[Mongoose]

I'd also disagree with the statement that other languages are "forgotten."  I'd be willing to guess that members of different ethnic groups would still learn their own languages, even as the children of immigrants who are born and raised in the US learn their own mother tongues today.  Plus, we already know that the GTVA has to have a massive "Ship Naming" division to come up with all of the SD Whatevers; they'd have to be well-versed in ancient tongues.

[willy_principal]

oh...yeah...i forgot that...you are right...

they must know greek, egypt and hindu languagues....at least the 'Department of Ships Denomination'.

and...it's very probable the posibility that the human population lives in domes...
However, Delta Serpentis and other system's planets should have been terraformed enough to let people live in the surface...

[EDIT] i just notices that i'm a Bakha!!! yehaw! [/EDIT]

[KappaWing]

They might know the mythology translated into english with only the names of characters still intact in their origional language. For example "the mighty rakshashas were the minions of the terrible multi headed Ravana..."

And Congratulations, Willy!

[willy_principal]

Originally posted by KappaWing
"the mighty rakshashas were the minions of the terrible multi headed Ravana..."

this is true? or you made it up?

Originally posted by KappaWing

And Congratulations, Willy!

LOL....you are welcome...

Is there any records of an intra-planet civil war...?
...i mean.
The government of a planet being overthrew, or one/more of its 'states' wanted to secede...or...something...that resulted in armed conflicts in the surface and air-space of the planet?

in the FS2 universe, the communism, socialism, fascism and nazism are kinda forgotten...

(there is some resemblence to the nazism-->Bosch and his Neo-Terran Front)

[KappaWing]

this is true? or you made it up?

Yep. It's true. I read it somewhere in some origin of names section on a freespace reference website.

There is no stuff of intra-planet civil war other than my theory about the earth unification thing. It seems infeasable simply because there are not enough people on any given GTVA planet to revolt. Remember, living in biodomes is expensive. Many civillians probably live in orbital space stations. There was a revolt on a space station that occured in Derelict IIRC.

[willy_principal]

I think that it's viceversa...
it's cheaper to live in a dome than to live in a space station...

in a planet's dome...you don't need simulate gravity, water might be collected from the planet and food might grow in the surface, and oxygen might be filtrated from the planet athmosphere...
in orbital space stations...they can't produce anything. Everything is brough by transports...

[KappaWing]

True, but I doubt that a planet would be terraformed to the point at which humans can venture outside their bubble to breathe oxygyn or crops could be grown. It takes far more than 350 years to even begin to terraform a planet. In a space station, gravity doesen't need to be simulated if the space station is a rotating tire-like shape, with centripital force taking the place of gravity.

Technology has probably rendered growing crops in soil obsolete, but who knows? [V] never even hinted at how life was like outside of the military. FS scripts were always talking about colonies on planets and stuff and we never really got to see to much of them, so we have no idea how the colonists really live. IIRC the only colony we ever got to see was a Vasudan one in FS1. It was the command briefing ani where the Lucy blew up Vasuda prime.

I was shocked to learn that the Vasudans built buildings with cities just like Terrans do. It seems hard to believe that 2 species that never made contact throughout history evolved so similar too each other. Vasudans and Terrans both have two arms, two legs, walk erect, and have one head. (Technically, Vasudans have headz while Terrans have heads but you get the point .)

[pyro-manic]

It's a difficult question to answer, to be honest. We don't know anything about culture in the FS universe. It simply doesn't appear in the game.

I'd imagine that it'd be a fair bit more advanced than we are now - i.e. there's a bit of tolerance, and people tend not to stab each other in the back at every opportunity. I'd say bigotry would have pretty much disappeared (apart from the odd bit of anti-Vasudan feeling among Terrans), and religion would have been marginalised except in backwater locations like some areas of Earth and the oldest colonies (Mars, Europa, Titan etc).

