[Dan1]

Wasn't there an exceprt of the report?

[Freespace Freak]

Yes there was, but all it said, AFIACR is that they said it's clearly not of Shivan origin.  Well, duh!  It's not red and doesn't have spiny insectoid appendage-looking thingies, LOL.

[aldo_14]

Mystery of the Trinity

Start sm1-05.fsm

COMMAND BRIEFING 1

Research Task Force

With the Gamma Draconis system secure, a task force of Terran and Vasudan scientists is now examining the subspace portal. At this point, the scientists have ruled out the possibility the device is of Shivan origin.

Dr. Mina Hargrove, leader of the research team, has issued a report of its preliminary findings. An excerpt of this report follows.

COMMAND BRIEFING 2

Dr. Hargrove, Task Force Preliminary Findings (Excerpt)

The subspace portal is unlike any Shivan construction we have yet encountered. Though Shivans demonstrate considerable diversity as a species, all Shivan technology possesses certain distinctive properties. None is present in the subspace device, which means we must look elsewhere for the portal's origin. We do know that the device is very, very old, on the order of several thousand years.

COMMAND BRIEFING 3

Subspace Vortices

The field generated by the interlocking movement of the portal's components creates a subspace vortex, connecting one part of the universe to another.Dr. Hargrove theorizes that whoever built this device may have used it to stabilize a jump node on the verge of collapse.

If Dr. Hargrove is correct, this technology is a tremendous discovery.

[At]

Shivan 'writing'?...

>.>

[attachment deleted by admin]

[spartan_0214]

Moderator! Moderator! No, just kidding, it's funny, but not my kind of humor...

[Kosh]

If the Shivans aren't a race so much as a single entity then they wouldn't need a written language. In fact they probably wouldn't even understand the concept of language. The same goes for most other kinds of hive or group minds.

The results of Bosch's use of the ETAK to send messages to them does show that they have a language.

[Mefustae]

Merely "communicating" with them is not indicative of a unified formal language.

[Kosh]

Merely "communicating" with them is not indicative of a unified formal language.

Then explain how he was able to communicate with them. In order to communicate, you need to have some sort of language.

[Dark Hunter]

Depends on how you'd read a quantum pulse I guess. I wonder if quantum pulses aren't a sort of... concentrated telepathy? No, that's stupid. Been reading Ender's Game too much...


I guess I suppose it depends on how you define "language"...

Relevant definition from Dictionary: a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings


Hmmm... I don't see quantum pulses listed in there... 
Although maybe a pulse could be a "sign".

[Herra Tohtori]

Saying that Shivans communicate via quantum pulses is just a damn difficult and cool sounding way to say that they use (most likely) electromagnetic waves (ie. radio waves) for communication. That's what quantum pulses are...


It's completely possible that a radio transmitter/receiver organ could develope perfectly naturally via natural selection. Considering that for example the electric eel already has one, called spark transmitter, and electricity has definitely an *important* role in nervous system.

After all, a simplest possible transmitter is an on/off circuit. It can be used to transmit pulse when the current is applied, and another pulse when the circuit is killed. Simplest possible receiver is a little more complicated, as it demands an antenna of some kind, a capacitor, a coil and something that can analyze the changing current flowing in the circuit. We earthlings either convert analog signal directly to voice or picture via modulation technologies, or transmit digital information and use computer to analyze it, like on digital TV/Radio.

By the way, a fast digital spark transmitter sends pulses of EM-radiation on almost all radio frequencies... That would fit very well on the Shivan comm messages heard in some rare missions, as they are heard as sporadic static. Even so, I would say that either the Shivans have also another, more secretive means of communication, since that kind of communication is heard only quite rarely... other possibility is that they don't keep contact during battles, but that's unlikely.

[Freespace Freak]

I think we're reading too much into it.  If aliens were to analyze our method of communication, they'd conclude that we communicate through radio waves.  If they were like you, they'd start formulating theories on how humans evolved radio transmitters and recievers into their bodies naturally, or if they were somehow spliced into our bodies.  None of this is true.  We use machinery to communicate over either long distances, or through medium that our natural form of communication is impossible, like the vacuum of space.  What we're seeing with ETAK I think is exactly that, not the form of communication that Shivans communicate naturally, but instead the way they communicate over long distances or through the vacuum of space.

[Hippo]

STOP BLATANTLY IGNORING THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC FALLACY AND STOP BLINDLY CALLING SHIVANS A 'HIVE MIND' SYSTEM WHEN THERE IS NO EVIDENCE IN EITHER DIRECTION.

[karajorma]

Who the hell are you talking to Hippo? No one on this thread has said that the Shivans are definitely a hive mind. Give yourself 5 minutes to let the red mist clear from your eyes and try actually reading the thread before responding to it.

[Blue Haired Maniac]

"We are the Shivans. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technical distinctiveness to Carl's stomach. Your culture will adapt to service his hunger. Resistance is futile."

