[Phaserbank]

I've got a couple of questions on cannon events. 

First
The Ancients we destroyed by a race they called the destroyers first encountered in the nebula, and a Vasudan scientist says that one of their home worlds was destroyed (glassed) by Shivan weapons some 8000 years ago. In the Great War beam cannons were new to the Shivans, but someone had used them on the Ancients 8,000 years ago.  (only the lucifer had beams in the great war, but 34 years later every Shivan warship had something) (Shivan bombers do not have enough thrust to escape Earth's gravity or anything larger to say nothing of handeling rentry and fighters do not carry enough punch to do serious damage to a planet's surface). Does this seem odd to anyone else? I'm thinking that there has to be a not previously encountered race that destroyed the Ancients and the Shivans got at least beam tech from.

If you have any plausible ideas I'm all ears.

Second.
The lucifer fleet was xenocidal, but the Juggernaut fleet is not and even tried to minmize GTVA casualties. (A single sathanas showing up at the Capella/Gamma drax node whould have destroyed all convoys and still been alble to return to the star in time to escape) Does it seem reasonable that the lucifer fleet was comadeered by a rogue faction, and they were looking for space to set up shop in?

Third
The icini in the nebula. Why did the Shivans kill almost all of the crew but extract Bosch and key oficers? Did the Shivans just want Bosch for somekind of an experiment, or did Bosch tell the shivans to kill everyon else?       

Fourth
Shivans were created by some other race, (they have no reproductive organs) but their ships and weapons are obviously of their own design. I was reading that post on Shivan theories and the born in subspce part, but that's a little far out for me. Any other ideas? (oh that lava planet is in a cutsceene, and Capella has two stars one of which is a red dwarf)

Fifth
During the Capella incursion, the Shivans seemed to be fighting for their lives. How likely do you think it is that Bosch succedded in creating a allience with the Shivans?

Sixth
The second nebula knossos and the one beyond it in that next system (into the lion's den). If the Ancients discovered who ever destroyed them in the nebula they wouldn't have the ability to build those remaining two, but if Shivans or who ever was able to get into the nebula why copy Ancient
tech and build them at all? In years past, was the nebula the "destroyers" home world and the Ancients let them out?   

[Scotty]

First:  We're fairly certain beams have been around for a while, since the same Ancients leave behind data on how to destroy the Lucifer.  Why would they do that if it weren't such a great threat?  (FYI:  Anything used in the game is probably enough to glass the planet.  Furies, from FS1 have multi-kiloton yields.  In comparison, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was a 20 KT yield.)

Second: I highly doubt it.  The Lucifer fleet had a space to set up shop in for roughly 8000 years.  They would hardly need to expand any, given that we never really see them gaining numbers.  More likely the two vessels merely serve a different purpose.

Third: Unknown.

Fourth: We do not know if they were created by some other race.  We only have about fifteen seconds of screentime for live Shivans, and drawing conclusions about their complete anatomy seems foolhardy.  Would you say the Human boarders have no reproductive organs just because they're covered up?

Fifth: How do they seem to be fighting for their lives?  Their behavior changes little on a tactical scale.  Born in subspace is the only remotely canon material we have on them (Bosch gives a monologue to that effect in one of the cutscenes, correct?).

Sixth: We have no way of knowing if the Shivans are originally from the nebula.  More likely, the Ancients had a farther reaching empire than just the nebula, and constructed the Knossos before they were destroyed.

[Phaserbank]

The ancients leave data on how shivan shields work not nessacarily the lucifers in particular.
Yeah the fury is supposed to have that huge warhead, but come on 20 kilotons and it has a distructive radius of a few meters.

What I'm noting is the sudden increase Shivan technology. next to nothing for 8000 years and then suddenly going from the lucifer to the Sathanas in 34 doesn't sound to likely.

And actually it does say the Shivan don't reproduce in a command briefing. And from Volition Your seeing the real critter, not like independence day where the aliens are wearing a biosuit.

If you weren't fighting for your life would you sacrifice about 50,000 warriors to keep the GTVA busy.

[karajorma]

Lots of incorrect assumptions here, let's see if we can correct a few.

In the Great War beam cannons were new to the Shivans, but someone had used them on the Ancients 8,000 years ago.  (only the lucifer had beams in the great war, but 34 years later every Shivan warship had something).

