Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: blackhole on January 07, 2007, 07:35:54 pm
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My campaign has not been going very well. However, in the midst of working on it i created a very interesting concept for the backstory of the shivans. I'm posting it now in case it might come in handy for anyone else making a shivan campaign - or anyone wanting to read a really cool fanfic :D
WARNING: After reading this, you may be inclined to join the shivans.
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----The Shivans----
Eons ago, when the stars were still young and the galaxy
bright as the distant quasars, there lived two species in
the Milky Way galaxy. One was the Xelnon, a peaceful and
compassionate race devoid of any cruelty. The second was
a bloodthirsty paranoid race not unlike Man
himself. When these two species met, the Xelnon were
instantly enslaved and tortured. For thousands of years,
they laid oppressed, beaten and disused. Their technology
continued, however, to grow into realms never seen
before by the likes of the universe.
The Shivans were borne out of that race's last desperate
attempt to heal. Born out of hatred, out of anger, out
of desperation. The Shivans, a cybernetic blend of organic
pieces of the Xelnon themselves combined with scavenged
beam cannon technology the Xelnon took from their oppressors,
were the finest creations of the Xelnon. They would also
prove to be the most deadly. As more centuries past and
the Xelnon were slowly exterminated, some went into hiding.
They built a grand machine, a machine capable of accessing
the intricacies of subspace itself.
Initial experiments brought back many corpses, but slowly the
technology advanced. They endowed their creations, their
closest friends - the Shivans - with all their knowledge,
and more. Yet, alas, even this last fortress fell to the
might of the Xelnon's lust-filled hunters. The Shivans
watched in silent horror as their closest friends, their
family, slaughtered before them, destroyed, shown no
mercy. When at last they could see no more, the Shivans
fled through the subspace portal.
Wandering the interspatial fabric, the Shivans built themselves
a home. They thrived in zero-gee, adapting over and over to its
environment until they reached the form we see them as today.
Over the hundreds of thousands of millennia that passed, the
Shivans saw fit to exit their haven, to look for evidence of
species that had the unique compassion of their forefathers,
to search for another, just one, that wasn't cruel. Yet, they
were disappointed. Their diplomats killed, their observation
of vast interspecies wars, they sadly turned their backs on the
universe, again and again.
The Shivan’s anger grew, fostered by the seemingly endless
hatred that all the others possessed. They did not hate, not
yet. But the seed had been planted. They had seen so much
cruelty, so much injustice, so much... Then they saw something
that the universe itself would deem unforgivable.
It was 8500 years before today. The Shivans had detected
massive subspace disturbances and had, once again, gone
searching for them. They met their worst nightmare. A species,
one with vast technological power, had seen fit to enslave
almost every civilization they set their eyes upon. They were
like a disease spreading throughout the galaxy, the very
embodiment of the horror that the Shivans despised. Mortified,
the Shivans sent in diplomats, to attempt to establish some
kind of communication. They destroyed the diplomats,
and immediately came looking for the Shivans. They did not ask,
they did not care, they lived only to subject everything under
their own twisted control.
The Shivans would let this monstrosity last no longer. The
very reincarnation of their father's killers had been created
at last. They would destroy them. They would destroy them
with a vengeance, with a determination not seen in this galaxy
nor any other galaxy for a billion years. They hunted them.
They destroyed them. They showed no mercy. They showed the
oppressors what it felt like. They showed them what it meant to
be the hunted. The took the greatest sin committed against a
species - their own creators - and blasted it upon that race
a hundredfold. They struck with such might the very foundations
of the universe felt their wrath. The oppressors were
obliterated. And the Shivans had been driven to insanity. They
watched, and waited.
The first thing the Shivans saw when they found the human race
was the Vasudans. And missiles. And explosions. And murder.
It wasn't just one race, it was two! Two races, veritable clones
of the monstrosities that butchered their mothers and fathers,
that enslaved their cousins, their gods, their creators.
The Shivans, as a race, made a choice that day. That the universe
would once again feel the wrath of the Shivans. The Destroyers.
