[KappaWing]

I'm not familliar with the storyline of Zelda.

[Mongoose]

I'm fairly sure he was referring more to your text styling than your post content.

As for Charismatic's point about the tough decision to destroy Capella, it's been some time since I've played through the main campaign, but as far as I recall, just about all of the residents of Capella did manage to make it out of the system before the supernova.  There are either two or three different periods over the course of the campaign during which evacuation is taking place (I believe they're after the initial Knossos discovery, after the Sathanas appears, and after the final Sathanas incursion); even with the halts, there was a significant amount of time there available for evacuation.  At least one of the command briefings mentioned that Command was committed to getting each and every civilian out of the system.  Indeed, the convoys that you protect during the final mission are referred to as the last to leave Capella; since the GTVA had no way of knowing that the supernova was about to occur, there was no reason for them to cease evacuations right then unless everyone was already out.  Certainly, the creators of Derelict believed that there were a solid 250 million refugees left after the destruction of Capella, and I'm fairly sure that they would have used canon sources to make this declaration.  So, while the destruction of an inhabited system was indeed a great loss, I do think that it occurred with minimal loss of life on the civilian side of things.

[Agent_Koopa]

I'm not familliar with the storyline of Zelda.

*bangs head on desk*

[KappaWing]

I use these colors to parody the way FS2 briefings color nouns to show their IFF status. 

[Mefustae]

I use these colors to parody the way FS2 briefings color nouns to show their IFF status. 

Well I don't use those colours because I don't want to look like a complete tosser, but to each his own I guess.

[KappaWing]

To each his own indeed 

[IceFire]

Interesting theories.  I have some too, but first a little food for thought:

I don't think Voilition/Interplay planned on a sequel to FreeSpace when they developed its storyline.

*ducks and covers*

I know Voilition has god-like status around here, but there are too many continuity errors between FS1 and FS2 that don't make logical sense.  I get the feeling FS2 was written separately, and then they adapted the problematic elements as well as possible.  FS2, by the way, is my preferred of the two storylines if only because its more detailed.  Let's look at this in more detail.

1.  As several people pointed out, the Shivans popped out of nowhere in FS1, but appeared through the Knossos in FS2.  Now, we never find out where exactly they came from in Ross 128.  We do get told the Shivans can use less stable jump nodes, but we are also told that they rely on jump nodes.  So, we forget the idea of a non-node jump.  Several possibilities for Ross 128 remain, then:  A.  The Shivans hopped in using an unstable and uncharted node which nobody bothers to mention in FS2; B.  The Shivans were waiting, dormant, in Ross 128 for millenia; C.  The Shivans were waiting dormant in subspace near/in Ross 128 for millenia.  It really bothered me how nobody cleared up their arrival in Ross 128 - mostly that there aren't any theories floating around in FS2.

2.  Behaviour:  It's like we're dealing with a totally different enemy in each game.  Their objectives are very different.  So it begs the question:  what changed?  Again, we have no hints.  I tend to think the simplistic apocalyptic themes of FS1 were inconvenient for the more in-depth story brought about in FS2, so it was easier to ignore them rather than actually deal with them.  And they got away with it.

3.  The Shivans themselves:  OK, so in FS1 we can't figure out much about the Shivans because we can't capture them.  But in FS2 we have captured Shivan ships, and some xenobiology, but we can't decide if the exoskeleton is artificial or part of the organism?  Please.  Granted I'm reading more into this, but modern biology of present day today could make that distinguishment.

OK, enough nitpicking Voilition.

My theory on the Shivans:  They're a biological weapon construction of another race which uses them for expansion, exploration, and warfare.  In fact, the idea of Shivans as controlled by another species (or even as a subset of the controlling species) is the only one I consider viable, given their bizarre actions and revision of goals.  I think the Shivans in Ross 128 were waiting and dormant, having passed through the Ancients Knossos thousands of year beforehand.  The Juggernauts are a new fleet, with entirely different objectives.  And I'm planning on exploring this further if I ever finish writing my own campaign

All fair to say.  No need to duck and cover.  FS2 was definitely better and more thought out than the original as far as story was concerned.  I think the Volition guys admit that.  The strong focus was to create a hybrid of styles in the space sim/shooter genre and tie them together with a pretty good story.  FS2 already had the right formula so onwards with the story.

