[General Battuta]

Specifically, one ex-V staffer who I ran into while whoring Diaspora around the Internet. He was the guy who modeled most of the FS2 Shivans and Vasudans, as well as the mainhall.

He had some interesting things to say:

I heard the Ancients where [sic] supposed to come back in the third iteration but nothing conclusive, of course.

And that's all I got from him, but hey, given what we've got out of the 'symptoms of a bigger problem' hint, it's a substantial revelation by our standards!

I tried to get an interview with Jason Scott but, alas, no luck. (Also my emails to Ronnie Cox have gone unanswered.)

[-Norbert-]

Maybe there were supposed to be two factions.
Those that fled back to their homeworld (those who left the records found by the Vasudans) and another faction that fled into unknown terretory and blew up the jumpnode(s) behind them.

[IronBeer]

Well, damn. That is quite a revelation by our standards...

Now we wait and let the (slightly less) blind speculation about FS3 begin once more!

[sigtau]

**** SPOILERS AAAAAGH CANNOT UN-REMEMBER

No, but seriously, this is quite a revelation, especially for little ol' HLP (compared to big-time Volition).  If the Ancients were supposed to return... would we be fighting them?

Let the flamewars begin!

[Droid803]

Holy crap!

[Dilmah G]

OH THE POSSIBILITIES!

Hmm, interesting stuff.

[Mongoose]

Very interesting indeed.  I think that idea has crossed my mind in the past, that some random little cluster of Ancients managed to escape the Shivan onslaught and hunkered down in some remote backwater system somewhere.  After what happened to their civilization, they probably would have sworn off spaceflight altogether, so it's conceivable that they would have escaped Shivan detection.

[Rodo]

Ancient all mighty ones, please don't destroy us... we've kept your ruins clean, look!

[Kolgena]

What if the Shivans were defeated by said fragment (pretty big one I guess?) of Ancients? The Sathanes we see at the end of FS2 might be fleeing the Ancients because they failed to destroy them. That would be terrifying.

Or, the ancients were having a civil war, and one side created the Shivans as a quick way to produce extra fleet...

[CommanderDJ]

Oh, wow. This is pretty awesome.

[Goober5000]

HOLY CRAP INFERNO R2

[Black Wolf]

I kinda wish we didn't know that... I mean, it makes sense when you look at the storyline progression - it did seem to be building towards something ancienty... but I dunno how [V] would have managed to tell a good story with the ancients. Either they're 8000 years more advanced than we are, and so we've not got a hope in hell against them, or they're on par with, say, the Shivans, which seems a little lame for a species who've had 8000 years to develop.

But, well, I suppose B5 told awesome stories with super-advanced aliens, so maybe they could have pulled it off.

[TrashMan]

8000 years to develop from practicly scratch, with little populace left. They also probably had to lay low for a few hundered years, with minimal use of technology.

It depends on how many ancients survived, which ancients (the more highly educated ones, the better), and how they survived. It's not impossible they were bombed back to the stone age by the shivies, but a few survived in underground bunkers...or something.

[-Norbert-]

Or that it was a colony of people like mormons.
They moved far away from the Ancient core terretory and settled lived without any machines due to their religous believes.
But over the course of 8000 years some lost that believe and re-invented their technology or simply dug it up from the ruins of their vanquished kin.

[Satellight]

What if the Shivans were defeated by said fragment (pretty big one I guess?) of Ancients? The Sathanes we see at the end of FS2 might be fleeing the Ancients because they failed to destroy them. That would be terrifying.

This theory is very interesting... Because the perception of the player about the destruction of the Capella Star will be changed forever ! The Shivans would have destroyed this star to ensure THEIR safety during their fleeing from the wrath of the Ancients, and not only for destruction purpose ! And we, little Humans and Vasudans puppets, stucked between the rage of these two mighty species !

Smell...GOOD 

[NGTM-1R]

The sad thing is some iteration of my Back From The Grave planning probably covered whatever scenario was planned.

[BengalTiger]

What if the Shivans were defeated by said fragment (pretty big one I guess?) of Ancients? The Sathanes we see at the end of FS2 might be fleeing the Ancients because they failed to destroy them. That would be terrifying.

That would require the Shivans to feel fear.

[headdie]

who said they dont

[-Norbert-]

It might explain the second incursion, but not the first.
Why would they devastate all those Terran and Vasudan planets if they are just fleeing from the Ancients?

[redsniper]

Huh, I... think that sounds kind of lame actually. The whole "Dead ancient race wasn't actually dead lololol" thing doesn't do it for me. Though it is pretty cool to hear straight from .