Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: ShadowGorrath on June 15, 2010, 07:05:32 am
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So, assuming the Shivans never arrive ( or arrive way later ), and the GTA and PVE war keeps on going. Who would you expect to win in the long run? GTA or PVE?
PVE develops its tech slower than GTA, yet they're more advanced. And individually, Vasudans are "tougher" than Terrans. That's why I'd expect the PVE to win in the long run.
That's assuming it doesn't stay at a stalemate.
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The GTA just got the new Valkyries and already had working prototypes of the Avenger. That would have given them quite an edge over the Vasudans in fighter combat. And since I doubt the Medusa and Cylops were developed in a matter of weeks the GTA would very soon have gotting good bombers too.
I think the GTA would have had the better chances to break the stalemate.
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And since I doubt the Medusa and Tsunami were developed in a matter of weeks the GTA would very soon have gotting good bombers too.
Fix'd
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You can't 'win' this war, I don't think. Perhaps they would've come to an agreement over a cup of tea.
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Norbert, you're oblivious to the fact that PVE never had any unique weapons beyond Vasudan Light Laser. Yes, they used same primaries and secondaries as GTA before, on and after the Great War. And so did Shivans use same secondaries and their weakened versions. Your point about Avenger, Tsunami and whatever is thus completely moot. Volition simply did not give them any unique weapons besides Vasudan Light Laser.
As for which one was going to get upper hand. I would say neither. The war had already progressed to a point where both sides had more to lose than win by continuing full scale war. Both had sustained major losses throughout the years and financing the war was becoming a problem. If Shivans had not appeared when they did, I would assume the war would have turned into smaller skirmishes and eventually cease-fire would've been signed.
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Like the one with the Koreas? :p
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The PVE/PVN would DECIMATE Grand Theft Auto!!
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The PVE/PVN would DECIMATE Grand Theft Auto!!
I must admit that I didn't see that one coming :p
Anyway, I agree with Fury's point. The war has raged for FOURTEEN YEARS. Let me remind you that the World Wars were only 4 and 6 years long, and it was already terrible for both the military and the civilians, in term of resource drain and morale. I can't imagine the T-V war to continue at that rate for so long. Either one of the faction would have dealt the killing blow soon after the time of the GW, or it would have end as a cease-fire in months or at most a couple of years.
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Were they really committed? I mean, how can a war last for 14 years if it isn't just a few pushes here and there? I would envisage it to be a bit like a WWI kind of scenario, where the frontline moves about 10 yards every so often.
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The two world wars weren't called world wars because of their length, but because of the number of participating countries and the ferocity with which they were fought.
There were numberous wars that went on much longer, like the 30 year war or a lot of ethnic conflicts that have been and still are going on since the colonization period.
Just because they were in an open state of war doesn't mean they fought every single day of those years.
And I think it would have been more likely that the war would have turned into a cold war, with the possibility of re-erupting at a moments notice, rather than a cease fire being signed.
After all the GTA took their time is taking up the PVEs offer of negociations even when the Shivans were already advancing. Fourteen years of bloodshed and countless lost lives aren't easily forgotten.
Especially if the only thing your side did to provoke this conflics is a mistake in the translation....
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Were they really committed? I mean, how can a war last for 14 years if it isn't just a few pushes here and there? I would envisage it to be a bit like a WWI kind of scenario, where the frontline moves about 10 yards every so often.
I kind of don't think we should be equating the war to ground warfare. It's IN SPAAAACE. It's clearly different.
I think the war was pretty fluid; territories changed hands regularly but didn't amount to anything much. The Terrans secured Antares without too much difficulty at the beginning of FS1 - It's not too much of a stretch to see that sort of advance happening throughout the whole war, but being pushed back by a counterattack or left unexploited due to severe losses in the process.
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I was making a comparison, you n00b, and it wasn't even to the warfare side, it was to the pointlessness of the whole thing. :D
But to be pushed by a counterattack or something out of the bag that many times is just sloppy. Someone up high wasn't doing their job right.
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GTA every time!
Check my sig for **** sake. :wakka:
When Freespace started we were on the offensive. If the Shivans hadn't have turned up we would have wiped the floor with every last stinking one of them.
Scum.
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But to be pushed by a counterattack or something out of the bag that many times is just sloppy. Someone up high wasn't doing their job right.
What I mean to say is, they got pretty close but could never manage to go the full way.
Also, I do think the GTA would have been in a better position for most of the war - At least, canonically that's how it was in 2335. They were merely one jump away from the Vasudan homeworld.
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Mmm, fair enough. But fourteen years? Nothing should take that long. Terran arms companies probably pulled strings to make more moneyz. :P
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Ignore me why don't you :p
According to the various briefs we were hitting Zod convoys left right and centre. In mission two or three we take out the only Zod ace in the galaxy (Alpha 1's counterpart maybe?) Oh yeah on that note. . . . The GTA have ALPHA ONE! :)
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I agree that it doesn't look good for the Vasudans, but since incoming tech was mentioned, don't forget the Thoth was about to come online on their side(and no Ulysses for the GTA). Assuming no shields for anyone for quite a while, the Thoth would be quite a threat to the GTA's early fighters and bombers.
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Ignore me why don't you :p
According to the various briefs we were hitting Zod convoys left right and centre. In mission two or three we take out the only Zod ace in the galaxy (Alpha 1's counterpart maybe?) Oh yeah on that note. . . . The GTA have ALPHA ONE! :)
Oh, sorry Dek, I was playing COD at the time and didn't read a whole lot. :P
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There's a campaign, Twist of Fate, which would deal with this question.
