Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: CP5670 on March 19, 2003, 01:31:00 am
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I have been thinking about what the interiors of Shivan fighters might be like. The Terran and Vasudan ships have fairly standard cockpits in them - cramped flight seats surrounded by controls and status indicators - but what do Shivan fighters have? A Shivan definitely would not fit in a standard chair, so the Shivan seating areas must be both much larger and differently shaped than the Terran ones. Assuming they even use standard flight controls and computer displays, they would have to be placed in completely different areas to be usable. Then there is the question of internal life support; do Shivans need to breathe oxygen or can they live in a vacuum? Also, do they even have transparent canopies to see outside?
The GTVA and even the player should know all the answers to these questions since they have captured and used Shivan fighters a couple of times (actually, what happened to the shivans inside them when they were taken? :D). Maybe V kept this purposefully vague for future ideas...
Thoughts?
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Shivans do just fine in a vacuum, so no need for life support. You can find the basis for that in the freespace reference bible somewhere :) As for the rest... no clue, but yeah the GTVA should definitely know since they've captured fighters once in a while, at least Dragons and Maras. The Shivans inside them probably crawled out and floated away before the fighters were taken though, at least that's what I'd do if I could survive in space and knew I'd be cut up into little pieces for study if I stayed :lol:
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Looking at their structure, maybe the best way for them to control a fighter would attaching their main body-thingy to a structure, and having computer consoles and throttle controls at every limb.
Now what's more interesting is, how the GTVA got the shivan ships to be actually flyable
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they seem to be very advanced i don't know why they would have a realy seperate pilot for there ships, more likely there sort of growen together
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I like the notion that all Shivan ships are creatures in their own right, hence Bob's idea that the fighters and bombers are 'grown.'
I mean, you're hinted that they're organic ships by the motion of the Sathanas' limbs in the final cutscene.
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A Shivan is so big, I don't think the whole five-legged thing could actually fit into a Manticore, for example (think of the shape, the size... there's some movie on the 'Silent Threat' CD which Eddie... errr, Setekh showed me ages ago which demonstrates this). I think they're either grown into their ships, like Bobboau said, or that the five-legged things we see are like modules that the Shivan brain core or whatever is installed into. Fighters and bombers are similarly set up - just plug in your core and get flying. Cruisers would probably have a number of these cores installed into turrets or navigation, and a few on standby for emergencies (Hall Fight).
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this reminds me of my thery in the vbb: that the ships are organic like the cruisers and stuff. What we think as the shivans are anti bodys that are put in the fighters for use of armor os lasers don't fry their hide.
(hehe some of you may have read this thery in the vbb so yes i modified it.)
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Originally posted by J.F.K.
A Shivan is so big, I don't think the whole five-legged thing could actually fit into a Manticore, for example (think of the shape, the size... there's some movie on the 'Silent Threat' CD which Eddie... errr, Setekh showed me ages ago which demonstrates this). I think they're either grown into their ships, like Bobboau said, or that the five-legged things we see are like modules that the Shivan brain core or whatever is installed into. Fighters and bombers are similarly set up - just plug in your core and get flying. Cruisers would probably have a number of these cores installed into turrets or navigation, and a few on standby for emergencies (Hall Fight).
From My FAQ One thing we do know from [V] is that the shivans are what we see in Hall Fight (a cutscene from FS1). They aren't wearing powersuits like the aliens in Independence Day.
It is possible that the shivans were grown into the fighters and don`t acheive full growth because of the conditions they are being grown in.
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Shivans could be selectively bred, or genetically engineered to fit into fighter cockpits.
Pilots could be a separate subspecies to the hall fight, or an entirely unique species that have conquered/ were conquered by the Shivans, and now work together for the same goals.
The shivans could fuse with their vessels durin their construction, or possibly evolve to become their vessels, so that what we see as a fighter cl;ass is more properly a separate species.
These, and the otjher theories posted above, prove only one thing - we don't know.
[size=.2](But it is fun to speculate :))[/size]
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I don't really think that Shivans are grown into their spaceships. Their spaceships, or at least fighters for that matter have to be... er... in lack of a better word... human enough for the GTA/GTVA to be able to put a human inside it. This would be possible if it were like a cockpit, but if the fighter acts as a sort of shell for the shivans, then I see no way how a terran pilot could control something like this.
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The organic fighter idea may have some merit to it, as the "normal" Shivans are probably too large to fit into the fighters; as JFK said, one of the ST movies (shiphit2 I think, the one with the shivan banging on the thoth), although it is just supposed to be a joke, shows the relative scale of the shivans.
