[Roanoke]

It seems likely to me that V didn't invest a great deal of time on the storyline untill FS2. Therefore it's unlikely there would be any plauseable continuation between FS1 and the sequel.
It's like when people try to explain the FS2 shivans having beams and the FS1 Shivans not having them. It seems obvious to me that rsulted from outside infulences (in the case of beams, they technology V had to work with). That's why V never bothered to explain the differences in FS2.

Hehe, have you ever played through FS1?

Specifically, I was wondering whether or not you'd seen this shot:
(BTW, those beams are pretty good looking... now, if they'd just move a faster...)

I suppose you forgot Demons and Cains didn't but FS2 equivilants do ?

[jr2]

  Umm, they upgraded them... the Lucy was a new weapons testbed.    I dunno.    You're right.

[Mustang19]

Beams get old pretty quickly. I almost prefered it in FS1 how capital ship battles were so rare yet long. It made them seem like real "warships", hurling plasma shards at each other for hours (okay, a few minutes, that's an eternity in FS combat). If only those plasma turrets did real damage. As it stands, the Orion is better off replacing its blob turrets with at least Avengers.

And as I understand it, there was some guy in Volition, forgot his name, who came up with the whole storyline and still has it floating around in his head. It is kind of strange, though. FS2 seems like an abrupt departure from FS1. It doesn't reference to FS1 in many places; there's little feeling of continuity. I was just hoping for FS3 to sort out this jumbled mess, but that's not happening, obviously.

[Centrixo]

Back to the point i think instead of talking about sexy ships .

i have one theory, and it may fit the puzzle.

1. FS1: What the Shivans goals were to destroy important planets and ultimate molarility symbols and Production planets. Once these were destroyed the GTA and PVN would of undoubtably been low on morale and severly shorthanded with ships and crew alike. The lucy would of destroyed every living thing, what the clips say about the Shivans, is there born into a Zero-G envoirnment, and normal space has gravity in it and it does not matter where you are, the chances are that any theory about Shivans born in normal space is obviously not Zero-G and which means subspace, that could explain why the shivans wanted the GTA and PVN destroyed, to protect their lands.

Fs2: The shivan goal this time was to keep the GTVA from Exploring further into more jump nodes. if any one noticed, that the shivans built up a steady pulse eminating to the sun in preparation for something and the Capella sun was just a trigger. the Shivan objectives this time was not the GTVA at all, more likely some experiment and it just happens the GTVA does not agree because it violates the GTVA. The GTVA were obviously caught in this by Accident. i think the Shivans only wanted Capella for themselves and that was it.

[NGTM-1R]

Though my theory of note is recorded in the wiki, the simple truth is that I don't think the deeper motivation matters very much, even in the context of a Shivan campaign. They don't need a reason, they're not accountable to anyone we know of.

[TrashMan]

Since when is normal space not considered Zero-G? Since when is subspace considered pure Zero-G?

[Snail]

Well I believe it's clear that they did not develop on a planet.

[Dark Hunter]

Planet-sized spaceship maybe? Didn't say that planet-sized spaceships would have been in *forbidden phrase*? And I think it's safe to say that the GTVA wouldn't have been the ones constructing such a ship.

[Gestalt]

Earlier posters describing the Shivans as archtypical or mythic are right on the money. I'll offer a warning up front: I've put a bit of scratch in my pocket penning horror stories, and that definitely slants my view.

The original Freespace is a creepy game. It's downright disturbing. The opening cinematic still gives me goosebumps. Throughout the entire campaign we're offered no real insight into the Shivan motives (and very little about their methods). The closing monologue speculates on their role in the ebb and flow of cosmic civilization, but does so entirely relationally: it describes how we respond to the Shivans, how their actions impact us and the wisdom we can derive from these interactions, but doesn't tell us anything about THEIR side of these events.