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Wasn't the Thoth a joint project?
Saying that, I remember HOL saying the Sekhmet was derived from a shivan design.
Might have been in the multi templar campaign. Can't remember.
No shields. . . . Hmmm, I managed ok without them for a while. So long as we got em first I can dig it.
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The Sekhmet is a retextured Nahema, more or less. FS2 Tech description says so.
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don't forget the Thoth was about to come online on their side(and no Ulysses for the GTA). Assuming no shields for anyone for quite a while, the Thoth would be quite a threat to the GTA's early fighters and bombers.
It's not emphasized as much as the Ulysses, but the Thoth is also a joint project IIRC...
Wait a sec...
The design for the Thoth was simultaneous with the design for the Ulysses, and these two ships were designed by some of the same technicians.
Well, it's not said Terran engineers worked on it, but I would bet some did. No proof about that though, and nothing says that the Thoth wouldn't have been created without Terran engineers even then (and same goes for Vasudan engineers about the Ulysses, although it's more unlikely).
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I don't think all the new tech that flooded in during the Great War would have surfaced at nearly the same rate had the TV War gone on longer. Military spending probably skyrocketed when it wasn't politics but the existence of your entire species on the line.
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To be fair, i've got to say... Shivans or Zod-scum. I'd expect the governing body to treat each threat equally. At least from the whole "survival of the species" point of view.
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The Vasudans have never been a real threat to our species. You of all people should know that, sir!
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I just wanna say...
Loki FTW!
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C'mon, Zod ships are more powerfull. IIRC, the Typhon scared the s**t out of terran admirals.
Really, being somewhat human, I hate to say this, but the zods appear as someone who'd win.
Also, I said in the long run. Any stalemate ends sometime- so even the GTA-PVE war would end sometime. And here we're assuming it'd end with someone gaining the upper hand.
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Zod ships more powerful? I don't think so.
Terran admirals LAUGHED at the Typhon. The only reason so few were destroyed was that whenever the Vasudans deploy it, everyone's so busy LAUGHING AT THEM that they forget to shoot at it.
The Typhon's also a technological dead end. Its power grid can only support blobs and fries when you try to put beams on it. I'd assume it have the same problems mounting whatever other sort of new tech.
Vasudan cruisers have always been jokes.
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They laughed at the design. Then it kicked the **** out of them and they stopped laughing. Better.
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No man, they were so busy laughing at it they didn't notice the hull breach signals while the dinky blobs slowy wore their ship down.
Obviously the gunners were too busy laughing and didn't return fire either.
You can't trust eveything tech descriptions say. I mean, where are the missile turrets on the Mjolnir?
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C'mon, Zod ships are more powerfull. IIRC, the Typhon scared the s**t out of terran admirals.
Uhm, no not really. The Vasudans never appeared to me capable of winning the war, only capable of preventing their defeat.
As for ships, sure the Typhon was supposedly a better ship, but notice how practically all their other ships are completely inferior - The Anubis is utterly useless, their only worthwhile fighter (during the TV War) is probably the Seth, the Aten loses to the Fenris/Leviathan and most of their weapons are comparable to nonlethal training rounds. Almost all Terran ships are far more effective in combat than their Vasudan counterparts.
If the war continued indefinitely, I think the war would have eventually fizzled out and an uneasy peace would have been reached. Then a few years later, a shot or two is fired and the war breaks out again...
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their only worthwhile fighter (during the TV War) is probably the Seth
Don't underestimate the awesomeness of the Horus !
They also had heavy bombers (and probably bombs) long before we did.
most of their weapons are comparable to nonlethal training rounds.
You seriously need to play a pre-GW era campaign on insane bro.
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The only category were the Vasudans are clearly superiour is transports. The Sai is armed well enough to have been mistaken for a light cruiser and the Terrans have the Poseidon....
Not sure how the two freithers compare though.
I think the real reason why the first Typhon ever encountered destroyed the Eisenhower was, what MatthTheGeek already mentioned. They had bombers, we didn't. But with the Valkyries those can be countered better than with just the Apollos.
And while I agree that the Horus is a nice fighter, the Valk is better in my opinion. Look at the firepoints alone!
On a side note the Intercepter was also a joint project. If I remember correctly (hm... I'm saying that a lot in this thread....) the engine was Vasudan and the warhead Terran.
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You can't trust eveything tech descriptions say. I mean, where are the missile turrets on the Mjolnir?
Mjolnir is a strange case, since it had missile turrets at some point, but lost them for some (most likely gameplay) reason.
At that point, it might have been too late to change the mission briefing (and already recorded VA) and tech description, so they left them.
The only category were the Vasudans are clearly superiour is transports. The Sai is armed well enough to have been mistaken for a light cruiser and the Terrans have the Poseidon....
Not sure how the two freithers compare though.
You meant Satis?
Sai (from Inferno) is actually a light cruiser, albeit not a good one.
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The only category were the Vasudans are clearly superiour is transports. The Sai is armed well enough to have been mistaken for a light cruiser and the Terrans have the Poseidon....
Not sure how the two freithers compare though.
The Chronos has twice the HP as the Satis.
Sure it only has one turret but it doesn't die easily.
The Vasudans also have a freighter which is totally unarmed.
