Author Topic: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)  (Read 141349 times)

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Offline Iain Baker

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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?

Seconded. I would add to that, "If GD/Manifold Necrosis is what the Shivans are concerned about why don't they just exterminate all non-Shivan life and sterilize every planet with life on it or potential to produce life at some later point.

No life, no possibility of life creating a GD. The Shivans do not appear to have any use for non-shivan life, nor do they need planets, and they appear to have no moral problems about wholesale xenocide. Therefore Game Theory would suggest 'kill everything whilst you still can' so why don't they? Is it because they are unable to (in which case why) or is it because they do not want to? (Also why)
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Offline The E

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
I would strongly suggest replaying Universal Truth 2.
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Offline spart_n

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Shivans can't go universal genocide because of the Vishnans and some 'council', I thought? Like, that's what's stopping them and from what it looks like, the Vishnans can easily give Shivans a run for their money. Same with life perseverance, that's Vishnans wanting to do that because living is sometimes cool and getting rid of people ain't that swell.

 

Offline Kiloku

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Shivans can't go universal genocide because of the Vishnans and some 'council' [...]

Follow-up question: What is the "council"? Who's in it? What do they do?
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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?

They oppose. They destroy. In destroying the create the possibility of newness, and prevent the total hegemony of any one thing or meta-thing. This is not their purpose: they have no purpose. But it is their effect.

When Bei sees the Shivans saying "they are like us, they destroy" it's not just a moral judgment upon humanity or the Vasudans. It's an inability to even recognize the values the Vishnans assert. The Shivans don't say "they're bad at creation" or "their old wounds open all too easily" because those aren't really relevant factors to the anima. What's important is that they destroy. That's the only real thing.

But when you look at it that way, you can almost see it as a sign of approval. The anima evaluating humanity as consonant with its way, not the Vishnan way.

The Shivans are anathema to the Great Darkness and resist its creation/spread at the most basic level. But they can only make large-scale plans or schemes against the Great Darkness if an anima can hold on long enough without being torn apart by the very nature of what it is. To the extent that Shivan omnicide has a 'motive' under this anima, it is simply to do what the Shivans do even better, more completely, more thoroughly, without restriction.

Shivans can't go universal genocide because of the Vishnans and some 'council', I thought? Like, that's what's stopping them and from what it looks like, the Vishnans can easily give Shivans a run for their money. Same with life perseverance, that's Vishnans wanting to do that because living is sometimes cool and getting rid of people ain't that swell.

The council is the terminal protocol is the dying design of the Brahmans: a set of strictures which the Shivans and Vishnans obey in service of the ultimate goal, a return to the greatness of the Brahmans and an end to the Great Darkness as a threat. But every aspect of that last sentence is subject to the constant assault and corrosion of Shivan metacognition. Any aspect is open to challenge.

The Vishnans do have one great advantage over the Shivans—they are in a higher, more removed position, outside and above of events. This is also, of course, their great disadvantage.

The Shivans are omnicidal, but they are not preemptively omnicidal. They do not attack or deplete the resources which give rise to life. A universe swarming with Shivans is not a universe of reduced diversity, exhausted subspace networks, or dead worlds. It is a universe full of fascinating and infinitely varied tombs: each species risen into the void left by the last, each extinguished by the Shivans.

Seconded. I would add to that, "If GD/Manifold Necrosis is what the Shivans are concerned about why don't they just exterminate all non-Shivan life and sterilize every planet with life on it or potential to produce life at some later point.

How would this goal arise among the Shivans? Who would pursue it and see it through? How would this goal endure in an environment so terribly corrosive to any stable behavior or purpose? What if it is regularly attempted by the Shivans, all over the universe, and the life we see is simply what slips through the cracks? Everything that lives is that which has failed to die. In an infinite cosmos, anything less than a 100% extermination rate still produces an infinite number of civilizations to rise and challenge the Shivans. Each one will ask itself: "Why are we here, when so many others were destroyed? What gave us this chance?" And the answer is: the very same chaos and blind arbitrary violence that will one day wipe them out.

Of course, the Vishnans inject their preferences and manipulations into the process. But they too are subject to the corrosion of the anti-being.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
There is of course a very simple motive which falls out of all this: the Shivans want to kill the Vishnans. They cannot want anything else.

 

Offline DefCynodont119

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
How do the Shivans (and Vishnans) react/feel about node denial? Like does mass node mason-bombing or subspace combat make them mad or cross some sort of trigger threshold?


