Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: manwiththemachinegun on January 08, 2013, 07:15:06 pm
-
So, some real game changers in Act 3 of WiH's story. Specifically in the final mission. Heavy spoilers from here on.
While the final dream mission told us much about the Shivan and Vishnan involvement in the cosmos, the UEF/GTVA war and some glimpses of their ultimate goal. I wanted to clarify some points with other fans.
I'm still uncertain why Capella was destroyed. As Bosch said, it was part warning, part show of force and... something else. From the crazy Shivan dialogue it seemed like they were distracted by something in another part of the galaxy, and that the Neo-Terran front alone wasn't enough to trigger a "full" purge. What seems odd about that, is the Shivans seemed perfectly willing to hit Earth and Vasuda Prime as far back as Freespace 1. Only the destruction of the Lucifer and the collapse of the Delta Serpentis jump node, and later Capella's nodes, resulted in any kind of a "victory" if you want to call it that.
The initial reason for the Shivan attack at Ross 128 seems clear enough. A pre-calculated intervention to cull two warring races, something the Shivans have done possibly thousands of times.
Shivan war doctrine I found fascinating, demonstrating the full horror of their capabilities. They are so impossibly vast, they can afford to sacrifice fighters, cruisers, destroyers, even juggernauts to gauge their opposition. They are obsessed with taking the 'long view' in any strategic situation. They're also apparently older than the Vishnans, and even Brahmans.
It's also clear whatever truce they had with the other great powers of the galaxy to prevent another apocalyptic war... it's failing. Both on their end and the Vishnans. I got the sense for their dialogue they no longer care about maintaining balance, and seem poised to break their own rules about who gets culled and who doesn't. The Vishnans are likewise revealed to be manipulating the human race for their own ends, being the real power behind all of UEF culture and philosophy. I don't know which is more terrifying. It seems the GTVA's paranoia was completely justified. How can anyone conscience humanity to being the shaped tools of an alien race? Bei is shown to be quite possibly a puppet of the Vishnans in the same way the Elders are.
And, again, *seemingly* the only way out of this disaster is for Laporte to take up Bosch's "deal", whatever that turns out to be.
Regardless, this isn't going to be pretty. Humans and Vasudans are like Vatican city wedged between NATO and the Warsaw Pact... and the DEFCON level is nearing 1.
Is there anyway out of this mess without becoming slaves or another bloodstain on the boot of these two powers? Is there anyway to resist a force that has ruled the galaxy for billions of years? Prior Freespace games provided endings that, while pyrrhic, were at least somewhat hopeful. Earth was saved at the end of the Great War, and the Shivans were contained in Capella at great cost. Is there any such chance here? That's what I look forward to finding out. :)
-
They're also apparently older than the Vishnans, and even Brahmans.
And they seem to take second fiddle, first to the Brahmans, and currently.. almost. To the Vishnans. So I wonder, what makes them take the lessor position in the galaxy?....
-
I think the implication is they tolerated the other "great" powers because it fit within their long term goals. Assuming the Shivans are as calculating and as farsighted as we've been told, I think they would be willing to see what these other entities brought to the table so to speak.
Anyone have another read on Capella? I ran the mission again and I still can't get the gist of why Capella was destroyed. We know the Shivans destroy stars as part of their cycle, creating new jump nodes and generally "tidying up" the universe. But it seemed from their dialogue there was something else happening in another part of the galaxy, that drew them off. Was it Bosch?
-
You're assuming that :V:'s tentative and unpublished ideas on the Shivans are BP canon. Don't do that.
-
Fair enough, but star killing is something Shivans excel at, and they do know how to screw with subspace like nobody's business.
Specifically, I'm referring to the Shivan gibberish that indicated that there was, apparently, something very very wrong in another part of the galaxy that was worth pursuing more than mopping up Capella.
-
Damn right the Vishans are traitorous bastards that need to be messed with!
DOWN WITH THE UEF, PUPPETS OF THE VISHNANS! Tev4Lyfe.
But in all seriousness, Act Three took me for a ride. I'm gonna be late to morning lecture. Exactly the same way I was when I first discovered WiH.
I congratulate you on a job well done BP team - my GPA does not. I think I need to give this some more thought before I give any real opinion but the thing that strikes me right after finishing is:
What was our deal with the Shivans? Are they tired of being sidekicks? Do we help them take over? Are they tired of their role? Do we take their place? Do we bring about the second apocalypse and balance the universe entirely?
I'm also curious about what a Federation Victory would even look like, with the council now compromised. Do we get to see an epic team up where Calder and Steele fly side by side and blow up some Vishnans? Damn I hope so.