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Very interesting read. Don't think anyone's portrayed the Shivans as victims before... if they have, I haven't heard it. I say to you: kudos. :yes:
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the shivans are native to subspace, i think this story is obselete.
il explain: first off what ever these shivans were before they were trapped inside a exoskelatal frame, definatly was not another race more like an organism that was found in subspace itself, who ever the creators were they created a exoskelatal structure to trap these beings inside this body, and the non organic pieces are probably what controls this organism to move the limbs and communicate via em plues and become like 1 minded, ovbiously these creators wanted warriors to protect thier lands from other aliens, but thier creation was a disaster and thousands if not millions of these machines were created for war and programmed to be smart and Xenophobic, they destroyed thier masters and started thier charge killing anything that was in thier home, being subspace.
i really doubt this story, but i can accept it as speculation.
but only :v: knows in the end.
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I've seen people say this before, so I will reiterate:
There is no canonical information that states Shivans are native to subspace. Nor is there any information to suggest that they were created by another race.
That is fanon as much as this theory is.
I do believe (I might be wrong), that :v: stated once (not in the games) that the Hallfight creatures were Shivans in their natural state, therefore not machines and not in suits of any form.
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I"ll just say nice Idea...Last time I posted,I was on pain meds and needed to be translated.By others...
So I'll say nothing more.
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I believe that its speculated (in the games) that the Shivans evolved in subspace, but there has been no direct evidence of it, even in that context.
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Nice read, I almost want to help em out (although not against the GTVA) :D
THE HERO, ALPHA 1 JOINS THE SHIVANS!!!!
:P :P :P
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That's a pretty original theory; I'm liking it. :)
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Now we should go beg someone to go make a campaign with Alpha 1 being a Shivan! :P
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Very interesting story.
The only flaw I see is that the Ancients weren't the first race the Shivans exterminated.
Still, very interesting.
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A good theory. The only logical flaw I could find is that the galaxy isn't trillions of years old. Replace that with billions and it works.
I do believe (I might be wrong), that :v: stated once (not in the games) that the Hallfight creatures were Shivans in their natural state, therefore not machines and not in suits of any form.
The :v: quote basically stated that that the Shivans are what we see in Hall Fight. They aren't wearing power suits like the aliens in Independence Day. We're not seeing a soldier race that works for the Shivans. What we are seeing is the real thing. So the cybernetics are part of the Shivan itself.
The only flaw I see is that the Ancients weren't the first race the Shivans exterminated.
Says who? The Ancients are the only race that we know for certain that the Shivans exterminated. Bosch speculates that there might be others in monologue 1 but there is no proof of that.
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I can't offer evidence, but if not, the Ancient's monologue and Alpha 1's statements are wrong.
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umm il pull that proof back up to close that cake hole :D
The Shivans (named after the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration Shiva) are an ancient, destructive race that has exterminated countless spacefaring races and recently fought two destructive wars against the Terrans and Vasudans. It has been confirmed that Shivans are in fact xenocidal. Shivans have a black exoskeleton, five legs, compound eyes, and are apparently some form of cybernetic organism, with both organic and inorganic components including an integrated plasma weapon. They are physically extremely strong and well adapted to a microgravity environment, possibly having evolved in it. The typical Shivan specimen is roughly 4m to 5m long and its height varies between 2.5 and 3.5m depending on its posture. It is theorised that the integral plasma cannon, inorganic materials, and cybernetic components can be explained by the use of an artificial exoskeleton of sorts (Descent: FreeSpace, Disc 2, the video featuring the boarding team).
Only a handful of Shivans have ever been captured, and all research on live specimens ended with the rebellion of the intelligence branch of the GTA at the close of the Great War. The results of these studies remain highly classified.
