[headdie]

The thing about blowing up Capella being the Shivans' sole goal is why would they need the GTVA to come into their house to do it? If they wanted it blown up it would have been blown up long before.

Only if they had access to it at a stage when the star is useful, if that happened after the closing of the GD-Nebula portal then they needed us to reactivate it if the lucifer fleet was unable to

[Lorric]

The thing about blowing up Capella being the Shivans' sole goal is why would they need the GTVA to come into their house to do it? If they wanted it blown up it would have been blown up long before.

Only if they had access to it at a stage when the star is useful, if that happened after the closing of the GD-Nebula portal then they needed us to reactivate it if the lucifer fleet was unable to

Why wouldn't the Shivans be able to open their own the knossos?

Just as Luis really dislikes my idea about the Shivans folding, I probably dislike the idea of the Shivans solely wanting to nova Capella and having no interest in us in the same way.

I should probably clarify a little more on my idea for why the Shivans could fold the hand.

If the Juggernaut is their best ship, and they've met a seemingly aggressive and unknown race with the capability of destroying it, an unknown race they have no interest in fighting, a conflict they didn't start, what is best? Send in all Juggernauts and risk the possibility of juggernauts and colossuses destroying each other all over the place in a costly war that they don't want, or worse, an even greater class of enemy ship arriving and destroying the juggernauts, risking the destruction of all the Shivans, or to put a stop to the conflict by destroying the Capella star?

[AdmiralRalwood]

Why wouldn't the Shivans be able to open their own knossos?

Knossos is Ancient technology, not Shivan.

[Lorric]

Why wouldn't the Shivans be able to open their own knossos?

Knossos is Ancient technology, not Shivan.

You just beat me to correcting it.

Sorry for the mistake.

[headdie]

The thing about blowing up Capella being the Shivans' sole goal is why would they need the GTVA to come into their house to do it? If they wanted it blown up it would have been blown up long before.

Only if they had access to it at a stage when the star is useful, if that happened after the closing of the GD-Nebula portal then they needed us to reactivate it if the lucifer fleet was unable to

Why wouldn't the Shivans be able to open their own knossos?


Just as Luis really dislikes my idea about the Shivans folding, I probably dislike the idea of the Shivans solely wanting to nova Capella and having no interest in us in the same way.

I should probably clarify a little more on my idea for why the Shivans could fold the hand.

If the Juggernaut is their best ship, and they've met a seemingly aggressive and unknown race with the capability of destroying it, an unknown race they have no interest in fighting, a conflict they didn't start, what is best? Send in all Juggernauts and risk the possibility of juggernauts and colossuses destroying each other all over the place in a costly war that they don't want, or worse, an even greater class of enemy ship arriving and destroying the juggernauts, risking the destruction of all the Shivans, or to put a stop to the conflict by destroying the Capella star?

For starters the Knossos is stated in game as being based on ancient technology with no shivan indicators. - corrected
Also just because they fought the ancients dosnt mean they can use their technology

Also most assumptions is the the supernova is a byproduct of the desired effect, what that is though is unknown and thus open to speculation.

Also:
how does destroying capella end the conflict?
why not gamma draconis in that case?

There was something special about Capella's star that met the criteria for a purpose unknown to us, just like the subspace field they were using.

[Lorric]

The thing about blowing up Capella being the Shivans' sole goal is why would they need the GTVA to come into their house to do it? If they wanted it blown up it would have been blown up long before.

Only if they had access to it at a stage when the star is useful, if that happened after the closing of the GD-Nebula portal then they needed us to reactivate it if the lucifer fleet was unable to

Why wouldn't the Shivans be able to open their own knossos? - corrected
 - also just because they fought the ancients doesn't mean they can use ancient technology or have any capability to do so

Just as Luis really dislikes my idea about the Shivans folding, I probably dislike the idea of the Shivans solely wanting to nova Capella and having no interest in us in the same way.

I should probably clarify a little more on my idea for why the Shivans could fold the hand.

If the Juggernaut is their best ship, and they've met a seemingly aggressive and unknown race with the capability of destroying it, an unknown race they have no interest in fighting, a conflict they didn't start, what is best? Send in all Juggernauts and risk the possibility of juggernauts and colossuses destroying each other all over the place in a costly war that they don't want, or worse, an even greater class of enemy ship arriving and destroying the juggernauts, risking the destruction of all the Shivans, or to put a stop to the conflict by destroying the Capella star?

For starters the Knossos is stated in game as being based on ancient technology with no shivan indicators.

Also most assumptions is the the supernova is a byproduct of the desired effect, what that is though is unknown and thus open to speculation.

Also:
how does destroying capella end the conflict?
why not gamma draconis in that case?

There was something special about Capella's star that met the criteria for a purpose unknown to us, just like the subspace field they were using.