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From what I remember reading, the Vasudans are a race of philosophers, not warriors. The whole combat thing never really came easily to them, and as such it makes more sense that Terran weapon systems would've been more advanced. However, the Vasudans did produce the Typhon, which when given FS2 era weapons is inferior, but stick to FS1 weapons and it was indeed the one thing on the battlefield captains absolutely did not want to see. It was dangerous as frak, and damnably hard to catch and destroy. Hence, I believe stalemate and eventual cease-fire is the most likely outcome.
Also coming to think about it, if the Shivans never popped up, I don't think beam weapons would've been created... It's always looked to me as if some GTVA weapons engineers looked at old holovids of the Lucifer pwning the crap out of planets and everything with its big-ass flux cannons and went "OMGZ WE SHUD TRY DAT!!!!" A few days of drunken engineering later and the first beam cannon manages to cut a grape in half.
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Hmmm...weren't the Terrans also about to roll out the GTD Hades?
It doesn't seem feasible that something so...big was constructed in the short time span after the first Lucifer sighting.
The hull/plans must have existed already and the Shivan weapons integration was just tacked on, and a Destroyer with 800 000 hitpoints alone would probably be pretty damn effective cause it would take a year and a day to kill with blob turrets. (and being able to spit out 200 lokis means that its pretty well protected from bomber strikes)
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Hmmm...weren't the Terrans also about to roll out the GTD Hades?
It doesn't seem feasible that something so...big was constructed in the short time span after the first Lucifer sighting.
The hull/plans must have existed already and the Shivan weapons integration was just tacked on, and a Destroyer with 800 000 hitpoints alone would probably be pretty damn effective cause it would take a year and a day to kill with blob turrets.
If we're going on the whole "Shivans don't appear" deal then I think we can rule out the Hades' appearance.
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Hmmm...weren't the Terrans also about to roll out the GTD Hades?
It doesn't seem feasible that something so...big was constructed in the short time span after the first Lucifer sighting.
The hull/plans must have existed already and the Shivan weapons integration was just tacked on, and a Destroyer with 800 000 hitpoints alone would probably be pretty damn effective cause it would take a year and a day to kill with blob turrets.
If we're going on the whole "Shivans don't appear" deal then I think we can rule out the Hades' appearance.
I think we would have had a hades but it wouldn't have been so tough more like a FS1 typhon to an FS1 Orion than the flying mountain.
say 140,000 hp and Terran equivalent weaponry to the shivan stuff mounted
I think its role would have been either as a special blockade beaker (1 Hades to 3-4 Orions?), a typhon killer or as a special operations base though i think the first and second use would have been more cost effective than the spec ops role as its more of a heavy destroyer
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The whole project of the Hades was based on Shivan technology. I really don't think it could be constructed without at least some Shivan technology. Sure they could've constructed a new destroyer but it wouldn't be anything like the hades.
Seriously, if we were capable of building a giant superdestroyer with eight times as much armor as our heaviest warship then why hadn't we done so already? Why wait 14 years?
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what im saying is it wouldn't have had the armour
say 140,000 hp and Terran equivalent weaponry to the shivan stuff mounted
also i dont remember anything in canon to say the hades started as a terran/shivan hybrid project
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Yeah true...
Ok but srsly I don't think those things we see post-Shivans would've been manufactured on their own without some incentive (ie. not being annihilated).
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Well, I don't know how you think they managed to build a 4 km long ship in a few months when it took 20 years to build the colossus.
They would have had to have started the Hades hull long before the Shivans arrived.
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Well, I don't know how you think they managed to build a 4 km long ship in a few months when it took 20 years to build the colossus.
They would have had to have started the Hades hull long before the Shivans arrived.
The GTI probably knew about the Shivans long before they arrived... ;)
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That's certainly a possibility.
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Well, I don't know how you think they managed to build a 4 km long ship in a few months when it took 20 years to build the colossus.
They would have had to have started the Hades hull long before the Shivans arrived.
The GTI probably knew about the Shivans long before they arrived... ;)
i suppose all this begs the question what is the development/construction cycle on a destroyer scale ship
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Well, I don't know how you think they managed to build a 4 km long ship in a few months when it took 20 years to build the colossus.
They would have had to have started the Hades hull long before the Shivans arrived.
The GTI probably knew about the Shivans long before they arrived... ;)
i suppose all this begs the question what is the development/construction cycle on a destroyer scale ship
I'd say it'd take more than the few months during which the Great War took place (given that the Colossus took 20 years to build). That said, I do believe the Hades project was created with the original goal of harnessing Shivan technology.
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The project colossus took 20 years. That doesn't mean the actual building of the ship took that long.
Surely they must have run into one problem after another considering they never undertook anything of that scale before.
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Yeah, I figure that those 20 years were spent building the infrastructure to build the technology to build the technology to do the R&D on the tricky bits of building the technology to build the Colossus.
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The whole project of the Hades was based on Shivan technology. I really don't think it could be constructed without at least some Shivan technology. Sure they could've constructed a new destroyer but it wouldn't be anything like the hades.
Seriously, if we were capable of building a giant superdestroyer with eight times as much armor as our heaviest warship then why hadn't we done so already? Why wait 14 years?
