[Colonol Dekker]

Best conclusion, the battle of Deneb killed loads of people, nuff said......

[Ghostavo]

Seriously, the only people who would look at that cutscene and assume it couldn't have been the site of a battlefield are you guys, extreme fans and well versed canon people.  People who are unfamiliar to the Freespace universe would have come to the conclusion that all those Marines died in combat somehow. 

bollocks.  I first saw that cutscene as - shockingly - never having played an FS game before and interpreted no such thing.  It's a site of many dead people; nothing more, nothing less - you're the one reading in some vast story of ground warfare from it.

Actually, I'm not.  You must be missing my point.  You're reading into the cutscene by trying to portray some far-fetched story of some marines falling from some hole from a crashing ship, or dying from some other thing.  What I'm trying to say is that I think the whole cutscene was probably made to convey an image.  But I can say with certainty that it wasn't made to conform to or perpetuate canon.  The people who made it didn't care about canon, so it's pointless to try to conform the cutscene to canon or to try to extract some other form of canonical idea from it.

So according to you what killed the pilot of the crashed Herc? Signs of a battle while he was holding on to an holographic emitter? Bullsh*t.
They just wanted to show a lot a dead people, you know, like a mausoleum?

And now, we live in the mausoleum of history. We inherit the legacy of ghosts, who haunt these ruins.

[karajorma]

I think the point FF is trying to make is this.

How many of you have tried to explain why there is a Hades class superdestroyer crashed on the planet? Probably no one. It's simply written off as artistic license in order to make the cutscene look cool.

So why is everyone clamouring to explain the dead troops away?


Of course the point he's missing is that we explain away the troops because we can. No amount of fanon can explain away the Hades

[Colonol Dekker]

Actually that topic goes back 5 and a half years nealry.....

But we need to leave it be........

[NGTM-1R]

Of course the point he's missing is that we explain away the troops because we can. No amount of fanon can explain away the Hades

Put simply: why?

We don't actually know the Hades was unique. It is possible, though unlikely, that there was more then one of them. Nothing canonical states the Hades was unique. The tech room comes closest, but it is not, as we well know, an infallible narrator. More than one Hades would actually bring Silent Threat much more in line with other FS campaigns; as with FS1 and FS2 main campaigns there was a mopup period we missed.

Clearly the term retcon has no meaning to you people.

[Freespace Freak]

Karajorma nailed it.  If it makes your world make a little more sense in your mind if you simply imagine that the reason for all those dead troops is caused by some strange accident (troops falling out of a transport or ship) or anything other than troops dying in battle, then go ahead, but I think it overrides the artistic and emotional point of the scene.

To have them die fruitlessly or by, essentially, some force beyond their control invalidates the image that the entire cutscene is trying to convey.  However, the image it does try to convey does contradict canon, but the point is, so what?

[Ghostavo]

Karajorma nailed it.  If it makes your world make a little more sense in your mind if you simply imagine that the reason for all those dead troops is caused by some strange accident (troops falling out of a transport or ship) or anything other than troops dying in battle, then go ahead, but I think it overrides the artistic and emotional point of the scene.

To have them die fruitlessly or by, essentially, some force beyond their control invalidates the image that the entire cutscene is trying to convey.  However, the image it does try to convey does contradict canon, but the point is, so what?

Massive speculation.

You assume we think they died by some strange accident yet, I've asked you, how do you think the pilot of the fallen Herc died? A ground battle? Fell off the fighter? No, he got out of it and died from an unknown non violent cause (think injuries, illness, starvation, whatever...). Why can't the same have happened to the crew of the fallen Hades? Does it override whatever you think the cutscene tries to show? Why and what do you think the cutscene is trying to convey? And why do you think you are correct in your assumption of what it is trying to convey? Does the pilot of the fallen Herc died "fruitlessly" then? Was it some force beyond his control (I always thought death was beyond anyone's control but...)? And how does the "message" contradict canon?

[Freespace Freak]

What makes you think they were from the Hades, hmmm?  And you're still missing my point.  The pilot of the Herc was shot down, and died later.  Where did the Marines come from?  Did you see them somewhere before in the cutscene?  No.  Where did they come from then?  What I'm trying to say is it's up to you.  However, to try to say with authority "No, they can't have died from ground comat, that violates canon!" would be wrong because the whole scene violates canon, regardless of how those troops died.  Don't try to make an authority on how they died, if it makes sense for you to have them die falling from a ship or whatever, sure, but I don't think you should do so just so you can make it fit canon, because nothing in that scene fits canon to begin with.  Instead admire the scene for what it is, and don't try to make it fit anything.

[karajorma]

We don't actually know the Hades was unique. It is possible

Yes it's possible. But if you built a campaign around that it would be regarded with about as much believability as that campaign with 10 Colossi and numerous Saths. Quite simply no one is going to buy that there was a second Hades in the same way that no one will believe that the GTVA secretly built 9 more Colossi.

