Mhh... just want to point out, before we go more offtopic...
It doesn't really matter for sake of comparison if we talk about a virus or a bacterium or a natural force or desaster. Heck you could even drag ants in just to point out that the presense of "organisation" does not necessarily mean you can relate to something on a motivational level. "Motivation" i would argue, requires human or humanlike "sentience". You have to diferentiate that from mere "behavior". And see... the notion that there could be a race merely exhibiting "behavior" with no outward discernable "motivation" is actually quite scary in its own right if that race has the means to wipe you out. If you give them "motivation" then you can try to understand them and suddenly they are a whole lot less scary.
The only point i was trying to make is that one of the reasons that makes the Shivans such an unique foe... is that they either do not have motivations in the traditional sense of the word, or that their motivations are simply utterly alien and incomprehensible from our perspective. I.e.: I didn't say the Shivans were a virus (lol) what i meant to point out is that they appear so strange to us because their "motivation" if they have any is about as strange to us as if "we were
trying to understand the motivation of a virus or bacterium.
... one can point out how organisation and warfare requires a certain amount of intelligence and therefore motivation and that's why everything exhibiting this kind of behavior "needs" to have it.
The problem with that viewpoint is that someone arguing this way is simply not comprehending how the concept of the Shivans works and plays with us on an artistic/literary level.
i.e. it would be just missing the entire point if one starts arguing this way.
Again, from an artistic point of view it is this very thing what makes them unique. They are incomprehensible and we can only guess while staring in the face of destruction - that IS the whole point.
If we shed light on what their motivations actually are, then it would take that away and ruin the unique atmosphere FS1/FS2 had in the process.
Can't have your cake and eat it too.
And as was pointed out above... i'd think it would be highly doubtful that FS3 would have graced us with any kind of rational explanation of the Shivans. It seems much more likely that Volition would have driven home their point about the dangers of hubris one final time in a spectacular manner, leaving only a few lucky survivors left standing at the end. Something along these lines would at least make a lot of sense artistically and would have been a great way to end a trilogy that has always been toying with how overconfident we humans, including or especially us players (
), tend to be.
Also as said before, there is no one stopping anyone from making a Shivan campaign either however and there even are some out already
One just needs to realize that such a project is as far removed from FS canon and/or the way Volition approached the series, as any project could possibly be.
And finally, any answer of what the Shivans actually are or what they want will be unsatisfactory as it will allow them to be put in a box - when the whole draw of their concept is... that we do not have a box to put them in.
By our own nature we always want to know, to find out, to classify....... so what better way to design an alien foe... than by defying that very human trait of wanting to know it all ?
That's the question you should ask yourself, before trying to come up with any kind of explanation.
The Shivans are part of a fictional story that wants to be enjoyed, they aren't a "problem" to be solved in the real world, ... and sadly, you are not doing the story any kind of justice... or favor, if you treat them as a solvable problem.
