Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Hades on July 30, 2007, 07:42:30 am

Title: Earth
Post by: Hades on July 30, 2007, 07:42:30 am
I saw on the History Channel about when the Earth was cooling down after it formed that the asteroids and other rocks that were hitting it had microorganisms That might have been what made the animals.If any one remembers from PI about the pods that hit earth and turned into human?Sounds alot alike IMO.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Snail on July 30, 2007, 07:52:24 am
Well PI has a large plot hole because the human civilization was around for much longer than 8,000 years which is when the Ancients came under attack.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: CP5670 on July 30, 2007, 08:59:00 am
A bit OT, but I thought I would clear that up. I'm surprised nobody mentioned it until now, actually.

Spoiler:
The campaign assumes that modern, recognizable humans evolved from apes about 200,000 years ago, not 8,000. The canonical evidence is simply that the Ancients were "eliminated" 8,000 years ago, but that says nothing about how long they were actually fighting the Shivans. For the purposes of PI, the Ancients empire was so large and their ships so powerful that their defeat to the Shivans took an extremely long time. At the 200,000 year mark, they had already been fighting for a very long time. This can be inferred from a few messages in the mission 13 dialogue.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Snail on July 30, 2007, 09:11:32 am
Wow so you did think this through very, very thoroughly. And I like the idea that the Ancients put up a fight. They conquered thousands of species, the Shivans couldn't put out the light that fast. :cool:
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: TrashMan on July 30, 2007, 09:12:55 am
Aren't humans present on Earth like, 2 MILLION years???
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Polpolion on July 30, 2007, 10:32:54 am
No? IIRC homosapiens came about about 10,000 BC.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Shade on July 30, 2007, 10:54:35 am
Close, kinda. You forgot one zero ;)
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Ghostavo on July 30, 2007, 02:28:55 pm
And he'd still need to double the whole number.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Polpolion on July 30, 2007, 02:53:34 pm
Oh well. I was still a lot closer than trashman.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: TrashMan on July 30, 2007, 03:13:51 pm
I'm pretty sure the oldest human remains were like 4 million years old..a skull of a female if I'm not mistaken.

Homo Sapiense didn't evolve out of rock...
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Ghostavo on July 30, 2007, 03:23:54 pm
But it depends on what you can call a human.

Four million years old australopithecus is not what I'd call human.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: jr2 on July 30, 2007, 03:42:39 pm
australopithecus puzzle pieces found = 5 / 300.  Pick another one.

Link (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/australopithecus2.asp).

And if you gag at the site, that's no excuse for not reading it, it does contain references from sources you'd consider valid.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Ghostavo on July 30, 2007, 04:12:29 pm
I have no idea what you are trying to imply, but the article just adresses a single species of the australopithecus genus. Besides the site being what it is of course.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Flipside on July 30, 2007, 05:14:26 pm
There's a lot of prehistoric creatures that have been rebuilt from just a few bones, and, yes, sometimes they've got it wrong, the Allosaurus, I think it was, spent quite a few years with a large thumb that it now seems it didn't have, however, whilst hey don't always get the details right, archaeologists have got very good on building up a picture based on scattered evidence and comparing it with modern ancestors.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Black Wolf on July 30, 2007, 05:29:01 pm
Quote from: jr2 on July 30, 2007, 03:42:39 pm
australopithecus puzzle pieces found = 5 / 300.  Pick another one.

Link (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/australopithecus2.asp).

And if you gag at the site, that's no excuse for not reading it, it does contain references from sources you'd consider valid.

Don't be retarded. Teeth are the single most diagnostic fossil you can ever hope to find for an animal, even partial teeth can tell you as lot. The whole article goes on about how similar the fossils are to chimps, which is what you'd expect for a highly primitive Australopithicene, but the guy admits that there were three derived characteristics, i.e. they had to evolve after the Ape/Human split. It's not fitting evidence to a belief, it's accepting that evolutionary science understands the difference between these two types of feature.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Ace on July 30, 2007, 09:38:07 pm
Quote from: jr2 on July 30, 2007, 03:42:39 pm
australopithecus puzzle pieces found = 5 / 300.  Pick another one.

Link (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/australopithecus2.asp).

And if you gag at the site, that's no excuse for not reading it, it does contain references from sources you'd consider valid.

Native Americans never inhabited the Pacific Northwest because I only found two lithic scatters so far this summer!!!111oneoneone

I have to find a lot more of them in order to prove that they were really here during their seasonal subsistence rounds!!!111 THIS IZ PWOOF DAT WHITES WERE FIRST!!!

...

...

...

WRONG! There are things called context and parsimony.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Fearless Leader on August 24, 2007, 09:24:46 am
Ok, Im human, and my friend "Z" is human.

