Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: eliex on January 02, 2008, 05:55:12 pm
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What if the Sathanas fleet never made it to the Capella star?
What if the Arthur Roemig of the NTC Trinity never defected to the Neo Terran Front?
Would the Shivans have retreated if the Capella sun went supernova before their Sathanas fleet could do something with their
subspace drives to find another way back home?
In one of the Bosch monologues, you can see clearly the Capella star is building up it's supernova stages - is it that the Capella star is going supernova on it's own - or that the Shivan presence in the Gamma Draconis magically makes the star react so badly . . .
It's just that it has never occurred to me . . . it's not canon is it?
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I doubt that the star seen in the Bosch monologue is Capella. Capella is one of the GTVA's largest colonies; Bosch would not risk "hiding" in such a system. Besides, that star has a black hole next to it... Capella doesn't.
Another thing: Capella in FS is a yellow star similar to Sol. Such stars do not, ever, go supernova. They aren't large enough. The Capella Supernova is therefore artifcial in nature, not natural at all.
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What if the Sathanas fleet never made it to the Capella star?
Then the GTVA have sealed off Gamma Draconis. But when the Sathanas never exist at all, maybe the GTVA was able to wipe out the Shivans completely. Except the Shivans have a Lucifer fleet :D
What if the Arthur Roemig of the NTC Trinity never defected to the Neo Terran Front?
Then Bosch has send another ship. It's an important mission for Neo-Terra, so it's an honour to follow Bosch's orders.
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Another thing: Capella in FS is a yellow star similar to Sol. Such stars do not, ever, go supernova. They aren't large enough. The Capella Supernova is therefore artifcial in nature, not natural at all.
I somehow doubt [V] paid much attention to that. We have no idea of the mass of the Capella star in FS universe.
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surly the color is some indication of it's mass?
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What if the Arthur Roemig of the NTC Trinity never defected to the Neo Terran Front?
If Arthur Roemig never defected to the NTF Bosch would have sent another ship. That ship could have failed and the Shivans may never have reached Capella.
What if the Sathanas fleet never made it to the Capella star?
I doubt that would ever happen, unless the GTVA managed to effectively close down the Knossos or nuke the Gamma Draconis node. If that happened I expect the Shivans would have gone back to go somewhere else or find an alternative route.
Would the Shivans have retreated if the Capella sun went supernova before their Sathanas fleet could do something with their subspace drives to find another way back home?
I think they knew what they were doing and they weren't stupid enough to make that mistake. The Sathanes which did not jump either sacrificed themselves for the other Sathanes or did not have enough energy left to make the jump (you can see they look 'dead' since they lose their red glow).
In one of the Bosch monologues, you can see clearly the Capella star is building up it's supernova stages - is it that the Capella star is going supernova on it's own - or that the Shivan presence in the Gamma Draconis magically makes the star react so badly . . .
Like Dark Hunter, I doubt it was the Capella star in that monologue. I doubt as well that it was a black hole. It may have been Sirius A and B which is a binary system, but that may have been under GTVA control at the time, I don't remember.
Another thing: Capella in FS is a yellow star similar to Sol. Such stars do not, ever, go supernova. They aren't large enough. The Capella Supernova is therefore artifcial in nature, not natural at all.
IMO, the Capella in FS wasn't the Capella in real life. Another star in real-life was renamed to 'Capella II' for some reason and then people started informally calling it 'Capella' until it was actually known collectively, as Capella.
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The color of Capella in FS - yellow - indicates it's similar to our sun, Sol.
So no, it would never go supernova naturally.
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assuming things work similary to our universe...maby..
I'm rusty on that aspect of astronomy..
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You didn't read my post, did you?
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Our sun is yellow?! It looks white to me :lol:
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It's a yellow dwarf -- I believe off the top of my head that Sol is a G2 star.
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I always thought The Sun was a newspaper or something.
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No . . . according to my astro books, it showed a diagram similar to what was happening to the Capella star, a little loop occurring near the star itself, which was what the Capella star was happening when Bosch was looking out of his Iceni. :p
What I think is that Volition wanted to make a point - it's a cutscence not the actual battle itself. :D
:lol:
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No, you're wrong. You're thinking of a nova, not a supernova.
Novas occur when a large amount of matter in a binary pair collides with one of the members of the pair -- I think.
What Bosch is looking at out of the Iceni is not Capella; it is an unknown star with a black hole partner.
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What Bosch is looking at out of the Iceni is not Capella; it is an unknown star with a black hole partner.
That wasn't a black hole. If it was a black whole, it would be black. :P
No . . . according to my astro books, it showed a diagram similar to what was happening to the Capella star, a little loop occurring near the star itself, which was what the Capella star was happening when Bosch was looking out of his Iceni. :p
What you're thinking of is a Type 1a Supernova.
That was almost definitely not Capella. If it was Capella, we would have seen the accretion disk around the secondary companion, which we do not see in any of the missions set in Capella. We do see this accretion disk in the binary star system (albeit kind of an ugly version :P).
In addition, in the ending cutscene, there is no accretion disk. One more thing: If there was an accretion disk around one of the secondary companions of Capella, then there would be a high probability of a supernova. If so, then why the hell is it so heavily populated? Has Command ascended to the infinite level of stupidity? :lol:
I stand by my opinion that the star in that monologue was Sirius.
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Ah, you're probably correct. A neutron star instead of a black hole, I'd guess?
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That's one possibility. The other is that one of the stars is starting to die, and the gas is being transferred from one of the stars to the other, forming an accretion disk (a ring of gas) around the secondary star, exactly like the one seen in that monologue. When this continues for long enough, the primary star will explode.
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White Dwarf
But anyways even if there is a black hole of companion star new theories suggests they are not always in a feeding stage. Heck the star we see could be the one that is feeding, just quit a few years ago, and is about to go nova. (assuming the companion star is hidden behind it)
Back to the original reason I was going to reply. Even if the star is not about to go supernova or never would if left undisturbed the Shivans could theoretically cause it to do so by draining off the hydrogen and helium needed to support it. The balance between gravity and (oh great forgot the term for the moment. Dang that last beer.) would be disturbed and the star would collapse under it's own gravity which is the first stage of a supernova.
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I do not believe Capella would have gone supernova if not for the Shivan's interference.
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I always thought The Sun was a newspaper or something.
It's called the Calgary Sun. A newspaper in Calgary, Alberta, Canada...my dad reads it all the time. They call it the sun because they release a new paper every sunday...
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It is possible that it could. If I read this correctly one of the stars we call Capella is in it's red giant phase. If it collapsed it could then from a white dwarf and explode into a supernova later on.
http://www.solstation.com/stars2/capella4.htm
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It's called the Calgary Sun. A newspaper in Calgary, Alberta, Canada...my dad reads it all the time. They call it the sun because they release a new paper every sunday...