I think the Hades had been in development for a long time before ST and that the GTI hastily fitted it with new Shivan toys when they got ahold of them. A humongous spaceframe like that doesn't just appear out of nowhere. My theory is that it was meant as a GTA superweapon to use against the Vasudans before the Shivans arrived. The GTI used technology from the Lucifer to increase its destructive potential after they saw the power of Shivan warships.
Yeah true...
Ok but srsly I don't think those things we see post-Shivans would've been manufactured on their own without some incentive (ie. not being annihilated).
Considering that the GTA was at least seriously entertaining the prospect of assaulting Vasuda at the beginning of FS1, I think it's reasonable to say that the possibility of both sides having genocidal final objectives can't be ruled out. I think that if the GTA reached Vasuda they would have glassed it.
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I don't think so. Level the major cities? Most likely. Level all detectable cities? Unlikely but possible.
But glassing the entire surface? Not even the Shivans did that. It's a waste of time and resources, even when you don't intent to take-and-hold the planet and are not interested in it's resources.
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Dropping a couple hundred Tsunamis or whatever the predecessor for them was (surely there were bombs before the Tsunami, the idea that there weren't is patently absurd considering that the Vasudans had them long enough to build at least two generations of bombers) would kill pretty much everyone on Vasuda Prime immediately and condemn any survivors to a slow, lingering, horrible death. Our hydrogen bombs are like firecrackers compared to what the FreeSpace universe considers weapons of mass destruction. The target world might not be made fully melty and airless like a Base Delta Zero, but there wouldn't be any sapient beings left when it was all over.
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The Harbinger was a jury-rigged hack-job of a bomb originally designed for planetary bombardment (as much of a jury-rigged hack-job space-borne multi-gigaton nuclear ordnance can be), so chances are the GTA had some anti-planetary ordnance lying around with multi-gigaton yields. A few of those and Vasuda Prime has gone bye-bye.
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the tech description for one of the bombs stated it was originally reserved for planetary bombardment until some sort of breakthrough in manufacturing was made.
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the tech description for one of the bombs stated it was originally reserved for planetary bombardment until some sort of breakthrough in manufacturing was made.
That would have been the Harbinger.
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I think we need a third choice.
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well "win" is kindof a loose term here, since both sides pretty much already lost 14 years in.
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well "win" is kindof a loose term here, since both sides pretty much already lost 14 years in.
I don't know quite about that; combined we had enough resources and fire-power to take on a Shivan fleet.
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well "win" is kindof a loose term here, since both sides pretty much already lost 14 years in.
I don't know quite about that; combined we had enough resources and fire-power to take on a Shivan fleet.
I think what he's on about is the "human" cost of the war, the number of devastated family's. Thats before you consider the damage done to both species in social, industrial and cultural terms
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Orion vs. Tyhon - Orion wins. Has more big turrets. Test it out if you want.
The Typhon has better defences methinks.
But it's moot. When you say "the PVD Pinnacle destroyed the GTD Eisenhower" you're not exactly giving out a lot of information. How was it destroyed. By direct, close-combat engagement. Surprise attacks? Ambush? By the typhon alone or by it's whole battlegroup?
But what do we know?
1 - humans had many new tech in testing/production phases. So did the Vasudans, but less as far as we know
2 - humans had confirmed shield testings
3- humans held more territory and pushed deeper into Vasudan territory
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The Vasudans might have had a Deus Ex Machina lying around. :P
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Doesn't matter. Looking at the strategic situation, and the hardware that was in the pipeline already, one can extrapolate that the GTA was poised for a quick decapitation strike on Vasuda Prime. And they would have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for those pesky Shivans.
Also, if the Vasudans had a great big Deus Ex Machina, why didn't they use it against the Lucy?
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2 - humans had confirmed shield testings
Source ? The only thing we know is from the tech description of the MX-50 :
Early experiments with energy based defenses like the deflector array at Ross 128 have shown that this weapon is exceedingly weak against anything besides steel based targets.
Given the location of those "early experiment", it sounds more like early Shivan encounters to me. We know (or it is assumed, I can't remember of a canon source right now) that the GTI was aware of the Shivan presence long before the destruction of Riviera.
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well "win" is kindof a loose term here, since both sides pretty much already lost 14 years in.
I don't know quite about that; combined we had enough resources and fire-power to take on a Shivan fleet.
I think what he's on about is the "human" cost of the war, the number of devastated family's. Thats before you consider the damage done to both species in social, industrial and cultural terms
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory nonetheless.
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I think the Hades had been in development for a long time before ST and that the GTI hastily fitted it with new Shivan toys when they got ahold of them. A humongous spaceframe like that doesn't just appear out of nowhere. My theory is that it was meant as a GTA superweapon to use against the Vasudans before the Shivans arrived. The GTI used technology from the Lucifer to increase its destructive potential after they saw the power of Shivan warships.
Considering that the GTA was at least seriously entertaining the prospect of assaulting Vasuda at the beginning of FS1, I think it's reasonable to say that the possibility of both sides having genocidal final objectives can't be ruled out. I think that if the GTA reached Vasuda they would have glassed it.
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You know what I seem to have the polar opposite opinion to everything you say. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. :P
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There is no proof what so ever that Eisenhower would have been an Orion...
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What else is it supposed to be then?
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What else is it supposed to be then?
Some other destroyer class maybe? :P
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Tho Orion can't have been in service for the whole T-V war and remain in service as long as until the Shivan incursion, so there have been other classes of destroyers before.
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Tho Orion can't have been in service for the whole T-V war and remain in service as long as until the Shivan incursion, so there have been other classes of destroyers before.
