[Dark Hunter]

I'd heard of it, but never seen it in its entirety. This things interests me... *uses copy-and-paste*

My only gripe: it got cut off at the very end. What more was said???? Worse: the link in Antares's signature is dead...

[Marcus Vesper]

The question that always sticks in my mind is one that none of these non-canonical theories about the Shivans ever seems to address:  Why did the Shivans wait 30 years to send a follow up force, and why didn't they reappear in the systems they first attacked?  The Ancients believed they had trespassed, overstepped their bounds somehow.  From the voice over narration, it doesn't sound as if the Shivans found them, but the other way around.  Their empire was greater then the limits of known space, and yet most of the jump nodes (admittedly not ALL of them) that are not already known are too unstable for any but the masters of subspace travel (The Shivans).   It seems patently obvious when the Knossos is first unveiled:  This was the mechanism the Ancients used to stretch their empire across more worlds then man currently knows.  The discovery of a second and then 3rd Knossos cements that.

Who knows how much further they extended before finally encountering the Shivans?  And how could activating 1 Knossos device trigger countless others on the opposite side of a subspace portal, countless lightyears away?  It makes much more sense to believe that when the Ancients retreated to their home system (GTVA space) they attempted to shut down the first knossos leading to the systems the Shivans came from.

Like the GTVA discovered, the jump node didn't instantly collapse, but had been stabilized.  The Ancients wouldn't have any reason to know this ahead of time, after all, they were the masters of space, crushing all they encountered.  Why collapse portals when you enter them in the certain knowledge of your superiority?  And so the Shivans followed them, and all their works were undone.

So what does that have to do with the Lucifer and it's rather small battle group attacking the GTA and PVN 10,000 years later?  The subspace portal in Gamma Draconis was no longer active.  What the Ancients set out to do when they shut the device off was accomplished through time, effectively cutting off all the systems on the other side.  Since the Shivans never seem to study the technology of other races, and since the gate was on the opposite side, they had no ability to follow.  And yet there were still Shivans on this side of the node.

I surmise the Lucifer and it's fleet were somehow trapped, perhaps several lifetimes (or even longer) before.  Shivans possess much greater knowledge of subspace travel and thus can use nodes too unstable for Terran or Vasudan craft, so the known galaxy for them would be quite a bit larger then it is for us, but still potentially cut off from the regions they came from.  And so they wandered, who knows for how long, until they detected the subspace travel we generated and set out to destroy us.

I don't think the Shivans in Gamma Draconis had ever encountered humanity before, nor had the Lucifer's fleet been in contact with the rest of the Shivan race.  Had they been, simply destroying the Lucifer should have triggered the sort of response the destruction of the SJ Sathanas generated (unless you think they built those in 30 years), and it would have been on their terms of engagement.  They came through the node in Gamma Draconis and attacked us because we opened that door, and Shivans are attracted to significant subspace activity.  Had Bosch not pursued his ultimately futile agenda, the GTVA might never have encountered the Shivans again.

[aldo_14]

Few abstract asides;
1/ it could simply have taken the Shivans 30 years to reach GTVA space due to travelling a tremendous distance (or they could have got 'stuck' behind the knossos waiting on the Lucifers' assistance, like a sapper breaching a castle wall)
2/ the Shivans didn't 'come', they were brought by the actions of the Trinity (and then Bosch; IIRC the buildup to the Capella nova begins after he makes first contact, so it might not even be a direct response to losing a Sathani - something that could just as easily be a force recon or exploration vessel, knowing how bat**** mental the Shivans are)
3/ The ancients did either know or suspect the vulnerability of jump nodes to combat in subspace; it's not mention in FS1s' cb, etc, text, but it is within the Freespace Reference Bible.
4/ The Shivans probably had a map of GTVA space, due to the Ancients former ownership (not directly relevant, but an interesting conisderation)
5/ We don't know if Bosches agenda was ultimately futile.....

[NGTM-1R]

One of the more off-the-wall theories I've thrown out holds that we may not even have dealt with the same two species. We just thought we had. To hijack Bosch's analogy, the nine cities of Troy were destroyed by nine different groups of people who happened to use the same guns, and then each collapsed under the weight of their own weapons in succession, the next guy picked up the guns, and so on.

...actually, now that I think about it, chew on this idea. The Shivans are not to blame...it's their technology that makes them so destructive, eventually causing them to turn on themselves...and then it begins again when the next bunch happens upon the ruins of the last.

[aldo_14]

One of the more off-the-wall theories I've thrown out holds that we may not even have dealt with the same two species. We just thought we had. To hijack Bosch's analogy, the nine cities of Troy were destroyed by nine different groups of people who happened to use the same guns, and then each collapsed under the weight of their own weapons in succession, the next guy picked up the guns, and so on.

...actually, now that I think about it, chew on this idea. The Shivans are not to blame...it's their technology that makes them so destructive, eventually causing them to turn on themselves...and then it begins again when the next bunch happens upon the ruins of the last.

That's interesting, but it does imply a very heavy and perhaps less plausible physical dependency; i.e. that the 'next' shivans fully adopt not only the technology, but modify their physiology to that of their predecessors.

[Turey]

That's interesting, but it does imply a very heavy and perhaps less plausible physical dependency; i.e. that the 'next' shivans fully adopt not only the technology, but modify their physiology to that of their predecessors.

Perhaps there's a sort of viral nanotechnology that changes the DNA of their reproductive system to be Shivan DNA? (perhaps a bit at a time to account for incompatibilities between the Shivan child's requirements and the reproductive system of the host species)
It could also automatically grow the neurally-integrated technology (beam cannon, etc.). It could be spread like an STD (only through direct body fluid contact, which would be common when working with dead Shivans).
When you're losing, most of the people on the front lines are killed, so the virus spreads little. When you start winning, more military personnel make it home and spread the virus to their wives (and possibly others  ), and their wives start giving birth to Shivans.
This means that once you've contacted the current Shivans and and started winning, your children start looking like them.