There is one other possibility...one that I think I mentioned earlier.  They could be controlled but that makes them less of a force of nature that I see them as. Such as in the classic archetypal enemies I see the Shivans as "man against nature".  Anyways the other possibility is that we encountered two totally separate groups of Shivans...they do seem nomadic and its possible that different groups have similar technology and ultimately have the same final agenda but are set out with different tasks.

[brandx0]

I think that most of the FS2 storyline was better than its predecessor, once the game neared its end it became less and less coherent, and while FS1 wrapped the story up neatly with a concrete ending, FS2 seemed a case of the writers having started FREDing the game without any clue how to end it.  As a result, more and more of the events became somewhat disconnected without a clear direction, and thus the ending made little to no sense, a Deus Ex Machina almost, where the event which ends the game came in without any foreshadowing, or idea of why it was there at all. 

FS1 got better as it went along, you were drawn into it.  FS2 started out great, you were interested in the events, but as you neared the end every mission was just more confusing, asking more questions without answering any (And don't say that this was planned to give material for FS3 to solve, considering we all know by now that nothing for FS3 was even written at the time)

[Javito1986]

I'm fairly sure he was referring more to your text styling than your post content.

As for Charismatic's point about the tough decision to destroy Capella, it's been some time since I've played through the main campaign, but as far as I recall, just about all of the residents of Capella did manage to make it out of the system before the supernova.  There are either two or three different periods over the course of the campaign during which evacuation is taking place (I believe they're after the initial Knossos discovery, after the Sathanas appears, and after the final Sathanas incursion); even with the halts, there was a significant amount of time there available for evacuation.  At least one of the command briefings mentioned that Command was committed to getting each and every civilian out of the system.  Indeed, the convoys that you protect during the final mission are referred to as the last to leave Capella; since the GTVA had no way of knowing that the supernova was about to occur, there was no reason for them to cease evacuations right then unless everyone was already out.  Certainly, the creators of Derelict believed that there were a solid 250 million refugees left after the destruction of Capella, and I'm fairly sure that they would have used canon sources to make this declaration.  So, while the destruction of an inhabited system was indeed a great loss, I do think that it occurred with minimal loss of life on the civilian side of things.

I was always under the impression that -many- Capellans died in the second great war. Those were huge refugee convoys that were under attack in the final mission, thousands of people died in the last mission of the campaign alone.

Anyway, FS2's storyline does not seem to contradict FS1's at all in my opinion. The Shivans were just as destructive in both games. We need to keep in mind that nothing at all is known about their motiviations. In FS1 they invaded Terran and Vasudan space, killed rather indiscriminately, but were ultimately defeated/driven away. I think that FS2's invasion is the -real- invasion force, and always liked the slogan on the back of the FS2 box where it says that the Shivans are "wondering what happened to their expeditionary force in 2335". The GTVA obviously unwittingly accessed Shivan space (implied by FS2's ending to be the remnants of a previous star system destroyed by the Shivans) and unleashed a massive invasion. That's what I love about the Shivans, their mind boggling power and numbers. To them the Sathanas probably isn't even a juggernaught, they might just consider it a cruiser or something heh.

I think the main question is what exactly occurred in 2335 and 2366 from the "big picture". The invasion by the Lucifer fleet seems to have been more of a planned and coordinated assault. The Shivans struck more or less simultaneously against important targets in numerous star systems and were able to overrun GTA and PVN defenses fairly quickly. Whereas the 2366 invasion seems much more spontaneous. Like I said, I think the ending of FS2 safely implies that the nebula was the remains of another star system previously destroyed by the Shivans (the Ancients maybe). Is it possible that the NTF incursion provoked the Shivans into action? After all, there was a second portal nearby which seems to lead directly to Shivan occupied space. The initial battles inside the nebula strike me as more skirmishes. It wasn't until the Sathanas fleet moved into Gamma Draconis that the Shivans began aggressively advancing against the GTVA, and even then it was still a little bit more time before the main body of their fleet attacked the GTVA.

Personally, I don't think that the Shivans were "trying to find their way home" or anything like that. I like to think that the GTVA unexpectedly explored a little too close to comfort for the Shivans and that the second invasion was a retaliation. I'm not even entirely convinced the Shivans were aware that Gamma Draconis was so near GTVA space... despite what the Vasudans think, I don't think that they're omnipotent godlike destroyers or anything. Who knows, it might have surprised them when they detected the Terrans in the nebula and engaged the 3rd Fleet in Gamma Draconis. Regardless, it seems to me that once the Shivans knew how near they were to Terran space they sent in their main fleet and attacked Capella, which I believe was the most populated and important Terran system after the loss of Earth.

