[-Norbert-]

FS1 said what the Ancients believed about the Shivans, not necessarily how the Shivans really are.

[Woolie Wool]

TEI fighters are for wading through endless waves of flimsy Shivan fighters.

Which, realistically, aren't exactly flimsy and that's more of a game balancing thing than anything.

I mean really, imagine Shivan ships and guns being highly superior to yours like they are in the canon lore. That'd not make for a fun gaming experience.

I've done that for Conflict 2395, and it is a fun experience. Well, not necessarily highly superior, but their greater damage output to yours is noticeable. It's actually quite fun, and gives the Shivan fighters a sense of menace they haven't had since FS1. One mitigating factor is that I use the lower Fury AI classes (Lieutenant, Captain) for Shivan fighters and higher classes for GTVA and FDSR fighters.

Though I bet the scene where the Shivans are first introduced will kill many first-time players of the campaign at least once...

[Hades]

FS1 said what the Ancients believed about the Shivans, not necessarily how the Shivans really are.

It'd be pretty silly to throw in an unreliable narrator in a segment that's meant to advance the plot in some way.

[Qent]

In-game balance is typically the way it is not because of fluff. Like how the Deimos nearly has the same hull hit points as most destroyers, or the Hecate supposedly having more firepower than the Orion but in-game processing next to nothing in comparison, the Orion supposedly having 'dozens of death dealing turrets' while having a mere 17, etc etc.

Those are all examples of fluff contradicting tabled stats. There is no canon evidence that Shivan primaries are better than the Avenger.

[Woolie Wool]

When analyzing video games, fluff is always taken as a higher priority than the game behavior. if the fluff says one thing and the tables say another, the fluff is right and the tables are wrong.

[Qent]

There is no canon evidence that Shivan primaries are better than the Avenger.

(Meaning no fluff, specifically.)

[qwadtep]

FS1 said what the Ancients believed about the Shivans, not necessarily how the Shivans really are.

It'd be pretty silly to throw in an unreliable narrator in a segment that's meant to advance the plot in some way.

Whatever the case in FS1 and FS2, the Shivan/Vishan dialogue in AoA all but confirms that the Shivans in BP are supposed to destroy species which endanger the enlightenment of others.

[MikeRoz]

FS1 said what the Ancients believed about the Shivans, not necessarily how the Shivans really are.

It'd be pretty silly to throw in an unreliable narrator in a segment that's meant to advance the plot in some way.

This may be a bit off topic, but I've ALWAYS assumed unreliable narrator on the cutscene narrations, in both games.

The ancients go from an empire spanning galaxies to extinction. Their reaction? "Our empire must have been too big."

The Shivans waltz into Capella, a colony of exiled Terrans, and blow up a star. How does Petrarch interpret this? "Oh, they must have been trying to get home, like we are."

To me, both these assumptions are flawed. The Ancients try to figure out the Shivans by thinking like Ancients. The exiled terrans try to figure out the Shivans by thinking like Terrans. This is like trying to puzzle out why the sky 'decided' to rain one day and remain clear the next. Shivan motives are as far beyond humans as the weather is beyond someone without any understanding of meterology or the water cycle.

Of course there was that interview with the people from Volition, and now we know that had FS3 been made, Petrarch's baseless ramblings would have been vindicated. Now we know that Petrarch wasn't just a lost mortal trying to make sense of the chaos, but he had the writers whispering into his ear. It's not the way I would have gone.

[-Norbert-]

FS1 said what the Ancients believed about the Shivans, not necessarily how the Shivans really are.

It'd be pretty silly to throw in an unreliable narrator in a segment that's meant to advance the plot in some way.

Then tell me now the Ancients could have been able to get reliable information on the Shivans? The Shivans don't communicate and the game never mentioned any archeological sites the Ancients uncovered, that gave them information of the Shivans.
So the only thing the Ancients had, was what they thought about the Shivans, with no way to assertain the truth of their believes.
The cutscenes were just a video-message left behind by the extinct race and later uncovered by the Vasudan scientists, not some kind of divine message of the ultimate, unvarnished truth. Because if it was, the Shivans would have charged their 80 Juggernaughts through every single inhabited system and wiped out both the Human and Vasudan races.

[Qent]

I'll buy that the narrations could possibly be incorrect. But it always seemed that they were at least intended to be correct.

[MikeRoz]

I'll buy that the narrations could possibly be incorrect. But it always seemed that they were at least intended to be correct.

You've hit the nail on the head. The writers intended them to be correct, even though they gave no logical reason to assume that the narrators had sufficient information to puzzle out the Shivans' intentions.

