Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: galonrever on August 31, 2004, 10:10:55 pm
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oh, just thought about this
lets say in Freespace 1, the shivans were the cosmic destroyers. what if they were a bit like the Shadows from B5? They attack with a medioca force, and if you survive, your good enough to live sorta thing. This way, the subjects can only get stronger, or die, and the shivans learn about new speices.
However, when bosch sends the trinity into that nebula, the shivans get all pissed off, and decide to show us that they can destroy stars, "so dont mess with us. We left you alone because you proved that you were strong enough. But if your guna get so damn cocky, we'll have to beat you down. "
That could be why they only destroyed Capella, and only minorly hassled (compared to the Jugganaut Armada) the epsilon peg and vega nodes. If they wanted to, they could have brought all eighty jugga's to the nodes, destroyed the GTVA, and THEN gone around blowing up stars. However, they only blew up capella, and then left well enough alone.....
If they got to Ross 128 once, whats to say they couldn't again? They could have sent another lucifer, or maybe two. but they didnt.
Now im rambling, but you might get my drift
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One interesting theory among many...
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Sounds like a reasonable theory, first new one Ive heard in a while.
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Another side point, it could have been that the shivans thought if they left the GTVA alone in the nebula, and the GTVA continued to spread further out and incroched on shivan space, they would eventually become a threat, as basiclly the first thing that happens when a shivan ship turns up is combat.
Therefore, they decided to do something. The first one seems more plausible, and is basiclly my first post, just with a bit more thought.
1) They wanted to give the GTVA a clear warning that they were technoligically superior, and prehaps always would be, therefore the GTVA shouldnt try to fight them, but simply avoid them, and stay in their own corner of the galaxy (currently occupied GTVA systems)
2) They wanted to force the GTVA to believe they were staging a massive invasion. The shivans must have known that a subspace catacysm (even im worried about this streak of nerdish im showing :p) would collapse the jump nodes, and the shivans forced the GTVA's hand with the jugganaut invasion. The shivans knew the GTVA would freak, and try to close the nodes, knowing they would be unable to hold the shivans.
3) It could be possible that the shivans are not a super race, but merely one that can easily manipulate another species to do what they want
4) The shivans took heavy casulities. they lost 20+ cruisers, a good 3-6 corvette's, 3 destroyers, a sathanas, and innumerable fighter wings. Maybe they saw this as the quickest way to end the fight, instead of having to eradicate YET ANOTHER race (2 really)
Im guna stop rambling before i hurt myself. I got bored, i guess. Just gives people one more thing to think about...
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unless.......perhaps by closing the gate, they weren't trying to keep the GTVA out, but rather pinning something else in?
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Unless.... they just wanted Headz and a BBQ.
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My theorys:
I think the only reason they destroyed the Capella star is to create another nebula for gas mining operations. Remember fighting gas miners in the nebula? The Shivans fuel their ships the as the GTVA fuels theirs.
That proves why they didn't go to Vega or Epsilon Pegasi. They didn't have the fuel to.
Oh and to clear things up: Knossoss was was the Ancient's gate that was used to close the node between Capella and the Shivan systems. Unfortunatly, the Lucifer fleet made it through before it was closed and eliminated the Ancients. 8,000 years later, they must have noticed the Great War between the GTA and PVN. Why they were hiding this long, I have no clue.
And why they had the Lucifer leading the feet against the Ancients? I'd like to think as the Lucifer as a top command ship. One of it's kind. With a name like 'Lucifer' it must be high up.
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Shivans are friends and we don't just understand them. :(
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The Shivans - why do they do what they do...
'Coz they're mean... :(
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Actually i always figured that as alien as they are, so must be the motivations behind the actions. If i had to put a human quality and reason to what they do i would have to say that maybe they are learning from us, and maybe that's why they won't simply eradicate us. Maybe what they are doing is supressing us, and forcing us to adapt.
The thing is though, they are the most alien being to us in the galaxy....so far. We can't even begin to understand them or the motivations that the have. If you don't agree with me on that, talk to Bosch....he found out that they are unpredictable. As humans we try to find a reason that we can understand, and i don't think we can do this with the Shivans.
Ultimately why do i think they do what they do? It's in the script. ;)
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oooo, just thought up another one
What if the Shivans are the remenent of an advanced spieces that were themselves nearly eradicated by some colossal force. The survivors ran, since they knew they didnt have the power to defeat this monstrosity.
They are trying to build us up, knowing that eventually, this thing, or race or whateva, will eventually find us. By attacking us, and showing us were our weaknesses lie (FS1 - lack of Beam Cannons FS2 - no real defence against a superweapon) they are helping us to be ready to battle, and maybe defeat this thing when it finds us...
This thought sorta came from singh's though of keeping something in. They are simply trying to make us stronger. They dont communicate, because thats not their objective...
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Stryke 9 already figured it out a while ago.
The Sathani are Shivan trailer homes. See, they really just wanted to make friends with the Terrans this whole time, but due to an unfortunate culture gap and some preliminary spy reports collected durign the Terran-Vasudan war, the Shivans figured our primary method of communication involved focusing high-density plasma charges into each other. Thus, Lucifer scout fleet showed up and transmitted the message "We come in peace", wiping out all nearby. Hurt and confused at the Terrans' and Vasudans' panicked flight, they followed the GTA fleet to Vasuda Prime. Knowing an important populated planet when they saw one, what subsequently ensued was the equivalent of thousands of years of Shivan history, science, and literature broken up into several easy-to-understand blasts... Thirty years later, the Shivans spot Terrans in their nebula. Curious as to what happened to their peace delegation, they accost the first fleet they see and bombard them with questions. The Terrans return fire, and, overjoyed that contact has finally been made, the Shivans mobilize their colony ships, ordering them to set up a permanent base around the nearest Terran star where Shivans and Terrans (and Vasudans, who the Shivans assumed were just more Terrans) could trade, communicate, and live in harmony. Up to the death of the Colossus, the Shivans maintained their good intentions, though they had to admit that maintaining good relations with the Terrans seemed to be getting an awful lot of them killed. It was only when the Terrans sealed off the first Capella jump node that the Shivans guessed that something was amiss. Slowly the idea formed that maybe we WEREN'T friendly, after all. Hurt by this possible breach of trust, the Shivans sent out one last delegate, headed on what they last knew as a route to the Sol system and the capitol of Terran government, housed in a Cain class executive transport. When diplomatic talks opened up prematurely and destroyed the Cain and the diplomat before a meeting, let alone consensus, could be achieved. Shocked and disgusted by the treachery of the Terrans, the Sathanas fleet blew up the Capella star in the universal signal for "farewell", which they hoped would eventually reach the remaining Terrans in other systems, and returned home, never to be seen by Terrans again.
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If that's what they are up to what happened to the Ancients? Unless you're saying that they came up against this thing after wiping them out or that there never were any ancients, just false clues planted by the shivans.
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I've always thought the Shivans were more of a Hive-mind type civilisation. Like Aliens, or a less philosophical Zerg.
I don't even wanna speculate on their origins, but I figure they are, in FS time, a lost species, and have been lost for longer than they can remember.
