[General Battuta]

GB, we know exactly dick about the Shivans and Vishnans, leaving us to speculate with what we do have.  If we are reaching bad conclusions, it is because we have incomplete data.

Y'know, you keep saying that, but I reached all these conclusions with the same data you guys have.

Who the heck is 'we' anyway? I was under the impression I was having a conversation with Droid here.

Let's get back on topic.

[Droid803]

Whatever happened in Universal Truth was only one angle on whatever is going on in the BPVerse. Don't assume that the Shivans or Vishnans are easily personalized as single entities except when they want to be.

For all you know that was the Easy Reader version presented by the Vishnans for Bei's easy consumption.

Yeah, that's what I was agreeing with.

-

So then, is the significance of the "cargo" related to the version of the story the Vishnans are trying to portray to Bei? Or is it the Shivans trying to communicate to him?

There! I'm speculating! Happy?

[NGTM-1R]

For all you know that was the Easy Reader version presented by the Vishnans for Bei's easy consumption.

For all those of us not on the team know, it also wasn't. What's your point?

[General Battuta]

Exactly. The point is that assuming one or the other is pretty silly in this stage in the game.

And, again, I didn't need any information from being on the team to reach these conclusions - since I wasn't on the team at that point.

[Colonol Dekker]

I'm getting in to this quite late in the topic I know, but was the cargo depot in the first or second version of blue planet?

[Scotty]

I think it's in both.  I know for sure it's in the Director's Cut.

[NGTM-1R]

Exactly. The point is that assuming one or the other is pretty silly in this stage in the game.

This is the exact opposite of the canonicity premise usually assumed in FreeSpace. All other things being equal, the game's not lying to you unless it says so.

But you seem awfully surprised people reacted as if the game's not lying to them. It's the only conclusion anyone can actually support at the moment.

[Angelus]

I have the odd feeling that we get to see things from the Shivan perspective, maybe not in WIH, but in BP3.
It seems the Shivans aren't that "bad", they only view things differently.

This reminds me of the Shadow war in B5, the Shadows seemed "evil" while the Vorlons appeared as "good", but they share the same goal ---> teach the younger races and help them grow.
They only approach it differently, the Vorlons force the younger races to follow the path of "light and order", while the Shadows force war and Chaos. Like two sides of coin.

Also GB mentioned several times things in the forum ( not only here in the BP board ) and in the IRC chat about Shivans which may or may not be related to the cargo.


So it's either important and we get an answer, or it means nothing at all and the BP team is laughing at the fact that people are discussiong this.

[General Battuta]

Exactly. The point is that assuming one or the other is pretty silly in this stage in the game.

This is the exact opposite of the canonicity premise usually assumed in FreeSpace. All other things being equal, the game's not lying to you unless it says so.

But you seem awfully surprised people reacted as if the game's not lying to them. It's the only conclusion anyone can actually support at the moment.

Excuse me? This doesn't make any sense to me.

Nothing in what I've said suggests that the game is lying. Everything I've said results from the kind of basic questions you get taught to ask in high school history class: 'who's the narrator', 'who is the reader', 'what are their motives', so on.

When I first played the campaign it was immediately and trivially obvious to me that the Vishnans were Sufficiently Advanced Aliens - as, in fact, the game makes pretty clear. It was also made quite clear that the Vishnans pulled everything they needed from Sam's brain, including their own name, and that they barely saw the universe the way we did until that point.

When Universal Truth rolls around and the Vishnans and Shivans seem to communicate with each other at great length, and then the Preserver turns to the player and says 'oh hi, go do this thing, we'll see you around', it was pretty transparent to me that the vision which had just occurred was passed to Sam by the Vishnans...just like all his previous visions.

(I doubt anybody really believes the Vishnans and Shivans speak English to each other.  There was clearly some translation involved there.)

I'm not clear as to what in any of that implies 'lying'.

What I'm 'awfully surprised by' is that people seem to think there's some kind of mystical god power at work here when no such thing was ever invoked or involved.

Honestly, we're going to need a threadsplit here.

[NGTM-1R]

A conclusion not actually manifest. You see sufficently advanced aliens because that's what your sci-fi experience has conditioned you to see. I see sufficently advanced aliens trying to pull a Go'auld, because that's what I see from anybody who pulls a "no really you can't understand us here do this".

Most folks see a lot of obscurantist babble between forces beyond human comprehension that give you orders and go "gods" because that's how most folks define gods. They assume the game's not lying to them, and they're not actually wrong.  If you define criteria for godhood I'm pretty sure we can present evidence it got met.

So why, again, are you surprised by people attaching mystical or godlike properties to entities that would meet most people's definition of mystical and godlike? Is it just projecting or what?

[General Battuta]

Good post, would read again.

Maybe I was giving them a bit more credit than you do. BP does nothing which necessitates the invocation of mysticism or magical thinking, and taking those as the first explanations for the unknowns just strikes me as silly.

Ironically the canonical reaction to the Shivans on the part of many was to consider them gods, so I suppose it's not surprising it happens in real life too.

However, got to take exception with this:

They assume the game's not lying to them.

The game never lies. It never makes any claim that mysticism, gods, or magical forces are involved.

Now, I can see where people get hung up: the game presents telepathic contact, 'psychic' entities that exist outside of linear time, and bandies about words like 'destiny'. Those are pretty often matched up with mysticism.

[Fury]

So it's either important and we get an answer, or it means nothing at all and the BP team is laughing at the fact that people are discussiong this.

I know I am. But that doesn't apply to Battuta who always takes these subjects seriously.

[High Max]

;-)

[Dilmah G]

Dude, the Shivans never were Supernatural.

[High Max]

;-)

[-Norbert-]

This reminds me of the Shadow war in B5, the Shadows seemed "evil" while the Vorlons appeared as "good", but they share the same goal ---> teach the younger races and help them grow.
They only approach it differently, the Vorlons force the younger races to follow the path of "light and order", while the Shadows force war and Chaos. Like two sides of coin.

The thing about reality is that there are very few, if any, people who think themselfs evil. Even the worst kind of lowlifes think their deeds are justifyed. To quote the creator of Babylon 5 in one of the audio commentaries: "The monster never sees a monster in the mirror".

[NGTM-1R]

Dude, the Shivans never were Supernatural.

The Ancients would disagree.

[Snail]

The Ancients aren't the word of god. Their theories are simply theories, nothing else.

[Dilmah G]

Dude, the Shivans never were Supernatural.

The Ancients would disagree.

I wouldn't take much of what a race founded on megalomania and whatever the hell else seriously.