[TrashMan]

True, but the people of Earth prolyl learned a lot..

[karajorma]

I'm absolutely not going to dispute that

[Pnakotus]

I won't argue, since the GTVA apparently devised their own beam cannon just by looking at Lucifers guns work!

[Fade Rathnik]

More Like a few good scans

[Pnakotus]

Yeah, because scanning something gives you detailed blueprints, industrial tooling, and physics textbooks.  If Shivan and T/V technology wasn't so close already, it'd be like watching someone fire a rocket, looking at it, then inventing gunpowder.

[Nuclear1]

Then again, it might not have been the GTA that found out how to develop beam cannons--remember the Hades, anyone? The Hades had Lucifer-style beam cannons implemented, though they were never used in Silent Threat. It is possible that, after examining either the wreckage of the Hades, or, more likely, by acquiring information from the GTI in one way or another, that the GTA and PVN learned how to better fit beam cannons into their own ships based off of the Hades' example.

The GTA didn't need to do all of the research into Shivan technology in order to acquire the beam tech--the GTI had already done that for them. It certainly was much more difficult than simply copy/pasting the Hades example (after all, it took a while before beam-equipped mainstream GTVA vessels started being produced), but it was possibly done through the GTI Rebellion in some way.

[Fade Rathnik]

That is a very good point, i think the acknowledgement of the GTI all throughout FS2 is further evidence(SP) of nuclear1's point

[Pnakotus]

I totally agree: it's similar to the situation with shields and improved weapons, where the technology was almost finished (better guns and bombs) or being secretly worked on by GTI (shields).  If the Shivans had attacked months later, the Great War would've been very different.

It's a shame we never saw a Lucifer in FS2: I'd like to know if the Lucys wierd-beams were intended to be the regular beams we know from FS2, or something unique.  Now we'll never know.

[Goober5000]

We already do know.  The Lucifer supplied with retail FS2 has SReds.  Nowhere near as powerful as LuciferBeams or Shivan Super Lasers, but beams nonetheless.

[Pnakotus]

Is that taken to mean that Lucys guns are just SReds, or that Great War Lucy had different weapons?

[Boomer]

Great War Lucy had to have more powerful weapons.  SReds cannot take down an Orion in 2 or 3 shots.