Nice quote, by the way.
My thats a lot of unsupported conjecture. Hive mind? Boschs capture? GTVA as a superpower? I mean, really. Want to prove Bosch is even alive? Didn't think so. And why wouldn't they listen to the words of some loon instead of reports from the front? Probably because they're a hive mind, right?
I offer only conjecture, as that is all that can be offered. I would point out, however, that Bosch was alive the last time anyone saw him and being taken away by the Shivans in a living condition. Why bother to take him alive and kill him later unless you intend to ask questions? Don't tell me for experimentation: the only experimentation the Shivans would be interested in is how to most effectively kill a human, and you can learn that by studying the physiology of a corpse.
As for the hive mind, go check your FS2 Tech Room Intelligence. The canon says that's the best guess, so that would be...
the best guess .
And your reports will be dealt with at a later point in this post.
Doubtless they recieved reports from Lucy fleet (remember, they're a hive mind now :rolls which would have indicated average fleet size, tech level, etc. They also know all the ships sent through the Knossos were pulled back or TOTALLY DESTROYED BY A SINGLE SATH. The loss of Colin signalled the end of GTVA attempts to hold the Shivans back at the entry node, and lets not even talk about the 'Saths are ignoring her' part of the mission. The Shivans could hardly miss the headlong retreat engaged in by the GTVA after barely any combat with them, and they must have known about the node-busting trick.
Doubtless they didn't hear anything from the Lucifer fleet, because if they could the remaing Shivans in the Lucifer fleet would have called for backup when the Lucifer died. A hive mind is not always in contact with all its members. Go look at an ant colony sometime.
They also know that all the ships were destroyed or pulled back. This tells them nothing, really, except that the GTVA did not have the forces
at hand to deal with the Sathanas. That does not mean that the GTVA doesn't have a thousand Colossus-class ships somewhere. It just means they weren't readily available. More to the point, the GTVA could have dealt with the Sathanas. Recall the purpose of the mission right after "Monster in the Mist". You were trying to lure the Sathanas out so it could be destroyed by several GTVA destroyers. It didn't work, but that does not mean it could not have. The Shivans simply didn't take the bait.
Headlong retreat? Go play the Main Campaign again. The GTVA fleet was all but wiped out in Capella, that's mentioned several times. They didn't retreat. They pulled back to friendly territory rather then fight on their opponent's ground, which makes good tactical sense. Then they stood and fought, and mostly died. They were buying time. Time to evacuate Capella, which makes good sense no matter how you look at it, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be buying time for something else.
So lets think outside the box. The GTVA send in their dumbass stealth fighter to gain info on the Sath. Why couldn't the Shivans be doing the same thing with the initial Sath incursion? As I said, if they'd ACTUALLY CARED about that Sath, it would have turned around. Whenever I do it, its lost all four beams and both front flaks. It would be destroyed by the ships already encountered in the nebula. The first Sath doesn't care, and just plows on. You could doubtless concoct MORE unsupported conjecture for this, perhaps they were trying to fix them, and didn't bother thinking that a pair of Cvs would've killed their hugely valuable Sath that they just couldn't bear to lose? Maybe their ALIENS and don't plan ahead like humans do?
You amuse me. The first Sathanas saw about...10, 15 minutes worth of Capella at 25m/s? That's zilch. They couldn't learn crapdoodle from that. No Shivan ships got further then Capella until the decision to blow the star had been made.
Recall "High Noon". Recall that the Colossus parked itself
stationary near the node. The Sathanas jumped in. It probably still had a beam cannon or two working. The Shivans had never seen this kind of ship before, but hadn't been all that impressed with GTVA ships so far.
Then, holy crap, those damned Bakhas have taken out what's left of Sathanas' main battery and it's getting pounded on. At this point it has moved away from the node somewhat. Going back means stopping and turning around, then waiting for their subspace drives to recharge. All the while the Colossus is merrily vaporizing huge chunks of their hull. Uh-uh. Once in-system in Capella without a functional main battery and subspace drives recharging still, their only option was to make a run for it in normal space. That's what they did.
As to the alien bit, I have the perfect quote for that. "Any race capable of building spacecraft
is not stupid ."
This whole 'maybe the GTVA are hardcore' line of thinking is totally unsupportable. To be honest, since they Shivans largely ignored the GTVA, its also a red herring. We all know the ships around Capella could have destroyed the GTVA in a week, and the GTVA running away like pussies and desperately defending a few thousand people in transports doesn't speak well for the 'trillions of uber humans' idea. I mean how stupid would the GTVA have to be to not deploy all the other Colins, or GOSH all the uber ships bigger than her? Fleet comp was exposed by the blockade; a few cruisers, a few Cvs, and Colin. Absolutely nothing the Shivans can't handle(in seconds, no less). But if you can point to a single action that supports this theory, go ahead. We should not mistake the Shivan preoccupation with whatever attribute of the Capella star interested them for fear of the GTVA, although that is the most amusing idea for FS3 I've ever seen. 'Oh, just off a Sath and they'll run. Oh, wait...' For that to work, you must assume the Shivans are stupid, that they think the GTVA is ALSO stupid, and figure that the 'I don't need my beam cannons, I'll 'ave ya' Shivans weren't up for a campaign against the GTVA.
I think I covered this already, but I'll go over it again just to make sure you understand. The GTVA fought a delaying action. They were evacuating Capella, which makes perfect sense even if they don't plan on blowing the nodes. Otherwise they'd have to use up ships to defend the civvies on a more permanent basis. Just because they were buying time for one obvious thing does not preclude the presence of another purpose. You've constructed a logical fallacy for yourself by assuming one precludes the other. Yes, we know that the GTVA didn't have them. The Shivans don't. They can't.
I've explained this one too. Quite simply, if they have a fleet that huge, they must have an area of space equally huge. And that fleet is spread out over that huge area of space. It takes time to get the fleet together. 80+ Juggernauts isn't something to laugh at even when you have a thousand of them yourself. Sending a fleet in piecemeal is folly, and the GTVA has demonstrated that they do in fact understand basic tactics time and again. They know better then to engage with an inferior force, certainly the Shivans have seen that.
I'm giving the Shivans credit for brains here, in case you're missing the point. Quite a bit of brains, in fact, with better strategic thinking then quite a few humans have demonstrated.
