[aldo_14]

Altair, IIRC.

It's by far the most consistent with the monologues, given that they describe developing the tracker around or after they retreat to their homeworld and have lost their fleet and hence ability to transfer the prototype elsewhere.

[AlphaOne]

Well sure from theyr point of view. But think about the fact that they retreated to they homeworld in this galaxy. Maibe this was theyr home for thousands of years. Perhaps they were like tribes or something like that each tribe havin a different homeworld. Who knows the fact is that a race that spans galaxies has more then enough chances to escape anihalation at the hands of the shivans simpli by hiding.

[aldo_14]

Well sure from theyr point of view. But think about the fact that they retreated to they homeworld in this galaxy. Maibe this was theyr home for thousands of years. Perhaps they were like tribes or something like that each tribe havin a different homeworld. Who knows the fact is that a race that spans galaxies has more then enough chances to escape anihalation at the hands of the shivans simpli by hiding.

The Ancients Monologue tells a story parallel to the FreeSpace story.  It is the story of a race that was annihilated by the Shivans at an unspecified  point in the very distant past

Definitions of  annihilated on the Web:
    * destroyed completely

[S-99]

LOL
So anyway, who recieved a personal message from the ]C[rusader? It's very good.
It also points out what some people have been saying about the shivans. The shivans are not very thorough. Shivans don't even have landing parties. All they do is destroy any ship they see, and bombard planets. And suggesting from the vasudans standpoint, the planet bombardment really is a deadly experience as they had to find a new home world in aldebaran. If a planet bombardment is so bad that you can't hope to salvage your homeworld, then the shivans probably know for sure how to make it really bad, and that they don't need troop deployments. But, i am betting you could possibly live there still, it'd be really hard, and that there were a great deal of survivors left. The only thoroughness the shivans had for the survivors, was destroying most of the transports and shuttles leaving the surface. After that the shivans had a mission to destroy the survivors where of course alpha 1 was there for that and stopped them Shivans really do not let transport or civillians get away, any mission with a transport and shivans, shivans try to destroy them all. The only other case is if the shivans get a mission where they are not to focus on destroying everything. But, overall, if there is an aggressive target, available shivans will go after it instead of transports, greatly demonstrated in some of the moments of the last mission in fs2. In other words, the shivans do care less about escaped transports that they missed. So for survivors, or those hoping to hide, a matter of escaping at the right time, and technically meeting some conditions, could mean a successful relocation period. As for the ancients, it said they did escape to their homeworld where they thought they would be safe. But for an empire that stretched all across the galaxy and another. Maybe only chosen ancients were allowed to go back, and certainly not every ancient went back to their homeworld anyway.

There are a few of us left. We know we will soon be gone. And so we can see our fate as others will see it. There will be little legacy. No great expressions of what we once were. Our technology, our achievements if ever they are seen again will spawn none of the awe that filled our conquests.
We know our fate. We are being eliminated. When we travelled subspace the cosmic destroyers took note.
When we conquered and colonised in galaxies where we had no place the destruction and the anguish and the loss were the clarion call of our doom. And so the destroyers came for us.

It says here that they colonized galaxies, and they use it in the plural, and i'm betting it means more than two
Apparently, the shivans are not from the milky way at all, and yes the ancients are from there. Speaking about the first knossos device you encounter in fs2 that takes you to the nebula, where the **** does the second knossos take you? I'd like to know if that one took you to a different galaxy or not for that short mission

[Ghostavo]

AlphaOne, for the love of FS and all that is holy, please read the monologues.

[AlphaOne]

Well i have read them i guess i just failed to get it or didnt want to...!
Aniway here is a thought! If the GTVA has like these instalations in every sistem arcadia was it?? Well if u want tio guard a sistem or lets say guard a node somewhere around the border wouldnt it be cheaper to convert an Orion or a Typhoon around there somewhere where it cant be openede fire upon the instantn u exit subspace. I mean Double the armour and keep the armamament around hell u could even strip out the engines because that thing aint gooing nowhere. And there u have it one perfectly good instalation so to speak to keep watch over the node and stuff like that. I mean that has to be cheaper then building an entire instalation. Im saing this in regard to the areas whre a milatary instalation is prefered to the clasic one you know the kind that gets blown up by a cruiser.