Freespace was an explorer's ghost story. The Shivans are Flying Dutchmen: ghost ships that patrol the uncharted waters, the monsters at the edge of the map. They are the terrible Unknown that occasionally, forcefully, intrudes on what we consider safe and secure. They do not do so for reasons we can understand. They are, in the classical sense, monsters. They are not part of any discernable ecology. They do not consume, produce, and are not consumed in a way that directly contributes to any life outside their own. They are an arbitrary and horrible imposition on a cosmos that otherwise makes perfect sense, and that's where those goosebumps come from.

We've seen a devolution of "scary stories" over the last century. Our modern ghosts just want to be understood, our modern monsters are simply part of an ecology we don't yet understand, and once we've tucked these ghouls and demons safely inside the folds of wisdom they are no longer a threat. Consider how many horror films center around problems of understanding: once the protagonist learns why the ghost is angry, learns the monsters secret weakness, or unravels the mysteries of a particular ritual, the problem is solved. Rationalism is proposed as a weapon that can slay any dragon. These movies may startle us with a sudden bump, or gross us out with buckets of gore, but they don't really scare.

The Shivans were a problem that understanding could only partially resolve. The heroes could try to understand them.... but that wouldn't keep them from being killed. While discovering the weakness of the Lucifer lead to its destruction, it did so at a terrible cost, and more importantly required stepping into the monster's domain. We had to play the monsters game to defeat it, had to operate according to rules and reason alien to our own.

The original Freespace was scary because it proposed an enemy that reason could not truly defeat.

The second Freespace was almost purely a human drama, but that's another post ;-)

[StarSlayer]

Here there be SF Dragons -->

[caibrenden]

i personally think the are a race Half-machine, Half-biological beings
They seem to like fighting
they dont seem to care if their comrades die
They seem to spawn more if u kill they
EG. Kill 1, warp in 2, Kill 2,warp in 4,kill 4, warp in 8
THEY ALWAYS COME BACK IN GREATER FORCE

[TrashMan]

Uu...nice post Gestalt  

[S-99]

Gestalts approach to fs1 makes a lot of sense. In my mind that sort of plays into and continues in fs2. In fs2 the gtva was formed and a lot more advanced than they were before, and the gtva got a little full of itself and thought they could defeat anything, especially after the colossus destroyed the first sighted sathanas, the gtva said in a breifing that their technological superiority over their great war nemesis has been proven. Quite not true, but an obvious give away that the gtva is full of itself. In fs2 they don't understand the shivans at all, all they understand is how to better counter them with better technology as the gtva knows the basic staple ships and weaponry of the shivans from fs1, while fs1 ships of the shivans are used widely, the fs2 ships of the shivans really surprise the hell out of the gtva.
In fs2 i find it similar to fs1, but like everyone said fs2 is a lot more grand and epic, the gtva is a new empire and force to be reckoned with and this feeling sticks with you the entire game, until the sathanas invasion starts up. And right there the game doesn't get creepy, it just gets scary. The whole second soc loop loop with you doing the whole run as the 70th blue lions that feeling that the gtva is all powerful and invincible goes right out the door as you can barely do a clean evacuation hoping that everybody doesn't get slaughtered while you hope that you and your species doesn't get killed off, because with that many sathani that can happen, and extinction is a pretty scary idea.

[Roanoke]

I really wish people would stop calling the GTVA an "empire"

[NGTM-1R]

Well I believe it's clear that they did not develop on a planet.

This is a false conception. The basic truth is we do not, cannot, know, since the Shivans are all now cybernetically enhanced. Yes, their form as we know it is singularly well suited to zero gravity, but that proves nothing about their original form.

[Gestalt]

Well I believe it's clear that they did not develop on a planet.

This is a false conception. The basic truth is we do not, cannot, know, since the Shivans are all now cybernetically enhanced. Yes, their form as we know it is singularly well suited to zero gravity, but that proves nothing about their original form.

That's just it: we don't know. To virtually every question about them, we just don't know. For that matter, we don't even know for certain that the monsters that attacked the boarding party in the FS1 cutscene were Shivans (and not part of some automated defense system).