-
Anyone have another read on Capella? I ran the mission again and I still can't get the gist of why Capella was destroyed. We know the Shivans destroy stars as part of their cycle, creating new jump nodes and generally "tidying up" the universe. But it seemed from their dialogue there was something else happening in another part of the galaxy, that drew them off. Was it Bosch?
Bosch brokered a deal that stopped them there. As for why they destroyed Capella, the words "transabyssal gate" appear in the non-Ken part of the dialogue.
-
I just want to know how that creepy bastard, the Transcendent, fits into all this.
-
Yes, Bosch deal was to sacrifice himself and some others, integrate their knowledge with the shivan mainframe/hive mind so the Shivans could asses the problem with "mortal" eyes, just as the Vishinans did with Bei, then after getting all that knowledge they completed their end of the bargain giving human kind a second chance.
Now, whatever Bosch expected GTVA to accomplish, I cannot fathom.
-
The Transcendant is probably just an easter egg. You only see evidence of him when you're insane, after all.
-
Maybe, but I think we've seen enough evidence that the Shivans and Vishnans can screw somewhat with the very fabric of reality. If humans started messing around with technology they didn't fully understand, it's not too impossible to think of something awful like that occurring.
Hey, it happens in Star Trek all the time. ;)
The bigger concern is simply this, whatever balance of power pact kept the Vishnans and Shivans from each other's throats seems to be wearing down. The Vishnans are hiding some secret objective, the Shivans seem dissatisfied with whatever pact they've adhered to these past few billion years.
I don't want a Babylon 5 style, "Get out of our galaxy!" speech, or a simple sortie that wins the day. These powers are too intractable for that. My personal guess? The biggest advantage humanity has is the CASSANDRA network. Knowledge is power, and now Laporte and her allies have more intel on Shivan motives and ability than throughout the entire Great War. There has to be more information that can be gained. A game changer. Something that these guys both WANT more than their silly eradication protocols.
-
I don't want a Babylon 5 style, "Get out of our galaxy!" speech, or a simple sortie that wins the day.
I don't want this either. A simple speech would be silly, and a single engagement wouldn't make sense if it worked. I just want what resulted from those things in B5. I want the Shivans and the Vishnans to leave us alone.
-
You know, we devs did at one point come out and promise that the war in BP2 wouldn't be resolved with anything as dull as 'the Shivans make both sides unite.'
So I'll also add the promise that the motivation behind the Terminal Protocol is not as dull as 'make emerging civilizations be nice'. There might even be enough information present to figure it out!
-
The weird thing is, that the Shivans may be not the worst thing that did happen.
The Vishnans on the other hand. They should be politicians. They do a damn good job of it.
-
Something that these guys both WANT more than their silly eradication protocols.
A way home?
-
Something that these guys both WANT more than their silly eradication protocols.
A way home?
Cookies, maybe?
-
You know, we devs did at one point come out and promise that the war in BP2 wouldn't be resolved with anything as dull as 'the Shivans make both sides unite.'
So I'll also add the promise that the motivation behind the Terminal Protocol is not as dull as 'make emerging civilizations be nice'. There might even be enough information present to figure it out!
I like that. I like the idea of unfathomable alien motives. For all the talk of how the Shivans/Vishnans are like God/the Devil and how they have to be resisted is rather silly to me. The Vishnans and Shivans aren't Order and Chaos, lightside or darkside, they're other. They're not bound by any human logic or moral concepts, religious or otherwise. If we REALLY believe the Shivans are a comsic level entity, they have as much regard for our moral concepts as a gnat buzzing around a lamp.
The issue is, how to slip out from under their radar now that two small attempts to resist them have been warded off. They're clearly not set back by these failures, they're simply learning from them. There has to be something to be leveraged in their goals. Being that Freespace is a flight sim, I'm guessing some amount of combat will be involved in that. But combat alone will not save the day. There has to be a way to build a better mousetrap in other words.
My guess at this Terminal Protocol is a kind of Mutually Assured Destruction concept. Something called the Dawn War occurred which was so catastrophic it altered Shivan, Vishnan and Brahman behavior for the rest of time. I hesitate to make comparisons to Mass Effect's Reapers, but it does seem that the current cycle of cull is mainly based around keeping new races from becoming too warlike and destructive. There has to be a motive around that, even if it isn't for the creation of hippy-universe 2013.
-
You know, we devs did at one point come out and promise that the war in BP2 wouldn't be resolved with anything as dull as 'the Shivans make both sides unite.'
So I'll also add the promise that the motivation behind the Terminal Protocol is not as dull as 'make emerging civilizations be nice'. There might even be enough information present to figure it out!
