[Tyrian]

I was thinking about FS2 today and something interesting came to mind...

What if the Shivans didn't blow up the Capella star in order to make a special subspace jump?  What if it was a weapon test?  I heard a while ago the writer of FS2 said the Shivans might be a symptom of a larger problem.  What if this "larger problem" was another species at was with the Shivans?  What if this mystery race was winning?  The Shivans could have been fleeing from this threat and cut through GTVA territory in order to escape.  They went to the Capella star because it matched the characteristics of what they thought they needed for a successful test, or that it matched the characteristics of the star in this unknown enemy's home system.

If this was the case, it would seem that the test was mostly successful.  Only a few Sathani were lost.  Those which were destroyed may have had a malfunction in their jump drives, brought about by the immense amount of power needed to generate a supernova. 

Maybe another possible theory?

[Mars]

So how come they're testing the weapon again after 8000 odd years? Although I agree the "extra species theory is plausible

[IceFire]

Not original but its amongst some of the more logical and sensical theories I've read.  So well done.

Could be a weapons test, or a repositioning of fleets, or perhaps the problem is not another species but subspace itself.

[Dark Hunter]

So how come they're testing the weapon again after 8000 odd years? Although I agree the "extra species theory is plausible

  They used that tech against the Ancients? I don't think there's any proof of that. Indeed, I've seen nothing in FS to even suggest it.

[brandx0]

Especially considering that the weapon is introduced in Freespace 2, which barely makes any mention of the ancients, if it does at all.

[karajorma]

So how come they're testing the weapon again after 8000 odd years? Although I agree the "extra species theory is plausible

There's no proof whatsoever that the Shivans ever used the weapon against the ancients. It's quite possible that the nebula was a nebula when the Ancients found it and any theory that says it wasn't and that the Shivans did destroy a system there needs to explain how the second knossos portal survived the supernova (or why on Earth the Ancients would build one after the system was blown up).

Even if the Shivans did use the weapon 8000 years ago it's still possible that they lost the technology and then rediscovered it or that the previous version didn't use Saths and the new version needed to be tested.

[Mefustae]

There's no proof whatsoever that the Shivans ever used the weapon against the ancients. It's quite possible that the nebula was a nebula when the Ancients found it and any theory that says it wasn't and that the Shivans did destroy a system there needs to explain how the second knossos portal survived the supernova (or why on Earth the Ancients would build one after the system was blown up).

But you can't argue that campaign implies the Nebula was created by a similar event. I mean, it's obvious the detonation would predate the Ancients, and while there is no evidence of Shivan wars prior to the annihilation of the Ancient's civilisation, the implication that the Nebula was created from a Shivan-induced supernova remains.

[aldo_14]

I was thinking about FS2 today and something interesting came to mind...

What if the Shivans didn't blow up the Capella star in order to make a special subspace jump?  What if it was a weapon test?  I heard a while ago the writer of FS2 said the Shivans might be a symptom of a larger problem.  What if this "larger problem" was another species at was with the Shivans?  What if this mystery race was winning?  The Shivans could have been fleeing from this threat and cut through GTVA territory in order to escape.  They went to the Capella star because it matched the characteristics of what they thought they needed for a successful test, or that it matched the characteristics of the star in this unknown enemy's home system.

If this was the case, it would seem that the test was mostly successful.  Only a few Sathani were lost.  Those which were destroyed may have had a malfunction in their jump drives, brought about by the immense amount of power needed to generate a supernova. 

Maybe another possible theory?

But if this other race was so powerful, how could the Shivans get the required number of Sathani into their home system?

[Colonol Dekker]

With FEDEX !"!

[Blaise Russel]

Sathanagram?

[karajorma]

But you can't argue that campaign implies the Nebula was created by a similar event. I mean, it's obvious the detonation would predate the Ancients, and while there is no evidence of Shivan wars prior to the annihilation of the Ancient's civilisation, the implication that the Nebula was created from a Shivan-induced supernova remains.

I don't think it implies anything of the sort. The only implication I can see is Bosch's seven cities of Troy comment but I don't think that says anything about how the Shivans destroyed earlier civilisations.

[Snail]

What about that part where Bosch says something about the Egyptians and a blazing million suns (or something like that)...

[Colonol Dekker]

He was talking albout the naughty symbionts from stargate and Raa etc lol...........

[karajorma]

He also say that the supernova is thousands if not billions of LY from earth. Pretty hard to make any kind of inferance from such a large set of dates. Thousands would infer that they made it killing the ancients (as would the Pharoah's comment) but the comment about it being billions of LY away immediately contradicts that.

[Mars]

It always seemed like the game implied that the nebula was destroyed by the Shivans too me, but okay...

[Goober5000]

It always seemed like the game implied that the nebula was destroyed by the Shivans too me, but okay...

Me too.  There was definitely foreshadowing, but I suppose it's a matter of opinion whether it should be interpreted as a Shivan-created nebula.

[Tyrian]

My theory regarding the nebula is that the supernova that created it was a natural event.  The Ancients built the Knossos as a way to travel there to harvest the nebular gasses to power their ships.  This was where they encountered the Shivans.

Regarding the weapon test, what if the Shivans kill the Ancients, then go after the Terrans and Vasudans in FS1, get beat, decide to try to whack another race, in the process testing their supernova weapon, it fails, as a result they have bitten off more than they can chew and start to get owned, end up fleeing through Terran space to Capella, test the weapon again, get it working, and finally jump out to take another shot at the unknown race.  (Excuse the run on sentence Goob.) 

It would mean that they were building Sathani since the time they killed the Ancients, and just finished a few months before fleeing through Terran space.  I believe FS2 also states the Shivans were less interested in controlling nodes this time through, reinforcing the idea that they were running from something. 

[Mars]

Once y'all have refined your theories, you can put them in the appropriate section of the Freespace wiki.

[Dark Hunter]

I believe it relevant to this thread that the Wiki does mention a possible Ancient-era supernova: the Crab Nebula. I believe i'm actually contradicting my earlier post, but didn't the Crab supernova occur 5000 years ago (from year 2000, 8000 years in Freespace's past).

[phatosealpha]

I still maintain that they're sustained by interdimensional energy, and came to this dimension only to discover that subspace energy was like alchohol to them, and have been running around piss drunk since they got here.

The 'bigger problem' is that interdimensional space is so short on energy these days that interdimensional space gods are going to planes of existence where they get drunk on a 100 millenia bender, and no one is calling last call cause there ain't no interstellar OJ at home.

But, no one listens to me.