OK so that cutscene is about the Ancients? Still what happened to the races they didn't destroy?
But, b-but, b-b-but....... it's the Human homeworld! How is it not important?!
3. Ancients expanded beyond our galaxy - UNLIKELYWell, now that you mentioned it,
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy and it gave us the universe.
When we conquered and colonised in galaxies where we had no place the destruction and the anguish and the loss were the clarion call of our doom.At least something suggesting that the Ancients did intergalactic conquering.
3. Ancients expanded beyond our galaxy - UNLIKELY
3. Ancients expanded beyond our galaxy - UNLIKELYWell, now that you mentioned it,Quote from: Ancients 1And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy and it gave us the universe.Quote from: Ancients 4When we conquered and colonised in galaxies where we had no place the destruction and the anguish and the loss were the clarion call of our doom.At least something suggesting that the Ancients did intergalactic conquering.
Considering we know the nodemap shows subspace and not actual distances, or it's not naming the correct stars the right things, or it's all BS anyways...
For Heavens sake! They were being poetic. There are millions of star systems in a Galaxy and the Ancient empire, alltough large, was not THAT large.
Eh? Excuse me HOW do we know that? I don't recall ANY canon source confirming, or even hinting that.
Secondly, it's unlikely. Given the distance between Galaxies and the fact that nodes form between systems as a result of their gravity....any start in the same galaxy is 1000 times clsoer and will have 1000 times a bigger gravitational effect on a system inside it then another galaxy.
Knowing the ancients survived for several thousand years, they would know enough about science to distinguish what a galaxy is, as well as know significantly more then humans do about the universe.
Knowing the ancients survived for several thousand years, they would know enough about science to distinguish what a galaxy is, as well as know significantly more then humans do about the universe.
:yes:
*The Ancient fanboy arrives*For Heavens sake! They were being poetic. There are millions of star systems in a Galaxy and the Ancient empire, alltough large, was not THAT large.
How do you know that?
*The Ancient fanboy arrives*Oh, and [V] clearly stated the ancients were similar to the GTVA....a bit ahead in tech and a fair bit larger.. but galaxy-spanning empire? I never got that impression.For Heavens sake! They were being poetic. There are millions of star systems in a Galaxy and the Ancient empire, alltough large, was not THAT large.
How do you know that?
I guess it doesn't state most of the galaxy but most of the reachable systems. But within a galaxy what is a reachable system? If you travel to the closest system then other systems are closer to that on. Eventually you will be within reach of all the systems in the galaxy from some system you have already reached.
Oh, and [V] clearly stated the ancients were similar to the GTVA....a bit ahead in tech and a fair bit larger.. but galaxy-spanning empire? I never got that impression.
Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest. For thousands of years our empire expanded. For so long we could imagine ourselves alone in the universe. For so long never did we encounter advanced life. And we travelled faster and further spreading in our galaxy [Fig. 1] and before long we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited [Fig. 2]. And then there would be nowhere else to go.
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy [Fig. 3] and it gave us the universe [Fig 4.]. And we saw other advanced life. And we subdued it or we crushed it. In months the extermination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path. With subspace our empire would surely know no boundaries.
I don't think any of us are saying they conquered the universe. What we (or at least me) are saying is that they traveled beyond their galaxy.
I think intergalactic jumps aren't impossible, especially from the centre of a galaxy. There are so many theories in sci-fi games and films about those centres. In a FS environment, they would have something to do with subspace. The most obivious thing is...an intergalactic jump.
For Heavens sake! They were being poetic. There are millions of star systems in a Galaxy and the Ancient empire, alltough large, was not THAT largeI bet they didn't bother to conquer every goddamn asteroid and moon in the galaxy before proceeding to others. And besides, Bosch also spoke somewhat poetically. Maybe we should assume that he didn't really have those plans and that he believed in the agenda of the NTF.
Shivans = Religious fanatics intending on "preserving life"Don't forget to add the Inhibitors from Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe.
Think of them like a mix of the Ur-Quan in SC2 and the Cylons in the new BSG.
Well you'd think if they'd been around for thousands of years, like i mentioned, their empire would be big enough to span a considerable amount of systems.We've been around for 2 million years and we're yet to leave our home system ...LOL.
