[MatthTheGeek]

That presupposes that the Shivans have rear areas that can be attacked. This might not be true.

Well,

Presence of the SSG Rahu and gas mining operation suggests it is in fact the case, however.

and all the operations involving attacking Shivan supply convoys. They are as much dependant on logistics as we are, and those supplies have to come from somewhere.

Hm...how was it possible that the Tev send in a Meson bomb in "The Blade Itself" without a Triton? Or was there a Triton which set us up the bomb and I didn't notice it due to heavy fighting?
My point: Is the GTVA able to simply send Meson bombs through subspace like in Stargate?

The GTVA has made major progess in term of subspace technology since FS2 indeed. The Delta Serpentis-Knossos gate, the sprint jump drives and the SSM strikes are good examples of that.

But keep in mind that those intrasystem jump gates don't require any kind of jump drive installed. This is the very point in the first place. Shipping anything through them isn't more difficult than putting it in the big circle and pressing the right button.

Could you guys provide an example of the Shivans "adapting anyways"?

What, Shivans growing beam cannons and flak everywhere between FS1 and FS2 isn't enough for you ?

[crizza]

Hm...how many dockpoints has a single logistic ship?
Equipping one with sprint jump drives, docking as much meson bombs as possible and using it as mine layer...several shivan capships emerge from subspace...blow the bomb...and sent in the ship, dropping the bomb.

[Luis Dias]

Every time these arguments come up, whoever is arguing against the GTVA starts from a position of how everything possible goes wrong and assumes that as what will happen.  I admit I tend to stray a bit too far in the other direction, but still, the GTVA failing to block every single node as the Shivans move?  If the Shivans had shown an inclination to move on other systems, you can bet Command would have been hurrying quite a bit faster to shut those nodes.  Shivans get to Epsilon Pegasi, shut the next layer of nodes.  Information travels faster than ships ever can, and as a position is lost, the next steps up.  Maybe during the SSI they would have succeeded in getting through.  Maybe.  Certainly not now.

It's the exact other way around Scotty. Your idea is the one hanging in the balance against the odds. You need GTVA to deliver its punch perfectly throughout the entire Shivan armada flood without any kind of breach. If you are unable to do this, you will eventually lose. This is not because Murphy's law or anything like that, but because Shivan armada is just so much numerically superior to GTVAs.

And your points about Epsilon Pegasi nodes and what nots I have addressed them and you just ignored them. Were the Shivans to conquer the Vega node, you'd be completely ****ed up. So sure, I concede that if by lucky chance they will *all* go towards Epsilon Pegasi instead, you can win some time and shut down Regulus or something like that.

But you see, this only furthers my point that the GTVA position is the only hanging in the balance. dependent upon your enemie's mistakes rather than depending on its own capabilities.

Re-read the FS1 briefings and such.  The Shivans hold no interest in planets, going instead for control of subspace nodes and transit points to planets' direct exclusion.

Yeah, that's why they didn't nuke Vasuda Prime nor did they bombard planet Earth in BP alternative universe.

Oh wait.

Ships coming through a node are easy prey for Mjolnirs and blockades.  Ships heading toward nodes are easy prey for Mjolnirs and blockades.

Sure, a blockade would give Shivans a really bad time. Doesn't matter, they still have enough punch to ram through. Blockades work well in the first few minutes when the **** begins to hit the fan, but when your Mjolnirs and your Destroyers are getting distracted by swarms of shivan bombers and fighters, the shivan armada that passes through the nodes begins to last more than a few dozens of seconds, enough for them to beamrape your destroyers / mjolnirs. Eventually you will lose the node.

This strategy only works if your enemy is really worried about not losing many ships. But they have shown that they do not mind too much if they lose a destroyer or two.

Ships staging between nodes are easy prey for bombers.  The NTF end-run through the series of blockades to Gamma Draconis shows just how deadly blockades are to masses capital ships in rapid transit.

Bad example for two big reasons. First, the NTF rush was a gambit maneuver to get Bosch into the nebula, and was never meant otherwise. In that regard, the NTF achieved their objective in that rush. Second, you are really not comparing the fleet assets of the NTF in the rush with shivan assets if they "Rush", now are you?

Yes, the SJ Sathanas smashes a blockade to get to where it's going in Bearbaiting, but that blockade was ill informed of the juggernauts abilities.  Defending a node means that the GTVA picks exactly where and how a fight goes down, and can stack all the advantages against the Shivans.  A tactical reserve of the new corvettes allows Command to hunt down and destroy any ship that escapes before the blockade is destroyed, and when the blockade is lost, the transit to the node to assist in the defense or move to the next system in, if necessary.

