[Goober5000]

True, but that was IMHO very stupid on 's part.  Essentially the only reason that part of the tech description exists is to give the player a hint that MX-50s don't work well against shields.

[Ghost]

CCCAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNN. Doesn't matter, it's still "true," Goob.

[Goober5000]

I never said it was false, just that it was stupid.  I'm not arguing its canonicity.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by aldo_14


The Ancients built the thing, remember?  They would be able to control, transport, switch on, switch off etc the knossos device....the Ancients were clearly a lot more advanced than the GTVA (knossos, subspace tracking, vast empire).

In terms of propulsion, yes. But their military technology lagged a fair amount behind the GTVA as I understand it. Why? They had a huge empire and kept fighting lots of weak enemies.

[Dark RevenantX]

Subspace inside subspace would cause a terrible explosion, collapsing the Knossos, its other end, and the two ends of the natural subspace node.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Ghost
No shields, though. And before you yell at me that that was Shivan technology, read the tech description for MX-50. There was a shielding prototype at Ross 128.

Well, IIRC there's not any evidence the Ancients didn't
 have shields; it solely depends on how you interpret the line 'unlike the others, they wouldn't die' (AFAIK that's the gist of it).  

I don't think there's any information of how militarily advanced the Ancients were; being destroyed by the Shivans when the GTVA survived may not be a good judge, because we don't know the size of the Shivan fleet.  IIRC one of the ancients monologues indicates the Shivans may/did have multiple Lucifer-or-similar class shielded destroyers.  Without knowing who the Ancients fought before the Shivans, or how many Shivans there were, it's hard to make a true judgement; potentially it could have been a war that made FS! & 2 look like a playground scrap.

Incidentally, the MX-50 describes the deflector array as an "energy based defense"; that doesn't necessarily entail shielding as stolen/copied from the Shivans.  Either way, the GTA/GTVA defo didn't have working shield technology until retrieving it from the Shivans, and they struggled to overcome it during the first confrontations (possibly indicating GTA shielding wasn't advanced enough for them to know ways round it).

[Ghost]

Yeah, I suppose you're right, aldo...

And if subspace would collapse is there was a seperate node inside the actual node, why the hell didn't they do it, then?

[Yogert]

The GTVA couldn't shut the Knossos down. The only ones with that knowledge was Bosch, who had disappeared into the nebula with all his top people, and the NTC Trinity, which was destroyed.  What with the impending Sathanas invasion Command had little choice but to destroy it, thinking the node would collapse.

As for why Command didn't collapse the Capella-Gamma Draconis node: Command thought that the destruction of the Knossos would destabilize and collapse the nebula node (most likely backed by Dr. Hargrove and her staff). By the time Command had devised the plan to collapse the other two nodes, the C-GD node was overrun and most likely impossible to breach.

[Carl]

Originally posted by Yogert
The GTVA couldn't shut the Knossos down. The only ones with that knowledge was Bosch, who had disappeared into the nebula with all his top people, and the NTC Trinity, which was destroyed.

but didn't they say they had enough info on it to build their own? i would assume we wouldn't build our own without knowing how to turn it on and off.

[Hellbender]

True, however on off switches are realatively easy to implement. On the other hand, I don't think there was anything saying that Bosch knew or even cared about shutting it down.

[Dark RevenantX]

You do NOT want to put subspace inside subspace!  Have you ever watched babylon 5, and seen what happens when you open a jump point inside a jump point?  First comes a well of gravity, then a big explosion, then the jump points are gone.

[Bobboau]

in b5...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Carl


but didn't they say they had enough info on it to build their own? i would assume we wouldn't build our own without knowing how to turn it on and off.

That'd (or could) simply  mean they understood the physics of it, not necessarily how to operate or even interface with the control systems created by the Ancients.

Of course, it may not even be possible to turn the thing off; I don't think it's entirely clear whether it was ever switched on prior to the Trinity, is it?

[Mefustae]

The average IQ of Command rating somewhere down in the low teens doesn't really help their case at all, i mean, i'll bet that on the back of the Knossos, there was a giant ON/OFF switch that Command never noticed...

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by Yogert
The GTVA couldn't shut the Knossos down. The only ones with that knowledge was Bosch, who had disappeared into the nebula with all his top people, and the NTC Trinity, which was destroyed.

Beg to differ, refer to your first command briefing on the Knossos. "The portal will remain open while Dr. Hargrove and her team study it." Which implies that the GTVA knows how to shut the portal as well and could have done so.

I believe they blew it up as a way of "just making sure"...that turned out disasterously wrong.

[Carl]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Of course, it may not even be possible to turn the thing off; I don't think it's entirely clear whether it was ever switched on prior to the Trinity, is it?

i would have thought that when the ancients built it thousands of years ago they would have used it at least once, or else why build it?

on the other hand, if they had used it, then the node would have been stablized, but it wasn't stable until the trinity activated the knossos.

...unless it destablized again over 8000 years.

[neo_hermes]

maybe the Ancients switched it off in the hopes that the shivans couldn't follow through an unstable Jump Node.

edit: if thats what your trying to say...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Carl


i would have thought that when the ancients built it thousands of years ago they would have used it at least once, or else why build it?

on the other hand, if they had used it, then the node would have been stablized, but it wasn't stable until the trinity activated the knossos.

...unless it destablized again over 8000 years.

More than possible, of course; I think the debrief after the knossos is destroyed indicates it's possible the node can destabilize.

Of course, none of the other Knossos' seen were deactivated, which raises other questions; it could be the GD Knossos was never activated because of the Shivans, or it could be that reactivating it started the others, or so on.

I can't remember if the GD knossos was ever dated; it's possible the Ancients never activated it because of the war with the Shivans, although that raises its own issue as to how the other Knossos' were built.

On the balance of things, it probably makes more sense if the Knossos in Gd was deactivated by the Ancients, possibly to try & stop the Shivans.  But IMO there are certainly other possibilities.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Beg to differ, refer to your first command briefing on the Knossos. "The portal will remain open while Dr. Hargrove and her team study it." Which implies that the GTVA knows how to shut the portal as well and could have done so.

Or simply implies that they aren't going to blow it up as a security risk.

[Cobra]

wasn't that mission a test of the Meson as well?

anyway, i don't see how using "cables" would work on the Knossos, since the spinning components would cause a massive strain on the ships system, thereby causing an overload and kaboom.