Quote from: Ancient Monologue 1Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest. For thousands of years our empire expanded. For so long we could imagine ourselves alone in the universe. For so long never did we encounter advanced life. And we travelled faster and further spreading in our galaxy [Fig. 1] and before long we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited [Fig. 2]. And then there would be nowhere else to go.
Figure 1 gives me the impression that the Ancients spread throughout their galaxy. Everywhere. Figure 2 even says that they could see the point when they had reached all the exploitable systems of the galaxy.
Quote from: Ancient Monologue 1And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy [Fig. 3] and it gave us the universe [Fig 4.]. And we saw other advanced life. And we subdued it or we crushed it. In months the extermination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path. With subspace our empire would surely know no boundaries.
Figure 3 says "gave us our galaxy." Their galaxy. Gaaaaaalaxxxeeeeeeee. Is that not clear enough? Gaaaaalaaaaaxeeeeeeeeeeee.
Figure 4 says "the universe." Just before that, they say "galaxy". That just screams at me, that the "universe" is more than one galaxy. And subspace "gave us the universe." So they have the universe, which is more than one galaxy.
The Ancient homeworld is described as being "near to Vasuda".Looks to me like they are from our galaxy...
Wrong on both accounts. Subspace drives givce you the POTENTIAL to travel across the galaxy, MABY even further, so it's completely acceptable wording to say that even if you don't have more than 10 systems in your galaxy. After all, you just got your new drive....you're in awe and happy..the possibilities seem endless....or are they?
MEh...poetic exageration. If we were to leave Sol we could also say that we traveled faster and further spreadig trough our galaxy...even if we only just begun and our tech limits us to only the few systems in our vicinity.
Then again, without FTL drive further expansion will soon prove impractical, especially when considering systems that are further away.
Thus as you can see, this also fits those words just nicely.
Looks to me like they are from our galaxy...
And IIRC, there is no canon indication of inter-galaxy nodes. It maby be possible to jump to another galaxy, as Kaj said the superdense galaxy centers...but wouldn't that also require a order of magnitude more power than subspace drive have?
However, here's something to nibble on - the Vasudans and Terrans are subspace capable for almost (if not over) a century.
Oh...from the Wiki:QuoteThe Ancient homeworld is described as being "near to Vasuda".Looks to me like they are from our galaxy...
And IIRC, there is no canon indication of inter-galaxy nodes. It maby be possible to jump to another galaxy, as Kaj said the superdense galaxy centers...but wouldn't that also require a order of magnitude more power than subspace drive have?
Bollocks.
Given the distance between Galaxies and the fact that nodes form between systems as a result of their gravity....any start in the same galaxy is 1000 times clsoer
As has been pointed out, the only canon sources on the Ancients clearly state they spread throughout their own galaxy, that they were a race of conquerors, etc... Yet without ANY canon to the contrary, it is dismissed as being mere exageration and that the sourceless theories MUST be true? Isn't this a little presumptuous to be doing when mucking about in someone else's story uninverse?
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.
What if the Ancients were TERRAN projenitors? What if OUR species, being a bit more remotely located in the galaxy was overlooked by the Shivans in their origional campaign against the Ancients? Perhaps a small outpost that ended up going primitive before returning to the Galactic scene during Freespace? No sources really say anything either way...
I've always hated stories that say that humans came from another planet originally. There's too much proof that humans are from Earth. For a start you have to wonder why the alien race would spend so much time burying Neanderthal bones everywhere.
LOL... well, according to you the USA rules this galaxy and has colonies on many stars.. Since you recall what they said about the Apollo program - that it "gave us the stars" . F'course, we have to take that literary, right? :rolleyes:
B.t.w. - Knososs stablises existing nodes between system, it doesn't create inter-galaxy nodes. :lol:
Another important fact: it's a game
I'm going to temp ban the next person who says "It's a game" in response to one of these threads without actually saying anything pertinent. We all know it's a game. If you're uninterested in the subject don't say anything.
Nebula - no stars means it's hard if not impossible to tell where you are. In addition, the binary system may not have actually been in the same galaxy, it is never named.
BTW, I am not stupid.
May/might..sure..but what is more likely and makes more...scientific sense? Option no1
I would never have guessed :p
May/might..sure..but what is more likely and makes more...scientific sense? Option no1
You have NO proof whatsoever that you need a larger gravity well for longer distances. You can shout all you like that it is needed but it's complete and utterly bollocks.
Yeah there's less proof than that than there is for my Time = Mass theory.Uh-oh. This is starting to sound almost like the UTELE theory, where Energy = Mass.
