I see... so I was not informed correctly. I like to find that The Shivan manifesto is not as accepted as I thought. I didn't like it too much either, but at certain points it was somehow correct, or at least plausible. I hope this new Theory manages to cover some holes the Shivan manifesto. The thing is that it is very hard to explain certain things in the game because there are so many possibilities and no way to determine what did actually happen.
For example, the Shivans destroying Capella star? We don't even know what happens after destroying a star. Does it create a new jump node? Does it destroy the existing ones? (Remember that the node about to collapse that was stabilized with Knossos led to a Nebula. During one of Bosch's monologues he mentions that the nebula was a result of a supernova, but he also mentions egyptians watching it so it is not consistent to the time the Ancients were destroyed, but probably he was just guessing.) We can't tell either if Bosch's contact with Shivans actually led to the destruction of Capella. These things can be explained with assumptions, but nothing more.
This is a first proof of my Theory I admit it is not complete yet, but it is a sketch of the main ideas it had. There are some explanations missing such as the Shivan-HOL relationship.
The Almighty Race Theory
HOL thought that the Shivans weren't some xenocidal, but a superior race. Let's assume there's such race, and the universe has been inhabited by these beings long before even the ancients existed. This race is basically some sort of Gods, eventhough they are not perfect, they were able to understand the universe and achieve a stable and peaceful structure.
This race evolved as any other, but they managed to surpass all the troubles of any developing civilisation and reach an utopic society with no major troubles whatsoever. So as the gods they are, they decide to create inferior life forms and scatter them throughout the Universe, probably for their own amusement. Maybe this seems a little bit arbitrary, but that's the behaviour of most god-like creatures.
At this time, this thing sounds like something just made up and uninvolved with the game but later on it'll start to make sense. The problem here, is that these beings are expecting something from these life forms they created, probably to see something the had never seen; but developing in a peacefuel way. They created them to comply with a particular purpose each. Like an experiment. Obviously each race had free will, which seems to be the most recurrent “mistake” in creatures capable to create life, which allows these beings to do things they were not meant to and they creators never expected.
So, the first ones (as far as we can tell in the game, but the end game monologue suggests there were probably more) achieving this where the Ancients. The discovery of subspace travel, per se, was not a trouble, but it gave them the chance to contact other life forms. In the point of view of the almighty race, they were a part of their “experiment” that went out of control and since it was affecting other parts of that same experiment, they have no choice but to eliminate them. The superior race starts to build another race: the Shivans to eliminate the Ancients before making further damage to their experiment.
In the case it weren't the ancients. We may think about the Shivan army as an army that had been changing and perfecting throught the extermination of several races. The army that attacked the Ancients was the result of all these previous wars. It can also be that this army was exactly the same all the time and it remained unbeaten until its encounter with the GTA and the PVN.
This explanation supports several things about the Shivans. According to the information in Tech room we can see:
32 years after the Great War, we still know almost nothing about the Shivans. Physically, the Shivans have multiple compound eyes and five legs with claw-like manipulators. Their insect like carapace does not appear original to the creature's physiognomy, suggesting the Shivans are a cybernetic fusion of biology an technology. The integrated plasma weapon also exhibits properties of an organic artificial fusion. The weapon may be a kind of focusing device powered by the energy of the being itself, though this point is the subject of heated cotroversy. These details are cited as evidence that the Shivans could not have evolved as the Terran or Vasudan species had, but that they were likely constructed by another entity.
As you can see, the Tech room info supports the theory that shivans were created by someone else. We also should not forget that Volition mentioned them as a Symptom of a bigger problem. A symptom is an evidence, but it is not the problem itself. The problem could be the angry god-like creatures rather than just the xenocidal species spreading everywhere.
Only a handful of Shivans have ever been captured, and all research on live specimens ended with the GTI's Hades rebellion in 2335. The results of these studies remain highly classified. Though the Shivans are onviously xenocidal, their motives and origins have yet to be determined.
This part has nothing relevant to coment about, so let's move on.
According to Ancient artifacts, the Shivans seem to possess some kind of sensitivity to subspace disturbances. We do not know if the Shivans returned to this corner of the galaxy by chance, by cycle, by pattern, or by their detection of Terran-Vasudan subspace travel.
These three theories about shivan behaviour are just that: theories. Mere speculations. But according to the ancients, they were drawn by subspace disturbances. We know subspace is the only way in which species can move towards other star systems inhabited by other species. Probably the Almighty Race gave that ability to them since that's how they can know when a part of their experiment is affecting other. It gives them also a valuable strategic advantage that possibly was helpful for them to figure out where the home systems of the Vasudans and Terrans were.
