Communication with the Shivan homeworld is probably impossible because it's so difficult to reach it that you need to do what the Shivans did to Capella.
The Lucifer was dispatched with a big fleet to destroy any race that discovers subspace in this area of the universe. It was the center of the fleet, possibly having the same role as the shivan comm nodes. The red jump point may mean that the Lucifer was the only ship capable of creating temporary jump points or using unstable jump points. And the unique impervious shield system might've been designed for a different purpose than we think.
It was probably also the same ship that destroyed the Ancients.
Firstly, we don't know whether the Shivan have, or ever had a homeworld. Or whether they can communicate with it atall, if we view their actions in Capella as trying to create a supernode to either reach a new home, or return to an old one (ala Earth being cut off, except Earth becomes the Milky Way).
The Lucifer fleet seems relatively small compared to the FS2 armada. It's impossible to gauge actual relative size, of course, as we don't know the extent of the entire Shivan fleet. IIRC an old interview with daveb (before rights became an issue) on the possibility of an FS3 mentioned the idea of ships large enough to have their own gravity well.... I'd think there's a strong chance that might be Shivan.
And yes, the Lucifer may have been the only ship capable of traversing unstable nodes, albeit that does raise an issue of where exactly the rest of the fleet came from (flooding into unconnected - via stable nodes - systems), unless the Lucifer had a generational node. The shield also is quite likely to have some other role, perhaps involved in subspace traversal, although that's obviously a guessing point.
I think it's worth noting, though, that the ancients monologues imply multiple lucifer class destroyers. I think the script mentions something like 'we can hurt their key ships, but do not have the means'; the emphasis being ships
plural. One issue is that the Lucifer destroying the Ancients would imply 8000 years of technical stagnation, at least in terms of that FS1 fleet, and then suddenly having 80 Sathani with beam and flak weapons pop up in 60 years or so.
Nodes collapse and form on their own, naturally. Supernovas happen.
But it is predictable; that's how nodes are marked as stable for travel. Supernova are also predictable, and AFAIK pretty rare. Plus IIRC Sol is not the type of star that can supernova. And it'd still be a massive coincidence - a node is destroyed and communications lost with your flagship, and you just assume that means you've won the war? (!)
So when do you think Vasudans developed space travel? in the 24th century? That contradicts this canonical statement.
No, they developed it much earlier. BUT they knew of the Ancients' fate and feared it. They expanded only to the nearby systems. They never developed advanced technology, as they were afraid of the Shivans. However, in the many years, they slowly forgot the warnings, and by the time humanity discovered subspace, the Vasudans began expanding as well.
Once the Ancients were defeated, the Lucifer returned to it's duties elsewhere. Or perhaps it was capable of returning to the Shivan homeworld without the need for a nova.*
Firstly, the Vasudans certainly knew of the Ancients (although I'd wager - as the Ancients
subjugated species - they were being used as slaves as much as being helped), and their legends, mythology, etc includes the concept of the Shivans. but it's also worth noting that the mythology was very old and 'garbled'; to me this would imply they did not have accurate record-keeping technology at that point in time when the Ancients were destroyed, or that they had undergone a technological regression. It's important, I think, that the legend of the Great destroyers was a seemingly obscure cult during the TV war.
Also, with reference to supporting the Vasudans on V.Prime; there are several meanings that can be drawn from this. Obviously, there's the ancient refugees / ancient assistance (or scavenging ancient technology) side of things. Or there's also the possibility that 'prematurely' means with respect to their technological and societal evolution, i.e. that they reached space at an earlier time than humanity did. But if the Vasudans were scared of the Shivans, why did they allow the war rather than arrange peace? Why would they spread atall?
However the Vasudans provided some minimal subspace traffic that did not offend the Shivans. Also, what happened to the many races subdued by the Ancients? When the ancients left for their homeworld, abandoning their empire, they probably left them there. The rest of their story would then be the same as the Vasudans'. Except the Terrans never met them. This suggests that the Ancients' empire must've been much larger. Some of those freed races may've even been exterminated by the Shivans sometime between 8000 years ago and 2335, while others are still far away or separated from the GTVA by unstable nodes.
And we retreated to our home system. Abandoned our empire. We believed at home we would be safe. For they are not a terrestrial species.
We know when we entered subspace we were trespassers. But our planet is our home. And yet still they came. And our world is gone.
The Ancients empire is already known to be far larger than the GTVA, even discounting the somewhat ambigious references to colonising 'other galaxies' in the monolgues.
Maybe it was not. Maybe the Vasudans are in fact Ancients. The survivors of a crashed ship perhaps, or refugees? And the whole thing about the Ancients visiting them is just something they lied to themselves and to their children because they wanted to forget they are in fact the Ancients.
Again, this is a widely conceived idea - IIRC it was used for OTT. But there are several problems IMO; firstly why would refugees want to abandon their culture? Who they are? Also, IIRC Vasudan mythology also referred to a sudden/abrupt departure of the Ancients, more consistent with an evacuation than an arrival and blending. Importantly, would Ancients be all that adapted to survive upon Vasuda Prime; because the Vasudans are well evolved for that environment - this would mean either the Ancients engineered themselves to survive there (the time issues could be a problem in terms of sudden refugee evacuation), or the Ancients evolved on a similar planet (which just re-raises the issues of how intelligent life could have evolved in that type of environment).