In addition, the GTVA has no idea whether or not closing the subspace nodes in Capella will stop the Shivans. They got their collective asses royally kicked in the battle of Capella and closing the jump nodes was a last ditch desperate effort to keep the invasion from spreading, because they didn't know what else to do. The GTVA -hopes- that action stops the Shivans, but I think even they know that's wishful thinking. Even the Ancients explicitly state that they surrendered systems and retreated in the face of the Shivans, they may very well have employed the same tactics when they did so. The destruction of the Ancients civilization probably took a few generations too. It's almost a certainty that the GTVA will be attacked by the Shivans again after Capella. Least that's what I think.

Anyway, bottom line I think the Shivans will attack them again and eventually, planet by planet and system by system, wipe out the GTVA in a few generations like they did the Ancients. That may seem morbid, but having seen the ending of Freespace 2 I just don't see any way the GTVA can hope to compete with the Shivans. 


So anyway, that's my theory. What do you all think?

[KappaWing]

I agree with Javito in that the GTVA will fall to the Shivans.

[Charismatic]

Theory. What if HOL was right? The green energy sahi weapon was intended to cleanse us of some subspace virus or infection that we did not know we had? What if its some cosmic pleague, that the Shivans went out of their way to free us of?

A big part of FS1 is the HOL and their mystics. What if we will soon , after capella, try to unravel more of the truth behind HOL? They knew something. They were a space race before Terrans, and had some connection to the ancients.

Il try to state my 'after capella' as short as possible.

Mass exodus from capella to nearby systems and maby a few undermanned or underdeveloped planets. A good way to develope them, put more poeple on the job. FS_ would be first, about repelling mercinaries. As well as, trying to destroy the remaining left behidn shivan forces. A few caps, and larger #'s of fighters and bombers. A rather high defection rate will occur. People and the military all start to doubt the GTVA's control and stablility. GTVA fights merchs for a while. GTVA fears anotehr quick shivan responce, a follow through attack after capella. Shivans dont come. GTVA tries to stabalize while remaining shivas are destroyed. Mercinary forces become a lesser and lesser problem, as people realize tehy need to band togeather to make it and reconstruct.

With a majior loss of materials and life- as well as ships, GTVA puts all focus on getting the node to SOL back and running. Within 5 years they get it open. I expect that Sol will have been building up mass arms and ships, as they Did have a superdestroyer on the way to take them out. They would welcome the return of GTVA.
Some problems would occur reuniting and merging the two forces. Not too bad tho. This could also happen, GTA could break off of GTVA, and Terrans could try to beat Vasudans, but i think with what they went through togeather, it might not happen.

GTVA explores nodes and knosossos un charted perviously. GTVA eventualy will run into shivans.
More later..

[NGTM-1R]

I agree with Javito in that the GTVA will fall to the Shivans.

Impossible. That would mean the player would lose despite successfully completing everything. Also if nothing else the GTVA has proved itself a survivor by this point.

[KappaWing]

I agree with Javito in that the GTVA will fall to the Shivans.

Impossible. That would mean the player would lose despite successfully completing everything. Also if nothing else the GTVA has proved itself a survivor by this point.

The GTVA has proved itself? My ass! In 80 or so years, when A1 dies, the GTVA will have nothing. You hear me? NOTHING! 

[Javito1986]

I agree with Javito in that the GTVA will fall to the Shivans.

Impossible. That would mean the player would lose despite successfully completing everything. Also if nothing else the GTVA has proved itself a survivor by this point.

It wouldn't be the first time. The GTVA loses in Freespace 2 afterall. I just don't see any concievable way for them to repel the Shivan fleet. The conquest would likely take a few lifetimes but I think the end result is inevitable. It's a grim series you know. A doomsday evacuation of Earth in the year 2500 in the face of a renewed and unstoppable Shivan offensive is not very far fetched. I mean seriously, 80 Sathanas "juggernaughts"? Like I mentioned earlier, for all we know the Sathanas is just a mainstream throw away Shivan warship and the ending of FS2 certainly makes them appear that way. Barring a miracle of some sort, I don't see any "after Capella" hypothesis that doesn't end with humanity shipping off a select portion of its population onto a large ship and sending them into space in the hopes of repopulating somewhere where the Shivans won't find them.

[Charismatic]

I agree with Javito in that the GTVA will fall to the Shivans.