I like that. I like the idea of unfathomable alien motives. For all the talk of how the Shivans/Vishnans are like God/the Devil and how they have to be resisted is rather silly to me. The Vishnans and Shivans aren't Order and Chaos, lightside or darkside, they're other. They're not bound by any human logic or moral concepts, religious or otherwise. If we REALLY believe the Shivans are a comsic level entity, they have as much regard for our moral concepts as a gnat buzzing around a lamp.
The issue is, how to slip out from under their radar now that two small attempts to resist them have been warded off. They're clearly not set back by these failures, they're simply learning from them. There has to be something to be leveraged in their goals. Being that Freespace is a flight sim, I'm guessing some amount of combat will be involved in that. But combat alone will not save the day. There has to be a way to build a better mousetrap in other words.
But from our (terran) point of view, they motives are so distant that they are completely irrelevant for us. Either we make ourselves important for them so they won't sneeze in our direction, or they inevitably will sneeze at us and we'll be - well we'll be not.
-
Their motives are relevant in the sense that if humanity "fails" their arbitrary tests, the species will not survive it.
Like you said, the only way to survive is to give them some incentive to just plain go somewhere else. The alternative is that these two juggernauts get bored of their new toys, and no one is surviving that.
-
Their motives are relevant in the sense that if humanity "fails" their arbitrary tests, the species will not survive it.
Like you said, the only way to survive is to give them some incentive to just plain go somewhere else. The alternative is that these two juggernauts get bored of their new toys, and no one is surviving that.
And that is quite unfair from them. How can we beat their "arbitrary tests" if we don't know what they are about? That is what I call "screwed situation". Perhaps all these things qualify only as a "formality" and we're screwed anyway. Who knows?
They are effectively saying: "Don't bother. Everyone dies. Sooner or later."
-
Something that these guys both WANT more than their silly eradication protocols.
A way home?
Cookies, maybe?
'We, too, have our own War in Heaven'. And the Shivans have to go back to wherever they came from to fight in it.
-
Little Gainax isn't it? :p
-
I don't want this either. A simple speech would be silly, and a single engagement wouldn't make sense if it worked. I just want what resulted from those things in B5. I want the Shivans and the Vishnans to leave us alone.
I did love the Babylon 5 speech, but in the terms of this conflict I agree it would be silly. In B5 both antagonists had plans for 'helping' the races, but in Blue Planet we are irrelevant to the Shivans or Vishnans. If we don't measure up to what they deem acceptable, we die, and they don't bat an eyelash. You can't persuade them with fiery speeches because they don't consider us worth listening to.
-
Exactly, appeals to logic, morality, and reason only work when your enemy has roughly the same social values as you do.
Conventional military victory? Not a chance.
Appeals to higher morality in an inspiring Patrick Stewart speech? Don't make me laugh.
Submission to the will of the Shivans? If Bosch is to be believed, this is the ONLY way for humanity to survive... but I doubt it.
The only other option seems to be using Casandra to find something, someway the Shivans are vulnerable, if not physically than in their motives. A bit of bacteria doesn't sound like much up against an organism like a human being, but with enough pressure in the right place... it can achieve some nasty results.
-
Exactly, appeals to logic, morality, and reason only work when your enemy has roughly the same social values as you do.
Conventional military victory? Not a chance.
Appeals to higher morality in an inspiring Patrick Stewart speech? Don't make me laugh.
Submission to the will of the Shivans? If Bosch is to be believed, this is the ONLY way for humanity to survive... but I doubt it.
The only other option seems to be using Casandra to find something, someway the Shivans are vulnerable, if not physically than in their motives. A bit of bacteria doesn't sound like much up against an organism like a human being, but with enough pressure in the right place... it can achieve some nasty results.
Almost like they did in the Independence Day? :lol:
"Lets start some assembler and make them a virus"
-
Hopefully nothing that cliche. :p But still, victory of some kind has to be possible, right?
Otherwise, rocks fall, everyone dies.
The only way I see anyone surviving the War in Heaven is to decipher and exploit Shivan/Vishnan plans. Staying defensive or reactive wont work. The judgement has been decided. The only thing left is to divert, evade, exploit, redirect, subvert.
Again, even bacteria can affect creatures far more complex and powerful than themselves.
-
Hopefully nothing that cliche. :p But still, victory of some kind has to be possible, right?
Otherwise, rocks fall, everyone dies.
The only way I see anyone surviving the War in Heaven is to decipher and exploit Shivan/Vishnan plans. Staying defensive or reactive wont work. The judgement has been decided. The only thing left is to divert, evade, exploit, redirect, subvert.
Again, even bacteria can affect creatures far more complex and powerful than themselves.