Well, there's nothing to say that it wasn't. It could be just a very modular design that can be retrofitted repeatedly with new technology such as beams and better blobs.
But IMO it'd be pretty cool for there to have been other destroyers in service during the TV War too.
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Being honest, I think the start of FS1 the War had just swung into the PVE's favour.
About the war;
We can probably assume there were some brokered peace deals/cease fires that never lasted, we can also assume that while fighting was perhaps not constant in most systems there were systems that were hotbeds of activity, and also expect that most combat was jump-node based.
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How did the war swing towards the PVE?
Operation Thresher might have failed, but it left the PVE blockade fleet in antares low on supplies and their convoys have mostly been destroyed.
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Being honest, I think the start of FS1 the War had just swung into the PVE's favour.
About the war;
We can probably assume there were some brokered peace deals/cease fires that never lasted, we can also assume that while fighting was perhaps not constant in most systems there were systems that were hotbeds of activity, and also expect that most combat was jump-node based.
Mmm, not really... Operation Thresher fails, but the Vasudans within Antares are isolated and left without supplies. Within a few weeks Antares would be fully under GTA control.
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Uhh.... the GTA lost almost 40-50 full squadrons worth of pilots?
Doesn't say anything about them being isolated, just without supplies for the time being, the GTA forces, being so knackered, aren't really in a position to take advantage of that.
It also doesn't mention any timelines for the system.
It also doesn't mention how many cruisers and if any destroyers were lost in the offensive.
Anyway;
Joint projects (afaik);
Thoth.
Uly.
Avenger (in the end).
Shields.
Interceptor.
dunno 'bout the rest ;p
Seth > Valk > Apollo > Anubis (though, I saw this from never having flown an Anubis).
Leviathan > Aten=Fenris
Typhon > Orion.
Alpha 1 > * :p
I don't think we should take the story as what it would have been if it wasn't a game though, Alpha One gets glorified quite a lot by briefings and debriefings even for minor missions.
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Antares falls to the Terrans in a few weeks. Doesn't that constitute a major Terran victory? Especially since it's one jump from VPrime?
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I would contest that by that point the PVE is more concerned with the Shivans than the GTA.
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I would contest that by that point the PVE is more concerned with the Shivans than the GTA.
I would contest that by that point the PVE didn't know the Shivans existed. :P
Antares was almost under GTA control by "Out of the Dark, Into the Night", which is just before the Shivans arrived. Only one cruiser and two strike wings were still active.
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First contact situation with Zod Scum.
Terran envoy- "we come in peace"
Unfortunately that means "your mum is useless in the sack" in Zodenese.
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That's the bad thing about being an ambassador.
364 days of the year you are scratching your balls.
the other remaining day you are in the middle of a firefight against fissshy aliens.
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That's the bad thing about being an ambassador.
364 days of the year you are scratching your balls.
the other remaining day you are in the middle of a firefight against fissshy aliens.
I'm sold. Where should I sign up?
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That's the bad thing about being an ambassador.
364 days of the year you are scratching your balls.
the other remaining day you are in the middle of a firefight against fissshy aliens.
I'm sold. Where should I sign up?
If only I knew that...
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I think the Vasudans would win, not because of military or numbers but for political reasons. The PVN strikes me as much more unified and committed than the GTA. Terrans, as we know are quite dubious and are willing to turn on one another quite easily. In Fs1 McCarthy would have given the avenger project to the Vasudans if Alpha 1 didn't get in the way. I think betrayals such as these hinder the Terrans long term, and perhaps the strain of war would test the foundations of the Terran alliance.
Also a lot of back and fourth on this thread about which warship would win Typhon or Orion. I don't think it matters. You add one bomber into the mix and it changes everything. I don't think Fs1 is a warship fight. I always thought of it as a series of carrier duels and bomber/fighter sorties. The vast majority of the fighting in the Terran-Vasudan war is done by pilots in small ships. Destroyers at the time just acted like mobile fleet hubs launching wings of fighters at enemy targets (or at least that would have been a more sensable tactic).
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What evidence is there that there were no Vasudan defectors or double agents, especially since one of the themes of the FS universe is that Terrans and Vasudans are much more alike than either would care to admit.
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What evidence is there that there were no Vasudan defectors or double agents
Not saying Vasudans are all obedient robots or anything, only that Terrans give me the impression of being more apt to betray one another.
I consider the HOL a product of religious conviction so I am discounting that.
The NTF, Bosch and the Polaris uprising. Not to mention the GTI
The nature of special operations command.
McCarthy as I mentioned before.
"your lack of trust is typical Terran" not deductive evidence, but it does drive a point.
one of the themes of the FS universe is that Terrans and Vasudans are much more alike than either would care to admit.
If they truly are mirror races than this thread has reached a conclusion. Surely at some point however, hairs can be split.
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I consider the HOL a product of religious conviction so I am discounting that.
In the end there's no real difference. Religious fanaticism is just one of many reasons why someone might betray their country. The HOL were traitors to the PVE regardless of the nature of their beliefs. Treason is treason.
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In the end there's no real difference. Religious fanaticism is just one of many reasons why someone might betray their country. The HOL were traitors to the PVE regardless of the nature of their beliefs. Treason is treason.
