[aldo_14]

Based on FS, individual Shivans have the same flying skills as a petri dish of brain cells.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Based on FS, individual Shivans have the same flying skills as a petri dish of brain cells.

On the contrary, they seem to fly a lot better than your wingmen.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by KappaWing
It's bad to compare the Shivans' hive mind to ants' hive mind. For one, and individual Shivan is as (or more) intellegent than an individual Terran mind, where an ant's individual mind is far less intellegent than a Terran mind.

Second, an individual Shivan still retains his intellegence even after becoming one with the hive mind. It is their ability to pool their intellegence in such a manner that they have created Sathani and other technological marvels. If Terrans had a hive mind, they would be far more efficient AND intellegent (collectivley) than if they were all thinking independently (as they do). That is why they are so behind the Shivans in terms of technology. The individual Shivan retains his intellegence because that way he will have more to contribute to the hive mind as a collective. Their superior technology is evidence to that.

correction- we don't know how intelligent the shivans are. they might be dumb as hell. We simply know to little about them.
We don't even know if Shivans built their ships or if someone else builds them for htem.

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by KappaWing
It's bad to compare the Shivans' hive mind to ants' hive mind. For one, and individual Shivan is as (or more) intellegent than an individual Terran mind, where an ant's individual mind is far less intellegent than a Terran mind.

The Shivans' tactics, their behavior, does not indicate a high level of intelligence. In many ways they come across as primitive, animalistic. They attack in packs. They are more concerned with causing destruction then with their own survival. While they are capable of setting traps, subtlety is not the way they normally do business. The Shivan way of waging war is inefficent, dependant upon brute force and raw numbers.

Take for example the concept of intelligence-gathering. This concept is utterly lost on the Shivans. They attack without even the most rudimentary attempts to gather information about the target. Yes, they can afford to, yes they get along fine without it. But consider how much more deadly they might be if they did not ignore that aspect of warfare.  Consider how many more Terrans and Vasudans they might be able to kill, and how many fewer Shivans it might cost. Even if you have vast resources, waste remains waste, and should be minimized if possible. Yet the Shivans choose to be wasteful, if, as you say, they are intelligent.

Or consider their behavior. Once given a mission, for a Shivan it is do or die: they will not deviate from that mission, no matter the circumstances, no matter that their original orders might have no bearing upon the current reality. We have never seen a Shivan ship retreat, no matter the odds, no matter that it will not live long enough to do significant damage. We have never seen the Shivans alter a plan to fit changed realities of a situation. Even bereft of all beam cannon and its forward flak guns, helpless against the first Aeolus or Deimos that comes across it, what does the Sathanas do? It continues on deeper into GTVA territory, almost certainly commiting to its own destruction. This is not an intelligent act.

The ant analogy was actually quite apt, for the Shivans resemble the behavior of ants in terms of their tactical and strategic thinking.

Originally posted by KappaWing
It is their ability to pool their intellegence in such a manner that they have created Sathani and other technological marvels.

Leaving aside the problems with an individual Shivan being sentient, the Shivans are, quite simply, not intellectually superior.

Consider the Great War. The GTA and PVN went from helpless against the Shivans to tearing them to shreds in very little time. Yes, they were already working on the technologies, but that says something in and of itself.

The Shivans have had advanced subspace technology, sheathe shielding, and Lucifer-type weapons since Terrans built the Pyramids, if not before. Yet Terrans were already on their way to achieving technical parity with the Shivans when they attacked the Riveria Installation. The Terrans advanced their technology more rapidly. Had the Lucifer arrived a year and a half later then it did, it could well have been destroyed as it tried to exit Ross 128. The Vasudan archeologists would have found the necessary information to track vessels into subspace. Terran scientists would have perfected the shield technology they were testing at the Riveria installation. Hercs and Medusas would have been everywhere. The technology for fighters to transit between systems would have probably been in place: the Sol labs got an assist from studying the Shivans, but they were already looking into the problem and had been for some time. Lieutenant Ash's damaged Apollo would not have been fleeing to the Riveria installation. Instead his intact flight of Hercules would have been coming back with a weird story to tell.

