[NGTM-1R]

Subspace tracking? We only realized they could do it after Tombaugh.

Assumes facts not in evidence. The Tombaugh station problem was believed to be the result of beacons aboard the Taranis. There is no evidence the Shivans even possess the same subspace tracking technology. It makes sense considering they appear able to keep up in general with Terran/Vasudan work, but there's nothing to support that conclusion in either game. They have consistently managed to locate remotely stationed ships that were not making subspace jumps by unknown means, so there's a very real question as to whether they even need tracking.

For that matter, any sort of subspace tracking would have been totally unnecessary to find it, since it was taken to the same system it was trying to run to. The Taranis was attempting to withdraw to Ribos and link up with Shivan forces there.

They took note of where the shield prototypes had been taken(the Command Brief suggests that they were built from actual captured Shivan shield generators, and not mere scan data as you were sent to collect), and were taking no chances in letting them get away(apart from taking the station itself out, which itself perhaps suggests some level of restraint, or perhaps again, overconfidence?).

How? They would have had to have eyes on the ships taking them, and at that point in the game there is no way in hell the GTA could have pulled off an opposed capture operation. Your own attempt to do just that pretty much proves the point. Similarly, why did the Shivans not attack them before they reached Ribos then, in a system where there were more Shivans to do the attacking with? There is absolutely no evidence the Shivans were aware of the shield prototypes in the slightest.

Also recall that at this point in the war the Lucifer is still futzing around somewhere by Ross 128. It's quite possible they couldn't assault the station successfully with forces on hand.

It's also pretty well expressed in the briefing that attacking the Zenith was a way of breaking through a relative weak point in the Shivan fleet, shown well aside from the Lucifer, and Altair looks a little out of the way between Sol and Beta Aquilae, where the Lucifer had been seen last, and for that matter, in the opposite direction of Delta Serpentis, where the Lucifer would jump from, to Sol.

It's also quite clear by this point that GTA Command cannot maintain tracking on Shivan forces in general and the Lucifer in particular due to their use of unknown jump nodes.

[Snail]

There's no evidence for any of that. Altair could well have been on their line of travel to Earth, and the briefing for the shield transport mission makes it clear that the Shivans have been hitting everything that comes out of that station, shields or no shields.

The GTA clearly thought the Shivans would place higher priority to convoys carrying shield systems. Why else would they have deployed a decoy? And on top of that, the earlier scouting wings started attacking probably out of routine, but evidently the attack grew much more intense (and targeted the cargo containers specifically - "Krishna wing is targeting the cargo!") once the Shivans found out what they were carrying.

Also I really doubt Altair was on the way to Earth. Even if the Shivans didn't know where Sol was at that point.

Plus you're crediting the Shivans with having done some kind of actual intelligence work, to which I must ask...how?

They knew their cargo was stolen. They just needed scans to confirm Theta wing was carrying it. I still don't understand why the Shivans would deploy the Lucifer itself to intercept the Rosetta convoy just for the lulz of it. That's completely illogical.


Even from a storytelling perspective it makes no sense. Casting the Shivans as another mindless race of zerg-rushing space bugs? Please no.

[NGTM-1R]

The GTA clearly thought the Shivans would place higher priority to convoys carrying shield systems. Why else would they have deployed a decoy? And on top of that, the earlier scouting wings started attacking probably out of routine, but evidently the attack grew much more intense (and targeted the cargo containers specifically - "Krishna wing is targeting the cargo!") once the Shivans found out what they were carrying.

A decoy because they don't know what the ****, just like the Shivans don't, but the GTA is currently in a tailspin with Shivans everywhere ****ing up everything. Evidence from previous debriefings ("It has been determined because of your successful performance that you are a Shivan spy...") indicates that the GTA is in headless chicken mode and suspects the presence of spies, intelligence leaks, and christ on a pogo stick knows what else. They have yet to recover or to begin responding rationally.

And frankly, you're describing an attack on a target of opportunity as meaning they knew all along. That makes no sense.

Also I really doubt Altair was on the way to Earth. Even if the Shivans didn't know where Sol was at that point.

...I still don't understand why the Shivans would deploy the Lucifer itself to intercept the Rosetta convoy just for the lulz of it. That's completely illogical.

Give their ability to use jump nodes of which the GTA, and by definition us, are unaware, anything could be on the route to Earth. Or the Lucifer could have been the only heavy ship available to attack the Rosetta convoy, or the only one they thought could do so successfully; recall Beta wing is packing more of the stuff you earlier used to destroy the SD Eva. Even if they had anything else handy, they might have thought you would destroy it. Why risk a ship when you can use the Lucifer risk-free?

[Hades]

Evidence from previous debriefings ("It has been determined because of your successful performance that you are a Shivan spy...")

