Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Sarafan on February 21, 2007, 02:54:30 pm
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This is something I've been considering the past few days, its simple. Instead of being technologic superior like they seem to be at first, could the shivans have stolen human and vasudan techonolgies? During the Great War they were on the same level as the GTA/PVN (with the sole exception of shields) and suddenly 32 years later they appear again with technologies like our own? Why? How?
Things like beam cannon, flak turrets, etc, could've been stolen from the GTVA without most people knowing it (only people like the SOC and GTVI would know). Perhaps Bosch could've been colaborating with them for much longer than it seems.
''But what about all those Sathanas, Ravanas and every capital ship with beam cannons? They take time to build!''
The Shivans probably have a huge capacity to build ships and would've been doing this nonstop since the end of the first Great War and older ships could be refitted with the new weapons (much like the Leviathan/Fenris were upgraded).
So what do you think? ;)
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Personally (really, really, really), I hate that theory.
I do agree about the flak gun but not anything else there.
Nothing against you, just I don't like the theory. At all.
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Personally (really, really, really), I hate that theory.
I do agree about the flak gun but not anything else there.
Nothing against you, just I don't like the theory. At all.
Dont worry, there's no problem.
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if that were so, how did the Shivans beat the Ancients? IIRC the Ancients had a huge empire, and a quote from one of the Ancient's monologues "they just wouldn't die." The Shivan's wouldn't have had a chance to lose to a force like that and still come back. I agree with your theroy, but up to a point.
also :v: could have just added those weapons because they wanted to add more to the game...
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This is something I've been considering the past few days, its simple. Instead of being technologic superior like they seem to be at first, could the shivans have stolen human and vasudan techonolgies? During the Great War they were on the same level as the GTA/PVN (with the sole exception of shields) and suddenly 32 years later they appear again with technologies like our own? Why? How?
Things like beam cannon, flak turrets, etc, could've been stolen from the GTVA without most people knowing it (only people like the SOC and GTVI would know). Perhaps Bosch could've been colaborating with them for much longer than it seems.
''But what about all those Sathanas, Ravanas and every capital ship with beam cannons? They take time to build!''
The Shivans probably have a huge capacity to build ships and would've been doing this nonstop since the end of the first Great War and older ships could be refitted with the new weapons (much like the Leviathan/Fenris were upgraded).
So what do you think? ;)
I'm sorry, but I personally think you're a moron because of that statement. If you played FS1, you would note that in the Plato mission's (for the love of god, why can't i remember the name?!) debriefing, Wolf states that the Shivan's weapons are far superior to that of any weapon in the GTA and PVE arsenal. The Lucifer already had beam weaponry, so they couldn't have stolen it from us. The flak guns could have been a hidden weapon until the second incursion on the Shivan's part, and if you think they stole it from us, explain why there weren't any reports of Shivan activity whatsoever for about 30 years after Silent Threat?
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That's the main reason why I don't like this theory.
But I do agree with Flak since it was the basis of one of my (and FSFreak's)(now stagnant) mods. The Shivans had info on the flak gun, and were using the comm. nodes to transmit the data back to Shivan command.
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This is something I've been considering the past few days, its simple. Instead of being technologic superior like they seem to be at first, could the shivans have stolen human and vasudan techonolgies? During the Great War they were on the same level as the GTA/PVN (with the sole exception of shields) and suddenly 32 years later they appear again with technologies like our own? Why? How?
Things like beam cannon, flak turrets, etc, could've been stolen from the GTVA without most people knowing it (only people like the SOC and GTVI would know). Perhaps Bosch could've been colaborating with them for much longer than it seems.
''But what about all those Sathanas, Ravanas and every capital ship with beam cannons? They take time to build!''
The Shivans probably have a huge capacity to build ships and would've been doing this nonstop since the end of the first Great War and older ships could be refitted with the new weapons (much like the Leviathan/Fenris were upgraded).