There's a British one called "The Sun" too, you know.
It is possible that it could. If I read this correctly one of the stars we call Capella is in it's red giant phase. If it collapsed it could then from a white dwarf and explode into a supernova later on.
It's rather obvious that the RL Capella isn't the FS Capella. Plus the star the Sath's nova'd wasn't a red giant anyway.
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Yea and there is the one most people refer to: The sun times I think it's from Chicago. I gave up on newspaper long ago.
Anyways I wasn't suggesting that Capella in the game is one of those stars I was suggesting that a similar situation could occur in another system called Capella in Freespace.
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The sun in the missions doesn't have a companion. So regardless of :v:'s astronomical knowledge the star in the cutscene can't be Capella.
Sirius is impossible in real life (Sirius A and B are 20 AU apart IIRC). Given the timing that the cutscene is played at, Bosch would most likely be in Regulus. That said if :v: did actually ever decide which system the cutscene took place in I'd probably say they'd pick Sirius.
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Hey , I think that the system with one star getting it's matter sucked in by another one is actually the system beyond the second knossos , because in that system ( on the SOC mission ) you can see one larger sun and one smaller , with a nebula added between them , that makes it look like one is sucking matter from the other one .
And about Capella going supernova . You got to admit - even at Shivan standarts , building a juggernaut means a lot of work . So they wouldn't build more juggernauts than they need to ( why should they ? it's hard enough to build that many , and even in FS1 they didn't build more ships than they thought they needed ) . So anyway , their plan was to form some sort of subspace node near the Capella star . But since one juggernaut was destroyed , the other got interrupted ( when it was sent to destroy the Colossus ) , and other 10 didn't make it ( I guess so , after you destroyed the 3 comm nodes in the system beyond the second knossos ) , the Shivans didn't have enough power to form the node , so the star colapsed .
P.S. The nebula beyond Gamma Draconis couldn't be a Shivan one , because if it was , it either would be milions years old , or extremely hot and there wouldn't be any knossos' .
Just my opinion
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Hey , I think that the system with one star getting it's matter sucked in by another one is actually the system beyond the second knossos , because in that system ( on the SOC mission ) you can see one larger sun and one smaller , with a nebula added between them , that makes it look like one is sucking matter from the other one .
So basically what you're saying is, that first Bosch travelled through the Knossos, and through the second Knossos, then gave his little monologue, then got back the same way he came and went hiding somewhere in Gamma Draconis. And all this without the GTVA ever noticing a damn thing? And then he made the mad dash to the Knossos and jumped back to the nebula. Sounds a bit too mad, even for Bosch.
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And about Capella going supernova . You got to admit - even at Shivan standarts , building a juggernaut means a lot of work .
There's no evidence to support that. The Shivans could make a hundred Sathanes every year for all we know. We know absolutely nothing about Shivan constructions standards.
But since one juggernaut was destroyed , the other got interrupted ( when it was sent to destroy the Colossus ) , and other 10 didn't make it ( I guess so , after you destroyed the 3 comm nodes in the system beyond the second knossos ) , the Shivans didn't have enough power to form the node , so the star colapsed .
IMO the supernova was a known side-effect of building the supernode.
P.S. The nebula beyond Gamma Draconis couldn't be a Shivan one , because if it was , it either would be milions years old , or extremely hot and there wouldn't be any knossos' .
There's an entire thread about that a bit back, you know. Common consensus is that it is either the Lupus Nebula or the Crab Nebula.
So basically what you're saying is, that first Bosch travelled through the Knossos, and through the second Knossos, then gave his little monologue, then got back the same way he came and went hiding somewhere in Gamma Draconis. And all this without the GTVA ever noticing a damn thing? And then he made the mad dash to the Knossos and jumped back to the nebula. Sounds a bit too mad, even for Bosch.
Yeah I agree.
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And about Capella going supernova . You got to admit - even at Shivan standarts , building a juggernaut means a lot of work .
There's no evidence to support that. The Shivans could make a hundred Sathanes every year for all we know. We know absolutely nothing about Shivan constructions standards.
But since one juggernaut was destroyed , the other got interrupted ( when it was sent to destroy the Colossus ) , and other 10 didn't make it ( I guess so , after you destroyed the 3 comm nodes in the system beyond the second knossos ) , the Shivans didn't have enough power to form the node , so the star colapsed .
IMO the supernova was a known side-effect of building the supernode.
P.S. The nebula beyond Gamma Draconis couldn't be a Shivan one , because if it was , it either would be milions years old , or extremely hot and there wouldn't be any knossos' .
There's an entire thread about that a bit back, you know. Common consensus is that it is either the Lupus Nebula or the Crab Nebula.
So basically what you're saying is, that first Bosch travelled through the Knossos, and through the second Knossos, then gave his little monologue, then got back the same way he came and went hiding somewhere in Gamma Draconis. And all this without the GTVA ever noticing a damn thing? And then he made the mad dash to the Knossos and jumped back to the nebula. Sounds a bit too mad, even for Bosch.
Yeah I agree.
Just my opinion
Btw , if it was known , wouldn't the Shivans know how to avoid the loss of 40 juggernauts ?
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And if they could create a hundred Sathanes every year then maybe they don't care.
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IMO the supernova was a known side-effect of building the supernode.
IMHO, it makes no sense. If the shivies knew the sun would go boom, while not pull out all the OTHER ships in the system? Why loose ships when you don't have to? That's too extreeme, even for the shivies.
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There's an entire thread about that a bit back, you know. Common consensus is that it is either the Lupus Nebula or the Crab Nebula.
Lupus Nebula? The only nebula that comes up on a Google or Wikipedia search is IC 4406 and there's no way it's that since that's a planetary nebula.
As for the Crab Nebula why on Earth would it be that one? :confused:
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Lupus Nebula? The only nebula that comes up on a Google or Wikipedia search is IC 4406 and there's no way it's that since that's a planetary nebula.
Uhh check the FreeSpace Wiki. Search "Identity of the Nebula System." Apparently there was a discussion a long while back.
As for the Crab Nebula why on Earth would it be that one? :confused:
The story about that one is very interesting. Apparently, the Crab Nebula's star didn't have enough mass to create a supernova, which suggests the supernova was artificially triggered... ;7
IMHO, it makes no sense. If the shivies knew the sun would go boom, while not pull out all the OTHER ships in the system? Why loose ships when you don't have to? That's too extreeme, even for the shivies.
Because the GTVA may have attacked the Sathanes directly. Remember in "Speaking in Tongues" the GTVA said they could destroy the Sathanes at its weak points using the combined firepower of three capitals. I bet they would've succeeded if they had the chance.