So the current Shivans didn't look like they do now when they started spaceflight, but when they beat the Shivans before them, they changed, just like the Shivans before them, and the ones before them, etc.

The Reason we don't have little Shivans popping out of human women yet is probably because the human DNA is different enough from the Shivan DNA to require AT LEAST a century or so for any noticeable effects to show up.

[Dark Hunter]

Sort of like the descolada virus?

[Turey]

Sort of like the descolada virus?

Sort of. The main difference is that this one doesn't spread as easily, so it probably won't destroy a planet's ecosystem in the process of making Shivans.

[Cobra]

uh, why has this thread been revived?

[Dysko]

Perhaps there's a sort of viral nanotechnology that changes the DNA of their reproductive system to be Shivan DNA? (perhaps a bit at a time to account for incompatibilities between the Shivan child's requirements and the reproductive system of the host species)
It could also automatically grow the neurally-integrated technology (beam cannon, etc.). It could be spread like an STD (only through direct body fluid contact, which would be common when working with dead Shivans).
When you're losing, most of the people on the front lines are killed, so the virus spreads little. When you start winning, more military personnel make it home and spread the virus to their wives (and possibly others  ), and their wives start giving birth to Shivans.
This means that once you've contacted the current Shivans and and started winning, your children start looking like them.

So the current Shivans didn't look like they do now when they started spaceflight, but when they beat the Shivans before them, they changed, just like the Shivans before them, and the ones before them, etc.

The Reason we don't have little Shivans popping out of human women yet is probably because the human DNA is different enough from the Shivan DNA to require AT LEAST a century or so for any noticeable effects to show up.

Like the aliens in "Invasion"?

[Blue Haired Maniac]

uh, why has this thread been revived?

Because somebody posted a link to it in the Freespace: Unsolved Mysteries thread, and then soon afterwards, this was bumped up.

[Cobra]

uh, why has this thread been revived?

Because somebody posted a link to it in the Freespace: Unsolved Mysteries thread, and then soon afterwards, this was bumped up.

Why in the name of ****ing HELL is this my fault?! I didn't TELL Dekker to bump! God damn it!

[Kie99]

Who blamed you?

[Mars]

Can we just let this thing die now?

[Colonol Dekker]

Is this still going

[Freespace Freak]

Wow, from 2003.  That's some serious necromancy.

[spartan_0214]

theoretically, have we found out if the Shivans can jump through subspace WITHOUT a Node??? 

[Kie99]

Not as far as we know, the GTVA believed that destroying the Capella nodes would hold the Shivans in Capella.

[Mars]

theoretically, have we found out if the Shivans can jump through subspace WITHOUT a Node??? 

Petrarch himself says that they used unstable nodes during the Great War, and are just as dependent on jump nodes as Terrans or Vasudans.

[Polpolion]

The question that always sticks in my mind is one that none of these non-canonical theories about the Shivans ever seems to address:  Why did the Shivans wait 30 years to send a follow up force, and why didn't they reappear in the systems they first attacked?  The Ancients believed they had trespassed, overstepped their bounds somehow.  From the voice over narration, it doesn't sound as if the Shivans found them, but the other way around.  Their empire was greater then the limits of known space, and yet most of the jump nodes (admittedly not ALL of them) that are not already known are too unstable for any but the masters of subspace travel (The Shivans).   It seems patently obvious when the Knossos is first unveiled:  This was the mechanism the Ancients used to stretch their empire across more worlds then man currently knows.  The discovery of a second and then 3rd Knossos cements that.

Who knows how much further they extended before finally encountering the Shivans?  And how could activating 1 Knossos device trigger countless others on the opposite side of a subspace portal, countless lightyears away?  It makes much more sense to believe that when the Ancients retreated to their home system (GTVA space) they attempted to shut down the first knossos leading to the systems the Shivans came from.

Like the GTVA discovered, the jump node didn't instantly collapse, but had been stabilized.  The Ancients wouldn't have any reason to know this ahead of time, after all, they were the masters of space, crushing all they encountered.  Why collapse portals when you enter them in the certain knowledge of your superiority?  And so the Shivans followed them, and all their works were undone.

So what does that have to do with the Lucifer and it's rather small battle group attacking the GTA and PVN 10,000 years later?  The subspace portal in Gamma Draconis was no longer active.  What the Ancients set out to do when they shut the device off was accomplished through time, effectively cutting off all the systems on the other side.  Since the Shivans never seem to study the technology of other races, and since the gate was on the opposite side, they had no ability to follow.  And yet there were still Shivans on this side of the node.

I surmise the Lucifer and it's fleet were somehow trapped, perhaps several lifetimes (or even longer) before.  Shivans possess much greater knowledge of subspace travel and thus can use nodes too unstable for Terran or Vasudan craft, so the known galaxy for them would be quite a bit larger for us, but still potentially cut off from the regions they came from.  And so they wandered, who knows for how long, until they detected the subspace travel we generated and set out to destroy us.

I don't think the Shivans in Gamma Draconis had ever encountered humanity before, nor had the Lucifer's fleet been in contact with the rest of the Shivan race.  Had they been, simply destroying the Lucifer should have triggered the sort of response the destruction of the SJ Sathanas generated (unless you think they built those in 30 years), and it would have been on their terms of engagement.  They came through the node in Gamma Draconis and attacked us because we opened that door, and Shivans are attracted to significan subspace activity.  Had Bosch not pursued his ultimately futile agenda, the GTVA might never have encountered the Shivans again.

That is the best first post I have ever seen.