I mean an Orion has a decent amount of fighter wings plus more the adequate beam weaponry.

Also would it be better for lets say convert a destroyer intro o stationary gun platform? I mean kind of like the RBC's. Stick 4 Mjolnir on the side of it bring around all the aaf defenses and stich there lets say 4 or 5 wing of interceptors and u have a much more powerfull and safer gun platform then the RBC's. Sure its not as mobile as the RbC's and it would take longer to repair but then  again it would be safer for the cannons i mean. Imagine 2 of these gun platforms taking 2 flanking positions. I mean would be one very heavely defended jump node. I dounght even a jug could survive long in these conditions.

And if you want more u can always stick more of them around the node this way no jug would last more then 20 seconds there. I tink.

If it is a completely stupid idea please tell me! I just wanted to see if they would work in the fs universe...those and a missile bomb/torpedo tipe corvette or friggate or destroyer. With like 30 or 40 missile /bomb/torpedo launchers.

[aldo_14]

*imagines the Shivans sending in a meson-bomb derivative weapon that obliterates the entire front line defense because the fighter platform is stationed too close to the node*

*also imagines how much cheaper and mobile an RBC is than a 10,000-manned but disabled destroyer*

*not to forget imagining the vast expense of hauling out engines from a destroyer, let alone the difficulties of doing so on-site or towing the disabled ship to a position, or the further huge expense of bolting on extra armour*

*imagines Jessica Alba naked and some whipped cream*

Whoops, sorry, tuned out there.  What?

[Ghostavo]

The Arcadia is built in every major system IIRC. And the few times it has appeared, I'm not sure if it was built near a node.

Either way, their job is not to defend the node. That's a job for blockades as seen many times in FS2. Permanently guarding a node must be very taxing one can assume.

It's not a stupid idea, but it fails to notice what has been done throughout the game.

[aldo_14]

It'd be daft to put a huge installation as a blockade; where the hell would your fall back/rally point be when the blockade failed?  Why would you place C & C - tactical command - right in the middle of the danger zone, where your command staff could feasibly be wiped out by a single bomber? Etc.

So, they're not obviously not going to be used for that.  I would imagine that blockades are mobile (with only minimal fixed defenses) because a) it's impossible to cover every node without huge costs and b) you don't know where the Shivans could come from, and where their 'beachhead' would be.

[AlphaOne]

i did not say you would stick the bloody thnih in front of the node but rather somewhere in a position that would provide them with a tactical advantage over the exiting point of ships from subspace. Also since mobilaty is so treasured then leave the engines stick 4 Mjolnir to one side an they can actualy mode to the place where they have to provide beam cannon fire in order to blocade.

[aldo_14]

Ah, so it's a magic Orion with magic extra beam weapons!

[AlphaOne]

oh for cryng out loud they would be customized orions! Geez u sure cant see the point now can you? CUSTOMIZED Orions. modified especialy for node blocades. I imagine that although expensive they would actualy be a much more versatile weapon compared to the RBC's . Sure RBC's are very very impresive and usefull but this would be even more usefull. I mean it would be a fast wai to deploy RBC's where you ant them sort of..! magine 4 mjolnir cannons openind fire on a target. there wouldnt be lost of the only lets say 4 or 5 of these ships. U cant actualy move a RBC where you want in time and without fear of them beeing destroyed. At least an Orion can flee and offer a better degree of protection. Also since when the hell do the shivans use messons. They never ever use such tactics. they kick the door and flood the place with jugs.

[aldo_14]

oh for cryng out loud they would be customized orions! Geez u sure cant see the point now can you? CUSTOMIZED Orions. modified especialy for node blocades. I imagine that although expensive they would actualy be a much more versatile weapon compared to the RBC's . Sure RBC's are very very impresive and usefull but this would be even more usefull. I mean it would be a fast wai to deploy RBC's where you ant them sort of..! magine 4 mjolnir cannons openind fire on a target. there wouldnt be lost of the only lets say 4 or 5 of these ships. U cant actualy move a RBC where you want in time and without fear of them beeing destroyed. At least an Orion can flee and offer a better degree of protection. Also since when the hell do the shivans use messons. They never ever use such tactics. they kick the door and flood the place with jugs.