And frankly, you're describing an attack on a target of opportunity as meaning they knew all along. That makes no sense.

What, at the first part. I don't remember that in any debriefings.

No, he said the Shivans had sent scouting wings that scanned the cargo pods and found that they were carrying shield systems, read what he said again.

[NGTM-1R]

What, at the first part. I don't remember that in any debriefings.

It's a little-known debriefing for a successful run of Pandora's Box, which you are supposed to lose. FS1 was fun like that.

No, he said the Shivans had sent scouting wings that scanned the cargo pods and found that they were carrying shield systems, read what he said again.

No, he said that initial attacks on the transports were by scouting wings and found they were carrying the shields systems so Krishna was scrambled to attack a target of opportunity. That hardly means the Shivans knew the shield systems were there all along.

[Trivial Psychic]

It's a little-known debriefing for a successful run of Pandora's Box, which you are supposed to lose. FS1 was fun like that.

What mission outcome causes this one to display?

[NGTM-1R]

What mission outcome causes this one to display?

Successfully scanning the containers that blow up as you approach. (I am not entirely sure this is legitimately possible, but if they put in a debrief, I assume it it is.)

[Snail]

Well you believe what you want to believe but I firmly stand by my principles.

[Timerlane]

I honestly considered that as nothing more than an easter egg, like 'Mr. Cuddles' in WiH. Or Admiral Wolf/Shima accusing you of cheating/Admiral Petrarch telling you to go read a book, upon reaching the upper ranks. Though there are no other debriefs quite like that, so I suppose YMMV.

Subspace tracking? We only realized they could do it after Tombaugh.

Assumes facts not in evidence. The Tombaugh station problem was believed to be the result of beacons aboard the Taranis. There is no evidence the Shivans even possess the same subspace tracking technology. It makes sense considering they appear able to keep up in general with Terran/Vasudan work, but there's nothing to support that conclusion in either game. They have consistently managed to locate remotely stationed ships that were not making subspace jumps by unknown means, so there's a very real question as to whether they even need tracking.

For that matter, any sort of subspace tracking would have been totally unnecessary to find it, since it was taken to the same system it was trying to run to. The Taranis was attempting to withdraw to Ribos and link up with Shivan forces there.

Where are these beacons? The word 'beacon' doesn't appear at all, the Taranis is never mentioned again after Tombaugh, and 'track' yields only references to radar tracking of Shivan fighters,

The Tombaugh Attack

Terran Intelligence has spent the last two weeks analyzing flight data from the Tombaugh station attack. The data on the Shivan Lucifer has been given special attention. Intelligence believes the Shivans were tracking the captured Taranis Cruiser through subspace to the station.

The Lucifer

Intelligence doesn't know how the Shivans tracked the Taranis escort, but they've got a team of engineers trying to figure it out.

and

New Information

From the records you retrieved in Altair, we have discovered the means to destroy the Lucifer. As you know, our shield systems do not work in subspace. The same holds true for the Lucifer. More importantly, the records contain the information to enable us to track a capital ship into and inside subspace.

If we can track the Lucifer into subspace, we believe a small strike force may be sufficient to destroy it.

Canonically, they considered the Shivan tracking significant. Canonically, the Ancients figured out how to track capital ships in subspace thousands of years ago. Endgame suggested that the Shivans would be capable of reopening the Sol jump nodes, given enough time. I believe it was the FS2 tech room Shivan article that stated the Ancients claimed the Shivans were sensitive to subspace disturbances. And the various references to their use of uncharted/unstable nodes.

It may not be outright stated, but unless the Shivans were actually plotting a Xanatos Gambit involving the possible capture of the Taranis(putting beacons on it just in case?), I think it's a little unreasonable to assume the Shivans did not then have the subspace technology/expertise to track large ships just as the Ancients did 8000 years prior.

[NGTM-1R]

Canonically, they considered the Shivan tracking significant. Canonically, the Ancients figured out how to track capital ships in subspace thousands of years ago. Endgame suggested that the Shivans would be capable of reopening the Sol jump nodes, given enough time. I believe it was the FS2 tech room Shivan article that stated the Ancients claimed the Shivans were sensitive to subspace disturbances. And the various references to their use of uncharted/unstable nodes.

It may not be outright stated, but unless the Shivans were actually plotting a Xanatos Gambit involving the possible capture of the Taranis(putting beacons on it just in case?), I think it's a little unreasonable to assume the Shivans did not then have the subspace technology/expertise to track large ships just as the Ancients did 8000 years prior.

There are many things wrong here.

The first is that the GTA (at large?) at the time had no conception of how Shivan comms worked or ability to intercept them.