Sure nothing canon states that it didn't happen but you show me one non-noob who believes that it did?

You assume we think they died by some strange accident

You're missing FF's point. He isn't saying that. He's saying that explaining away the marines as being the crew of the Hades is similarly ridiculous to trying to explain who could possibly have made the size 500 shoes that Godzilla wore when you saw him tap dance down your road yesterday. First you must explain where Godzilla came from and why he was tap dancing The shoes are a minor detail.

Explaining the marines away as being the crew of the Hades doesn't get you around the point that the Hades doesn't make any bloody sense in the first place!

[aldo_14]

Seriously, the only people who would look at that cutscene and assume it couldn't have been the site of a battlefield are you guys, extreme fans and well versed canon people.  People who are unfamiliar to the Freespace universe would have come to the conclusion that all those Marines died in combat somehow. 

bollocks.  I first saw that cutscene as - shockingly - never having played an FS game before and interpreted no such thing.  It's a site of many dead people; nothing more, nothing less - you're the one reading in some vast story of ground warfare from it.

Actually, I'm not.  You must be missing my point.  You're reading into the cutscene by trying to portray some far-fetched story of some marines falling from some hole from a crashing ship, or dying from some other thing.  What I'm trying to say is that I think the whole cutscene was probably made to convey an image.  But I can say with certainty that it wasn't made to conform to or perpetuate canon.  The people who made it didn't care about canon, so it's pointless to try to conform the cutscene to canon or to try to extract some other form of canonical idea from it.

No, I'm providing contrary analysis to indicate why the assumption that ground troops implies ground combat is wrong.  If you notice, I indicated on the previous page

Moreso, the image of skeletons encased in body armour is more indicative of military death (not to mention that it's not clear the Shivans killed civvies on the ground other than in Vasuda) than what in would be indistinct and tattered rags, not to mention more visually effective and that it'd be a lot more difficult for the cutscene animators/modellers to create a bunch of new 'tattered' models. 

Drawing the suggestion of alternatives to be a statement of definitive events is a pretty poor debating tactic, IMO; I'm just saying why the assumption of the cutscene proving ground combat occured is an unsafe one..... and I note your response is along the lines of 'well, it's not canon anyways', which leads me to wonder why on earth you said

We can basically take it as two ways, either the opening cutscene is canon, or it's not.  If it is, then ground combat did occur, because of several reasons.

1.  All of those are combat troops.  To be massed in such away indicates they were organized.  If they were "debris" from a destroyer, they bodies would be scattered, you'd see mostly scattered body parts, not intact humans, not to mention you'd expect to see other debris interlaced between, and indeed, in them, which you don't see.
2.  If they were killed by Lucy beams, they'd be vaporized.
3.  If they were at the edge of the radius of an attack evacuating civilians, where are all the civilians.

Conclusion:  Logically speaking, if the cutscenes is indeed canon, then ground combat did, in fact, occur.  There is no other logical explanation for what we see in the cutscene.  However, it is possible that the cutscene is not canon, thus ground combat did not occur.

because that statement is logically incorrect given the positing of sensible alternatives.

So, i guess, you came up with a point based on the assumption of canon, and when said canonical point was disproven, you retreated to 'it's not canon anyways' rather than addressing or acknowledging the disproof.

[Mobius]

Neither FS1 or FS2 cutscenes are 100% canon. Many things have changed between FS1 and FS2,like beam cannons,so we aren't able to say what is valid and what isn't valid. FS2 cutscenes suffer of poor graphics,particularly the intro is full of errors.

[bfobar]

I've decided that the theory of the marines falling out of ships is now my favorite theory.

"It's raining men, hallelujah!"


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

Canon vs non-canon baffles me. V builds an intriguing story and a great game, and the canon is assembled later from the material presented in the game by rabid fans. So basically that means the cutscene by definition is canon.

So how do you get a hades on deneb? well, I guess in the official version of silent threat (the storyline that violition plays off of), maybe the hades tries to jump out to deneb because alpha 1 is wasting it, but didn't disable the engines, but the hades is so badly damaged that it is scuttled. Maybe a new super destroyer hull was being built at deneb. The first hull became the hades, and the second was basically an empty unfinished shell that fell out of orbit after the shivan attack.

As far as I see it, there are dead guys in space suits on deneb, and a hades hull on deneb, and that's canon because it's part of the game. speculation on how they may have gotten there without violating other canon is internet fun.

[Freespace Freak]

I've decided that the theory of the marines falling out of ships is now my favorite theory.

"It's raining men, hallelujah!"

 

Anyway, yeah I agree that my explanations are confusing, and that's because I knew what I was trying to say, but just couldn't really get the message across the way I've been meaning to.