The reason why I say that is because I consider a religious society a loyal society. I consider the HOL 'loyal' to their prophecy over their government. Without the intervention by the Shivans their prophecy would not have come 'true' and they would not have felt compelled to aid the Shivans. Even though there is secession involved, it is out of obedience for a higher power. One could argue that the PVE strayed from their religious prophecy by not aiding the Shivans with the HOL. So, I don't consider the HOL Rebellion an indication that Vasudan culture invites betrail as much as Terran culture. Even given the fact that it resulted in a fragmentation of the Vasudan military. I still believe the Vasudan political structure in the Terran-Vasudan war would have been more resilient had the Shivans not invaded Vasudan systems.
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Your argument makes no sense. Religion is one of the core components of culture; the HOL's religion is an extreme example of something likely held by billions of Vasudans, much like Al-Qaeda is an extreme and violent offshoot of a very widespread religion.
Bosch, McCarthy, the GTI, etc. were all "loyal" to their own causes. The NTF essentially was a religion with Bosch as a messiah figure. People like Admiral Koth died for it with all the zeal and conviction of an Islamic terrorist. Just because you believe in your cause doesn't mean you aren't committing treason when your cause impels you to rise against your own government. From what we know the Vasudan parliament was extremely corrupt; this would not have happened if Vasudans were naturally predisposed to being obedient servants of their laws and leadership. Corruption also goes hand in hand with betrayal; various people stabbing political or financial opponents in the back, people ignoring laws and protocols in exchange for bribes. Vasudans probably betray each other all the time, although Vasudan cultural secretiveness would make them more hush-hush about it.
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What evidence is there that there were no Vasudan defectors or double agents, especially since one of the themes of the FS universe is that Terrans and Vasudans are much more alike than either would care to admit.
My thought is, if either race were to glass a planet, there would be defection in droves. For example, if the Terrans nuked Vasuda, many Terrans would defect and bring a lot of technology to the Vasudans. At the same time, the Vasudans would band together and any defections from them would abruptly stop. So while we may have the technology and potential to destroy the surface of entire planets, what's the chances we'd actually stoop to using it?
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Wiki page for Vasudans says that the Vasudan Parliament was a corrupt, treacherous, and arrogant institution, which makes it no different from any other legislative body we've had here on Earth.
If it looked like the end for the PVE, I think a few Zod MP's would have jumped ship to the winning side, more depending on how imminent the destruction was.
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What evidence is there that there were no Vasudan defectors or double agents, especially since one of the themes of the FS universe is that Terrans and Vasudans are much more alike than either would care to admit.
My thought is, if either race were to glass a planet, there would be defection in droves. For example, if the Terrans nuked Vasuda, many Terrans would defect and bring a lot of technology to the Vasudans. At the same time, the Vasudans would band together and any defections from them would abruptly stop. So while we may have the technology and potential to destroy the surface of entire planets, what's the chances we'd actually stoop to using it?
What makes you think the majority of Terrans in 2335 give a rat's ass about Vasudans, or vice versa? The PVFr Bast tech description shows that the GTVA has no problem with the wholesale massacre of Vasudan civilians in unarmed shipping vessels. After fighting a war with an enemy for 14 years, hating them becomes natural and inevitable. The fact that Vasudans are not human makes hatred even easier. This sort of stuff happened all the time in human-human conflicts (see: conquistadors, Tamerlane, the Bible's description of ancient Middle Eastern campaigns, the sack of Carthage in the last Punic War, the sack of Jerusalem in the crusades (the Pope gave the order "kill them all; God will know his own", the origin of the phrase "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"), the Scramble for Africa, the Indian Wars, the Rape of Nanking, the Holocaust, the My Lai Massacre, the Darfur genocide, the Kosovo ethnic cleansing, the Belgian Congo...), it would be even more likely in a human-alien conflict.
The average human in 2335 would probably consider the mass murder of Vasuda Prime's population a glorious victory. Humans are not naturally tolerant and compassionate to people outside the "in-group", and encouraging people to feel any trace of empathy for the Vasudans would be against the GTA's strategic interests, while encouraging them to hate Vasudans would further their long-term goals.
The idea of civilians being a protected class of innocents is an idea only around 200 years old that was created in a specific cultural and sociological milieu with a specific sort of enemy in mind (the laws and customs of war have been frequently ignored by states that nominally recognized them when fighting an enemy they really hated--the Germans in WWII for instance, extended Geneva/Hague Convention protections to enemies on the Western Front, where white Western Europeans more or less conforming to "master race" specifications lived, but not the Eastern Front, where a variety of "life unworthy of life" ethnic groups lived). Widespread murder and pillage up to and including genocide is the rule in warfare, not the exception.
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i thought the whole reason McCarthy was giving the avenger to the vasudans was because he knew the shivans were coming and wanted them to ally with the GTA to fight the common foe
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Wiki page for Vasudans says that the Vasudan Parliament was a corrupt, treacherous, and arrogant institution, which makes it no different from any other legislative body we've had here on Earth.
If it looked like the end for the PVE, I think a few Zod MP's would have jumped ship to the winning side, more depending on how imminent the destruction was.
Allow me to step back. Yeah, in light of learning new information about the PVE I find their political unity a bit more questionable than I had initially known from the game. Perhaps political stability is equivalent or debatably one sided towards Terrans or Vasudans.
Your argument makes no sense.