So they are just wandering round the universe, presumably trying to find... wherever.
My impression overall of the Shivans is that they run mostly on instinct and that the GTVA is just like a little annoying ant hill that they tripped over while on their search for... whatever... and they just slowly plod along mindlessly trying to delete the annoyance.
Or maybe their motivations are just to destroy stuff for the heck of it...
...
Damnit I'm doing it again, theorising on a fictional race!
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(I actually have a couple of long dev-docs I wrote to try & explain Shivan motivations...but you can't see them :P )
The Shivans, I think, are a race born of war. They once were like us, but something happened that forced them into space. They modified themselves, leading to their cybernetic nature. They became attuned to subspace, using that medium as a primary form of sensory perception (hence why they don't attack non-subspace using species).
As for FS1 / FS2 and why they took Bosch, read the Reci storyline ;).
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Stryke's old theory gets my vote... Wasn't that in Greywolf2009's thread about saving Capella?
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There are other theories ya know :p
Perhaps the ancients weren't driven or wiped out as previously suspected?
In Admiral Petrach's speech, he said that the Shivans might be exiles, forever roaming the universe, searching for a way back home. but then, what could be so powerfull to throw them out of it in the first place? From the FS1 cutscenes, we know that the Ancients fought them to a standstill and eventually lost nearly all the planets to the Shivans as they weren't able to hold them off forever.
But what happened when they lost the homeworld? I would think that if the Ancients were seeing the Shivans advance all the way, they would have something planned - something to deny the adversary total victory over them.
Perhaps, they prepared for the Shivans - when they were coming for them with nearly the entire fleet, a small (or perhaps large) fleet of acient ships abandoned the homeworld - moving instead into subspace; the realm of the Shivans. The final battle would not be on the Ancient's soil, but that of the Shivans. A layer underneath subspace or within in, perhaps controlled by the central nexus/hive mind for the Shivans - someplace which would now come under assault from the entire Ancient armada.
As we all know, if even a single ship collapses in Subspace, it closes it off. Now imagine the potential destruction such a fleet of ships could have caused even at that more stable, more basic layer of subspace.
Perhaps such a destruction is what forced them into the exile; forever to look for a way back home and yet never finding it. With a majority (but limited numbers) of fleets left inside of real space, any species would now become a threat till they could reach back home, something which might only be possible with the energy released from a dying star.
Perhaps this was why the star beyond Gamma Draconis was destroyed, along with many other stars - as an attempt (maybe even a futile one) to get back home. We only have a glimpse of one other system beyond the Nebula, something which we know is a Binary. But what of other systems, with single stars. Were they too destroyed by the Shivans? Maybe so, maybe not.
The Shivans could have just used Capella in the same way they did the star in the nebula - but why didn't they do the same to Gamma Draconis? Was it unsuitabe? Perhaps only bright yellow stars, much like that in Capella (or even Earth) was more suitable for the purpse - hence the Lucifer's run to Earth, in an attempt to wipe out the Terran fleet and pave the way for the Sathani to make a straight go.
That.......and i think im talking nonsense again :/
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edit: double post.
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woo! I'm not the only one to do that today!
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There's no evidence that destroying a ship in subspace actually closes the node, though - the Lucifer was an exceptional case, a superdestroyer with a massively powerful shield and weapon.
The only other ship to close a node was a meson bomb-laden Orion...implying that an explosion many times larger than that of a single ship is required to collapse a node.
Also, IIRC, the TV war was characteristed by node blockading, so it's possible that many ships were destroyed on the cusp of exiting subspace ,by concerted sentry gun attacks.
I'm not a fan of the idea that Shivans were looking for a way home... I prefer the idea that they are something of a primordial force, and that their objectives are tainted by simply having an evil nature... i.e. they have clear aims and objectives, but also happen to be xenocidal at the same time.
For a similar reason, i'm a big fan of the idea that the Shivans are fighting in a pan-galactic war, and that the Ancients / GTVA are simply minor distractions caught in the crossfire.
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heh... not according to Derilect (wich i hated)
Or was it Homesick (wich i liked)...
Or was it both?
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Who cares? Both are user made mods. They aren't official.
For TMA I had to come up with a whole system on where command is, how it works and how system to system comms work. I've based it as much as possible on canon but if another mod wants to say comms work differently I'm not going to argue.
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My theory can be found in one of those threads in this forum. :p
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one of the... thousands... :p
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Originally posted by aldo_14
For a similar reason, i'm a big fan of the idea that the Shivans are fighting in a pan-galactic war, and that the Ancients / GTVA are simply minor distractions caught in the crossfire.
Same here:nod: I always imaged that there is bigger was going
somewhere
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Originally posted by Knight Templar
Unless.... they just wanted Headz and a BBQ.
uhh thats the vasudans bro! lmao!
the real reason they do what they do is because of DavidB and his C++ LOGIC programing where the shivans FLY INTO THINGS WHEN SURROUNEDED! talk bout suicide!
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Why isn´t nobody considering that the shivans might have been simply afraid? Who knows? Maybe they used up all they had to build that Sathanii Armada, and they sacrificed a whole bunch of them to be sure they wouldn´t be bothered again, for a few centuries at least. If they were evil in their intent, they would have kept coming. But they didn´t. Wich means they were fighting a survival war, for their own species.
From what ié gathered, their capital ships are living entities, but their smaller ships are not. They need resources to build them. And maybe those resources were diminishing, like when the white settlers colonized the american planes and decimated the buffalo population. The indians were forced into war. Just as shivans were. They never intended on destroying the human and vasudan race, they just wanted us to keep away and leave them alone.
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They never intended on destroying the human and vasudan race, they just wanted us to keep away and leave them alone.
There is many others ways too say "leave me alone" than simply destroying Vasuda prime. During T-V war terran kill vasudan, vasudan kill terran and shivans just simply break to the party :p
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What's more evil - to wipe out your enemies, or to gnaw at them slowly, letting them live in fear, until you deliver the coup-de-grace?
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Originally posted by Hippo
heh... not according to Derilect (wich i hated)
Or was it Homesick (wich i liked)...
Or was it both?
Wait, you HATED Derelict?!?!
:eek:
:confused:
Must have been the non-talkie version...
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Anyone got a link to the talkie version? The one I got don't not got no speaking parts, wasn't as much fun with the speech syntesizer.
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Yes, I hated Derilect. Missions were buggy, it pushed FS2 BEYOND the breaking point, so it actually broke, and it was so hard on EASY, that it wasn't any fun.
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Originally posted by Singh
unless.......perhaps by closing the gate, they weren't trying to keep the GTVA out, but rather pinning something else in?
Like what? Carl? ;)
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I still prefer the Capella BBQ theory and the Shivan quest for beer nuts.
Their real motives? Probably never really know. From what I gather, to them, the Terrans and the Vasudans are but a footnote. Whatever they're doing, the GTVA is just a annoyance, one barely worth mentioning. Beyond that, their motives and reasons are truly alien, the most alien of any alien speices I've ever read about.