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Both candidates make the assumption that the Nebula was created at the same time as the war with the ancients though. Which is a rather enormous assumption.
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It came almost certainly before the war with the Ancients since there's a Knossos in it. If it was before the Knossos must been vaporized (or it was very far away and wasn't affected).
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IMHO, it makes no sense. If the shivies knew the sun would go boom, while not pull out all the OTHER ships in the system? Why loose ships when you don't have to? That's too extreeme, even for the shivies.
Because the GTVA may have attacked the Sathanes directly. Remember in "Speaking in Tongues" the GTVA said they could destroy the Sathanes at its weak points using the combined firepower of three capitals. I bet they would've succeeded if they had the chance.
the GTVA doesn't have the strenght or the firepower to tackle 80 sath..and neither the will to engage them....their forces were busy escorting civies anyway.
The Sath's fighter/bombers complements are enough to torment and keep the GTVA at bay.
All the shivies had to do is give a 10-15 minute warning to their other ships to turn around, jump towards a node and beat it before the nova.
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Or maybe they just don't give a damn?
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They do appear to not give a damn about losses - after all, just throwing ships at the enemy till he succumbs is their standard tactics - but even then it makes some sense. They use as many ships as needed to complete an objective.
but nuking your own ships is too redicolous, even for them.
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[crazy idea]Perhaps the Sathanas Juggernauts were the only ships capable of traveling through the supernode. Kind of like how only capships can do intersystem jumps in FS1.[/crazy idea]
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but nuking your own ships is too redicolous, even for them.
No it's not. They were needed sacrifices.
If they weren't there the GTVA would have had a very easy escape. And if the GTVA wanted to, they could have attacked the Saths with a multitude of bombers from their Hecates. They could take down maybe ten of them that way. Probably more. With the Shivans running around the system the GTVA will have a much harder time doing anything in the system, let alone attacking the Saths. If the support fleet wasn't in position, the Sathanes may have had to engage the GTVA themselves, which would have been a great big bother.
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[crazy idea]Perhaps the Sathanas Juggernauts were the only ships capable of traveling through the supernode. Kind of like how only capships can do intersystem jumps in FS1.[/crazy idea]
Y'know, that's not a bad concept.
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Yeah that's not crazy, it's quite plausible.
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Just back to the topic, why would the cutscene near the end of Bosch's monologue focus quite heavily on the
trail of yellow from the < unknown > star, if it was of vital importance.
And then the Capella star blows up.
The cutscene might have been made when the NTF were making their all-out run for the Gamma Draconis Knossos.
Who knows?
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but nuking your own ships is too redicolous, even for them.
No it's not. They were needed sacrifices.
If they weren't there the GTVA would have had a very easy escape. And if the GTVA wanted to, they could have attacked the Saths with a multitude of bombers from their Hecates. They could take down maybe ten of them that way. Probably more. With the Shivans running around the system the GTVA will have a much harder time doing anything in the system, let alone attacking the Saths. If the support fleet wasn't in position, the Sathanes may have had to engage the GTVA themselves, which would have been a great big bother.
It makes no sense. How is their sacrifice necessary?
The fighter/bomber complement of 80 Saths was more than enough to harras GTVA ships trought the system and protect the saths. The shivans didn't really need any ships other than the saths.
Even if they did need others for diversion, why not pull them back to GD 5 minutes before the big bang? Why lose them when you don't have to? The GTVA can't to nothing in 5 minutes to stop the saths, especially since it has civies to escort.
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We don't actually know what the fighter/bomber compliment of a Sathanas is. It's a reasonable assumption it's large like with the Colossus but AFAIK the most we've ever seen it launch is 2 wings of fighters and one of bombers in A Monster In The Mists and it's never been stated that it has lots of them.
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It certanly has more internal volume that a Collie...
Assuming it has at least as many fighters/bombers as a destroyer, that's still a helluva lot of fighters and bombers available when you count 80 saths :P
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Just back to the topic, why would the cutscene near the end of Bosch's monologue focus quite heavily on the
trail of yellow from the < unknown > star, if it was of vital importance.
And then the Capella star blows up.
The cutscene might have been made when the NTF were making their all-out run for the Gamma Draconis Knossos.
Who knows?
Even if that star was Capella, which it is not:
The type of supernova which you are proposing is a Type 1a supernova. This is not what occured in the final cutscene of the game. Capella itself clearly undergoes a type 1b/type 2 event. In the final cutscene, there is no evidence of a white dwarf companion, which is requisite for a type 1a.
In fact, a type 1a would probably not be nearly as destructive as a type 1b/type 2. It certainly wouldn't produce the shockwave (emanating from Capella, not some invisible partner) visible in the cutscene.
Command's dialogue suggests that 'Capella has gone supernova' (in chillingly memorable fashion.) It does not suggest that 'Capella's invisible white dwarf companion has achieved fusion!' Obviously this would spoil the drama, because it sounds ridiculous.
This is a type 1b or type 2 supernova: single-star event.
It has no link to Bosch Monologue 2.
There is no evidence to suggest that Bosch is in Capella during the Bosch Monologue 2 cutscene. There may be evidence against it, depending on the placement of the Iceni during that part of the campaign.
I understand that the link is tempting, but binary pairs like the one seen in the Bosch Monologue 2 are very common in the universe. Bosch was probably just hanging out at one. There is nothing to suggest that the Freespace Capella system is a binary.
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I lolled reaaally hard. :lol: :lol: :lol :lol:
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I lolled reaaally hard. :lol: :lol: :lol :lol:
On the other hand, maybe the invisible white dwarf was a trap left by the Ancients to destroy the Sathanas fleet when it did whatever it was doing to the Capella primary.
Yes, yes, I'm just being ridiculous.
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I doubt that the star seen in the Bosch monologue is Capella. Capella is one of the GTVA's largest colonies; Bosch would not risk "hiding" in such a system. Besides, that star has a black hole next to it... Capella doesn't.
Another thing: Capella in FS is a yellow star similar to Sol. Such stars do not, ever, go supernova. They aren't large enough. The Capella Supernova is therefore artifcial in nature, not natural at all.
The real life Capella is actually 2 stars orbiting each other, each on their way toward being red giants. Capella A is a class G8III star, whilst Capella B is a class G0III star. Being class G stars, they are about the same colour as Sol.
Each of the stars is about 2.5 times as massive as, and about 10 times the size of Sol.
That said, both stars are likely too young to create even a nova. Capella A has probably started burning its helium, whilst Capella B is likely about to start burning its helium. :nervous: About to start?
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And what have we learned today kids? That's right - RL and Freespace are two very different things.
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Or that FS is 300 years in the future.
Which is still negligible on the stellar sense.