In Descent:Freespace the narrator (an Ancient) speculates that the Shivans are closely tied with subspace; they apparently are native to subspace, and take notice of any species that travels through it, acting to exterminate them. At the end of Descent: FreeSpace, it is theorized that the Shivans are the Galaxy's immune system. They appear and exterminate any species that develops subspace technology. By doing so, they prevent any one species from spreading across the entire galaxy and dominating all other races. It is theorized that humans would never have developed if not for the Shivans, because the Ancients would have been allowed to spread and eventually conquer Earth. Likewise, the Ancients would not have been able to develop, as they would have been conquered by the races that came before them.
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1) That's a wiki entry and therefore may have errors in it. (I dispute the "exterminated countless spacefaring races" for instance)
2) It says possibly. So even that entry doesn't say that the Shivans did evolve in subspace.
3) The Shivans are from subspace theory seems to have evolved from a single line in a cutscene.
The Ancients died eight thousand years ago as humanity emerged from its Neolithic infancy. They believed their voyage across the sea of stars woke the dragon that slept beneath the waves: that the Shivans were birthed from the flux of subspace and their destruction was the revenge of an angry cosmos.
Note that this line was spoken by Bosch (who may or may not have been mad) and that he never actually says that he believed it, just that he thinks the ancients believed it.
4) As for the bit about the Shivans being native to subspace I have no idea where that comes from. Does anyone have any idea where the narrator says that? It's certainly not from Endgame.
I can't offer evidence, but if not, the Ancient's monologue and Alpha 1's statements are wrong.
When do the ancients say that the Shivans wiped out anyone except for them?
The transcripts of the ancient monologues are up in my FAQ. Feel free to look. It never mentions the Shivans wiping out other species. Just that they did (assuming that's what they mean by crush).
Same goes for Alpha 1. He only mentions the Shivans killing the ancients.
So while there's a good chance that the Shivans killed other races you can't say someone is wrong because they have a theory in which the Shivans only wipe out the Ancients
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I do remember hearing that it was not a soldier race but the Shivans themselves, but I don't remember where....
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Karajorma would you alteast consider it speculation then if you dont want to hear it? :p
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Not sure what you mean Centrixo.
I have no problem with speculation. I only have a problem with someone saying that speculation is great or wrong based on shoddy evidence or logic.
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So, blackhole, are you saying that it's possible to have peace with the Shivans?
It has been confirmed that Shivans are in fact xenocidal.
Where was this confirmed? If the Shivans are like blackhole thinks, then they aren't xenocidal, just extremely POed. After all, the Shivans did try (sorta) to make contact with Bosch. We don't know the Shivans' true motives.
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hi,
first really nice idea :yes:.
@spartan: no he didnt say that, the shivan only find violence and that drive they in insanity.
i dont think that blackhole really say you can make peace with them, but he try explain there motivation behind the madness of the shivans, with that story.
he give the shivans a really face, a dramatically side of the violence that they bring.
in the story of blackhole the shivans are victims and delinquent in one person.
they fight against the violence but in the same time they are the person who bring other species the violence that they receive in the past.
thats really sad.
Mehrpack
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Alpha 1:
I know why the Ancient Ones were destroyed. And I know what they knew.
I know that if not for the Shivans they would have been conquered long before.
Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered them long before, in their infancy. And destroyed them, just as surely as they destroyed countless billions of others.
Ancients:
When we traveled subspace, the cosmic destroyers took note.
When we conquered and colonized in galaxies where we had no place, the destruction and the anguish and the loss were the clarion call of our doom.
And so the Destroyers came for us.
I'm applying what Alpha 1 means that the Ancients thought the same thing he says in the cutscene. If not, it's purely Alpha 1.
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I like the backstory. *shrug*
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Me too
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I'm applying what Alpha 1 means that the Ancients thought the same thing he says in the cutscene. If not, it's purely Alpha 1.
Ah. I get you now. I tend to agree with you to be honest that there were other races the Shivans wiped out. But that's quote is alpha 1's speculation and he could very easily be wrong. I frequently have characters make wrong assumption when I'm writing stories cause it's such a good way of yanking the listener in the wrong direction in order to set them up for a surprise :)
I still don't get you as to why the ancient monologue has to be wrong though. The Ancients could simply the first to actually try this kind of conquest. Or the first to do so after the Shivans became a space faring race.
