[An4ximandros]

 He was a crazy religious man. Perhaps crazy enough to be Nagari sensitive.

 He wanted to force humanity to live in habitats, free of the chains of solar systems. Free of subspace... and Shivans.

 MacDuff wanted to free humanity from the Vishnans and the Shivans, no matter the cost. What better way to do so than taking advantage of the flaw in subspace? The need of a star's gravity well?

 Granted, his methods were ruthless... but he was not as mad as you'd be inclined to think.

 His final gambit? Destroying the surface of Earth to force everyone into habitats. Here they would be able to escape the apocalypse.

[SpardaSon21]

Destroying the Earth is just going to make everyone decide to live on Mars and terraform it into a new Earth, so bad plan.  Either that or they decide to just get over needing planetary gravity and go adopt radical transhumanism as zero-g-evolved space people since there's no more Kostadin Cell to tell them they can't, most likely with pointy elf ears because *** you, elf ears are awesome.

[Phantom Hoover]

the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

[Crybertrance]

the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.

[Klaustrophobia]

there is no way a human colony would survive outside a solar system.

[Phantom Hoover]

the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.

and they never tried to flee in stl ships?

[General Battuta]

there is no way a human colony would survive outside a solar system.

Kuiper Belt/Oort Cloud is already so far out it might as well be.

[MP-Ryan]

there is no way a human colony would survive outside a solar system.

Kuiper Belt/Oort Cloud is already so far out it might as well be.

I'm curious how Klaus reached this conclusion in the first place.

[Luis Dias]

Because unjustified claims are the greatest! <-- example.

[General Battuta]

Klaustrophobia is a smart dude, don't be hatin

[Klaustrophobia]

sure they are far out on the edge of the system, but they still have contact with it.  they still get supplies from it.  a well-stocked and efficiently run habitat could survive for a while out on its own, but not indefinitely.  it can't be purely self-sustaining out in the void.  which is what i assumed was meant by "free of the chains of solar systems."

at best, i would think they might be able to "drift" from one system to the next, resupplying as they hit each one.  or go out, toss anchor, and return when they need to restock. 

[Gray113]

I doubt any habitat could survive long outside of the Heliosphere. The solar winds and cosmic radiation would be to much overcome.

[-Sara-]

MacDuff should have flown away from Sol, far away. For aeons, until his descendants no longer resembled humans, free of whatever blaim humankind called upon itself. Now he's dead. I wonder if he ran to his entombed wife, I imagine him having done so.

[QuakeIV]

I was not expecting this viewpoint.  An interesting thought.

With that said I rarely enjoy fully understanding a character and then killing them.  I enjoyed killing MacDuff, and the BP writers are pretty good.  I may replay that mission tonight when I get home now that I think on it.

[qwadtep]

Go back to bed, Sergei.

I doubt any habitat could survive long outside of the Heliosphere. The solar winds and cosmic radiation would be to much overcome.

Which is presumably why the Gefs are genetically engineering humans like the Greenfly sleeper. The bigger problem is probably making their habitats self-sustaining; they still can't get by without the Jovians, let alone a star.

[Crybertrance]

the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.

and they never tried to flee in stl ships?

Probably because after the Shivans knew they needed to be culled, they would probably just do a small sub-space jump and kill the smart-asses.


But, wait a second... Got a bit of a brain-wave here. What if there were Ancients who escaped the Shivan genocide and are there somewhere, undiscovered in the void? Since Terrans, Vasudans, and Shivans (presumably) rely heavily on Subspace to cover vast distances (as opposed to sub-light travel). And since it is also well established that the Ancients had a vast sub-light empire, they certainly had the know-how to efficient sub-light travel and possibly even extra-solar habitation.

[Darius]

What if there were Ancients who escaped the Shivan genocide and are there somewhere, undiscovered in the void?

I'd say it's possible, even likely.

Whether they'd reach a place in time to have any impact on the story is another matter.

[UnlimitedBacon]

I actually ended up feeling sorry for him because of the specific way I played the mission. Since Earth was about to be destroyed, there was no time to waste. I bypassed the destroyer and headed straight for the cave, spewing countermeasures along the way. Then after taking out the reactor and escaping the blast, I finished off MacDuff.

In the span of a few minutes, that man had his lifelong dream shattered while on the verge of sucess then watched as all of his friends and family died (including his son) before he was finally killed by an inferior opponent. Thats a cruel way to go. If I had taken out the destroyer first then in his mind he would have died a hero.

MacDuff and the Gefs also remind me of the terrorist group from Pandora's Star.

[Buckshee Rounds]

the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.

and they never tried to flee in stl ships?

Probably because after the Shivans knew they needed to be culled, they would probably just do a small sub-space jump and kill the smart-asses.


But, wait a second... Got a bit of a brain-wave here. What if there were Ancients who escaped the Shivan genocide and are there somewhere, undiscovered in the void? Since Terrans, Vasudans, and Shivans (presumably) rely heavily on Subspace to cover vast distances (as opposed to sub-light travel). And since it is also well established that the Ancients had a vast sub-light empire, they certainly had the know-how to efficient sub-light travel and possibly even extra-solar habitation.

[conjecture]Maybe their ghosts prowl the Nagari-space as soulless husks.

Spoiler:

Maybe the Great Darkness is the resulting gestalt of every civilisation annihilated by the Shivans (and Vishnans).

[/conjecture]

[Garfield]

MacDuff should have flown away from Sol, far away. For aeons, until his descendants no longer resembled humans, free of whatever blaim humankind called upon itself. Now he's dead. I wonder if he ran to his entombed wife, I imagine him having done so.

The way the briefing described it, I honestly thought that MacDuff's wife was built into the ship and was controlling it in some sort of horrifying transhumanist undeath. Combined with the music, it gave the duel with the Morena a seriously creepy feel on my first playthrough.