[General Battuta]

I think Valrog is falling prey to anthropocentric assumptions.

[Vrets]

I think Valrog is falling prey to anthropocentric assumptions.

I hate you for using that blasted word. "Anthropocentric"...I want to throw myself down a mineshaft. I WILL TRANSLATE.

The real might of the Shivans was in their enormous economy, established over thousands of years, evidenced by their possession of a fleet of Juggernaughts (the Colossus, in comparison took the Terrans and the Vasudans 20 years to build).

In other words, don't assume that humans have the best-practices on ship construction. It took 20 years for us to build the Colossus. It may not take nearly as long for the Shivans to build comparable warships.

The GTI was not close on shielded capships. The GTVA buried some of the crazier GTI research projects but no waaay would they discard capship shielding. Nevertheless, the GTA was pretty badass in how quickly it closed the tech gap with the Shivans.

Humans are the best, nothing can stop us from eventually accomplishing the impossible at the last minute after a series of seemingly endless self-inflicted setbacks (such as pointless wars with our neighbors, executing intellectual peace-makers, and back-stabbing our own people at the worst possible moment for no reason).

[NGTM-1R]

The GTI was not close on shielded capships. The GTVA buried some of the crazier GTI research projects but no waaay would they discard capship shielding.

Unless it's not useful anymore. We have no real evidence that the Lucifer's shielding would hold up against more modern weaponry.

[Vrets]

Unless it's not useful anymore. We have no real evidence that the Lucifer's shielding would hold up against more modern weaponry.

I guess, but we also have no real evidence that it would not. Unless by "modern weaponry" you refer only to beam cannons; but, if this is the case, the shielding would still provide protection from enemy fighters and bombers (the greatest overall threat to any destroyer).

[NGTM-1R]

I was actually thinking of bombs, instead.

Though not knowing how the Lucifer's shield works, or if it works in the same fashion as any other shields (circumstantial evidence says no), then there's no guarantee it's not vulnerable to primaries either because it can be neutralized by exterior forces or attacked in some novel way different from other shields.

[Valrog]

In other words, don't assume that humans have the best-practices on ship construction. It took 20 years for us to build the Colossus. It may not take nearly as long for the Shivans to build comparable warships.

So, you don't believe that their empire and economy were larger than that of the Terrans and Vasudans?

The GTI was not close on shielded capships. The GTVA buried some of the crazier GTI research projects but no waaay would they discard capship shielding.

From the dialog between the pilots in-game and the purpose of the Colossus, I get the feeling that beam cannons would rip through the shields pretty quick. That, coupled with the cost of shielding a target of that size, simply made it not worth the cost. That's a little similar to what happened with modern fighters - they have no armor; unlike the old IL-sturmovik, they rely on offensive capability.

[Valrog]

You're assuming we did get more than just a tiny glimpse of their magnitude. The second incursion could have been merely a second-rate shivan contractor building a highway with some 80 space excavators that apparently got some small trouble with local wildlife.

I was inferring the age of their civilization from their level of technology, not from their number of ships.

For example, if they had ripped the Terran and Vasudan planets apart gravitationally without entering their systems, or killed every Terran and Vasudan everywhere by erasing them from the timeline, then they would clearly be billions of years more advanced. On the other hand, if their technological level could be matched in just a few years by species that were in space for just 300 years , then it's likely that they're not.

[Valrog]

I think Valrog is falling prey to anthropocentric assumptions.

I was, but after taking a tablet, I feel much better. 

[Vrets]

So, you don't believe that their empire and economy were larger than the Terrans and Vasudans?

How did you get that from what I wrote?

It took 20 years for us to build the Colossus. It may not take nearly as long for the Shivans to build comparable warships.

More efficient ship-building does not imply smaller economy. Maybe the Shivans have both scale and efficiency...oooh, scary! I forget what my original point was with this...maybe I was challenging the (human) concept of mass production being associated with a physically huge economy.

From the dialog between the pilots in-game and the purpose of the Colossus, I get the feeling that beam cannons would rip through the shields pretty quick. That, coupled with the cost of shielding a target of that size, simply made it not worth the cost. That's a little similar to what happened with modern fighters - they have no armor; unlike the old IL-sturmovik, they rely on offensive capability.

Both you and NGTM-1R make a good argument on this point; however, you'd think that at least a few ships would have capship shielding if it were possible. It has obvious applications in scenarios where the greatest threat is strikecraft attack. Or maybe modern bombs pierce shields...except, oh wait, they don't (they damage but do not pierce fighter shields).

