Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: FlamingCobra on June 11, 2011, 06:59:20 pm
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It is suspected that the Vasudans may have actually been visited long ago in their past by another race, simply called 'the Ancients'. Not much is known about this race, but from archaeological digs, it seems that they originated from a system nearby to Vasuda Prime. Since it is unlikely that Vasuda Prime could have sustained a primitive race for long enough to develop space travel, it is not unfeasible that 'the Ancients' may have helped Vasudan culture develop enough to allow them to survive.[1]
Facts:
- The Ancient homeworld is described as being "near to Vasuda".
- Vasuda has either three or four jump nodes. We know Antares is one of them.[2]
- In the cutscene immediately preceding Mission 5, Act 1 (Out of the Dark, Into the Night), we get our first Ancient monologue. Accompanying this wonderful monologue is a view of a big planet.
- The background for the "Out of the Dark, Into the Night" mission includes a planet that looks almost exactly like the one in the aforementioned cutscene. I can provide pictures if anybody wants proof.
Conclusion: The Ancients originated in Antares.
That is all. Discuss.
- FreeSpace Reference Bible
- http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Vasuda#Jump_Nodes (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Vasuda#Jump_Nodes) & http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Antares#Jump_Nodes (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Antares#Jump_Nodes)
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Huh, that's a pretty cool story.
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Nearby could mean one jump, it could mean two or three (or maybe more, off of known GTVA space). I donno how much significance the backgrounds of the ancient custcenes have, they might just be showing random places, pretty much.
That's not enough information to draw any conclusions IMO. Certainly, it's a possibility.
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I think that somewhere on the Altair side of GTVA space is far more likely. The odds of finding no remnants of the Ancients in Antares if it was their home world seems pretty low. Keep in mind that jump nodes collapse, so near Vasuda at the time of the ancients could be beyond gamma draconis for all we know. But remains were found in Altair, and some in Deneb as well, which is near Altair. That area seems like a better guess imo.
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The Ancient homeworld is described as being "near to Vasuda".
What is "near"? One jump? Three jumps? On the galactic node network even Dubhe must be quite near to Gamma Draconis. Really, "near" doesn't say much.
Vasuda has either three or four jump nodes. We know Antares is one of them.[2]
But jump nodes can shift over time, they open and close. Eight thousand years ago, the nodemap might have looked wholly different. See the subspace tech description: "Other nodes have a longer lifespan, existing for centuries or millennia before collapsing."
In the cutscene immediately preceding Mission 5, Act 1 (Out of the Dark, Into the Night), we get our first Ancient monologue. Accompanying this wonderful monologue is a view of a big planet.
Like Droid said, they might just be showing random spacescapes.
The background for the "Out of the Dark, Into the Night" mission includes a planet that looks almost exactly like the one in the aforementioned cutscene. I can provide pictures if anybody wants proof.
Umm, the one in the cutscene clearly is a habitable planet, while the one in "Out of the Dark, Into the Night" is a Neptune-like gas giant. They don't look even remotely alike. In addition, the background in FSPort was made by community members, not by :v:
Personally, I think that the Ancient home system has not yet been discovered by the GTVA - given their level of civilization, it must be full of ruins etc. and would have been quite the archaeological discovery.
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Personally, I think that the Ancient home system has not yet been discovered by the GTVA - given their level of civilization, it must be full of ruins etc. and would have been quite the archaeological discovery.
If their home planet was destroyed like Vasuda Prime, would planet-side ruins exist?
Edit: Going off the Official Volition Node Map, I would say that the Ancient home system is currently not connected directly to any known GTVA system, or has not been discovered yet.
I would also describe near, as being between 1 and 3 jumps, at most. Again, based of the Node Map.
Conclusion: The Ancients originated in Antares.
A good conclusion from the evidence provided. But in my own opinion, unlikely.
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- The background for the "Out of the Dark, Into the Night" mission includes a planet that looks almost exactly like the one in the aforementioned cutscene. I can provide pictures if anybody wants proof.
