[redsniper]

ok 10 Lucifers then.  What I'm saying is they could have rushed us with Lucys instead of Saths

[Knight Templar]

Well again, if you look at the shivan's logic and tactics, it doesn't seem like they were aiming for our total extermination.

I mean, it's negligible that they were looking to erradicate the Terrans and Vasudans by looking at their actions in FS1, and even if they were, they certainly were going about it in a round about way. Not to mention having Sol Cut off would be to their disadvantage as well as ours (obviously they wanted to go their for a reason.)

And they deffinitly weren't trying to do anything like that with the Sathanas fleet.

I think they had two distinct purposes, and neither were as broad as "exterminate the human race".

[BlackStar]

Originally posted by karajorma


Lastly what no one here seems to have mentioned is that the Shivans had 32 years to improve the shields on the Lucifer. It might be that even now they are working on a new version that is beam resistant varient of the Lucifer sporting a couple of OMFG-Reds instead of the wimpy proto-beams that the original Lucifer had.

Also, the Shivans had thousands of years to develop their technology and presumably the Lucifer, or that type of ship, is at least 8,000 years old.  So why don't other ships have the same type of shields?

Personally, I think the information gleaned from the Ancients allowing the destruction of the Lucifer also allowed the GTVA to develop weapons that negate that type of shielding.  So perhaps the Sathanas does indeed have a shield but the current weapons are better.  Remember, the basic weapon in FS2 is based on the Banshee, the best weapon in FS1.  

I don't think the Sathanas was developed in 32 years.  I think they have been around forever, Shivans just didn't use them in the Great War.  Why?  

I assume the Shivans have never been defeated in all their history - who knows how many thousands of years that has been.  Also assuming the "hive-mind" concept is correct, then I believe the Shivans are somewhat specialized in their functions and duties in the hive, similar to ants and bees.

There would be several classes such as warrior and worker.  They may have others that don't really fit the ant analogy.  I've never seen ants fly space ships!  But you get the idea.  It appears their ships also fit this analogy to a certain extent.  And that makes sense - even the GTVA has different types of ships with different functions and specialities.  

So, based on how the Shivans acted after the destruction of the Lucifer, the Lucifer was at least "The Queen" of that group. Perhaps it was a new hive in search of an area of space to set up a new "nest".  That may explain why it had extra shielding and why there was only one.  

The Sathanas represent the "Warrior" class of the main hive.  A new hive wouldn't have the opportunity to have any warriors.  A new queen bee or ant breeds workers first to build the nest.  Warriors and other classes come after the nest has been established to a certain extent.  

In the same way as the army ant marches across the land, devouring what's in sight, the Shivans may just be coming through Terran-Vasudan space.  

Now that I've said all this, I don't like it.  It makes the Shivans too much like something we already know.  I think parts may be correct but there is a lot missing.  

I do believe the Shivans didn't see Terrans and Vasudans as intelligent until the Bosch used the ETAC device.  Even then, they only grabbed certain individuals, not the whole crew.  Perhaps the Shivans thought Bosch and his inner circle were the "Queens" and didn't bother collecting the drones.

I don't think the destruction of Capella was intended to exterminate - that was just a side effect.  The Shivans were either creating another nebula (I doubt) or were creating a huge subspace portal to "someplace else" (as suggested in the final cut-scene).  It just happens that the type of sun we like makes the best nodes.

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by redsniper
ok 10 Lucifers then.  What I'm saying is they could have rushed us with Lucys instead of Saths

Ah, but they didn't want to rush us (at least I believe so). The second time, they didn't care for the Terrans at all. All they wanted was Capella.

[aldo_14]

I reckon all the Lucifers had been destroyed by the time of FS2.

[Hippo]

In the FS1 era, without beams, the lucifer would have easily destroyed earth and everything else if it too he time to destroy any opposition before it entered subspace...

As for what blackstar said last, the shivans have had time to evolve, but they might not even have had to evolve... for all we know, theywere first inferior, traveled subspace nd were met by the great destroyers... but instead of being destroyed, or destroying them, like the terrans, they might have subdued and eliminated the old destroyers ad gained all their knowedge... for that, they may be the ancients.. after all, we don't know that they did die... they may have become the destroers at the last moment...

If someone doesn't undersatnd i word i've said, ask me again...