I'm not saying that they died in ground combat, although I do think that's what the writers originally thought when they put them there.  All other explanations might be just as plausible.  What I guess I'm trying to say is that you can't say my explanation is invalid simply because it violates canon.  I know it violates canon, but you're not getting that the writers ignored canon in the first place.  Besides, canon is something mostly decided by fans, anyway, not by the writers.  They really don't care if they contradict themselves.

Let's do a thought experiment.  Let's pretend we were to show that clip of marines to people who have never seen or heard of Freespace before in their lives (not that hard to do), and we asked them which of the following scenarios they think best describes how they think those soldiers died.  Do you think they would most likely pick:

A:  They fell out of exploding space ships/transports of some sort.
B:  They died because they got hit by some sort of bomb evacuating civilians or just "hanging around" not doing much of anything.
C:  They died in combat with some force completely unrelated to those bad guys earlier in the cutscene.
D:  They died in combat with those same baddies that were kicking everyone's arse earlier in the cutscene.

I think you and I would both agree that they'd probably pick "D."  "But that violates canon!!!!!!"  So?  The creators either didn't know much of or didn't care about canon, so it's likely the writers were thinking "D" as well.  Sure, it's possible the other explanations are valid, and hey, they even conform to canon!  But, "D" is just as valid even though it violates canon, because the writers probably ignored canon anyway.  In fact, it's probably just as valid because it violates canon.

[NGTM-1R]

Yes it's possible. But if you built a campaign around that it would be regarded with about as much believability as that campaign with 10 Colossi and numerous Saths. Quite simply no one is going to buy that there was a second Hades in the same way that no one will believe that the GTVA secretly built 9 more Colossi.

You know in combination with your complaint about everyone who plays Revenge: Final Conflict in the Campaigns forum, this is kinda amusing. Clearly people are willing to believe in 10 Colossi. (And Hecates with BFreds, and god-knows-what.) Besides, this is a straw man; a second Hades is much more doable then 10 more 20-year-construction ships. The Hades could only have been under construction for a year or two tops, and was nearly complete. Pretty impressive considering the whole problem of systems integration of Terran and Shivan technologies.

The question should actually be why the Colossus took 20 years to build, not why there could not be a second Hades.

Sure nothing canon states that it didn't happen but you show me one non-noob who believes that it did?

Speaking.

[TrashMan]

Its a safe assumption the ground troops were dead for a while. Maybe they were from the T-V war era.............

I'd wager, given the Hades in the background and that only human troops are present, and the state of body decay (only skeletons, jsut as that pilot that died fighting the Lucifer) that those bodies are from the GTI rebellion period.
Probably humans fighting humans.

However, the scale of destruction of the sorrounding structures confuses me.
Either the shivans bombed Deneb (before, during or after the human fought) or one of hte human sides decided it's easier to nuke the enemy than take it in ground combat (high losses)...

[Mobius]

I've decided that the theory of the marines falling out of ships is now my favorite theory.

"It's raining men, hallelujah!"

Are we sure that those Vasudans were wearing troop uniforms? Do we have infos regarding their normal clothes?

[bfobar]

Judging from the silent threat super secret movie folders, Vasudans do it in the nude.

[karajorma]

You know in combination with your complaint about everyone who plays Revenge: Final Conflict in the Campaigns forum, this is kinda amusing.

I've never played Revenge. I have no idea what the plot entails. My complaints about it were based on the fact that

1) It doesn't work very well judging from the long list of complaints about it.
2) When the missions contain so few events that the scrollbar doesn't even appear in FRED I start to seriously doubt the quality of a campaign.

Clearly people are willing to believe in 10 Colossi. (And Hecates with BFreds, and god-knows-what.) Besides, this is a straw man; a second Hades is much more doable then 10 more 20-year-construction ships. The Hades could only have been under construction for a year or two tops, and was nearly complete. Pretty impressive considering the whole problem of systems integration of Terran and Shivan technologies.

The Colossus on the other hand was built with the full knowledge of the governments and agencies involved. The parties behind the Hades had to hide it not only from their own government but also parts of their own agency within that government. Building two would mean a significantly increased risk.

The question should actually be why the Colossus took 20 years to build, not why there could not be a second Hades.

Assuming that construction of the Hades didn't begin before the start of the Great War. It's been a long time since I played Silent Threat but as far as I remember it never says when construction started. Hell for all we know the rogue parts of GTI could have had contact with the Shivans way before the start of the Great War. And that's assuming that the Shivan parts of the design weren't retro-fitted.

Besides your argument misses one important point. Perhaps the Colossus took 20 years precisely because they were building 9 more of them in secret. I doubt it somehow but it explains the discrepancy.

[Herra Tohtori]

Judging from the silent threat super secret movie folders, Vasudans do it in the nude.

...which gives all new dimensions to comm message "You fight like a Vasudan!"
 

[spartan_0214]

Vasudan's fighting hand-to-hand combat. THAT I've gotta see...