As for languages, the idea that everyone speaks one language is not a sensible conclusion - everyone in the game speaks the same language, but that's so that the player can understand it, not because everyone actually speaks like an American. I suspect that English would be the "official" language for communications, because it is the current internationally agreed language for aerospace communications, air traffic control, the vast majority of space mission control (everyone except the Russians uses it AFAIK), and shipping communications. That is not a reason to believe that all other languages have become extinct, though - it's extremely unlikely that languages like Cantonese, Hindi, etc which have roughly a billion people each would simply disappear (especially over such a short period of time ~ 350 years)

I suspect civilians wouldn't move between planets too much, but there would a spacelines (like airlines) that provided travel between colonies, planets and systems. Companies and other large organisations would have their own pools of spacecraft to use, but I doubt they'd have anything as advanced as the equipment the Terran-Vasudan navies have. There wouldn't be much in the way of weaponry - maybe an ML-16 turret or two to deal with asteroids and debris, but nothing more than that.

I think each planet would have a governor or governing council, responsible for domestic and local affairs, including policing. The governing bodies would answer to the central GTVA government in Beta Aquilae, or maybe a "regional" authority (responsible for an entire sector or group of systems).

As for civil war, there's the NTF rebellion, of course, and what about the split of the GTA after the loss of Sol? There were several pretty much autonomous "states" until the GTVA was formed 20-odd years later(?), so there may have been sporadic or minor conflicts between the factions. The Vasudans are above all that, though, being a more advanced civilisation than the Terrans. They held together very well, considering the razing of their home planet and the loss of a considerable portion of their species.

[KappaWing]

Sounds good!

As for civil war, there's the NTF rebellion, of course, and what about the split of the GTA after the loss of Sol? There were several pretty much autonomous "states" until the GTVA was formed 20-odd years later(?), so there may have been sporadic or minor conflicts between the factions.

We were talking about a civil war between two states on the same planet. AFAIK, there haven't been any instances of that on GTVA held planets.

[Charismatic]

This is all very interesting.

I wonder what Sol would do after the loss of the node. Whould they freak out and ban space knoloage, or would the mass stock warships and bases around earth to perpare for shivans?
Would the GTA on that side split up into majior groups, IE: US, Brittan, EU, Russia, France, Span.. all with their sections and own warships. Then they (the above mentioned factions) would every now and then skirmish for  space and possibly pull togeather in emergency.

Whats more likely.. anyone?

[Flaser]

Originally posted by Charismatic
This is all very interesting.

I wonder what Sol would do after the loss of the node. Whould they freak out and ban space knoloage, or would the mass stock warships and bases around earth to perpare for shivans?
Would the GTA on that side split up into majior groups, IE: US, Brittan, EU, Russia, France, Span.. all with their sections and own warships. Then they (the above mentioned factions) would every now and then skirmish for  space and possibly pull togeather in emergency.

Whats more likely.. anyone?

The nationalistic (in Earth term) break up of the GTVA is not likely for several reasons:

In the sublight era - before ss-drives were invented - the initial colonisation of the Sol system probably started and Mars, Moon and the Jupiter belt were probably conquered to solve the homeplanet's massive ecological problems as well as to vent the massive overpopulation.

These colonists probably abbandoned their own nationalities or it is nothing more than a cultural flawor within a new nation/populaion.

The reason I state this is that a new environment of a different planet truely changes people, and unless they are 1st / 2nd generation immigrants their most basic and/or forming experiences are tied to a planet that is very alien to Earthers and therefore Eartherns cultures can only be applied to a degree.
(Read some of the stuff Kim Stanley Robinson wrote - Mars trilogy - to in depht what I mean).

Therefore at least these sublight colonists would be a considerable non-nationalistic population with different ideals and a different image of what a human planet looks like.

The other reason why your earlier theory won't hold as is:
The European civilisations number a lot less citizens than the rest of the world - if you want big ethnic groups the more likely candidates are:

Chineese
Indian
Arabic (with lots of flavors)
American (+lots of Euro flavors)
Russian
(+Jews - come on they survived intentinal genocide! Of course they will live on.)

These nationalities have a lot of people and therefore will be able to colonise on their own or maintain their integrity even in a new environment.