[Flaser]

Urgh...
I believe we're going down a road that's main brige is supported by an evident but also extremely false collumn: our humanity.
The USA or Great Britain of the 21'th century would develop a new series of warships within 10 years.
However the Great China of ancient history wouldn't.
We don't know which category the Shivans fit into.
Personally I would go for the second - they were around for thousands of years. A space-faring race! There's no way in hell that they wouldn't have met someone else. They were in a constant state of challenge, - well living in space is a challenge - but I doubt any form of goverment similar to european models (including the USA) would widstand that long time.
Even our models of individiality would be obliterated in that much time. A sentient specie would redefine its idea of self, group, nation, race and existance as a whole.
The entire development ever since we left the caves was based on individualism - and it took 2000 years to truly make it our own!
We're uterly underestimating them - just like the GTVA. Building 80 Sathaneses? In 32 years? Impossible - especially for a race which no longer visits planets, so their resorces could be inaccesable. If they are, than we're even more underestimating them. Building the Collosus took alomost 40 years!
I think the Saths were around all the time. The Shivan may have even bigger ships, but the Sath could be the backbone of their fleet.
We speak of the Shivans as a collective nation, organised and set in motion with a plan.
For all we know they could be in anarchy, they could be the true übermensch, but we keep refering to them as if they were just another country from Earth.
I think we lack perspective.
Even the hive-mind theories are just scraping the surface...that's why I hate some recent sci-fi flicks - they don't realize what is the true effect of events and advancements they're talking about.
Advancement is not about technology alone - and I guess the Shivans are beyond technological development, the Terrans are just lucky to defeat them a couple of times, because their enemy is too rigid to fit their adversary.
Most Shivan ships are way better than their Terran counterpart, they simply lack the right tactics and fine-tooning.
Back to technology - or the lack of it development - the Shivans are so alien, not just because we don't know anything about them - it is also because their fundament is completly different than our own.

[Tiara]

And because of our inherent human stupidity, we fail to understand that which is different. We don't understand, we judge.

It could be that they hadn't have to fight another race that actually offered some resistance that they thought they could easily overrun the GTVA. They might've underestimated us. And as you can see in FS2, they use FAR more force then in the First Great War. It was only due to the fact that the Terran/Vasudans got to a level of technological advancement that the Shivans again, underestimated us. However, if this is the case, next time they'll bring in the big ship that makes things go BOOM in a nanosecond.

However, to understand the Shivans is nearly impossible. IMO only Bosch might've started[/u] to understand them. All of us and in the GTVA they still go "Huh? what the f*ck r they!?".

[Stunaep]

Quite right. The way I see it, the Shivans haven't evolved because there hasn't been any need to. Until they met us, they haven't a real challenge yet, expect maybe the possible species they're fighting. They are simply superior to every other space faring race. But slowly, they're stagnating.

That's why their ships are tactically inferior to ours. They just don't bother anymore. They just hurl more and more of them at us, knowing that eventually we would be defeated.

Now Bosch contacted them. He did something no other race had done before. That worried Shivans. So they wanted to study him, but moreso, they wanted him out of the way.

[Flaser]

True.
Though I'm willing togo with the scouting party expalnation.
We're talking about space - huge space - so they must have been pretty solitary - in other words, the general Shivan population wouldn't have heard of the whole ordeal until the Gamma Draconis incident - where the Shivans could have droped in just to have a look at a primitive device...
This would explain why the Shivan lost after the Lucifer blew up - they lost their HQ and they were on their own, and despite their technological upperhand they couldn't pull their pants together under the GTA/PVN's constant hammering.
So a shiven fleet jumps in wondering:
"Err sir?"
"Yeah?"
"Is it not the same where the omega-delta-12 scouting party disappered?"
"I guess you're right. But what do you mean disappear their next report isn't due in a 100 years" :devil:
The Lucifer wasn't designed to be a warship - it was a mothership for a small fleet.
Now I wonder what a true Shivan resuply/service station/world would look like.

As for Capella - they were pounding the GTVA real hard, but it could have been a second hand objective, finding the scout party could be their first.
In Capella for some reason they had to do an extreme range jump, and create a node for it - the 6 extradimension+gravity bent/space-time bubble theory explains it quite nice - they simply drained the star to channel its power.

[Thor]

OK, how about this theory.

