Author Topic: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)  (Read 140660 times)

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Is retail FS2 Alpha One ever confirmed as a character in BP canon?

I heard that it could be Al'fadil, and there is certainly a lot of data to back up that assumption. But as far as I am aware, Al'fadil was never canonized in BP as the squadron commander for the 70th Blue Lions, at the time of the Capella supernova.

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.

It's somewhat relevant to a campaign I am building.
"Obviously the meson bomb is a form of cat-toast-device, with the buttered toast inverted, so that the cat and toast both fly in the direction of gravity much faster than expected. By introducing artificial gravity, a pair of cat-toast perpetual motion accelerator units can be made to collide with one another, and they produce an unimaginably devastating explosion. Both cats are named 'Meson'."

 - Wikileaks 2383

 

Offline The E

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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.

Steele is not FS2 Alpha One. Yes, he was SOC during the second incursion, but he was wounded during it; Alpha One, as far as we know, never got so much as a scratch :)
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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
I was wondering the other day if the Vishnans have more than one goal.

The goals of the Shivans are explained "clearly" in Universal Truth 2:
"secondary: selective pressure for resumption of panontic function." -> The Brahmans created the Panontos. Only species that cooperate should give a new cosmic order.

"secondary: suppression of destructive firewall strategies": -> The universe is a "computer". The subspace was calculated to create computing capacities. Defect hegemonies seal off areas of the universe, including subspace. The two objectives are therefore to cull or redirect xenocidal species.

"PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event!" -> Avert the Great Darkness.

We don't have telemetry data on the Vishnans. In this thread it was only clarified that the Vishnans are looking for a successor for the Brahamns. This corresponds to the secondary goal of the Shivans. So my question is whether the Vishnans also have a higher ranking goal and whether it also has to do with the Great Darkness.






 

Offline Abaddon

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Does the GTVA have some kind of beam-jammer-defeating device either in development or already deployed? It seems like it would be the perfect secret weapon, for Delenda Est on an even greater scale -- take some strategic losses, bait out a Solaris into an AWACS/jamming-based assault, then boom, turns out the Serkr corvettes can circumvent the jamming somehow.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
ECM is a constant arms race. The Tev ECM defeat capability is always being upgraded and so are the UEF's countermeasures.

  

Offline Aesaar

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
You can see the Marcus Glaive half-defeating beam jamming in the Tenebra intro, where it misses the Eris with two of its beams and hits with one.

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Been out of the loop for a while. Here's what I've gathered:

Through evolution and self-improvement, life tends to produce more intelligent life. With greater intelligence comes greater self-awareness. Unfortunately, all such paths of enlightenment, regardless of their starting points, converge to the same godlike entity at the highest level of cognition: the Great Darkness. The ultimate dead end.

The Great Darkness is the pinnacle of self-awareness. It exists to ponder its own existence. It acts as a sort of black hole in the Nagari network, enlightening (assimilating) all life forms that discover it. A life form capable of recognizing the danger is already doomed, because to comprehend the Great Darkness is to become a part of it. The only universes not consumed by this "thought cancer" are those that contain the Shivans.

The Shivans are a property of all interesting universes - a cosmic immune system that culls civilizations before they produce the Great Darkness. Due to constant internal conflict, large-scale Shivan behavior is chaotic and diversified, allowing them to adapt to any threat. Their existence was exploited by the Terminal Protocol: a final attempt to contain the Great Darkness by quarantining universes conducive to intelligent life.

The Vishnans are a multiversal amalgam of civilizations that have stopped short of the Great Darkness, thereby evading the cull. They initially believe that with Nagari intervention, the UEF is worthy of ascension to the amalgam. The Shivans believe that the risk of a hard takeoff singularity is too great. The GTVA believes that the infectious, Vishnan-influenced UEF philosophy will leave everyone defenseless against the Shivans.

Here's what I'm still fuzzy on:

The Vishnans have lost faith in us for some reason (possibly involving the war). The Elders have an outside-context endgame strategy (possibly involving ascension to the amalgam). The Shivans have an alternative to culling us (possibly involving tighter control of intelligent life). Ken thinks that we have something to offer the Shivans (possibly involving self-awareness, which the Shivans lack by necessity).