That may be true, but right now even deciphering their enigma is only a "apocalyptically remote" possibility.
-
I've been trying to collate everything we've been told about the BP-verse Shivans and the Vishnans, by the Shivans/Vishnans:
The Shivans, first off, are incomprehensibly old, first manifesting 5 billion years ago, and are implied to be somehow connected to the very fabric of reality itself.
Ken: "They were not made. They were calculated."
Shivans: "We slept beneath the waves before the first Brahman rose from the ash of the Dawn War. Before even the first stars kindled in the hearth of night. [...] Only we are eternal."
The Vishnans are more recent, some other race that has risen to, or close to, the Shivans' level. The Shivans mention watching them develop.
Shivnas: "The Brahman rose. The Brahman died. In their death we watched your making..."
The Brahmans are dead. The Shivans didn't seem to have any problem with them, maybe even approved of them.
There was something called "The Dawn War" which resulted in the birth (not death, the Shivans were kind of specific about this) of the Brahman race.
Shivans: "...the first Brahman rose from the ash of the Dawn War."
There was some kind of Apocalypse long ago. The universe survived, and the Shivans and Vishnans do not want to see it happen again. The Brahmans had created the Terminal Protocol to ensure a Second Apocalypse doesn't happen. Part of this protocol involves culling intelligent species that "fail" it. Both the Shivans and the Vishnans seem to think this Protocol is a good idea, and have been carrying out even after the Brahmans died.
The two uber-races began to differ in how they interpreted the Protocol. The Vishnans wanted to guide humanity to some unknown purpose. The Shivans thought this action undermined what they'd been doing for billenia. Hence their fight in Age of Aquarius.
Shivans: "We reject your judgment. We reject your mercy. By using them, you endanger the work of eons."
Since then, the two uber-races seem to have reversed their opinions. The Vishnans are believed to now consider humanity a failure due to the Sol War, but the Shivans now think that humanity can accomplish something that even they cannot. Something that will help avert the Second Apocalypse.
Ken: "But [the Vishnans] see the civil war as a mark of unforgivable failure. They have ordered a cull."
Ken: "The Shivans have a use for humanity. They will grant us survival...and in exchange, we will do the one thing that they cannot."
And for some reason all of this pivots on the UEF. Their Ubuntu ideology makes them unique and special in some way to both the Vishnans and Shivans.
Now here's where it gets interesting to me. The Vishnans apparently do not know about Ken, and do not know about the pact Bosch struck with the Shivans. The Shivans do not want them to find out. Perhaps that is the real reason why they were interfering in Age of Aquarius, removing the Vishnans' chosen "Wanderer" from the equation so he couldn't find out (and the Vishnans through him).
What does all this add up to? No idea. We're still missing key parts of the equation. What was the First Apocalypse? What is the Second Apocalypse? What is the nature of the potential that the uber-races see in humanity? What is the fundamental nature of the Shivans? What is Project Shambhala?
There are also some terms I do not understand. Most of the Shivan technobabble from the nodes ends up being either philosophical or medical terms (taking the metaphor that the Shivans are a "immune system" for the universe). "Noösphere" is a sphere of thought (compare "biosphere" or "atmosphere").
"Ontovoric" is not a word, insists all dictionaries I consult, though I guess it means "that which devours existence" (from "onto-" = "existence/being/is" and "-vore" = "devour"... admittedly, that's mixing Latin and Greek roots). By taking a similar approach, "panontos" (also not a word) may mean "totality of existence" ("pan-" = "everything" , "ontos" = "existence/being/is"). "Holocide" seems to mean "killing of the whole" ("holo-" = "whole" and "-cide" = "killing"... again mixing Latin and Greek). Any other/better ideas on this?
-
A good summary that covers a lot of the key points. Project Shambhala seems the biggest mystery, as it frightened one Elder enough to defect to the GTVA and sacrificed 50,000 lives to see the UEF fail. Cassandra is a reversed engineered dead Shivan, operating as a supercomputer. So what could be more horrifying than that?
Definition of Shambhala from Wikipedia:
"In Tibetan Buddhist and Indian Buddhist traditions, Shambhala (also spelled Shambala or Shamballa; Tibetan: བདེ་འབྱུང་; Wylie: bde 'byung, pron. De-jung) is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia. It is mentioned in various ancient texts, including the Kalachakra Tantra and the ancient texts of the Zhang Zhung culture which predated Tibetan Buddhism in western Tibet. The Bön scriptures speak of a closely related land called Olmolungring.
Whatever its historical basis, Shambhala gradually came to be seen as a Buddhist Pure Land, a fabulous kingdom whose reality is visionary or spiritual as much as physical or geographic. It was in this form that the Shambhala myth reached the West, where it influenced non-Buddhist as well as Buddhist spiritual seekers — and, to some extent, popular culture in general."
