[StargateSpankyHam]

As I was reviewing the tech database, and playing WIH: Tenebra...I could not help but ask the inevitable question: Is Project Nagari actually a piece of Canon material? Retail FS2 makes no mention of it, and retail FS1 (as I recall) does not either. However, I have not played Silent Threat, so I have no clue if Nagari is mentioned in there.

Is Project Nagari actually canon? Or is it just really awesome fanfic?

[MatthTheGeek]

100% BP material. No mention nor major hints to Nagari in either ST or ST:R.

See here to see the exact differences between retail and BP tech description (retail text is in italic).

[General Battuta]

Nagari is inspired by a number of things -

• Alpha 1's weird extra-plot knowledge from FS1
• The Hammer of Light
• Kyle Athanas from Derelict
• The various GTI research projects from ST:R
• Lieutenant Ash's freakout from the FS1 intro

But neither the project nor the phenomenon itself are canon.

[Arpit]

Nagari is inspired by a number of things -

• Alpha 1's weird extra-plot knowledge from FS1
• The Hammer of Light
• Kyle Athanas from Derelict
• The various GTI research projects from ST:R
• Lieutenant Ash's freakout from the FS1 intro

But neither the project nor the phenomenon itself are canon.

You forgot Kappa 3. 

[Goober5000]

• Alpha 1's weird extra-plot knowledge from FS1

The cutscenes are for the player's benefit, not Alpha 1's.  There's no indication that Alpha 1 knew of the Ancient recordings.  The only insight we get into Alpha 1's thoughts is the ending monologue, which is his own speculation.

That's not to undercut BP's take on it though.  Positing that the Ancient cutscenes were communicated to Alpha 1 is a rather clever and interesting way to tie FS1's Alpha 1 into the BP mythology.

[Luis Dias]

Nagari is inspired by a number of things -

• Alpha 1's weird extra-plot knowledge from FS1

Never understood this line of interpretation. To me it's absolutely clear the "visions" are not visions, but readings of archaeological findings that were taking place while events of the great war unfolded, merely dramatized with music and nice backgrounds for our entertainment.

Alas, the interpretation they were visions do not even make the miniscule sense in the context of the plot, given that no one references your visions, everyone still talks to you as if you're just a skilled pilot and not a crazy pilot with psychiatric problems, there's not a single second devoted to the problem of anyone else (but you) believing in the so-called "visions" as the solution to lucifergeddon, nada, niente, zero. It just doesn't work.

Also, that thing about Ash freaking out is absolutely exagerated. Yeah, the guy was freaked out because he saw an unknown scary fleet raz0rpwning everyone else in sight, jumping from nowhere, hunting every ship. Now this is over-interpreted as a Nagari incident. There's no "logical problem" here, but I am weary of simple dramatic cinematic pieces being abused in this fashion.


Warning, I did not say that Nagari is an invalid concept or whatever. Just pointing out some details on my own.

[General Battuta]

Your remarks are both valid readings of the Ancient cutscenes, though not the readings BP went with. But both of you make very definitive statements about things you can't be definitive on. If Alpha 1's end monologue isn't his own speculation - and it's not necessarily; he knows why the ancient ones were destroyed and he knows what they knew, quote unquote - then that knowledge had to come from somewhere, and we have a clear avenue that can be invoked. The idea that Alpha 1 saw some archaeology tapes works, but BP favors a different explanation because it helps explain why Alpha 1 has some information about the Shivans that's not conveyed anywhere else in the narrative.

That thing about Ash freaking out is absolutely exaggerated, unless it's not, and it was a Nagari incident; and there's no indication that Alpha 1 knew of the Ancient recordings, except for the possibility that his statement 'I know what they knew' means he knew of the Ancient recordings.

You're right, positing that the Ancient cutscenes were communicated to Alpha 1 is a rather clever and interesting way to tie FS1's Alpha 1 into the BP mythology, and you don't even need the BP mythology to do it, since all the evidence for this reading is present in FS1.