However I must attack the dome cities of new planets theory:

It is easier to live on a planet.
However from an industrial point of view, the gravity well of any planet is a drawback if you want to transport goods - and all the initial colonies are built to be exploited by Earth. Otherwise investors won't put their money into the venture.

Moreover the "nothing is manufactured in space" is the worst / most inane thing I ever heard.
Yes: you have no resources around Earth in orbit.

However all of the super/advanced metalurgy methods we experiment with nowadays call far a space foundry (...the one on the ISS is of Hungarian design).
Space in many aspects is the ideal place for industry - waste is easly handled, no ecology to bust up, perfectly controllable environment.

Beside if you think of a spacegoing civilisation most of its space assets would be sensibly built in space.

Moreover there is a lot of materials in space! That's why I wrote of the Jupiter belt as a liklely candidate of exploration/conquest - the asteroids are easy to tow, they are already in orbit, and they have all the metals / gases / water in great quantities.

IMHO most of the civilastion of Freespace lives on stations, on small moons, and in asteroid belts, since that's the best site for space industry.
The only exception is agriculture, which is why suitable planets are needed.

Most planets are barely terraformed, and at lest 60% of the population lives in space.

[KappaWing]

Very agreeable

IMHO most of the civilastion of Freespace lives on stations, on small moons, and in asteroid belts, since that's the best site for space industry.
The only exception is agriculture, which is why suitable planets are needed.

These small moondwellers have to live in domes or walk around in their spacesuits all the time.

And wouldent growing crops in soil on a planet be obsolete by now? I thinks they grow them artificially somehow. Maybe they have these rooms on Arcadia installations where food is artificially grown.

Because no planet besides earth has flowing water, GTVA probably takes chunks of ice and unfrezzes them, or harvests nebular gases containing hydrogyn and somehow combines them with oxygyn to make water. The latter would probably only be available to the wealthy, as the process would be quite expensive, but that way the water would be completley pure.

the gravity well of any planet is a drawback if you want to transport goods

I think that the GTVA has anti gravity technology, as their artificial gravity has already been implemented on warships cruiser class and larger.

[aldo_14]

Possibly of relevance to note that the GTVA has the ability to genetically engineer plants for terraforming and also use nanotechnology for the same purpose.

And the GTVA definately has anti-grav.

[Charismatic]

Very good. Thakn you flahser for correcting me.
So asteroids have mass amounts of water? Arnt they just rock and metal?

[Flaser]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Possibly of relevance to note that the GTVA has the ability to genetically engineer plants for terraforming and also use nanotechnology for the same purpose.

And the GTVA definately has anti-grav.

...and sensible engineers.

Artificially generating 0.3-0.6 G for a warship, where the energy demand of the device would ammount to moving a couple hundred tons is one thing...
.....a device to work for an entire city is quite another.

The energy consistency priciple (I don't know if I correctly retranslated it) means, that whenever smg. falls in the field the kinetic energy it gained must be supplied by you.

The energy demand of such device for a city is buzzling....
....and no I don't think that an Orion has AG everywhere.

Though beside that small sippet from an interview we never saw any reference to ANTI gravity, only ARTIFICIAL -||-.
BTW who was interviewed? If it wasn't the concept designer / writer I don't think you can take all his words as proof even if he was part of :V:.

Moreover I'm still not convinced that the GTVA has true ARTI/ANTI gravity - for all I see they have a device that's capable of preventing things from floating in space.

With a true antigravity device there would be no point to using nuclear thrusters in the first place.
Moreover such a device could rip planets and moons in half with ease - and a Shathanes still seems a lot smaller than a planet. Therefore I doubt the GTVA has such advanced gravity science.

As for nanotechnology - with that availible the construction of the Collosus seems too slow and ackward. Moreover they would definitly use such technology against Shivans.
Once again it seems too advanced if you consider all its effects and application.

Genetic Engineered plants are quite possible though - however IMHO terraformation would still take roughly a century.

[Carl]

Originally posted by Flaser
Space in many aspects is the ideal place for industry - waste is easly handled, no ecology to bust up, perfectly controllable environment.

don't forget crystals. in space, there are no minute geological vibrations that make growing crystals oh so hard on earth. in space, you could grow nearly perfect crystals, without which most of the GTVA's laser weapons wouldn't work.

