[manwiththemachinegun]

I don't really understand how the sentiments you're expressing conflict with the post you're responding to.

Not so much conflict as point out at the end of the day, FS2 is a space sim where you fly around and blow up enemy ships. I'd like Blue Planet to have an eventual conclusion, even if it was a Fredded cutscene or a novel or the like. I would say there is an expectation of some form of catharsis for the player, since BP is essentially positioning itself as the "final" chapter of Freespace, I'd like to see some hope of the Shivan conflict end without obliteration for humanity. But I also think blind submission to Shivan meddling in our material universe to be opposed absolutely.

In short, I believe the GTVA is correct in their assessment, if flawed in their execution. BP lore is also incredibly spread out (good but spread out) and diffuse across a dozen short stories, the campaigns, and hidden dialogue, so apologies if I'm missing key details.

[JoeBalls]

To breathe a little life into the forum:

- Does the SSJ Kalki destroy the Vishnan Sacred Keeper? Is this the reason for the Vishnans being "dead" in BP3?
- Were the Comm Nodes used to relay the signal from the ken anima?
- Where does the Santhanas fleet jump? Was the primary reason to supernova Capella to contain the GD?

[Iain Baker]

Hi all!

I have read through Granite Hunter again, and I think I have worked out what most of the cryptic language and code-words refer to. However there are two which I'm stuck on. These being

'The Remillard Receipts.'

and

'SADABA YEAR'

Can anyone shed any light on what these are referring to?

Cheers :-)

[QuakeIV]

Wasn't sadaba year Transcend? (as in the campaign)

[Iain Baker]

Wasn't sadaba year Transcend? (as in the campaign)

Possibly. I have heard some people suggest it relates to Sync. If memory serves, the sync drive takes the flotilla to somewhere where some Vasudans are openly hostile to you, whereas some are friendly (or at least neutral) to you whilst being hostile to the other Vasudans. IIR it doesn't explain what is happening since being left thinking 'WTF is going on!?' is kinda the point in Sync (and Transcend).

However, since we now know that the multiverse theory is true (within FreeSpace at least), we can perhaps better understand what was happening in Sync. I suspect what the sync drive actually did (unintentionally, at least on the part of the humans*) is take the flotilla to one of these alternate realities. In that reality perhaps the HoL were not defeated militarily, and were continuing their civil war against the GTA / PVN / GTVA etc. That would explain why some Vasudans are hostile to both the Terran flotilla and to the Vasudans who were not hostile to you. These aggressors being the HoL. It has been a long time since I played Sync and I only played it once, so I might be misremembering somewhat. I feel another play-though coming along 

*Of course this does beg the question "Was it actually an accident?" Considering t2's apparent ability and willingness to pull fleets from one 'manifold' to the next during 'unusual' hyperspace jumps, could the events of Sync have been deliberately engineered? Could it have been a 'dry run' to test if they could move ships and their squishy human crews from one manifold to another without damaging said ships and crews, (perhaps both physiologically and mentally)? Could Sync have been t2's 'warm up' for what they would later do with the 14 Battle Group?

Now there is some juicy head canon material   

[QuakeIV]

I'd be inclined to speculate the Sync manifold branched off a fair bit earlier than you suppose.  The translator software was having a hard time with the Vasudan.  It could do it, but it wasn't totally reliable.  Kindof implies IMO that the branch ocurred a long time before the Great War and had significant impact to the point that the Vasudan language was noticeably different.  Certainly the Vasudan death cult things that formed the HOL would still be around (since afaik thats thousands of years old), so I would suppose that the hostile vasudans are basically in fact HOL as you mentioned.

[Iain Baker]

I'd be inclined to speculate the Sync manifold branched off a fair bit earlier than you suppose.  The translator software was having a hard time with the Vasudan.  It could do it, but it wasn't totally reliable.  Kindof implies IMO that the branch ocurred a long time before the Great War and had significant impact to the point that the Vasudan language was noticeably different.  Certainly the Vasudan death cult things that formed the HOL would still be around (since afaik thats thousands of years old), so I would suppose that the hostile vasudans are basically in fact HOL as you mentioned.

Oooh, I had forgotten about that. Definitely gonna have to play it again when I get done with replaying Derelict :-)

[Iain Baker]

The BP release thread stated that ..."A story that was named 'the best military science fiction of the year' in 2014."   

Can anyone provide a source for this, a link, info about which publication named it as such etc. so that I may cite it? Is this it? https://www.amazon.com/Military-Adventure-Science-Fiction-Stories-ebook/dp/B00WXL8UJM

(I see Seth Dickinson is listed as one of the contributors)


Am I right in thinking it was named the best military science fiction of the year for sci-fi in general, not just in video games? The reason I am asking is because I'm writing an article for Exclusively Games. The theme of the article is that despite what many members of the non video game playing public and the mainstream media seem to think, the storytelling in some videogames is on par with that of a blockbuster movie, live theatre play or best selling novel. I am including BP as one of the examples. It would help the article's argument greatly if I could actually cite something as evidence 

[The E]

The BP release thread stated that ..."A story that was named 'the best military science fiction of the year' in 2014."   

Can anyone provide a source for this, a link, info about which publication named it as such etc. so that I may cite it? Is this it? https://www.amazon.com/Military-Adventure-Science-Fiction-Stories-ebook/dp/B00WXL8UJM

Yes, that's the collection Morrigan in the Sunglare got featured in (Morrigan in Shadow was featured in the 2015 collection).