These are interpretations that work for the story and have a modicum of support. They're not supposed to be the only viable interpretations.

[General Battuta]

On another note, the community in general is really bad at reading the Ancient cutscenes and spotting some of their ramifications re: the size and nature of Ancient civilization. It's a real shame as this could've provided campaigns like ASW with some fresh creative direction.

[Luis Dias]

Yes to all of the above. Except that, as I said, there's no hint in Freespace 1 about "visions" and Alpha1 being the receiver (why?) of them, etc. No briefing or debriefing even mentions these awkward problematics, let alone solves them (has Alpha1 briefed command? Where? Why will the GTA believe Alpha1's madness? Is anyone monitoring Alpha1? Is *anything* happening at all?). So this possibility is lifted merely from over-interpreting a cinematic as if it's a first person experience and so on, completely disregarding compatibility problems with the *other* facets of the game.

I don't worry about inconsistencies like these. For me, art is pretty much always a disaster unfolding itself, and you can only try to contain the madness, and any "re-reading" of previous material is especially "explosive" in inconsistencies and so on.

So I guess all I am saying is "cut the bull****, we all know what is going on here, come on". Some times, I like this Lacanian game of looking up to a mythology as if it's absolutely true and if there are inconsistencies, the problem lies on our observations and so on, but here the problem is sufficiently deep that it really requires us to squint really bad at Freespace 1 to only see what you want us to see.

[General Battuta]

There are no hints in FreeSpace 1 about the nature of the cinematics at all, which leaves us considerable freedom to interpret them. Given that Alpha 1's only chance to speak assigns him a surprising amount of information we chose to go with an interpretation that works with the BP story. There are no compatibility problems with other facets of the game; Alpha 1 acts on the information after arriving in Sol, but not before, perhaps dismissing it as hallucination or dream.

There is no squinting required, no more than with any other interpretation.

[Luis Dias]

Remember that the visions contain the solution against Lucifer, and it's exactly after the vision that elucidates this point that Command designs a mission around the idea. If the cinematics are Alpha1's visions, then at some point he/she has to report them to Command, Command has to believe them, Command has to design a far-fetched mission to get the Lucifer. The alternative is that Command also had the same "visions", making them a banality of a sort. However, the briefing that goes with that mission never mentions Alpha1's visions, never mentions they had visions, doesn't mention it knows you had visions, never explains why it knows exactly what you "visioned", etc.

IOW, the "meta-map" of the game tells us that everything is "business as usual", that nothing "extraordinary" like Nagari is happening, etc., that this new knowledge about the Lucifer not having shields in subspace is shared among everyone in the fleet who has access and is paying attention, etc.

What I am saying is that this alternative reading of the material requires *more* than just being superficially compatible, it needs to explain why the meta-narrative, the meta-map and so on never acknowledge this alternative possibility.

It's as if at the finishing line of a game someone has a metaphysical connection with God with the solution of the game, but the game itself doesn't even acknowledge the event and just goes with the solution as if it's common knowledge or something. It's ridiculous. Surely this "God" event should be an important thing to at least *refer to*. Doesn't work.

[General Battuta]

Command discovers the solution to defeating the Lucifer via excavations of Ancient ruins in Altair. One reading of the Ancient cutscenes is that they're information uncovered from this dig, which jives with the proximity of that Ancient cutscene to the beginning of the plan for an attack on the Lucifer. Another interpretation is that the Ancient cutscenes are Nagari visions experienced by Alpha 1, but that the dig on Altair produces the information required to destroy the Lucifer separately. The latter is what BP goes with.

There is no suggestion that the plan to destroy the Lucifer originated in a vision experienced by Alpha 1. Alpha 1 never speaks or communicates until the final cutscene, and in the BP interpretation does not act on these visions until after he arrives in Sol and is debriefed.

[Luis Dias]

So they are absolutely independent of each other? It's a stretch of a sort, but I can eat that.