Maybe you should stop, take 5 minutes, and think.

We have an Orion.  An Orion only has a finite capacity for power, stress, armour, etc, beyond which refitting it would become more difficult and unweildy than simply making a new class of ship.  And yet we're somehow refitting an Orion to withstand a juggernaut assault and use mutiples of the most powerful weapon the GTVA has, without sacrificing the mobility offered by a fleet blockade.  i.e. we - well, you - are suggesting an Orion which isn't any different to a normal Orion except it has vastly more powerful weapons, which seemingly have come from nowhere.  And can we assume you can mount xx weapons on one side and strip the rest?  No!  Because each of those weapons will have specific power, cooling, stress, etc requirements of their own.  Moreso, by mounting weapons on a single side, you're just creating a huge hole and making it a sitting duck from the other.  Not to mention that if you can't bring all your weapons on said Orion to bear very quickly, you are most definately screwed.

As you point out, the Shivans use juggernauts (although they could easily use Meson Type devices if they so desired, I'd wager - they just haven't needed to).  The Colussus sustained damage from the power output required to destroy the Sathanas, and that was using weaker beams and facing a single crippled ship.  What on earth makes you expect a smaller, older frame could survive any better?  Oh, it can run away, you say!  Well, that's bugger all use given that you've lost the node, and your little blockade destroyer is useless for open space combat because you've lumped all the beams on the one side.

So what do we have?  An infeasibly super-powered Orion whose sole benefit is a) being a big target and b) running away.

Let's look a Mjolnirs, too.  Hard to move?  Most certainly not - dock to an Elysium, warp in or out, bob's your uncle.  And that's assuming they don't have a capacity to re-orient in space.  Less protection?  Sure - but then again, they're a ****load cheaper, easier to move about, and you're not losing thousands of crew when they get blown up.  Fighter cover?  Makes a lot more sense for your fighter platform to be away from the combat zone - if it goes down early on in a blockade, you're ****ed (this, incidentally, would be why the Aquitane sends you in to cover for the Carthage and Dakshor).

[S-99]

JUGS
I wish i could be flooded with jugs   had something on the mind
Well, out of the 80 jugs (that's a lot), and these are jugs, not cruiser sized. Well, with 80 jugs, they come in all different names and nationalities. First you start off with your russian jugs olga and helga, then you move on to mexican jugs like maria, then there's american jugs like rita-g. And don't forget those canadian jugs like melyssa ford and pam anderson
When i first watched the first of the 80 jugs coming through the node, i saw rita-g stamped on the side of that jug...and i knew it was my day for flying into her fighterbay.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YEEAAAAAAAHHH!!!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Satisfaction

[S-99]

Mjolnirs to take out a sathanas would be great, do something like position them in back of the node or on the very sides of the node (where the sathanas doesn't have much of any weapons cover). Believe me, i'm not joking about the weapons cover on that thing, i was able to fly from the front to the rear into the fighter bay with only a couple of hits from the laser turrets on that thing (did that in a horus as everyone can see). But, like a mara did take me out. Have a couple of mjolnirs just start tagging that thing in the engines, it might get disabled, or at least become really slow
And i don't know if you can have a mjolnir docked with an elysium (probably can). But, don't forget, elysiums do have fighter cover which was like 2 flak cannons. It's enough to keep you away from the elysium

[AlphaOne]

Errr.....you sure have a lot of anger.(Aldo)

I see the point in what you are saing but there is one thing i dont get. Whats up with the superbeamcannon i just said it could use the mjolnir. Hey wait a sec the mjolnir is a cannon available in the FS2 campaign right?(now i'm confused) .

Aout the Colossus arguement well lets put it this way...the Colossus wasnt meant to take on anything near as big or as armoured or with that much hp as a jugg. Oh and the wai the big C was designed and gun emplacement put at well to be honest I would of used a whole differen areangement but hey thats past not.