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I'd tell you what's going on, but then I'd have to poke you in the eye.
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My theories are:
1) They are involved in a conflict (not necessarily a war) on a galactic level wherein the destruction of key stars can have massive implications on subspace jump nodes in other areas of the galaxy (sort of inverse affects where the local galactic area is not affected but areas further away are).
2) The Shivans, in accordance with part one, were completely ignoring the GTVA all together, and the so called resistance they put out is simply instinctual (you come and do what you want, you blow up other subspace users). The whole blowing up the star thing was done without so much as a major thought. The GTVA was like ants to them in the greater scheme of things.
3) The Sathanas fleet has been around for a while, a very long while. They don't commonly blow up stars, but they do it from time to time. Its been done before.
4) The Lucifer attack group was focused very much on the Terrans and Vasudans, these second groups of Shivans were very much different. Its possible they were an entirely different group. They may never have seen Terrans or Vasudans before.
Odd ideas but very plausiable I think.
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Volition has stated that artificial subspace jumps require gravitational wells.
The Shivans (mainly in FS1) have been seen making jumps that seem impossible to then GTA and VI.
In FS1, the Shivans seemed to travel across areas of heavy subspace traffic and sterilized all worlds in their path. This meant the frontlines of the V-T war and the homeworlds of the Terrans and Vasudans.
In FS2, this was a more limited engagement, following GTVA forces into Capella where their advanced was stopped after the Capella star was destroyed and the meson bombs were deployed.
'Freespace' is another name for subspace.
All of this ties together. Assuming that the connection between subspace and mass applies on the large scale, destroying stars has some form of large scale effect on subspace, and the Shivans also have an interest in destroying any species that uses subspace technology. Or perhaps it's just neutralizing sources of temporary 'subspace distortions' which is how subspace travel would appear. Yet at the same time, permanent distortions to subspace they seem to adapt to such as the Knossos portals, and perhaps even the destruction of nodes. Seemingly taking the path of least resistance to small scale changes.
At the end of FS1 the voiceover person believes that the Shivans can rebuild nodes.
Now whether these are planned acts in some sort of massive war, protecting the integrity of subspace, or just instinct is all up to debate.
However, it's pretty clear that they are operating on a massive scale. Very massive.
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Heh. Icefire manages to state the same 4 goddamn theories I've written (or tried to) campaign ideas around :)
(for reference, before I try writing anything involving the Shivans I make sure to write a full past-present-future storyline about what they are, and what they want - then plan the campaign storyling to fit that)
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Sortof like the Asgard-Replicator thing, only with shivans and someone else... (Ancients possible, but i doubt it...)...
Icefire gets my vote!
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funny...I just watched the time bubble episode last night. But I do like the idea of them holding something in. It's a complete reverse on the "OMG TEH SHIVANz!" Idea that they're all powerful. Compared to us, they are. But compared to their enemies, they're no match.
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Originally posted by Striker
funny...I just watched the time bubble episode last night. But I do like the idea of them holding something in. It's a complete reverse on the "OMG TEH SHIVANz!" Idea that they're all powerful. Compared to us, they are. But compared to their enemies, they're no match.
I've never been a fan of that idea myself.... I think having a tower of cards where the next race is more powerful than the other, seems like a cop out.
I'm more of a fan of the 'perpetual war' scenario, myself (plus the notion that we've only seen the tip of the Shivan iceberg, if you will)... then you can skew that in certain ways - like towards why this war started, whats the ancients / TV involvement within it that makes the Shivans attack us, and whether the relatively insgnificant GTVA can make one single action which is enough to upset the balance and let one side win.....
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Originally posted by aldo_14
What's more evil - to wipe out your enemies, or to gnaw at them slowly, letting them live in fear, until you deliver the coup-de-grace?
Which is easier--letting your enemies live and constantly having to fight them when they keep getting better and better weapons, or just wipe them all out when you have the chance and superior firepower?
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Here's a theory that doesn't fit in with the story at all, but is possible if an extreme plot twist happened:
the Shivans were trying to prevent the GTA and PVN from discovering another species that was far deadlier in FS1, so the Lucifer was mobilized to steer the GTA and PVN away from the species while some other Shivans back in Gamma Draconis pushed back the enemy. Then in FS2, they supernova-ed Capella to prevent this species from advancing any further.
OK, i know it sucks, i hate it too, but you never know... although i highly doubt it...
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Doesn't fit with nuking Vasuda Prime.
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Maybe they just didn't like the Vasudans.
I always had the impression that the shivans were somewhat remote controlled, serving an unknown entity/race.
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Well, the Lucifier made a beeline for Vasuda Prime, then headed for Sol. So I doubt it was a Vasuda thing.
I like the idea of Shivans being drawn to conflict, like pissheads to a curry house. You know, just a natural instinct.
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It's a damned shamed Su-tehp's story never got out. Singh's thing about holding something on the other side in is what it's about.
Shivans aren't all powerful. They're running from something much bigger and they don't want us to get eradicated in the process.
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You guys suck. Two whole pages of posts and nobody mentions my masterpiece (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,22279.0.html). :(
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Maybe they are a very, very timid species :D
And that.. mess is what happens when a highly intelligent race acts out of fear.
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I always took the dude in FS1 epilogue at his word.
Shivans = Great Preservers. They run around hitting people who are having barnies with one another, so that the people who were having barnies stop fighting and start hitting Shivans. Yay, no more death, except for the harbingers of peace.
I believe it is only the destroyers who are killed.
And p'rsonally, I lean towards 'elemental force of the universe' 'cause the other theories do take the magic out of them, really.
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Meh - everyone else is doing it, might as well add this little bit to the pot.
The Shivans have been fighting wars for a long time, at least 8000 years, and I think it's reasonable to assume that the Ancients fought the same Lucifer group that we did in FS1. Is it possible, perhaps, that the shivans weren't used to being defeated, and that their defeat here prompted them to upgrade technologically? The 32 years could have been the time it took for them to develop things like beam weapons and Ravannas and stuff.
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Perosnally I just thought that them blowing up Capella was a way to keep us out of their space.
Blowing up a sun tends to make the system extremely hostile with the extremely fatal levels of radiation and all. Would be quite a simple way to keep us out.
Not to mention the possiblity of a nova sun creating a black hole.
Sure collapsing a jump node would work, but how long before we develop Knossos tech and just re-open it? A black hole would be a far more permanent closure of a system.
We entered through a Knossos, found ourselves in space they were occupying, and immediately they attacked us. They moved their Sathanas fleet into Capella, destroyed the sun, and pretty much screwed over any chances of the GTVA using that set of jump nodes.
If you look at the map, it's pretty much the gateway to Gamma Draconis and beyond. Why they didn't blow Gamma up instead, well maybe they know of jump nodes there that we don't.
That or perhaps Gamma Draconis isn't a heavy enough star to produce a black hole. If the star isn't massive enough when it goes supernova then it'll produce a neutron star in place of a black hole. Perhaps Capella was big enough to produce a BH, which would be one hell of a deterrant.