Or the Second Shivan Invasion? The Shivans have had millenia of uncontested to access massive resources to build Sathanas juggernauts: that they have more then eighty of them is, ultimately, not that surprising. By contrast, the Colossus was built with access to far fewer resources and far less time. Terran and Vasudan beam cannon are less advanced, true. However this may not be any intrinisic fault of the weapon, but rather that Shivans are capable of withstanding much greater extremes of temperature and so don't need to insulate their weapons as much. And even if the beams are inferior, they are there, and the difference is not insurmountable. Both the GTVA and the Shivans developed beams that could function fleet-wide and fitted them to their ships in the thirty-two years between the Great War and the NTC Trinity opening the portal in Gamma Draconis. The Shivans had examples to work from already, those they had placed on the Lucifer: the GTVA had nothing but the flight recorder data from a few fighters that escaped the GTD Galatea's destruction and the damage done to the surface of Vasuda Prime. Yet the GTVA managed to build functional beams and distribute them fleet-wide in the same time that the Shivans did. Considering they started from lesser means, is it any wonder their weapons are not quite as powerful? But give them a few years and they'll fix that.

Meanwhile GTVA fightercraft technology began the Second Shivan Invasion with a parity to that of the Shivans, and by the end was superior. No Shivan fighter is a match for the Eryines, no Shivan fighter primary weapon a match for the UD-8 Kayser.  In the race to build the better gun, the better reactor to power it, and the better frame to attach those to, the GTVA is winning.

Thus I submit that the Shivans are not, can not, be vastly more intelligent.

[aldo_14]

Unfortunately, those assumptions about Shivan technological strength assume that we've seen their entire fleet (And that they were developing beam weapons- which were  weaker than the Lucifers - in the interim war period).  I doubt that a lot.

The Shivans did, however, lay on ambushes for Terran craft with booby-trapped cargo (and also the shield cargo pods); that indicates a degree of forward planning for one.  IIRc they also targeted GTVA convoys carrying the shield prototypes, and the science vessels working on the Tsunami.... they weren't acting like a blind force in FS1 for one thing.

Oh, and note that the first Sathanas was able to bring out the Colossus, and both discover the GTVAs largest weapon and the tactics that would be used against it - note that the next encounter the Colossus had with a Sathani ended in its destruction.  I wouldn't be atall surpised if the Shivans sent that first Sath as purely bait for recon....when you have infinite resources, it's probably not a big sacrifice to make.

[WMCoolmon]

Oh, and note that the first Sathanas was able to bring out the Colossus, and both discover the GTVAs largest weapon and the tactics that would be used against it - note that the next encounter the Colossus had with a Sathani ended in its destruction.

The second Sathanas that attacked the Colossus didn't really demonstrate any unique tactics. Unless that was mind control, to get the Colossus' commander to not jump out, or it disabled the Colossus' subspace drive somehow.

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Unfortunately, those assumptions about Shivan technological strength assume that we've seen their entire fleet (And that they were developing beam weapons- which were  weaker than the Lucifers - in the interim war period).  I doubt that a lot.

Perhaps the original beams were impractical? They switched for a reason, otherwise I demand to know why the Sathanas was not armed with Shivan Super Lasers. Speculating about further ships in the Shivan fleet is a weak rebuttal: you have to work from the canon evidence, and there is no canon evidence for other ship types with vastly different capablities.

Originally posted by aldo_14
The Shivans did, however, lay on ambushes for Terran craft with booby-trapped cargo (and also the shield cargo pods); that indicates a degree of forward planning for one.

I did not say that they were incapable of subtlety. But that is not their normal method of operation. You cite two examples, but if you want I can list almost every other mission Shivans have appeared in as counterexamples. Clearly their default setting is more along the lines of KILL DESTROY DESTROY.