Oh, face it. The humans/vasudans never developed capship shields. Give it up, GTI apologists! They never came close.

[Luis Dias]

You're assuming we did get more than just a tiny glimpse of their magnitude. The second incursion could have been merely a second-rate shivan contractor building a highway with some 80 space excavators that apparently got some small trouble with local wildlife.

I was inferring the age of their civilization from their level of technology, not from their number of ships.

For example, if they had ripped the Terran and Vasudan planets apart gravitationally without entering their systems, or killed every Terran and Vasudan everywhere by erasing them from the timeline, then they would clearly be billions of years more advanced. On the other hand, if their technological level could be matched in just a few years by species that were in space for just 300 years , then it's likely that they're not.

Again, you're assuming that the shivans' intentions or strategies should be obviously those. I'm not as convinced. I think that if you have a species that does not care about individual losses of ships that much (no "real lifes" being lost), a technological strategy that hides their true capabilities might be the best in the long run, for it prevents guerrilla tactics from the lower species, it encourages standard and classic tech developments from these lower species, i.e. wasting resources on Collossus, etc., rather than spending resources in unconventional strategies that could, by chance, survive a stricter "shock and awe" shivan strategy. They merely present something slightly bigger and better than what they detect lower species having, so that they (1) believe they can perhaps win them, (2) never get a real glmpse of their true technology, (3) have sufficient firepower to bring about their objectives.

IF your economy is sufficiently enormous and no "real" shivan lifes were lost, then ask yourself, what have the shivans really lost in both wars?

And do bear in mind that the biggest take from FS2 was how they really don't care about humans and vasudans, and that all we got from them was a kind of a sideshow. It could even be true that we haven't ever really seen their actual war fleet. The purpose of the "Vogon theory" is to bring some of Douglas Adam's ideas of scales to this. One could even think about that crazy meganormous fleet that went to destroy earth and its inhabitants and was immediately eaten by a dog on arrival.

[NGTM-1R]

Matching their strength and beating them with similar weapons will inevitably be more wasteful than applying overwhelming force. You're arguing nothing is really being lost, but waste is still waste even if it's somehow "negligible" (which is something we don't know for sure). You're positing a scenario in which it prevents certain threats, but the scenario you describe would mean those threats are meaningless. If the Shivans could have buried the GTA underneath 80+ Sathanas then there is no winning scenario. There's no surviving scenario. No strategy, no matter how unconventional, could have coped with that disparity of force. No guerrilla resistance would be possible as everything would have been overrun in weeks, if not days. (That's kind of the point of FS2's ending, in fact.)

The argument you're making is circularly defeating. To have the resources to engage in this strategy means that the Shivans have more than enough resources to obviate any need for it.

(As to what it's cost the Shivans they can't get back, the answer is obvious; it's cost them time. Decades worth. No matter how supposedly godlike, that's still significant; it changed conditions on the ground significantly between FS1 and FS2 and it almost inevitably would for any spacefaring race, including the Shivans themselves unless they've run up against some kind of hard technical limit.)

[Valrog]

More efficient ship-building does not imply smaller economy. Maybe the Shivans have both scale and efficiency...oooh, scary! I forget what my original point was with this...maybe I was challenging the (human) concept of mass production being associated with a physically huge economy.

If my tribe has mostly wood tools and 1 stone tool, and your tribe has 80 stone tools, that merely suggests that your tribe is bigger. It does not suggest that you are much more advanced technologically. If you're attacking with "magic" mushroom clouds and "magic" M16 arrows, then, yes, your tribe would be more advanced.

Both you and NGTM-1R make a good argument on this point; however, you'd think that at least a few ships would have capship shielding if it were possible. It has obvious applications in scenarios where the greatest threat is strikecraft attack. Or maybe modern bombs pierce shields...except, oh wait, they don't (they damage but do not pierce fighter shields).

Oh, face it. The humans/vasudans never developed capship shields. Give it up, GTI apologists! They never came close.

I think you're missing the point that I was making. I'm not even interested in debating whether they already knew how to make the shields and it just took time to build them large enough for a capital ship or whether they needed 5 years of research and then decided it wasn't worth it, since that's not relevant.

Clearly, nobody in their right minds would start developing a product that would take billions of years to complete!  The difference between 5 years and 20 billion years is 9 orders of magnitude.

