[Bob-san]

We also know that Shivan fighter/bombers have pilots.

Which we don't know whether they're /biological/ drones or not. Programming a grown body and projecting into it seems like a possibility. And I'd personally write off the majority of Silent Threat; that campaign came around as fanon and was more "let's sell some cool missions and raise FRED awareness" type of thing.

[General Battuta]

You cannot write off Silent Threat. It's canon, for better or worse.

We know that the Shivans who pilot Shivan ships are the real Shivans, not drones or a soldier caste. It's been Word of Godded.

[Snail]

You cannot write off Silent Threat. It's canon, for better or worse.

We know that the Shivans who pilot Shivan ships are the real Shivans, not drones or a soldier caste. It's been Word of Godded.

Ah, but we know that the Shivans as a species are extremely diverse:

Though Shivans demonstrate considerable diversity as a species, all Shivan technology possesses certain distinctive properties...

How do we know Shivan pilots weren't wimpy, atrophied brains-in-jars? They could be for all we know.

[General Battuta]

On several occasions, Shivan vessels were modified for use by a Terran pilot. Critical information (like that) would presumably have been relayed.

You could maybe work it into your campaign, but personally, my suspension of disbelief would be stretched by the fact that nobody ever mentioned finding little brainsacs in Shivan ships.

[Timerlane]

Oh ye of little tech room reading!

The victory over the Lucifer had dealt the decisive blow. Incapable of coordinated strikes or strategic planning, the Shivans were outmaneuvered, isolated, and gradually destroyed. However, both species faced the challenge of rebuilding their interstellar societies from the ground up.

Ah, Reconstruction article.

To be fair, the combination of the sudden loss of a probably thousands-year old nigh-invincible superweapon that they had probably gotten quite comfortable having around and the loss of experienced command personnel aboard would probably draw a huge 'oh crap, what do we do now' reaction from any civilization.

Being the biggest fish in the pond, by far, for thousands of years(likely more) with no one to give you any real fight would probably result in a certain complacency and strategic/tactical sterility; alway knowing that if things really go south, you can always just point the Lucifer at it and call it a day; knowing you can break the back of any concerted assault against you without breaking a sweat. More importantly, not only that, but knowing that your enemy knows that(thus greatly limiting the scale of their operations against you), and never having lived in an environment where that wasn't the case(assuming Shivans have reasonable life spans, anyway).

I mean, did anyone really feel the Shivans would have gotten anywhere near as far without their superweapon? Before it appeared, we were getting even so bold as to disable an entire live cruiser of theirs and just cart it home for study. Command sent three wings of fighters/bombers to kill the undamaged, "full armed" Eva destroyer(okay, Alpha 1 was there, too, so add the equivalent of another couple of wings).

If the game is supposed to be any indication, the combined Terran and Vasudan fleets, after acquiring the Shivans' shield technology, and developing the Tsunami and 'modern' fighters(Hercs, Ulysses) and bombers(to say nothing of the Ursa/Harbinger), would have slowly, but absolutely surely, chewed our way through a Lucifer-less Shivan fleet with all the resources we'd have not lost from being shredded by the Lucifer itself(Tombaugh, probably most of the Vasudan fleet, etc).

(Of course by my thinking, without the Lucifer, they'd have been forced to come up with new technologies and tactics, but that delves even further into the realm of pure conjecture...)

[Snail]

On several occasions, Shivan vessels were modified for use by a Terran pilot. Critical information (like that) would presumably have been relayed.

Okay, maybe my "brains-in-jars" comment was a little far-fetched... But there is nothing to indicate that the Shivan pilots were actual individual Shivans in the sense that we may understand the term - We know so very little about Shivan communication that for all we know Shivans may actually be remote-controlled or at least to some degree coordinated by a larger force (the age-old Hive-Mind hypothesis).

The Shivans are Shivans, with individual bodies, I'll give you that. They might not possess any form of individual thought.

<snip>

Consider:

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. Other experts caution 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.

[General Battuta]

I have no problem with any part of that post.

[Stormkeeper]

Sounds rather plausible, in fact. Would explain their ability to co-ordinate assaults over large theaters easily.

[Paladin327]

and why shivan carriers are so huge while their cruisers are tiny

[High Max]

Do large GTVA warships make GTVA cruisers look tiny too? I think the size of GTVA destroyers compared to its cruisers is about the same difference as Shivan destroyers compared to Shivan cruisers. There are no ships designated as carriers in canon, so I assume you are talking about destroyers or juggernauts and calling them carriers.

[Bob-san]

and why shivan carriers are so huge while their cruisers are tiny

Eh. To be honest, I'm more interested in what's supposed to be INSIDE their massive ships. I guess I can go along and say that I understand Terran & Vasudan designs quite well; I'd at least assume they'd sort of do the "battleship in space" type of thing. But Shivan ships following a similar idea of prefab or interchangable seems a bit... hollow. A lot of it was artistic license I'm sure, but the sort of "round around the middle" is a recurring theme; the Demon, the Azrael, the Rahu, to some extent the Moloch, and most definitely the Sathanas. The ships are simply gigantic and seem to have no use but to rain fighters and bombers (as well as ordinance) upon the GTVA. Either a Sathanas or Ravana is filled with ships & ordinance, or they can build them "on demand". Seeming sleeper fleets (ie: Lucifer) never ran out of ordinance or fighters even after extended conflicts. Assuming they didn't have direct contact with "Shiva", there are only so many ways that a ship could/would be able to function after thousands of years. Perhaps that's an explanation for why the Shivans in FS1 didn't have real beam weaponry; if the fleet were ten thousand years old, even if the hulls survived, the reactors would be low on power. For a threat like the PVN and GTA, and as we didn't /have/ beams, shields were likely the more valuable technology to use, as the Lucifer could withstand ANY attack we could mount while the doomsday weapon got a second use to quickly dispatch our destroyers.

