[Snail]

All fanwank. It's just as possible that the Lucy shields worked just like fighter shields but with a ton of really big reactors powering them.

Whatever works for your campaign is fair game.

Well, it does say "Impervious, not merely resistant" in a Command Briefing of FS1.

[General Battuta]

Well, a tank is impervious to rock attack, and heck, even fighter shields are 'impervious' to bomb shockwaves (right...? or just resistant?)

If you catch my drift.

In any case, the shield-piercing mechanism occurs regardless of the strength of the target shield, from what we know.

[Mongoose]

I think they probably were sure, actually.

It's just that WE can't be sure.

But Mongoose has provided good evidence to convince me that GTVA command was sure.

Precisely.  We're never provided the reasons as to why Command is sure that the Colossus could take on a Lucifer-class vessel, but because they are sure, said reasons must exist.

And until the discovery of the Knossos portal, the GTVA had no way of knowing that it was even possible to re-open a collapsed node, much less knowing how it could be accomplished.  The Ancients were incredibly advanced in the realm of subspace technology, far beyond what the Terrans and Vasudans were able to achieve previously.  For all that Terrans knew, Earth was gone for good, and the same fate would befall any other forcibly-collapsed node in the future.  Even with the discovery and study of the Knossos portal in Gamma Draconis, I'd be willing to bet that it could take several years, if not a few decades, before the GTVA would be able to successfully reverse-engineer, design, and construct a variant of their own to re-open the node to Sol, and it wouldn't surprise me if said project wound up costing more than the Colossus did.

[Snail]

Yeah, it's not enough to pass judgment based on a simple ambiguous statement like that. We just don't know. It's could go either way, so it gives us more freedom.

[Titan]

Maybe past that binary system is the Shivan homeworld. Maybe they kill any race that's too close. To answer the obvious question, they first evaluate each race to see whether they are a threat/can be made into slaves/whatever. Apparently we failed the test.

That's mostly based on the similarity between the GTVA and the Ancients.

[General Battuta]

I'm actually inclined to like Darius' suggestion that Shivan behavior towards the Terrans changed after FS1 because Terrans and Vasudans were able to coexist peacefully. Unlike the Ancients, neither Terran nor Vasudan insisted on xenocide and monospecies supremacy.

[Snail]

I'm actually inclined to like Darius' suggestion that Shivan behavior towards the Terrans changed after FS1 because Terrans and Vasudans were able to coexist peacefully. Unlike the Ancients, neither Terran nor Vasudan insisted on xenocide and monospecies supremacy.

Hmm. I've always thought that the Shivans have some hidden agenda and that the Terrans and Vasudans have just gotten in the way.

[General Battuta]

That is, of course, an equally valid and potentially interesting suggestion.

[Lucika]

All right, you have convinced me.
A final note:
Would it be possible to disable and disarm a Lucy in subspace and then tow it out, thus saving the node? Yup, I just play Derellict

[dragonsniper]

What would you use to tow a cruiser? Something large I presume.

[Spoon]

I think he means Bosch.

I'm pretty sure it's kappa 3 

I think he means Bosch.

Kappa 3 or bust!

[Asteroth]

I noticed this thread has derailed a bit (but not in a bad way) from differences between the Lucifer and the Sathanas fleet to shivan agenda and tactics differences between FS1 and FS2.

But I would like to bring up an unmentioned aspect of the differences between the Lucifer and a Sathanas: Simply their looks and associated psychological effects.

In my opinion the Lucifer is very unique and menacing in design. The image of those two 'antennae' on it's bow, and those glowing spots on either side of it's 'head' giving an eerie feel of eyes, will NEVER leave me. The Lucifer, in my eyes, is the ultimate evil being; unstoppable, and immensely powerful.

The Sathanas, on the other hand, was boring, and uninspired in design. A big bulky body with four big spikes protruding from it. The Sathanas is portrayed as far more powerful than it looks, the Sathanas does not scare me. A cain scares me more. Also, the fact they had several dozen of them, while can be construed as a a kind of massive unstoppable fleet, comes off to me as making them mass-produced and expendable.

There's only one Lucifer, and it will always be more badass than the Sathanas in my opinion.

[General Battuta]

Did you play FS1 first? I have this theory that the order you played them in makes a big difference.

I always thought the Sathanas was far more interesting and menacing.

[Asteroth]

Did you play FS1 first? I have this theory that the order you played them in makes a big difference.

I always thought the Sathanas was far more interesting and menacing.

*Sigh* Yes, I played FS1 first, which probably contributes to my feeling, but all of my points still stand.

[Flipside]

Also, Lucifer is a much more easily recognised name than Sathanas, so the whole idea of a ship named after the 'Ugly Red Source of All Evil' immediately invokes a response, particularly in those who have had a Christianity-based upbringing.

[General Battuta]

Did you play FS1 first? I have this theory that the order you played them in makes a big difference.

I always thought the Sathanas was far more interesting and menacing.

*Sigh* Yes, I played FS1 first, which probably contributes to my feeling, but all of my points still stand.

I'm not saying your perceptions are any more or less valid - clearly we can have differing opinions on the topic.

I just theorize that play order affected our perception of which supership was more badass.

The Sathanas is very interesting to me as a deconstruction of the supership trope, too.

[ThesaurusRex]

One key difference in the two games was that the Shivans were seem to be a bigger threat to the GTA and PVN in FS1 from their initial appearance all the way to the end. There was no real sigh of relief in the game, even when the avenger cannon proved that it was affective against Shivan shield tech and when shields systems were first implemented on GTA and PVN fighters, the Shivan threat only seemed to grow as they rapidly made their way to Sol. Accomplishments that would have been miraculous under different circumstances were only marginally acknowledged during a bloody conflict. Compare this with FS2 where there were several occasions when the GTVA felt capable of handling the Shivan threat. The destruction of the Ravana was celebrated by the alliance and so was the destruction of the first Sathanas. It was not until near the end of the game that the scope of the Shivan threat was finally realized.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm actually inclined to like Darius' suggestion that Shivan behavior towards the Terrans changed after FS1 because Terrans and Vasudans were able to coexist peacefully. Unlike the Ancients, neither Terran nor Vasudan insisted on xenocide and monospecies supremacy.

I've always been of the opinion that it probably doesn't matter; we are not even sure the Shivans actually distingush between Terrans and Vasudans as seperate species.

[General Battuta]

That's an equally valid supposition, with interesting consequences and possibilities for development.

Although the fact that the Lucifer first targeted Vasuda Prime and then Earth probably suggests it can tell the two apart (unless it happened to just analyze and head for what appeared to be the two main strategic centers.)

[ThesaurusRex]

I've always been of the opinion that it probably doesn't matter; we are not even sure the Shivans actually distingush between Terrans and Vasudans as seperate species.

Are you talking about distinguishing between each species based on their societies or physiologically? Terrans and Vasudans employed different strategies in combat and had very different social structures. Also, they must have noticed a difference in the ship appearances since the Vasudans had very "earthy" look to their ship. Compared with the Terran vessels were sometimes colored oddly, well, primarily the Orion. Physiologically they looked very similar since they were both bipedal with two arms and a single head.