VWBB - The shivans' origin

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- FreeSpace 1/2 Discussion (http://volitionwatch.papageorgefamily/vwbb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=33)
-- The shivans' origin (http://volitionwatch.papageorgefamily/vwbb/showthread.php?threadid=7419)

Posted by An argentinean on 09-29-2002 09:16 PM:

The shivans' origin

"Consider the shivans like a sign of a bigger problem" Is that what Volition said?

~8000 BC: The Shivan Civilization's power is equal to the FS2 GTVA's power. They encountered a powerful civilization, stronger than the Shivan civilization. This civilization attacked and captured the shivan colonies and the shivans had to flee from their homeworld. To escape from his enemy, the shivans' remnants used an experimental subspace device capable of jumping very long distances, but this device was very unstable. Now the shivans are lost in the space.
~7999 BC: The shivans found a new home. The shivans' main priority is to recuperate their homesystem. For this they are creating scouting parties to find their homeworld. The Lucifer class destroyer was designed to lead the recon forces.
~5666 BC: The ancients encountered a shivan recon group, they decided. The Lucifer informed the shivan capital of this. The shivans took the ancient technology.
~5665 BC: The ancient civilization is extinct.
~4000 BC: The shivans developed a device capable of creating an special subspace vortex by triggering an special supernova in an special star. This device was installed in the new Sathanas class juggernaut.
2321 AC: The Terran-Vasudan War began.
2335 AC: The shivans detected subspace activity and deployed a recon group to investigate what was happening over there. The first Great War begins.
2345 AC: The GTVA was formed.
2358 AC: The BETAC was signed.
2360 AC: The first of the GVD Hatshepsut-class destroyers was commissioned.
2365 AC: End of the production of Aeolus class cruisers.
2370 AC: The NTF rebellion began...
You know the rest.

May be, the shivans deployed scouting parties to find a certain type of star. By blowing up that star they could create a way back to their homeworld.

What do you think about my theory? If you were a shivan, Would you sacrifice dozens of sathanases to recuperate your homeworld? If this is true, When was the Lucifer builded? When the shivans builded their Sathanases?

Any idea?

Posted by aldo_14 on 09-29-2002 09:30 PM:

I think..... the Shivan forces seen in FS2 are the tip of the iceberg. the Shivans are a celestial force, a force of nature beyond human comprehension. The only thing that can faze them, is their equivalent.

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Posted by karajorma on 09-29-2002 10:43 PM:

I don`t see the shivans that way. I see them as powerful but defeatable by someone who has had long enough to build up a sizable fleet.

They aren`t cosmic preservers or a force of nature or any other mystical force. Just an alien race with a xenophobic bent and an 8000 year leg up on technology.

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Posted by ltnarol on 09-30-2002 12:52 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by karajorma
I don`t see the shivans that way. I see them as powerful but defeatable by someone who has had long enough to build up a sizable fleet.

They aren`t cosmic preservers or a force of nature or any other mystical force. Just an alien race with a xenophobic bent and an 8000 year leg up on technology.

You need to play Into the Night

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Posted by karajorma on 09-30-2002 08:42 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by ltnarol
You need to play Into the Night

Doubt you`ll convince me otherwise

Doesn`t mean I won`t enjoy it though

Posted by Someone on 09-30-2002 11:19 AM:

I don't know about the Shivans having an actual Homeworld.

Why didn't they take the planets?

Why are they so adapted to Zero-grav?

Suppose this: What if the Shivans have a humonous starbase, where they construct anything from small constructor drones to Shivan Juggernauts and Comm-Nodes?

...this scares the heck out of me...Gotta make a campaign out of it...

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Posted by karajorma on 09-30-2002 02:17 PM:

Everyone keeps saying that the shivans are adjusted to zero-G. I don`t see it myself. Look at those muscles. That's obviously a creature that is adapted to an enviroment with gravity.

As for the reason they don`t take planets I once heard the explaination that shivan space contains several Dyson spheres so they don`t need any more planets. Just jump nodes.