So what do you think? ;)
I'm sorry, but I personally think you're a moron because of that statement. If you played FS1, you would note that in the Plato mission's (for the love of god, why can't i remember the name?!) debriefing, Wolf states that the Shivan's weapons are far superior to that of any weapon in the GTA and PVE arsenal. The Lucifer already had beam weaponry, so they couldn't have stolen it from us. The flak guns could have been a hidden weapon until the second incursion on the Shivan's part, and if you think they stole it from us, explain why there weren't any reports of Shivan activity whatsoever for about 30 years after Silent Threat?
I think calling someone a moron for some theory about a game is a little bit harsh.
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It just bugs me when someone doesn't follow the facts. :nervous:
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If you disagree with it, fine but there's no need to call me a moron. :wtf: I've played FS1 lots of times and know that. The weapons of the Lucifer are different from the beam cannons, it uses Flux Cannons. Why nobody noticed? Who knows? The Shivans could've used stealth, maybe using a captured fighter the same way the GTA used the captured Dragon, maybe they struck fast and left no survivors or the GTVI and SOC covered up everything, its just a theory.
if that were so, how did the Shivans beat the Ancients? IIRC the Ancients had a huge empire, and a quote from one of the Ancient's monologues "they just wouldn't die." The Shivan's wouldn't have had a chance to lose to a force like that and still come back. I agree with your theroy, but up to a point.
also :v: could have just added those weapons because they wanted to add more to the game...
Perhaps they had a less powerfull weapons than the Shivans (plus the Shivan's greater numbers) as such they would appear as invicible to them.
It just bugs me when someone doesn't follow the facts. :nervous:
What facts? Tell me why did the Shivans only used a fleet without beam weapons and flak against the GTA/PVN in the first war? If they had them all along why not send a Sathanas already?
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Don't forget about the theory that said beams were communication and the Sathanas was a keg of beer!!
Anyways...
The Flak makes sense, though we definately stole beam tech from them... the Shivans would be able to scan, from in subspace, our ships. Why do you think they're all so superior to ours? they probably know every design that has ever entered subspace, including complete specs, full-detail tech diagrams, etc. From the first ship we put flak on, they probably had the design... they would likely test it out a bit; find out how lethal it is. They find it's effective and decide to use it!
Why waste the big firepower? Would the GTVA send in the Colossus against a wing of fighters? I think not!
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Wasn't the Lucifer fleet merely a scouting party? Why would you equip a scouting party with the Greatest weapons in your arsenal?
In FS2 we treaded (trod?) on Shivan space so we were closer to their home, which no doubt incorperates their most sophisticated weapons.
If we venture further into their space in future rleases (god be praised) then no doubt we will see the Shivans with more deadlier weapons than ours.
This could just be a coincidence in the plot but it makes sense... to me.
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Remember, the Shivans are not insane. There is method to their actions. Method beyond what we truly comprehend, but method nonetheless.
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I dont like the idea of the Shivans being a completely xenocidal race which wants to kill everything not Shivan. I like to think of them as a planning, strategically thinking species.
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Why waste the big firepower? Would the GTVA send in the Colossus against a wing of fighters? I think not!
Why run the risk of being defeated like they were? Maybe not using a Sathanas but at least beam weapons on a Lilith or on their destroyers wich are the second important ships they have (the first one being the Lucifer). And yes, the GTVA would do that. :D And it would lose.
I dont like the idea of the Shivans being a completely xenocidal race which wants to kill everything not Shivan. I like to think of them as a planning, strategically thinking species.
And a species such as that (a planning, strategically thinking species) wouldnt pass up the oportunity to acquire two great new weapons, would it? The GTA/PVN didnt. :D
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Again, they ALREADY HAD BEAM WEAPONS. They only possibly reverse engineered weapon design they might have is flak cannon.
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The GTVA would me more likely to send in a bashed-up Fenrish infront of the Lucifer... and expect Alpha 1 to protect it...
I can only remember a quote... not where it is from.... "you mean you actually propel those with a stream of gases? We'd never think of doing that!" from some assorted sci-fi, probably SG...
Civilizations think of different things... you can't expect human invention to able to cover the zenith of diversity; we have a limited sight on things... odds are aliens won't recognize all our tech (and think some innovative) and we won't recognize all their tech (and think much innovative).
