[Hellbender]

I'm making the following assumptions.

While there is a lot of guesswork that can be made, what you have put down in your post is pretty steep and rather contradictory to  canon.

Ancients:
     Not from this galaxy

I have not come across anything that suggests they were not from this galaxy.

     Explored most of their galaxies usable systems and moved out into neighboring galaxies.

     

This appears to be true according to

Shivans:
     Creatures that live in subspace

No evidence save speculation, even in canon sources.

     Do not require node or anything else to travel to and from subspace

No, however they are able to use nodes that Terran and Vasudan subspace drives cannot, at least as far as canon has stated.

     Only use the subspace nodes to track and follow us.

Nothing to support this. They do have subspace tracking, but they use the nodes same as we do.

     Attack any race that disturbers their domain

No solid info available to support this. Their motives have not been fathomed, and they cannot unless they open communication. So far, appart from Bosch's ETAK project, they'd rather fight than speak.

Vasudans:
     Slave race of the Ancients brought to Vasuda Prime from their original home world.

Speculation, cannot and has not been confirmed, save that they may have had contact with the Ancients in the past.
     

Terrans:
     Native to Earth but experimented on by the Ancients.

 

Experimented on us to what end? There's nothing to suggest they even knew our species existed.

Knossos:
     Device created by the Ancients to create subspace nodes.

We don't know if it was to create nodes for sure, or merely to stabilize existing ones. The info has not really been clearly explained for sure.

I'm afraid that kind of shoots your theory full of holes, but for the sake of argument:

Theory:

Ancients created Knossos devices to open subspace to them.

I think you should say more like give them increased access to subspace.

They left their own galaxy and made it to ours.

 

Again there is nothing that positively states they did not origionate in our galaxy.

After exploring part of out galaxy and several others they invoked the wrath of the Shivans for disturbing their native environment.

There is nothing definitvely placing subspace as the true home of the Shivans. The Shivans may be merely advanced xenophobes that just happen to be sensitive to subspace.

Final battles were fought across the galaxies.

All we really have for sure is that after the origional battles, the Ancients retreated, eventually abandoning their empire.

In a last ditch effort the Ancients tried destroying the Knossos devices to stop the Shivans.  This is why there are no Knossos devices in the nearby systems.

Why not just turn the things off? As well, why build a Knossos if there was no need, which they may have felt to be the case?

Unknown to the Ancients the Knossos devices once turned on for a period of time stabilize the node and are no longer needed.

If they created the technology, isn't it likely they would have a very good idea how it would perform?

The Knossos the GTVA discovered was one of the last built and never turned on.

We have no way to prove this at all.

The Lucifer fleet was a scouting mission to see what was causing new subspace disturbances.

I disagree - the Lucifer and its fleet was way too big for a scouting party. A scout would quietly drop in, snoop a bit then bug out back to mommy, not commit major resources to an extermination campaign.

When the Sol node collapsed it sent shock waves through subspace.

Possible, however subspace and how it works is still up for debate.

Maybe these waves hurt the Shivans just like dropping a stick of dynamite in a pond of fish.

Not enough information on the Shivans to predict with accuracy. It could just as easily have no effect at all on them.

Between FS1 and FS2 the Shivans assembled. They would have come no matter what but when we created a new subspace portal the Sathanas fleet closest by was angered and attacked prematurely. When the rest of the fleet arrived they saw us try to destroy a subspace node. Fearing that we would succeed they came up with a way to counteract the subspace shockwave by destroying the star. Their ships being capable of feeding off of a stars energy formed a ring and drew enough energy off of the star to make it collapse. The resulting collapse resulted in the supernova. Shivans go back into subspace to lick their wounds and build and gather an even stronger fleet.

Anyone's guess, but it just doesn't work for me. I still favour the supernode theory. The Shivans weren't so much sucking energy away from the star, more creating a subspace field around it. I'm not really sure that the Shivans were so much in terror of destructing nodes either. You would tend to think a supernova would likely destroy any nodes left in the viscinity... As for licking their wounds and building a stronger fleet? 80 great bloody juggernuts plus escorting fleet units and screen is a pretty darn powerful fleet don't you think? The GTVA certainly never mounted much in the line of successful challengers.