May/might..sure..but what is more likely and makes more...scientific sense? Option no1
Trashman. You know **** all more about subspace than the rest of us so stop acting like your interpretation of it is correct. And judging from some of your earlier comments you probably know less about the way the real universe works.
You have NO proof whatsoever that you need a larger gravity well for longer distances. You can shout all you like that it is needed but it's complete and utterly bollocks.
it's a gameAs a matter of fact, I just tried to say
Let's calm down on the name calling people.But doesn't matter, kara is right. Sorry.
Some make more sense than others. Yours do not make any more sense than any of the others presented in this discussion so stop with the nonsense about science and logic backing yours up. It doesn't any more than it back up the other ones.
As I've said science doesn't even back up your statements about the real universe.
As I've said science doesn't even back up your statements about the real universe.
I'll believe that once you show me you PHDs in scientific fields Mr. Expert on everything.
I'm referring to your ridiculously wrong assertion about the distance between galaxies earlier on this thread and your similarly ridiculous assertion about the viability of asteroid mining last month.
Both of which you could have proved wrong with 5 minutes on Google or even a modicum of actual knowledge of the real universe. I'm not claiming to be an expert. I'm claiming to know more than you. And if you're going to make easily disproved comments about real life subjects where you can be actually proved incorrect you're certainly not going to change my opinion on that matter.
In other words do some ****ing research before you next open your mouth about what things in this universe are like.
I'm making the following assumptions.
Ancients:
Not from this galaxy
Explored most of their galaxies usable systems and moved out into neighboring galaxies.
Shivans:
Creatures that live in subspace
Do not require node or anything else to travel to and from subspace
Only use the subspace nodes to track and follow us.
Attack any race that disturbers their domain
Vasudans:
Slave race of the Ancients brought to Vasuda Prime from their original home world.
Terrans:
Native to Earth but experimented on by the Ancients.
Knossos:
Device created by the Ancients to create subspace nodes.
Theory:
Ancients created Knossos devices to open subspace to them.
They left their own galaxy and made it to ours.
After exploring part of out galaxy and several others they invoked the wrath of the Shivans for disturbing their native environment.
Final battles were fought across the galaxies.
In a last ditch effort the Ancients tried destroying the Knossos devices to stop the Shivans. This is why there are no Knossos devices in the nearby systems.
Unknown to the Ancients the Knossos devices once turned on for a period of time stabilize the node and are no longer needed.
The Knossos the GTVA discovered was one of the last built and never turned on.
The Lucifer fleet was a scouting mission to see what was causing new subspace disturbances.
When the Sol node collapsed it sent shock waves through subspace.
Maybe these waves hurt the Shivans just like dropping a stick of dynamite in a pond of fish.
Between FS1 and FS2 the Shivans assembled. They would have come no matter what but when we created a new subspace portal the Sathanas fleet closest by was angered and attacked prematurely. When the rest of the fleet arrived they saw us try to destroy a subspace node. Fearing that we would succeed they came up with a way to counteract the subspace shockwave by destroying the star. Their ships being capable of feeding off of a stars energy formed a ring and drew enough energy off of the star to make it collapse. The resulting collapse resulted in the supernova. Shivans go back into subspace to lick their wounds and build and gather an even stronger fleet.
Will we figure out how to destroy the Shivans in subspace?
Will the Shivans figure out a way to prevent the destruction of the nodes?
Will the Vasudans find the truth about their true homeworld? Does it still exist?
Are there other surviving races just around the corner? Are they friendly? Are they more advanced but smart enough not to use subspace?
Do the Shivans have masters or allies?
Are there any Ancients left? Could a few have survived on far off isolated worlds that don't have subspace nodes?
Just some things to think about and argue over for the new year.
So? I'm not always right...big surprise...you're acting like you were never wrong.
I don't always have time for research so I often fall back to my shoddy memory. Wow.. I bet that's unheard of in the circles of the allmighty Kaj!
I'm gonna open my mouth and say whatever I damn please and you don't have to like it bud.
That's kinda my point. I qualify my statements so that I'm not wrong. If I don't know I say I don't know. If I'm making assumptions I try to state them so that others can judge if my premise is correct. I'd rather have people debate the subject at hand and come up with several different explanations as that leads to more interesting campaigns. You seem to want to give everyone Trashman's view from on high and insist that anything else is unlikely or impossible. Even when your logic turns out to be fatally flawed.