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Kind of like Jack O'Neal explaining the difference between a Staff weapon (a weapon of terror) and his P-90 (a weapon of war) to that one group of rebel Jaffa, who had never thought of it that way.
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And a species such as that (a planning, strategically thinking species) wouldnt pass up the oportunity to acquire two great new weapons, would it? The GTA/PVN didnt. :D
They didn't. I say the Shivans already had all that. The only thing they didn't have was the Flak gun. Which they stole from GTI R&D (or GTVI, since this would probably be after the GTI Rebellion... but probably before the formation of the GTVA).
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Kind of like Jack O'Neal explaining the difference between a Staff weapon (a weapon of terror) and his P-90 (a weapon of war) to that one group of rebel Jaffa, who had never thought of it that way.
references to StarGate are illegal. :D
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"can we close the iris yet?"
"for the last time, it is NOT a stargate now shut up before we get sued!"
Ah, JAD.
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Um, I really have no idea what you people are talking about...
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Um, I really have no idea what you people are talking about...
Replies 18 & 19 were references to the comedy campaign Just Another Day, made by Axem.
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It's a classic... just ask for the link.
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The lucifers beam cannons being called flux cannons does make sense. And it doesn't mean they were talking about a completely different weapon when saying flux cannon. All gtva beam cannons are based off of the lucifers beams. They probably called the lucifer beams flux cannons because they'd never seen that weapon before and picked a scientific name for it before the slang term "beam cannon" came into use when all ships were retrofitted with them.
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The lucifers beam cannons being called flux cannons does make sense. And it doesn't mean they were talking about a completely different weapon when saying flux cannon. All gtva beam cannons are based off of the lucifers beams. They probably called the lucifer beams flux cannons because they'd never seen that weapon before and picked a scientific name for it before the slang term "beam cannon" came into use when all ships were retrofitted with them.
Um, don't the Vasudans have a non-beam weapon called a 'flux cannon'?......
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IIRC yes, it's their version of the Fusion Mortar. Never used ingame. Even the Hapshepsut has Fusion Mortars. (Which looks damn weird.)
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Why fusion mortars though? They're pretty damn weak.
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The lucifers beam cannons being called flux cannons does make sense. And it doesn't mean they were talking about a completely different weapon when saying flux cannon. All gtva beam cannons are based off of the lucifers beams. They probably called the lucifer beams flux cannons because they'd never seen that weapon before and picked a scientific name for it before the slang term "beam cannon" came into use when all ships were retrofitted with them.
Admiral Khafre referred to the Psamtik's beam weapons as 'photon beam cannons', not flux cannons. But I agree with you on there, I don't think the GTVA created beam cannons themselves.
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Why not? They developed lasers before meeting the Shivans......
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I just don't think they do. Beams seem like a very 'Shivan' thing, really. Shivan beams are stronger as well, but it could also just be due to their own reverse-engineering. I still think beams are Shivan.
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Someone smoking space crack? Sence when are people thinking the Shivans are stealing OUR technology?
FFS we stold the Shield from them. And prolly the Collie was a ripoff of a jugernaut, or the lucy. Most say the lucy.
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FFS we stold the Shield from them. And prolly the Collie was a ripoff of a jugernaut, or the lucy. Most say the lucy.
The Lucifer is a superdestroyer, and the Colossus is a juggernaut, about one class up, with much more weaponry (albeit with ****ty arcs, making it a broadside ship), and the GTVA had never before encountered a juggernaut-class ship until the nebular theater.
[EDIT] And the only ship that was supposedly "based" on the Lucifer was the GTD Hades. And, uhhh, who says the Colossus was based off the Lucifer? :wtf:
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The Sathanas is actually slightly smaller than the Colly...
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Wait, so Vasudan beams are ''photon beam cannons'', Shivan beams are ''flux beam cannons'', so terran ones would use/be a different thing?
Someone smoking space crack? Sence when are people thinking the Shivans are stealing OUR technology?