This is guessing here, but could Shambhala be some sort of plan to effect subspace? We know certain aspects of subspace remain unalterable, even by the Shivans.
-
I have absolutely no idea what Project Shambhala could be. Apparently the Elders and the Beis are pretty certain that if it's activated, the war is as good as won. But I don't think it's a weapon, because that goes against the Ubuntu philosophy, and the Elders are sticking pretty hard to their whole defensive war strategy.
Ken said that the project was originally conceived as a way to end the war, but is now a lot more than that. I would like to know how Ken got that information, personally. Laporte is the only person in Sol he seems to be in contact with and she knows nothing about it.
Maybe the Shivans have other pawns in Sol that have not been revealed just yet.
-
Why is there no mention of Contingency Morpheus here ? :nervous:
-
Why is there no mention of Contingency Morpheus here ? :nervous:
Um, nobody told you?
Oops...
-
Why is there no mention of Contingency Morpheus here ? :nervous:
Because it's a nightmare we don't get to wake up from.
-
I don't even want to know the Face of madness...
-
I don't even want to know the Face of madness...
I've met three of them so far. They aren't so bad...after a while you just accept them and move on.
Then, one day you wake up and look in a mirror...and there's number four.
-
Why is there no mention of Contingency Morpheus here ? :nervous:
It seems to be a bit more simple in its scope. It's the GTVA's plan to kill the Elders and mop up the UEF once and for all. At least, that's what the dialogue indicated to me. There's probably more to it than that, but it wasn't spoken of as a "fate of billions" sort of plan.
-
It's explicitly a plan to purge Vishnan-compromised elements from human civilization, right? That could get pretty dark.
-
It's explicitly a plan to purge Vishnan-compromised elements from human civilization, right? That could get pretty dark.
Following your line of logic here, are you implying that the GTVA could deem every citizen of Sol, as well as the defectors, have been shaped, molded, and influenced by the Vishnans and thus must be purged?
-
I don't think the GTVA would ever condone genocide.
-
No, but definitely the Elders and probably the higher-ups in the Ubuntu party. Plus any Vishnan elements in the rest of Terran space, of course. I expect SOC will probably be doing some very unwholesome Inquisitorial purges with minor disregard for collateral damage if MORPHEUS ever gets initiated.
-
It was my understanding that Morpheus has been initiated. They're just not able to kill off "Vishnan-influenced" people until they've won the war and secured Sol.
-
On the nature of the Shivans and Vishnans:
The Shivans have a Nagari network composed of "anima" which are some kind of gestalt mind entity. Their thought processes and interactions are computational, which makes sense given their bodies are supercomputers, and the Shivan Nagari network also makes sense given that you apparently need tons of processing power to send Nagari communication. Each anima is capable of independent thought and action, some have specific purposes. The Vishnans call these anima "chaos" and that they "malign" and "forget". My interpretation of the holocide anima is that it interprets the Terminal Protocol and more importantly the intentions behind that protocol. Those intentions might be what the Shivans refer to as the "Brahams' designs", or they might be something different, but whatever they are they're aimed at preventing a second apocalypse.
The Vishnans either are or ascended to be psychic beings that share what they call a "Summed Psyche". So basically, they are of one mind, or at least, one will. The Vishnans claim to be operating on "pure Protocol", which they have maintained all this time thanks to their immutable shared psyche. So whatever the Vishnan intentions are, and those intentions changed between AoA and WiH, they're probably in accordance with the strictest form of Protocol. The implied criticism the Shivans make is the Vishnans don't pay attention to why the Protocol exists in the first place.
-
It does make sense. The fractured mind built on consensus sees the basic intent and adjusts based on circumstance; the single mind with only one point of view becomes fixated on one interpretation.
Just a side note: but I think I should mention that the word "apocalypse" has a double meaning. We usually think "world-ending cataclysm", but the original meaning was simply "revelation". I wonder if we should be so quick as to think that the "Apocalypse" referred to by the Vishnans was a cataclysm. The Vishnans say the Terminal Protocol was "forged in the First Apocalypse". That may mean that there was a great destructive event that motivated the Brahmans to devise the Protocol, or it could also simply mean that there was an earth-shattering (metaphorically speaking) discovery made that an event was coming in the future.
-
Looking around, the trees are having epileptic fits...
"Oh brothers! Why are you so cold? You tend to the walls..."
"Our makers blundered once and unleashed the deepness that stalks the cosmos..."
Also, of you Ctrl-Shift-S all of the techroom entries, there is an entry for something called "Great Darkness."