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klightspeed, I'm aware that RL Capella is a binary, but even a cursory glance at Freespace Capella will show that it's a single yellow dwarf. Using data on 'RL' Capella is effectively a dead end.
And while Trashman and I have disagreed on exactly what that means, I think we're both agreed that Freespace Capella and RL Capella are definitely not the same place, in one way or another.
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The real life Capella is actually 2 stars orbiting each other, each on their way toward being red giants. Capella A is a class G8III star, whilst Capella B is a class G0III star. Being class G stars, they are about the same colour as Sol.
Each of the stars is about 2.5 times as massive as, and about 10 times the size of Sol.
That said, both stars are likely too young to create even a nova. Capella A has probably started burning its helium, whilst Capella B is likely about to start burning its helium. :nervous: About to start?
Another thing: Capella in FS is a yellow star similar to Sol. Such stars do not, ever, go supernova. They aren't large enough. The Capella Supernova is therefore artifcial in nature, not natural at all.
In FS. IN FS I said! I'm fully aware that Real Life CapellaTM is much different.
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but nuking your own ships is too redicolous, even for them.
No it's not. They were needed sacrifices.
If they weren't there the GTVA would have had a very easy escape. And if the GTVA wanted to, they could have attacked the Saths with a multitude of bombers from their Hecates. They could take down maybe ten of them that way. Probably more. With the Shivans running around the system the GTVA will have a much harder time doing anything in the system, let alone attacking the Saths. If the support fleet wasn't in position, the Sathanes may have had to engage the GTVA themselves, which would have been a great big bother.
It makes no sense. How is their sacrifice necessary?
The fighter/bomber complement of 80 Saths was more than enough to harras GTVA ships trought the system and protect the saths. The shivans didn't really need any ships other than the saths.
Even if they did need others for diversion, why not pull them back to GD 5 minutes before the big bang? Why lose them when you don't have to? The GTVA can't to nothing in 5 minutes to stop the saths, especially since it has civies to escort.
I'll buy your argument when you can tell me what the Shivan's objective was. What's that? You can't, because nobody knows and attributing fear to the bloody Shivans is a cop out? Thought as much.
As Snail said, nothing about the Shivan character that we know of (and we know precious little at that) would preclude them sacrificing juggernauts to achieve whatever it was they were up to. Why they didn't bother to engage us (in a fight that would pretty much spell out our extinction) in favor of mucking about with the star is the real question, not why they would "throw ships away".
It's also one that I'd prefer never be answered, unless it's [V] doing it. You can't answer questions like this within the boundaries of canon, and any answer yielded is no better then bloody fan fiction. But then, the only Shivan theory other then my own I can even stand to read is Snail's, mainly because he doesn't actually try to explain the Shivans, just to examine the timeline and possible chain of events. Well, not the part about Legos or whatnot.
Demystify the Shivans and you destroy their allure. If we ever fully understood them we would no longer want to, it's precisely because they're mysterious that we find them so interesting. Without that, they're just [insert generic space villains here]. Presupposing you know how they think Trashman is a pretty big step onto that path. I'd advise against it.
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but nuking your own ships is too redicolous, even for them.
I stand by my opinion that I think the Shivans don't give a mother****ing crap about a few juggernauts lost in the explosion. Doing what they wanted to do with the supernova might have been so important their entire fleet could be sacrificed.
GRAMMAR AND SCIENCE POLICE!!!
Novae are not equal to Supernovae. That being said, I would say that a few Sathanai were left behind because a) They had no energy left or b) They had to maintain the supernova and bring it to the end.
It seems the police have become the very scum they hunt.
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I doubt that the star seen in the Bosch monologue is Capella. Capella is one of the GTVA's largest colonies; Bosch would not risk "hiding" in such a system. Besides, that star has a black hole next to it... Capella doesn't.
Another thing: Capella in FS is a yellow star similar to Sol. Such stars do not, ever, go supernova. They aren't large enough. The Capella Supernova is therefore artifcial in nature, not natural at all.
The real life Capella is actually 2 stars orbiting each other, each on their way toward being red giants. Capella A is a class G8III star, whilst Capella B is a class G0III star. Being class G stars, they are about the same colour as Sol.
Each of the stars is about 2.5 times as massive as, and about 10 times the size of Sol.
That said, both stars are likely too young to create even a nova. Capella A has probably started burning its helium, whilst Capella B is likely about to start burning its helium. :nervous: About to start?
GRAMMAR AND SCIENCE POLICE!!!
Novae not equal to Supernovae. That being said, I would say that a few Sathanai were left behind because a) They had no energy left or b) They had to maintain the supernova and bring it to the end.
****! ****! ****! JUst me pressing the wrong button!
****! ****!
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As Snail said, nothing about the Shivan character that we know of (and we know precious little at that) would preclude them sacrificing juggernauts to achieve whatever it was they were up to. Why they didn't bother to engage us (in a fight that would pretty much spell out our extinction) in favor of mucking about with the star is the real question, not why they would "throw ships away".
It's also one that I'd prefer never be answered, unless it's [V] doing it. You can't answer questions like this within the boundaries of canon, and any answer yielded is no better then bloody fan fiction. But then, the only Shivan theory other then my own I can even stand to read is Snail's, mainly because he doesn't actually try to explain the Shivans, just to examine the timeline and possible chain of events. Well, not the part about Legos or whatnot.
Demystify the Shivans and you destroy their allure. If we ever fully understood them we would no longer want to, it's precisely because they're mysterious that we find them so interesting. Without that, they're just [insert generic space villains here]. Presupposing you know how they think Trashman is a pretty big step onto that path. I'd advise against it.
Dud, you're on a false crusade here...Or at least you missed your target. Did I ever say I know what their objective was? Did I ever say shivans wouldn't sacrifice ships? How the hell am I "demystifying" them?
We all assume here they are an inteligent, thinking race. If the objective is that important to them they wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice whatever they think is necessary...or to be really smart about it - to sacrifice EXACTLY what is needed to fulfill your objective and no more.
If you sacrifice far more ships are resources than needed - we'll thats not a sign of intelligence, but rather stupidity.
The question is - could the shivans have BBQ's the sun with half the number of other warships (not saths) in the system?
The game strongly suggest they could have. If so, why sacrifice more ship then you need...unless you didn't plan on sacrificing them in the first place.
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I'm warning you about the dangers of assumptions. Nothing suggests that the subspace anomaly the Sathanas fleet was generating could have been produced with less ships, nowhere is it explained why they were triggering it, and I really fail to understand how you can come away from that cutscene with the impression that the Shivans just made a mistake.