Who says they were new? It's just as possible that the Shivans simply sent a small fleet of old ships because they didn't think they'd need anything else. They'd be almost right too. The Lucifer came within 3-4 minutes completing its task.

The lucifer fleet was xenocidal, but the Juggernaut fleet is not and even tried to minmize GTVA casualties. (A single sathanas showing up at the Capella/Gamma drax node whould have destroyed all convoys and still been alble to return to the star in time to escape)

Not punching someone in the face beating other people up doesn't count as an attempt to not assault them. It's just as possible you were busy elsewhere.

Whatever the Shivan's goal was in FS2 there's no reason to assume that it wasn't simply an updated goal for the exact same faction.

The icini in the nebula. Why did the Shivans kill almost all of the crew but extract Bosch and key oficers? Did the Shivans just want Bosch for somekind of an experiment, or did Bosch tell the shivans to kill everyon else?

That's the million dollar question.        

Shivans were created by some other race, (they have no reproductive organs)

Huge assumption. Where is the reproductive organ on a slug? A female hyena? A worker ant? Can you point those out in only a few seconds of video?

And even if you were right who is to say that the Shivans themselves haven't engineered reproduction out of themselves. Humanity is on the cusp of being able to do that sort of thing right now. If we really wanted to we could probably genetically engineer out the genitals and go to a cloning based reproductive method in a few decades (or centuries at most). Hell we could probably get rid of the male ones in a decade.

And actually it does say the Shivan don't reproduce in a command briefing.

I don't think it does. Certainly not in the FS2 techroom entry if that's what you're on about.

During the Capella incursion, the Shivans seemed to be fighting for their lives.

Eh? 1/10th of the Sathanas fleet could have taken out the GTVA. Why do you believe they were fighting for their lives?

The second nebula knossos and the one beyond it in that next system (into the lion's den). If the Ancients discovered who ever destroyed them in the nebula they wouldn't have the ability to build those remaining two, but if Shivans or who ever was able to get into the nebula why copy Ancient
tech and build them at all? In years past, was the nebula the "destroyers" home world and the Ancients let them out?   

Who says that the Ancients discovered their destroyers in the Nebula? That's an enormous assumption which isn't backed up by anything ever said in the game and in fact is directly contradicted by the existence of the other Knossos portals.

Far more likely is that they discovered them somewhere beyond the binary system and retreated back beyond the 1st Knossos as part of their retreat.

[Outlawstar15a2]

I think the Shivan Manifesto does a good job at answering the Iceni question I quote something to this effect "Why did the Shivans take Bosch but kill the crew in the nebula? Probably because the Shivans never encountered a race that could successfully make contact with them either they didn't survive long enough to succeed or they didn't try. And here you have this (by Shivan standards) primitive species that is attempting to make contact with you and actually succeeds? We cannot fathom what was discussed or if there was even a response but the Shivans must have gotten the message given the response. They probably take Bosch and his command staff in order to learn more of this machine the Terrans built and killed the rest as they had no importance."

[Droid803]

Naw, they just didn't have enough room on the transports - they didn't expect that many. The NTF being the fanatics they are did give a damn tried to dogpile onto the transports anyway, shooting at Shivans for being in the way. The Shivans just shot back : riot-control is easy when you don't care if the people die or not.

[Colonol Dekker]

FOURTH-
 
 
We don't see any on the Vasudan model either, but Freespace would have been silly with an 18 certificate for one CGI wang.
 
Also, alternately, it could have been retractable. like his face cannon guards.

[Phaserbank]

Ok, so what were the Shivans doing in Capella. Why did they throw away so many ships like garbage?

And one more question, in the 4th or 5th mission of FS2 command gives you the wrong cordinates for the icini, pulls the blockade, and alpha 3 or 4 says that command let bosch escape. Do you think its true, and if so why would they do that?

[The E]

Did they throw away any ships? In the ending, we see a few Sathanases being destroyed, but we also see most of them jumping away.

As for your second question, well, it's interesting, isn't it?

[Nuclear1]

Alright, I'm going to be a total buzzkill and answer the first problem with "engine limitations."

Seriously, I think if V could've, they would've put beam cannons on all Shivan warships.  The reason they didn't is probably because most computers couldn't handle it at the time.  And putting the flux cannon on every Shivan would've looked silly.