The Sathanas jumping out could have been jumping for the node out of the system. If it's far enough out, they'd have had enough time after the sun went up for at least a few of them to escape. The ones left behind perhaps didn't jump in time. Intrasystem jumps seem fairly quick (you call for reinforcements and they jump in after less then a minute) so if they jumped out close to the node they'd have had a chance to leave.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Doesn't fit with nuking Vasuda Prime.
You... mean... it's incorrect to nuke planets?
*turns to face his weapons officer*
Quickly! Power down the beam cannons before we obliterate Antares IV!
[desperate voice] Too late! [/desperate voice]
*Antares IV blows up*
*sighs* Well, there goes another planet.
*sensors officer turns to Adm. InfernoGod* Sir! Sensors indicate that 3 million cases of Bosch Beer have survived the blast! Deploying freighters to pick them up now!
*everybody on the bridge of the GTDn Independence cheers*
*sensors officer, again* Sir! A small ship with annoying blue spinny thingys is emerging from subspace!
[Admiral Fishy Dude voice in Star Wars] It's a trap! [/Admiral Fishy Dude voice in Star Wars]
*Independence warps out as the small AWACS docks with the nearest case of beer and a Terran Turret#weak destroys a cruiser investigating the explosion*
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Originally posted by HeX
Not to mention the possiblity of a nova sun creating a black hole.
Sure collapsing a jump node would work, but how long before we develop Knossos tech and just re-open it? A black hole would be a far more permanent closure of a system.
While I'm not saying you're wrong a nebula would stay hot for thousands of years. No need for a black hole to seal Capella. :D
Originally posted by HeX
That or perhaps Gamma Draconis isn't a heavy enough star to produce a black hole. If the star isn't massive enough when it goes supernova then it'll produce a neutron star in place of a black hole. Perhaps Capella was big enough to produce a BH, which would be one hell of a deterrant.
Or Gamma Draconis isn't big enough or in the right place in its lifespan for the shivans to blow it up that way.
Originally posted by HeX
The Sathanas jumping out could have been jumping for the node out of the system. If it's far enough out, they'd have had enough time after the sun went up for at least a few of them to escape. The ones left behind perhaps didn't jump in time. Intrasystem jumps seem fairly quick (you call for reinforcements and they jump in after less then a minute) so if they jumped out close to the node they'd have had a chance to leave.
Agree 100%. I always thought they were running for Gamma Draconis personally.
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Wonder what the gravitational disturbance of a nova would do to an open subspace tunnel.......
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I wonder if the relationship between subspace and gravity is two way. That could explain the use of subspace to nova the sun. Perhaps they manipulated the gravitational forces acting on the sun, triggering the supernova.
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What i wonder is why the first Sathanas didn´t use that super weapon on the Colossus... If it took 80 of them to blow up a star, one single ship had more than enough power to destroy 10 Colossus. So why didn´t it use that uberweapon to win the battle??
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Well considering we saw the power drain on the Sathanas from using the device (the red lights dimming and such), perhaps it was more economical to just blast the living hell out of it with beam cannons.
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yeah, and remember, it took them weeks to build up enough power to supernova Capella.
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Originally posted by HeX
Not to mention the possiblity of a nova sun creating a black hole.
Sure collapsing a jump node would work, but how long before we develop Knossos tech and just re-open it? A black hole would be a far more permanent closure of a system.
That or perhaps Gamma Draconis isn't a heavy enough star to produce a black hole. If the star isn't massive enough when it goes supernova then it'll produce a neutron star in place of a black hole. Perhaps Capella was big enough to produce a BH, which would be one hell of a deterrant.
IIRC Capella is very similar in mass to our sun. a star would need 8 solar masses to become a black hole.
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Capella is a binary...
IIRC, a trinary
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indeed. i suppose it depends on which one they blew up. but both stars have about 2 and a half solar masses.
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Well if they only got rid of one... would the others still be stable? How would they react? Hmmm....
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I think that this was a random generated name, and the system did not contain two stars. Much easier to make up or use their favorite names of star systems.
(Phew. Managed to do my first post.)
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No...
I highly doubt it, :V: screwed up and we pretend it's fixed :p
:welcome:
:)
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Supernovas and novas in binary or trinary systems is actually more frequent than you think. Depending on the situation, the remains of the nova star (normally a extremelly dense and small object) will "feed off" a less dense and bigger star, which normally is a red giant due to the sheer number of those and because of the time it took for the nova or supernova to have happened (which would not let another star form nearby (reletivaly) after a star has been fully formed).
These interactions can lead to another nova/supernova IIRC.
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Which in turn would just mean there would be another big boom.
So... In essence, this still leads to the question: why?
1. They cut off the jump nodes.
2. They use the gravity well to jump to a further or hard to reach place.
3. Just to annoy us.
Reasons we have posted are above. Including the one I just sugested. :)
4.... I can't think of a 4. :)
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What gravity well?
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Going on the fact that mass is attracted to mass, that star pulls at the ship in the area, the planetoids, intellations, etc... "Gravity".
Using this gravity, one can use it as a sling, to propel them far away.
In fact, any big enough planet could be used.
Well, it happens IRL anyhow.
By "Gravity well", I was reffering to the Capella star that blew up.
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I don't think the Shivans blew up Capella just to keep us away from their space. That wouldn't really make any sense. All the Shivans had to do was send all those Sathanases into Terran and Vasudan space at the outset, and they could have finished us off easily. There was no need for them to go to such lenghts to deter us; they had already decimated half of the Terran and Vasudan fleets, so their victory would be guaranteed. No, I think Admiral Petrarch's theory from the final cutscene is more likely. The Shivans used Capella as a doorway to get somewhere far away, somewhere they couldn't access by normal means. Maybe, as the Shivan Manifesto hypothesizes, they were creatures of pure subspace and were trying to return to their realm. Or maybe they simply need to travel to another point in real space, perhaps even to a distant galaxy. Remember, the Sathanases were using some kind of strange subspace pulse on Capella. If they had simply wanted to blow it up, they probably could have simply used the equivalent of a really large bomb (think the Sun Crusher from the Star Wars universe). I believe that the subspace pulses allowed the Sathanases to use Capella as a massive subspace portal, much more powerful than the normal nodes. The Sathanases that jumped out were probably using this portal to reach their distant destination. Those left behind were sacrificed in order to sustain the energy necessary to keep the portal open. The Shivans wouldn't run for Gamma Draconis; they had no reason to, since the GTVA was all but beaten.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
What i wonder is why the first Sathanas didn´t use that super weapon on the Colossus... If it took 80 of them to blow up a star, one single ship had more than enough power to destroy 10 Colossus. So why didn´t it use that uberweapon to win the battle??
The 80 saths surrounded the star for quite a while before they fired. Most likely the weapon requires careful calibration. Either that or it's completely useless against capships because it does something specific to the star.
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The Sath fleet also fired off a subspace pulse for much of their time around the star, so it may be that the weapon must drive the star to the verge of instability before the weapon has any effect. And if all it does is cause the star to collapse, it may have absolutely no effect on a solid object.