Sure. But you are easily forgetting that nodes start to multiply like a tree. If you skip back one node, now you have two nodes to defend. If you skip two nodes, you have now four nodes to defend. And your fleets are now separated. This is BAD.

And again it all comes down to time.  An effective blockade nets the GTVA precious minutes to bring node closers into position.  Minutes are all it takes, and the new ships and tactical doctrines of the GTVA net a lot of minutes in the form of savaging the front end of the Shivan column.  Those "torn, divided, and disorganized bunch of spare ships" we've already seen completely destroy a Sathanas and its entire escort (provided the escort existed.  I'm inclined to think it did), once again, with zero losses.

Already with that example. That was a lone Sathanas zeroing in your armada. You had the tactical advantage of that point (Sathanas are pretty bad Juggernaughts if they fight lonely), and the fact that it didn't jump within beam range. You destroyed a single Sathanas with a lot of luck and numerical superiority. A single Sathanas is *not* a shivan armada hellbent in raping you to smithereens.

Don't be so quick to discount the Titan destroyers.  They may not have the straight up firepower of a Raynor, but they can damn well take care of themselves.

They are good ships, sure. Let's get this straight however. If a single Sathanas amongst the eighty they shown having brings itself to beam range, your "can damn well take care of themselves" destroyers are raped in a single salvo (80k points per beam pulse, 4 beams = 360k points... the Titans are armored with 125k points).

So you get a cornered beamless Sathanas into your range, ahah! now you are getting them! Suddenly to your right and left two Sathanas jumpbeamrape you and your "take care of themselves" fleet is oblivionated.

Witness the Temeraire against the four Shivan destroyers between Frankenstein's Monsters, Forced Entry, and Preserving the Balance, and how it nearly effortlessly wipes the floor with all of them.  Eight next generation destroyers, plus an untold number of new corvettes, which in conjunction have been shown to mop the floor with Sathanases.  You can't tell me those are ineffective against the Shivans, because they obviously are.

It's easy when you are the one gangbanging the others with superior numbers. Let's see how well you'll fare in a situation where you are outnumbered 20:1 or worse. Or IOW, let's see how many seconds your amazing fleet will last.

[Deadly in a Shadow]

Every time these arguments come up, whoever is arguing against the GTVA starts from a position of how everything possible goes wrong and assumes that as what will happen.  I admit I tend to stray a bit too far in the other direction, but still, the GTVA failing to block every single node as the Shivans move?  If the Shivans had shown an inclination to move on other systems, you can bet Command would have been hurrying quite a bit faster to shut those nodes.  Shivans get to Epsilon Pegasi, shut the next layer of nodes.  Information travels faster than ships ever can, and as a position is lost, the next steps up.  Maybe during the SSI they would have succeeded in getting through.  Maybe.  Certainly not now.

It's the exact other way around Scotty. Your idea is the one hanging in the balance against the odds. You need GTVA to deliver its punch perfectly throughout the entire Shivan armada flood without any kind of breach. If you are unable to do this, you will eventually lose. This is not because Murphy's law or anything like that, but because Shivan armada is just so much numerically superior to GTVAs.

And your points about Epsilon Pegasi nodes and what nots I have addressed them and you just ignored them. Were the Shivans to conquer the Vega node, you'd be completely ****ed up. So sure, I concede that if by lucky chance they will *all* go towards Epsilon Pegasi instead, you can win some time and shut down Regulus or something like that.

But you see, this only furthers my point that the GTVA position is the only hanging in the balance. dependent upon your enemie's mistakes rather than depending on its own capabilities.

Re-read the FS1 briefings and such.  The Shivans hold no interest in planets, going instead for control of subspace nodes and transit points to planets' direct exclusion.

Yeah, that's why they didn't nuke Vasuda Prime nor did they bombard planet Earth in BP alternative universe.

Oh wait.

Vasuda Prime was the homeworld of the Vasudans. "Nuking" the planet's surface was more a showcase of power and taking on a moral aspect (I mean, how good do you fight if you hear that your homeworld is nothing more than a fireball or a glassed desert?). If the shivans destroyed earth, the fighting morale of the terrans would be crushed and they would be destroyed with ease.

Otherwise, I wonder how they vanquished the ancients if they just go on subspace nodes....