Which is exactly what you're arguing, that it was a colossal screw up. This is incorrect. V didn't make that ending so we could watch a terrifying unstoppable force "accidentally" vaporize the system and beat a hasty retreat. You're supposed to watch them sacrifice multiple Sathanas Juggernauts towards some unknown end, that also involves the complete destruction of the entire system with other Shivan vessels in it, and go "Oh ****, if they're throwing away those, what else do they have?!" and of course "Why did they do that in the first place?! Why are we even still alive?!"
But you aren't doing that Trashman, so obviously enough to me, you must have watched the cutscene wrong. Stop trying to explain Shivan tactics with your human brain.
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I gotta admit, Vesper's right.
If you sacrifice far more ships are resources than needed - we'll thats not a sign of intelligence, but rather stupidity.
We don't know that. Even by human standards, maybe they wanted some margin for error to make sure the job got done.
And that's applying human standards -- which is dangerous and fallacious. The Shivans have a totally foreign psychology; they might even be some kind of post-Singularity race with a whole different, and superior, mode of consciousness.
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Are you blind man?
Who's talking about the Juggs? How many times must I repeat that I'm refering to OTHER shivan ships!!!!
The question is - could the shivans have BBQ's the sun with half the number of other warships (not saths) in the system?
And just so you know - intelligence is intelligence.
It doesn't change simply becouse one is alien, since efficiency and logic are rather simple and clear terms.
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No, that's not true -- look deeply enough and you'll find that 'efficiency' and 'logic' are based on uncertain assumptions. For example, 'Expending unnecessary resources is bad.' Well, if you have unlimited resources, why is that so? What if the scale of the resources you're devoting is beneath the trivial threshold -- a human wouldn't be concerned over putting a few extra grains of silicon into a glassblowing project, after all.
Similarly, it's impossible for us to determine what alien 'logic' might be simply because we are blind to those modes of consciousness which we cannot ourself emulate. Humans can only think the way humans think, and if Shivan thought is outside our imaginative capacity, we'll never fathom it.
Those additional vessels still in-system might have been part of a contingency plan if more GTVA warships arrived. They may have been directly under the control of the Sathani (in much the way Shivan vessels in FS1 were somehow tied to the Lucifer) and unable to leave.
They may have been so loyal they refused to desert their posts and abandon the Sathani to die alone.
The point is that there are possibilities.
Also, I admit that I've kind of forgotten the original point we're arguing here.
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No, that's not true -- look deeply enough and you'll find that 'efficiency' and 'logic' are based on uncertain assumptions. For example, 'Expending unnecessary resources is bad.' Well, if you have unlimited resources, why is that so?
Becoause you don't. Nothing is unlimited. something as "unlimited resouces" doesn't exist except in really, really bad Sci-fi.
Similarly, it's impossible for us to determine what alien 'logic' might be simply because we are blind to those modes of consciousness which we cannot ourself emulate. Humans can only think the way humans think, and if Shivan thought is outside our imaginative capacity, we'll never fathom it.
Logic is above humanity. It's a concept as universal as mathematics - deriving conclusions from a series of facts.
Those additional vessels still in-system might have been part of a contingency plan if more GTVA warships arrived.
GTVA couldn't scratch the saths. Its like sending a SWAT team to guard a tank from a bunch of mice.
They may have been directly under the control of the Sathani (in much the way Shivan vessels in FS1 were somehow tied to the Lucifer) and unable to leave.
They may have been so loyal they refused to desert their posts and abandon the Sathani to die alone.
Much better explanations.
Now we're getting somewhere.
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Put it this way. You have to get somewhere, or the universe will implode. To get there in time, you have to sacrifice a few of your warships and a star. Will you let the universe implode in favor of a few warships, or will you sacrifice those warships to get to stop the universe imploding?
This is an unlikely, but possible, scenario that the Shivans might be doing.
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Are you blind man?
Who's talking about the Juggs? How many times must I repeat that I'm refering to OTHER shivan ships!!!!
I mentioned them in my rebuttal, so I hadn't forgotten about them. The fact that they're still there actually adds to the impact of that cutscene. Even in the face of an imminent supernova that only they could have predicted, and I would contend they were well aware of it, the Shivans preferred to keep engaging our forces with the other elements of their fleet rather then let our forces retreat unscathed.
Think about it: If there were no Shivans attacking our convoys or the other operations in system at that point, what are the odds that any of the escaping craft would have been caught in the supernova? Their destruction was hardly inevitable, and retreats tend to go a lot smoother when you're not being shot. No, the presence of the other Shivan vessels ensured that we didn't get away without a scratch, but took significant losses. So the destruction of numerous smaller Shivan vessels wasn't entirely pointless, even from a human perspective.
Which I'll remind you is exactly what you're using when you bust out the metrics and tell us what a waste of resources it was. I already know you don't know how to properly apply Occam's Razor, so please don't delve into arguments about logic. Really, for your own good (you'll of course ignore this, but at least I can say I typed it). Here's something to think about: To understand a logical course of action, you must first know the intended result the actions will produce. Asking "But why would they do that if they could have done [such and such] because they have [so and so]" is automatically faulty, because that's just what YOU would have done, or how you think they should have done something, based on the astounding assumption that you understand what the Shivans meant to do.
Except you don't, because nobody does, so how do you know they didn't achieve it precisely as intended? How do you know they weren't logic incarnate without knowing what they were aiming for? And even assuming you were gifted with knowledge from on high about the Shivans plans, you're most emphatically not a Shivan and thus aren't qualified to think like one, and so the way you employ logic is entirely motivated by your human values.
Heck, I'll even use a real life example of the differences mere cultural perspectives can have on the thought process and warfare. WW2 saw the use of Kamikazes, pilots who would fill their planes with explosives and intentionally crash into aircraft carriers, something we (I'm American) never expected to defend against because that's not a tactic we would have thought of or actually considered implementing. It's an entirely logical approach to warfare however, you just need to have little to no regard for your own life over that of the empire.
Or take the battle for Iwo Jima and the other small islands where we'd bombard them for weeks and then STILL lose a ton of men because they just kept fighting, down to the last man, to the point where it was obvious that victory wasn't even a remote possibility. Logic from our perspective would have had them surrendering long before that point. If the Japanese had acted logically, as we understood it, there wouldn't have been cause to use the A-Bomb.
The problem is of course that in our culture "Death before dishonor!" and the "divinity of the emperor and his will" weren't a factor. The metrics we used to calculate the value of human life and the metrics they were using were entirely different. We saw them as fanatical maniacs throwing their lives away for nothing and taking far too many of ours with them. I'd imagine they saw if differently.
Now consider this: Both our cultures are Human. If that didn't just make my point, nothing will.
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Put it this way. You have to get somewhere, or the universe will implode. To get there in time, you have to sacrifice a few of your warships and a star. Will you let the universe implode in favor of a few warships, or will you sacrifice those warships to get to stop the universe imploding?