However, it would also introduce numerous problems; namely, how did the GTVA capture these things, and how did they fit Terran pilots into them? Obviously if the ship is an organism in itself, it has no inside space for anyone nor any standard controls, and if the ship can think and operate on its own, how did they get its "brain" to give up control of the ship to the player? The first issue can be rectified with some clever engineering, but I have no idea about the second one; they would need something like Yuri from RA2 to mind control the ship. :D
I think it is possible that the five-legged Shivans can actually fit into the smaller fighters, but unlike the Terran and Vasudan ships, they would be taking up most of the room inside instead of the usual reactor, weapons, etc. and the entire fighter would have to be shaped to accomodate them, which seems a rather inefficient use of space.
(But it is fun to speculate :))
which is the point of this thread. :D
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I haven't seen shiphit2, but in Hall Fight the Shivans are nothing even close to being as large as a house, and the fighters in FS2 are. Shivans are big creatures, but not that big.
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The SF Dragon is actually ludicrously small. It would be hard to get a Human pilot in there, never mind a Shivan.
And don't get me started on the size of the Isis.
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I haven't seen shiphit2, but in Hall Fight the Shivans are nothing even close to being as large as a house, and the fighters in FS2 are. Shivans are big creatures, but not that big.
hmm, on second thought you are probably right about that; the shivans in hall fight seem to be maybe three or four meters wide/tall. I guess shiphit2 was just supposed to be a comedy (it's in the same collection as the famous headz movie), so between that and the hall fight, the latter is definitely more accurate. :D
The SF Dragon is actually ludicrously small. It would be hard to get a Human pilot in there, never mind a Shivan.
And don't get me started on the size of the Isis.
Actually it is still more than big enough for a human even with all the extra equipment in there; Modelview says that its maximum dimensions are 11x6x16m, but even if that is decreased a lot it would still be pretty large
The Isis can probably carry 40 or 50 guys if lots of inside space is used for crew areas, but it is still very small compared to the other ships in the game.
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40 or 50 guys? It's miniscule!
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It's still a good 20x10x17m, which is more than large enough if you arrange the guys inside in a way similar to that on a passenger airplane.
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I think most of y'all are forgetting that the scales in FreeSpace are friggin' huge. There are fighters and **** in there that are easily 30m.
Anyway, it seems to me from the structures of the Maras and such that the most efficient way to go about it would be to have the pilot's area extremely... form-fitting. A Shivan with its legs folded up could still fit inside a Dragon with enough room for miniaturized guns and a coupla engines, and that "head" bit on the Mara would make a lot of sense if the neck contained a long, frontal Shivan arm with some controls at the end.
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I was thinking similarily, a large rectangel the sise of the main body, with 5 "tunnels" that wouls have controls at the end. that way equipment could be all around the "tunnels" and it would save space.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
The SF Dragon is actually ludicrously small. It would be hard to get a Human pilot in there, never mind a Shivan.
And don't get me started on the size of the Isis.
:wtf: You're trying to tell me you don't think one could fit a human being into a ship 33 feet wide, 18 feet tall, and 48 feet long? Whatever it is you've been smoking, I suggest you stop.
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Originally posted by Exarch
I'd be cut up into little pieces for study if I stayed :lol:
That's exactly what happened to them :D Or they made a mess first and then they were zapped with cannony thingy. Then they would be useless and they would be floating in space anyway.
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
:wtf: You're trying to tell me you don't think one could fit a human being into a ship 33 feet wide, 18 feet tall, and 48 feet long? Whatever it is you've been smoking, I suggest you stop.
you've got to get all the engines, sensors, weapons, generators, fuel tanks, and other systems too.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
you've got to get all the engines, sensors, weapons, generators, fuel tanks, and other systems too.
Yes, and one also builds a little space for a cockpit. It isn't exactly hard.
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Engines and fuel tanks/fusion reactors might take a lotta space (fusion reactors a LOT of space, what with the necessary heatsinks, insulators, baffles, and cooling devices, never mind radiation shielding)... but from the looks of the techroom animations, they've miniaturized super lasers a good deal by then, and I'd have no doubts you could have microboard CPUs and miniaturized sensors a few centuries in the future... So basically, you get about four to twelve cubic yards of engine (for a smallish ship), maybe a cubic yard of everything else, and two or three for the pilot to sit in, likely nested among all the components rather tightly (help dampen G-shock on something so fast as a Dragon, anyway). With a Shivan, no life-support necessary, so there you go. Plenty big enough.
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There's no info about shivans and cockpits from that captured dragon in FS1, is there?
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If there was, you don't think people would be quoting it chapter and verse now?
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
If there was, you don't think people would be quoting it chapter and verse now?
probably. for all it matters, the fighters could just as well be maneuvered by a computer or something. maybe a less powerful onboard the ship, and a mainframe on suiting cruiser/lucifer/whatever. that could be why they were all so easily defeated after lucifer was destroyed, if there isn't a hive mind or whatever... these topics are all so funny...