It's possible, but I'm not sure whether it's plausible or not.
So we assume that the Lucifer couldn't communicate with the homeworld.
No, we can't make that assumption. We can't even assume that they have a homeworld, for one thing. Or that the ships seen in FS2 weren't actually reinforcements in response to a distress signal - for all we know the Shivans have a different concept of relative time.
The Shivans at home don't know where the Terran homeworld is.
See above, albeit with the caveat we don't know if they ever knew where Sol was.
They cannot know for certain that the destruction of the three nodes is connected to the actions of their fleet (maybe they think it's a nova, but then again that would mean the gravity of the sun changes radically, which the Shivans can probably detect from subspace). The amount of subspace traffic reduces. Refugees make one trip, and the fleet of both races is much smaller than before the war.
Firstly, the co-ordination of
80 Sathani kind of implies some planning, and thus knowledge of what was happening. Also, the simple fact they travelled to Capella would require some sort of co-ordination; regardless of Shivan hierarchy (hive mind, groupmind, individuals, etc), those ships have to come from somewhere.
It's also assumptative to assume subspace traffic decreases with a massive depopulation. IMO it's equally as likely it would actually increase with millions of people trying to reach resettlement camps. Also, although the fleet is decreased, that would also have a knock on effect of longer patrols, more need to move the ships around to cover any defensive gaps (the Shivans ability to jump into seemingly any system in FS1 means you can't just leave systems unprotected).
We would expect that much more combat occurs in subspace with the new tracking technology. However we did not see any subspace combat in FS2 and Silent Threat (IIRC, that game was so bad I forgot most of it). The first time I saw that happen after FS1 was in Derelict. So this seems to be unfounded. Maybe it's not that easy to do as we think (you have to jump quickly after the ship you are attacking).
It's simply too dangerous; it's only of value against shielded capships, and there aren't many of those, plus there is the risk of collapse (Also referenced in the FSRef bible, IIRC in the subtext before the arc where you recover the tracking technology. I would expect
less combat in subspace, not more; especially with more heavy damage weapons such as beams allowing for more damaging blockades (and negating shields).
They didn't lose contact according to the manifesto, they never had it.
According to the manifesto. Which is largely evidenceless.
*But this still brings up the question why the Shivans sent no reinforcements. The Lucifer's mission was obviously a failure (even though Earth was sealed off (which is almost like bombarding it), the rest of the GTA/PVN provided lots of subspace traffic). And the Shivans would be extremely angry (or the equivalent shivan reaction) that a primitive race like the terrans discovered a way to hurt their superdestroyers, and would immediately send reinforcements to wipe them out and prevent any other races from obtaining this knowledge. Altough the only ship capable of contacting the Shivan homeworld was destroyed, the Shivans would've expected the Lucifer to resupply, and they probably detected the explosion and deduced from the two that the Lucifer must've been destroyed.
Of course. Assuming the FS2 fleet wasn't the reinforcements, and the FS1 fleet was actually an attack rather than recon or scout fleet. Albeit we don't know how valuable the Lucifer was to the Shivans, given the relative antiquity (to FS2 Shivan tech and in size) of it's supporting fleet.
a) Why would they be interlinked??? Suppose the ancients closed down portal 45 (portal 1 being the one closest to their home, the one in G Drac)
Then the shivans circumvented it. Then the ancients closed down portal 30, then 22 etc. In the end they closed portal 1. When they open portal 1, do they also want portal 22, 30 and 45 to open, allowing the Shivans direct access to their space???
b) possible, if you are reffering to the second and third Knossos. But the portals were spinning, which suggests they were active. It's not that important wether the other portals were active or not, though I like to think they were simply because of the spinning.
I assume a standard shutdown is not like a sudden destruction of the portal. I've used a real life example before: The rotors of a helicopter keep rotating even after the engine has been shut down. If you turn the engine into reverse for a few seconds, It'll stop the rotors. You can also lock the roitors in place to prevent them from rotating. This is a bit far from subspace physics, but it's similar. I think the Knossos has the ability to LOCK nodes, preventing their natural restabilization. This is probably a retrofit, designed after the Shivans attacked.
a)Why not? The Ancients didn't build the Knossos gates to meet the Shivans, after all, so that tactical part of it wouldn't have been so much of an issue. Especially as the Ancients were somewhat arrogant. Perhaps it was advantageous for the Ancients to be able to suddenly close down a large portion of space. Perhaps the portals were designed to be able to wake other portals upon reactivation, and Bosch used this. Because there are several unknowns here; principally whether the other knossos' were active and, if not, how they were activated. An effective system reboot might have been part of the design, or perhaps the gates were intended to be always on and the network was simply 'password protected'.
