[Raptoer]

Here's a question for you, the only way Humans defeated the Shivans in the great war was because they could track the Lucifer into subspace and destroyed it when her shields were down right?
My question is:
Why did the shivans shield the lucifer and didn't shield the sathanas which is much bigger and supposed to be stronger? And why didn't the shivans use any Lucifer destroyers in FS2?
 

[The E]

Because they didn't.

[General Battuta]

Isn't that a fascinating question? 

[Raptoer]

I think the Lucifer was far more dangerous and effective than the sathanas, I mean, it took the whole campaign to destroy the lucifer while it took only a few missions to take out the sathanas don't you agree?

[General Battuta]

Nope, the Colossus would've blown the Lucifer away in a few salvos given that beams penetrate shields.

In any case, that's part of the narrative genius of FreeSpace 2.

The Sathanas is what you expect: another Shivan supership. We beat it. We've mastered the Shivans, we've countered the ubership. It's a satire of the climax of FreeSpace 1, the usual Independence Day 'take out the mothership' conclusion.

The first time I beat 'High Noon' I thought the game was over.

And then FreeSpace 2 just smashes you in the face with the fact that this is not a story about uberships or hives or queens: the Shivans are far stranger and far more dangerous than that tired cliche. The GTVA was trying to beat the Shivans at their own game; they wanted a Lucifer of their own, a Colossus to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. The Shivans pulled the rug out from under them. Hubris undone (on the narrative level, if not necessarily the in-universe one.)

(Uberships are a tired, played-out trope. If you can build one, you can build more than one. The Lucifer had a specialized function, and by the time of FS2, it was obsolete.)

[Snail]

The FS2 Shivans didn't shield the Sathanas for the same reason the FS1 Shivans didn't give their ships beams - Whatever that might be. No information sharing? Prototype technology? Who knows...

[Kolgena]

No information sharing?

I find that idea really intriguing. Perhaps we have several factions of shivans that lost touch with each other, and developed new techs on their own? (One group made uber shields, but couldn't get beams working in an energy-efficient manner, another got beams to fit on cruisers, but couldn't get big shields to work)

[General Battuta]

It's certainly possible they're a bunch of malignant technotumours scattered about the galaxy developing divergently.

Although seriously, beams go through shields.

[High Max]

Maybe they didn't find it necessary to shield them. No reason that the Shivans would expect an enemy to be powerful enough to destroy one of their Sathani. Also, maybe they can't shield them because they are so big. The Lucifer was made to destroy planets, and like the description of the planet destroyer in Inferno, the shields might also help protect the ship from planet fragments that may be left over after orbital bombardment.

[The E]

But it doesn't "destroy planets" Death-Star style. It just turns the surface into a parking lot.

[High Max]

I know, but is the beam powerful enough to hit the ground with enough force to knock small fragments into orbit?

Edit: But I guess that wouldn't matter since the Sathanas could do the same with its beams if the Lucifer can. So maybe the Lucifer was protected because it was a sort of hive (very valuable ship and not very common, and also the leader of the Shivan scouting force).

[The E]

I know, but is the beam powerful enough to hit the ground with enough force to knock small fragments into orbit?

Probably not. that would take a massive amount of energy traveling in very weird directions for shields to be necessary.

Bottom line is, we do not know why the Lucy had supershields while the Sath had to survive with its bare hull.

[Timerlane]

The thought that it was perhaps a one-off vessel put together by an isolated Shivan faction certainly has some appeal. For them, there are no reserves, no massive juggernaut fleet to fall back on. They have little choice but to put all their eggs in the few Demons they have, and perhaps they lost one, or at least took heavy damage to one from the Ancients(pure speculation). They, perhaps lacking the resources and facilities to create something with the size and hull integrity of a Sathanas, decide to build the closest thing they can to their own sort of 'Colossus', mounting multiple destroyer-class reactors, driving a nigh-invulnerable shield system and massive beams.

Perhaps, as others have suggested, the primary(FS2) Shivan fleet doesn't care that much about the loss of individuals or even standard warship crews all that much, but a fully separate group of Shivans, all by themselves, has a reason to place the survival of their command(or whoever else was in the Lucifer), as a real priority.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

There are many fan-made theories surrounding the Lucifer. Some say that she was a testbed for stronger shields that may be utilised on vessels larger than she is. Others say that there are other Lucifer-class destroyers out there, but were withdrawn from the Shivan fleet and mothballed after the destruction of this one.

Perhaps the Shivans aren't too concerned with the loss of a few, and are only miffed when they do lose several hundred of their own kind at one go. The death of one to them is probably a satistic, but the death of a thousand is a tragedy.

Also bear in mind the way the Shivan war machine works. It covers its flaws through relentless attack. If you attack all the time, you're bound to sustain minor losses in the process. Perhaps the Shivans are so used to such losses that they've learned not to care anymore.

[NGTM-1R]

The Lucifer is a much more blunt instrument then the Sathanas. Consider their primary roles in the games. The Lucifer bombards inhabited worlds. The Sathanas goes after stars.

Only one of those things is certain to be defended. The Lucifer had shields because it would need shields. The Sathanas, with its sheer size and native ability to absorb damage, could run most kinds of node blockade and transit to where nobody was going to bother with it anymore because it's not doing anything of import.

[High Max]

Yes, perhaps through past experience, the Shivans know they will lose some Sathani each time they destroy a star, like they likely did to the one in the nebula beyond Gamma Draconis, so they don't see the point of going through the trouble of shielding all of their Sathani when many will be lost in a supernova blast anyways. But the Lucifer is not expected to get in a situation to where it can be destroyed, so they don't bother waste the time and resources to shield it.

[IronForge]

I didn't like the plot for FS2 very much, fist of all a terrible menacing motherships, we pwnt that, and come on they gotta think of something better than oh theres just lots more menacing motherships waiting for you. I mean, it seems like a botched story cut short. A little abrupt.
Also, we encountered comparatively few ships of other types, particularly during the final assault when we were poppin the nodes. One would think the shivvies would have put more enthu into preventing the bastion from nuking it.

[General Battuta]

The FS2 plot is a lot more subtle than FS1.

[Klaustrophobia]

to be honest, i hated the shields on the lucifer.  to me it seemed like a cheap gimmick to keep it alive until the final climactic "save earth" battle. 

[Droid803]

It probably is, but hey, what fun is it to have the alien mothership die in two seconds?