Originally posted by aldo_14
IIRc they also targeted GTVA convoys carrying the shield prototypes, and the science vessels working on the Tsunami.... they weren't acting like a blind force in FS1 for one thing.

"The Shivans have hit everything sent from this installation."- sm1-08a mission briefing.

The shield convoy attack was not directed, the Shivans were going after anything that moved. The attack on the Tsunami project was not necessarily directed either, since that area was a combat zone and the Shivans have demonstrated considerable lack of discrimination in choosing targets.

And since there is, as far as we know, no possible way the Shivans could have obtained the information about the shield prototypes convoy or the Tsunami development project, it seems unlikely they could, let alone would, delibrately target them.

Originally posted by aldo_14
Oh, and note that the first Sathanas was able to bring out the Colossus, and both discover the GTVAs largest weapon and the tactics that would be used against it - note that the next encounter the Colossus had with a Sathani ended in its destruction.

Of course...how do the Shivans know this is the best? They don't. They can't.

Nor did they draw the Colossus out. In fact, the Colossus actually retreated: recall it was at the Knossos in Gamma Draconis for at least one mission. Then it went back to Capella, where in all likelyhood it was standing guard at the GD-Capella node anyways: it wasn't exactly like there was some more pressing job for the Colossus that it was called away to do. The NTF was dead.

Originally posted by aldo_14
I wouldn't be at all surpised if the Shivans sent that first Sath as purely bait for recon....when you have infinite resources, it's probably not a big sacrifice to make.

But why make the sacrifice at all if you could do the same job with a few wings of fighters, which would probably live through doing it? Waste remains waste, and intelligence tries to avoid waste.

[Kie99]

Originally posted by ngtm1r

But why make the sacrifice at all if you could do the same job with a few wings of fighters, which would probably live through doing it? Waste remains waste, and intelligence tries to avoid waste.

*sigh*

A few fighters to draw the GTVA's strongest weapon out?

And the Shivan fighters could have scanned the Installation and the Tsunami project ships to find out what they were carrying.

[Gloriano]

Originally posted by kietotheworld



*sigh*

A few fighters to draw the GTVA's strongest weapon out?

If there is fighters there gotta be destroyer nearby or whole fleet

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ngtm1r


Perhaps the original beams were impractical? They switched for a reason, otherwise I demand to know why the Sathanas was not armed with Shivan Super Lasers. Speculating about further ships in the Shivan fleet is a weak rebuttal: you have to work from the canon evidence, and there is no canon evidence for other ship types with vastly different capablities.

Ok, then there is definately canon evidence of Shivan weapons destroying Altair with an energy signature corresponding to Lucifer beams.    That's canonical evidence of a Lucifer or equivalent space-to-ground weapon (presumably a beam as is seen in the vprime ani) 8000 years ago.

COMMAND BRIEFING 3

Transmission Continued

Our scanning equipment was able to locate a storage device of some sort. It was heavily protected, which suggests it stores something quite valuable, possibly information or technology. We are attempting to decipher the language of the device, but are fearful of Shivan attacks.

COMMAND BRIEFING 4

Transmission Continued

I say this because it is immediately apparent that this planet was also destroyed by Shivan weapons. This is difficult to believe, considering the age of the remains, but the evidence is conclusive. What we ask is for rescue and an escort away from this planet. Our scientists are not normally a superstitious group, but having one's homeworld destroyed tends to shake your beliefs. Please send an armed rescue as soon as possible to these coordinates.

If you want a reason why the Shivans in FS1 didn't have beams, how about technology constraints on the game engine?  (Or even being a simple scout / reserve force on the hinterlands of Shivan space which was a support fleet with minimal tech and arms)

The Ancients monologues also strongly hint there were multiple vessels of the lucifer class or similarly armoured; it mentions attacking ships plural which were only vulnerable in subspace.