This is an unlikely, but possible, scenario that the Shivans might be doing.
For the zillionth time, I'm NOT talking about the Sathanases. Their destruction is clearly either a sacrifice of one of the biggest blooper in history.
Think about it: If there were no Shivans attacking our convoys or the other operations in system at that point, what are the odds that any of the escaping craft would have been caught in the supernova? Their destruction was hardly inevitable, and retreats tend to go a lot smoother when you're not being shot. No, the presence of the other Shivan vessels ensured that we didn't get away without a scratch, but took significant losses. So the destruction of numerous smaller Shivan vessels wasn't entirely pointless, even from a human perspective.
1. Evacuation takes time, with or without shivan cruisers. Transports won't fly faster with escorts. GTVA would have losses from the nova even if there were no shivans attacking.
2. 80 Sath's worth of fighter complement is more than enough to engage and harras (and therefore tie up) GTVA resources trought the system.
Granted that a few extra ships wouldn't hurt, altough we don't really know the exact number of other shivan warships in Capella. The escort missions might be some indication, as shivans are launching warships on practicly every single convoy you had to defend..so obviously they had more than enough smaller warships.
Which I'll remind you is exactly what you're using when you bust out the metrics and tell us what a waste of resources it was. I already know you don't know how to properly apply Occam's Razor, so please don't delve into arguments about logic. Really, for your own good (you'll of course ignore this, but at least I can say I typed it). Here's something to think about: To understand a logical course of action, you must first know the intended result the actions will produce. Asking "But why would they do that if they could have done [such and such] because they have [so and so]" is automatically faulty, because that's just what YOU would have done, or how you think they should have done something, based on the astounding assumption that you understand what the Shivans meant to do.
Except you don't, because nobody does, so how do you know they didn't achieve it precisely as intended? How do you know they weren't logic incarnate without knowing what they were aiming for? And even assuming you were gifted with knowledge from on high about the Shivans plans, you're most emphatically not a Shivan and thus aren't qualified to think like one, and so the way you employ logic is entirely motivated by your human values.
YAWN...if this is the best you can do I don't even have to bother :lol:
I don't know the shivan goal.
They might have wanted to cause a nova.. maby not.. maby it backfired. Maby the wanted something else.
I can tell you what they didn't want to do...what no thinking, sentient race would do - blow up their own military forces. You never, ever sacrifice more than you have to. To do that is sheer folly, and no amount of "but it's alien thinking" can allevate that.
The only thing I can conclude is that one of the following is probably true:
- Shivans are rather unlucky (get creamed by us and then a sun blows up in their face)
- Shivans are rather suicidal (let's kill the enemy and ourself)
- Shivans are rather dumb (upss..I killed Carl too..and Greg..and Barry)
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Becoause you don't. Nothing is unlimited. something as "unlimited resouces" doesn't exist except in really, really bad Sci-fi.
True -- but the scale could make it effectively unlimited. Say the Shivans use subspace to ship in matter for ship construction from a high-energy parallel brane. (This is a concept from string theory.)
You could build enough ships to full up our entire galaxy and still have resources to spare.
Logic is above humanity. It's a concept as universal as mathematics - deriving conclusions from a series of facts.
Perhaps, but the human understanding of logic is limited. A rat cannot use logic as effectively as a human. Similarly, a Shivan may have a much more capable grasp of logic than a human being.
GTVA couldn't scratch the saths. Its like sending a SWAT team to guard a tank from a bunch of mice.
The Shivans may not have had perfect information on the size or disposition of the GTVA fleet. They may have believed the GTVA had discovered another Ancient weapon or some other destructive technique.
They may just have wanted additional ships in system just because -- rather the way I enjoy employing overwhelming force in RTS games because it's a safer tactic.
Much better explanations.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Yay!
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True -- but the scale could make it effectively unlimited. Say the Shivans use subspace to ship in matter for ship construction from a high-energy parallel brane. (This is a concept from string theory.)
You could build enough ships to full up our entire galaxy and still have resources to spare.
That falls in the "really bad Sci-Fi" category.. with uber-impossible tech like that they could have killed the GTVA eons ago.
Perhaps, but the human understanding of logic is limited. A rat cannot use logic as effectively as a human. Similarly, a Shivan may have a much more capable grasp of logic than a human being.
It's not that our understanding is limited, it's that logic by itself has it's limits as a tool.
The Shivans may not have had perfect information on the size or disposition of the GTVA fleet. They may have believed the GTVA had discovered another Ancient weapon or some other destructive technique.
They may just have wanted additional ships in system just because -- rather the way I enjoy employing overwhelming force in RTS games because it's a safer tactic.
But you still pull those forces back when you nuke the enemy base, don't you?
It's not the problem of having more ships than needed (extra is good), it's sacrificing them all instead of pulling out the excess.
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That falls in the "really bad Sci-Fi" category.. with uber-impossible tech like that they could have killed the GTVA eons ago.
No offense, man, but that's not any more impossible than subspace travel -- in fact, it's less so, since branes are at least theoretically postulated to exist.
You don't even have to resort to that kind of wild tech. The Shivans might build factories that scoop matter and energy from the accretion disks of black holes.
The fact is that with present tech the Shivans could've killed the GTVA ages ago. The puzzle is why they don't.
It's not that our understanding is limited, it's that logic by itself has it's limits as a tool.
You're correct there. Are you familiar with the work of Godel, particularly his completeness theorem? One of the points he made was that intuition is necessary to complete a system of logic -- no purely mechanistic logic can describe the universe. The Shivan capacity for that 'intuition' may be far greater than our own, in just a way that ours outstrips that of a rat.
It's not the problem of having more ships than needed (extra is good), it's sacrificing them all instead of pulling out the excess.
Thank you, you reminded me what the debate is about!
Here's a suggestion: maybe the Shivans were trying to annihilate all witnesses to what they'd done. Maybe, if they were going somewhere, they didn't want to be followed.
Maybe, as I suggested above, the smaller vessels could not disengage because they were tied to the Sathanas fleet.
Maybe the smaller vessels were unwilling to leave the Sathanas fleet vulnerable, even for a small period of time, for fear that the GTVA might deploy a large number of Colossus-class or larger vessels -- or some other weapon.
Maybe the Shivan religion proscribes annihilation in a supernova as a form of salvation, rebirth in the nebular void and reunion with the universe.
Who knows?
Erm. What is your objective in proving that it was stupid for the Shivans to leave all their tiny ships in the path of the supernova? I've forgotten that too.