And I most certainly don't insist someone is wrong when I don't have the faintest clue.
QuoteI'm gonna open my mouth and say whatever I damn please and you don't have to like it bud.Not if you continue to be a disruption you won't. As your title shows I'm not the only admin sick to the back teeth of your antics.
And it is the one CP5670 used in the Procyon Insurgency. It's a nice one but one of my major gripes with it is that Humans exist for a lot longer than 8000 years. Unless of course the Ancient-Shivan War had a duration of over a hundred thousand years which I find to be quite unlikely.
Ok the Ancients empire was HUGE ! They freaking conquered and colonized in other galaxies.
An empire this wast and large can not be brought down just like that and its ppl so to speak inclueding slave races exterminated over night.
If you use common sense you will realize that the chances of the ancients surviving in some distant part of theyr empire is VERY VERY high.
Also remember the shivans are not interested in tech or planets so there are even bigger chances that the shivans did not nuke some slave race they come across.
Not that high. After 8,000 years of technological advancement they would most likely be found and destroyed.
Double Post, sorry, but the reason I wonder if the Vasudans are actually 'imported' is more about feel than fact. Look at their ships, their culture, it seems to be somewhat aquatically oriented. Look at Vasuda Prime, if I recall correctly, even before it was destroyed, it was mostly a desert world, I find their nature and their environment to be oddly opposed.
QuoteThe Lucifer fleet was a scouting mission to see what was causing new subspace disturbances.
I disagree - the Lucifer and its fleet was way too big for a scouting party. A scout would quietly drop in, snoop a bit then bug out back to mommy, not commit major resources to an extermination campaign.
IIRC, doesn't the box cover of FS2 say something along the line "They wonder what happened to their scouting fleet" ???
Your nemesis has arrived...and they are
wondering what happened to their
scouting party.
How are the shivans supposed to find every last ancient in the universe, especially if they scatter around? How do you find a bunch of people living in a forest on a planet? Magical Star Trek scanners that can tell you the number of noise hairs the guy on the left room in the hotel on the 9th planet on the system?
Just imagine how friggin huge just our galaxy is.
How you can hide ships in-system from even a large search force.
QuoteI'm making the following assumptions.
While there is a lot of guesswork that can be made, what you have put down in your post is pretty steep and rather contradictory to canon.
QuoteAncients:
Not from this galaxy
I have not come across anything that suggests they were not from this galaxy.
QuoteExplored most of their galaxies usable systems and moved out into neighboring galaxies.
This appears to be true according to :v:
No but no evidence against it either. Maybe they weren't native to subspace but evolved to live there. Maybe they were created to exist there or enforce some other species laws.QuoteShivans:
Creatures that live in subspace
No evidence save speculation, even in canon sources.
QuoteDo not require node or anything else to travel to and from subspace
QuoteOnly use the subspace nodes to track and follow us.
Nothing to support this. They do have subspace tracking, but they use the nodes same as we do.
QuoteAttack any race that disturbers their domain
No solid info available to support this. Their motives have not been fathomed, and they cannot unless they open communication. So far, appart from Bosch's ETAK project, they'd rather fight than speak.
QuoteVasudans:
Slave race of the Ancients brought to Vasuda Prime from their original home world.
Speculation, cannot and has not been confirmed, save that they may have had contact with the Ancients in the past.
QuoteTerrans:
Native to Earth but experimented on by the Ancients.
Experimented on us to what end? There's nothing to suggest they even knew our species existed.
QuoteKnossos:
Device created by the Ancients to create subspace nodes.
We don't know if it was to create nodes for sure, or merely to stabilize existing ones. The info has not really been clearly explained for sure.
I'm afraid that kind of shoots your theory full of holes, but for the sake of argument:
QuoteTheory:
Ancients created Knossos devices to open subspace to them.
I think you should say more like give them increased access to subspace.
QuoteThey left their own galaxy and made it to ours.
Again there is nothing that positively states they did not origionate in our galaxy.
QuoteAfter exploring part of out galaxy and several others they invoked the wrath of the Shivans for disturbing their native environment.
There is nothing definitvely placing subspace as the true home of the Shivans. The Shivans may be merely advanced xenophobes that just happen to be sensitive to subspace.
QuoteFinal battles were fought across the galaxies.