Therefore, for the GTI/GTVA, that were in space for just 300 years, to be technologically comparable to the Shivans, that would mean that the Shivans could not have been that advanced and could not have been the dominant species in the universe. They were likely dominant in the same galaxy and perhaps a few others.

[Makhpella]

Therefore, for the GTI/GTVA, that were in space for just 300 years, to be technologically comparable to the Shivans, that would mean that the Shivans could not have been that advanced and could not have been the dominant species in the universe. They were likely dominant in the same galaxy and perhaps a few others.

Sorry for barging in like this. It's just...You seem to be forgetting about one other empire the Shivans annihilated - the Ancients. It's safe to assume they were quite more advanced than the GTVA during the Second Incursion, yet they were exterminated in a matter of what, weeks, months? Don't remember the cutscenes that well. It's also never mentioned in canon IIRC, that the Shivans would have some sort of universal/galactic-spanning empire.

Anyway, allow me to bring another comparison to the conversation. The Bentusi and the First Hiigaran empire. After destroying the Hiigaran fleet that was after their First Core, the Bentusi mostly demilitarized their vessels. Who can say the Shivans hadn't done the same thing after eliminating the Ancients? Who can say they weren't watching the Terran and Vasudan races, trying to (mostly) match their current technological level? Hell, the Shivans could've been playing Spore all along, the Lucifer fleet being the totem the player can launch to help other races advance. To what end? 'Do I look like a Shivan to you?'

Or we could play Admiral Khafre, who was overjoyed after the Colossus had taken down one juggernaut, then he got blasted to pieces, then the Colossus was obliterated, to show the GTVA that they're not the only ones who can build 6km long vessels, then the juggernauts blew up a star because grown-ups have to go to work, they can't keep playing with children.

On a more serious note, I like BP's take on the Capella explosion. They were needed elsewhere, so they were recalled, probably to be fit with more advanced weaponry to fight other err.. pests.

[Valrog]

You seem to be forgetting about one other empire the Shivans annihilated - the Ancients. It's safe to assume they were quite more advanced than the GTVA during the Second Incursion, yet they were exterminated in a matter of what, weeks, months?

I'm not sure if the Ancients were much more advanced than the GTVA by the end of Freespace 2, or even if they were more advanced at all. The Ancients were able to build Knossos portals, but they couldn't build beam cannons like the GTVA, or communicate with the Shivans like the NTF, for e.g. Considering that the only tech we know they had that the GTVA didn't was the Knossos portals, and that the GTVA eventually learns to build them, it's likely that the GTVA surpassed the Ancients technologically by the end of Freespace 2.

Anyway, allow me to bring another comparison to the conversation. The Bentusi and the First Hiigaran empire. After destroying the Hiigaran fleet that was after their First Core, the Bentusi mostly demilitarized their vessels. Who can say the Shivans hadn't done the same thing after eliminating the Ancients? Who can say they weren't watching the Terran and Vasudan races, trying to (mostly) match their current technological level? Hell, the Shivans could've been playing Spore all along, the Lucifer fleet being the totem the player can launch to help other races advance. To what end? 'Do I look like a Shivan to you?'

Let me invoke Ockham's Razor and say that a hypothesis that doesn't unnecessarily assume that the Shivans demilitarized after exterminating the Ancients is preferable to one that doesn't make this assumption. There's nothing to back this theory and the genocidal nature of the Shivans even conflicts with the theory of their disarmament.

On a more serious note, I like BP's take on the Capella explosion. They were needed elsewhere, so they were recalled, probably to be fit with more advanced weaponry to fight other err.. pests.

Okay, I have to ask: who is this BP that you and some others keep referring to?

[General Battuta]

Blue Planet. Lotta Shivan crunch, including a comprehensive explanation of all the weirdness about Shivan technology, tactics, and force application. Reread the earlier posts in this thread, they good!

[Valrog]

Thanks! I saw some videos. It looks like a very impressive mod, much more than I could've expected from a fan project without a budget. Can't wait to try it out after I finish my current FS2 run.

[Makhpella]

You seem to be forgetting about one other empire the Shivans annihilated - the Ancients. It's safe to assume they were quite more advanced than the GTVA during the Second Incursion, yet they were exterminated in a matter of what, weeks, months?