Would the Shivans react or care about a large scale non-sapient threat?  Like Grey Goo or some other thing?
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Offline starlord

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
So, does this suggest that the shivans abducted Bosch to kill the vishnans by acting through the Terrans/Vasudans somehow?

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)

Would the Shivans react or care about a large scale non-sapient threat?  Like Grey Goo or some other thing?

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
That would definitely qualify as a defect-strategy hegemon, yeah.

 

Offline Damage

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
what's the canon ending for "Her Finest Hour?"  Which ships in the Carthage battlegroup escape and which are goners?

I would assume that capturing the Carthage is a much more desirable goal than outright destroying it, if only for the intel value;

But I can also see the Fedayeen (and Laporte in particular) opting for the more practical option
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
It's whatever you did.

 

Offline rubixcube

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
The Shivans are anathema to the Great Darkness and resist its creation/spread at the most basic level. But they can only make large-scale plans or schemes against the Great Darkness if an anima can hold on long enough without being torn apart by the very nature of what it is.

Ohhhh, this is why they want humanity; I think I get it.

what's the canon ending for "Her Finest Hour?"  Which ships in the Carthage battlegroup escape and which are goners?

This choice wont significantly affect the progression of the plot.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2020, 01:24:10 am by rubixcube »
Stuff

 

Offline redsniper

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
I just read this whole thread yesterday and it's extremely good ****.

Are the Shivans even conscious?

If the Vishnans exist outside of any universe, and presumably outside any spacetime, how can it be that """""time""""" is running out to fix the terminal protocol, find successors to the Brahmans, preserve diversity of intelligent life, etc.?

Would a finished BP mod contain a visual depiction of the Great Attractor? Of the "extremely destructive fauna" inside a Sathanas?
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Offline rubixcube

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Are the Shivans even conscious?

From what I understand, no, the Shivans are not conscious (with the possible exception of Animas)
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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
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!

You tease you.

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
What was Steele's service in the GTVA like during the Second Shivan Incursion? Were there any operations or events that helped shape his strategies or person?

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
Maybe he was the pilot in Vassago's Dirge  :o :o :o :o :o

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
AGAIN with the teasing. :D
I know that the stories were developed separately but I love the little nods here and there to Vassago and Derelict.
And looking at it objectively, the fighter screens near fire support ships, the beam sniping, the use of unorthodox strategies like direct boarding and sabotage of an enemy base... Those do kind of fit with the more tactical combat approach the GTVA has in BP.
And yes, I know Axem did a lot of cross over work. But still...

 
Re: The Blue Planet Oracle (full BP2/3 spoilers within!)
The Shivans are, over the course of WiH, engaging in a whole lot of manipulation literally behind the scenes. Canonically, when Laporte defies them at Capella, they consider this particular experiment a failure and go back to more straightforward omnicidal tactics again.
I know this was a while ago, but I'm very confused by this. Firstly, when the heck did Laporte defy the Shivans at Capella? She only talked to Ken, and she doesn't so much defy him as doubt her own sanity--and only briefly (hell, in real time, only seconds had passed)--before accepting Ken's mission and the reasons behind it. And Ken would be able to tell the Shivans that she ultimately did accept the mission.

Also, another question: why can't the Shivans fight the Great Darkness directly? Given their nature, they seem most suited for the task, and their infinite reserves/production capability, surely that would be a better approach than an imperfect containment-esque strategy.

And another: don't the Vishnans know what Shambhala is? Since they have direct access to the minds of the Council of Elders, who ARE in the know about it (even if only some of them know, Vishnans have access to them all), surely they know? I'm kind of confused as to why they seem so ambivalent about it, given that the Elders (who largely follow Vishnan ideals, or along those lines) seem confident about it as a way to win a war without destruction/killing, and it's so close to completion that apparently the UEF only needs to hold off the Tevs for a matter of days? Since they've already shown a penchant for direct intervention if they feel it's worth it, why would they not, say, do what they could to buy the Elders the time they need? It wouldn't even have to be direct, overt action like sending a battlegroup--just use their Nagari capability to influence/sabotage/direct the right people; after all, they only need to buy a matter of days.

Lastly: back before the Tevs captured Neptune, why was the UEF so unwilling to commit enough force to stop them? They had to have known how bad it would be to let the GTVA get a logistical foothold in the Sol system, and that the cost of stopping that would be far, far less than the cost of fighting the Tevs that had a solid beachhead into the system (and thus had the ability to expand that beachhead). By that point, they had to know the Tev's capabilities/tactics/doctrine fairly well from the Beis, and they certainly had more than enough ships to crush such an attempt without leaving critical assets/places undefended.
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