All we really have for sure is that after the origional battles, the Ancients retreated, eventually abandoning their empire.
QuoteIn a last ditch effort the Ancients tried destroying the Knossos devices to stop the Shivans. This is why there are no Knossos devices in the nearby systems.
Why not just turn the things off? As well, why build a Knossos if there was no need, which they may have felt to be the case?
QuoteUnknown to the Ancients the Knossos devices once turned on for a period of time stabilize the node and are no longer needed.
If they created the technology, isn't it likely they would have a very good idea how it would perform?
QuoteThe Knossos the GTVA discovered was one of the last built and never turned on.
We have no way to prove this at all.
QuoteThe Lucifer fleet was a scouting mission to see what was causing new subspace disturbances.
I disagree - the Lucifer and its fleet was way too big for a scouting party. A scout would quietly drop in, snoop a bit then bug out back to mommy, not commit major resources to an extermination campaign.
QuoteWhen the Sol node collapsed it sent shock waves through subspace.
Possible, however subspace and how it works is still up for debate.
QuoteMaybe these waves hurt the Shivans just like dropping a stick of dynamite in a pond of fish.
Not enough information on the Shivans to predict with accuracy. It could just as easily have no effect at all on them.
QuoteBetween FS1 and FS2 the Shivans assembled. They would have come no matter what but when we created a new subspace portal the Sathanas fleet closest by was angered and attacked prematurely. When the rest of the fleet arrived they saw us try to destroy a subspace node. Fearing that we would succeed they came up with a way to counteract the subspace shockwave by destroying the star. Their ships being capable of feeding off of a stars energy formed a ring and drew enough energy off of the star to make it collapse. The resulting collapse resulted in the supernova. Shivans go back into subspace to lick their wounds and build and gather an even stronger fleet.
Anyone's guess, but it just doesn't work for me. I still favour the supernode theory. The Shivans weren't so much sucking energy away from the star, more creating a subspace field around it. I'm not really sure that the Shivans were so much in terror of destructing nodes either. You would tend to think a supernova would likely destroy any nodes left in the viscinity... As for licking their wounds and building a stronger fleet? 80 great bloody juggernuts plus escorting fleet units and screen is a pretty darn powerful fleet don't you think? The GTVA certainly never mounted much in the line of successful challengers.
I alway like the supernode theory as well. It still may be the best one but the beer was telling me otherwiseAs for your ending questions:
How are the shivans supposed to find every last ancient in the universe, especially if they scatter around? How do you find a bunch of people living in a forest on a planet? Magical Star Trek scanners that can tell you the number of noise hairs the guy on the left room in the hotel on the 9th planet on the system?
Just imagine how friggin huge just our galaxy is.
How you can hide ships in-system from even a large search force.
The Ancients wouldn't have stayed in hiding for 8,000 mother****ing years. They would have started rebuilding and then poof the Shivans come and bam they're all dead. The Shivans had 8,000 years to look for them. Do you have any idea how long 8,000 years is? It's not like a century or anything, it's practically all of human history.
And it doesn't matter if it's 8 billion years looking for them. you can't find someone who doesn't want to be find in a place as large as the universe, especially if he has any gray matter in his skull.
And the ancients could hide again.
And the ancients could hide again.
Where were the shivies in the last 8000 years? Doesn't look like they were cruisin' around this part of the galaxy. The Terrans and Vasudans fought a bloody war for 14 years - if there were any shivies near and they were attracted by subspace usage (as some claim) they would have arrived a lot sooner.
And it doesn't matter if it's 8 billion years looking for them. you can't find someone who doesn't want to be find in a place as large as the universe, especially if he has any gray matter in his skull.
That actually makes a great deal of sense.
So there's sense in the fact that a race could keep running and hiding for 8,000 years?
QuoteQuoteThe Lucifer fleet was a scouting mission to see what was causing new subspace disturbances.
I disagree - the Lucifer and its fleet was way too big for a scouting party. A scout would quietly drop in, snoop a bit then bug out back to mommy, not commit major resources to an extermination campaign.
IIRC, doesn't the box cover of FS2 say something along the line "They wonder what happened to their scouting fleet" ???
So there's sense in the fact that a race could keep running and hiding for 8,000 years?
How can anyone live in subspace?
I'm not talking about the Shivans. I'm talking about what the Ancients would do for 8,000 years.