Originally posted by ngtm1r
I did not say that they were incapable of subtlety. But that is not their normal method of operation. You cite two examples, but if you want I can list almost every other mission Shivans have appeared in as counterexamples. Clearly their default setting is more along the lines of KILL DESTROY DESTROY.

War generally is fought alone the lines of 'kill the other side'; in FS1, it's significant IMO that the Shivans went for the 2 planets which were the capitals of the Terran & Vasudan species.  They probed, attacked - but ultimately focused on destroying the command and R&D parts of the GTVA.  Including the guerilla style attacks of the Lucifer on Riviera (where shield prototypes were being developed), and the Shivan fighter attacks during the T-V war, which spread confusion and disorganisation.

Originally posted by ngtm1r
"The Shivans have hit everything sent from this installation."- sm1-08a mission briefing.

The shield convoy attack was not directed, the Shivans were going after anything that moved. The attack on the Tsunami project was not necessarily directed either, since that area was a combat zone and the Shivans have demonstrated considerable lack of discrimination in choosing targets.

And since there is, as far as we know, no possible way the Shivans could have obtained the information about the shield prototypes convoy or the Tsunami development project, it seems unlikely they could, let alone would, delibrately target them.

As far as we know.  but that doesn't mean the Shivans can't intercept transmissions or crack Terran codes.  And the Shivans hitting the installation implies they were aware of the importance of work there... in fact, if they were attacking everything from that installation, IMO it implies they knew there would be a valuable convoy originating there - just not which one.

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Of course...how do the Shivans know this is the best? They don't. They can't.

But they can make an educated guess - they know GTVA tech levels, they know what the GTVA can build.  And they doubtless could guess the GTVA had developed some weapon to kill a Lucifer... send a high power ship capable of inflicting massive damage, and it'll draw the enemies best defenses to it like moths to a light.

It also let them know what threats their 80-strong fleet might face in Capella - how the GTVA would attack Sathani class vessels, and how long it would take them to destroy it.

Oh, and they also learnt of Mjolnir RBCs; useful for the next time they wanted to run a node.

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Nor did they draw the Colossus out. In fact, the Colossus actually retreated: recall it was at the Knossos in Gamma Draconis for at least one mission. Then it went back to Capella, where in all likelyhood it was standing guard at the GD-Capella node anyways: it wasn't exactly like there was some more pressing job for the Colossus that it was called away to do. The NTF was dead.

They drew the Colossus into direct combat.  They identified its capabilities - AFAIK that was the first direct engagement between the Colossus and a Shivan capship.

Originally posted by ngtm1r

But why make the sacrifice at all if you could do the same job with a few wings of fighters, which would probably live through doing it? Waste remains waste, and intelligence tries to avoid waste.

Would a few wings of fighters necessitate the GTVA sending the Colossus to engage?  I think not.  And were the Shivans trying to send a key for of 80 fighters to surround Capella?  No chance.

The Shivans wanted those Saths around Capella.  They needed to know how strong the GTVA was, how well it would cope with those vessels.  The first Sathani allowed them to learn it.

Originally posted by WMCoolmon


The second Sathanas that attacked the Colossus didn't really demonstrate any unique tactics. Unless that was mind control, to get the Colossus' commander to not jump out, or it disabled the Colossus' subspace drive somehow.

The Shivans managed to destroy/disable the Colossuses fighterbay, didn't they?  Which also prevented the Colossus deploying bombers to attack the Saths beams as they had the first time round (although the player came from the Aquitane there, in Capella the Shivans had a screening force of many fighters and ships to prevent long-range support being nearly as effective).

Originally posted by Holy Imperial Gloriano



If there is fighters there gotta be destroyer nearby or whole fleet

Except that Shivan cruisers can carry fighters.  And even a Demon class destroyer wouldn't necessitate the Colossus (possibly a Ravana,  but that's debatable).