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Maybe Shivans are Galactic NATO who goes resolve conflicts
everywhere
(FS1) Terrans Vasudan war
(FS2) NTF
but that theory is lame, I like idea that there is going galactic war
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Originally posted by Mongoose
I don't think the Shivans blew up Capella just to keep us away from their space. That wouldn't really make any sense. All the Shivans had to do was send all those Sathanases into Terran and Vasudan space at the outset, and they could have finished us off easily. There was no need for them to go to such lenghts to deter us;
I wasn't saying the Shivans had any intentions of finishing us off. I was saying that we stepped into something we weren't supposed to and the Shivans gave us the boot.
The idea that they needed to use the sun for a jump, why Capella then? There are probably thousands of stars that would have been much easier to use. Most of those probably didn't have Terrans and Vasudans attacking either. If they needed a sun, why not one on their side of Capella?
They specifically choose to destroy a sun that is both in GTVA space AND is one of the only links to the space beyond where the Shivans had established themselves.
I'm not saying your wrong, I just don't see it.
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you'd think an advanced sub-space species would just collpase the Capella-Gamma Draconis node, rather than go to the effort of destroying a star.
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Originally posted by HeX
I wasn't saying the Shivans had any intentions of finishing us off. I was saying that we stepped into something we weren't supposed to and the Shivans gave us the boot.
The idea that they needed to use the sun for a jump, why Capella then? There are probably thousands of stars that would have been much easier to use. Most of those probably didn't have Terrans and Vasudans attacking either. If they needed a sun, why not one on their side of Capella?
They specifically choose to destroy a sun that is both in GTVA space AND is one of the only links to the space beyond where the Shivans had established themselves.
I'm not saying your wrong, I just don't see it.
Maybe Capella was unique in some way, and they couldn't reach it until the Knossos was activated from the other side. Maybe the Lucifer was a scout ship, to locate a suitable class star, and secure the area
?
(yeah, I know there's issues RE: the ancients and how the Shivans invaded the first time, etc, etc, but it is another side of the argument. At the moment, I favour the idea that Capella was just an easy way for the Shivans to either close off a second front, or to pen in the GTVA to be dealt with at a more convenient time)
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Originally posted by magatsu1
you'd think an advanced sub-space species would just collpase the Capella-Gamma Draconis node, rather than go to the effort of destroying a star.
Could be that there are more node links in Capella then even the GTVA know about. If that is the case, then blowing up the sun would be a quick solution. Albeit, a bit of overkill. :)
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Originally posted by aldo_14
(yeah, I know there's issues RE: the ancients and how the Shivans invaded the first time, etc, etc, but it is another side of the argument. At the moment, I favour the idea that Capella was just an easy way for the Shivans to either close off a second front, or to pen in the GTVA to be dealt with at a more convenient time)
You know, I find it interesting that there is an assumption that the Shivans are going after the GTVA like they did the anchients. From the ani's in Freespace 1, it sounded like the Anchients were FAR more advanced and expanded then the GTVA is. I mean, subduing and crushing entire species, spreading through subspace....
The GTVA sounds pretty small and timid by comparison. I wonder if the Shivans actually WERE planning to crush the GTVA like they did the Anchients. Maybe we stumbled on them a tad too early (the Shivans that is).
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Originally posted by HeX
You know, I find it interesting that there is an assumption that the Shivans are going after the GTVA like they did the anchients. From the ani's in Freespace 1, it sounded like the Anchients were FAR more advanced and expanded then the GTVA is. I mean, subduing and crushing entire species, spreading through subspace....
The GTVA sounds pretty small and timid by comparison. I wonder if the Shivans actually WERE planning to crush the GTVA like they did the Anchients. Maybe we stumbled on them a tad too early (the Shivans that is).
Don;t know if the Ancients were subduing advanced species, though, do we?
They could have simply been wiping out indigenous population, or even races which had only just reached subspace technology, etc. I think the way in which the GTVA advanced to beam tech, etc, which could presumably defeat the Lucifer implies that the GTVA must be pretty close in tech if not territory (the TVs were somewhat distracted by the 14 years war, so expansion and exploration would be curtailed in respect to the Ancients, assuming they themselves were not fighting 'equal' races).
Of course, that's assuming the Lucifer was the ship that defeated the Ancients, and not something with the same basic weakness but more powerful.
Maybe the Shivans could be considered as a form of natural selection - only the strong can adapt and survive. The Ancients grew accustomed to easily destroying weaker races, and so fell to one greater than them in turn.
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Originally posted by Rift
Going on the fact that mass is attracted to mass, that star pulls at the ship in the area, the planetoids, intellations, etc... "Gravity".
Using this gravity, one can use it as a sling, to propel them far away.
In fact, any big enough planet could be used.
Well, it happens IRL anyhow.
By "Gravity well", I was reffering to the Capella star that blew up.
I know what's gravity, but I fail to see what a supernova has to do with it (besides being caused by gravity). A supernova makes a star lose mass, so it's gravity is less than before.
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I think I know what Rift is on about. There's a theory that Subspace and gravity are linked. That explains why nodes are only found in systems rather than in the vast interstellar distances between them.
A black hole might not weight any more but it does exert a stronger pull close to the event horizion. That may mean a different/better type of jump node would form near a neutron star/black hole.
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But a going to a black hole = certain death + time dilation and going near a neutron star is a bit dangerous especially if it's a pulsar! And in systems with more stars... well... I won't even go to that :shaking:
Of course you could arrange some technobabble... so... ok I understand :)
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Subspace Technology
While travel into subspace is enabled via ship-borne devices (called “subspace engines”, “cores”, or “motivators”), it’s long been known that subspace itself is a naturally-occuring phenomena.
Subspace, for the intents of this document, is an alternate physical plane of space where the normal limits of relativistic physics and travel don’t apply. By entering subspace for a relatively brief period of time, a space vessel can emerge in a location in realspace several star systems away. This technology has allowed the human race to spread across much of the known Galaxy.
There are essentially two modes of subspace travel, inter-system and intra-system.
Intra-system subspace travel is nearly instantaneous, and requires relatively little energy input to enable. Most of the GTA’s advanced fighters are equipped with intra-system jump motivators, allowing them to travel at will within a given star system. There is little or no restriction on the beginning and end points of such a subspace “hop,” except that they be in the same star system.
Inter-system travel via subspace is another matter entirely. The end points of inter-system subspace jumps are limited to the naturally-occuring focal points of subspace, also known as “nodes.” These nodes were initially discovered by Prof. J. Whiteside (see McPherson’s Multipaedia (2557 ed.), pp 1132-1140). Only between two subspace nodes is the fabric of subspace strong enough to support inter-system travel. The defense of the physical locations surrounding such nodes proved to be a central part of the 14-year Terran-Vasudan War.
In addition, such massive amounts of energy input are required to open an inter-system node, that only the largest fusion pile reactors in existence are able to sustain it. As a result, inter-system subspace travel is almost exclusively made by the largest vessels in production. This fact has made the GTA’s Orion-class destroyer/carriers a pivotal and crucial part to the GTA’s tactical forces during the T-V War.