I think that the Vishnans are using harvesting the collective psyches of the races that they have groomed and using them to shore up reality against some kind of cosmic horror. Races that are not "pure" enough cannot be used.
Races that fail to meet the criteria are culled to prevent them from accidentally opening up new holes in reality through experiments in subspace. Or something.
The Shivans have been able to hold the great darkness back, but have never been able to defeat it. Ken has convinced them that humanity might be able to do just that.
Shambala was stated to have begun as a counter to the Shivans' ability to open collapsed nodes. I get the feeling that whatever it is, it's BAD for the universe, and the elders should never be allowed to use it.
-
The Transcendant is probably just an easter egg. You only see evidence of him when you're insane, after all.
I think the real "universal truth" is that a bunch of fanboys can't give up a game from ten years ago and since BP is their greatest work yet, they felt the need to tie their past storylines into the current project.
I'm all for it. All of this "speculation" is better than not having a game at all. :)
-
Ransom is in no way involved with BP, though!
-
Looking around, the trees are having epileptic fits...
You're one to talk, when your tree is seizing as hard as anyone else's. :p
I know there's the "Great Darkness" in the models, but we really know nothing about it, except that apparently you're not supposed to look at it (I did... I ignored Ken's advice, turned around and looked at it... and nothing happened. The mission proceeded as normal).
"Oh brothers! Why are you so cold? You tend to the walls..."
"Our makers blundered once and unleashed the deepness that stalks the cosmos..."
^Where did these quotes come from? I do not remember them.
-
From the 'Ken' mission in War in Heaven Act I. A bunch of cargos will appear and that phrase will appear if you scan them.
-
*facepalm*
I totally forgot about those! I need to go back and write down all the crap there so I can puzzle over it!
-
Looking around, the trees are having epileptic fits...
You're one to talk, when your tree is seizing as hard as anyone else's. :p
I know there's the "Great Darkness" in the models, but we really know nothing about it, except that apparently you're not supposed to look at it (I did... I ignored Ken's advice, turned around and looked at it... and nothing happened. The mission proceeded as normal).
well that's odd :blah:
-
I played through it again and turned around when Ken said not too. I got the weird spaz attack and then the debriefing about limbless bodies.
I'm kind of lost, was there a deeper meaning behind the limbless body metaphor? Did an insane Laporte wake up and kill all the crew and rip their limbs off?
Was creeped out either way haha.
-
Just synthesizing some points we know:
There's a tech room entry that goes by The Vishnans - What We Know. Looks like it's written by the GTVI. In it, it states that the Vishnan Great Psyche is an entity in subspace (this is also stated in the debriefing for Act 3's Universal Truth). The tech room entry also states that subspace surrounds all universes. We know from the Ken mission that the Vishnans maintain the walls. What are walls? The thing that surrounds something else. The Vishnans therefore maintain subspace itself.
Not only do walls keep things out, they keep them in. This is supported by the entry for The Great Darkness which hypothesizes that humanity lives in a quarantine zone of some kind.
The tech room entry also states that from subspace, the Summed Psyche entity ought to be able to observe all space-time in our multiverse in some limited manner. The data packet for Shivan Origins state in Shivan mindspeak "selective pressure for resumption of panoptic function". What's a panoptic entity we're aware of? The Summed Psyche. Furthermore, panoptic can also refer to a certain design of prison or institution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon). The data packet for The Great War stated in Shivan mindspeak "retrajectorize for mass upload to safe strata", which I take to mean influence the Humans and Vasudans so they become ready to enter the Summed Psyche. The conclusion is that within our multiverse-prison the Gardeners (Shivans), by the direction of the panoptic observers (Vishnans), attempt to cultivate life capable of meeting the requirements (enlightenment) to enter the Summed Psyche. This system and the rules it follows (Protocol) was set down by the Brahams, but is now failing.
edit: OH. Just had a revelation about the "selective pressure for resumption of panoptic function". This is from the Shivan ORIGINS module, which displays their mindspeak as they entered our multiverse. We know the Shivans preceeded the Vishnans. We know the Vishnan Summed Psyche now fills a panoptic function. Maybe this shows the Vishnan origins, as a species who were cultivated by the Shivans into developing their Summed Psyche, so they could fulfill this objective.
-
Oh, just a big middle finger to Ken in this one...
Turn on Track IR, set camera to rotate 180, thrust forward, see the "darkness", fly to safety...
Suck on that...
-
You're one to talk, when your tree is seizing as hard as anyone else's. :p
I was referring to *my* trees.
-
I played through it again and turned around when Ken said not too. I got the weird spaz attack and then the debriefing about limbless bodies.