[-Norbert-]

But it also gives the benefit of deniability. If you tell the words through a possibly biased, or even possibly mistaken source, like the ancients, you can just rewrite the story later, without contradicting yourself.
I think that is just what did. They changed how the Shivans acted, or rather why they acted in FS2 and if someone said "But in FS1 it was told that the Shivans are like this and that, so it makes no sense for them doing X and Y in FS2!", they can just say that the cutscenes only showed what the Ancients (or the single Ancients who made the recordings at any rate) believed, not how the Shivans really are.

In my eyes, the fact that the Shivans stopped at Capella, instead of immediately sending their 80 Sath' onwards to wipe out the GTVA shows that there is more, or something completely different, going on with them than just "destroying the destroyers" and thus proved the views the Ancients expressed in their cutscenes wrong or at least incomplete.
And a good change it was too, I think. "Kill them all" is just such a flat and boring goal for an enemy, better to have them mysterious like the FS2 Shivans and keeping the player wondering what they'll do and why, untill short before the end.

[Hades]

But it also gives the benefit of deniability. If you tell the words through a possibly biased, or even possibly mistaken source, like the ancients, you can just rewrite the story later, without contradicting yourself.
I think that is just what did. They changed how the Shivans acted, or rather why they acted in FS2 and if someone said "But in FS1 it was told that the Shivans are like this and that, so it makes no sense for them doing X and Y in FS2!", they can just say that the cutscenes only showed what the Ancients (or the single Ancients who made the recordings at any rate) believed, not how the Shivans really are.

In my eyes, the fact that the Shivans stopped at Capella, instead of immediately sending their 80 Sath' onwards to wipe out the GTVA shows that there is more, or something completely different, going on with them than just "destroying the destroyers" and thus proved the views the Ancients expressed in their cutscenes wrong or at least incomplete.
And a good change it was too, I think. "Kill them all" is just such a flat and boring goal for an enemy, better to have them mysterious like the FS2 Shivans and keeping the player wondering what they'll do and why, untill short before the end.

That doesn't prove anything. That just means they acted differently for different reasons, they're a sentient species, they've got a goal.

Doesn't mean it's their only goal.

[-Norbert-]

...shows that there is more, or something completely different, going on with them than just...

Notice the "something more, or"?
I didn't say the Shivans don't want to kill us, I only said they wanted something else as well (and obviously they wanted it even more than our destruction, otherwise they'd have wiped us out and only blown up capella afterwards).
Since the ancients didn't know about that "something", whatever that is, it proves that even if what they believe isn't wrong, it's still only part of the truth, not the whole truth.

[PeterX]

What happens to Kappa wing in FS2 and be a wing from the GTVA and one wing from the UEF make a time travel to this timepoint on Gamma Draconis nebula.
Can they find the answer of this question? And in AoA the Shivans search for a race like the Brahmans ? .... and they do continue to search them?
....and what species will spell for all known species the truth?
Peter

[-Norbert-]

I wouldn't say the Shivans are searching for a race of creators, more like waiting for them, while they wipe out the candidates that proved themselfs unworthy in their eyes.
As for the time travel, how would kappa wing and one UEF wing even find each other in that soup. And even if they did, what good could two wings all on their own do, against the whole Shivan armada? They'd be wiped out in short order, without anyone ever hearing of them again (which is most likely what happened to kappa wing in the first place).

Now if kappa would travel into the future, instead of the UEF wing going into the past, that could be used to tell a story in the style of Homesick perhaps (with the way UEF ships are, they'd need to find something that can resupply and refuel them throughout their journey), though you'd have to find a way to get the UEF wing all the way over to the nebula beyond gamma draconis, or alternatively have the two meet in gamma draconis and then fly into the capella nebula (assuming it cooled down far enough so they don't get melted to slag... I'm not sure how hot the remnants of a supernova are, or how fast they cool down.... or if they really leave a nebula in reality for that matter).

[PeterX]

....And what rumors are going on the(may be) 6th species around all other species talk about? They are telling the GTVA pilots and the UEF that the Ancient fear them,they ´re at war with the Shivans and they knew a bit of the Brahmans The 1st of all.
Was that the contact to species of guardians like the Nightmares or Negators???  And is the nebula the missing link to all that what happens?
Can this story happens in BP WiH2 or 3 ?
Peter

[The E]

Ummm

Are you using google translate or something? Because although all words in that post are english, the syntax clearly isn't.

[PeterX]

I didnt use any script on translators or machines to post here,you may know i´m a german.

[The E]

So am I. I still have no idea what you are trying to ask.