[Dragon]

I doubt it, the flux cannons were actually a good idea and looked decent.
FSPort made beam cannons out of Lucifer's SSLs, but I don't think it's a good idea, especially that the last time I checked, the beam had retail quality effects.

[Mongoose]

I doubt it, the flux cannons were actually a good idea and looked decent.
FSPort made beam cannons out of Lucifer's SSLs, but I don't think it's a good idea, especially that the last time I checked, the beam had retail quality effects.

I think the Port's SSLBeam looks markedly better than the old Streamers o' Doom.

But in any case, the general consensus is that, if had wanted beam weapons (read: "flux cannons") on something like a Demon in FS1, they could have easily added them.  If the FS1 engine could handle a single Lucifer firing them, it could easily do the same for a single Demon.  The fact that no other ships used these weapons suggests that only wanted them on the Lucifer.

[Phaserbank]

Oh i went back to look where i had gotten the idea of the Shivans being at war with someone else and from the FS oracle . . . .

Very little is known about the Shivans. Probably [V] had planned to reveal more in FS3, but since it was never made we are stuck trying to deduce Shivan motives from what we know from the games and from a few cryptic comments by people who work in [V].

One thing we do know from [V] is that the Shivans are what we see in Hall Fight (a cutscene in FS1). They aren't wearing power suits like the aliens in Independence Day. We're not seeing a soldier race that works for the Shivans. What we are seeing is the real thing.

Another comment from [V] states that we should view the Shivans as "a symptom of a much bigger problem". Many people have taken this to mean that there is another species that the Shivans are at war with. Of course, if you have a better explanation, we'd love to hear it.

As for the Shivans' actions at the end of FS2, your guess is as good as mine.


Thats their paragraph on the shivans. I'll leave it to you to deciede if its ok.

[QuantumDelta]

Excuse me, but something that seems to be repeatedly missed in almost all of these discussions is that in one of the ancient dialogues "when we conquered and colonised in galaxies where we had no place, the destruction and the anguish and the loss were the clarion call of a doom, and so the destroyers came for us."

Often, I Feel the scope of the Shivan presence, indeed, the Ancients presence, is vastly underestimated, most probably because these forums have always been very FS2 centric, and FS2 (the GTVA) is very stereotypical american military "WE R TEH BESTEST" (until they get swatted outta the sky like a gnat mostly simply by the shivans disinterested progress to their actual objective which just happens to be something we see as precious).

[General Battuta]

Yes. Very much that.

The Ancient civilization was infinitely vaster and more powerful than the Alliance's and yet they were toppled.

[Colonol Dekker]

They built the Stargates, and Atlantis
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[Lucika]

First
The Ancients we destroyed by a race they called the destroyers first encountered in the nebula, and a Vasudan scientist says that one of their home worlds was destroyed (glassed) by Shivan weapons some 8000 years ago.

oO
This is over me. Who said that the Ancients first encountered the Shivans in the nebula? oO
And who said that the Vasudan homeworld has been glassed 8000 years ago? All I know is that it is hardly habitably because of the deserts.

[QuantumDelta]

They didn't, from what I remember (not certain), it's mentioned in a command briefing that the transports in black omega/rosetta stone, whatever system they're coming from (forgot the name), had a planet that had been orbitally bombarded by what seemed like shivan weapons and - that's where they found the ancient logs.

[Kopachris]

Overheard on a Shivan warship after a scouting mission:

"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat.  They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"No doubt about it, we picked up several of them, from both species.  They're definitely made out of meat."
"That's impossible!  How could meat survive in space?"
"They build these little craft out of metal and machines to provide livable space for them."
"Meat building machines?  Next you're going to want me to believe they can talk."
"That's just it; they can talk.  We've overheard them making sounds over radio waves, and one even tried to contact us."
"Meat tried to contact us?  I refuse to believe it."
...

[Lucika]

They didn't, from what I remember (not certain), it's mentioned in a command briefing that the transports in black omega/rosetta stone, whatever system they're coming from (forgot the name), had a planet that had been orbitally bombarded by what seemed like shivan weapons and - that's where they found the ancient logs.

Yes, but it was Altair, not the Vasudan homeworld.