoluted and downright ridiculous, the problem is with your theories, not the canon source. 

[brandx0]

I love when people misread Occam's Razor...

Occam's Razor is designed to separate explanations that come to the same result, i.e. Which is more correct, that I bought my bed from a furnature store?  Or that it was put in my room by CIA agents, who falsified my memory to make me think that I bought the bed?

Occam's Razor would dictate that the most simple of these explanations, which each come to the same conclusion (There is a bed in my room and I remember buying it,) is the correct one.

Occam's Razor, however, does not rule out theories which come to alternate conclusions.

"But uncertainty and the non-existence of the ether cannot be deduced from Occam's Razor alone.  It can separate two theories that make the same predictions, but does not rule out other theories that might make a different prediction.  Empirical evidence is also required and Occam himself argued for empiricism, not against it."

"To begin with, we used Occam's razor to separate theories that would predict the same result for all experiments.  Now we are trying to choose between theories that make different predictions.  This is not what Occam intended."

From the Physics FAQ at Adelaide University.

[Marcus Vesper]

I love when people misread Occam's Razor...

Occam's Razor is designed to separate explanations that come to the same result, i.e. Which is more correct, that I bought my bed from a furnature store?  Or that it was put in my room by CIA agents, who falsified my memory to make me think that I bought the bed?

Occam's Razor would dictate that the most simple of these explanations, which each come to the same conclusion (There is a bed in my room and I remember buying it,) is the correct one.

Occam's Razor, however, does not rule out theories which come to alternate conclusions.

"But uncertainty and the non-existence of the ether cannot be deduced from Occam's Razor alone.  It can separate two theories that make the same predictions, but does not rule out other theories that might make a different prediction.  Empirical evidence is also required and Occam himself argued for empiricism, not against it."

"To begin with, we used Occam's razor to separate theories that would predict the same result for all experiments.  Now we are trying to choose between theories that make different predictions.  This is not what Occam intended."

From the Physics FAQ at Adelaide University.

Nothing in this contradicts my position or use of Occam's Razor in any way, so I'm totally vindicated.  For those not quite following along, here's a very simple breakdown:
1. There is a Knossos portal in the nebula.
2. The nebula is a remnant of a supernova.
3. Supernovas blow stuff up.
4. The Knossos is not blown up.
So either

A) The Knossos was built afterwards (no thorny paradoxs here!),

B)The supernova that generated the nebula wasn't that particular system (possible, but unlikely because we only think it GOT blown up by Shivans because the portal led there, and if it didn't get blown up by Shivans then there's no reason to disregard A).

or

C) The Knossos WAS in the system when it went supernova, and survived via a nonsensical ability to enter subspace itself (despite it being the door enabling subspace travel in the first place), via some unknown defense system for which we have no evidence whatsoever, and indeed have evidence supporting it's nonexistence (we blew one up while it sat there happily spinning away).

To clarify on point B some more: I don't know the specifics of nebular dissipation and stellar drift, but it seems to me that the only reason people have this notion of a paradox is the idea that Shivans triggered the nebula's creation via an induced supernova.  This premise is supported by the Knossos "leading to the region of space where the Shivans were first encountered", but then explaining how anything in the system that's obviously not of Shivan manufacture survived becomes a paradox.  Explaining it away by saying it wasn't that star in particular that was destroyed would solve the problem, but ignores why we had the problem in the first place: People think the Shivans blew up that system because it's the "region" where they were first encountered.  If it didn't get destroyed then there's really no reason to do mental gymnastics over it.

Thus leading me right back to where we started: Occam's Razor.  Huzzah for logic!

[TrashMan]

Alright. Take two coins. Flip them. You have two predictions as to what's more likely to happen:

A) At least one coin will be heads
B) Both coins will be heads

Now which do you think has the higher probability? B, the complex, or A, the simple?

Occam's razor (when applied to probability) just says that the answer with the least "moving parts" is "less likely to be unlikely". I don't see what you're getting at.

Just that a lot of things in life in reality aren't simple, so a "simple explanation being the right one" is simply flawed. There's absolutely NO way to tell.

And no BlackDove..it has nothing to do with religion.

[BlackDove]

Of course it does. Maybe you weren't aware of that fact when you wrote what you did, but the underlying problem for accepting Occam's Razor lies there.

[TrashMan]

What? You're a psychiatrists now? Or a telephat?

This amuses me greatly. Please continue Dr. BlackDove. I love good comedy and this looks promising.

*picks up popcorn*