[Kie99]

Originally posted by aldo_14

The Ancients monologues also strongly hint there were multiple vessels of the lucifer class or similarly armoured; it mentions attacking ships plural which were only vulnerable in subspace.

Does anyone else think the ancients wouldn't have been able to penetrate the Shivan fighters' shields?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by kietotheworld


Does anyone else think the ancients wouldn't have been able to penetrate the Shivan fighters' shields?

I don't (although it did occur to me); especially looking at the Knossos and subspace tracking technology (they were definately advanced in that area); also the Shivan cruisers and destroyers were not shielded... I think if you wanted to move onto that assumption, you;d be doing so simply to validate the idea of a single Lucifer... despite the fact the Ancients empire was larger that the GTVAs and they had fought countless wars to conquer it.

We don't know anything of Ancient military technology, of course, but it strikes me as being far more likely that it was better rather than worse than GTVA tech.

[Kie99]

I thought the message from FS1 was that the Ancients had been owned because they had never fought an opponent of any strength, and the Terrans and Vasudans had "Learned to adapt" and that stopped them being exterminated.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by kietotheworld
I thought the message from FS1 was that the Ancients had been owned because they had never fought an opponent of any strength, and the Terrans and Vasudans had "Learned to adapt" and that stopped them being exterminated.

Well, the Terrans and Vasudans did learn to both do that and work together, albeit requiring the Ancients relics to actually win.... but, at the same time FS2 shown that to be somewhat of a phyrric victory; the Shivans are far, far stronger than indicated in FS1, and it throws upon the question of whether or not the Ancients fought a fleet of that size (i.e. the knossos network indicating the advanced nature of Ancient technology in the respect of subspace) rather than the Lucifer fleet....

Basically, what we do know is that the ancients were good at subspace, crushed developing races, and had a vast empire.... on the one hand you'd expect a militaristic race such as them to keep developing better weaponry (and they were advanced based on the knossos), on the other hand they may have had little need.  The scale of the Ancient-Shivan war is completely unknown.  My preference is that it was a truly vast war (massacre, rather) killing billions if not trillions, and that the message of FS was really 'united we stand', in that had either the Vasudans or Terrans won the 14-year war earlier on, the Shivans would have won the Great War.

[Mongoose]

That's an interesting theory, about the Shivans winnning the Great War if either the Terrans or Vasudans had won the T-V war previously.  It's food for thought; in a way, the fact that the war dragged on for so long enabled both sides to attain the technological level necessary to hold their own against, and eventually defeat, the Shivans.  Add to that the fact that the Terran and Vasudan governments were able to quickly piece together a relatively strong alliance after 14 years of hatred and misunderstanding, and it makes the alliance's victory seem all the more lucky.

The issue of Shivans having no beam weapons, besides the Lucifer of course, during the Great War and having them thirty years later was brought up earlier.  Personally, I don't think that the Shivans developed them in the interim period, as the GTVA did.  Rather, I think that the Shivans knew something about our own technological capabilities prior to Ross 128.  I always though of the Shivans as using their budget technology, i.e. ships that weren't equipped with beam cannons, because neither the Terrans nor Vasudans had any weapons that would require the use of beam cannons.  The Lucifer was sent as the main uber-weapon to "sweep up" the alliance; only one ship of the Lucifer's caliber was required.   If this was true, it would suggest that the Shivans did have a level of planning and intelligence above what some other people in the thread had given them credit for.

As for the Shivans using beam cannons at the time of the second war, I think that, at least initially, when the Knossos was activated, the Shivans had no idea who had done it.  When that first Rakshasa (no, I can't spell it right ) was sent through the portal, it had beam cannons equipped for that reason; the Shivans didn't know what they were up against.  When the Rakshasa was destroyed, and the Shivans realized that their Great War nemeses were responsible and now had beams of their own, I think they decided to reach deeper into their arsenal and draw out beam-equipped cruisers and destroyers, not to mention the ultimate weapon posed by the Sathanes.  An alternate theory would be that the Shivans would surmise that, since the alliance knew how to destroy the Lucifer, they would also have learned enough to be able to make beam cannons, which was close to the truth.