"Z" is 5ft 4in and weighs about 110lbs

Im 6ft 2in and weight about 210lbs

If after we both die(lets say about 300m apart) and decay to just bones, some Shivan puts his leg bones on my body, and says "look this is what humans actually looked like"

Even though we are the same species, parts from one wont fit parts from another correctly and will not give an accurate representation of a human.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Topgun on August 24, 2007, 09:29:45 am
Quote from: Black Wolf on July 30, 2007, 05:29:01 pm
Quote from: jr2 on July 30, 2007, 03:42:39 pm
australopithecus puzzle pieces found = 5 / 300.  Pick another one.

Link (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/australopithecus2.asp).

And if you gag at the site, that's no excuse for not reading it, it does contain references from sources you'd consider valid.

Don't be retarded. Teeth are the single most diagnostic fossil you can ever hope to find for an animal, even partial teeth can tell you as lot. The whole article goes on about how similar the fossils are to chimps, which is what you'd expect for a highly primitive Australopithicene, but the guy admits that there were three derived characteristics, i.e. they had to evolve after the Ape/Human split. It's not fitting evidence to a belief, it's accepting that evolutionary science understands the difference between these two types of feature.
don't you remember the Nebraska man :p.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Ace on August 24, 2007, 01:12:09 pm
Quote from: Snail on July 30, 2007, 09:11:32 am
Wow so you did think this through very, very thoroughly. And I like the idea that the Ancients put up a fight. They conquered thousands of species, the Shivans couldn't put out the light that fast. :cool:

*Shrug*

Based on the FS1 cutscenes and Volition's own statements about Ancient technology it seems that they did not defeat Shivan shielding until their homeworld was destroyed.

The Shivans likely blitzkreiged straight through their major systems, tearing their ships apart while "not dying," and crushed the Ancients rather swiftly. Their species was most likely reduced to a non-viable population by the time they had the means to fight back, not that it wouldn't make an interesting story about the surviving armada knowing it's doomed tracking and fighting the Shivans in subspace when all of their worlds were gone.

However it does seem to be a common theme in fanon to have the Ancients put up a good fight.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Black Wolf on August 24, 2007, 05:27:29 pm
Quote from: Topgun on August 24, 2007, 09:29:45 am
don't you remember the Nebraska man :p.

Oh yes. That pinnacle of 1920's scientific endeavour. It was suggested upon the first publication of that tooth that it was misidentified, and conclusively disproven a few years later - which is how science works. Mistakes are rectified through scientific endeavour. There's no dogma, no unchangeable canon. Plus, we're just a little bit better with these things now, after eighty years of practice.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Topgun on August 24, 2007, 05:29:16 pm
thus the ":p"
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Nuke on August 24, 2007, 08:59:04 pm
Quote from: Ace on August 24, 2007, 01:12:09 pm
Quote from: Snail on July 30, 2007, 09:11:32 am
Wow so you did think this through very, very thoroughly. And I like the idea that the Ancients put up a fight. They conquered thousands of species, the Shivans couldn't put out the light that fast. :cool:

*Shrug*

Based on the FS1 cutscenes and Volition's own statements about Ancient technology it seems that they did not defeat Shivan shielding until their homeworld was destroyed.

The Shivans likely blitzkreiged straight through their major systems, tearing their ships apart while "not dying," and crushed the Ancients rather swiftly. Their species was most likely reduced to a non-viable population by the time they had the means to fight back, not that it wouldn't make an interesting story about the surviving armada knowing it's doomed tracking and fighting the Shivans in subspace when all of their worlds were gone.

However it does seem to be a common theme in fanon to have the Ancients put up a good fight.

i always figured the ancients put up a good long fight (though not one long enough to seed life on our worlds, not to say that this couldnt have been the case earlyer in the ancients history). the ancients held a much bigger empire than the gtva. such an empire wouldnt have been conquered overnight. it probibly went on for a number of years. the lucifer was aparently built just for the final attack of the main systems of the ancients. im sure they had to face waves of sathani (perhaps even a dante or two :D). perhaps in the fight the ancients crippled a great many jump nodes (by either porthole shutdown or just plane mesoning) to slow the shivan advance. in the process they probibly isolated the sathanas fleet as well as the lucifer fleet in an attempt to confuse the enemy.

the lack of beam cannons on the lucifer fleet? perhaps the ancients sent bombers and interceptors to cripple this final assault force. knocking out its beam weapons. while at the same time closing off themselves from their shivan foes. it the final hours of the ancients, they most likely would be thinking more of their survival than the successful outcome of the war. they would be running in battlestar galactica fashion, trying to cripple their few remaining persuers who have been sealed off from their larger fleets.