As for your ending questions:

Will we figure out how to destroy the Shivans in subspace?

Um, find em and shoot em?

Will the Shivans figure out a way to prevent the destruction of the nodes?

Don't let them get blown up?

Will the Vasudans find the truth about their true homeworld?  Does it still exist?

I have doubts that this is the correct supposition, as the Vasudans are quite well suited for Vasuda Prime's environment.

Are there other surviving races just around the corner?  Are they friendly?  Are they more advanced but smart enough not to use subspace?

Who knows? Friendly or not, this depends on if any are found at all or even exist. How do we know that subspace use is stupid? Perhaps the Shivans just hate everybody whether they can use subspace or not.

Do the Shivans have masters or allies? 

There is no info regarding this at all. Masters of some kind, anything is possible. Allies? Maybe they have found another race they didn't shoot on sight...

Are there any Ancients left?  Could a few have survived on far off isolated worlds that don't have subspace nodes?

We do not know, but if their empire was a enormous as the cutscenes claimed, then it is not terribly unlikely that there were some surviving colonies somewhere.

Just some things to think about and argue over for the new year.

There - officially deliberated about and argued!

[karajorma]

To be fair he did say he was making assumptions. You can't exactly come up with any kind of theory explaining the Shivans without making lots of them since we know so little about them.

So? I'm not always right...big surprise...you're acting like you were never wrong.

That's kinda my point. I qualify my statements so that I'm not wrong. If I don't know I say I don't know. If I'm making assumptions I try to state them so that others can judge if my premise is correct. I'd rather have people debate the subject at hand and come up with several different explanations as that leads to more interesting campaigns. You seem to want to give everyone Trashman's view from on high and insist that anything else is unlikely or impossible. Even when your logic turns out to be fatally flawed.

And I most certainly don't insist someone is wrong when I don't have the faintest clue.

I don't always have time for research so I often fall back to my shoddy memory. Wow.. I bet that's unheard of in the circles of the allmighty Kaj!

Then if you know your memory is shoddy (and I presume if you didn't already it has finally dawned on you today) then stop insisting you are correct unless you've bothered to check your facts. You've done it time and time again on these debates and then continued to argue you are correct even after the assumptions you built your entire theory on are proved flimsy if not completely false.

It seems like every time someone posts some interesting theory you turn up to rubbish it based on facts you pulled out of your arse. The simple fact is that you don't know any better than anyone else on this forum. And given your shoddy memory and your unwillingness to actually check I'd say that often you're telling people who remember better than you that they're wrong.

I'm gonna open my mouth and say whatever I damn please and you don't have to like it bud.

Not if you continue to be a disruption you won't. As your title shows I'm not the only admin sick to the back teeth of your antics.

[TrashMan]

That's kinda my point. I qualify my statements so that I'm not wrong. If I don't know I say I don't know. If I'm making assumptions I try to state them so that others can judge if my premise is correct. I'd rather have people debate the subject at hand and come up with several different explanations as that leads to more interesting campaigns. You seem to want to give everyone Trashman's view from on high and insist that anything else is unlikely or impossible. Even when your logic turns out to be fatally flawed.

And I most certainly don't insist someone is wrong when I don't have the faintest clue.

That's a plain, pure lie that I act like that. I practicly always say directly that I'm not sure, that it could be, that it might be, IMHO, IIRC... Heck I use these words a LOT more than you, so don't come all high and mighty to me.
I won't even bother to replay to the next bit.

I'm gonna open my mouth and say whatever I damn please and you don't have to like it bud.

Not if you continue to be a disruption you won't. As your title shows I'm not the only admin sick to the back teeth of your antics.

Disruption? Moi?
I adhere to all the rules of the forum...heck, I've been on hunderds of forums and no one ever complained about me.
I don't have antics. I have my opinions and ideas. Which I have the right to express and defend. You don't have to like it. Nobody has to like it. And chances are somebody won't like it...which is basicly true no matter what you do given the pletora of personalities, agendas and whatnot.

[karajorma]

I've said my piece. Make of it what you will.