Posted by Jacc on 09-30-2002 02:19 PM:

Shivans are an xenophobic, huge race.
And they also are the cosmic preservers (as explained in FS1 outro).

I doubt the Shivans have this 8000 years leg on technology. If it were so, then f.ex. Colossus' debut would've been short:
"Beware, it's the Might Co--- bumm."

They do have technological superiority in many areas, and they have a lot of hardware. They are not beatable with normal means - strategically. Tactically yes - there are examples.

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Posted by Someone on 09-30-2002 02:31 PM:

I don't know about muscles on Shivans.

You DID see them move in the Taranis, right?

What about this one then?

The Shivans are mere Drones, sent out by another race for scouting missions?

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Posted by Great_Sephiroth on 09-30-2002 07:57 PM:

Maybee someone constructed their bodies, with some sort of technology that can create DNA, far superior of this galaxy, untill shivans started to be more agressive untill they destroy their creators and develope in space, only on their mind is destruction, as they were programmed before do destroy some enemy that the creator had. And now they are hungry of power, expanding thru the galaxy, but who knows what they are triying to find or what are their purpose in this galaxy.

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Posted by aldo_14 on 09-30-2002 08:26 PM:

I think we've only seen a fraction of the Shivans.... I think they're just toying with the Terran/Vasudans. Every time the GTVA claims a major victory, the Shivans simply throw it back.... we destroy the Lucifer, they bring out beam equipped ships in FS2. we take down a sole Ravana, they unleash the Sathanas. When we take down that, they send out a fleet and take down the only GTVa ship that could scratch a Sath in a matter of seconds.

I don't think the Shivans origins matter... it's what they are 'now' that does. I prefer them as a mysterious, powerful force who cannot be understood in human terms.

Posted by Jacc on 09-30-2002 10:07 PM:

Sorry to spoil the image, but the simplest way to make a mysterious and terrible race is simply to copy ants.
1) They're strange. You can never know what they are going to do. They do not act like any intervertebrate (spelling?)
2) They don't stop. Ever. You can crush one ant from stealing your sugar, you can crush 1000, but finally the only way to stop them is to move to sugar or burn the nest.
3) They can not communicate with us in any way, never.
4) The oh so famous hive mind theory fits nicely into ants (though they actually have none).
5) Kill one ant near the nest. Soon, every single drone is attacking you. However futile the single attempts can be, eventually you must retreat (the feeling that someone is walking in your hair, biting you... That is irritating).

Shivans cannot be understood. Their ultimate goals, behaviour and philosophy are way out of human understanding.

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Posted by Someone on 10-01-2002 07:29 AM:

Hmmm...Good Idea, Jacc.

But what about this:

The Ancients killed and enslaved billions.

The Shivans destroyed the Ancients because of their behaviour, thus making the Shivans protectors of some kind?

Weren't the Terrans and Vasudans also acting like the Ancients?

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Posted by karajorma on 10-01-2002 08:08 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Someone
Weren't the Terrans and Vasudans also acting like the Ancients?

The only races the the Vasudans and Terrans were trying to subdue were each other. If you`re saying that the shivan's idea for breaking up the conflict is to destroy Vasuda Prime then we aren`t talking about protectors at all. Unless we are talking about the kind of abusive parent who punches his kids in the head because he doesn`t like them fighting each other.
The shivans killed more vasudans in one attack than the entire 14 year war did.

Posted by Someone on 10-01-2002 08:12 AM:

><;

I didn't mean it that way!

I meant that they were making a preventive strike! The Vasudans had enough colonies to survive. The Shivans might've done that as a warning of what could happen if they went on with the useless slaughter.

__________________
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*Oh well...*
*...I think*

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Posted by Jacc on 10-01-2002 08:43 AM:

The entire point of the strange "cosmic stabilizers and protectors" is in fact quite simple. If there were no Shivans, then one race could simply enslave all the universe in relatively short amount of time (think about Terrans or Vasudans spreading across the galaxy, vaging war). It only takes one aggressive race to simply sterilize the galaxy from almost all life alien to them.
Since Shivans don't act the way the Terrans and Vasudans do, their existence does not automatically mean annihilation for all other races. They roam across the galaxy and eventually encounter other races, eliminating them. As a result, the galaxy is swarming with small races, but no one gains upper hand due to Shivans. Any race growing large enough to pose serious threat to other races - interstellar travel and subspace - will automatically attract the Shivans.