You're not getting it. The shivans would probably bombard every inhabited planet of the ancient empire - that is any planet with cities, any planet that belongs to the empire at the time of shivan arrival.
However, the Shivans wouldn't have bombarded every planet in the Ancient empire. Only one planet (possibly two) were actually bombarded by the Lucifer in its conquest of T/V space.
The Ancients conquered every race they came across.
Who's to say they didn't force them into military service? How would the Shivans be able to differentiate between the races victimized and the Ancients themselves?
agreed, though I still think people have to be careful of falling into the same trap, but it's just a game at the end of the day, and as long as it's well executed, it doesn't really matter.
I think to do that, you'd have to add a really devious twist in there somewhere though, and not the usual 'The Ancients made the Shivans as a warrior sect! (always odd considering how far they'd got without any special need for engineered warriors)' or 'The Ancients are the Shivans, Freespace brings out the 'evil' in you if you spend too much time in it! (and apparently gains you capship shielding abilities)'.
Neither of them are bad ideas, but somewhat cliché, and have slight problems as mentioned in the brackets. It would be cool to bring back the Ancients, but what I'd really love to see is it done in an original and interesting way
Sci-Fi does suffer from some poorly executed, "seen a million times before" things and often a terrible lack of logic :ick:
Still, I don't think that just because something is familiar that it must follow that it cannot be fresh and exciting at the same time. There almost has to be a limit to the plausable ways to make first contact and so forth with another species especially when it is dependent on a medium like a game. I think it matters more in how it's presented than the actual subject itself to a degree.
I never did see the need for any alien species to make their spacecraft look like bugs or crustaceans or fish or any of a number of ridiculous styles. From the point of logic, it is something that would only cause numerous operational problems. Yes, maybe blocky military style is boring by comparison, but it sure stands up better to logic and realism, not to mention it has a cool factor all its own.
Noobne said the Ancients became all powerfull gods etc etc. We or at least I personaly believe that they are not extinct as everyone believes.
Well, I think Woomeister had planned an additonal campaign called 'Gateways' which would be about the ancients.
Granted but then again how can you be sure they are not some sort of non corporeal beeings that use they strange voodoo like powers to make things ?????? :P
Just In Time = cliffhanger?..suspense? .. or cheezines?
Well lets assume for a minute that there are a few ancients left throughout the universe. After a war of that magnitude what's to say they have the necessary technology to rebuild. Think about it if all but a few thousand people on Earth were wiped out today how many would even know how to build a simple computer and base OS out of almost nothing? Even if they did have th knowledge what about the infrastructure to build ships and weapons? It could take thousands of years just to build up the population and manufacturing capacity to even think about building a spacecraft. What we know about them is very limited. Heck they might live for a thousand of our years and might only be able to reproduce one or two offspring every few decades if fertilization occurs. Heck 1 of their years could be a 100 of ours of vice versa. How would we even be able to tell from a transaction with no reference of where they came from and what their planetary orbit was like?
That said it might be possible to run into some with advance knowledge but no way of using it. Or maybe advanced technology but no way to use it. Might have to run into more than one group of them to put the puzzle together.
Then again maybe we've already almost equaled their technology but not their numbers.
Isn't speculation fun?
I hate it when some seemingly powerful race comesfrom no where and give the humans a crudeload of advance technology. It's so overused, it's clichéd.Please tell me you watched First Contact? Because that's essentially the exact way the Federation got it's start, though the Vulcans didn't just "show up", they noticed our very first crude warp drive. Still, highly advanced aliens show up to give humanity a bunch of kickass gadgets.
I agree with Flipside, it's what made Star Trek and Stargate SG1 (To some extent) great series.
Yes but in that case it's not just in the nick of time to prevent the end of the world.Well, since the Borg traveled back in time to stop the first contact from ever happening, and since Earth was completely assimilated in the present before Picard and company stopped them, you could argue that the Vulcans showing up and giving us the kickass gadgets constitutes preventing the end of the world, because now we have phasers.
Please tell me you watched First Contact? Because that's essentially the exact way the Federation got it's start, though the Vulcans didn't just "show up", they noticed our very first crude warp drive. Still, highly advanced aliens show up to give humanity a bunch of kickass gadgets.
What did Archer have and Picard didn't? Pockets!! Thus Enterperse > NextGen/DS9/Voyager crap.
Though The original series still pwns Eterprise no question about it...