Don't say you weren't warned later though.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I'll have to get back to you on that Hellbender.  Don't have time to read/reply to it all right now.  Might have to wait until Thursday as tomorrow is a bar night.

[Snail]

Here's my WIP theory.

The Ancients have (or had) better Subspace tech than the GTA and PVN. This is canon (Knossos, anyone?). They were only slightly ahead of the GTA and PVN because the species they encountered were much like the present-day humans (as in 2008), with early advents into space and nuclear weaponry. Since they had never encountered an enemy that was at the same level, their empire expanded rapidly and at the height of their power expanded even into another galaxy.

Then one foggy Christmas eve, they did something that got the Shivan's attention (like powering up a Super-Knossos or something). The Shivans came and started pawning them. At this point they know nothing of the humans and stuff. The Shivan fleet that wiped out the Ancients wasn't the Sath fleet or the Lucy fleet, but some other fleet that also had capital ship shielding but also had beams or other advanced weaponry (I'm making the assumption that the Ancients could penetrate fighter and bomber shields, but not capital ship shields. Even if this is proven wrong it's not a large part of the theory and can easily be changed without affecting other aspects of the theory).

When the Ancients realized that they had little chance of defeating the Shivans, they sent "seeds" into different parts of the universe. These "seeds" were either Ancients themselves or one of their slave races. The majority of the seeds were found by the Shivans and EXTERMINATED. However, one of the surviving seeds was the Vasudans (either a slave race or the Ancients themselves). The Ancients told all of the seeds basic stories of the Shivans that became the myths and legends that the Hammer of Light followed. In the end, the Ancients never found the humans, or at least that's what I think. I find it implausible that they landed on Earth and started teaching the Aztecs crap about the Shivans since that's just cliche and stupid IMO.

Then the Ancients fled to their homeworld and got nuked by the Shivans. The other remaining Ancients got hunted down and killed, though their seed project partially worked since the Vasudans still live.


*hides while someone takes out their hole puncher*

[Dark Hunter]

That's.... actually one of the better theories I've heard.

[Koth]

And it is the one CP5670 used in the Procyon Insurgency. It's a nice one but one of my major gripes with it is that Humans exist for a lot longer than 8000 years. Unless of course the Ancient-Shivan War had a duration of over a hundred thousand years which I find to be quite unlikely.

[achtung]

The Ancients conquered every race they came across.

Who's to say they didn't force them into military service?  How would the Shivans be able to differentiate between the races victimized and the Ancients themselves?

They're Xenophobic, and I see no reason for them to hold back on a race they saw as aiding the Ancients and their ways.  The Ancients probably came across the systems that are currently part of the GTVA late in their struggle with the Shivans.  The Vasudans were the first sentient race they came across, but they were not enslaved.  Knowing they were fighting a losing battle against the Shivans, and the Vasudan system being on the fringe of their empire, they decided to not doom the Vasudans to the same fate they had so many other races.   They made contact only to give them slight aid, and instill the legends of the Shivans.   The Altair system was chosen as a colony and Research and Development facility, the subspace device that was used to track the Lucifer in FS was created here, but too late.  Knowing the Shivans would eventually hunt them down in Altair, and knowing they had no way to fight the Shivans, even with the new device, they decided to pass it down.  The device was placed in the heavily shielded chamber it is found in during the events of FS, protected from the coming Shivan bombardment.  All of this being done to aid the Vasudans, or any race that found the device in the future.

Heh, went off on a bit of a tangent there.

[Snail]

And it is the one CP5670 used in the Procyon Insurgency. It's a nice one but one of my major gripes with it is that Humans exist for a lot longer than 8000 years. Unless of course the Ancient-Shivan War had a duration of over a hundred thousand years which I find to be quite unlikely.

It's not the one CP5670 used. If you could read the post I said humanity did not come into contact with the Ancients.

[AlphaOne]

Ok the Ancients empire was HUGE ! They freaking conquered and colonized in other galaxies.

An empire this wast and large can not be brought down just like that and its ppl so to speak inclueding slave races exterminated over night.

If you use common sense you will realize that the chances of the ancients surviving in some distant part of theyr empire is VERY VERY high.