That was non-canon and added by the FSPort. The original FS1 had no planets in that mission (or any planets at all for that matter).
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Keep in mind that jump nodes collapse, so near Vasuda at the time of the ancients could be beyond gamma draconis for all we know.
I think it highly unlikely that any of the Ancients' core space would exist beyond Gamma Draconis. This is based on the fact that the Knossos devices are placed on the nearside of the nodes to the Nebula, then to the Binary system, and beyond. They would have had to have created them on the same side of the nodes that they started from.
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- The background for the "Out of the Dark, Into the Night" mission includes a planet that looks almost exactly like the one in the aforementioned cutscene. I can provide pictures if anybody wants proof.
That was non-canon and added by the FSPort. The original FS1 had no planets in that mission (or any planets at all for that matter).
Oh goddamnit.
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- The background for the "Out of the Dark, Into the Night" mission includes a planet that looks almost exactly like the one in the aforementioned cutscene. I can provide pictures if anybody wants proof.
That was non-canon and added by the FSPort. The original FS1 had no planets in that mission (or any planets at all for that matter).
Excuse you? What do you call this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/File:Antares_BG_Planet.png)? It is in original campaign. I don't have the port. Go check and see for yourself.
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Ah. That's really interesting. You must be playing a different version, like the OEM demo (Darkness Rising, which contained the first act only) or some special DVD release. Some alternative releases actually did have planet bitmaps as well as other things like afterburner trails that didn't make it into the retail version.
I can assure you that the retail version most people got did not have any planet bitmaps. Whether or not they can be considered to be canon considering they weren't in the final release is something for consideration, I guess.
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Mine is on a DVD, but I do not have afterburner trails.
So, what does that mean?
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Well there you go.
While we're on the subject, I think they were probably removed because when they overlapped with nebulae they had black boxes around them (in the OEM version they did anyway).
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This is true.
They look pasted on there. But like I said in my reply to the Stars and Planets talk page, I got mine as part of a bundled software package a loooong time ago.
but OEM is not to be found anywhere on the disc. However, one area on the disc does say:
"Bundled Software"
"NOT TO BE SOLD SEPARATELY FROM APPROVED PRODUCT. SEPARATE SALE IS A VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT LAWS".
Other than that, it's got the freespace logo, volition logo, noiz audio logo, interplay logo, dvd rom logo, and copyright mumbo jumbo. and a spacy looking background on one half.
Menu also says v1.06 (Pentium III)
So now the real question is: "Is it canon?"
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I think they could be considered pseudo-canon at best. If we were to add them to the Wiki, try should probably be accompanied by an explanatory note. But I'd completely forgotten about those old bitmaps. I also got an old non-retail version of the game (the OEM version) which had, among other things, those cool afterburner trails.
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After 8000 years, nothing would ramain at all....NOTHING...
Well, expect maybe some stone structures/statues...ironicly, the stone is still the most durable construction amterial we know.
It's kinda ironic to think that if we were gone tomorrow, after a few hunderd years all of our skyscrapers and bridges would be dust, but the pyramids and hte Colooseum would still probably stand :P
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Yeah, because the Ancients didn't have access to any building materials superior to stone. It are fact.
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Actually... I wonder about that. 8000 years... certain types of concrete might last that, depending on the environment (erosion regime, for he most part). Hardened, buried structures like subsurface bunkers and whatnot should, theoretically at least, survive in part, because they're underground (i.e. minimal destructive forces, although they might theoretically corrode due to groundwater/humic acid, and fill up... although not neccesarily, there are lots of subsurface cavities that don't fill up.
Thick beams of materials like aluminium might survive, given the oxide coating, although again, environmental factors play a part. Then there's stuff like the non-biodegradeable plastics - not building materials, I guess, but they'd exist as evidence of our society...