I'm kind of lost, was there a deeper meaning behind the limbless body metaphor? Did an insane Laporte wake up and kill all the crew and rip their limbs off?
Was creeped out either way haha.
I believe it's a reference to Marathon Infinity.
You're one to talk, when your tree is seizing as hard as anyone else's. :p
I was referring to *my* trees.
Ah, I see. Sometimes it's hard to tell on the Internet.
-
Or why is it that Falconer knows a lot, she taught Noemi to not look back, to never look behind you at the past. Was it all in preparation for her Nagari moment? Are Falconer, Kovacs and Vidaura also all Al-Da'wa? Is Al-Da'wa a manifestation of Cassandra, which manifests only in the minds of those it wishes, like Ken told the Shivans can do. Then Noemi was on an empty ship all along, imagining all those people, who all are Al-Da'wa. The greek myth tells that Cassandra hears the future, but is cursed that none will listen. But Noemi listens to Al-Da'wa, and people in turn are drawn to listen to Noemi.
-
Are Falconer, Kovacs and Vidaura also all Al-Da'wa?
Or different aspects of her shattered psyche?
-
I've got a few ideas about Shambala, they aren't that hard...
Capture the Carthage -> Clash of the Titans 3
(I.e. Carthage/Orion based destroyer being used to disable the Sol jump node...again...ending with Laporte screaming "AND STAY OUY!" over the intercom as she detonates a meson bomb...)
Back to the Void
(Everyone packs up on Sanctuary...again and goes back out to hide in the nebula...only to be found by a different GTVA group in alternate universe and then the story just loops from there...nice Twilight zone ending there...)
Return of the Bosch
We find out Ken is actually just using Laporte to destabalize the UTF in the last days of the war. Project Nagari is all just a big information war to tie up black ops people and keep them busy while the regular ground forces mop things up. Then the cylons show up with Guyass Baltar in season 3 and everyone is like "what the hell..."
Oh wait, I mean Bosch shows up with the Shivans, er, I mean, the Shivans show up with Bosch...or at least...what's left of him...in an urn...
And then they kill everyone.
or...
Return of the King
The elders unleash Alpha 1 in a refitted Apollo fighter. That's right...THE Alpha 1. The undisputed champion of the original great war...who...somehow was also the undisputed champion in...the second great war...
And all sides of the battle, including the Vasudans, Vishnans and even the Shivans...stop and bow to the player who's trigger is actually linked to...the power switch of the computer
-
I have a thought on Shambhala. It may well be outside the UEF's capability normally, but considering that the power players of this project have been influenced by Vishnans in the past, and they have commandeered not one but two Anemoi Logistics ships, which we've already established are capable of some pretty impressive feats of engineering, has anyone contemplated the possibility that Shambhala is intended to accelerate the Nagari process in Humanity?
It was already established that Humans are not born Nagari sensitive - it takes an outside force to create Nagari potential in a human brain. However, the UEF is in possession of at least two individuals who, by now, are aware of the Nagari phenomenon and have the best understanding of how it functions available to them. It is also implied that the Elders want the UEF to approach the Vishnan ideal - and part of that is a linking of psyches between beings, shades of which are arguably already present in Ubuntu. So, could Shambhala be an attempt to create some sort of device that would allow Nagari sensitive individuals to interact with the minds of those without sensitivity, and even induce the Nagari process in said minds?
If one wanted to get really out there, it could even be an attempt to pull all Humans in it's effective range (assuming it has one) into a primitive, rudimentary version of the Vishnan Summed Psyche - since being part of a noosphere appears to be an ideal in the Brahman Protocol. The implications of that would certainly be terrifying enough to drive a certain elder to seek out alternatives, methinks.
Just a thought. Admittedly, it's late/early here and I'm likely not thinking this through very well.
-
I've been doing some thinking about Ken and Capella.
When the Shivans refer to the Capella incident, they refer to engineering a "transabyssal gate". No real idea what that means, but then look at Ken... more specifically, where you meet Ken in the Nagari network: Capella.
When you finally reach Ken in the Nagari network, he says "Welcome to Capella", and there's a supernova going on in the background. Earlier on, Ken says "I hoard my secrets in the graves of suns."
I think whatever this "transabyssal gate" is, it's connected to Ken's creation. Ken is connected to Capella. Maybe in order to create Ken, the Shivans had to blow up a star to make a gate? The "transabyssal gate" may refer to bridging the gap between human consciousness and Shivan consciousness, which is exactly what Ken is meant to do.
In short, what if Ken is the transabyssal gate... and therefore the real reason the Shivans blew up Capella was to facilitate his creation?