Endgame doesn't know what the ****. The guy's just talking to himself like a lunatic. There's absolutely no reason, anywhere else in the game, to assume the Shivans can do anything he says. ST and FS2 don't help the case either. EDIT: Or put another way, Endgame is about the same level of usefulness as Petrarch talking about what the Shivans  were doing at Capella. It's an ingame character talking about something he has no possible way of knowing or understanding. The chances of Unreliable Narrator are very high.

The Techroom claims subspace disturbances, which could mean nearly anything. Given what the FS1 Techroom also claims about Shivan strategic priorities, it is far more likely that this means subspace nodes than anything else.

The Taranis is a combatant Shivan ship and you are seriously telling me that it won't have a functional comm system that could be used to send a distress call, or an emergency beacon to indicate the ship is in distress. To quote Heinlein, any race capable of building spacecraft is not stupid. There were Shivan ships in the system it was taken to, explicitly, during the mission it's taken there. It would have taken them only minutes to get out a distress call to those ships and from there the Shivans could have shadowed it at long range back to Tombaugh.

While I generally agree with the proposition the Shivans have similar subspace tracking capabilities to the GTVA, there is no actual evidence for that proposition. It's all well and good to say it's so, but if you have to prove it, you're out of luck. And we can't prove it.

[Hades]

Actually the Taranis was supposedly the only real fighting force left in that system, IIRC.

[NGTM-1R]

Actually the Taranis was supposedly the only real fighting force left in that system, IIRC.

In the system you took it in. However it was fleeing towards the same node that the Hawkins pulls it into at the end of the mission to regroup with other Shivans in that system.

[General Battuta]

Endgame doesn't know what the ****. The guy's just talking to himself like a lunatic. There's absolutely no reason, anywhere else in the game, to assume the Shivans can do anything he says.

i think he was contacted by quantum pulse transmissions which whispered madness in his dreams

the geometries were non-euclidean and the truths were unspeakable

[NGTM-1R]

i think he was contacted by quantum pulse transmissions which whispered madness in his dreams

the geometries were non-euclidean and the truths were unspeakable

Stop blaming Ken for other people's problems!

[General Battuta]

frankly i agree that the fs1 ending was kinda of lolwutty, a narrative appendix tacked on to provide some semblance of closure, but it's there and i suppose we've got to work with it - and the guy's narrative suggests all those crazy Ancient visions Actually Happened To Him, so something went down that he never reported

[TrashMan]

Still not sold. The Shivans in FS1 repeatedly prioritized targets of strategic importance (the shield systems, the transports to give a couple examples), they weren't just acts of random lulzy destruction (no matter how much lulz they caused).

Didn't they attack EVERYTHING? It's hard to talk about smart target selection and prioritizing when you attack everything.

[Snail]

Still not sold. The Shivans in FS1 repeatedly prioritized targets of strategic importance (the shield systems, the transports to give a couple examples), they weren't just acts of random lulzy destruction (no matter how much lulz they caused).

Didn't they attack EVERYTHING? It's hard to talk about smart target selection and prioritizing when you attack everything.

It's about which targets they sent the most force at. They clearly marked certain targets with higher priority than others.



Look guys. If you want to think of Shivans as mindless bugs attacking everything that moves, feel free, I just think they're a bit more intelligent than that.

[TrashMan]

It may not be outright stated, but unless the Shivans were actually plotting a Xanatos Gambit involving the possible capture of the Taranis(putting beacons on it just in case?), I think it's a little unreasonable to assume the Shivans did not then have the subspace technology/expertise to track large ships just as the Ancients did 8000 years prior.

IIRC, subspace tracking requires one to be there while a ship jumps out. You have to have a sensor/scanner/ship in the area.

It is possible there were shivan ship on the Ribos side of the node that tracked the transport hauling the Teranis.

[TrashMan]

frankly i agree that the fs1 ending was kinda of lolwutty, a narrative appendix tacked on to provide some semblance of closure, but it's there and i suppose we've got to work with it - and the guy's narrative suggests all those crazy Ancient visions Actually Happened To Him, so something went down that he never reported

The way I see it it doesn't suggest anything. All those visions and dreams are bullc*** theories. Nothing more.

It's about which targets they sent the most force at. They clearly marked certain targets with higher priority than others.

Look guys. If you want to think of Shivans as mindless bugs attacking everything that moves, feel free, I just think they're a bit more intelligent than that.

Well, since they do target the cargo, that does imply intelligence. After all, a convoy is all about the cargo, regardless what it is. By destroying the cargo, evne if hte conovy itself survives, you basicly destroyed it's whole purpose for being there. Mission failed (for the enemy side).

[NGTM-1R]

Look guys. If you want to think of Shivans as mindless bugs attacking everything that moves, feel free, I just think they're a bit more intelligent than that.

I have no idea how you draw that conclusion from my sum postings on the subject. Or even the original ones.