FFS we stold the Shield from them. And prolly the Collie was a ripoff of a jugernaut, or the lucy. Most say the lucy.
The Collie was made to counter Lucifer class superdestroyers.
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The shivan flux beam cannons probably were flux cannons. But, the way that gtva reverse engineered them probably forced them to come up with different methods to create a gtva tech beam cannon. What i mean to say is, from the technology the shivans had, the gtva probably couldn't reproduce it 100% so they made a weapon just like it operating on similar principles, just using different stuff and methods to do it. Probably hence the photon beam cannon naming for the gtva beams. Until slang term beam cannon came around.
Gtva beams are related to the lucifers flux beam cannons, but not 100%, they're probably a technology all of their own now that has similarities with the lucifers flux beams.
It should be safe to say that gtva beams are really a different thing than the lucifers, albeit similar in what they both do, but use methods that would be alien to one another.
On the note of shivans and flak cannons, Perhaps V could have made flak cannons for shivans that at least utilized different sound and visual affects. Like the shivans having a rapid plasma spitting gun that had exploded red plasma in proximity to your ship. You know it'd be the same weapon, but at least the shivan flak variant would have different sound affects, projectiles, and explosion. And then shivan flak would look more natively shivan for the shivans, and then we wouldn't have this question of where'd the shivans get flak from, it's just like ours.
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This is goin round in circles.
Why can't we all just have our own theories, its very unlikely their gonna make a difference and if you DO make a campaign related to this topic then you can make a convincing back story.
But for ****s and giggles lets continue...
Isn't the Lucifers beam/flux/OMFGRay a one hit wonder, unlike the continueous beam hits. I do think we got the beam idea from Shivans but we didn't completely reverse engineer it. To us it was unique at the time; just like when we entered subspace, no doubt we thought we were special and no-one had realised the n dimension. But we were oh so wrong...
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The Sathanas is actually slightly smaller than the Colly...
The Colossus is 12 times the size of the Lucifer.
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Does the term "retcon" mean anything to you people? Perhaps :v: thought "flux cannon" a little too technobabbley and officially called the weapons photon beam cannons for FS2. Also, I believe we got a lot of beam cannon technology from the Lucifer. If not, then at least we realized their awesome destructive power, over bombs and blob turrets. At the very least, we had to have observed the emissions from the Lucifer's cannons, flux and bombardment, and Alpha 1 scanned it, didn't he/she/it?
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Does the term "retcon" mean anything to you people? Perhaps :v: thought "flux cannon" a little too technobabbley and officially called the weapons photon beam cannons for FS2. Also, I believe we got a lot of beam cannon technology from the Lucifer. If not, then at least we realized their awesome destructive power, over bombs and blob turrets. At the very least, we had to have observed the emissions from the Lucifer's cannons, flux and bombardment, and Alpha 1 scanned it, didn't he/she/it?
You can observe the emissions from the sun, it doesn't entail you're anywhere close to nuclear fusion reactors.
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Does the term "retcon" mean anything to you people? Perhaps :v: thought "flux cannon" a little too technobabbley and officially called the weapons photon beam cannons for FS2. Also, I believe we got a lot of beam cannon technology from the Lucifer. If not, then at least we realized their awesome destructive power, over bombs and blob turrets. At the very least, we had to have observed the emissions from the Lucifer's cannons, flux and bombardment, and Alpha 1 scanned it, didn't he/she/it?
Alpha 1 only made a brief scan.
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The Sathanas is actually slightly smaller than the Colly...
The Colossus is 12 times the size of the Lucifer.
he said sathanas, not lucifer
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Alpha 1 only made a brief scan.
Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?
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Alpha 1 only made a brief scan.
Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?
You can't get everything from a scan... it was more of a point in the right direction then a scan...
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I dont like the idea of the Shivans being a completely xenocidal race which wants to kill everything not Shivan. I like to think of them as a planning, strategically thinking species.
I know I'm skipping over a lot of discussion by replying directly to this, buuut...I agree. In fact, in one of the Ancient's monolouges, the speaker notes that the Shivans are "not just the Great Destroyers, but also the Great Preservers". I think the Shivans work to maintain balance in the universe, by destroying species when they grow too great.