Am I right in thinking it was named the best military science fiction of the year for sci-fi in general, not just in video games? The reason I am asking is because I'm writing an article for Exclusively Games. The theme of the article is that despite what many members of the non video game playing public and the mainstream media seem to think, the storytelling in some videogames is on par with that of a blockbuster movie, live theatre play or best selling novel. I am including BP as one of the examples. It would help the article's argument greatly if I could actually cite something as evidence 

In this case, it is the Morrigan stories that got the nod, not BP or War in Heaven as a whole. While Morrigan is obviously an offshoot/remix of War in Heaven, that is all it is. The "The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera" collection is explicitly a short story collection, it should not be considered an authoritative source of what the best MilSF and Space Opera was in the SF space overall in those years (2014 and 2015, respectively).

[Nightmare]

The "The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera" collection is explicitly a short story collection, it should not be considered an authoritative source of what the best MilSF and Space Opera was in the SF space overall in those years (2014 and 2015, respectively).

Still it's a good title to make some PR with.

[The E]

Oh, definitely. And given that it's something that's coming from Baen, it's definitely something to take serious; they do know their milSF over there.

[Iain Baker]

Hi all!

A few questions re Shivan construction methods.

Am I right in thinking they 'coalesce' their ships out of the matter swirling around the accretion discs of black holes?

Can they do likewise from protoplanetary disks and the like?

Can they atomise asteroids etc. and coalesce ships etc. out of this?

How does the coalescing process work? What are its limitations?

Does the process require something to coalesce around to get it started (like how rain requires a dust particle or similar for the water vapour to precipitate out onto?)

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the process does not involve nanites or similar, is this correct?

Does the process require a ship or device to do this, for example some form of resource collector / factory ship to suck up the matter and process it into technology?

Are the shivan organism themselves created by the same process? Do the ships grow their own crew as per Rorschach in blindsight?


My main questions relate to the abilities and limits of this process.

How quickly can they create a new ship via this method?

Does the complexity of the craft affect this i.e. a Dragon vs a Basilisk. Does its size?  Is there a limit to how many new ships they can coalesce at once?

How does this compare to whatever method the Vishnans use to make their ships?

If they are able to generate new ships in near real time, and there is no hard upper limit to the number of ships they can generate at once,  then they could beat almost any opponent by sheer attrition. Is that what the BP team were aiming for with the Shivans, an enemy you can beat tactically but never strategically? This would make for some very interesting 'who would win' thought experiments, such as BP Shivans vs Mass Effect Reapers, BSG Cylons, Shadows / Vorlons / Minbari from B5 etc etc.

[DefCynodont119]

Is there any NEM.NOW info for the Scorpion and Shaitan?

[DefCynodont119]

Does Battuta still like us?

 

[General Battuta]

Yes sorry I'm just on deadline

[manwiththemachinegun]

Hi all!

A few questions re Shivan construction methods.

Am I right in thinking they 'coalesce' their ships out of the matter swirling around the accretion discs of black holes?

Can they do likewise from protoplanetary disks and the like?

Can they atomise asteroids etc. and coalesce ships etc. out of this?

How does the coalescing process work? What are its limitations?

Does the process require something to coalesce around to get it started (like how rain requires a dust particle or similar for the water vapour to precipitate out onto?)

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the process does not involve nanites or similar, is this correct?

Does the process require a ship or device to do this, for example some form of resource collector / factory ship to suck up the matter and process it into technology?

Are the shivan organism themselves created by the same process? Do the ships grow their own crew as per Rorschach in blindsight?


My main questions relate to the abilities and limits of this process.

How quickly can they create a new ship via this method?

Does the complexity of the craft affect this i.e. a Dragon vs a Basilisk. Does its size?  Is there a limit to how many new ships they can coalesce at once?

How does this compare to whatever method the Vishnans use to make their ships?

If they are able to generate new ships in near real time, and there is no hard upper limit to the number of ships they can generate at once,  then they could beat almost any opponent by sheer attrition. Is that what the BP team were aiming for with the Shivans, an enemy you can beat tactically but never strategically? This would make for some very interesting 'who would win' thought experiments, such as BP Shivans vs Mass Effect Reapers, BSG Cylons, Shadows / Vorlons / Minbari from B5 etc etc.

I get the sense from BP at least the Shivans operate on a very different time scale to other races. They probably could, and I'm sure many curious fleets were quickly eradicated almost as a matter of reflex, but in general they don't seem to plan beyond a very narrow set of parameters. There's a massive intelligence behind it, but you get the sense most Shivan fleets aren't really even "awake". They're too busy running their protocols, and for the most part have long since swept aside any resistance to their plans.

[Damage]

Would Command authorize an expedition into N362 to attempt to access the Knossos there?  Or would they prefer to wait until the situation in Sol has stabilized?

Given the fleet assets being moved into Sol, which are probably leaving other portions of the Alliance systems less well-defended, it seems like a bad idea that might draw unwanted attention combined with seriously bad timing.

Would GTI launch that expedition anyway?

[Iain Baker]

Would Command authorize an expedition into N362 to attempt to access the Knossos there?  Or would they prefer to wait until the situation in Sol has stabilized?

Given the fleet assets being moved into Sol, which are probably leaving other portions of the Alliance systems less well-defended, it seems like a bad idea that might draw unwanted attention combined with seriously bad timing.

Would GTI launch that expedition anyway?

Well the GTI appear to excel at bad ideas, so, yeah, probably 

[General Battuta]

Would Command authorize an expedition into N362 to attempt to access the Knossos there?  Or would they prefer to wait until the situation in Sol has stabilized?

This is actually part of the plot for BP3!

[rubixcube]

What exactly is the main motivation behind Shivan omnicide this time round? Is it due to the Sol-GTVA war? Or because they're worried Ubuntu (+ the Vasudan's guiding philosophy) will bring forth manifold necrosis/Great Darkness?