[0rph3u5]

Recently I posed the following question in to #freespace on the Discord:

“If it were possible to achieve some form of absolute camouflage against the Shivans, how would that change the Freespace universe?”

The results … were certainly musing on Discord on a Friday evening. So let’s try it again ...in a more permanent form of course.



To make some matter clear from the outset that came up on:

-   “Absolute Camouflage” means that party disguising itself cannot be detected by the party it is disguising themselves from, unless they want to be detected. Detection by a third party may still happen.

-   Camouflage means to hide your presence by either blending into environment or appearing as someone or something that does not inspire a hostile reaction. Camouflage is not invisibility.

-   The exactly means of camouflage are up your imagination.

-   The categories of what consequence to consider are open; Political, Cultural and Demographical Trends; Military Strategy (short, medium and long term); Foreign Relations; there is no award for holistic thinking but that really shouldn’t stop you.

[Novachen]

Well, i think the GTVA would be more expansionist, because they simple like to know new things. And they are in dire need to know more about the Shivans, that would likely lead to new findings about the Ancients or maybe they would be even encounter another races... or their remains.

In the short term i think, that the GTVA could reduce their military effort for that matter, as faster ships become much more important for this.
But in the long run? Military would not change at all.

New discoveries will always lead in the question how they can be used in a military way. And because of the faster expansion chances are not even slim to meet another hostile third party race.

So maybe camouflage would not change anything in the end... because it does may protect against Shivans, but not for the other races that want to kill you 
And the universe in FreeSpace was always a hostile place... i mean, how many races were crushed by the Ancients?

If these races had not been wiped out by the Ancients because they had the "Absolute Camouflage", this task would probably then have simply been taken over by the Shivans.

So, to have a long-term advantage of that... the GTVA would need to turn into an Isolationism Alliance.
Sounds VERY unlikely to me.

[Colonol Dekker]

After a while, possible complacency, borderline arrogance, and accidentally unleashing genocide?

[manwiththemachinegun]

As traditional military victory over the Shivans is nigh-impossible, I would think some sort of camouflage would be a requirement of survival. In a sense, that's what the collapse of jump nodes via meson bombs is meant to accomplish, evasion rather than engagement. As for military stealth against the Shivans, as a multi-pronged strategy it has merit... but all-in solutions rarely work against them more than a few times.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Considering the words spoken in Ancients 2 and Ancients 3, did the Ancients attempt to use "absolute camouflage" against the Shivans? While this question probably revolves more around the effects "absolute camouflage" would have on the GTVA, considering the reactions of other species can allow us to draw inferences and maybe conclusions. To this effect, I've added emphasis to the sentences in Ancients 2 and Ancients 3 that seem relevant:

When the destroyers came for us, we attacked. Never had we been defeated. They are like the others. Strange, hideous, resisting, fighting. Only these were not like the others. They did not die.

We made our first retreat. We could forego one system. We left it to the destroyers and went elsewhere. But they followed, they hunted us. They followed us when we retreated, discovered where we lived.

For a long time, we did not know why they chased us. They were no ordinary enemy. They did not seek our territory, our technology, our resources.

Now we know our crime was sin.

And we retreated to our home system. Abandoned our empire. We believed at home we would be safe. For they are not a terrestrial species.

We know when we entered subspace we were trespassers. But our planet is our home. And yet still they came. And our world is gone.

If you feel that the Ancients did use "absolute camouflage", then it may be worth considering that they were once a very proud and arrogant space-faring race. They considered themselves the strongest and, after discovering subspace and other alien species, showed no regret in destroying them. All that changed when they met the Shivans, who relentlessly pursued them wherever they go, and they eventually felt that their past actions were some kind of divine mistake. How would it have felt like to go from being an apex predator to being hunted to extinction? In this respect, the Ancients seem to have taken an unusual stance; they retreated, which meant that they still maintained contact with the Shivans, yet they also began to be resigned to their fate. However, they eventually found a weakness in Shivan vessels, which implies that, even though they seemingly accepted that they were going to be exterminated completely, they never stopped trying to find ways and means to gain the upper hand despite the fact that they tried "absolute camouflage" and it didn't work out that well for them.