Xenobiologists know very little about Shivan society. A leading hypothesis is the hive mind theory, arguing that Shivan society is broken down in specialized functions driven by a collective intelligence. The most convincing evidence supporting this theory is the behavior of Shivan forces following the destruction of the Lucifer, the turning point of the Great War.
The shivans were created as an army. In armies, individual decisions affect the outcome of a battle. That's why soldiers are trained to obey their commanding officers and carry out orders without questioning. That's also why some information is restricted to high rank officers, since they have the power to make decisions. This is a major premise within armed forces since it helps armies to fight effectively and makes predictions easy for commanders, since they rule out the individual initiative factor. Since Shivans fight as an example of a perfect soldier, obeying orders to the letter and having no outburst of disobeyence; they need a source of command. That was the Lucifer's role in the combat. That's why it was so heavily protected and was particularly destructive.
FS1 suggests that there were no major changes between the Shivan army that killed the Ancients and the one that fought the GTA and the PVN in the great war. The monologues talk about destructors and shields. How come they did not make any significant technological change within the 8,000 year time between the anihilation of the Ancients and The Geat War? Even during FS1, they don't seem to develop new weapons or stronger shields while their enemies managed to copy their shield technoloy and build weapons able to overcome Shivan shields and defenses. That suggest that the Shivans had no means to develop any new technology whatsoever and they relied completely on their creators to supply their weapons.
So let's imagine what happened in the battle between Shivans and the Ancients. The ancients start to spread through the galaxy. The almighties notice that and think of a way to stop them. At this point it is very important to know that since the Ancients posses freewill, there's no way the almighties know what do they bear in mind. Remember that Almighty is just a name and it does not mean they were actually almighty. So their move to stop the Ancients was to deploy an army specifically to exterminate them. They found out their weapons were not able to penetrate certain shielding system which they equipped in their ships. They figured that a certain attack force was more than enough to finish them and sent it to do the job, which they carried succesfully. After the Ancients' homeworld was destroyed, they thought that if they gave them a chance to regroup they would probably recover and keep expanding through the universe. So their choice was to totally anihilate them. Little did they know that they (the Ancients) were able to solve the puzzle and find a weakness in their army.
A fact that supports this is that after the Lucier was destroyed, Shivans didn't call for reinforcements and they just were killed. Suggesting that their only source of command was within that ship.
Other experts cauton against attributing insectoid properties to the Shivans, regardless of their appearance and behavior. Shivan communication seems to occur in the electromagnetic spectrum, though efforts to decode their transmissions have yielded no meaningful results to date.
This is not relevant at this point. Just helps to figure out how did ETAK probably worked.
Now let's take some extracts from the Ancients' monologues in FS1 in order to give further support to this theory.
From the Ancients' first monologue:
...And we travelled faster and farther, spreading in our galaxy; and before long, we could see the day when our reachable systems would have been exploited. And then there would be nowhere else to go.
And we discovered subspace. It gave us our galaxy, and it gave us the universe. And we saw other advanced life; and we subdued it, or we crushed it. In months, the elimination of billions of years of evolution on a similar but slower path. With subspace, our empire would surely know no boundaries.
This suggests that the Ancients were no threat to the Almighties' experiment before they reached subspace. That's the reason why the Shivans were able to detect subspace disturbances. Notice that the Ancients started to crush other advanced life forms just after discovering subspace travel.
From the Ancients' second mologue:
When the destroyers came for us, we attacked. Never had we been defeated. They were like the others: strange, hideous, resisting, fighting. Only these were not like the others: They did not die.
We made our first retreat. We could forego one system. We left it to the destroyers and went elsewhere. But they followed. They hunted us. They followed us when we retreated, discovered where we lived.
For a long time we did not know why they chased us. They were no ordinary enemy. They did not seek our territory, our technology, our resources.
Now we know our crime was sin.
You may notice here how did the Shivan forces were meant to specifically destroy the Ancients, or at least, not to be defeated by them. This is a result of either a long process of evolution or thorough planning. It also shows that the Shivans' goal was to eliminate them, rather than just stop them. That's the reason they why followed them. They didn't act in self defense but as a force with the specific target to search and destroy. If they were acting as an individual race trying to expand it would not explain why didn't they destroyed the life in Vasuda which was relatively close to the Altair system.
The use of the word sin suggested that the Shivans were actually interpreted as some sort of divine punishment.
From the Ancients' third monologue:
And we retreated to our home system, abandoned our empire. We believed at home we would be safe. For they are not a terrestrial species.