[Goober5000]

If Alpha 1's end monologue isn't his own speculation - and it's not necessarily; he knows why the ancient ones were destroyed and he knows what they knew, quote unquote - then that knowledge had to come from somewhere

Yes, because every time anyone says "I know [this or that]", you can take it as incontrovertible, externally verifiable fact.   In the same cutscene, he also says "All the jumpgates from Earth are gone, but the Shivans can rebuild them."

And as a point of order, the Ancient cutscenes can't be archeological tapes discovered in real-time, because the archeological dig doesn't start until after the fourth mission in Act 3.

[General Battuta]

Yes, because every time anyone says "I know [this or that]", you can take it as incontrovertible, externally verifiable fact.

No one proposed that this was the case.

The wording of 'I know' is very strong and we choose to interpret it this way because it works for our story. Is there something objectionable about that? We're hardly arguing it's the only viable interpretation.

In the same cutscene, he also says "All the jumpgates from Earth are gone, but the Shivans can rebuild them."

This seems disconnected from any other point being made here, and it's something I'm well aware of, given that I just gave you a verbatim quote from the cutscene.

[Goober5000]

The wording of 'I know' is very strong and we choose to interpret it this way because it works for our story. Is there something objectionable about that? We're hardly arguing it's the only viable interpretation.

Er.  I had gotten the impression that you were arguing, at the very least, that it was the most viable interpretation.  I think I misread your description of the "to know" language as putting more emphasis on it than you actually did.  Because in your post, you do say...

there's no indication that Alpha 1 knew of the Ancient recordings, except for the possibility that his statement 'I know what they knew' means he knew of the Ancient recordings.

...which is much more equitable.

[Black Wolf]

Heh, this is what you get for making stuff up within a sci-fi universe - the world's most obsessively accurate fans.

FWIW, I favour the simpler, less quasi-mystical (and yes, I know that you guys don't like that term) approach - Ash is freaked because his entire patrol got wiped out by invincible ships, the Ancients cutscenes were storytelling tools for the player's benefits, and didn't exist in-universe at all (with the same data coming out of archaeological digs, I guess), and all of the Fs1 cutscenes being full of metaphor and descriptive inaccuracy. But I can applaud the BP team for taking existing canon and coming up with a novel, interesting take on it.

After all, isn't that the core of what every campaign designer ever has done? Getting stroppy because their interpretation doesn't match your own is just hamstringing future interesting interpretations of the existing canon.

[Shivan Hunter]

and all of the Fs1 cutscenes being full of metaphor and descriptive inaccuracy

I agree with all of your post except this part, simply because taking the Ancients cutscenes at face value is much more interesting than the alternative (for instance, the famous conversation in #bp that I missed about the Ancients being a very weird culture since they spanned a sizeable portion of the galaxy before developing FTL travel). And it's not really necessary, as the Ancients cutscenes (as exposition for the player) make sense by themselves within FS canon.

[Black Wolf]

and all of the Fs1 cutscenes being full of metaphor and descriptive inaccuracy

I agree with all of your post except this part, simply because taking the Ancients cutscenes at face value is much more interesting than the alternative (for instance, the famous conversation in #bp that I missed about the Ancients being a very weird culture since they spanned a sizeable portion of the galaxy before developing FTL travel). And it's not really necessary, as the Ancients cutscenes (as exposition for the player) make sense by themselves within FS canon.

Except for the fact that we don't know exactly how big the ancient empire was. We know they undertook slower than light travel for thousands of years, but given the velocities involved that doesn't necessarily get you very far. We also know they used subspace to travel to at least one galaxy outside the Milky Way. So, yeah, you could interpret that as something really big, really weird - or relatively limited, and just unusually long lived. Both can be justified from the existing data. Which is a good thing!

[redsniper]

Getting stroppy because their interpretation doesn't match your own is just hamstringing future interesting interpretations of the existing canon.

Well yeah, exactly. I hope we can pile up enough pedantic negative comments about how BP doesn't fit MY VISION of FS, so that these bozos will finally just give up and stop plaguing us with their mystical Hindu crystal-alien drivel. Right?

[Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"]