If you feel that the Ancients did not use "absolute camouflage", was there anything else they did (insofar as the Ancient monologues in FS1 are concerned) that might be relevant here?

When it comes to "absolute camouflage" changing the physical nature of the universe, however, I think this sums it up rather nicely:

[0rph3u5]

If you feel that the Ancients did not use "absolute camouflage", was there anything else they did (insofar as the Ancient monologues in FS1 are concerned) that might be relevant here?

I think it is not in dispute that the Ancients tried all kinds of survival tactics but ...

1) Your line of arguments is based on the assumption that the Narrator of the Ancients cut-scenes is omniscient - which is contradicted by them framing the events in a narrative of sin and punishment and by it being recounted from the first perspective (the plural doesn't really change much there), which put into questions it's accuracy and completeness.

Relevant quotes:
- Ancients 2

Now we know our crime was sin.

Emphasis: sin = 1. A violation of divine will or religious law.

- Ancients 4

We know our fate. [...] When we traveled subspace, the cosmic destroyers took note.

Emphasis: cosmos = 1. The universe. 2. An ordered, harmonious whole; cited for relevance to the theme of sin and punishment.


2) Your line of arguments builds on the idea that the Narrator speaks for the entire the Ancients' Empire. As their omniscience is debatable, it might very well be that they don't not speak for all parts of the Empire - particularly because the Ancients 1 opens the door for their empire to encompass more than one species in a hierarchy (see quote 1) - of whose ruling elite the narrator can be assumed to be part off (see quote 2). Both can be taken to assume considerable blind spots in the Narrator's perspective, which can be leveraged for a take on the Ancients that goes beyond the explicit canon.

And we saw other advanced life. And we subdued it or we crushed it. In months the extermination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path.

Yellow emphasis: "to subdue" = 1. To overcome, quieten, or bring under control. 2. To bring (a country) under control by force.
Green emphasis: statement of alternative
Red emphasis: While this sentence seems to be a counterindication for the continued (co-)existence of the any advanced life encountered by the Ancients' Empire, it seems to me that it is less a statement of fact rather and argument for narrative of sin and punishment. Not to mention that sentence is just odd.

Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest. For thousands of years our empire expanded

Emphasis: First Person Plural in a statement of belonging or ownership.

(I already expaned on the concept once before - and also on why despite having some merit, I don't pursue it - link)


3) Independent from 1 and 2, your line of arguments says that their efforts to achieve the "absolute" qualification for their efforts had been successful as part of the mentioned retreat. The Narrator's faction of the the Ancients' Empire may have failed to develop any camouflage standard so far as it would meet the definition of "absolute camouflage".


Side Note: One of the vectors for the idea of developing an "absolute" camouflage into the GTVA or any third party may have come from discovering the failed attempts of the Ancients to develop it; or even discovering it in the remains of the civilisation brought to ruin by the Ancients ... or maybe even from the discovery of an Ancients enclave that was successful in its development. (see the mention of "Foreign Relations" in the OP)

[Kie99]

It would be great if another war ever happened, but I don't see it changing all that much strategy wise.  There's no guarantee it'll keep working, the GTVA still have the threat of at least one monster on its doorstep, a monster that might destroy them without even noticing them.  What if they need another star?  What if they decide to stripmine a planet that appears uninhabited?  Presumably they're going to notice when people start shooting at them.

The FreeSpace universe is also likely teeming with life.  There are a couple of dozen systems in FreeSpace and we know of at least 2 species who've emerged on them within a period of 8,000 years, and the Ancients encountered other speicies.  It's a big galaxy and it's been around a long time.  What if the Shivans have 80 Sathanas juggernauts because they need them to fight someone else?

I always envision the post-Capella GTVA as having a couple of Meson Bomb-laden destroyers at secret locations in every inhabited system.  If they're ever attacked, by the Shivans or anyone else, blow the node.  Build up the military as much as possible too, maybe look at novel strategies like automated kamikaze cruisers and destroyers.  It didn't work for Admiral Koth, but it worked for the Hammer of Light.