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YAWN...if this is the best you can do I don't even have to bother :lol:
Maybe I should have mentioned that it's also a bad idea to use halfhearted logical fallacies on me, just like it's a bad idea for you to even attempt to argue over logic. That's got to be the single laziest ad hominem attack ever though, you just say I'm incapable of making a good point and proceed to ignore the argument itself. Most illogical debaters at least mention why in their fallacies.
I can tell you what they didn't want to do...what no thinking, sentient race would do - blow up their own military forces. You never, ever sacrifice more than you have to. To do that is sheer folly, and no amount of "but it's alien thinking" can allevate that.
Poor Trashman, still thinking exactly like a meatbag (Yay HK-47!). Did you even read the last part of my post where I pointed out ACTUAL examples of military authorities doing EXACTLY that? I suspect you did, but you're ignoring it and hoping it will go away if you never bother to offer up a counter argument. It'll be like I never pointed out that your entire premise is faulty using real life historical examples! What a cunning and dastardly plan!
What Trashman doesn't know is that I'm perfectly content to read meaning into what he so pointedly doesn't say, and then debate that instead! For example(!): Why do you think every historian, veteran, indeed all sources EVER are lying about the War in the Pacific? It's obviously what you must think if you don't consider my citing that a crushing blow to your flimsy logic argument about troop losses. This of course begs the question: What OTHER painfully obvious things don't you believe in? On a scale of 1 to 10, how hard will they make us laugh? It's important to know that ahead of time, in case we're drinking carbonated beverages. It would be a shame to accidentally cause the great nose snortage of '08, now wouldn't it?
Erm. What is your objective in proving that it was stupid for the Shivans to leave all their tiny ships in the path of the supernova? I've forgotten that too.
He wants to prove they screwed up doing.....something. A conclusion I can't comprehend given the decidedly badass final cutscene. Not humanizing the Shivans should be akin to a cardinal rule, second only to "Don't explain them in a way that makes them LAME."
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I can tell you what they didn't want to do...what no thinking, sentient race would do - blow up their own military forces. You never, ever sacrifice more than you have to. To do that is sheer folly, and no amount of "but it's alien thinking" can allevate that.
Poor Trashman, still thinking exactly like a meatbag (Yay HK-47!). Did you even read the last part of my post where I pointed out ACTUAL examples of military authorities doing EXACTLY that? I suspect you did, but you're ignoring it and hoping it will go away if you never bother to offer up a counter argument. It'll be like I never pointed out that your entire premise is faulty using real life historical examples! What a cunning and dastardly plan!
You're actually comparing kamikazis with ships staying and getting a nice tan? Apples and oranges my friend.
Maby you're not familiar with the term "have to" or "needed"
Erm. What is your objective in proving that it was stupid for the Shivans to leave all their tiny ships in the path of the supernova? I've forgotten that too.
He wants to prove they screwed up doing.....something. A conclusion I can't comprehend given the decidedly badass final cutscene. Not humanizing the Shivans should be akin to a cardinal rule, second only to "Don't explain them in a way that makes them LAME."
And how do you know they are not lame? For all you know [V] might have planed them as a big galactic joke.
Speaking of which, according to you, making mistakes makes you lame? Great, we're all lame according to that. Shivans are perfect apparently. Tehy make no mistakes. Yeah right.
P.S. - I said it's highly possible they made a mistake, not that it absolutely has to be true....
You're correct there. Are you familiar with the work of Godel, particularly his completeness theorem? One of the points he made was that intuition is necessary to complete a system of logic -- no purely mechanistic logic can describe the universe. The Shivan capacity for that 'intuition' may be far greater than our own, in just a way that ours outstrips that of a rat.
We do have quite a good understanding of both tactics and logic. I many not like humaity, but I must give it some credit..
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Oh dear God(s). This is getting worse than the physics debates at the BtRL forum.
And how do you know they are not lame? For all you know [V] might have planed them as a big galactic joke.
Somehow, I doubt that though.
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I summed up my theory in one post (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,51098.msg1038922.html#msg1038922), complete with explanation.
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You're actually comparing kamikazis with ships staying and getting a nice tan? Apples and oranges my friend.
Maby you're not familiar with the term "have to" or "needed"
Better, but you still ignored the second part, where their troops kept fighting long past the point where the only viable option was immediate surrender. The idea was to illustrate all the difference a belief structure can make when determining the value of human life, which is a tremendous one. Repeatedly arguing that "throwing ships away" isn't logical, while pretty much your style*, is still just a conclusion you're making based on personal views on how to wage war. The Shivans almost certainly don't think like you though.
Anyways, how are planes crashing into aircraft carriers with the intention of sinking them and dying in the process (which they knew before setting out would happen) not like ships staying and fighting to keep enemy vessels occupied so they'll both be destroyed when the supernova triggers? Both of them are suicidal gestures, and before you go on about inevitable destruction by supernova, keep in mind that Deimos wouldn't have been there had it not been for the Moloch. It might not have been headed for the node, and it might not have made it in time if it was, but it was only where it was because it was fighting. There's no guarantee that it would have survived, but the battle with the Moloch made it's demise a certainty.
*Argue the same thing, over and over, until the other guy gets bored and stops arguing back, then claim victory. Huzzah!
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Dude, the japanese were loosing that battle.
The island was holy. It was their land they were protecting and they decided to fight to the last and cause as much losses for the US. To make their victory a bitter one. Nothing unheard of. Happened a lot in history.
Shivans weren't loosing. Quite the opposite. ..Would US have nuked the island with all their troops still on it, only to get rid of the last 10 enemy soldiers hiding?
As far as we know, Capella wasn't holy for the shivans.
As to your remark on "how to wage a war"..let me put it this way: I'd hate to be in any army over which you had command.
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Dude, the japanese were loosing that battle.
The island was holy. It was their land they were protecting and they decided to fight to the last and cause as much losses for the US. To make their victory a bitter one. Nothing unheard of. Happened a lot in history.
Shivans weren't loosing. Quite the opposite. ..Would US have nuked the island with all their troops still on it, only to get rid of the last 10 enemy soldiers hiding?
As far as we know, Capella wasn't holy for the shivans.
As to your remark on "how to wage a war"..let me put it this way: I'd hate to be in any army over which you had command.
It wasn't just one battle, every single island campaign played out in a similar manner. Iwo Jima just had a very famous photograph to make it stand out.
What constitutes victory? Were the Shivans even trying to "win"? How is Shivan society structured? What do they care about most? What is more important to them then any losses they might endure? Neither of us know, but I'm not the one assigning human characteristics to the raging xenophobes and thus jumping to conclusions.
For all you know they have a caste system, and the Sathanas were a higher cast that considered Shivans in the other vessels expendable, and Shivans as a race place little emphasis on the individual to start with. Then you could say that the Moloch in that cutscene didn't know it was about to 'splode. Or perhaps they have multiple directives and the destruction of other spacefaring lifeforms and whatever it is they were doing with the supernova just took precedence over survival. We don't know if all Shivan vessels are even piloted, if there are different species of Shivans, if they aren't one united race, etc!