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Which, in turn, makes them Great Destroyers. They had yet to ever be stopped (to our knowledge) when they attacked the first time. Defeat was _unthinkable_ during the Great War. What was their biggest flaw? Arrogance. Why wouldn't they send their biggest, baddest, tech? Arrogance. They knew our limitations, and expected us to be trapped by them. They did not expect us to adapt to their power and to learn the things we learned from the Ancients. They were arrogant and failed to make a plan B.
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I sometimes wonder if Terran, Vasudan, and Shivan beams are diverse yet related technologies... there's no canon evidence for this mind you, but they look different... and there's the citation of Flux vs. Photon beam cannons.
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Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?
To be fair, the beams themselves do not seem to be the problem. They do decent enough damage output per firing and tend to compare well in that category. The problem is more likely in power generation or heat dissipation. The GTVA is getting killed on the rate of fire.
If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it's heat dissipation. The Mjolnir, which is unmanned and has that big rotating thingie that could be a radiator, is a superb weapon even by Shivan standards. The Shivans may have devised better ways to dissipate the heat, ways to generate less of it, or given their apparent environmental tolerances (they can withstand vacuum for example) they just may not care.
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Makes you curious what the shivans use for heat dissipation then. I really don't think vacuum is the best way to radiate heat, it really helps if you have some type of medium to carry heat away. But yeah, the way shivan ships look on the inside it seems like they're pretty overly warm, after that a shivans body is cybernetic and organic, it most likely doubles as an environmental/hazard suit for the shivans. So yeah, they care about heat, but definitely not as much as humans do. Even if they're ships are abnormally hot on the inside.
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Makes you curious what the shivans use for heat dissipation then. I really don't think vacuum is the best way to radiate heat, it really helps if you have some type of medium to carry heat away. But yeah, the way shivan ships look on the inside it seems like they're pretty overly warm, after that a shivans body is cybernetic and organic, it most likely doubles as an environmental/hazard suit for the shivans. So yeah, they care about heat, but definitely not as much as humans do. Even if they're ships are abnormally hot on the inside.
Or their ships are composed of a material that is more naturally resistant to heat. Or - my favourite - they use some form of subspace technology to create a micro-apeture in order to vent heat out.
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Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?
If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it's heat dissipation. The Mjolnir, which is unmanned and has that big rotating thingie that could be a radiator, is a superb weapon even by Shivan standards. The Shivans may have devised better ways to dissipate the heat, ways to generate less of it, or given their apparent environmental tolerances (they can withstand vacuum for example) they just may not care.
That makes sense...
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Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?
To be fair, the beams themselves do not seem to be the problem. They do decent enough damage output per firing and tend to compare well in that category. The problem is more likely in power generation or heat dissipation. The GTVA is getting killed on the rate of fire.
If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it's heat dissipation. The Mjolnir, which is unmanned and has that big rotating thingie that could be a radiator, is a superb weapon even by Shivan standards. The Shivans may have devised better ways to dissipate the heat, ways to generate less of it, or given their apparent environmental tolerances (they can withstand vacuum for example) they just may not care.
You know what? I think you're right, except for they "may just not care" part. It doesn't matter what the Shivans think of it, materials melt. Do you think the captain of the Colossus gave a **** if his crew were sweating or not? No! If he diverted any more power to beams the beams themselves would cease to work. The delicate systems would melt under the heat generated. If you could just divert heat, just like that, to the crew compartments, you would be hailed as a brilliant engineer and paid lots and lots of money.
Alpha 1 only made a brief scan.
Perhaps that explains the reason GTVA beams are still miles behind Shivan ones?
You can't get everything from a scan... it was more of a point in the right direction then a scan...