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

I also wondered why they didn't just nova Gamma Draconis. Did they want to strike a powerful blow against the GTVA to deter the GTVA from further conflict were the three species to meet again?

I can get on board with the idea of the Shivans having a purpose beyond destruction in Capella. I got on board with it in Rheyah's campaign that he's building where it's part of a greater design the Shivans have for us.

It's just hard to get behind the Shivans wanting to destroy Capella all along when they appear to be reacting to us. If they had come out of the portal themselves and we hadn't been the ones to open it up, then that would be a whole different story.

[AdmiralRalwood]

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

We know the Shivans know how to travel through Knossos portals; that's all we know, and that's not the same thing as knowing how to activate a dormant one.

[Lorric]

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

We know the Shivans know how to travel through Knossos portals; that's all we know, and that's not the same thing as knowing how to activate a dormant one.

Yes it is of course possible they don't know how to do that. But it didn't take us long to do it and the Shivans are much more advanced than we are. And they had a presence inside the nebula around it.

[AdmiralRalwood]

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

We know the Shivans know how to travel through Knossos portals; that's all we know, and that's not the same thing as knowing how to activate a dormant one.

Yes it is of course possible they don't know how to do that. But it didn't take us long to do it and the Shivans are much more advanced than we are. And they had a presence inside the nebula around it.

Making a lot of assumptions about how Shivan intelligence functions, there.

[headdie]

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

We know the Shivans know how to travel through Knossos portals; that's all we know, and that's not the same thing as knowing how to activate a dormant one.

Yes it is of course possible they don't know how to do that. But it didn't take us long to do it and the Shivans are much more advanced than we are. And they had a presence inside the nebula around it.

That assumes they can
1) Learn Alien Technology
2) Have any concept of using other people's technology

[Lorric]

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

We know the Shivans know how to travel through Knossos portals; that's all we know, and that's not the same thing as knowing how to activate a dormant one.

Yes it is of course possible they don't know how to do that. But it didn't take us long to do it and the Shivans are much more advanced than we are. And they had a presence inside the nebula around it.

That assumes they can
1) Learn Alien Technology
2) Have any concept of using other people's technology

It seems a reasonable assumption. They can supernova a star and destroy the race which built the portals but they can't open a portal.

[headdie]

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

We know the Shivans know how to travel through Knossos portals; that's all we know, and that's not the same thing as knowing how to activate a dormant one.

Yes it is of course possible they don't know how to do that. But it didn't take us long to do it and the Shivans are much more advanced than we are. And they had a presence inside the nebula around it.

That assumes they can
1) Learn Alien Technology
2) Have any concept of using other people's technology

It seems a reasonable assumption. They can supernova a star and destroy the race which built the portals but they can't open a portal.

I fail to see the correlation

[Lorric]

We know the Shivans know how to use the Knossos portals and have had access to them for thousands of years, and we can just come along and open one up, so I'm sure the Shivans can do it too.

We know the Shivans know how to travel through Knossos portals; that's all we know, and that's not the same thing as knowing how to activate a dormant one.

Yes it is of course possible they don't know how to do that. But it didn't take us long to do it and the Shivans are much more advanced than we are. And they had a presence inside the nebula around it.

That assumes they can
1) Learn Alien Technology
2) Have any concept of using other people's technology

It seems a reasonable assumption. They can supernova a star and destroy the race which built the portals but they can't open a portal.

I fail to see the correlation

If you want me to prove absolutely that the Shivans would know how to open the portal, I can't do that. But we certainly know they know how to use them.

But do you really think it's more likely that the Shivans don't know how to open the portal than that they do know how to open the portal? I think it's very unlikely that they don't know how to open the portal. Unlikely enough that I have real problems with suspension of disbelief of any theory that goes with the Shivans always wanted to nova Capella for whatever reason but they couldn't because they couldn't use the knossos when we know what they can do, and we know that opening the knossos was no problem for our young race.

[headdie]

Here is the thing, being able to innovate internally is different to being able to conceive of let alone actually managing to reverse engineer alien technology.

Also we dont know if the shivans even innovated their own technology as there is suggestions that they may be a constructed race, potentially granted the tech that they use by another race for undetermined purposes.

As Battua said, we have to be careful when using Human reference points when dealing with a race which is supposed to be totally alien in operation

[Lorric]

Also we dont know if the shivans even innovated their own technology as there is suggestions that they may be a constructed race, potentially granted the tech that they use by another race for undetermined purposes.

Now that's a salient point. There's something I could really get behind.

EDIT: Your whole post is salient, but that part in particular.

[Megawolf492]

Well first off, Bosch learned how to turn on the portal from the Ancient's themselves (well, their remains, that is). If we/Bosch just stumbled on the deactivated portal with no clue whatsoever on what it was, there is a good chance that we couldn't activate it either.