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It is a hive mind, but there would still be organic pilots aboard the craft, just their actions would be slavred to the hive mind, like the borg.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
It is a hive mind, but there would still be organic pilots aboard the craft, just their actions would be slavred to the hive mind, like the borg.
has the hive mind theory been proven?
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Originally posted by kode
has the hive mind theory been proven?
AFAIK, no, but it would be a very logical thing, IMHO. i kinda see the shivans like the Zerg from starcraft, a large hive mind. multiple subspecies would also be logicak if you ask me.
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Originally posted by kasperl
AFAIK, no, but it would be a very logical thing, IMHO. i kinda see the shivans like the Zerg from starcraft, a large hive mind. multiple subspecies would also be logicak if you ask me.
mm... that's quite plausible. still, there'd be no need to really have shivans inside the fighters, since the shivans are cybernetically enhanced and probably could control them from elsewhere.
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In that case, I guess they just took a Terran cockpit and control consoles and slapped those onto the captured ships. They couldn't get the shivan weapons to work with that, but that's just as well since the shivan fighter weapons suck anyway. :D
The hive mind idea does have its problems, but it is indeed probably still the best theory out there as to how the Shivans operate. It is mentioned in the tech room description for shivans as the one with the most support. As far as FS1 went, the hive mind explained the chain of events perfectly, but what exactly would be considered the "brain" in the FS2 Shivan fleet?
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Each Sath would have a hive mind, controlling its supporting fleet. and they would all be controlled from afar by some monstro-mind on the shivan homeworld.
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"Organic fighters" ? :eek:
Please ! Remember, these crafts have engines, reactors (not too bearable in the stomach of even the most advanced organism :D ), electronic subsystems (the signature of which is used by the GTVA for detection), etc.
I would rather vote for the "smaller subspecies, or young entity as fighter pilot" idea. :)
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Why not vote for the shivans are cybernetical creatures, organic fighters, mostly machine-theory?
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They could simply "Be one with their vessels", like the Bentusi.
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A lot of earth species have variations in size (etc) between something as simple as male and females. Just because the shivans we saw in Hallfight were x, y and z doesnt mean all shivans are. There could be special breeds of shivans, smaller ones used for piloting.
Also, the requirements of a shivan ship are probably different from terran ones. Does it need large fuel tanks? Lifesupport? Maybee they have a very small efficient reactor.
Bear in mind the ship of a shivan - they can probably fit in a fighter with a few clever yoga moves. ;)
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Originally posted by CP5670
The organic fighter idea may have some merit to it, as the "normal" Shivans are probably too large to fit into the fighters; as JFK said, one of the ST movies (shiphit2 I think, the one with the shivan banging on the thoth), although it is just supposed to be a joke, shows the relative scale of the shivans.
However, it would also introduce numerous problems; namely, how did the GTVA capture these things, and how did they fit Terran pilots into them? Obviously if the ship is an organism in itself, it has no inside space for anyone nor any standard controls, and if the ship can think and operate on its own, how did they get its "brain" to give up control of the ship to the player? The first issue can be rectified with some clever engineering, but I have no idea about the second one; they would need something like Yuri from RA2 to mind control the ship. :D
I think it is possible that the five-legged Shivans can actually fit into the smaller fighters, but unlike the Terran and Vasudan ships, they would be taking up most of the room inside instead of the usual reactor, weapons, etc. and the entire fighter would have to be shaped to accomodate them, which seems a rather inefficient use of space.
which is the point of this thread. :D
If Shivans take up the entire ship, maybe they also supply the power? In that case, maybe the captured ships used parts of captured Shivans....?
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Originally posted by aldo_14
If Shivans take up the entire ship, maybe they also supply the power? In that case, maybe the captured ships used parts of captured Shivans....?
huh?
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Originally posted by kode
Why not vote for the shivans are cybernetical creatures, organic fighters, mostly machine-theory?
'cos when I say ship I mean the body of the ship. An organic hull doesn't make much sense IMO. If it's mostly-machine than it's not organic, just a machine with some organic implants. Cybernetical creatures is OK, but they may also need a good old inorganic chassis in space.
Though I could imagine the SF Scorpion or Mara to be a tight fit coat for a 5 legged Shivan. Than his (her ?) brain is simply wired to the ship's (half bio-)computer and GO. :D
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they have some sort of power station in the shivan body itself, explaining how the big beamy thingy obliterated the Bravo 2 leader
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did this a while ago:
Shivan Society (partial file from Hades Project) ;) (http://maelstrom.web1000.com/shiver.htm)
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
:wtf: You're trying to tell me you don't think one could fit a human being into a ship 33 feet wide, 18 feet tall, and 48 feet long? Whatever it is you've been smoking, I suggest you stop.
An F-16 is SMALLER than that.
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Thank you, Captain Obvious!
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
An F-16 is SMALLER than that.
:wtf: I'm going to assume that the explanation for your comment is that you missed the n't in the word don't.