[tEAbAG]

Originally posted by Liberator


When Vasudans act it is deliberate and as a race.  

 

What about the HOL?  Or the vasudan Adm. (can't remember name) that disobeyed orders and impulsively attacked the Iceni conyoy?


NOTHING STOPS THE SHIVANS!!!

[CP5670]

I'm not too sure about some of the remarks about Vasudan politics. This is some more stuff from the reference bible:

They were similar to humans in many ways. Unfortunately, those similarities included irrational fear, and the willingness to sacrifice lives over politics.

That would seem to suggest that they had some of the same sort of political history as terrans.

[Liberator]

I mean generally.

Vasudans IMO tend to think things over longer than Terrans.

I think the Vasudans bow before a powerful leader faster and more completely than Terrans.  The HOL and the Admiral What'shisface incident are examples of this.  The HOL really couldn't have happened with Terrans.

Before you bring up the NTF, Bosch preyed on the general distrust of Command among the ranks and the personal loyalty he had built up over the course of his command.  He had obviously been planning the rebellion for some time and had operatives in key positions before he acted.  

The HOL on the other hand was religious cult that folded back into general Vasudan society after the leader(s) were dealt with.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Liberator
Granted the thought of them have subspace 8000 years in the past is ludicrous.  That figure is taken from the age of the Knossos.  But we don't have accurate historical records much before 2500 years ago, with only the Bible and a few other texts describing events from those times.  We have little or no idea what happened civilization-wise past about 7500 years ago.  We have the Atlantis stories which have led some archaeological theorists to put forward the idea that maybe we're(America and the rest of Western Civilizaton) not the first technological civilization to inhabit the Earth.

I really think you should go back and study your ancient history. First off all, we have written records from civilizations like Sumer, Babylon and Egypt (All those pretty pictures on the walls... not just decorations you know), all civilizations thousands of years old. And these are not so revised and blantantly religiously or politically coloured as the Bible.

Secondly, Atlantis is almost entirely a myth, and something that is sadly perpetuated and enhanced upon by modern filmmakers and writers. Atlantiswas almost certainly based on the Isle of Thira, which was almost entirely destroyed by a Volcanic explosion about 3500 years ago (much less than your 7500 figure). In the sixties, there were some digs in the area that uncovered evidence of a rich and powerfuil civilization similar to what Plato described. However, neither Plato nor the archaeologists on Thira ever suggested a civilization that could truly equal (or even com particularly close to equalling) what we have today.

Note also that the reason we don;t have much information about civilizations before 5500 BC is because there effectively weren't any civilizations before then that left written records, because writing hadn't yet been invented. In addition, civilization as we know it didn't exist until about 10000 years ago with Catal Huyuk (which kept no written records, obviously).

Oh, and err - Bosch was preying more on old racial hatreds and Terran jealousy about the Vasudans rapid recovery from the Great War - personal Loyalties would only have existed in his own Fleet. Though yes, he had been planning the rebellion for a long time - his final entry and the ETAK command briefing seem to make that clear.

[Xelion]

BTW Thanks to everyone who has posted in this topic, some of my previous speculation is now revised but will not be released for reasons of a hidden agenda...

Fascinating speculation...

Firstly what do the cutscenes really imply... Freespace: The Great War really does have a knack for poetic incoherence. This makes interpreting the cutscene more mind boggling.

One thing I do entirely believe is that the Ancients did not learn subspace science on their own or through isolated evolution but rather discovered it through exploration off-planet: RUINS

Has anyone also considered the Vasudans could be in some way related to the Ancients - offspring from an 'EVENT' of some sort...

[aldo_14]

Anyone notice the last cutscene (the monologue bit) in FS1 takes place in a binary system?  Bit silly, that.

[Eishtmo]

Never noticed that aldo, I'll have to look sometime.

I think Vasudan history is similar to ours, but the division are less politcal and more religious.  In fact, I think that most of the conflicts the Vasudans had were between the relativily secular Imperial government and the religious screwballs.  It probably helps to explain Vasudan weapon choices (high firing, low power) because they usually fight hoards of lightly armed foes willing to die (funny, sounds a lot like Shivans, except for the lightly armed part).

[TopAce]

Back to the Vasudans, I think they are rather warriors than poets. Several reasons lead me to that belief, for example the 'You fight like a Vasudan' text of the Vasudan persona. Read the FS1, and 2 Species database to have a clearer view of my point.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Originally posted by TopAce


Thanks for the history lesson, I am getting more intelligent every day.

prehistory actually

[tEAbAG]

Warriors yes, soliders no.  The Vasudan fights on his faith, i agree completly with the jap anology, but you got the explanation wrong.  They fight on emotion rather than the (generally) more political and calculating terran grunts.

[Assassin]

Do we hear anywhere in the cutscenes about them enslaving other races?

[karajorma]

They mention that they subdued every single race they came across until they met the shivans.

[Xelion]

That could just mean they treated them lower than themselves

[karajorma]

That doesn't sound like the meaning of the word subdue to me.

[Assassin]

subdue.. to make harmless.. could involve slavery.

[Hippo]

"...and we subdued it or crushed it."
Crush as in destroy, subdue as in enslave.

--Hippo

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by TopAce
No god there isn't any projects working with the story of the Ancients.

Or it is classified level Zeta, too

Then it wouldn't be classified very highly. Here are the first eight letters of the Greek alphabet:

Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
Zeta
Eta
Theta

Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. The last letter is Omega, so the highest possible classification would be level Omega.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. The last letter is Omega, so the highest possible classification would be level Omega.

You sure of that? I've never been able to figure out in which direction the classification went

[Woolie Wool]

They said that the results of the attempts to rebuld the Hades were classified level Omega and the Mara's specs at level Psi. Why would the specs of a Shivan fighter be more classified than the blueprints for a superdestroyer?

[TopAce]

Any information about the Ancients have been classified, because the authors wanted to stop the description of the Ancients this way. There is no other 'classified' information about the Ancients.

Back to the Slavery and the Ancients, I always imagined the Ancients to be a peaceful race. I don't know what leads me to this belief, but it is sure, that they didn't have the same enemy like the Terrans had in 2335. The only difference would be some technologies(I cannot imagine an SF Scorpion fighting 3000 years before the Great War) and the Shivans had no Ai flying their ships.