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I guess I'm not a big fan of characters "lying" about something important to the plot in the end of the game, even for the surprise in an eventual sequel. :p
As for the Ancients, I assumed Alpha 1 by saying "And I knew what they knew." Followed by "I know that..." he means the Ancients thought of the same thing, as one is not sure to what extent the monologues heard are the complete version of the ones found in Altar (assuming they are part of something found in Altar).
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Ah. Got you. The monologues we hear though would still be true though. It's still just Alpha 1 being wrong.
I guess I'm not a big fan of characters "lying" about something important to the plot in the end of the game, even for the surprise in an eventual sequel. :p
Ah but it makes for so much more interesting a plotline. For instance if we know Bosch was correct it makes it much less interesting than if we don't know whether or not the Shivans took him away for dissection. :)
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It depends on how it's done, but I don't think it's generally a good idea either. It just confuses the player more often than surprising him.
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When it's about something as minor as this I don't see the point in worrying about it.
Certainly not if it means abandoning or confusing a cool idea like Blackhole's
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Holy baloney :wtf:, i didn't know i'd start up a giant fanwar or i would have been less vague on many of those parts. :lol:
Allow me to first say that in the original version of my story, the shivans destroyed each race they encountered that was cruel, or, they started doing it a few races before the ancients. However, i thought that in this version, i was better able to demonstrate what pissed off the shivans by making the ancients the first ones that were slaughtered, also because we all know how the ancients behaved. To be perfectly honest, it was a plot device :nervous:
Something that i think some people need to realise is that all of the speeches in the game are based on the GTVA's theory. They may think they know what they do, but remember when everyone was convinced that the earth was flat? The only word that can be trusted is that of Volition, because they are the ones who were making up the storyline. Now obviously the story must line up with what the shivans appear to be, and right now, they certainly seem like they are native to subspace and are xenocidal! But like everything else, that doesn't nessacarily mean they always were this way.
I want to reveal a little something. When volition was pressed for information about the shivans, they said one thing: "The shivans are a symptom of a larger problem." I've actually incorperated that into this story. A cookie to anyone who can guess what the larger problem is :nod:
I was working on a campaign that depicts you as a shivan. The campaign unfortunatly has fallen to pieces because i'm busy with other things. Ah, the downfall of so many campaigns - school :p
Anyone interested in getting all the plot information and missions that i've so far made are welcome to, just PM me and i'll fire 'em over. The datafiles have already been released.
Regardless, i'm very glad that this backstory has provided an alternate view of the shivans. I hope it proves to be an inspiration for a future campaign ;)
@karajorma: I fixed the trillions thing. Originally i ment this to signify the future, but apparently that didn't work. :rolleyes:
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Don't worry about the discussion, it's just an exercise to help people see the storyline from diferent perspectives. If one didn't do that, one might not be able to think of new and interesting ideas, while getting rid of uncertainties and impossibilities. ;)
Also, regarding that cookie, the larger problem in your storyline is obviously the race the Shivans ran from.
Wasn't someone already making a campaign from a shivan's perspective?
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Nope. The race taht the shivans ran from is long gone. Its something more subtle ;7
Yes, in fact, Hidden Terror was the original shivan campaign. But it died :(
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In Descent:Freespace the narrator (an Ancient) speculates that the Shivans are closely tied with subspace; they apparently are native to subspace
checkmate :p
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Fixed a few words and ran the whole story through a spell checker. It is now clean :D
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Yes, in fact, Hidden Terror was the original shivan campaign. But it died :(
Wait... HT DIED??? :( :sigh: :sigh:
Damn, I've been away too long... :/ Not that I could've helped much... :(
As far as that backstory goes, nice read :) . And I've depicted something of the like since I finished FS1 - I thought this was the only senseful way the info there could be interpreted.