We know when we entered subspace we were trespassers, but our planet is our home.
And yet still they came.
And our world is gone.
This suggests that Ancients' new that Shivans were made to live in space. It also suggests that they knew that it all began when they started to use subspace and that they were not meant to leave their system. But the damage was already done and the almighties could not risk having them around. As seen in the first paragraph, the almighties don't seem to mind the thousands of years they expanded at the beginning, since the Ancients didn't killed any advanced form of life. Probably they expected that and made sure advanced life didn't lie within their reachable systems.
From the Ancients' fourth monologue:
There are few of us left. We know we will soon be gone. And so we can see our fate as others will see it.
There will be little legacy. No great expressions of what we once were. Our technology, our achievements, if ever they are seen again, will spawn none of the awe that filled our conquests.
We know our fate. We are being eliminated. When we travelled subspace, the Cosmic Destroyers took note. When we conquered and colonized in galaxies where we had no place, the destruction and the anguish and the loss were the clarion call of our doom.
And so the destroyers came for us.
This suggests that the Ancients knew that they were not meant to expand. And that their expansion was something to be punished, and that punishment were the Shivans. They knew they broke some rules and that they were out of the game. For the almighties, they developed in an undesirable way and they were no more use to their experiment. So they just dispose of them.
From the Ancients' last monologe:
...But we have no way to deliver the hurt. We have the knowledge, but not the means. And so this is our legacy:
In subspace, they cannot use their shields. And into subspace, they can be tracked.
As you can see, this suggests the Shivans used the same shields that they used 8,000 years before. The Ancients' knew the pain of being extinguished. That's probably why they left that information. The only way another itelligent form of life was able to see that information is if that species traveled through subspace. Probably the Ancients intention was to avoid the suffering they lived to be lived by any other trespasser. The rest of the information about them and their war with the Shivans probably was a warning as well to stop other species form expanding.
From the End Game monologue:
I know why the Ancient Ones were destroyed, and I know what they knew. I know that if not for the Shivans, they would have perished long before. Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered the Ancient Ones in their infancy and eliminated them, just as surely as they eliminated countless billions of others.
I believe it is only the destroyers who are killed. The Shivans are the Great Destroyers, but they are also the Great Preservers. That is why, when we moved into space, there was no one powerful enough to kill us.
Long had we been the destroyer. Our turn had nearly come.
In the Vasudan War, we learned how to adapt. We learned how to study our enemy. We learned how to overcome. We learned how to survive. And so we did.
All the jump points from Earth are gone. But the Shivans can rebuild them. I'm told we can expect them again, but not in my lifetime. Such is liberation.
We can see here the same interpretation of the Shivan attack as some sort of mission carried out by them. They were the destroyers, but also the preservers. The narrator at some point realises that the Shivans were not killing Terrans but protecting other species from them. And that probably some other species would have killed them or the Ancients if the Shivans hadn't stop them. He also accepts that the destiny of humanity was destruction, unless they found a way to defeat Shivans.
Until now, everything starts to come toghether nicely, isn't it? The first assumption I made about the almighty race is not the only possible way for this theory to work. Their motives and behaviour can be different. They even may be the Shivans themselves, although it is not very likely. This theory applies under a set of simpler assumptions.
1.Shivan attacks are the result of someone's interest to preserve species.
2.Shivans attackers (not necesarily every Shivan) rely on external sources for technology and supplies, and can't develop or gather those things themselves.
3.Shivan attackers are meant to function like an army.
4.Shivan attackers have very specific sources of command.
The Almighty Race was a scenario in which these assumptions took place, but it may be any other. These assumptions are supported by game-provided evidence and seem to fit the behaviour observed there, as I will try to explain in the next pages of this document. As you can see, I am trying to reduce arbitrary assumptions to a minimun.
I will carry on explaining this theory as if there is an almighty race, but just because is a coherent situation in which the basic assumptions would take place. Nevertheless, this theory can't tell a specific scenario in which the FS storyline actually takes place.
Now, who was the source of command to the Shivan army. Since the Shivans seem to be more as soldiers than strategists, and the fact that they were an easy prey after the Lucifer (The possible commander's ship.) was destroyed. It is likely that the commander was either a specific built Shivan or maybe a member of the Almighty race. This is more likely than the former, since a strategist Shivan may imply a new race with different attributes. So when the Lucifer was destroyed, the Shivan army was defeated completely.
The response of the almighties was to prepare a new Shivan army. They knew two things from the failed attack to the Sol system:
1)The terrans had bought some time by destroying the first wave. And were getting ready to fight a similar army.