Needless to say, the ability to deliver ships of war to nearly any pinpointed destination has forever revolutionized the concepts and long-standing tenants of space combat.
(from FS ref bible)
what this suggests to me is that gravitational forces - i.e. within the orbit of a star - are required to move between the planes into that of subspace.
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
But a going to a black hole = certain death + time dilation and going near a neutron star is a bit dangerous especially if it's a pulsar! And in systems with more stars... well... I won't even go to that :shaking:
Of course you could arrange some technobabble... so... ok I understand :)
Well, we don't know that, do we? Some people have theorised that a black hole could be used as a medium for time or interstellar travel, IIRC - I'm not sure if there is scientific evidence for this, but then again we've never actually been to one.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
*snip*
Well considering the Anchients produced the Knossos technology, which was fairly beyond the grasp of GTVA scientists, I think we can safely say they were fairly advanced, comparitively speaking.
As for beam tech, we don't know if it could defeat the Lucifer. I don't see how it could have seeing as the shield withstood multi-megaton warheads.
The Luicfer itself stands as a bit of an enigma. Was it a special type of ship? A prototype? If not, why didn't other ships carry the shield technology? Surely the Ravana or Sathanas class could have powered such technology. The Lucifer wasn't even as powerful as those two ship classes, only it's shield gave it an advantage.
The Shivans are the origin of shield tech, we got it off their own fighters. They have sufficent advances to shield a single cap ship, why not others? (of course skipping the obvious answer that it would have made the game TOTALLY unfair :D ).
The Shivans have quite a few alien traits about them. Their thinking most of all. They make a single attempt at devestating the GTA and VPA, then years later, with a fleet that could have easily done what the Lucifer failed to do, they simply blow up a star, seal off a jump lane, and vanish. Leaves many a question.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Well, we don't know that, do we? Some people have theorised that a black hole could be used as a medium for time or interstellar travel, IIRC - I'm not sure if there is scientific evidence for this, but then again we've never actually been to one.
http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/schww.html
Stuff on wormholes, whiteholes and blackholes. That's the only known connection between blackhole and travel that I've ever heard of.
Everything else involves being crushed like a grape under a planet.
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Originally posted by HeX
Well considering the Anchients produced the Knossos technology, which was fairly beyond the grasp of GTVA scientists, I think we can safely say they were fairly advanced, comparitively speaking.
As for beam tech, we don't know if it could defeat the Lucifer. I don't see how it could have seeing as the shield withstood multi-megaton warheads.
The Luicfer itself stands as a bit of an enigma. Was it a special type of ship? A prototype? If not, why didn't other ships carry the shield technology? Surely the Ravana or Sathanas class could have powered such technology. The Lucifer wasn't even as powerful as those two ship classes, only it's shield gave it an advantage.
The Shivans are the origin of shield tech, we got it off their own fighters. They have sufficent advances to shield a single cap ship, why not others? (of course skipping the obvious answer that it would have made the game TOTALLY unfair :D ).
The Shivans have quite a few alien traits about them. Their thinking most of all. They make a single attempt at devestating the GTA and VPA, then years later, with a fleet that could have easily done what the Lucifer failed to do, they simply blow up a star, seal off a jump lane, and vanish. Leaves many a question.
The Knossos always seemed an incongruity to me... it seems more advanced than anything even the Shivans have done. Of course, the Ancients may have been more advanced in subspace than militarily. Or it could have been created by another, older race (is the Knossos ever conclusively verified as being ancient? IIRC they only presume it is because its old enough and it's not Shivan).
In terms of beams Vs the Lucifer - if you look at the damage the Helios did to the Sathanas vs the Colossuses beams, then it think it's certain that beams are more powerful. And there my be a difference between absorbing an explosive shockwave and a photon beam (is there? I have not a ****ing clue, but I'd expect so).
It's possible that the Lucifer itself is designed for tackling lesser races without the technology to defeat it... i.e. at a certain technological level shielding a capship is counter-productive in terms of energy cost vs the effectiveness against beams. It doesn;t really explain why the FS1 shivans had no beams, flaks or shields, as you said. Maybe the Lucifer had shields for some purpose other than defense... possibly to traverse unstable nodes (where the shields would be used in some way to stabilise the subspace tunnel... that could explain why they didn;t work in subspace)
Or, it was just the head of a scout fleet and designed defensively - i.e. to be able to run from a larger foe. The Shivans obviously have no qualms about sacrificing even their Sathani, so maybe no other ships have shields because they don't care if they're lost or not.
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Keep in mind, the Lucifer also had 5 reactors, presumably to power that shield tech. Maybe having that many reactors makes the shield tech impractical on other ships.
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
But a going to a black hole = certain death + time dilation and going near a neutron star is a bit dangerous especially if it's a pulsar! And in systems with more stars... well... I won't even go to that :shaking:
Of course you could arrange some technobabble... so... ok I understand :)
Actually I didn't say they were going into the black hole. Mearly using the stronger gravitational well it produces to form a new jump node near the black hole that went where ever it is they wanted to go.
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I thought the Knossos was mentioned in the Anchient relics discovered. Or at least that's the idea I got from the scenes with Bosch.
It's possible the first Shivan force was older or outdated ships. Perhaps the Shivans determined that shielded ships were too costly or difficult to produce.
I guess if you think about it, a fleet of Sathani is far more dangerous then a Lucifer. Destroying just one Sathanas took more effort the the Lucifer (catch it in subspace and it's a sitting duck, catch a Sathanas anywhere and you're COOKED duck).
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Sorry if I miswritten that, I meant going near a black hole
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Do stars collapse into black holes IMMEDIATELY following a nova? I thought it took some time for the gravity well to collapse.
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It depends on the mass of the star, if it is heavy enough, it will expel the outer layers of a star and collapse unto itself forming a black hole. And gravity wells don't collapse...
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Originally posted by HeX
I thought the Knossos was mentioned in the Anchient relics discovered. Or at least that's the idea I got from the scenes with Bosch.
Well, the GTVA doubtless has records (post FS2) of the Knossos portal, but it doesn't mean they built it.
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
And gravity wells don't collapse...
Whoops. I think I meant something different but I can't think of what. :D
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Well, the GTVA doubtless has records (post FS2) of the Knossos portal, but it doesn't mean they built it.
I was thiniking about the relics found pre and during FS2 (I think some were found during, weren't they?). I thought there was some allusion to the Knossos technology being mentioned in those.
It's been a while since I played FS2 but the way Bosch was talking sounded like it was pretty much known that the Knossos was Anchient technology.
If not them, then I wonder who. Certainly isn't of Shivan construction, I believe that much is mentioned.
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Originally posted by HeX
I was thiniking about the relics found pre and during FS2 (I think some were found during, weren't they?). I thought there was some allusion to the Knossos technology being mentioned in those.
It's been a while since I played FS2 but the way Bosch was talking sounded like it was pretty much known that the Knossos was Anchient technology.
If not them, then I wonder who. Certainly isn't of Shivan construction, I believe that much is mentioned.
