[CP5670]

I have been thinking about what the interiors of Shivan fighters might be like. The Terran and Vasudan ships have fairly standard cockpits in them - cramped flight seats surrounded by controls and status indicators - but what do Shivan fighters have? A Shivan definitely would not fit in a standard chair, so the Shivan seating areas must be both much larger and differently shaped than the Terran ones. Assuming they even use standard flight controls and computer displays, they would have to be placed in completely different areas to be usable. Then there is the question of internal life support; do Shivans need to breathe oxygen or can they live in a vacuum? Also, do they even have transparent canopies to see outside?

The GTVA and even the player should know all the answers to these questions since they have captured and used Shivan fighters a couple of times (actually, what happened to the shivans inside them when they were taken? ). Maybe V kept this purposefully vague for future ideas...

Thoughts?

[Exarch]

Shivans do just fine in a vacuum, so no need for life support. You can find the basis for that in the freespace reference bible somewhere As for the rest... no clue, but yeah the GTVA should definitely know since they've captured fighters once in a while, at least Dragons and Maras. The Shivans inside them probably crawled out and floated away before the fighters were taken though, at least that's what I'd do if I could survive in space and knew I'd be cut up into little pieces for study if I stayed

[Stunaep]

Looking at their structure, maybe the best way for them to control a fighter would attaching their main body-thingy to a structure, and having computer consoles and throttle controls at every limb.

Now what's more interesting is, how the GTVA got the shivan ships to be actually flyable

[Bobboau]

they seem to be very advanced i don't know why they would have a realy seperate pilot for there ships, more likely there sort of growen together

[Killfrenzy]

I like the notion that all Shivan ships are creatures in their own right, hence Bob's idea that the fighters and bombers are 'grown.'

I mean, you're hinted that they're organic ships by the motion of the Sathanas' limbs in the final cutscene.

[J.F.K.]

A Shivan is so big, I don't think the whole five-legged thing could actually fit into a Manticore, for example (think of the shape, the size... there's some movie on the 'Silent Threat' CD which Eddie... errr, Setekh showed me ages ago which demonstrates this). I think they're either grown into their ships, like Bobboau said, or that the five-legged things we see are like modules that the Shivan brain core or whatever is installed into. Fighters and bombers are similarly set up - just plug in your core and get flying. Cruisers would probably have a number of these cores installed into turrets or navigation, and a few on standby for emergencies (Hall Fight).

[silverwolf]

this reminds me of my thery in the vbb: that the ships are organic like the cruisers and stuff. What we think as the shivans are anti bodys that  are put in the fighters for use of armor os lasers don't fry their hide.

(hehe some of you may have read this thery in the vbb so yes i modified it.)

[karajorma]

Originally posted by J.F.K.
A Shivan is so big, I don't think the whole five-legged thing could actually fit into a Manticore, for example (think of the shape, the size... there's some movie on the 'Silent Threat' CD which Eddie... errr, Setekh showed me ages ago which demonstrates this). I think they're either grown into their ships, like Bobboau said, or that the five-legged things we see are like modules that the Shivan brain core or whatever is installed into. Fighters and bombers are similarly set up - just plug in your core and get flying. Cruisers would probably have a number of these cores installed into turrets or navigation, and a few on standby for emergencies (Hall Fight).

From My FAQ One thing we do know from [V] is that the shivans are what we see in Hall Fight (a cutscene from FS1). They aren't wearing powersuits like the aliens in Independence Day.

It is possible that the shivans were grown into the fighters and don`t acheive full growth because of the conditions they are being grown in.

[Black Wolf]

Shivans could be selectively bred, or genetically engineered to fit into fighter cockpits.

Pilots could be a separate subspecies to the hall fight, or an entirely unique species that have conquered/ were conquered by the Shivans, and now work together for the same goals.

The shivans could fuse with their vessels durin their construction, or possibly evolve to become their vessels, so that what we see as a fighter cl;ass is more properly a separate species.

These, and the otjher theories posted above, prove only one thing - we don't know.