Remember, even relatively delicate structures like papyrus have survived from Ancient Egypt, and a lot of good archaeological information comes out of places like Catal Huyuk (sp.?). I suspect that the Ancient homeworld could yet yield up some cool information, and potentially technology, but since nobody's ever excavated a technological society, there's really no way to know.
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Factor in the fact that there is no way the Shivans couldn't have hit every single space borne station/habitat. There's got to be something still plugging around in the outer reaches of systems where no one ever goes.
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Yes. Such as the Knossos.
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Shivans seems to have spared Knossoses (sp) on purpose. You never see them attacking those, and they even have one active in one of their systems (the binary beyond the nebula).
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Shivans seems to have spared Knossoses (sp) on purpose. You never see them attacking those, and they even have one active in one of their systems (the binary beyond the nebula).
Yeah agreed, which is why i didn't mention the knossos in my original post, they are of special significance. But I still find it unlikely that they would have wiped out every single possible piece of space borne infrastructure. I don't think the GTVA has found the home system, or even really the deep core systems of the Ancient's empire yet
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Yes. I agree. I don't really think Antares being the home world of the Ancients has a lot going for it.
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Well. Planet of origin and galactic seat of power aren't always the same.
cough gtva cough cough.
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There would be at least one surviving piece of pottery on Antares if it was their home world, no? There was nothing on Antares, at all.
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Don't forget that in several of the FS1 Ancients Monologues, they explain that upon discovering subspace technology, they discovered countless other races and systems. Provided how spread out (reasonably) sentient live would seem to be, we would assume that the Ancients traveled across distances much more expanse than the current starmap. Suggesting that Antares was the epicenter of their empire, I feel like there would be considerable more ruins throughout known systems.
As already mentioned, considering the higher amount of ruins in Altair, it should be considered that this region of space was probably closer to their epicenter, if indeed their empire still had an epicenter at all. Considering their technological skills such as creating and stabilizing jump nodes, they could have "opened up shop" literally anywhere.
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Don't forget that in several of the FS1 Ancients Monologues, they explain that upon discovering subspace technology, they discovered countless other races and systems. Provided how spread out (reasonably) sentient live would seem to be, we would assume that the Ancients traveled across distances much more expanse than the current starmap. Suggesting that Antares was the epicenter of their empire, I feel like there would be considerable more ruins throughout known systems.
Uh, if I remember right,it was stated that they colonised the planets in their systems. Then they discovered subspace. Then they began to conquer other systems and discovered other species.
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The point that they probably had a much larger empire than the extent of GTVA space still stands.
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Good point. Which means that their empire probably started somewhere else in the galaxy? Or is it possible that since the position of stars shift over time, parts of their empire are scattered all over the place through out the galaxy?
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The relative proximity of stars in space has no bloody influence in the matter. We don't go from star system from star system "on foot". Only the jump node network matters.
However, it is absolutely possible that jump nodes naturally form and collapse and hence the node network might have been completely different during the Ancient Empire than nowadays.
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Don't forget that in several of the FS1 Ancients Monologues, they explain that upon discovering subspace technology, they discovered countless other races and systems. Provided how spread out (reasonably) sentient live would seem to be, we would assume that the Ancients traveled across distances much more expanse than the current starmap. Suggesting that Antares was the epicenter of their empire, I feel like there would be considerable more ruins throughout known systems.
Uh, if I remember right,it was stated that they colonised the planets in their systems. Then they discovered subspace. Then they began to conquer other systems and discovered other species.
It said 'and we traveled faster and farther, spreading in our galaxy. And before long, we could see the day where our reachable systems would have been exploited, and then, there would be no where else to go. And we discovered subspace, it gave us our galaxy, and it gave us the universe..'
They went beyond their home system, just as we might be able to colonize say Alpha Centauri (if it had habitable planets) as it's just over four light years away from Sol. That's a manageable distance to colonize assuming you could reach velocities comparable to light.
Subspace just let them go to other systems even faster
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But the Shivans may also have known about the Knossos all along and just wanted to keep it intact for their own reasons.