[Luis Dias]

Vasuda Prime was the homeworld of the Vasudans. "Nuking" the planet's surface was more a showcase of power and taking on a moral aspect (I mean, how good do you fight if you hear that your homeworld is nothing more than a fireball or a glassed desert?).

Now you are just making **** up. You cannot possibly know this. For all I know, their motives could be astonishingly myriad.

Perhaps they zeroed-in in their homeworlds, ignoring colonies, because that would be the best strategy of attack. Having nuked the homeworlds, the rest would follow, just like BP fanon states in the alternative universe.

Perhaps million of other things. You can't count on what motives you don't know.

What you *cannot* do is to assure yourself that shivans won't bombard planets when they in fact did so once and attempted to do a second time.

[The E]

Indeed. All they did was position the warhead at another gate, told the gate to link up to another one, and give the warhead a little push.

[Destiny]

Indeed. All they did was position the warhead at another gate, told the gate to link up to another one, and give the warhead a little push.

Isn't it possible to like, activate the detonation timer while in subspace, then time it to explode the second it exits?

[The E]

In theory, yes.

However, the situation in TBI was a bit different, the meson warhead was sent out as an area denial weapon in case the marine boarding failed.

[NGTM-1R]

Perhaps they zeroed-in in their homeworlds, ignoring colonies, because that would be the best strategy of attack.

For that matter, they didn't actually ignore colonies according to the FS1 tech description.

[Luis Dias]

Ah so there. I was assuming he was "technically" correct.

[-Norbert-]

And maybe it made the alliance destroy containers "off screen" that would have been valuable to them, because they thought that the Shivans mined them too, even when they didn't.
It might not have been a major victory to blow up two transporters, but considering what the Shivans invested to do it and the possible consequences, I'd call it a good move from their perspective.

As for the whole discussion about wether the GTVA would be able to stop Sathanii or not there is something that was mentioned once, but then forgotten.
SJ Dante aka Shiva.
Unlike the Sathanas, that thing has beamturrets all over and those turrets are heavlity armored.
Even IF the GTVA can throw up a blockade that can stop several Sathanii, a single Dante used as spearhead is going to throw the door wide open and allow said Sathanii, and whatever else the Shvians decide to bing to the party, to enter the system without much resistance.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, your only chance there is to foresee Dante's arrival and rush to nuke the node before it crosses it. And I'll say that with good tactics by the shivans, your chances are less than slim.

So pray instead that there won't be any node "leaks" before the terrazods are actually ready to face these behemoths.

(of course this won't happen coz it's a fun game, and without shivan's presence some time in the future, it stops being fun, but hey!)

[Deadly in a Shadow]

(of course this won't happen coz it's a fun game, and without shivan's presence some time in the future, it stops being fun, but hey!)

Sounds like: Every FS2-campaign needs shivans.
My suggestion:But everytime shivans arrive you know it is a hopeless war. Nearly forgot the Dante.

[Luis Dias]

Hopelessness is a good narrative driver, if you give the player just the slightest hope that you'll be able to somehow prevent hell.

[manwiththemachinegun]

Since I think a third Shivan invasion would be a good addition to the BP universe if handled correctly, I'll just throw out a few spots.

1. It's clear the Shivans are still intent on wiping out humanity and the Vasuadans in accordance with their nature to preserve by destruction, damning the rules of the Vishnans/Brahmans. Shivans don't care, they care only about achieving their own unknowable, implacable goals. Under these circumstances, a third Shivan war cannot be averted.

2. It is likely since Shivans cannot create jump nodes, they will need to find a new point of entry into GTVA space. In other words, a new path to Earth/GTVA.

3. GTVA weaponry has significantly improved, enough perhaps to destroy a few of the larger Shivan fleets through conventional tactics. However, Shivan fleet capabilities have been shown to be utterly inexhaustable at this point. The Lucifer fleet according to Volition was, "a scouting fleet", the Juggernaught fleet only contained by the slimmest of margins. A third 'serious' Shivan invasion would be 'almost' unstoppable.

4. Vishnans aren't likely to be a reliable ally against the Shivans. Again, they have their own goals as well, and they seem to be none to pleased with humanity's latest self destructive urges.