Just look what the Ancients did. They encountered advanced life, and subdued and destroyed it... Until the Shivans arrived.
The Shivans are not meant to be any protectors at all, but at the last hand they have become such.

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Posted by GalacticEmperor on 10-01-2002 06:59 PM:

Shivans=cosmic preservers. Look at the cutscenes, man. The FS1 outtro itsef says "The Shivans are the great destroyers, but they are also the great preservers. That is why there was no one to destroy us." V's 'bigger problem' is US. Terrans expanded beyond the solar system and started driving less technologically advanced species into extinction, either intentionally or accidentally. (Look at the history of Western expansion; that's what we do.) Shivans, to give other life a chance to live and develop, attempt to drive us to extinction and thus give evolution in other systems a chance. Same thing happened to the Ancients. "Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered them long before, in their infancy. And destroyed them, just as surely as they destroyed countless billions of others." More evidence in Bosch monologues-- remember what he said? "What if there had been countless civilizations, stretching back into infinity. And like the seven cities of Troy, each was built on the ruins of the other... each annihilated by the Shivans." What could possibly be clearer?

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Posted by karajorma on 10-01-2002 08:52 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
Shivans=cosmic preservers. Look at the cutscenes, man. The FS1 outtro itsef says "The Shivans are the great destroyers, but they are also the great preservers. That is why there was no one to destroy us." V's 'bigger problem' is US. Terrans expanded beyond the solar system and started driving less technologically advanced species into extinction, either intentionally or accidentally. (Look at the history of Western expansion; that's what we do.) Shivans, to give other life a chance to live and develop, attempt to drive us to extinction and thus give evolution in other systems a chance. Same thing happened to the Ancients. "Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered them long before, in their infancy. And destroyed them, just as surely as they destroyed countless billions of others." More evidence in Bosch monologues-- remember what he said? "What if there had been countless civilizations, stretching back into infinity. And like the seven cities of Troy, each was built on the ruins of the other... each annihilated by the Shivans." What could possibly be clearer?

The problem with the shivans invasions is that you are extrapolating from two data points.

1) We know that they destroyed the ancients
2) We know that they attacked the GTA and PVN.

It could very easily be a coincidence that the destruction of the ancients led to the rise of the vasudan and Terrans.

To argue otherwise is to claim that the barbarians caused the fall of Rome just so that the British could have the chance of running an empire over a thousend years later.

We don`t know what the shivans are upto. Until we do it's simpler just to react to what we know is true. Now if you want to add extra evidence in your own campaigns to support the theory that the shivans are deliberately preserving younger races that's one thing but the evidence isn`t in FS1 and 2.
All we have there is conjecture from Bosch (a man who may not be that stable anyway!

)

The cutscenes only give the point of view of the character narrating them. Petrach thinks that the shivans blew up Capella because they wanted to go home. Bosch think that the shivans destroyed other speices apart from the ancients.
There are no facts to support either arguements. They are just the what those characters think are the best explainations. At the end of FS1 we are told that the shivans could reopen the Sol-Delta Serpentis node but in fact the GTVA will probably do it using knowledge gained from the ancients instead.
If there was no FS2 you`d probably be telling me that the shivans MUST open that node cause it says so in the cutscene.

Posted by Jacc on 10-01-2002 08:52 PM:

Yup, you're right. That's exactly what I was, perhaps, trying to say... but being very tired does not help my english or memory at all...

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Posted by karajorma on 10-01-2002 08:54 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Jacc
Yup, you're right. That's exactly what I was, perhaps, trying to say... but being very tired does not help my english or memory at all...

This is funny

By taking ages to write my post I`ve managed to make it seem as if Jacc is agreeing with me instead of GalacticEmperor

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