As for why there were no Lucifers during the second war, I don't think that anyone can really ever give a good explanation for that.  From the behavior of the Shivans in the Great War after the Lucifer was destroyed, we can surmise that it was some sort of command ship, even a type of "hive mind."  Some have suggested that it was one-of-a-kind, but again, the text from the Ancient monologues doesn't exactly suggest that.  (Some have said that the Ancients couldn't penetrate Shivan shields at all, but remember, even simple Fury dumbfire missiles can kill a shielded ship, and I'd imagine that the Ancients had more than that.)  Who knows, maybe it was a unique class of ship used on special occasions, such as an expeditionary invasion.  Maybe the Sathanes, and this would make sense seeing as how they could possibly be seen as colony ships, took on the leadership role during the second war, rendering the Lucifer mostly useless.  And, as some people surmise, if the Lucifer's shields could be penetrated by beams, its real advantage would be gone.  Maybe the Lucifer was just used against pre-beam opponents.  Again, we'll never know.

[karajorma]

Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest. For thousands of years our empire expanded. For so long we could imagine ourselves alone in the universe. For so long never did we encounter advanced life. And we travelled faster and further spreading in our galaxy and before long we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited. And then there would be nowhere else to go.
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy and it gave us the universe.

I've always taken that to mean that the Ancients conquered their entire galaxy using some (albeit slow) form of FTL but that once they had conquered their galaxy they knew that they'd never be able to go anywhere else. Subspace gave them the option of exploring other galaxies.

So if the shivans did wipe out every ancient colony in another galaxy that  does give us a really massive was/massacre, right Aldo?

[Kie99]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Well, the Terrans and Vasudans did learn to both do that and work together, albeit requiring the Ancients relics to actually win.... but, at the same time FS2 shown that to be somewhat of a phyrric victory; the Shivans are far, far stronger than indicated in FS1, and it throws upon the question of whether or not the Ancients fought a fleet of that size (i.e. the knossos network indicating the advanced nature of Ancient technology in the respect of subspace) rather than the Lucifer fleet....

Basically, what we do know is that the ancients were good at subspace, crushed developing races, and had a vast empire.... on the one hand you'd expect a militaristic race such as them to keep developing better weaponry (and they were advanced based on the knossos), on the other hand they may have had little need.  The scale of the Ancient-Shivan war is completely unknown.  My preference is that it was a truly vast war (massacre, rather) killing billions if not trillions, and that the message of FS was really 'united we stand', in that had either the Vasudans or Terrans won the 14-year war earlier on, the Shivans would have won the Great War.

I think we've had this debate (or one like it) in 'The Sathanas Fleet' thread, but I do like Anatares theory, one of the only bits I don't like is about the Shivan Comm Nodes.

Before I had a thought that maybe when the LF came through the knossos in that unknown system(Into the Lion's den), the ancients shut down Knossos 2 when only the LF were in what is now GTVA space, but they avoided the LF because the unknown system was a pointless one and they didn't need anyone in the system.

The LF then went to a system beyond Ross 128 through a network of jump nodes that don't pass through GTVA space.  The system beyond ross 128 (Lets call it Formhault) was an important one for the ancients and they didn't want any Shivans in the system because they might take up room and scare people.


So the Ancients attacked the Shivans but found their weapons woefully inadequate against Shivan armour and shields.  The Shivans then dished out some serious retribution onto the Ancients and exterminated them.  They then wondered the Galaxy for 8000 years looking for a way home.  Then they sensed some activity near the unknown system.


GTI had discovered the knossos and were testing its capabilities.  They sent a few Stealth ships beyond the nebula and the SOC brought in cruisers which managed to reactivate the knossos in the unknown system.