To me, it'd still make sense that major ships need to be specially manufactured. The possibility that a Sathanas could "give birth" to other construction ships would be interesting; mine the resources in and get a nice line of various fighters, bombers, and ordinance.

And again, to me, I think the names are just sort of tacked on. Something like a Levithan would be a beast against civilian ships and old installations. Likewise, Shivan cruisers are tiny compared to their corvettes and destroyers. I'm guessing that ships like a Hecate or a Demon would more be a "carrier".

[Marcov]

Well, I can strongly stress out a statement: Shivans react extensively to any harm done to them. For example, wasn't it said in the techroom that a Shivan specimen was once captured, and a relatively huge force of Shivans attacked in order to rescue it? Scratch the Shivans, and the Shivans shred you. The Ancients scratched the Shivans, the Shivans shredded the Ancients.

As I've said in FS wiki, the Shivans plotted revenge against the Vasudans just because they've had ties with the Ancients. Shivans are sensitive, little creatures. Annoy them and they go aargh.

[The E]

Hooray for petty shivans!


Sorry, but I like my theories to be a little more menacing.

[Marcov]

and why shivan carriers are so huge while their cruisers are tiny

Eh. To be honest, I'm more interested in what's supposed to be INSIDE their massive ships. I guess I can go along and say that I understand Terran & Vasudan designs quite well; I'd at least assume they'd sort of do the "battleship in space" type of thing. But Shivan ships following a similar idea of prefab or interchangable seems a bit... hollow. A lot of it was artistic license I'm sure, but the sort of "round around the middle" is a recurring theme; the Demon, the Azrael, the Rahu, to some extent the Moloch, and most definitely the Sathanas. The ships are simply gigantic and seem to have no use but to rain fighters and bombers (as well as ordinance) upon the GTVA. Either a Sathanas or Ravana is filled with ships & ordinance, or they can build them "on demand". Seeming sleeper fleets (ie: Lucifer) never ran out of ordinance or fighters even after extended conflicts. Assuming they didn't have direct contact with "Shiva", there are only so many ways that a ship could/would be able to function after thousands of years. Perhaps that's an explanation for why the Shivans in FS1 didn't have real beam weaponry; if the fleet were ten thousand years old, even if the hulls survived, the reactors would be low on power. For a threat like the PVN and GTA, and as we didn't /have/ beams, shields were likely the more valuable technology to use, as the Lucifer could withstand ANY attack we could mount while the doomsday weapon got a second use to quickly dispatch our destroyers.

To me, it'd still make sense that major ships need to be specially manufactured. The possibility that a Sathanas could "give birth" to other construction ships would be interesting; mine the resources in and get a nice line of various fighters, bombers, and ordinance.

And again, to me, I think the names are just sort of tacked on. Something like a Levithan would be a beast against civilian ships and old installations. Likewise, Shivan cruisers are tiny compared to their corvettes and destroyers. I'm guessing that ships like a Hecate or a Demon would more be a "carrier".

The biggies in FS1 WERE designed to be carriers. I mean, would a handful of Terran Huge Turrets mince an enemy destroyer? They were probably just to fend off bombers. Look at the Lucifer. Slim, unlike the Demon; it was a BATTLESHIP, not a carrier. Carriers look pretty fatter than battleships, even though they lack the armor; just as Demons look fatter than Lucifers.

[Stormkeeper]

Hooray for petty shivans!


Sorry, but I like my theories to be a little more menacing.

Let's make up a very sinister one and post it here.

[High Max]

Slim, unlike the Demon; it was a BATTLESHIP, not a carrier.

But yet the Lucifer apparently carried many more fighters and bombers.

Carriers look pretty fatter than battleships

Who says? Does that always apply in the real world? I just found a contradiction: http://www.acepilots.com/ships/independence.html

[NGTM-1R]

Oh ye of little tech room reading!

Silent Threat directly contradicts though.

[Bob-san]

Slim, unlike the Demon; it was a BATTLESHIP, not a carrier.

But yet the Lucifer apparently carried many more fighters and bombers.

Which is one of the reasons that I'd suspect a Demon to be able to serve double-duty; destroyer plus mobile shipyard.

[Paladin327]

Well, I can strongly stress out a statement: Shivans react extensively to any harm done to them. For example, wasn't it said in the techroom that a Shivan specimen was once captured, and a relatively huge force of Shivans attacked in order to rescue it? Scratch the Shivans, and the Shivans shred you. The Ancients scratched the Shivans, the Shivans shredded the Ancients.

As I've said in FS wiki, the Shivans plotted revenge against the Vasudans just because they've had ties with the Ancients. Shivans are sensitive, little creatures. Annoy them and they go aargh.

And after the SC Taranis was captured and taken to Tombaugh Station, the Lucifer came in and reduced it to its composite atoms. as one of your wingmen states, Tombaugh was a fortress, the shivans are vengeful and do do much half-assedly

[High Max]

Of course the Lucifer would have no trouble reducing that fortress to rubble if you think about how low tech the Allied tech was in the Great War era. Even FS2 Allied tech has trouble holding its ground against bombers and the Shivans superior versions of beams, Lasers, and maybe even missiles batteries, but I do think that the only weapon that the Shivan warships have that is equal to the Alliance's and not superior is the flak. All other turret type weapons seem superior. Correct me if I'm wrong though.