Nevertheless, Drogoth is right. The Ancients were spread far and wide throughout the galaxy, and they could have undiscovered relics everywhere. Who knows what other technology they might have had that the GTVA would find useful. The only problem is the GTVA is unlikely to put forth that much effort into discovering this technology. The Knossos was discovered by chance.
Also, someone said that the positions of star systems has nothing to do with the node network. Now why is that?
Don't star systems form nodes to nearby gravitational bodies, which would mean only nearby star systems? If that were so, as the positions of star systems change over time, nodes would collapse when stars got too far away and others would form to closer stars. Thus, the network would change over time.
Which throws my hypothesis for the Ancient homeworld out the window.
EDIT: Aw crap everything I said has already been said. :banghead:
EDIT: Well we know the Ancient homeworld was "close" to vasuda and we also know that the position of stars changes over time, so all one would have to do is make a model of the Milky Way and see where Vasuda was 8000 years ago.
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A good point has been made here though. We do know that at least some ancients were in GTVA space before they moved out through Gamma Draconis
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A good point has been made here though. We do know that at least some ancients were in GTVA space before they moved out through Gamma Draconis
Now that you said that, a new theory hit me. Maybe they moved IN through Gamma Drac? (perhaps they had discovered the system long ago, but never colonized? Built the Knossos to sustain the node even if it should one day collapse..?) Perhaps they were fleeing the Shivans out through Gamma Drac, set up some quiet colonies in the Altair/Deneb area hoping that they had evaded detection, encountering the Vasudans along the way?
That would seem to make sense judging by the severe lack of Ancients technology floating around GTVA systems, and the small numbers of ruins would be consistent with new colonies rather then established words. Also, you'd think there'd be Shivan wreckage floating around during the T-V war if the GTVA had been around established ancient worlds, but the GTA and PVE find ZERO evidence of the Shivans during the 14 year war, and as of yet, still haven't found any. I'm wondering if that's maybe because the Lucifer Fleet found the ancients little colonies, wiped them out, and then continued roaming the galaxy looking for more escaped ancients?
That would help to explain why there were no evidence of Shivans in GTVA space - they never had to fight sustained campaigns there. And then the Lucifer Fleet maybe cycled back around, discovering the Terrans and Vasudans?
I have a weird memory of someone from :v: saying that they had considered including the ancients as a playable race in the third if they had actually made it, am I right or just completely and totally out to lunch? If so, that might be consistent with the ancients having far flung 'evacuee' colonies
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Well, the GTI knew about the Shivans early, as did McCarthy - there's just never been outright confirmation of how early they knew - conceivably they had revovered some 8000 year old Shivan stuff during the TV War.
FlamingCobra: Remember that astronomical proximity doesn't seem to matter when it comes to forming the subspace network, so stellar drift shouldn't matter. Subspace moves aroud a lot too - Even stable subspace nodes (the ones on the nodemap) will collapse over a long (but never specified) timeframe. The subspace map could have looked very different in 5600 BC. An additonal problem with the stellar drift idea is that Vasuda isn't a modern star name, and we have no idea which star it is.
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Silent Threat suggests that they were aware earlier than the war began, possibly even talking to Shivans before then; the Hades incorporates a large variety of Shivan systems and even appears to have some Shivan pilots aboard.
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and even appears to have some Shivan pilots aboard.
le wat?
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le wat?
It launched Seraphim. Which performed entirely as Seraphim should, rather unlike the Dragon in Playing Judas. The time difference isn't that large; some kind of performance hit should have been in evidence still if they'd been chopjobbed like the Dragon.
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Not that you could tell, with how **** the Seraphim handles.
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It launched Seraphim.
Wait, when was this?
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Wait, when was this?
In the last mission of Silent Threat after the Orff arrived.
The actual Silent Threat, that this, not ST:R, so it's canonical. One wing of Seraphim.
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That'll teach me to `+k it................