Well, the Bosch monologues; (from karas FAQ)
Monologue 1
Thirty-Two years ago in the Altair system, Vasudan scientists discovered the remnants of an extinct civilisation we now call the ancients. In here we found the secret to defeat the Shivans. How close did we come to being a footnote in the history of a future species that would happen upon our ruins ten thousand years from now. Would they indulge in the fiction of their own immortality until the Shivans came for them, and how long had this gone on?
Did the ancients stumble upon the monoliths and the tombs of their predecessors in this distant corner of space, dismissing the warnings carved into the walls of the sepulchre. And when the destroyers came at last what did the ancients think as they sifted the cremation of dust and bones, staring into the mute remains for a key, some solution to their plight.
What if there had been countless races, stretching back into infinity and like the nine cities of Troy, each civilisation had been built on the rumble of the one that came before, each annihilated by the Shivans?
The ancients died eight thousand years ago, as humanity emerged from its Neolithic infancy, they believed their voyage across the sea of stars awakened the dragon that slept beneath the waves, that the Shivans were birthed in the flux of subspace and their destruction was the revenge of an angry cosmos.
Monologue 2
I hear my enemies speculate about my motives, my ambitions. Who is Admiral Aken Bosch, and what is that old scoundrel up to. The tragedy of my life is that I will be remembered as the butcher of innocents, and this assessment is not unfair. I cannot argue with their condemnation or with the verdict of history.
The Neo Terran Front is an army of stupid cattle, driven by their hatreds, their fears and insecurities. Ignorance is the greatest weapon of tyranny and old wounds open all too easily. I am merely a fool who created a monster I am now powerless to stop and so I will play my role to the bloody end. I have given the lost generation something to die for, and now my legacy will be crowned with infamy.
What my enemies will never understand is that my rebellion is about my love for humanity and not my hatred of Vasudans. In the Gamma Draconis system the destroyers have returned and soon the alliance will learn the method behind my madness.
Monologue 3
Why does the ancient portal lead us here? Have the Shivans been waiting for us for thousands of years? This odyssey, this exodus, do we journey towards the promised land or into the Valley of the Kings?
Three decades ago I envisioned a new future for our species and now that we are on the brink of realising my dream I feel only solitude and regret. Has my entire life's work been a fool's crusade?
Have I led my people into this desert, only to die?
My regime has caused nothing but savagery and suffering but I cannot turn back now. I must find the destroyers that lurk behind this veil of clouds or I must wait for the destroyers to find me.
The nebula is the remnant of a supernova thousands if not billions of light years from Earth and I wonder now if our ancestors witnessed the death of this star erupting over an Egyptian landscape, blazing with the brilliance of four hundred million suns Even in their divinity no pharaoh could have imagined this.
Monologue 4
This is the final entry in the personal log of Admiral Aken Bosch, supreme commander of the Neo Terran Front. Our encounter with the Shivans has vindicated all I have fought for these past thirty years. My life's work has been achieved. I have created the technology to enable communication between the Shivans and the human race. Although our first contact was rudimentary and crude, I have initiated the first phase of a new alliance with the destroyers. An alliance upon which the fate of humanity depends.
As a young pilot I battled against the rebels of the great war, the Galactic Terran Intelligence whose research of shivan technology and biology would form the cornerstone of my project. The Terran-Vasudan alliance buried this knowledge but I resurrected it. I alone realised our species had no future with the Vasudans. If we are to survive, our destiny must lie elsewhere.
As I make this final entry my crew is preparing to scuttle the Iconic and board the shivan transports. We embark on a miraculous journey towards a new horizon. This tragic era of hatred and misunderstanding between our races is over. On this day, for the first time in my life, I am filled with joy.
There's nothing to indicate whether the Ancients built the Knossos. The italics bit raises an interesting pointas to whether the Ancients, like the GTVA stumbled onto new technology - in their case the Knossos.
If you want to go into the realms of Stargate, perhaps some forenunner - or even the Ancients themselves - created the node network, and the knossos' are their legacy, left over. As the node remained in GD remained open after the Knossos was destroyed, maybe there once was a Knossos at every node.... and maybe the Shivans destroyed those with the ancients.
Which would raise the question - why just this (GTVA) space? The Shivans, after all, control at least 2 Knossos' (or is it Knosses) in the nebula and the unnamed system beyond it, IIRC.
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You forget Aldo
It was speculated by the GTVA that Bosch was in Deneb studying Ancient artifacts to activate the device...
So is that what he was doing in Deneb?
If so that would of ment he found instructions for a device on Ancient ground
Oh and happy birthday :D
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Originally posted by jdjtcagle
You forget Aldo
It was speculated by the GTVA that Bosch was in Deneb studying Ancient artifacts to activate the device...
He was there studying Ancient aritifacts that's why his secret base in Deneb
Maybe Sathanas Fleet was Shivans colony ships finding new home
for Shivans, after GTVA did go Gamma Draconis and triggered something
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Originally posted by jdjtcagle
You forget Aldo
It was speculated by the GTVA that Bosch was in Deneb studying Ancient artifacts to activate the device...
So is that what he was doing in Deneb?
If so that would of ment he found instructions for a device on Ancient ground
That said, the speculations were only aired after the Knossos had been described as Ancient in origin.
Personally though, I think the fact that it was pretty much accepted in the storyline that the Knossos was an ancient artefact, then it probably was an Ancient artefact. I can;t see V throwing us a curveball on that one.
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It was in Petrarchs speaches... that's why he said speculate
I don't see how you would be able to activate something like this, without some kind of "instrution"
But ok...
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Originally posted by jdjtcagle
You forget Aldo
It was speculated by the GTVA that Bosch was in Deneb studying Ancient artifacts to activate the device...
So is that what he was doing in Deneb?
If so that would of ment he found instructions for a device on Ancient ground
None of that says the Ancients actually built the Knossos, only that they found it (well, them) and worked out how to 'activate' it.
Gotta admit, it's a nice prospect for opening up the storyline.
Originally posted by jdjtcagle
Oh and happy birthday :D
Cheers :)
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well.. according to what the ancients claim the shivans are not really that evil, they destroy evil, they are like galaxy's cops.
once the ancients found subspace they also found other alien life, they crushed billions of other cultures for theyre resources..
then the destroyers came for them, and would not stop until they all paid.
once the terrans found subspace they met the vesudens, not much after that the great war started, because of the unrest the shivens came.. and 14 years of fighting between terrans and vesudens ended.
it is my beleif that if the shivens wanted to they couldve sent a dozen lucifers, unlike with the ancients the shivens did not decide to eliminate the terrans, more like teach them a lesson.
if the terrans and vesudens wouldnt of united the lucifer wouldve taken earth aswell.
same in FS2, our entrance to the knossos was tresspassing, we had no place there.
the Sathanas couldve taken the entire GTVA, but they chose not to, instead they just closed the door on us.
so i think the shivans are basically our "big brother" just waiting for us to get cocky so he can slap us silly and put us in our place.
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Perhaps the Shivans were just created by another race, to watch out for the galaxy. That would explain part of the Shivan's uninterest of planets. Created to live in space. But, as an avid tactian, I only see a few reasons for "running" away.