Second, Bosch found the information (AFAIK) on planets. Shivans aren't very fond of planets, so I doubt they would look for or find the remains. Especially on one (or more) they thought they glassed.

Lastly, if we take the "Trapped Lucifer Fleet" theory as fact, then most of the Shivans that had access to the actual portal would be military personnel. They would have less of a chance to figure out the portal than whatever scientists/engineers the Shivans would have. That is, even if they wanted to.


Now about the whole "why did the Shivans blow up Capella?" question. If the Shivans knew we were coming, they'd have the Sathanas fleet waiting for us, so that's not it. So they were reacting to us showing up unexpectedly in the nebula.

First, they don't know how powerful we are (if we continue to apply the Trapped Lucifer Fleet scenario). I'm not saying it's a question of "Will these new enemies be able to destroy us?" as much as it is "How many ships do we need to send to destroy them?". Also, the nebula system is at least two (Knossos) jumps away from wherever they come from. It's probably not very easy (or quick) to send 80 Juggernauts anywhere. So only once the Ravana and first Sathanas were destroyed did the Shivans knew they had to send in "everything". And even then it took a while.

[Trivial Psychic]

There is one point that no one seems have identified.  The Trinity seems to have been the ship that Bosch sent to activate the Knossos in Gamma Draconis, but what about the other two that we've seen.  How long have they been active?  Was it the Trinity which activated those as well using navigational data left behind by the Ancients to know where in the nebula to find Knossos 2?  If it was only the one in Gamma Draconis that shut down after centuries of being active, what kept the other 2 active?  Did the Shivans manage to dissect the technology enough to find a way to sustain the others over the millennia?  If they did, why did they allow the one in Gamma Draconis to shut down?  Certainly the Shivans couldn't have reactivated the other 2 themselves, as they are both on the nearside, and it seems that you can't reactivate one from the far side, otherwise they'd have been able to activate the Gamma Draconis portal themselves.

Only 2 theories seem to make sense to me.  The first one supports the idea that the Lucifer fleet is remnants of the original fleet which destroyed the Ancients, and the Ancients managed to cut off their withdrawal afterwards by shutting down the Gamma Draconis portal themselves, before the Lucifer fleet destroyed them.  The remnants then wandered around trying to find a way home and after a certain amount of time they went into sleep mode somewhere beyond Ross 128 until FS1.  The other 2 Knossos remained active.  This further supports the theory that Shivan military units don't know how to use alien tech, otherwise they'd have been able to reactivate the Knossos after wiping out the Ancients.  However, if we believe that the Shivans may have some science detachments, then they have been responsible for dissecting the Knossos tech enough to keep the portals active over the millennia.  That said, if they can decipher alien tech that much, why couldn't they completely reverse-engineer the Knossos and build one of their own and reactivate the node leading to Gamma Draconis?  I can think of only 2 possibilities.  The first is that they couldn't find the node's location after it was shut down.  The second is that somehow having an inactive Knossos on the other end prevented any Knossos on the nebular side from being able to function... like a dead-bolt or something.  Of course, if we assume that Knossos devices can remain active indefinitely, then we can completely bypass arguments that the Shivans can reverse-engineer alien tech.

The second theory which attempts to explain the activation of the other 2 Knossos devices, supposes that the GTI somehow came across them prior to FS1 and it is through these that the Lucifer fleet came.  That would mean that there is another node leading out of the nebula to our side, or perhaps another Knossos.  BP supposes that one is located in N362, so perhaps this node leads into the nebula as well.

[Mars]

Maybe they were never deactivated? The Ancients may have shut down the Gamma Draconis - Nebula node, but not had the ability to shut down the Nebula - Binary node or the Binary - ????? node

[Megawolf492]

The first one supports the idea that the Lucifer fleet is remnants of the original fleet which destroyed the Ancients, and the Ancients managed to cut off their withdrawal afterwards by shutting down the Gamma Draconis portal themselves, before the Lucifer fleet destroyed them.  The remnants then wandered around trying to find a way home and after a certain amount of time they went into sleep mode somewhere beyond Ross 128 until FS1.  The other 2 Knossos remained active.  This further supports the theory that Shivan military units don't know how to use alien tech, otherwise they'd have been able to reactivate the Knossos after wiping out the Ancients.  However, if we believe that the Shivans may have some science detachments, then they have been responsible for dissecting the Knossos tech enough to keep the portals active over the millennia.

That is exactly what I (and probably others) call the "Trapped Lucifer Fleet" theory. I believe that they didn't know how to reactivate it because they didn't have the information we had at the end of FS1. Particularly, the Shivans wouldn't go to a planet to find such information, especially one they just destroyed. There is also the possibility that the Shivans didn't mind being separated.

[deathspeed]

There is also the possibility that the Shivans didn't mind being separated.

Kinda like a computer subroutine that is never called; just lying there dormant, unknowing, uncaring, unaware, until something triggers it.