this leads them to what will be gtva space. we know gtva space is pretty much cut off from what, under the same rules of subspace, should be a galactic subspace network. the ancients did this on their final escape, lucifer fleet right on their tail. they sealed nodes, they sent ships to cripple the support fleet, however they were a little late to figure out how to kill the shields. and so they get wiped out, leaving the lucifer fleet stuck in our little area of space. probibly having gone into hibernation after a thorough search for a way home. they probibly detected the beginnings of intelegent life on vasuda and on earth, and probibly decided to wait until theese spiecies reached stellar maturity, at which point they would start killing eachother and possible figure out how to activate that infernal knossos.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Fearless Leader on August 25, 2007, 07:07:39 am
Quote from: Ace on August 24, 2007, 01:12:09 pm
Quote from: Snail on July 30, 2007, 09:11:32 am
Wow so you did think this through very, very thoroughly. And I like the idea that the Ancients put up a fight. They conquered thousands of species, the Shivans couldn't put out the light that fast. :cool:

*Shrug*

Based on the FS1 cutscenes and Volition's own statements about Ancient technology it seems that they did not defeat Shivan shielding until their homeworld was destroyed.

The Shivans likely blitzkreiged straight through their major systems, tearing their ships apart while "not dying," and crushed the Ancients rather swiftly. Their species was most likely reduced to a non-viable population by the time they had the means to fight back, not that it wouldn't make an interesting story about the surviving armada knowing it's doomed tracking and fighting the Shivans in subspace when all of their worlds were gone.

However it does seem to be a common theme in fanon to have the Ancients put up a good fight.

I thought they could only not get through the Lucifer's sheilds. Sorta like the Luci plowed through their entire fleet and on into their home systems with the rest of them following behind destroying the leftovers.

If they couldnt kill any of them then how could they figure out how to track them through subspace?
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Maxwell on August 25, 2007, 10:12:28 pm
I don't recall V saying if the use of lasers in the new shivan fleet was a point of story or a simple technical matter.  If so then you'd be reading too much into things by debating the origins of laser beams.

The Ancients already had space travel abilities before they invented/discovered jump drives, and seem to have gained the use of subspace for some time (enough to spread around or maybe beyond the galaxy) before the shivans found them. 

The "we could forgo one system" line suggests that they were able to hold their own against the shivans, if only for a long enough while to make that decision (unlike the gta, who get pantsed outright at first contact).

Their initial encounter sounds like they ran up against an unremarkable enemy that became remarkable by the simple fact they couldn't be overpowered easily... then as time went on, the ancients realized they were in deeper **** than they bargained for.
Then, after a long series of engagements, panic sets in and the ancients start to scatter.

If any survived they would have had to escape by their original space travel method as not to be tracked.  Where they are and what condition their race is in (think Homeworld)  could be anyones guess.

Just bear in mind that the Shivans were not all powerful.  You can destroy smaller craft with basic weapons if your persistent enough.
The ancients knew all about fighting in space and I'd only assume they'd be able to kick our ass if we ever met before the events of FS1... to which I think they'd be able to hold their own until big star eating monsters started showing up in large numbers.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Ace on August 25, 2007, 11:37:41 pm
Forgoing one system can also be construed to being completely overwhelmed and outclassed and "cutting losses" by collapsing nodes. Even assuming that the Ancients' efforts were about on par with how the player first fights the Shivans in FS1, a large empire and sacrificing outer systems could buy enough time to hope to find a weakness- one that was ironically found after their homeworld was lost.

Considering that the GTI had access to Shivan tech before the Great War, the technological leaps and adaptation to the Shivans seen in the Terran-Vasudan victory does not necessarily reflect how the Ancients fought. Now having Ancient ships fight on par with Shivans might make for a better campaign, but isn't necessarily the case.
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Maxwell on August 26, 2007, 12:42:26 am
Problem is that the ancients ran across many races and over a vast territory. Other species that could have also picked up bits of shivan tech or worse.   The ancients  make a point to brag about how well they had managed to meet all challengers.
Pure arrogance maybe... but if they didn't have their own tricks to survival, they would never have gotten this far.   Someone would have either stopped them just like the Vasudans tripped up the Humans.

If the Ancients turned out to be pushovers they would have been tracked and routed by the shivans before having a clue about what was going on. Instead they appear to have survived enough encounters to lean things about the shivans even we had not figured out.

Title: Re: Earth
Post by: Fearless Leader on August 26, 2007, 07:51:58 am
rgr that Maxwell
Title: Re: Earth
Post by: TrashMan on August 26, 2007, 08:52:35 am
agreed...especially if the empire is as vast as it appears to be (MUCH larger than the GTVA at the hight of it's power), then they must have had MASSIVE fleets...even if outclassed by shivans they would have still fared better than the terrans and vasudans becoause of sheer numbers and soze of territory.. It would take shivans a lot to conquer all of that.