Also remember the shivans are not interested in tech or planets so there are even bigger chances that the shivans did not nuke some slave race they come across.

[Snail]

Not that high. After 8,000 years of technological advancement they would most likely be found and destroyed.

[Dark Hunter]

Ok the Ancients empire was HUGE ! They freaking conquered and colonized in other galaxies.

An empire this wast and large can not be brought down just like that and its ppl so to speak inclueding slave races exterminated over night.

If you use common sense you will realize that the chances of the ancients surviving in some distant part of theyr empire is VERY VERY high.

Also remember the shivans are not interested in tech or planets so there are even bigger chances that the shivans did not nuke some slave race they come across.

I don't think any of us are thinking that the Ancient-Shivan war was an overnight deal, Alpha. Still, given the tech advantage the Shivans had, I'd bet they washed right over the Ancients about as quickly or perhaps even faster than they did the Terrans and Vasudans in FS1.

But I doubt the Ancients survived. Any of them. The Shivans do not strike me as a race that just calls it a day once they've done an extraordinary amount of damage. They go further. Complete and utter annihilation. Besides, we know that the Ancients did not disperse until after their homeworld got nuked. Ancient Monologue 3 states that "We retreated to our home system. Abandoned our empire." That suggests to me that they withdrew nearly the full force of their military might to homeworld defense, then got flattened by the Shivans. They then tried to run, but it was too late, and the Shivans tracked them down, one by one, until they were gone.

Even if a few managed to escape the Shivans' notice, Snail is right: they would have begun expansion again, attracted the Shivans' attention, and gotten wiped out. A race does not stay in refugee status for thousands of years. If any did survive, I'll bet they thought the Shivans were nothing more than a legend. They would not have heeded any warnings left by their ancestors.

[Hellbender]

@ Fubar - we can yak about fictional universes anythime but a night out with the buds is a hella lot more fun. 

THe discussion is improving, now that we seem to be back on track. Keep it coming!

[TrashMan]

Not that high. After 8,000 years of technological advancement they would most likely be found and destroyed.

If by "finding" you mean glasing every planet the shivies come across capable of supporting life...then maby.

How are the shivans supposed to find every last ancient in the universe, especially if they scatter around? How do you find a bunch of people living in a forest on a planet? Magical Star Trek scanners that can tell you the number of noise hairs the guy on the left room in the hotel on the 9th planet on the system?
Just imagine how friggin huge just our galaxy is.
How you can hide ships in-system from even a large search force.

IMHO, it would be like saying that humanity can exterminate every last ant on the planet...yeah..good luck with that. 

[Flipside]

I've always suspected that the natural nodes that Terrans and Vasudans use are outside the Ancients original area of influence, I think they fled here, beyond the edge of their Empire when it fell, I think that the further you get into Ancient space, the more Knossos devices will be apparent. I suppose it's also possible that they bought the Vasudan refugees with them, though that's more guesswork, and I've no clue as to motivation for doing so.

[haloboy100]

what makes people think that the humans are related with the Ancients? I was never under the impression that they ever interacted with them. I thought the humans emerged after the Ancient's died.

[Flipside]

8000 years ago, we were barely out of the caveman stage,and, as far as I know, theres no evidence whatsoever of the Ancients having any contact with humans.

[Flipside]

Double Post, sorry, but the reason I wonder if the Vasudans are actually 'imported' is more about feel than fact. Look at their ships, their culture, it seems to be somewhat aquatically oriented. Look at Vasuda Prime, if I recall correctly, even before it was destroyed, it was mostly a desert world, I find their nature and their environment to be oddly opposed.

[haloboy100]

Double Post, sorry, but the reason I wonder if the Vasudans are actually 'imported' is more about feel than fact. Look at their ships, their culture, it seems to be somewhat aquatically oriented. Look at Vasuda Prime, if I recall correctly, even before it was destroyed, it was mostly a desert world, I find their nature and their environment to be oddly opposed.

I agree, i think the yellow brown and black color scheme they use for their ships just try to throw this fact off. except for the Hatshepsut which looks like a vacuum cleaner, most of their ships do look aquatic.

And yes, the vasudan home world was desert, which is why the Vasudan ships and classification are egyptian names.