Worth noting we don't know that portal '1', i.e. GD, is actually closest to the Ancients homeworld, though. quite possible there are more undiscovered portals lying about.
b)The portal being active doesn't mean that a) it always was or b)the node is unstable otherwise. As for the Knossos locking nodes; it's an idea I personally like, but it's possibly telling that it was never even mentioned as possible in the various briefs on the Knossos in GD. In terms of restabilisation, AFAIK the restabilising of the GD node was always attibuted to the use of the Knossos, not it's destruction.
The Shivans don't know how many resources we have. The GTVA was not reluctant to deploy the vessel beforehand. IMHO they did it in the right time: the Shivans didn't expect that kind of resistance when the first Sathanas entered Capella. They probably knew the Sathanas was weaker than the Colossus (or they found out in Their Finest Hour).
The GTVA described the deployment of the Colossus as a last resort tactic in the briefs. You can view the loss of the Sathanas as a defeat, but in the other hand, they loss less than 1/81th of their operational fleet, succeeded in inflicting heavy damage on a large number of GTVA vessels (blockades, etc), drove deep into enemy territory (into Capella, IIRC), discovered the GTVAs strongest weapon (and learnt of RBCs), and the tactics likely to be used against a Sathanas class vessel. If you remove the loss of the juggernaut - which may or may not have been all that important to the Shivans, we can't tell - then it would have been a pretty good combat recon mission.
Relative technology and ship numbers, not to mention the likes of Bosch, data gathered (possibly) from the computers of the Iceni, and any received Great-War intel would surely give a good idea of the GTVA strength and resources.
I'm not going to argue about the retreating part though. I think the shivan comm nodes might have something to do with this, then again, that brings up other problems (why were they placed in only one system, right beside a jump point to hostile teritory if they were so important).
Frontline logistics? Comms relay stations?
The system they were in wasn't all that insecure, though. It was (seemingly) a staging post for a mass of ships, as the GTVA was retreating on all fronts. Let's not forget the SOC mission was an act of sheer and utter lunacy, after all.
They (the humans) didn't fire first in space. The Shivans attacked first.
I've read the ref bible tho, and it says the Shivans stop to investigate, then the human fires. Still, I'm pretty sure the Shivans would've attacked. Did they wait for humans to fire first when they attacked the very first Terran ship?
We don't actually know. AFAIK it's suggested the GTI actually had first contact in Silent Threat, but it's never made clear what the first incident was. All the debriefs mention is a series of incidents.
I'm not saying that subspace damage should have anything to do with the ending. Freespace does have a tendency for phyrric victories, but I believe the ending for the entire story should've been a happy end. Everyone wants to see the humans finally winning, another phyrric victory would be too disappointing and would spoil the end for most gamers ("What, I completed the game to see Earth toasted?? This game sux"). Humanity surviving in the FS1/2 form is not an ending. It means that the Shivans will return. Something we do not want to happen.
Why would a phyrric ending necessarily involve Earth being destroyed? Perhaps it would require earth being left isolated to protect it. Perhaps Earth would emerge the only survivors. Maybe the Shivans and/or Bosch would turn out to be the 'good guys' of a sort, and be annihilated. Maybe humanity would defeat the Shivans, only to find they had been 'protecting' them from some far greater threat, etc. IMO one of the key themes of FS has been sacrifice, after all. Sacrifice of Sol to save it from the Lucifer (unintentional as it may be), the sacrifice of the Colossus, etc.
If it's really just a piece of software, why couldn't he have one copy on the Trinity?
Because he didn't trust or want them to make first contact? Because the Trinity didn't know his plan to contact the Shivans? Plenty of reasons.
You're contradicting your own statements (Hallfight)
That's because I'm pointing out inconsistencies in theories deriven from fan-stories like the Shivan Manifesto, not what my own storyline would be (or is). I think you're also misunderstanding what I mean, too; that the Shivans can have an overreaching goal that doesn't really care about humanity, etc, but still also have an instinctual urge to attack non-Shivans.
Who said anything about taking all of the crew? And why wouldn't Bosch tell his crew "The Shivans are about to board the ship, please don't fire at them." or something?
Bosch was scuttling the ship - I don't think 2 transports are large enough for the crew of a corvette, myself, although I guess I could be wrong. If Bosch was going to abandon the ship and set the self-destruct without taking his entire crew with him, though, then I doubt that crew would be very co-operative. Perhaps they attacked the Shivans when Bosch set the self-destruct, to try and recover him and thus his access codes. It's also possible someone screwed up. Or that the Shivans came in firing- I wouldn't put it beyond them to lie, after all.
(Boschs' monologue mentions the crew leaving with him; this is unclear in itself to me - does he mean the loyal officers or the whole crew? Could you fit the xx thousand people on the Iceni onto Shivan transports? When did Bosch set the self destruct? Did the crew expect to leave - and if so, were they spread across several decks rather than mustered as it would seem?)
Whatever the Shivans did, they proceeded across several decks fighting with the crew. Why this happened would be somewhat unclear - to get key NTF personnel from the bowels of the ship? To kill everyone there who was a witness (why, when they could just destroy the ship)? To recover ETAK and Ancients technology?