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The actual Silent Threat, that this, not ST:R, so it's canonical. One wing of Seraphim.
Never noticed this.
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Wait, when was this?
In the last mission of Silent Threat after the Orff arrived.
The actual Silent Threat, that this, not ST:R, so it's canonical. One wing of Seraphim.
I remember seeing that wing launch and thinking 'DAMN it is this thing gonna throw endless dragon waves at me as well?' and then it was just Loki's haha
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The actual Silent Threat, that this, not ST:R, so it's canonical. One wing of Seraphim.
Never noticed this.
Could have been a goof. What else did it launch?
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It probably was a goof.. but that's besides the point. It's still canon.
However, (I don't remember how the argument got to this point) I would guess that they had Terran pilots flying them, not Shivans.
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Actually, in my Silent Threat disk it had launched Zeus bombers instead of Seraphim...
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eh? perhaps this warrants further investigation.
Go find your ST discs, pop em in and open that mission. Let's see just how many Seraphim reports we have.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLDv-fUINM&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLDv-fUINM&feature=related) This.
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riiiiiiight.... now what were we talking about? oh right the shivins.
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eh? perhaps this warrants further investigation.
Go find your ST discs, pop em in and open that mission. Let's see just how many Seraphim reports we have.
Alright It may be a while, because I'll have to see if my dad has the copy at his house, because one of his dogs ate the original CD years ago.
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Could have been a goof. What else did it launch?
Endless streams of Lokis. I was pretty confused.
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Endless streams of Lokis. I was pretty confused.
So maybe it's more reasonable that if we're going to assume it's canon, then it would be more feasible that they were ships reverse-engineered for Terran use. It would fit with the rest of the Hades' Shivan-Terran tech mix. That is, providing we determine that it DOES actually drop Seraph's.
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Nobody wants to open up their copy of ST to confirm/deny, do they?
The missions aren't even written up on the wiki, which is actually sort of hilarious.
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They don't seem to be present in mdmm-12 and stmm-12 from my Silent Threat disk. Granted I only opened them up in Notepad++, but seraching for "SB" or "Seraphim" turns up nothing for me.
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I'll verify after I get out of work on original retail if no one has by then.
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I was going to check myself, but I apparently don't currently have Silent Threat installed on my retail FS install. Now I'm wondering why I didn't bother installing it when I took the time to install FS. :p
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I checked my install (1.06) and see no Seraphims in that mission file, nor do I remember ever seeing any in the game. There is a single wave of Zeus bombers though. Maybe it was changed in the patches, which did some other things with that mission like removing the new music. The ST CD had version 1.04 originally.
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Interesting. I actually have my original CD, time to find it.
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I remember seeing that wing launch and thinking 'DAMN it is this thing gonna throw endless dragon waves at me as well?' and then it was just Loki's haha
If I recall correctly, aren't Lokis about as annoying and dangerous as Dragons? Or are the Dragons still much harder to hit?
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I remember seeing that wing launch and thinking 'DAMN it is this thing gonna throw endless dragon waves at me as well?' and then it was just Loki's haha
If I recall correctly, aren't Lokis about as annoying and dangerous as Dragons? Or are the Dragons still much harder to hit?
I dunno, I always had a harder time dealing with Dragons then Lokis
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FlamingCobra: Remember that astronomical proximity doesn't seem to matter when it comes to forming the subspace network, so stellar drift shouldn't matter. Subspace moves aroud a lot too - Even stable subspace nodes (the ones on the nodemap) will collapse over a long (but never specified) timeframe. The subspace map could have looked very different in 5600 BC. An additonal problem with the stellar drift idea is that Vasuda isn't a modern star name, and we have no idea which star it is.
Can you tell me where you got this from?
It might be Beta Hydri.
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An unstable jump node like the one between Gamma Draconis and the nebula after the destruction of the Knossos is said to likely collapse in a few centuries. Stable jump nodes can probably last thousands of years. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant part of the nodes we have today were already up at the time of the Ancients.