So the LF set course for the Gamma Draconis, a path which unfortunately took it close to an anubis fighter.  The Shivans scanned it and discovered a species which looked uncannily like the ancients.  (Shivans have long memories) and decided to kill the Ancients once and for all before returning home.


Unfortunately they assumed all ships in the area were Ancient including terran and thought they were in civil war.  And the Great War began.


Meanwhile the GTI had discovered that the Shivans were hostile and discovered Shivans beyond knossos 3.  THey then shut down the gates and destroyed all evidence that they had ever been there.  Unfortunately noone warned the GTA or PVE before the Hades rebellion, when the GTI was disbanded.


In the second great war, well read the second half of my original theory.  But add "The Shivans didn't know about any ancients".

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by karajorma


I've always taken that to mean that the Ancients conquered their entire galaxy using some (albeit slow) form of FTL but that once they had conquered their galaxy they knew that they'd never be able to go anywhere else. Subspace gave them the option of exploring other galaxies.

Well, I've always wondered about that.... but 'gave us our galaxy' can just mean the Ancients had - or felt they had - the means to conquer the entire galaxy, and beyond it the universe.

It's the hint of a non-subspace based FTL (or even STL) transport that interests me.... although at the same time the use of 'sleeper' ships could explain how a small (in galactic terms) empire could take thousands of years to develop.

Of course, there's interesting issue of how did the Ancients 'discover' subspace - did they in fact create the node network, building tens, hundreds or even thousands of knossos' to stabilise the existing fragile connections?  And then see the Shivans swarm through subspace towards them, desperately retreating and destroying the gates - their link to the galaxy - only to see the Shivan armada slowly move towards them regardless.... being hunted down, one by one, through the transport system they created?

(NB: of course, not all nodes lead home - hence some gates or even entire networks of them - could have been simply shut down and abandoned)

[KappaWing]

Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest. For thousands of years our empire expanded. For so long we could imagine ourselves alone in the universe. For so long never did we encounter advanced life. And we travelled faster and further spreading in our galaxy and before long we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited. And then there would be nowhere else to go.
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy and it gave us the universe.

Assuming that the Ancients possesed extremley advanced transportation technology, (they focused all their research on transportation because there was no need to develop military tech to war with other species), it is feasible to predict that the Ancients had ships capable of light or sub-light speeds. When the Shivans took out the Ancients, the technology was exterminated along with the ancients. The Shivans, being Shivan, would not have been interested in the Ancients tech and opted to carry out their usual agenda of killing everything on sight.

The Ancients were elated to discover subspace because it greatly speeded up the colonization prcess. A trip from Sol to Alpha Centuari would take about 4 years in a light-speed capable ancient ship. When they discovered subspace, they found that their travel time decreased from 4 years to 4 minutes. As their technology advanced, they discovered how to stabilize less reliable jump nodes. Being obsessed with expansion, a device to stabilize jump nodes would be top priority

On the whole "learned to adapt" thing, i think that since the Ancients never had to war with another species, their ships probably WEREN'T ARMED WHATSOEVER, (why arm a ship if you have nothing you would ever need to fire at?) making them easy targets for even the weakest Shivan vessels.

This is, of course, assuming that the Ancients internal quarrels never strayed from the political arena.

The Terrans, however, (unlike the Ancients) had weapons on their ships and had advanced those weapons to T-V war standards. It was because they fought the Vasudans that they survived the fight with the Shivans.

[StratComm]

The ancients' ships were armed, because they refer to crushing more primitive species.  They first thought the shivans were another such race, but the shivans did not fold over and capitulate like the other species they encountered.  My theory is that while the Ancients did use weaponry, it was at best equivalent to GTA/PVN weaponry at the start of FS1.  Technological stagnation, if you will, from never needing to advance their weaponry.  Nothing they had could challenge the Shivan tech, but it was enough to wipe the floor against unarmed opponents.