That's what I'm talking about. You may not be able to work out nuclear fusion from the sun, but remember that we can make nuclear fusion work, just not containably, and the sun is simply a demonstration of principles we understand. We know why the sun burns all day and all night long. But the GTVA didn't "get" beams until after the Great War, possibly after observing the Lucifer's. Hypothetically speaking, GTVA scientists could have hit a dead end in large-scale directed-energy weapons, until observing the Lucifer's neutrino emissions, or some other **** like that. That would hint at them, "Use the neutrinos!", and Alpha 1's scan would reveal something of what the Lucifer's beam weapons were comprised of, for example, revealing the layout and makeup of the energy conduits, or some other technobabble. Or maybe, the Lucifer showed the GTVA what was possible. Maybe, after seeing the beams in action, the scientists thought, "Oh, I guess we could do that, just give us a couple of years."
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You know what? I think you're right, except for they "may just not care" part. It doesn't matter what the Shivans think of it, materials melt. Do you think the captain of the Colossus gave a **** if his crew were sweating or not? No! If he diverted any more power to beams the beams themselves would cease to work. The delicate systems would melt under the heat generated. If you could just divert heat, just like that, to the crew compartments, you would be hailed as a brilliant engineer and paid lots and lots of money.
That depends on the amount of heat you're diverting. Couple hundred degrees makes it difficult to work, you know?
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You know what? I think you're right, except for they "may just not care" part. It doesn't matter what the Shivans think of it, materials melt. Do you think the captain of the Colossus gave a **** if his crew were sweating or not? No! If he diverted any more power to beams the beams themselves would cease to work. The delicate systems would melt under the heat generated. If you could just divert heat, just like that, to the crew compartments, you would be hailed as a brilliant engineer and paid lots and lots of money.
That depends on the amount of heat you're diverting. Couple hundred degrees makes it difficult to work, you know?
Well it appears to me that the GTVA use heatsinks (which aren't exactly great for hot stuff). Perhaps they should change to some other system? Or they could simply house the beams outside of the ship... let the vacuum of space take the heat. But seriously... it appears to me that many ships that face "weak turrets" is actually "excessive heat"--you have to find a way to keep firepower and keep it cool; house the systems outside and you compromise longevity for heat; in the end the turrets are mass-produced and easily replaced.
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Well it appears to me that the GTVA use heatsinks (which aren't exactly great for hot stuff). Perhaps they should change to some other system? Or they could simply house the beams outside of the ship... let the vacuum of space take the heat. But seriously... it appears to me that many ships that face "weak turrets" is actually "excessive heat"--you have to find a way to keep firepower and keep it cool; house the systems outside and you compromise longevity for heat; in the end the turrets are mass-produced and easily replaced.
Vacuum isn't good for heat dissapation, either. While it is cold, there's nothing for the extra heat to dissapate into.
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OK... whatever... but it still isn't the problem of roasting the crew and other subsystems; the problem becomes the turrets.
I, for one, think that the GTVA have pretty efficient blob turrets; perhaps only the older models of ships still need to use the less-efficient turrets. IT would explain why new ships like the Deimos has such good guns...
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Yeah, radiating heat into a vacuum is not very good at all. Vacuums are very cold, but they have no pressure, and pressure makes a huge difference on how much you will experience cold or heat.
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Radiating heat into a vacuum is no worse than radiating into a fluid or solid, and could even be considered better due to the lack of absorbing materials nearby. However, what is missing in a vacuum is the other two types of heat loss, conduction and convection. Because of this heat sinks would be very different in a vacuum than in a fluid such as an atmosphere. A space heat sink would be optimised for maximum radiative effect, and due to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which states that the radiation density emitted by an object is approximatly proportional to the 4th power of it's temperature, space heat sinks would want to run at as high a temperature as possible. Also, to maximise the emissions from a heat sink it would want to be black (Kirchoffs law of thermal radiation states that the absorptivity equals the emissivity when in thermal equilibrium; in this case thermal equilibrium is when the heat sink is operating at maximum heat flow). Also the rate of emission is reduced when elements of the object are radiating heat between them, as in situation where fins are present.
So in short, a space-going heat sink would want to be very hot, black, and either flat or convex.
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If you wanted to, you could a different medium like water or atmoshpere to absorb the heat. And then vent the heated atmosphere out of the ship. Rapid heat loss.