For that matter, do we know that there are Shivans? We know there are Shivan ships, but can anyone recall clear evidence, in either of the retail games, that those ships are actually occupied?

While I don't think there's any definitive answer provided by the games, I'm fond of a few theories:
-The Shivans died a long, long time ago. The war machine we encounter is just that: a complex autonomous armada built to wage war against an enemy long dead. Unfortunately (especially for Vasuda Prime), the identity of the "enemy race" has detiorated with time to become less and less specific.

OR, even more fun:

-The Shivans are aware of a unique threat to the cosmos, one of simply terrifying scale. This threat resides in subspace. Early subspace technology hasn't granted the GT(v)A enough freedom to discover this threat, but future advances in the technology would. As races gain more and more access to subspace, their is a greater and greater chance that they will disturb this slumbering giant. The Shivans will not allow this to happen, and preventing any race from accidentally unleashing this force on the universe is their sole goal, to be met by any means necessary. The Shivans are spread over a great distance, meeting potential threats (i.e. subspace capable races) with whatever force they have available at that location. As threats become more evident, they shift their forces... but it's a lot of ground to cover, hence the 30 year gap between the great war and the second shivan encounter, which had much more military force. The first war made it clear to the shivans that they needed to allocate more resources to the fight. Annihilation is not the true priority, however, and sometimes culling species with subspace tech needs to be put aside when a higher priority objective is present. The supernova at the end of FS2 was part of a containment operation. The Shivans aren't the Destroyers. They're the Gatekeepers, closing doors that should never be opened.

Here's a funny little bit:
Remember in FS1 when a Vasudan pilot comments "They're unstoppable. The old stories are true!"
What if the stories are true, but they aren't about the Shivans? What if the Shivans are trying to prevent us from jumping through subspace one time too many and catching the attention of..... ?

Anyway, that's what I like to think while I'm trying to line up a shot on a Mara ;-)

[jr2]

Eh, for your last theory, what would be wrong with communication?  You know, a code?  If they managed to get communications working, then they could warn other races.  IDK, but Shivs don't seem to be of that breed.  (Protection)  They seem to be bent on destroying, just no one knows why.  Here's an idea:

What if they are a race that gave themselves AI assist, & cybernetic + genetic enhancements, during a fight with another race?  Except, their AI became interwoven too much with their thought processes, and eventually took over.  The AI, of course, is mainly used for warfare assist, and had by that time matured enough to handle everything except knowing when to stop & what was considered as an "enemy".
Or, hang on a second, you could throw this in:  The enemy the Shivs were fighting devised a superweapon ala Halo, that destroys Shivans by targeting their brain frequencies used for thought.  Except, as they had AI assist, this just meant that now they knew no bounds to their destruction, the brain was still there and functioning, but with no control, so the AI took over, and used the brain as basically a databank to create newer weapons.

If all of this sounds rather silly, it's because I'm sleepy. 

[Roanoke]

I'm pretty sure FS2 techroom cutscenes mention rare instances of live Shivans being captured.

[sixlaneve]

I'm pretty sure FS2 techroom cutscenes mention rare instances of live Shivans being captured.

It does....

my shivans theory.... I would consider them veeeery old, possibly more than the flinstones and not that different from terrans, neither vasudans.

great warriors, but with their homeworld getting poor on resources, they started to conquer the space and wipe out other civilizations. they won the war against a high-tech civilization, but their enemy managed to destroy all life in their homeworld. with half galaxy screwed up, shivans become a nomad race, always flying in their ships and adapting their bodies to zero gravity along the centuries. after all those years, they were less and less human. without a homeworld they started to loose memory of their history.

by staying all the time in black ships in the dark space, they are now the moody genocide lads that are now.
but under thier hood, they are sweet as sugar. they are protecting a very rich system with evolving races behind capella.

[TrashMan]

If shivans are so set on protecting hte Galaxy/Universe/Other races/Us...why the hell don't they even try to talk to us??

They just kill, so I suspect there's something else behind that.