But, of course, if :V: simply wanted to lead us on a wrong trail... well, if you assume that, you can change very much without caring. It's valid, sure :) , I just don't like it too much...
Oh, and I recently got an idea about the Capellan incident - that star looked VERY strange before it exploded. Almost as if it changed from emitting energy primarily through heat to doing so through electricity or such (assuming usual scifi-art; it could've been anything else of course, some sort of subspace-lensing for example) .
This might suggest the Shivans altering natures constants or such. This of course would explain the tremenduous power and the preparation time needed, as well as eventually solving the point of the shockwave being too fast... And it would also fit to the Admirals (what was his name?) speculations in the ending of FS2 about them being dimensional travelers :) .
Then - might the "larger problem" in the end NOT be interspecies wars, but maybe something like different universes loosing their barriers / "colliding"/melting with each other?? Could make a nice storyline, if someone comes up on why a fighter pilot is able to influence the outcome of that :) (hm, maybe by protecting or destroying some machine that has something to do with it?...)
Oh, and blackhole - Shivan background had already some rather large discussions... search for Shivan Manifesto or such and you should find it. But please don't consider too much of it as canon ;) .
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I've kind of developed a mental block against giving the Shivans any real background, because, well, one their hallmarks has been unpredictablity. Even when I've toyed with the idea of a Shivan perspective for a campaign I was never seriously considering telling the player much about them. As some of my current works include the GTVA having cracked Shivan communications via ETAK, the GTVA and the player have a much better idea of what the Shivans are going to do, and a lot of the time the logic is self-evident. But they still occasionally ought to look at it, scratch their heads, and go "Now why the hell would they do that?"
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----The Shivans----
Eons ago, when the stars were still young and the galaxy
bright as the distant quasars, there lived two species in
the Milky Way galaxy. One was the Xelnon, a peaceful and
compassionate race devoid of any cruelty. The second was
a bloodthirsty paranoid race not unlike Man
himself. When these two species met, the Xelnon were
instantly enslaved and tortured. For thousands of years,
they laid oppressed, beaten and disused. Their technology
continued, however, to grow into realms never seen
before by the likes of the universe.
The Shivans were borne out of that race's last desperate
attempt to heal. Born out of hatred, out of anger, out
of desperation. The Shivans, a cybernetic blend of organic
pieces of the Xelnon themselves combined with scavenged
beam cannon technology the Xelnon took from their oppressors,
were the finest creations of the Xelnon. They would also
prove to be the most deadly. As more centuries past and
the Xelnon were slowly exterminated, some went into hiding.
They built a grand machine, a machine capable of accessing
the intricacies of subspace itself.
Initial experiments brought back many corpses, but slowly the
technology advanced. They endowed their creations, their
closest friends - the Shivans - with all their knowledge,
and more. Yet, alas, even this last fortress fell to the
might of the Xelnon's lust-filled hunters. The Shivans
watched in silent horror as their closest friends, their
family, slaughtered before them, destroyed, shown no
mercy. When at last they could see no more, the Shivans
fled through the subspace portal.
Wandering the interspatial fabric, the Shivans built themselves
a home. They thrived in zero-gee, adapting over and over to its
environment until they reached the form we see them as today.
Over the hundreds of thousands of millennia that passed, the
Shivans saw fit to exit their haven, to look for evidence of
species that had the unique compassion of their forefathers,
to search for another, just one, that wasn't cruel. Yet, they
were disappointed. Their diplomats killed, their observation
of vast interspecies wars, they sadly turned their backs on the
universe, again and again.
The Shivan’s anger grew, fostered by the seemingly endless
hatred that all the others possessed. They did not hate, not
yet. But the seed had been planted. They had seen so much
cruelty, so much injustice, so much... Then they saw something
that the universe itself would deem unforgivable.