Many theories were described.
Here are some more.
1. Fleet was suicidal, meant to disrupt, pull attention away from something/someplace else.
2. Shivans were perhaps drawn to conflict, to end conflict by ie. destroying the races in conflict, or uniting them against one enemy.
3. They do not understand us, and are simply curious
4. They failed to communicate with us, and tried to teach us simple things. ("Go away, or we blow you to bits", shown as blowing up big structure, then leaving.)
5. The Shivans want to end the war with the least casualties.
And so on, and so on, etc...
We're going to have to get the :V: writers to give us the script :)
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Originally posted by aldo_14
None of that says the Ancients actually built the Knossos, only that they found it (well, them) and worked out how to 'activate' it.
This does, sm2-01.fsm:
Dr. Hargrove's task force has determined that the subspace portal in Gamma Draconis was constructed by the Ancients,
I figure the GTVA has seen enough Ancient artifacts to know if they did or did not build something.
Originally posted by jdjtcagle
Capella is a binary...
IIRC, a trinary
Quarternary. (http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php/Capella) This is why we have Wiki kiddies.
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Originally posted by karajorma
The 80 saths surrounded the star for quite a while before they fired. Most likely the weapon requires careful calibration. Either that or it's completely useless against capships because it does something specific to the star.
Well, in the cutscene it doesn´t look like it took much time. The arms of the Sathanas moved and joined, and in a few seconds of charging, they fired. Wich means the weapon can be activated in a matter of minutes, not weeks. They probably took longer to get in position, or wait a certain phase of the star.
As for being more economic to use regular beam weapons, that seems a bit off. Why would they care about energy economy, if they are dead?? Had they used the uber weapon, they would have taken out the Colossus, and not the other way around. Besides, the Sathanas had no beams left, Alpha 1 took them out in the previous mission. So, if they had the weapon, why didn´t they use it and save their shivan behinds?
That weapon could be specific for disrupting stars, but i like to think that anything that does that to a star has more than enough power to shred 100 Colossus.
It could be that because Alpha 1 took out the tip of the Sathana´s arms, the weapon was destroyed. But that doesn´t explain why they didn´t use it in previous ocasions, or during the last battle with the Colossus.
This answer goes to Carl aswell, who said it took them weeks to charge up the weapons.
Of course, this is all academical. It could be that they just didn´t pay their light bill, and had their power cut off by the Power Company!
:D
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
Well, in the cutscene it doesn´t look like it took much time. The arms of the Sathanas moved and joined, and in a few seconds of charging, they fired. Wich means the weapon can be activated in a matter of minutes, not weeks. They probably took longer to get in position, or wait a certain phase of the star.
Yes but you have to remember what petrach said in an earlier mission. The 80 saths surrounded the star and then sat there for the duration of at least one whole mission.
What were they doing during that time? Considering the increased subspace readings this was almost certainly part of the process required to blow up Capella.
What we saw in the cutscene was the last step in the process not the whole of it.
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I figure the GTVA has seen enough Ancient artifacts to know if they did or did not build something.
That does make sense. They have had 30 something years to play around with artifacts from Altair and other places.
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Originally posted by Eishtmo
This does, sm2-01.fsm:
I figure the GTVA has seen enough Ancient artifacts to know if they did or did not build something.
:o
My bad, not got easy access to the cbanis :)
Damn, had a nice chain of thought going there, too.
[topic switch]
IIRC, the Sathani didn't fire as such, did they? It's been a while since I saw the mve, but I'm sure they actually closed their 'arms', and then drew them back apart, creating a sort of distorted 'hole' in space. Then Capella nova-ed.....
maybe they were using the star for a power source, and simply goofed up?
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Originally posted by aldo_14
My bad, not got easy access to the cbanis :)
Is that a hint to transfer the whole of FS's campaign/mission briefings/debriefings into Wiki?
I could do it, but it would take a while.
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Originally posted by Eishtmo
Is that a hint to transfer the whole of FS's campaign/mission briefings/debriefings into Wiki?
I could do it, but it would take a while.
Er, yes. (not really, but if you're volunteering.........)
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Already did it:
FS1 (http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php/FS1%20Campaign%20and%20Mission%20Briefings)
Silent Threat (http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php/Silent%20Threat%20Campaign%20and%20Mission%20Briefings)
FS2 (http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php/Campaign%20and%20Mission%20Briefings)
I also created a Freespace Lingo (http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php/Freespace%20Lingo) page. Please help add to it.
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Originally posted by HeX
Well considering the Anchients produced the Knossos technology, which was fairly beyond the grasp of GTVA scientists, I think we can safely say they were fairly advanced, comparitively speaking.
As for beam tech, we don't know if it could defeat the Lucifer. I don't see how it could have seeing as the shield withstood multi-megaton warheads.
The Luicfer itself stands as a bit of an enigma. Was it a special type of ship? A prototype? If not, why didn't other ships carry the shield technology? Surely the Ravana or Sathanas class could have powered such technology. The Lucifer wasn't even as powerful as those two ship classes, only it's shield gave it an advantage.
The Shivans are the origin of shield tech, we got it off their own fighters. They have sufficent advances to shield a single cap ship, why not others? (of course skipping the obvious answer that it would have made the game TOTALLY unfair :D ).
The Shivans have quite a few alien traits about them. Their thinking most of all. They make a single attempt at devestating the GTA and VPA, then years later, with a fleet that could have easily done what the Lucifer failed to do, they simply blow up a star, seal off a jump lane, and vanish. Leaves many a question.
Even though this has been optionally modded out for gameplay reasons.
Keep in mind that in retail FS2, beams go straight through shields.
This seems deliberate to me, something that [V] put in there on purpose. Now there are those here who may know better than me, and it may have been and oversight on [V]'s part not to have shields work against beams. But, fighter shields don't work on fighter beams, so cap ship shields may not work on cap ship beams... :cool: So the Lucifer would probably fall easily to the Collossus...
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well the Lucifier was the benchmark for the Colossus.
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IIRC the Collossus was desgined to destroy a Lucifer, or other smaller ships.
On another note, I'd hate to see what a Sathanas could do to a planet firing BFReds at it...
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Originally posted by Solatar
IIRC the Collossus was desgined to destroy a Lucifer, or other smaller ships.
On another note, I'd hate to see what a Sathanas could do to a planet firing BFReds at it...
Yeah, if you look at the C it's not really designed to bring all its weaponry to bear on a single target as the Sathanas is. Course, if you added in the turrets dropped from the model (i.e. in tbl comments)...you'd have a real monster of a ship.
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So that's why it fires those puny missiles out of such big turrets. Those turrets that should have gotten the extra BGreens wound up with MX-50's.
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Originally posted by Solatar
IIRC the Collossus was desgined to destroy a Lucifer, or other smaller ships.
On another note, I'd hate to see what a Sathanas could do to a planet firing BFReds at it...
The Collossus did have pretty good firepower, but it was all spread around. The Sathanas had 95% of its firepower directly in front of it. It only had one LRed turret to protect it's backside.