[spartan_0214]

"We are the Shivans. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technical distinctiveness to Carl's stomach. Your culture will adapt to service his hunger. Resistance is futile."

anyway, they probably either communicate telepathically, or use some sort of eletrical pulse to communicate. Either way, Bosh (was it Bosh? Anyway) was able to communicate with them. Peace is thus theoretically possible.

[NGTM-1R]

It was already technically possible. You don't have to talk to someone to get them to leave you alone; a fist in the face can work too.

[Freespace Freak]

Again, I think you're reading way too much into it (why doesn't anybody read my posts?).  Bosch only figured out the technology that the Shivans use to communicate through large distances or through a vacuum.  Humans do this using radio waves, but that doesn't mean we evolved to have radio transcievers integrated into our skulls somewhere.  Instead we use a technology we call radios to convert sound waves into radio waves, and then convert those radio waves back into sound waves that we can understand.  The ETAK project was a study in Shivan technology, not Shivan biology.  Bosch learned the technology the Shivans ships use to relay messages to one another, not the way two shivans, standing next to eachother in their natural environment, would talk to eachother.

We have no idea whether the Shivans understood wtf Bosch said, or if Bosch himself understood wtf the Shivans were saying, but he probably piqued their interest because he found out how Shivans relay messages from one ship to another.  Maybe they were interested because no one had ever interfered with their communications before, or maybe because they wanted to kill him before the GTVA could adapt the technology and use it to decipher what the messages between their ships mean, thusly giving GTVA a tactical advantage in combat, or maybe, if the Shivans so have some sort of hive mind, the messages that Bosch was sending interfered with their ability to think, and wanted to shut him the f up as quickly as possible, and capture him to figure out how he "got inside their heads".

Edit:  Bosch did use info from the defunct GTI project involving the study of live Shivan specimans, but we don't know how the "quantum pulses" are related to the way two Shivans might communicate normally.  The quantum pulses are used by Shivan ships to transmit messages to one another, exactly what these messages sound like to "Shivan ears" once they are demodulated we don't know.  They could communicate in the visible light spectrum, or with infra-red, or with something else.  However, the quantum pulse part of the ETAK project is definately not how Shivans communicate conversationally, but how messages are transmitted over normal space amongst the Shivan fleet.  Messages over subspace are probably transmitted via those "comm nodes" you see in "Into the Lion's Den," much like how the GTVA uses relay stations, in the form of GTSC Faustus installations.

[NGTM-1R]

We have no idea whether the Shivans understood wtf Bosch said, or if Bosch himself understood wtf the Shivans were saying,

"As I make this final entry my crew is preparing to scuttle the Iceni and board the Shivan transports." He got through to them, and they apparently got through to him; at least clearly enough that it was understood about the transports.

Edit:  Bosch did use info from the defunct GTI project involving the study of live Shivan specimans, but we don't know how the "quantum pulses" are related to the way two Shivans might communicate normally. 

Even if they do communicate that way normally, it may not be a natural method of communication. The Shivans the GTVA has encountered are (insofar as we know) all cyberneticized, so what capablities and phyisology they show may not have any bearing on the natural capablities and physiology of an unaugmented Shivan.

In essence, we have absolutely no way of knowing what a regular unaugmented Shivan can do, save that it is probably less somehow then what an augmented one is capable of. Otherwise there would be no need for such augmentation.

[Freespace Freak]

Right, so we know that Bosch was able to communicate with them some way, but I don't think Shivans normally talk to eachother using "quantum pulses" anymore than I talk to my wife using radio waves.  I talk to her by vibrating my voice box which vibrates at certain frequencies and makes different sounds depending on the shape of my mouth, which she interperets using her ear.  Radios turn the sound my voice makes, and modulates it on radio frequencies, transmits it, is recieved by another radio, which demodulates it, converting the radio waves into audio waves that someone else's ear interperates as sound.  I think the quantum pulses are what the Shivans use to modulate whatever method they use to communicate naturally into a medium that can travel long distances and through the vacuum of space.  I don't think in the least bit that Shivans actually talk to each other "conversationally" using quantum pulses.

Edit: In other words, the ETAK project gives us no insight into how the Shivans communicate naturally.  Is it possible the Shivans have a biological space suit that transmits and recieves quantum pulses?  Yes, but not likely.  It would take enourmous energy for a biological being to have that sort of energy stored inside of them.  Besides, how can you get biological tissue to transmit quantum pulses?  It doesn't make sense, more likely quantum pulses is a result of Shivan technology, not Shivan biology.  So the ETAK project doesn't tell us a thing about how the Shivans communicate naturally.  It doesn't tell us if they have a hive mind, if they use telepathy, if the use sound or light waves, or if they use something else to communicate in a natural setting.  The ETAK project ONLY tells us that they use quantum pulses to transmit messages between ships, nothing else.