It was 8500 years before today. The Shivans had detected
massive subspace disturbances and had, once again, gone
searching for them. They met their worst nightmare. A species,
one with vast technological power, had seen fit to enslave
almost every civilization they set their eyes upon. They were
like a disease spreading throughout the galaxy, the very
embodiment of the horror that the Shivans despised. Mortified,
the Shivans sent in diplomats, to attempt to establish some
kind of communication. They destroyed the diplomats,
and immediately came looking for the Shivans. They did not ask,
they did not care, they lived only to subject everything under
their own twisted control.
The Shivans would let this monstrosity last no longer. The
very reincarnation of their father's killers had been created
at last. They would destroy them. They would destroy them
with a vengeance, with a determination not seen in this galaxy
nor any other galaxy for a billion years. They hunted them.
They destroyed them. They showed no mercy. They showed the
oppressors what it felt like. They showed them what it meant to
be the hunted. The took the greatest sin committed against a
species - their own creators - and blasted it upon that race
a hundredfold. They struck with such might the very foundations
of the universe felt their wrath. The oppressors were
obliterated. And the Shivans had been driven to insanity. They
watched, and waited.
The first thing the Shivans saw when they found the human race
was the Vasudans. And missiles. And explosions. And murder.
It wasn't just one race, it was two! Two races, veritable clones
of the monstrosities that butchered their mothers and fathers,
that enslaved their cousins, their gods, their creators.
The Shivans, as a race, made a choice that day. That the universe
would once again feel the wrath of the Shivans. The Destroyers.
Impressive, in every sense of the word. This would be cruical to improve the Shivans and make them more dangerous.
Oh, and one more thing - I'm new here, yet I've been playing FreeSpace for a LOOOOONG time since I was a kid. Feel free to warm up the laser on me. :p
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Laser?
:welcome:
Welcome to HLP. ;)
Check out Turey's installer (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,42854.0.html) to get the latest source code stuff if you haven't got them already. And don't forget to check out my personal theory (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Snail%27s_Theory) if you're out looking for Shivan Theories.
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I was just about to do that..... Oh well
Anyway, I liked the backstory, it could explain why the Shivans didn't just decimate the GTVA in FS2. Perhaps they got some sense knocked into them when the Terrans and Vasudans teamed up and defeated them. The Shivans now had a new tactic to end the cruelty that they saw, without becoming the very thing they hate. They would intrude on any interspecies war they found, and if the aggressors united against them, they would go on their way, leaving behind a stinging reminder of who the big guys are in the process. (aka Capella)
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My campaign has not been going very well. However, in the midst of working on it i created a very interesting concept for the backstory of the shivans. I'm posting it now in case it might come in handy for anyone else making a shivan campaign - or anyone wanting to read a really cool fanfic :D
WARNING: After reading this, you may be inclined to join the shivans.
Very good read,, I'm really looking forward to your shivan campaign now.
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That is really cool, correct me if I'm wrong but would that be a... "symptom of a much larger problem?" :D
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Feel free to warm up the laser on me.
Okay.
:necro:
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...Gravedigging anyone? I mean, wow, this thread is almost exactly a year old...
Whats terribly ironic is that there was a larger problem as a subtext in this story but I no longer have any idea what it was. :p
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I had no idea this thread even existed. So you're campaign is dead? Tsk Tsk Tsk.....
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HA! Wasn't me this time! :p
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My campaign barely ever got started. I just made the shivan datafiles, made like 3 crap missions, realised they were crap, and scrapped the whole thing.
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Nevertheless it was some good story :p
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I love it. I'm waiting for part II, in which the differences between FS1 and FS2 Shivans will be explained...
Could the 'bigger problem' be that most races fight with each other, instead of teaming up?
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I think you'll be waiting for a long time :P
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I have a feeling that the canon "bigger problem" would have been something like subspace collapsing and the universe ending, or at least something along those lines.
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There were 5 missions . If they were fuly working under Flaming_Sword's Shivan mod , they would be a nice and attracting demo of a possible Shivan based campaign .
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anything but planet ships...
I'm soooo sick of UBER FREESPACE SHIPS
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If I had more time, I might give it a shot. However, I don't :P