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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.
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(the very next day)
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(...)
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Offline Mito [PL]

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Well, Vishnans actually made contact with Laporte via Bei. At the moment, they may know more than we think.
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You starve it to death.

 

Offline rubixcube

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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.

The GTVA's disdain for the Ubuntu ideology seems to stem from distrust of the Vishnan's themselves, the reasons for which are not totally clear (and may or may not be justified).
I have a suspicion the Shivans might want the GTVA to win
Stuff

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Probably the Vishnans don't mind if their ideology isn't applied 100%, as long as the general direction is correct.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 08:05:50 pm by Nightmare »

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Alpha-1 should stay the mysterious god figure that he is, the answer to some questions is never as satisfactory as the mystery itself.

 

Offline Snarks

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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.

The UEF isn't going to force the GTVA to do anything, since I'm fairly sure they're content with just being in their home system. The concern is that Terrans are going to start questioning their relatively austere lifestyles. Despite being roughly equal in economic capabilities, the Terrans are spending probably at least 10 times as much as the UEF is on its military just in terms of fleet maintenance and production, probably a lot more if we consider R&D.

The Second Shivan Incursion basically left the Terrans in a state of total war for a couple of decades, and its leaders probably want to keep it that way. Ubuntu threatens that with its relative pacifism.

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.

 

Offline rubixcube

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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.

That seems to be the main sticking point, I've been trying to think of reasons for this.

One clue might be the ancient monologues which say "we retreated to our home system, abandoned our empire", hinting perhaps the Vishnans began influencing the Ancients to become like the UEF, but the Shivans still said F**K you, and killed them anyways.
Stuff

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Alpha-1 should stay the mysterious god figure that he is, the answer to some questions is never as satisfactory as the mystery itself.

I second that. Alpha One is a godlike creature, that can respawn infinitely, can alter time if something happens that she/he doesn't like and do everything in the sake of her/his entertainment. (aka Player) :D

 

Offline Woolie Wool

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
In the GRANITE HUNTER files, what do the code names stand for? Who wrote whatever (Vasudan?) poem being quoted in the first post? What is the Complicated Place?

As far as I can tell, CELTIC TRIPLE is the NTF Iceni (and possibly Bosch personally) and BLACK DOVE is Lt. Commander Snipes. Other than that, I don't know.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 01:44:28 pm by Woolie Wool »
16:46   Quanto   ****, a mosquito somehow managed to bite the side of my palm
16:46   Quanto   it itches like hell
16:46   Woolie   !8ball does Quanto have malaria
16:46   BotenAnna   Woolie: The outlook is good.
16:47   Quanto   D:

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Ok, here's one for you.

In the tech entries there's a huge leap forward of understanding the basics of Shivan ship and decision making, and comprehension of how they actually operate. Reacting organically to each new situation rather than preplanning. How did the GTVA acquire this knowledge? Spook work? Experimentation? Decryption of the ETAK project or of Shivan comm nodes?

 

Offline starlord

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Actually in regards to the tech descriptions, a number of shivan organisms are describes like anodes, killers etc... According to this model, what are the shivans encountered in the FS1 captured azrael?

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
I don't remember right now! Is there a particular word that seems to match up in the NEM.NOW files? Maybe just 'crew'?

 

Offline Woolie Wool

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
If the Maitreya is (a) part of Shambhala and (b) based on the Murugan, is it therefore intended to do with Erebus- and Titan-class destroyers what the Erebus-class is meant to do with Sathanas juggernauts, playing keep-away with superior speed and subspace maneuverability and whittling the enemy down, thereby causing unacceptable casualties, tying ships down as they try to pursue her, and forcing the GTVA to the negotiating table?
16:46   Quanto   ****, a mosquito somehow managed to bite the side of my palm
16:46   Quanto   it itches like hell
16:46   Woolie   !8ball does Quanto have malaria
16:46   BotenAnna   Woolie: The outlook is good.
16:47   Quanto   D:

"did they use anesthetic when they removed your sense of humor or did you have to weep and struggle like a tiny baby"
--General Battuta