My argument about a religious rebellion vs. a standard economic/political rebellion I feel needs to be explained. (Bear with me because this analysis might go a little far for a game.) Let me just say right now I am an agnostic borderline atheist so you know that this is not coming from some deep seeded bias. Let’s too set aside the Religious war = Extremist terrorism tone because I think it misses the point. Most religions teach a philosophy or a way of life that the followers must adhere to in order to be good subjects and pursue whatever spiritual goals are described in their religion. It has been my experience that, even though interpretations differ, followers of a religious belief generally respect some system of law. Not necessarily government law but some kind of rule set. E.g. ‘to get into the afterlife you must do this and this’ Because religious followers are more acclimated to a world bound by rules, I feel this makes them generally more loyal subjects in a Government of Law. I am assuming that the PVE uses law to govern due to GTVA laws that were passed such as BETAC.
That said, I get the impression that, for Terrans in the futuristic Freespace universe, religion (faith in unproven phenomena) is either not important or non-existent. Between fs1 Fs1: ST and Fs2 Terran religious belief has never been addressed. I am almost positive of this fact, but as I have proven earlier today I can be wrong about things. I conclude that the cliché ‘science is their god’ Is in effect for the Terran way of life. They have reached into the heavens and in the absence of finding anything divine they have created their own ambitions and made their own rules. Now, I would argue that someone who has taken this belief is very difficult to demand loyalty from, because that person understands a universe without limits and to some extent without rules.
So with this automatic distinction in my head I autonomously submitted a poorly explained post. Hopefully you will at least see that this argument makes some kind of sense. Whether you agree with it or not.
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i thought the whole reason McCarthy was giving the avenger to the vasudans was because he knew the shivans were coming and wanted them to ally with the GTA to fight the common foe
While it isn't said outright, his comments in the mission where you capture him very heavily hint that this is the case.
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I object to the religion = loyal/moral/etc and non-religion = not bull****.
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I object to the religion = loyal/moral/etc and non-religion = not bull****.
Of course you would, you're an atheist :P
I for one think its quite accurate
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Since when does religion not exist in FS2? :wtf: Just because nobody is yelling Allah/Jahoweh/God/Jeesus/Budha/whatever every 5 seconds, doesn't means that there is no religion.
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Since when does religion not exist in FS2? :wtf: Just because nobody is yelling Allah/Jahoweh/God/Jeesus/Budha/whatever every 5 seconds, doesn't means that there is no religion.
Remember the shivan wing names in FS1? :P
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Remember the shivan wing names in FS1? :P
So astrologists became a major religious factor for FS2. I see everything now :p;)
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I object to the religion = loyal/moral/etc and non-religion = not bull****.
Whoa, not saying anything about moral. Just because you believe in something spiritual does not make you a well thought or considerate person, I agree. I am saying that a person who is religious more easily follows rules. If you wanted to look it from a cynical perspective, a religious person is more easily ‘manipulated’ into being a follower of some cause, because they follow the ‘requirement, struggle, reward’ mentality. Therefore, I think it is useful to have a religious population when fighting a war.
Also I agree that religion is not a requirement for loyalty, but it is a good indication of willingness to follow under drastic circumstances.
Since when does religion not exist in FS2? :wtf: Just because nobody is yelling Allah/Jahoweh/God/Jeesus/Budha/whatever every 5 seconds, doesn't means that there is no religion.
Right, but that does not mean that religion exists for the Terrans either. I am just saying what my impression is as I have never heard it mentioned once in all 3 cannon campaigns. Nothing I can think of demands that Terrans are without religion, but given the tone of even the most zealous leaders such as Bosch, It makes sense to me that they are not religious. I would think he would have thrown in a ‘amen’ or ‘creator forgive me’ somewhere in those monologues. Again, not deductive just a general sense.
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Here's proof that at least some Terran pilots were religious:
Oh God, they're following me.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qRJDv5UcRc)
And as for the other points in the thread, here are my opinions:
1. Shields must have been known earlier, because the MX-50 is a popular weapon, well after it's "Early experiments " phase, in which it was tested against them.
2. The Shivans were most likely known to the GTA, they had no other reason to test weapons against shields than the Shivans' shielded ships.
3. The Hades was probably under construction for a decade or so, and the Shivan weapons were probably added when it was nearly completed. It may have been a project to stop the Shivans and their Lucifer in the first place, rather than the Vasudans, but arrived too late.
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A GTI v early Shivan encounters would make a cool campaign. It'll probably give an explanation for why GTI wanted Rasputin as well if we are assuming McCarthy and Rasputin both had the same objective.
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Here's proof that at least some Terran pilots were religious:
Oh God, they're following me.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qRJDv5UcRc)
You dreailed my entire carefully constructed argument with one sentence. :wtf:
Now I recall similar experessions such as "Oh my god, it's the Lucifer!" from Fs1
I could argue that the word 'god' has become more of a figure of speech passed down through history and has since lost all religious meaning, but I feel compelled to just give it a rest and take my hat off to you.
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Here's proof that at least some Terran pilots were religious:
Oh God, they're following me.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qRJDv5UcRc)
That's no proof at all! In that situation I'd probably be like SWEET ****ING JESUS SON OF MARY ***** OF GOD SAVE ME and I'm as agnostic as they come.
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Indeed. It's just a saying.
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Yeah, but I doubt there wouldn't be religion somewhere in FS. You don't find atheists in foxholes. Only in Special Forces. :D
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*Quietly puts hat back on :rolleyes:
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Sorry, I haven't been following the debate. ;)
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No worries, what you say makes sense. The impression I have now is that if Terran religion exists in FS, it is not in a significant enough amount to merit a difference for this thread's topic.
