[haloboy100]

i was led to beilieve the ancients were human

[Snail]

I hate that theory myself.

[Flipside]

We're talking about the remnants of the Ancients. I suspect the technology would have largely be cannibalised if it exists, though it's not certain, but when you are a race simply trying to continue to exist, it's more important to have ploughs and houses than guns and sensors. Consider the amount of civilisations that humanity has had, and we're still learning about our own species past even though many of those civilisations were quite advanced, but what they learned got lost over the years through various wars, invasions and disasters, there's a good chance that any surviving Ancients would know they came from a bigger picture thousands of years earlier, but just how accurate that picture is it's kind of hard to say, you may well get an attitude like the Hammer of Light, who understood little more than that the 'Destroyers' existed. That's often been cited as evidence that the Vasudan culture was in some way connected to the Ancients' Empire. If the Vasudans cannot even keep hold of all the details, there's very little chance the Ancients could.

Some knowledge has been lost during some darker periods of the pase...like the fall of the roman empire - alltouhg I wouldn't call them quite advanced.
There is a point in development - once mass world communications are reached - after which the loss of knowledge is negligable. There had to be millions of recodrings of events past and current ones made by the ancients. At least some ships would be canibalized in an effort to rebuild the lives of the people, but you won't erase recordings - what good would it do?

True, but the only model we have to work with is a single planet, where even if the Empire falls, ghosts are left behind, like the Roman Roads in the UK. For their time, the Romans were exceptionally advanced in Architecture, warfare and Industry.

That siuation may be very different if you've come to a planet with only a few transports of the like, which have to be dismantled to make shelter, storage etc, it's a mixture of Triage and Age, there are no great monuments like the Colluseum as a parmanent reminder of the past, nothing to mark their history other than whatever data is stored on their ships, and what they themselves remember. I doubt that the data storage system an Ancent's ship was designed to hold data infefinately without maintenance, and I expect the survivors would have been too busy and would lack the resources to copy it all down.

[TrashMan]

How long can CD's and DVD's hold data?
And we don't even have a giant stellar empire...I bet their data storage tech is far better.

And I doubt they would let their historical data go to waste - history is important if you want to preserve knowledge and culture - especially if you're a proud race. What are you going to tech your kids?

[haloboy100]

How long can CD's and DVD's hold data?
And we don't even have a giant stellar empire...I bet their data storage tech is far better.

And I doubt they would let their historical data go to waste - history is important if you want to preserve knowledge and culture - especially if you're a proud race. What are you going to teach your kids

Well we have Time Capsules to keep our history. Perhaps the ancients had some form of it as well.

[Flipside]

The average life of a DVD is around 5 years, but then, you also have to consider, what's the average life of a DVD player, what's the average life of a TV, what's the average life of the generator to supply the power to them? Much of their history would become like Chinese whispers, the definition changing as it passed by word of mouth from Generation to Generation.

As for what you'd teach your kids, I'd suspect the primary objectives would be things like 'How to grow and hunt food, how to build a shelter, what plants not to eat' etc.

Edit: Oh, and time capsules would mean both an pre-assumption that the race was about to be wiped out, and the fact that one would be accessible.

[Mehrpack]

The average life of a DVD is around 5 years, but then, you also have to consider, what's the average life of a DVD player, what's the average life of a TV, what's the average life of the generator to supply the power to them? Much of their history would become like Chinese whispers, the definition changing as it passed by word of mouth from Generation to Generation.

As for what you'd teach your kids, I'd suspect the primary objectives would be things like 'How to grow and hunt food, how to build a shelter, what plants not to eat' etc.

Edit: Oh, and time capsules would mean both an pre-assumption that the race was about to be wiped out, and the fact that one would be accessible.

hi,
if a manufactured CD/DVD is prefect store (right temperature, air moisture and no sun light), they can hold theoretical their data so 100 years.
but practical its imho so about 20 years, one reason is a fungus, who destroy the data layer.
a burned CD/DVD is really difficult to say, if the burner doesnt have the right strategie to burn the medium its unreadalbe after the burning or will become unreadable after a short time.
burned CD/DVD are not really reliable mediums for save backups of datas.

to the dickussion about records.
i FS had scientists find records of the ancient and bosh had find material, too.
the next thing is the knossos gates work stable since 8000 years without maintenance and still had engery, so i think the ancient technologie is really tough, if they survive so long after thiere creatures are gone.
and i believe that the records that the GTA and Bosh had find wasnt paintings on the wall.
so i guess that the GTVA can read records.

but if surviving ancient have the full knowdelage of their old empire?
mhh doesnt so easy to say.
we doesnt know how excatly they had storage thiere knowledge.
if we say, that they storage it like us today, central in great centren and libraries, then i think its the chance that the culture and the knowledge to a great part survive not so gread.

if the structure was more decentral, then the percents are higher and maybe some parts had it survive.
but i think that if there out ancicent then they not compare to the old ancicent.
i believe in that culture are many myth and saga`s are present of an old devil enemy and a great empire, that they destroyed, but not really are compare to the 8000 year old gone empire of the ancicent.

Mehrpack

[Turey]

Niven has a good book on what happens when a fragment of an advanced civilization reverts to primitive life.

[Flipside]

@Mehrpack

Good point about the DVD life, I was looking at pre-burned, not manufactured DVD's, but there's still the question of having the skill and parts to repair the equipment. It would be sort of like the irony of owning 'how to fix your DVD player' on DVD.

As for the records, agreed, it also depends, largely, on what situation and state the survivors arrived in, if it was literally a last minute flee for their lives, their may have been no time to pick up anything more than bare essentials, if it was a planned evacuation, there may have been more preperation.

[TrashMan]

@Mehrpack

Good point about the DVD life, I was looking at pre-burned, not manufactured DVD's, but there's still the question of having the skill and parts to repair the equipment. It would be sort of like the irony of owning 'how to fix your DVD player' on DVD.

As for the records, agreed, it also depends, largely, on what situation and state the survivors arrived in, if it was literally a last minute flee for their lives, their may have been no time to pick up anything more than bare essentials, if it was a planned evacuation, there may have been more preperation.

Well, according to the monolouges, the Anciets were loosing and falling back for a while, so it stands to reason that they had some evacuation/escape plans and preparations. It's not like the shivan apocalypse came all of a sudden - they had a great empire.

[Flipside]

Perhaps, but they were being cut down system by system, evacuations were probably planned, almost certainly, space is big with lots of places to hide, but the Shivans are pretty good at finding our ships. Basically, I suppose the whole thing rests on an unanswerable question, which is 'who survived and how'.

[Frosty]

Hey guys first time post long time lurker.  As far as this discussion goes wouldn't it make sense that the ancients could easily date back and track their own history.  Some remnants of what happened had to have survived or else we wouldnt of known how to stop the lucy.  Also, since the terrans and vasudans were able to decipher the language and the story that was told in the monologues wouldnt any decendants of the ancients easily be able to do the same?

[Stormkeeper]

You mean decipher our language?

[S-99]

I had to read this twice to ensure you were actually saying what I think you're saying. All I'll say is that while you're relatively safe peddling all your pseudo science on page seven of some random thread in General FS, make sure you read a few proper science books or papres before you try to convince people in Hard Light that proving the flood is relatively easy, or that Adam and Eve is "documented historical fact". Both the biologist and the geologist in me want to slap some sense into you after that post.

The main idea of the post wasn't to convince readers that any of the examples i used were real happenings. I guess i didn't do a thorough enough job for putting that into effect? Or the geologist and biologist in you is doing a little too much reading between the words where i didn't put anything. I wasn't saying that adam and eve is documented historical records. Also the fact that i used noah and flood right after adam and eve (along with moses) with much skepticism. That should have pointed out i was making a joke with documented history thing. Me trying to offer proof and convince readers that these did happen or are true was not my objective, something entirely different it was. The main objective is, after thousands of years change and sifting through all the crap of the world, what is documented history and what is not?

This was in response to trashman who you really should slap instead of me. He just didn't take into account how different stuff gets over thousands of years. Pretty much today we are good at sifting through the crap...mostly.

Why would you think that? Documented history is documented history - aka proof -  not myths!
Or do you think a 1000 years from now people won't belive the recordings of WW2 or 9/11 and consider them myths?

[TrashMan]

With written records someone could tamper with them..yes..or misinterpret them...or when copying them change them a little to suite his POW.

But recordings? Who would ever tamper with them? If I make a copy of the 9/11 video news reports I won't change anything on it.. In thousands of years of copying do you really think hte next copy and the next and the next will be changed?

Now go slap yourself several times 

[Mehrpack]

@Mehrpack

Good point about the DVD life, I was looking at pre-burned, not manufactured DVD's, but there's still the question of having the skill and parts to repair the equipment. It would be sort of like the irony of owning 'how to fix your DVD player' on DVD.

hi,
yeah, i know, i think we have today the problem too.
i mean serval thing of our culture are for the most people doesnt present.
today the most people doesnt have a clue how some foot can be own cooking, because the most comestible and food are an industril product and the modern society go more and more to microwave food.

As for the records, agreed, it also depends, largely, on what situation and state the survivors arrived in, if it was literally a last minute flee for their lives, their may have been no time to pick up anything more than bare essentials, if it was a planned evacuation, there may have been more preperation.

yeah.

With written records someone could tamper with them..yes..or misinterpret them...or when copying them change them a little to suite his POW.

But recordings? Who would ever tamper with them? If I make a copy of the 9/11 video news reports I won't change anything on it.. In thousands of years of copying do you really think hte next copy and the next and the next will be changed?

Now go slap yourself several times 

an "digital" copy doesnt chance it, but time destroy data and people chance documents, to radicalise the past or to chance the mind of the to socitiy.
knowlegde in the hand of a few people is really mighty and its a great temptation to chance it for the own plans.

Mehrpack

[foolfromhell]

Maybe there is a subspace network in the same physical AREA of the GTVA, but that network doesnt connect to the GTVA's. ??
Like, maybe Alpha Centauri isnt in GTVA space, but it might be part of ANOTHER node network.
Eh? Nice idea for a campaign?

[Gamma_Draconis]

I don't think the GTVA subspace networkis isolated. There are probably more nodes leading to other systems that the GTVA has yet traveled to. A campaign about the GTVA discovering a cluster of systems from a node from a rural system could work. I am most interested in a campaign where the GTVA discovers another node in the Ross128 system and then follows it to find something. Maybe one of the missions could have 2 Shivan factions duking it out and the GTVA in the middle of it.

Besides, if the GTVA subspace network is isolated from the others, how are they suppose to connect to another subspace network?

[foolfromhell]

You misunderstand me. A Subspace network that exists in the same PHYSICAL space as the GTVA, but does not connect to GTVA space. The GTVA foolishly builds a Knosson portal to a weak node, opening a portal to the new civilization!

[Flipside]

It IS interesting to note that we never hear of the Sathanas being encountered by the Ancients, that means one of two things...

1: The Ancients only had to deal with the Lucifer, and never encountered a Sathanas.
2: The Ancients DID encounter them, but that was classified to GTI only.

One thing makes me suspect that 2 is actually the correct option. When the GTVA went through the Knossos they appeared in a Nebula that it was heavily hinted once contained a star that the Shivans destroyed. In that system, probably out of blast range, was more than one Knossos.

So the question is, was that system a Nebula when the Knossos were built?