2)The isolated terrans in Sol were not a serious threat, eventhough they had to be destroyed as well, they had to take care first about terrans in space.
During the 34 years between the great war and the Almighties were regrouping a new army. They knew that terrans knew how to defeat a Lucifer class destroyer and that they were preparing for such attack. The Sathani is the way Almighties expected to overcome any Terran defense against a Lucifer attack. They were sticking to the old formula of huge ships and overwhelming numerical advantage. Eventhough some new ships were developed, there are no major changes in the Shivans basic strategy.
Let's see this from the point of view of the almighties. You have a problem somewhere and you decide to create an army to solve it. The army is not particularly big or powerful for your means, but they were carefully planned and managed to do the job, which is what matters. You find suddenly that your enemy has destroyed that army. You know that you are stronger and that your foe has been severely weakened. You know also that if you send an equally weak force to attack your enemy it will be repelled. But if you send something so big he can't handle, you'll have the victory in yout pocket. This was not a matter of creating new tactics, but to overwhelm a force which was recovering from an earlier strike. It's easier to deploy a ton of ships all built with existing infrastructure than redevelop your strategies. The only thing that matters is to solve the problem before it grows any bigger.
All these seems to conflict with admiral Bosch's first monologe.
They believed their voyage across the sea of stars woke the dragon that slept beneath the waves: that the Shivans were birthed from the flux of subspace and their destruction was the revenge of an angry cosmos.
In this part, the Shivan manifesto seems correct. But, is there any particular reason to take this literally? These monologues are mined with metaphores and these can be just a couple of them. And as for the Shivans being an energy being sustained in a exoskeleton. Volition says that Shivans look the way they are, it is not a power suit like on Independence Day film.
So, what happened with admiral Bosch?
Bosch's monologues suggest that the NTF was just the mean to a purpose. A huge decoy hiding his true purpose: to contact the Shivans. We know Bosch and the GTVI were investigating the remains of the Ancients. And that Bosch's true motives were only known by men close to him. He did not necessarily hate the Vasudans, but used this as a mean to gather an army big enough to create a distraction while exploring the Ancients' remains. He does not seem to favor the motives of his army. Calling them “stupid cattle”. It is very likely that he found out the perspective of the Shivans as some sort of divine punishment. In the game, there's no evidence of any encounter with any sort of intelligent life before the Vasudans. And as far as we know, diplomacy was applied before war (The information on FS1 suggests that probably the war was caused by a misunderstanding due to Vasudan complex conversation protocols). If this is true, Bosch may have thought that since Terrans didn't destroyed any species they were not supposed to be attacked by Shivans. If he was able to stablish contact with Shivan command and tell them that they knew that no form of advanced life was supposed to be eliminated, probably they would consider a cease-fire or an alliance. Solving that “misunderstanding” he mentions. Basically Bosch's intention was to tell that he was on their side. If somehow he managed to gain their favor, the human future would have been ensured. Think that would not happen wto the Vasudans. “I alone realized our species had no future with the Vasudans. If we are to survive, our destiny must lie elsewhere.”
Nevertheless, perhaps Bosch's hatred towards the Vasudans had something to do with his intentions to gain the favor of the almighties. As you know, some things in the game suggest a connection between the Vasudans and the Ancients.(Among them, but not exclusively, the Freespace bible) So maybe he thought there wasn't a chance to gain the Almighties' simphaty if they were friends fo the heirs of their old enemies.
But the whole NTF was probably nothing more than a charade to hide Bosch's true motives. At no point in his monologues he seems to talk about Neo-Terra as his goal, but only as something he regrets, but somehow was necessary at certain levels. When Bosch was discovered near to the cargo depot (The place of Chariots), GTVI probably suspected that it had something to do with ETAK. The main proof is that eventhough they knew that the cargo had strategic value, the pressence of the Iceni showed that it was more important that it actually seemed. This may be the reason why in the interception mision, the squad was deployed way too far away from the Iceni. Intelligence wanted it to look like an accident, but they needed the Iceni to get wherever she was going.