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Well, it may just be like today where we have a crapload of religions all over the place, each with a crapload of different variations (Christianity mainly, although Judaism and Islam have some sects of their own), so that no one faction is dominant over all the others.
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Since it's never specified any differently, it's safe to assume that the FS2 culture/humanity doesn't differ from todays humanity.
I really don't buy that "religion will go extinct" thing. That's a load of bull.
Other than that, GTA wins. Advantage is terran.
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That's what I thought. I mean the phrase used "Don't smoke 'em yet," makes me think they're probably still smoking a crapload of cigars too. :P
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Whoa! The Freespace universe takes place around the 2300s; 300 - 400 years in the future. 300+ years ago today you are talking 1600s in historical times where the fastest thing on Earth was a horse and the printing press was your closest thing to a computer. You are talking about a time where people actually believed that Monarchs held divine right and others had no rights at all based on birth. A time where the biological cell had yet to be discovered and people could only guess what was on the moon. Medicine was a nightmare and the vast majority of people worked the land as farmers in a struggle to feed the population. Had we lived back then, I'm sure many threads on HLP might have resulted in dueling. :ick: I could go on as I have only covered a fraction of the differences.
Safe to assume they are the same? Realistically, I think one thing that we must assume is that things are not the same. This is a society that has taken residence on other worlds, encountered other forms of intelligent life and broken the very fabric of spacetime itself. There is no doubt that such dramatic milestones would compliment a changing culture.
So, maybe there still is religion and maybe there is no longer religion but I think the one thing that is safe to assume is that one way or another the Freespace Universe is very different from our own.
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That's fair enough, but in FS2, blokes still talk the same as they do today and use more or less the same expressions. I think perhaps FS2 was designed from this perspective as 1997 in space with ships, if you catch my drift?
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Whoa! The Freespace universe takes place around the 2300s; 300 - 400 years in the future. 300+ years ago today you are talking 1600s in historical times where the fastest thing on Earth was a horse and the printing press was your closest thing to a computer. You are talking about a time where people actually believed that Monarchs held divine right and others had no rights at all based on birth. A time where the biological cell had yet to be discovered and people could only guess what was on the moon. Medicine was a nightmare and the vast majority of people worked the land as farmers in a struggle to feed the population. Had we lived back then, I'm sure many threads on HLP might have resulted in dueling. :ick: I could go on as I have only covered a fraction of the differences.
Safe to assume they are the same? Realistically, I think one thing that we must assume is that things are not the same. This is a society that has taken residence on other worlds, encountered other forms of intelligent life and broken the very fabric of spacetime itself. There is no doubt that such dramatic milestones would compliment a changing culture.
So, maybe there still is religion and maybe there is no longer religion but I think the one thing that is safe to assume is that one way or another the Freespace Universe is very different from our own.
(http://pictures.mastermarf.com/blog/2009/090330-dark-ages.jpg)
Hopefully my train of thought shouldn't be too obscure from here.
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Whoa! The Freespace universe takes place around the 2300s; 300 - 400 years in the future. 300+ years ago today you are talking 1600s in historical times where the fastest thing on Earth was a horse and the printing press was your closest thing to a computer. You are talking about a time where people actually believed that Monarchs held divine right and others had no rights at all based on birth. A time where the biological cell had yet to be discovered and people could only guess what was on the moon. Medicine was a nightmare and the vast majority of people worked the land as farmers in a struggle to feed the population. Had we lived back then, I'm sure many threads on HLP might have resulted in dueling. :ick: I could go on as I have only covered a fraction of the differences.
Safe to assume they are the same? Realistically, I think one thing that we must assume is that things are not the same. This is a society that has taken residence on other worlds, encountered other forms of intelligent life and broken the very fabric of spacetime itself. There is no doubt that such dramatic milestones would compliment a changing culture.
So, maybe there still is religion and maybe there is no longer religion but I think the one thing that is safe to assume is that one way or another the Freespace Universe is very different from our own.
False comparisons. Culture changes, but the rate and gravity of changes varries. IT may be 1000 years of minimal changes, or 300 years of massive changes. You use the most hectic period of our history as proof, but it's hardly proof of anything.
Especially since we reached a sort of "stable" level of culture - basic science is everywhere, culture and connection is on a global scale, etc...
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It wasn't like the entire world was Christian either. Even if Europe really was stalled solely because of Christianity, what was the rest of the world doing? There are more factors than that but it's easy to point fingers.
Furthermore, there's a lot of regression and rediscovery even in the past. The idea of cities built upon the ruins of cities didn't from nowhere.
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@QD.
Do the world a favor and go die in a fire. :mad:
If there's anything I hate, then it would be undescribably stupid (and incorrect) images like that...and the people who post them.
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TROLL FTW
Anyway Trashman, QD is right, you know ? Get out of your cave !
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Guys, you never cease to amaze me, how you always manage to slowly change the topic to something totally unrelated. Like at this case: the GTA-PVE war to religion's causes in the past, or whatever :p
And if a Vasudan read this topic, I'm pretty sure that'd be more than enough to cause a war.
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This is not GenDisc. Religion vs Science debates have no place here.
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Christ, I don't pop my head in here for all of a day, and a royal cluster**** ensues. Well done. :rolleyes: