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Some general FreeSpace 1/2 questions, indulge a newbie please

Hey guys, some of you may have seen my other post about the texture problem and you know I'm a newbie to the FreeSpace online community.

I got FreeSpace 1 and 2 as soon as they came out and I love the games. I just never got involved with them online and I never really was involved in the FS community. However, space games are my passion and now they seem to be a dying breed. I reinstalled good old FS1 a few days ago to satiate my hunger, which inevitably led to my reinstall of FS:ST and FS2. Now that I'm replaying the series I find myself having many un-answered questions.

So indulge me if you will and lend a newbie some answers.

1) On the FS:ST CD there are some movies stashed away in a directory. They include an awsome scene of a guy running down a hall, some man eating "C" which looks like test scenes, a movie of a Shivan attacking a Vasudan fighter, a Vasudan fighting/killing a human, and a very funny scene set in what I presume to be the Volition breakroom. I assume some of these scenes are just for fun, however, some look like the were meant to be in the game (Shivan attacks Vasudan ship, guy running). Why were these scenes deleted, what part would they have had in the story? I realize that's a hard one.

2) In FreeSpace 2 there's this wierd little stealth ship, the Perseus I believe. It's a flyable ship in MP or instant action, but not once did I ever get to fly this in my 3 play throughs of the FS2 campaign. In fact the only time I simply encounter it in the game is in one mission where it's tested. Is there any campaign mission where you get to fly these ships? Have I missed some campaign branch (I though I found them all)?

3) Is it a universally agreed upon fact that FS2's plot is the most screwed up plot ever? Seriously, maybe I'm missing something here but, I have yet to understand it.

Synopsis:
-Going after Terran rebel, check.
-Find "Ancients" subspace gate, check.
-Terran rebel escapes through gate, check.
-Terran rebel tries to contact Shivans (despite fact that all previous attempts have been unsuccessful, and it makes no sense really...but ok), check...I guess.
-Terran rebel makes contact but for a period of time but Shivans kill him anyway (big surprise there, hehe), check.
-Shivans blow up star, che...I mean WTF!!!

What exactly did the rebel (sorry can't remeber his name) find out about the Shivans? What exactly did their communication concern? Why the heck did the Shivans blow up that star? The amount of lost and unexplained plot points at the end of FS2 is ridiculous. If I didn't know better I'd say they did it to setup for a sequal, but I haven't heard anything about a FS3 (yet). Can someone shed some light on the plot for me? Or is everyone else confused as I am?

4) Do we ever find out what the heck the Shivans are? I mean first there's the obvious: are they machines or beings, left over from the tech room description of FS1. Were the created by some race, or are they their regular living organisms. However, there are much deeper questions. Why did they take upon themselves to be the great "equalizers" or "judges" that the FS1 voice-overs make them out to be?


At any rate I guess everyone can agree that story is not the strong point of the FS series (though I don't think anyone cares because the action is so great-myself include). I guess that's why there's so much fan fiction in the FS universe.

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A word with two consecutive U's is vacuum.

A word with three U's? Well, that would just be unusual.

[This message has been edited by Stevedrioid (edited 12-18-2000).]

If your not playing Multiplayer your missing a whole other world.

The story i agree is like a Phantom Menace movie, plenty of questions and little answers.

I hope they make FS3

As for your Stealth question its called the Pegasus, and its used in some Multiplayer missions, and Team vs Team missions such as MT-08 Stealth vs AWACS.

As i said, another part of fs2 entirely.

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"The Schwartz is a Mystical weapon of Great power, FEAR it."
The Unofficial SekMAster

Finally , someone who actually does long posts. You should try not to. I was to lazy to read that all :P I'm sure alot of other people are for that reason too.

Thats some wicked info.

Good job

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"The Schwartz is a Mystical weapon of Great power, FEAR it."
The Unofficial SekMAster

let's see...here's the best summary of the game I could come up with

Start in 53rd
Discover Iceni
Iceni gets away, transfer to 107th
First Encounter with Shivans
Patrol in nebula, loss of Kappa wing
First attack by Ravana
Ravana destroyed, transfer to 242nd
Defend Enif Station, first deployment of Colossus
Escort Colossus supply convoy
Assist in luring out NTD Repulse
SOC loop, work w/Snipes
Assigned to 134'th
Escort TAG shipment
Test TAG
Pegasus test, assigned to 64'th
2 Bombing missions, against NTF
Defend Knossos, Bosch forces Iceni through, assigned to 312'th Vasudan
Assault on Rahu gas miners
First sighting of Sathanas
Sathanas recon using Ptah
Attempt at luring Sathanas out
Demolition of Knossos
Disable Sathanas's main beams
Assist Colossus against Sathanas
Find Knossos 2, Psamtik blown to Hell
Prevent destruction of Aquitane
Second SOC loop, find Snipes and recon Knossos 2 area
Granted command of 70'th
Defend Capella evac convoy
Oversee 3'rd Fleet HQ evac
Assist Colossus battle group, Colossus destroyed
Escort Bastion to Capella-Epsilon Pegasi node
Escort all possible ships out of Capella, Shivans cause it to go supernova.

That's as accurate as I can be, I haven't played any farther than the Pegasus test for awhile.

quote:

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They were preparing the star to put off enough energy to slingshot all of those Sathanases hella fast through subspace.

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And the chances of FS3 are quite likely next to nil, because Volition, the developers, were bought by THQ about 3-4 months ago, and Interplay still owns the rights to the Freespace series. Interplay stinks. They have NO concept of how to market.

Slingshot them throught subspace? I don't really think so. My hypothesis about what happened is...

You all saw the arms of the Sathanas touch and spread, right? As far as I can tell, what happened was that the energy tore open a rift in subspace, like a vacuum. And with eighty Sathanas doing it all at once, it created a BIG compression wave when the rifts were closed, which caused Capella to go supernova. I'll do some more hypothesizing in the future.

[This message has been edited by boct1584 (edited 12-18-2000).]

Yeah, but the question is WHY did they make the star go supernova? The Shivans' purpose is never explained.

Sucks that there probably won't be FS3-at least not one done by Volition (and why even bother if it's not). Especially considering the recent drought on space games and sims in general for that matter.

Well I guess I have Independence War 2 to look foward to.

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Originally posted by boct1584:
Interplay stinks. They have NO concept of how to market.

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Wait a week or two and you'll have more answers than you can possibly handle...

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Originally posted by Shrike:
The funiest thing I saw about Interplay was that 'they are actively hostile towards those who buy their games.'

lol!

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Originally posted by Stevedrioid:
1)Why were these scenes deleted, what part would they have had in the story? I realize that's a hard one.

2) In FreeSpace 2 there's this wierd little stealth ship, the Perseus I believe. Is there any campaign mission where you get to fly these ships? Have I missed some campaign branch (I though I found them all)?

3) Is it a universally agreed upon fact that FS2's plot is the most screwed up plot ever? Seriously, maybe I'm missing something here but, I have yet to understand it.

Synopsis:
-Going after Terran rebel, check.
-Find "Ancients" subspace gate, check.
-Terran rebel escapes through gate, check.
-Terran rebel tries to contact Shivans (despite fact that all previous attempts have been unsuccessful, and it makes no sense really...but ok), check...I guess.
-Terran rebel makes contact but for a period of time but Shivans kill him anyway (big surprise there, hehe), check.
-Shivans blow up star, che...I mean WTF!!!

What exactly did the rebel (sorry can't remeber his name) find out about the Shivans? What exactly did their communication concern? Why the heck did the Shivans blow up that star? Can someone shed some light on the plot for me? Or is everyone else confused as I am?

4) Do we ever find out what the heck the Shivans are? Why did they take upon themselves to be the great "equalizers" or "judges" that the FS1 voice-overs make them out to be?