[size=.2](But it is fun to speculate )[/size]

[Stunaep]

I don't really think that Shivans are grown into their spaceships. Their spaceships, or at least fighters for that matter have to be... er... in lack of a better word... human enough for the GTA/GTVA to be able to put a human inside it. This would be possible if it were like a cockpit, but if the fighter acts as a sort of shell for the shivans, then I see no way how a terran pilot could control something like this.

[CP5670]

The organic fighter idea may have some merit to it, as the "normal" Shivans are probably too large to fit into the fighters; as JFK said, one of the ST movies (shiphit2 I think, the one with the shivan banging on the thoth), although it is just supposed to be a joke, shows the relative scale of the shivans.

However, it would also introduce numerous problems; namely, how did the GTVA capture these things, and how did they fit Terran pilots into them? Obviously if the ship is an organism in itself, it has no inside space for anyone nor any standard controls, and if the ship can think and operate on its own, how did they get its "brain" to give up control of the ship to the player? The first issue can be rectified with some clever engineering, but I have no idea about the second one; they would need something like Yuri from RA2 to mind control the ship.

I think it is possible that the five-legged Shivans can actually fit into the smaller fighters, but unlike the Terran and Vasudan ships, they would be taking up most of the room inside instead of the usual reactor, weapons, etc. and the entire fighter would have to be shaped to accomodate them, which seems a rather inefficient use of space.

(But it is fun to speculate )

which is the point of this thread.

[Sesquipedalian]

I haven't seen shiphit2, but in Hall Fight the Shivans are nothing even close to being as large as a house, and the fighters in FS2 are.  Shivans are big creatures, but not that big.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

The SF Dragon is actually ludicrously small. It would be hard to get a Human pilot in there, never mind a Shivan.

And don't get me started on the size of the Isis.

[CP5670]

I haven't seen shiphit2, but in Hall Fight the Shivans are nothing even close to being as large as a house, and the fighters in FS2 are. Shivans are big creatures, but not that big.

hmm, on second thought you are probably right about that; the shivans in hall fight seem to be maybe three or four meters wide/tall. I guess shiphit2 was just supposed to be a comedy (it's in the same collection as the famous headz movie), so between that and the hall fight, the latter is definitely more accurate.

The SF Dragon is actually ludicrously small. It would be hard to get a Human pilot in there, never mind a Shivan.

And don't get me started on the size of the Isis.

Actually it is still more than big enough for a human even with all the extra equipment in there; Modelview says that its maximum dimensions are 11x6x16m, but even if that is decreased a lot it would still be pretty large

The Isis can probably carry 40 or 50 guys if lots of inside space is used for crew areas, but it is still very small compared to the other ships in the game.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

40 or 50 guys? It's miniscule!

[CP5670]

It's still a good 20x10x17m, which is more than large enough if you arrange the guys inside in a way similar to that on a passenger airplane.

[Stryke 9]

I think most of y'all are forgetting that the scales in FreeSpace are friggin' huge. There are fighters and **** in there that are easily 30m.

Anyway, it seems to me from the structures of the Maras and such that the most efficient way to go about it would be to have the pilot's area extremely... form-fitting. A Shivan with its legs folded up could still fit inside a Dragon with enough room for miniaturized guns and a coupla engines, and that "head" bit on the Mara would make a lot of sense if the neck contained a long, frontal Shivan arm with some controls at the end.

[Hippo]

I was thinking similarily, a large rectangel the sise of the main body, with 5 "tunnels" that wouls have controls at the end. that way equipment could be all around the "tunnels" and it would save space.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
The SF Dragon is actually ludicrously small. It would be hard to get a Human pilot in there, never mind a Shivan.

And don't get me started on the size of the Isis.

You're trying to tell me you don't think one could fit a human being into a ship 33 feet wide, 18 feet tall, and 48 feet long?  Whatever it is you've been smoking, I suggest you stop.

[Razor]

Originally posted by Exarch
I'd be cut up into little pieces for study if I stayed

That's exactly what happened to them Or they made a mess first and then they were zapped with cannony thingy. Then they would be useless and they would be floating in space anyway.