The Shivans are not the designers of their fleet.  It could be that an ultra ancient race (think way old) designed these weapons of war, and made thousands before their race died out.  The Shivans were either A) damn lucky to make a find like this or B) more likely an engineered race designed to destroy things.  Therefore, the Shivans do not actually develope new weapons, but simply use the existing one.  Now, the Lucy is much like a modern Aircraft carrier.  IT has the ability to destroy almost any thing.  now for the most part it is sufficient to quell threats and such.  So the progenitors may have made very few.  But there are times when the heavy firepower is needed.  So the Progenitors designed the Sathaanas as the end all be all of ships, but intened them as a last resort.  So, the Shivans knowing only what their designers taught them, use the ships in that order.  Use the cost effective ships first, then the heavy hitters next.  Its pausible then that the shields are beam piercable because no race lasted that long before.

[aldo_14]

Imagine the Shivans are us, and we're the equivalent of an anthill to them - an irritant, intruding on their space (subspace, specifically).  In FS1, they simply sent a token force to take care of us, and turn their attention to other matters, more important wars.  In FS2, we pushed further (into the nebula) into their space.  They might not have even been aware that the GTVA was the same force as they had faced 30 years before - they could have just assumed that the Lucifer had suceeded.

So they sent a bigger force as the 'intruder' was more 'threatening' than before, and they had obviously failed before.  But something happened - Bosch communicated with them.  Imagine if the ants talked back?  You'd be curious.

So were the Shivans, so they took Bosch out of curiousity - even if it was just for tactical reasons (know thy enemy). And they decided that they could find some use for the GTVA, so instead of clearing out the hive as such, they closed the door and sealed the GTVA in by nova-ing Capella.

It's only a theory... and one of the questions has to be why Capella and not Gamma Draconis?

[Flaser]

Aldo's theory fits their behaviour better.
I believe that the Shivans are simply decadent and they hadn't changed a bit during the last 32years because they hadn't had to in the past few thousand as Stuanepp said.
I'm against the hive-mind theory though - their combat tactics would be far superior and would rely on teamwork if it was true.
I think they're beyond our level of individualism - they are onanother plane of self-estimation.
Our current self-image is our autonomous indiviality and the world connected by some kind of fundamentum - that either being a goddes, materilism or science or whatever faith you have.
Furthermore we're living in a linear world, because we experience time as passing - so what was once will be no more, and should be no more. Therefore we're running into the furture, and are never truly in the present. This a christian thing that has nothing to do with religion and has become quite dominant throught the advanced world.
The Shivans on the other hand could be something like Nietzche's übermensch. The ubermensch does not experience time as series of moments each of those infinite on their own.
The ubermensch does not condemn the past, rather it embraces it with all its faults.
Well this is a life-thretening thought. Could you say that after the Holocaust?
If you're an ubermensch you, do. God's dead because you've taken his place, your whole existence is bond to you, therefore there's no need for a fundament. There's no regret and no conscience.
It's an animalistic life.
It's quite impossible to imagine a society made of these kind of individuals, but it could be the Shivans are like that.
See what I mean?
Even a seemingly - and for us evident - little thing being change could wield to a drasticly different experience of life, and it's hard even to imagine what it would be like, let alone experience it.

[aldo_14]

Of course, one of the big questions is how Shivans are actually born..... are they built from scratch in some way, or grown and then outfitted with 'armour', or do they simply somehow emerge and rapidly grow, armour et al, into their adult form?  If there's a hive, is there a Queen?

By the same logic, have any Shivans even been born in the last xxxx thousand years?

[Flaser]

...and there's the bioship theory.
I'm willing to go with it to some extents:
-Shivan ships seem to have an organic look, at least their armor is wrinkled in places.
-They could have parts that were literally grown.
But I don't think the Shivans are their ships, though they may have a cybernetic/neural interface to link them up.
Weaponry is not likely to be grown neither is reactors or anything highly electronical.
The hull, the frame could be grown though - and would be self-reparing to an extent as well.

[Knight Templar]

wait, I thought the shivans didn't have armour?

[Flaser]

Shivan ships have a lot less armor than Terran or Vasudan ships, but they still have.

[Solatar]

Shivans aren't part of their ships. If they were, how would Terrans be able to pilot them?

Flame me....

[Flaser]

I never said they were, I'm actually against the idea.
What I said is parts of a Shivan ship could be grown and later assembled with non-organic components.
The Shivans may jack-up onto their ship's computer like a cyberpunk hacker, but that's all - this doesn't make them part of their ships.

[Thor]

Well that could be messy.  I kind of like the organic ship idea