Impossible. That would mean the player would lose despite successfully completing everything. Also if nothing else the GTVA has proved itself a survivor by this point.

The GTVA has proved itself? My ass! In 80 or so years, when A1 dies, the GTVA will have nothing. You hear me? NOTHING! 

You forget one thing. Tho Alpha 1 is not social on duty, once hes off duty he goes wild.
Im pritty sure by the time Alpha 1 dies, there will be his sons, Alpha 2, 3 and 4 who will Pwn the shivans back to where they came from! GTVA will be saved forever more. Shame on you, and you,
Javito1986  for your blasphemy!

[Mav]

GTVA proven Survivors? Unlikely... the first time they got lucky, and I don't think the Shivans really were after them the second time. As someone said above, those 80 Sathani would have had much more military effect if they were used in direct battle instead of exploding Capella - so there HAS to be some other reason for them to do that; and I believe that that's what they really were after in FS2.
Whatever they tried in FS1 didn't really seem to bother their FS2-fleet... which I can see several reasons for:

1) Whatever is connected to Capella is far more important/pressing then the GTVA.
2) Those two fleets were seperate sub-nodes of the collective, and didn't take interest in each others business.
3) Whatever the Lucifer fleet wanted, it got abandoned.
4) Whatever the Lucifer fleet wanted, it actually got accomplished .

Point 4 is the point I actually favour - FS1 seems to hint at Shivans disliking interspecies wars; and no matter if they didn't care or if it even was their intentional goal to provoke the formation of the GTVA, the T-V war does have ended by the time of FS2... so they don't need to take the same course of action again.
But WHAT they'll do in the future depends on many things - how the GTVA evolves, what happens with whatever-is-tied-to-the-Capellan-supernova, ...

And I'd believe the Shivans are being spread over a considerable part of the milky way, so in context of point 1) it would quite make sense that a) the two fleets have completely different priorities/tasks and/or b) the second fleet just thought "well, keep those annoying insects at bay for the time being, let's get that Capella matter done, and after we're finished with that, we still can come back to completely wipe them out."


About comparing story-quality... of course FS2 has better features and such, but story-wise I still greatly prefer FS1 - I really felt the GTA/PVN being encircled and pushed back at all fronts. There was something going on in a universe... while in FS2 everything seems to happen in the galactic equivalent of a village or so (except for the Mara-mission) .


And I REALLY don't believe all those retarded-collective theories - they're too comforing, too simple and are propably mostly born out of cold-war propaganda... The Shivans are aliens, damn it. And they are a lot more advanced then we are - so who knows how their collective might work? PLEASE use a bit more imagination on that...
If you want a not so ant-like sort of "hive", read the Armageddon-series by Peter F. Hamilton and pay attention to the Edenites and the Kiint. Or look at what the internet is/could become . Communicating and coordinating via thoughts doesn't NEED to kill individual thoughts .

Oh, sorry... [/rant] 


And there was another idea I recently had concerning the FS story-background, Capella and such: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44469.msg908288.html#msg908288
(sorry, too lazy to write it all again. And it's 3 a.m. now here, so... goodnight )

[NGTM-1R]

]The GTVA has proved itself? My ass! In 80 or so years, when A1 dies, the GTVA will have nothing. You hear me? NOTHING!

It is not the man which matters, but the callsign. After all, Alpha 1 from FS1 is still stuck in Sol and Alpha 1 from Silent Threat may well be Aken Bosch (or even Robert Petrarch).

It wouldn't be the first time. The GTVA loses in Freespace 2 afterall.

This is an assertion of questionable truthfulness. The GTVA threw a Hail Mary, but it worked; it cost them, but it worked; it was nasty, but it worked. It worked. That's a win.

Maybe not a nice clear clean victory, but they won. They averted Armageddon for the GTVA even if not Capella.

Similarly, Mav, if you had listened to the FS1 end cutscene at all, you would know the message that it gave regarding Humanity and by extension their Vasudan opponents (who were similar enough to provoke a 17-year stalemate). "We learned how to adapt, how to survive, how to overcome."

FS has always been in the end about triumph against impossible odds. Rarely is such triumph without cost, but that does not make it failure.

[KappaWing]

Good point ngtm1r.

In conclusion, the only way the GTVA can win is if they allow duplicate callsigns. Although everything would be unorganized, their fighters would all be invincible!

[Snail]

I think there are a few Alpha 1s. One per squadron.

[KappaWing]

Yeah but what happens if two sqadrons happen to be flying in the same sortie?