Just a reminder: That crack about my command abilities, while slightly relevant this time and thus commendable because it's not as lazy as last time, is still an ad hominem attack, and as such a logical fallacy. Thanks for playing though! Seriously, how on earth did you read that as "I think Shivan tactics are the bestest and I'll be using them in every possible situation I can, whoohoo!"? That's pretty weak, even for someone of your AwesometasticTM debating skills.
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What constitutes victory? Were the Shivans even trying to "win"? How is Shivan society structured? What do they care about most? What is more important to them then any losses they might endure? Neither of us know, but I'm not the one assigning human characteristics to the raging xenophobes and thus jumping to conclusions.
For all you know they have a caste system, and the Sathanas were a higher cast that considered Shivans in the other vessels expendable, and Shivans as a race place little emphasis on the individual to start with. Then you could say that the Moloch in that cutscene didn't know it was about to 'splode. Or perhaps they have multiple directives and the destruction of other spacefaring lifeforms and whatever it is they were doing with the supernova just took precedence over survival. We don't know if all Shivan vessels are even piloted, if there are different species of Shivans, if they aren't one united race, etc!
You might try to list what we do know about shivans instead of what we don't know. Then maybe we can get somewhere.
Some of your theories are rather good and do offer explanations, but most of them have enough holes in them to sink Titanic.
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What constitutes victory? Were the Shivans even trying to "win"? How is Shivan society structured? What do they care about most? What is more important to them then any losses they might endure? Neither of us know, but I'm not the one assigning human characteristics to the raging xenophobes and thus jumping to conclusions.
For all you know they have a caste system, and the Sathanas were a higher cast that considered Shivans in the other vessels expendable, and Shivans as a race place little emphasis on the individual to start with. Then you could say that the Moloch in that cutscene didn't know it was about to 'splode. Or perhaps they have multiple directives and the destruction of other spacefaring lifeforms and whatever it is they were doing with the supernova just took precedence over survival. We don't know if all Shivan vessels are even piloted, if there are different species of Shivans, if they aren't one united race, etc!
You might try to list what we do know about shivans instead of what we don't know. Then maybe we can get somewhere.
Some of your theories are rather good and do offer explanations, but most of them have enough holes in them to sink Titanic.
Ha ha! For the record I don't actually believe any of those. Those are most emphatically not my "theories", they're just the first things that popped into my head while I'm trying to force the notion that conventional human assessment of the Shivans goals and methods isn't a good idea....into yours.
As for what we do know about the Shivans, the words "almost nothing" spring to mind, with good reason! The live Shivan specimens GTI had captured were (correct me if I'm remembering tech room details inaccurately) possibly just constructs and not actual Shivans. Their appearance could be a sort of robotic suit, and the extent of cybernetic versus organic material is also unknown. While they exhibit certain traits of a hive mind, our own xenobiologists warn against drawing that conclusion. We do know they communicate in the EM range, but how Bosch and the original ETAK researchers translated Shivan signals (and whether it was at all accurate) remains unknown. They appear to have developed in zero gravity, suggesting that their current form is not their original one, or that they were designed by something else to operate in those conditions. Shivan cultural understanding? Zip, the only one you could expect to have any semblence if an idea is a little hard to reach these days ever since he scuttled the Iceni.
I do take solace in the knowledge that none of the things we know about the Shivans lends any weight to your arguments though.
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As for what we do know about the Shivans, the words "almost nothing" spring to mind, with good reason! The live Shivan specimens GTI had captured were (correct me if I'm remembering tech room details inaccurately) possibly just constructs and not actual Shivans. Their appearance could be a sort of robotic suit, and the extent of cybernetic versus organic material is also unknown. While they exhibit certain traits of a hive mind, our own xenobiologists warn against drawing that conclusion. We do know they communicate in the EM range, but how Bosch and the original ETAK researchers translated Shivan signals (and whether it was at all accurate) remains unknown. They appear to have developed in zero gravity, suggesting that their current form is not their original one, or that they were designed by something else to operate in those conditions. Shivan cultural understanding? Zip, the only one you could expect to have any semblence if an idea is little hard to reach these days ever since he scuttled the Iceni.
Nope. [V] said time and time again what we see in hallfight and in the techrom are real shivans.
I do take solace in the knowledge that none of the things we know about the Shivans lends any weight to your arguments though.
Apparently I know more about the shivies than you do. And honestly, I don't see absolutely anything in canon material that contradicts in any way what I said.
What is there in the techroom to give any weight to your arguments?
[/quote]
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I have to say, Trashman, Vesper's theories make a lot of sense.
I'm inclined to go with what he's saying.
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With what? That the shivan mistake is highly unlikely? That they planned on destroying most of their ships?
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Seems more likely than your explanation. In fact I haven't seen a single person agree with you that an accident is the most likely explanation yet.
While many of us agree that it's a possibility I can't see many thinking it's the most likely explanation.
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I do take solace in the knowledge that none of the things we know about the Shivans lends any weight to your arguments though.
Apparently I know more about the shivies than you do. And honestly, I don't see absolutely anything in canon material that contradicts in any way what I said.
What is there in the techroom to give any weight to your arguments?
You either didn't read that very carefully, or deliberately misunderstood my point oh loquacious one. I said no canon source of information on the Shivans in any way lends additional credibility to the theories you've espoused, not "You can't be right because canon stuff says you aren't!" or "There is overwhelming canon support for my position!"
I'm curious if you can actually tell me what my theories are? As I recall, I've never actually proposed a theory on this particular topic (and indeed, never actually want to!), merely a narrative interpretation that examines the state of mind the player should have upon watching the final cutscene. I've just been critiquing yours. I'll be moderately impressed if you dredge up my actual Shivan theory though, so more power to you if you're so inclined.
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I'm curious if you can actually tell me what my theories are? As I recall, I've never actually proposed a theory on this particular topic (and indeed, never actually want to!), merely a narrative interpretation that examines the state of mind the player should have upon watching the final cutscene. I've just been critiquing yours. I'll be moderately impressed if you dredge up my actual Shivan theory though, so more power to you if you're so inclined.
According to you.
And weather you claim to or not, offering a different explanation IS a theory in itself. Shivans are suicidal and that's why they blew their own ships - that's a theory.
Seems more likely than your explanation.
that's strictly a matter of opinion ;)
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If that's the case why do you keep assuming your opinion is worth anything then?
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If that's the case why do you keep assuming your opinion is worth anything then?
The same reason you assume you opinions are worth anything.
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And on that note. Closed.