[StratComm]

I'd imagine any large ship or station has its own hydroponics lab to at least produce some of the crew's food.  If not, then resupply would be an absolute nightmare.

[willy_principal]

I wonder what do people eat...

crew from ships probably eat some kind of artifitial rations...like the one in Matrix...
GOOD food is surely extremely expensive.

[Flaser]

Originally posted by Carl


don't forget crystals. in space, there are no minute geological vibrations that make growing crystals oh so hard on earth. in space, you could grow nearly perfect crystals, without which most of the GTVA's laser weapons wouldn't work.

That's the primary reason, though I didn't want to go into the whole explanation about supermaterials.

The reason why I think agriculture is still somewhat planetbound is the steep demands of an ecology - simply put is easier to let the plants and animals build it up for you than to artificially oversee the process.

Though for all we know there could be giant space colonies not unlike Gundam - though that seems like a rare occurance, since with habitable planets there's no point to creating artificial landmass.

Check out this site though:

http://www.dyarstraights.com/msgundam/frontier.html

It will put a lot of these spacestation/colony cocepts into perspective.
I also like the said site, for it also has some articles on the same notions (environment's effects on psyche and identity) that I and K.S.Robinos are so keen on.

----------------------------------------------

For the Reference Project and just promotion I also point you to my attempt at writting a RGP (in classical sense) for Freespace.

The thread:

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,27808.0.html

The stuff itself:

http://www.geocities.com/flaser_01/freespacer.doc

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Flaser


...and sensible engineers.

Artificially generating 0.3-0.6 G for a warship, where the energy demand of the device would ammount to moving a couple hundred tons is one thing...
.....a device to work for an entire city is quite another.

The energy consistency priciple (I don't know if I correctly retranslated it) means, that whenever smg. falls in the field the kinetic energy it gained must be supplied by you.

The energy demand of such device for a city is buzzling....
....and no I don't think that an Orion has AG everywhere.

Though beside that small sippet from an interview we never saw any reference to ANTI gravity, only ARTIFICIAL -||-.
BTW who was interviewed? If it wasn't the concept designer / writer I don't think you can take all his words as proof even if he was part of :V:.

Nope, it was specifically 'Anti Gravity' and it was Adam Pletcher, who pretty much determined what was canon in FS (and wrote the Ref Bible).

There's also,of course, the Vasuda Prime scene as evidence of non-aerodynamic fighters & transports being able to fly in air to space seemingly without any downwards thrust to keep them upwards.

Originally posted by Flaser
Moreover I'm still not convinced that the GTVA has true ARTI/ANTI gravity - for all I see they have a device that's capable of preventing things from floating in space.

With a true antigravity device there would be no point to using nuclear thrusters in the first place.
Moreover such a device could rip planets and moons in half with ease - and a Shathanes still seems a lot smaller than a planet. Therefore I doubt the GTVA has such advanced gravity science.

You assume that there's a sufficient power source to do that, or a mounting base.  Having a single piece of technological knowledge doesn't automatically mean you can do every conceivable thing with it, you know.

You also seem to be assuming that they'd want to use anti-gravity drives on larger capital ships for space travel.  But who says that would be more efficient?  Perhaps it interferes with subspace travel, as gravity plays an important role in inter-stellar nodes.

Originally posted by Flaser

As for nanotechnology - with that availible the construction of the Collosus seems too slow and ackward. Moreover they would definitly use such technology against Shivans.
Once again it seems too advanced if you consider all its effects and application.
 

Could also have used nanotechnology, I should have said.  There's a post by (I think) daveb saying that he'd he liked the idea of using nanotech based weapons and defensive systems.  Bear in the mind the FS1 & 2 engine couldn't portray that sort of thing, though.

Also, you're again assuming you'd have infinite applications for a technology; that once the principles are discovered you can do everything and anything.  If you developed nanotech for terraforming, it doesn't necessarily mean you can immediately adapt that same tech into a weapon.