-
I've been trying to collate everything we've been told about the BP-verse Shivans and the Vishnans, by the Shivans/Vishnans:
The Shivans, first off, are incomprehensibly old, first manifesting 5 billion years ago, and are implied to be somehow connected to the very fabric of reality itself.
Ken: "They were not made. They were calculated."
Shivans: "We slept beneath the waves before the first Brahman rose from the ash of the Dawn War. Before even the first stars kindled in the hearth of night. [...] Only we are eternal."
The Vishnans are more recent, some other race that has risen to, or close to, the Shivans' level. The Shivans mention watching them develop.
Shivnas: "The Brahman rose. The Brahman died. In their death we watched your making..."
The Brahmans are dead. The Shivans didn't seem to have any problem with them, maybe even approved of them.
There was something called "The Dawn War" which resulted in the birth (not death, the Shivans were kind of specific about this) of the Brahman race.
Shivans: "...the first Brahman rose from the ash of the Dawn War."
There was some kind of Apocalypse long ago. The universe survived, and the Shivans and Vishnans do not want to see it happen again. The Brahmans had created the Terminal Protocol to ensure a Second Apocalypse doesn't happen. Part of this protocol involves culling intelligent species that "fail" it. Both the Shivans and the Vishnans seem to think this Protocol is a good idea, and have been carrying out even after the Brahmans died.
The two uber-races began to differ in how they interpreted the Protocol. The Vishnans wanted to guide humanity to some unknown purpose. The Shivans thought this action undermined what they'd been doing for billenia. Hence their fight in Age of Aquarius.
Shivans: "We reject your judgment. We reject your mercy. By using them, you endanger the work of eons."
Since then, the two uber-races seem to have reversed their opinions. The Vishnans are believed to now consider humanity a failure due to the Sol War, but the Shivans now think that humanity can accomplish something that even they cannot. Something that will help avert the Second Apocalypse.
Ken: "But [the Vishnans] see the civil war as a mark of unforgivable failure. They have ordered a cull."
Ken: "The Shivans have a use for humanity. They will grant us survival...and in exchange, we will do the one thing that they cannot."
And for some reason all of this pivots on the UEF. Their Ubuntu ideology makes them unique and special in some way to both the Vishnans and Shivans.
Now here's where it gets interesting to me. The Vishnans apparently do not know about Ken, and do not know about the pact Bosch struck with the Shivans. The Shivans do not want them to find out. Perhaps that is the real reason why they were interfering in Age of Aquarius, removing the Vishnans' chosen "Wanderer" from the equation so he couldn't find out (and the Vishnans through him).
What does all this add up to? No idea. We're still missing key parts of the equation. What was the First Apocalypse? What is the Second Apocalypse? What is the nature of the potential that the uber-races see in humanity? What is the fundamental nature of the Shivans? What is Project Shambhala?
There are also some terms I do not understand. Most of the Shivan technobabble from the nodes ends up being either philosophical or medical terms (taking the metaphor that the Shivans are a "immune system" for the universe). "Noösphere" is a sphere of thought (compare "biosphere" or "atmosphere").
"Ontovoric" is not a word, insists all dictionaries I consult, though I guess it means "that which devours existence" (from "onto-" = "existence/being/is" and "-vore" = "devour"... admittedly, that's mixing Latin and Greek roots). By taking a similar approach, "panontos" (also not a word) may mean "totality of existence" ("pan-" = "everything" , "ontos" = "existence/being/is"). "Holocide" seems to mean "killing of the whole" ("holo-" = "whole" and "-cide" = "killing"... again mixing Latin and Greek). Any other/better ideas on this?
Just to clarify something. If the shivans existed before stars formed that would make them over 13 billion years old. First stars formed around 200 million years after the big bang. They also call themselves eternal, so technically they could have existed before the big bang, maybe originating from subspace and that leads to a pretty weird road when you consider that time as we know it might have started for our universe when the big bang happened but subspace might have been there for who knows how long or simply be infinite.
-
Bah Sovereign also stated that the Reapers were eternal, had no beggining and so on. Don't take bluster too seriously.
-
Just to clarify something. If the shivans existed before stars formed that would make them over 13 billion years old. First stars formed around 200 million years after the big bang. They also call themselves eternal, so technically they could have existed before the big bang, maybe originating from subspace and that leads to a pretty weird road when you consider that time as we know it might have started for our universe when the big bang happened but subspace might have been there for who knows how long or simply be infinite.
True. Which is why I used the word "manifested" instead of "appeared". My interpretation is that they only began to exist in a corporeal form 5 billion years ago, and prior to that they were some kind of theoretical or ethereal existence... assuming their talk of being eternal is in fact true.