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Originally posted by Disaster:Finally, someone who actually does long posts. You should try not to.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stevedrioid:
[B]Yeah, but the question is WHY did they make the star go supernova? The Shivans' purpose is never explained.[B]

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Is that official, or just your hypothesis? I certainly have not witnessed anything in my play throughs of the game that would lead me to that conclusion.

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Originally posted by Mad Bomber:
The funniest theory is the Shivan Barbecue theory, which I'll let someone else fill you in on

My theory is, the Shivans can't deal with gravity all that well, but they wanted the resources that were on the planets in the Capella system. So the obvious solution is: destroy the planets! So they send in 80 sathanae, push us out of the way, and blow up the star. The shockwave rips all the planets apart. Nice and broken up into small chunks for mining

And as an added bonus, they don't have to use the BGD nebula (Beyond Gamma Drac) anymore. A nice fresh source of gas for mining.


It makes sense right? I mean that is a surefire way to get the resources necessary to build all those hordes of Sathanae.

What do you think

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quote:

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...how did they evolve? I mean, it's probably impossible to evolve in vacuum

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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I'll have to think about that. Interesting.

(By the way...decimated means reduced by 10 percent, I think you want devestated or annihilated or whatnot.)

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[url="http://www.dopefish.com"]swim...swim...hungry...[/url]

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Originally posted by Alphakiller:

(By the way...decimated means reduced by 10 percent, I think you want devestated or annihilated or whatnot.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stevedrioid:

Ok, here's my whole Shivan theory (not just on the nova).

A long time ago there were two races of immense technology battling each other.

After years and years of fighting one race was losing and it's numbers were dwindling. Because advances in ship and weapon technology would never be enough to save their race they needed a new weapon.

What they ended up developing was the ultimate bio-weapon: the Shivans. A race combining machine with flesh controlled by a central AI (hive mind). They gave this hive mind one goal to destory all things threatening the dying race that created it. The weapon succeeded and decimated the enemy. However, as happens many times, the creators of the Shivans did not learn their lesson and with their new found power they began to become the aggressors.

Over time, they destroyed other races using their control of the Shivans.

However, some time down the line the Shivan AI mind began to rebel and see its creators as its enemies. So as you can see I'm getting to, the Shivans rebelled against thier creators and destroyed them.

Unfortunately, the Shivan mind having killed the very beings it was created to protect went insane. Its goal now was only one thing-its own survival, and the protection of subspace-basically because the mind would identify anything traveling outside its own system as hostile.

So, the effect is that the Shivans decimate everything that enters subspace-which leads to the great war of FS1.


Ok, now my story gets a bit weak. When the Shivans sent out the Lucifer they deemed it a force great enough to decimate Vasuda and Earth. However, against all odds, we adapted and beat the Shivans. This event sent a ripple throughout the Shivan conscousness, nothing like this had happened before. This left the Shivans to contemplate
and so for thirty years they avoided us.

Ok, now for what happened in FS1. Bosch is a smart guy-but he's insane (a lot of time geniuses are). He figures out that the Shivans were a created race; and he wants them under the control of the humans. So he finds some way to re-acivate their programming...and he does it.

However, instead of getting the Shivans undercontrol what happens instead is Bosch has the effect of restoring some sanity to the Shivans' conscousness. They/It realizes that it has become the destroyer and no matter what they do space fairing races will always fight one another-it is the way of things.

Well, what happens next is that the Shivans become kind of disgusted with themselves and the rest of the universe (the death will never end). The result is that they decide to shut themselves off from the rest of the universe.

What they decided then was to cause the Cappella Star to go nova. My theory is that the nova would be powerful enough to create a subspace disrution that it could collapse the Knosos node (that had stabilzed). If that wasn't enough the nova creates a big ionized nebula cloud so even if the knosos portal stayed stable no one would find it. The Shivans that remained behind to die was kind of a gesture like: we're sorry for what we have down and this is our sacrifice. The remaining ships hyperspace to and then out through the Knosos protal before it was collapsed/lost.


So....what do you think?

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