[Eishtmo]

Originally posted by Kosh
Wow, that was pretty quick. Why was it so short?

Probably due to the nature of the war the Shivans were fighting.  They sweep in, destroy anything that flies, move on to the next target.  They weren't trying to take planets (until later at least) or any other major resource points, just kill every ship they come across.  The Lucifer then entered and went straight for Vasuda, a kind of cut off the head maneuver, then for Earth for the same reason.  Very rapid, very devestating.  

The fact that the Terrans and Vasudans managed to stop fighting each other, upgrade their tech, and find a way to stop the Lucifer in such a short amount of time is pretty amazing though.  Gotta give them the credit.

[TopAce]

I only thing I am against is that there are too many new technologies in such a short amount of time.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TopAce
I only thing I am against is that there are too many new technologies in such a short amount of time.

Not too surprising IMO; there's already the arms race of the 14 year war, the sudden co-operation of the 2 species (and this includes scientific co-operation as in the shield development cutscene), and also what they were able to learn from the Shivans.  Also a lot of the tech was in-development; deflector shielding was being tested in Ross 128 (IIRC from the MX-50 tech description), fighter-based jump drives would be a key target technology for the TV war (help break down blockades - may also have been detailed in the ancient ruins), and much of the weaponry probably isn't so much 'new' as made newly available.

The main problem could be the quickness of manufacturing these technologies; especially the likes of the Ulysses.  But, then again, Sol is an indistrial super-hub.

'sides which, it was a gameplay necessity.

[TopAce]

Look at what technology the GTA and the PVN had BEFORE the Shivans' appearance and the end of the Great War. This is simply unrealistic, the co-operation could be any strong, this is simply impossible to produce and develop so quickly.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TopAce
Look at what technology the GTA and the PVN had BEFORE the Shivans' appearance and the end of the Great War. This is simply unrealistic, the co-operation could be any strong, this is simply impossible to produce and develop so quickly.

No it's not.  The Terrans and Vasudans could have have seperate pieces of the same jigsaw, given that the 2 key developments; shields and fighter-based drives; would have been war-winning developments in the TV War.

Also, production is entirely possible.   Earth is an industrial super hub (ut's in the ref bible, BTW) - it could easily have a massive manufacturing capability, never mind what the Vasudans had.  The TV-War would require a constant stream of ships anyway (war of attrition), so the bulk of the Terran and Vasudan empires would be set up to manufacture at this level.

You're assuming that development was taking place using 'traditional' methods, too; who's to say there wasn't a super-AI (or even just an advanced expert system) which was tasked with developing new technologies?  Not to mention advances in simulation technology, of course.

It's an entirely plausible situation that the GTVA (as it became) was able to design and develop significant amounts of new technology during the Great War.  It;s equally as plausible that the financial and material strain of this caused the post-War deconstruction and eventually the formation of the GTVA proper.