Also the reason the big C suffered damage from its own beamcannons was because they overloaded the beam cannons in order to do much more damage. And so the heat sinks melted reactors melted etc etc. we all know what happened. I have a feeling that if the C used its weapons in the standard way there wouldnt have been any problem.

All im tring to say is that the RBC's are taken down way too fast for mi confort and that I would of liked to see an alternative to the standard RBC's .

Also if lets say you wanted a ship or a devide or something that is customed designed for blocades what would you make it. I mean would you use a LRBFG or that mjolnir thing stick them up in front of the thing strap a couple of engines behind it or what? I'm just curios to know. there was this topic somewhre that sugeste an RBC' with engines.


2nd post!

Yeah the jugg sure has crappy aaaf defenses but it has a ****load of fighter/interceptors/bommbers ! oh well just take out its fighterbay(s) and its engines and that thing is useless. I mean just get out of its foreward firing ark and you can pound on it all you want. Also i believe that not even a jugg can withstand that kind of punishement from mjolnirs. i mean one hit from 4 of these things to the engines and they MUST of been take out.

[Mars]

@S-99: Elysiums have a single HL-7 turret and Mjolnirs don't have any dock points.

@AlphaOne: I've always wanted a giant beam installation pointed at a node, that doesn't mean it's practical.

[AlphaOne]

Well its not its giant or anithing i just thought you could pair up 2 or 3 mjolnirs to deliver that musch punishemnt all in one place. This is because we all know that well one RBC can miss its target if its moving fast enough but when u have like 3 or 4 of the things stacked up (4 rbc's or something like that each one with 2 mjolnirs) no matter how fast u move u are still gooing down from the first shot. off course this does not apply to jugs but then again as we have seen no ship is indestructible.

[aldo_14]

Errr.....you sure have a lot of anger.

I see the point in what you are saing but there is one thing i dont get. Whats up with the superbeamcannon i just said it could use the mjolnir. Hey wait a sec the mjolnir is a cannon available in the FS2 campaign right?(now i'm confused) .

Aout the Colossus arguement well lets put it this way...the Colossus wasnt meant to take on anything near as big or as armoured or with that much hp as a jugg. Oh and the wai the big C was designed and gun emplacement put at well to be honest I would of used a whole differen areangement but hey thats past not.

Also the reason the big C suffered damage from its own beamcannons was because they overloaded the beam cannons in order to do much more damage. And so the heat sinks melted reactors melted etc etc. we all know what happened. I have a feeling that if the C used its weapons in the standard way there wouldnt have been any problem.

All im tring to say is that the RBC's are taken down way too fast for mi confort and that I would of liked to see an alternative to the standard RBC's .

Also if lets say you wanted a ship or a devide or something that is customed designed for blocades what would you make it. I mean would you use a LRBFG or that mjolnir thing stick them up in front of the thing strap a couple of engines behind it or what? I'm just curios to know. there was this topic somewhre that sugeste an RBC' with engines.

If it was easy, why do you think the GTVA isn't already using Mjolnirs on all its ships? Why do you think not all Terran ships use the BFGreen on all their turrets?

Also, if the Colossus used its weapons in the standard way, then it'd have taken even longer to destroy the effectively defenseless Sathanas.   Remember the key aspect here is stopping the enemy before they can jump out again.  The Colossus is clear evidence that beam cannons, when overused or pushed heavily, cause structural damage.  And that's upon a larger, purpose built hull, not a 60+ year old ship that was built around plasma turrets.

I wouldn't custom design a ship for blockades, because such a ship would be a severe liability as soon as the blockade was broken.  I'd bung 10-20 Mjolnirs (depending on availability and the likely enemy forces), stick some cruisers and corvettes in position around the node for immediate egagement, and hold destroyers on the perimeter to provide the fighter support and C & C.  You don't need mobile Mjolnirs, because you have bombers and heavy warheads.

Elysiums have a single HL-7 turret and Mjolnirs don't have any dock points

Put it this way - you're not going to be shifting much during a battle anyways, only beforehand, and they have to get Mjolnirs into position even if the game itself never needed to show it.

[Mars]

Just pointing out about the Elysium.