5. It would make the most sense, both from a Freespace canon perspective and a BP canon perspective to have a, 'third option' for defeating the Shivans. The Shivans must be fought, and the line must be held against overwhelming odds until such a path to victory is found. The Shivans are destroyers of entire civilizations over hundreds of thousands of years. Just surviving a Shivan genocide IS a victory, one that Humanity and the Vasudans have managed twice. Convincing the Shivans mankind is worth saving seems to me to be too trite a solution. However, the great equalizer of the Shivan wars has been this:

Shivans are just as dependant upon subspace as the GTVA. A sub space weapon of some sort, either to seal the Shivans off, or cripple their travel through it would be a plausable way to 'defeat' the Shivans without either making them seem either weak (sorry guys, we had time to tech up so eat beams!) or stupid (Aw! You little humans were just like us all along! Let's kiss and make up!).

[Luis Dias]

Yeah.

Well the shivan war cannot be averted if BP writers find it unavoidable. It's a tautology .

Your second point is interesting and gives me some stupid ideas. Like for instance, we get to see another star banging up. At the same time, GTVA sensors detect subspace anomalies in a given sector in the same system where the artificial supernova is seen. This means Shivans banged up a new star in order to enter GTVA/UEF space.

Since there's something called "lightspeed" and you might say "wait a minute, if you see the star blowing up, that means it blowed up 4 years ago, the node should have opened 4 years ago". We could technobabble our way around this and state that the new wormhole was created with the speed of light, so that the timelines mostly matched (between the "astonishing visuals" of a banging up star and the subspace anomaly being detected).

This would be very cool, to sit there in space and all of a sudden we would see a distant star blowing up in the background. We could see effects too. How is this technically possible? Dunno, but doesn't seem too difficult. One mission, we would see the shiny nova, then we would receive Command's chatter telling us that a subspace something is happening in a quarter million kilometers that direction, we would jump there and watch a new shivan fleet arriving. Beam rape the tiny cruiser you are escorting, panic attack, stay alive as long as you can before your jump drive refuels itself and jump out.

[Drogoth]

The Shivans most certainly CAN build jump nodes, I refer you to the end monologue of freespace one.

Even if that monologue hadn't stated that 'all the jump nodes from earth are gone, but the shivans can rebuild them' there was still never a statement saying they couldn't. In fact, if we can reverse engineer a Knossos that we no longer have access to, the Shivans can definitely reverse engineer when they have two confirmed Knossos in their space. I would not be at all surprised to see the shivans build their own gate, and pop through the former Capella node in either Epsilon Pegasi or Vega.

[Luis Dias]

Sure, I understand, I was just going for spectacular views instead.

The nova was allegedly used in FS2 to build a "new" node. Terrans used Knossos copy pasted device to "renew" Sol node. It's somewhat different.

But I agree that it would create a big plot hole. Shivans should be able to renew the Cappella node.

So the only thing left is a motive. Or a catalyst. In FS2, the catalyst is NTF actions in Gamma Draconis, who are willingfully trying to connect with the shivans. What will lure the shivans out of their own business to try to demolish this humanzod nuisance once and for all?

[manwiththemachinegun]

The Shivans most certainly CAN build jump nodes, I refer you to the end monologue of freespace one.

Even if that monologue hadn't stated that 'all the jump nodes from earth are gone, but the shivans can rebuild them' there was still never a statement saying they couldn't. In fact, if we can reverse engineer a Knossos that we no longer have access to, the Shivans can definitely reverse engineer when they have two confirmed Knossos in their space. I would not be at all surprised to see the shivans build their own gate, and pop through the former Capella node in either Epsilon Pegasi or Vega.

Possible, but the majority of Freespace 2 points to the fact that the Shivans were at least partly dependant upon the technology of the Ancients, for convience if nothing else. And they cannot use jump points that are collapsed, otherwise the Sathanas fleet would have been able to jump right out of Capella into the heart of GTVA space. Whether or not they can rebuild them with sufficent time and energy, we just don't know.

As for the BP never dealing with Shivans again, I think that's unlikely. Too much has been built up about a coming catastrophe that will dwarf the GTVA/UEF conflict for the Shivans not to return in some form. Whether it's the third invasion or not.

A catalyst based on the information we've been given in BP is the Shivans are looking for an excuse to prove mankind is unworthy of preservation, thus being able to side step the whole issue of Vishnans. A sufficent massacre of UEF or GTVA forces/civilians might be the 'disturbance in the force' the Shivans are looking for to jump back into the fray. Not to mention the fact that UEF is actively seeking those who are sensitive to Shivans via project Nagari.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah it's that kind of harmonic karma silliness that puts me off in AoA.

It's their mod, they know better what they want to do, I just hope they don't go that direction.