I'm not sure if the Ancients were much more advanced than the GTVA by the end of Freespace 2, or even if they were more advanced at all. The Ancients were able to build Knossos portals, but they couldn't build beam cannons like the GTVA, or communicate with the Shivans like the NTF, for e.g. Considering that the only tech we know they had that the GTVA didn't was the Knossos portals, and that the GTVA eventually learns to build them, it's likely that the GTVA surpassed the Ancients technologically by the end of Freespace 2.

Allow me to bring up another Ancient cutscene, the fifth. 'The destroyers that darkened our skies like a plague can be harmed.' How many destroyers did the GTA and PVN fight during the Great War? 1 Lucifer and 2 or 3 Demons? Going by that, the Ancients were being attacked by dozens or hundreds of Lucifers, plus who knows how many other capships and their fighter complement.

I must ask something regarding beamz. I've only played 3 campaigns that involved an attack on a Lucifer, other than FS 1. In Awakenings, they used the Pandora's Box to magically (magically meaning I don't remember what they did, some sort of subspace explosion I believe) disable the Lucifer's shield, so that it can be attacked by laser turrets. In Derelict, we have the Nyarlathotep (did I get it right?), an unshielded Lucifer that has regenerative abilities, I guess this one doesn't count. And in AoA you don't get a Lucifer icon when targeting it, but we all know what that impenetrable shield really is, an invulnerable flag. Back to the point, did some Faustus-class SCs discover some sort of fluctuation when the SSL penetrated the shield, or what exactly led them to the belief/certainty that building a 6 km bat equipped with 13 beam cannons would protect the GTVA from a future Lucifer threat?

I only asked that because Valrog assumed the Ancients lacked beam technology, while I assume there's no reason they wouldn't have developped it. They were either outgunned or they may have only discovered it, and they weren't powerful enough, there's any number of theories.

One more question: Do you know what plot holes are? Because, IMO, using one as an argument is seriously not a good idea (ETAK device). Sorry for bringing Mass Effect back in, but the same thing happens in both. Super-advanced aliens encounter more advanced alien life, are exterminated by it then most proof of their existence is destroyed. Some remains of the Protheans were discovered, that VI I can't name right now, just as some data remained after the Ancient massacre, information on how to defeat the Lucifer and the location and activation codes for the Knossos device, and that's only what the player was told about. There's no proof the Ancients were incapable of building their own version of ETAK, but there is proof they would not have attempted to. Ancient cutscenes again: 'Ours was a proud people, and always the strongest.' ; 'When the destroyers came for us, we attacked. Never had we been defeated. They are like the others. Strange, hideous, resisting, fighting.'

Ok, I rambled enough.

[Goober5000]

You seem to be forgetting about one other empire the Shivans annihilated - the Ancients. It's safe to assume they were quite more advanced than the GTVA during the Second Incursion, yet they were exterminated in a matter of what, weeks, months? Don't remember the cutscenes that well.

Volition has stated that, canonically, the Ancients were about at technological parity with the GTVA in FreeSpace 2, except for their much higher knowledge and mastership of subspace.  (And except for their apparent inability to develop or penetrate shield systems, though this was only implied.)

The cutscenes don't put a timeframe on the Shivan war against the Ancients.  It could have been anything from months to years to even decades.

[Makhpella]

You seem to be forgetting about one other empire the Shivans annihilated - the Ancients. It's safe to assume they were quite more advanced than the GTVA during the Second Incursion, yet they were exterminated in a matter of what, weeks, months? Don't remember the cutscenes that well.

Volition has stated that, canonically, the Ancients were about at technological parity with the GTVA in FreeSpace 2, except for their much higher knowledge and mastership of subspace.  (And except for their apparent inability to develop or penetrate shield systems, though this was only implied.)

The cutscenes don't put a timeframe on the Shivan war against the Ancients.  It could have been anything from months to years to even decades.

My mistake then. But if their technology was on par with the GTVA's during FS 2, and their theoretical beams were unable to penetrate shields, the question remains: Why was the Alliance so absolutely certain their beams would be able to destroy Lucys?

[Goober5000]

My mistake then. But if their technology was on par with the GTVA's during FS 2, and their theoretical beams were unable to penetrate shields, the question remains: Why was the Alliance so absolutely certain their beams would be able to destroy Lucys?

"On par with" means that they had about the same (or maybe slightly more) firepower and strategic capabilities.  It doesn't mean they were the same in every respect.  We have no idea if they had beams, for example.

As for the GTVA, that is never explained.  But one possibility is that they extrapolated from the knowledge that beams could penetrate fighter shields.