When the GTC Vigilant was destroyed and the Terrans found the Knossos jump node (Lion at the Door). They discover the NTF was in the nebula frist (Mistery of the Trinity), so Intelligence put the pieces toghether and found out that Bosch wanted to stablish contact with the Shivans. Command decides to get a hold of the nebula first by destroying the Ravana. (Slaying Ravana) With this, they would cut-off Bosch's way to the Shivans. Bosch decides to try his luck and divert this blocking forces by attacking a GTVA installation. (The Sixth Wonder) GTVA knows that move and they decide to deploy the colossus which spoils Bosch's hopes of getting through the nebula. The colossus would also allow the Terran-Vasudan forces to get rid of the NTF, so they plan an offensive move (Into the Malestrom) while intelligence tried to capture the Iceni. Intelligence plays its best cards sending in their hidden ops (Rebels and renegades, Love the treason and ...but hate the traitor) which helps them gather information about the whereabouts of the Aquitaine and allows them to capture material of strategic value regarding ETAK. While the GTVA forces advance and crush the NTF Bosch seems his defeat coming and he manages to make a scape plan while his army bought him some time. At the end he manages to scape to the Knossos (End Game)
So know Bosch is alone in the Nebula trying to stablish contact. Usually Shivans don't care about any attempt of communication, but in this case they try to board the Iceni. That's a huge change in their behaviour pattern. He describes his first contact as rudimentary and crude, whatever he sent wasn't meant to be a conversation. And the Shivans weren't able to respond, but they knew what to do. Whatever Bosch sent through ETAK was probably just enough for the Shivans to keep him alive and send him to their superior officer or even take the trouble to board the ship instead of blowing it off.
Shivans show no evidence of being able to keep a non-hostile relationship with other sentient species. That supports the fact that they were only meant to be grunts. Mere pawns in the Almighties' chessboard. But Bosch seems very confident about ETAK and their underlying motives, which points to the fact that he found a way to get to the Commander. That Shivans were able to distinguish certain attitude and were trained to respond accordingly. And that's why they boarded the Iceni instead of just destroying it.
The slaughter of the Iceni's crew seemed as a part of the plan. Shivans just knew that they had to get to the one who sent the transmission and since most of the crew didn't know Bosch's intentions (It is said that is only true motives are known by a few, probably the ones who got captured along with him) they acted defensively and tried to stop the Shivans. They saw them as an obstacle from their objective (Bosch) and killed them. Bosch was actually going to meet somebody important for the Shivan Army.
Notice this happened shortly after the destruction of the first Sathanas. As the GTVA failed to destroy the node that Knossos left, they are ordered to chase the Iceni. They do that only to find out that Bosch is not there anymore and the ship will selfdestruct. Fortunately for the GTVA an officer knows the specs of ETAK and that buys them a ticket home while the fighters keep them alive until they can be evacuated.
If we go back in time, to the great war we'll see that the destruction of the Lucifer meant the fall of the remaining Shivan forces. The almighties learned from the mistake and tried to avoid sending the commanding officer within the fleet, since its loss would mean the fall of the army. Instead of that, they deployed long range communication nodes, so that they could monitor the fleets and issue orders remotely. Since they are long range devices they require a lot of energy, which explains the huge explosions experimented by the terran Maras.
It is evident that Shivans were starting to deploy forces to make a massive attack against Terran-Vasudan space. but at some point, they stop everything and just make the Capella sun blow. Probably the last order sent to the shivan ships was to move towards Capella, from where the strike was going to take place. This is consistent with the attack to Capella system. (Argonautica) Probably further orders were to be issued once the system was secured, but since the comm nodes were destroyed, they were unable to do anything. This was probably anticipated by command, and they issued that if the contact was lost at any time, Shivan forces were to destroy any jump node by inducing a major cataclism (such as a supernova) to avoid further Terran expansion. (They didn't now that terrans were already doing that)
Another possibility is that Bosch contacted Shivan command. Since they are more advanced than Shivans, find a way to communicate and Bosch explains the “misunderstandingt” and the almighties seem interested. They order the destruction of the Capella to open a node that would enable Shivans to take Bosch immediately to them, knowing that Terrans were cutting off themselves and would pose no major threat for a while. This plan would have been made before the destruction of the comm nodes.
Another possibility is that without any link to command, Shivans panicked. and desperately tried to open one themselves by destroying Capella. This is suggested by Petrarch's ending speech. In which he talks about Shivans as if they were wanderers isolated from their homes.
This seems a little unclear and probably was something to be clarified in ST3. It is very likely that Bosch would eventually contact those higher beings and reappear as a Shivan's ally. In that case, ST3 would have been a more tactical combat, rather than relying on huge capital ships. In which GTVA could probably spend a lot of time investigating planets destroyed by the Shivans in order to figure out the location of the almighties and kill them. This would have a metaphorical sense of the battle of men against their Gods. Such as in some passages of greek mythology. These are just mere speculations and this theory does not predict an specific outcome. Instead it gives an explanation of the Shivan's origins and motivations, and how that affected the development of the Story through the game.
