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Sathanas have so much armor I don't think they need to worry about shields. And if you destroy one, then a whole fleet of them comes in and blows up one of your stars.....

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You dont need to blow up a star. Just send in a Lucy and destroy the planet. Much easier, and you get to go one by one. THEN you blow up the whole place.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ns33
Then what do they really live in? Fluidic space? Empty space? Or a hugeass ship that just orbits a star (more like a planet?)...

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Like stated countless times before, its pointless to discuss Shivan origin, anatomy, and role. As far as we know (or more rather *speculate*), Shivans originated in 0-G. However, we cannot rule this as the only possibility.

Yes the Shivans could be an offshoot, like the Romulans of ST, but they could act as countless other species roles... Again, even though its a good topic, its pointless to discuss Shivan origin and function.

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We know.

But hey...It's fun, right?

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(Sorry this is gona be a little off topic, so skip the other part if you find rambling about Shivans impossible)
Hmm...
Why do everybody speak of Shivans as...another race that develops technologies, has internal politics, confilcts ect. ect.
I can't really agree with that one. They aren't Vasudans with bigger ships and redish skinjob.
They have existed for milenias - millions of years. No specie, no - no culture that has existed that long can be compared to our standards. What would the human race be in a 1000 years, 100.000...we can't imagine. What would our technology be like?
I guess something far beyond Shivan if we had developed as fast as we do right now.
As for cultural structure-it has to be very stabile something that surpasses even the most rigid cast system that existed in India.
As for the minds of Shivans - or rather the philosopy behind it; it's impossible to imagine. This race practices genocide on regular basis! How can you do such thing without doubt, what extent of total alienation is necessary to execute it? ...
Furtheremore after the Capella debrief it's metioned that they could be nomads of space.

(This part is about the Lucifer)
So I doubt if Shivans would develop something so they could counter a specie. Imho these guys(?) don't even consider their opponents. Their technology is ancient, and yet not invincible, there is no need to make it any better. It's been perfected during eons of warfare and nothing has come to defeat them - regardless the minor losses they were always the ones to have the upper hand.
So Lucifer was just one of their destroyers, nothing special about in in Shivan standards - maybe the lack of beam turrets; maybe it was even more ancient than most of their fleet-a Derelict
But by the time the GTA hadn't had beam turrets at all; and their heviest bombs were "orinary nuclear warheads". I think the shielding was only good enough against warheads - where the explosion's energy dissipated in space, unlike the beams' conectrated fire, and small caliber energy weapons.
By the time the Shivans employed beams they must have not bothered with shielding since it was pointless, since it couldn't counter a beam.
So the whole Lucifer fleet was made up of very ancient derelicts sent out to scout ahead, with its spearhead the Lucifer that already had two beamturrets.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Zolee
They have existed for milenias - millions of years.

---

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How long ago were the Ancients eliminated? 2000 some years ago? That would make the Shivans at least 2050 years old in existence (hey, 50 years is a long time )

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The ancients were eliminated 8000 years ago.

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Sorry, not review FS intel has that effect on you after a period of time.

So lets say the Shivans are 8100 years old, assuming that the war between the two species lasted "long." From the behavior of the Shivans as we see it (and from the Ancients texts), we know that the Shivans had already developed Shield technology then, and possesed a massive fleet, far more massive than the Ancients (they're terroitory was spread over at least a dozen systems). From our perspective (and here we go assuming again), its plausible that the Shivans were around at least 2000 years before the Ancients were wiped out, putting humanity at a time when the very first human was still primative.

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there is evedence of many other civilisations comeing to a suden end in a matter similar to the anchents over a much longer period of time, also the technology of the shivans seems relitivly the same now as it was during the time of the anchents but the level of technology sugests that they arn't too stupid to come up with it, so my conclusion is that they have reached a point of technology were they no longer feel a need to expand, but they are much more advanced than they have let on so far, and are hiding there technology in an effort to keep there secrets from the younger races that they have for some reason decided to anialate, and if they realy felt like it they could wipe our whole galixy into the abyss with a thought

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Bobboau
there is evedence of many other civilisations comeing to a suden end in a matter similar to the anchents over a much longer period of time, also the technology of the shivans seems relitivly the same now as it was during the time of the anchents but the level of technology sugests that they arn't too stupid to come up with it, so my conclusion is that they have reached a point of technology were they no longer feel a need to expand, but they are much more advanced than they have let on so far, and are hiding there technology in an effort to keep there secrets from the younger races that they have for some reason decided to anialate, and if they realy felt like it they could wipe our whole galixy into the abyss with a thought

---

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I just shot it off half baked
not that I've ever ben knowen to mispel any ting

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Bobboau
also the technology of the shivans seems relitivly the same now as it was during the time of the anchents but the level of technology sugests that they arn't too stupid to come up with it, so my conclusion is that they have reached a point of technology were they no longer feel a need to expand, but they are much more advanced than they have let on so far, and are hiding there technology in an effort to keep there secrets from the younger races that they have for some reason decided to anialate

---

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quote:

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Originally posted by karajorma


Another possibility is that they didn`t come up with the technology themselves and though they can use it they can`t come up with anything new (Sort of like cavemen who found a cache of machine guns).
Figuring out how shivan craft work might be fairly simple but it might be much harder to figure out how to replicate them (as the GTVA showed when they captured shivan ships)

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I never really thought about it that way, but it would make sense - no real technological advancements in 8000 years, no real GTA/VA progress despite repeatedly captureing and/or scanning Shivan ships (the differences between our beams and theirs makes me think that we just used their idea as opposed to Shivan tech), etc.

The only problem would be figuring out where they got so much of it if they can't build it - 80 saths aren't exactly a birthday present after all

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quote:

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Originally posted by Black Wolf
The only problem would be figuring out where they got so much of it if they can't build it - 80 saths aren't exactly a birthday present after all

---

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Or you could say that the Shivans created themselves. Its like determining the beginning of the Universe, theres no way for us to know when the race evolved, and how long its been here.

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Once again I need to express that we're stuck with our ideals of society and nationalism. Take no offence I don't mean either of you is a blind supporter of the government, or anything.

We see society as a solid and interconnected structure of individuals. However in Europe in some countries there are still remains of a "cast definition" - for example in England some families still regard themselves as proper upper middle class, and would disdain people who do hard physical work. -- don't take this seriously, but it is quite plausible that some co. owner wouldn't like his/her daughter to marry one of his workers.
Now is that democratic? Nay... but still it's going on and is part of the laws that bind society into a working complex.

As for nationalism, I only have to ask a single question - where do you belong - family, church ect. but then there would be that answer: America, USA, Canada, England, Sri Lanka, Germany, Taiwan ect.
That simple identification is something that hasn't existed before the 19'th century. In the middle age it hardly mattered for a peasant whether he was oppressed by and English or a French landlord - anyway neither existed. And he would be much likely to speak both languages. However in that time it did matter for the nobility who was entitled to variety of rights and duties that strongly tied him to the leaders - in this manner they were the "nation" - something entirely different from the concept we use today.

And no we want to identify and explain the Shivans motives with those same ideals, which we regard as evident - however are not.

There are several more evidences:
-We live in a Christian culture - this has nothing to do we religion - which means we see time as linear thing, and things happen, pass
-As a result we have moral sense that forbids destructive behaviour and killing in general
-We acknowledge the right for a person to live and be free *thanks Roseau
-Furthermore we see people as equals
-We have a concept of individual, we regard ourselves as something separate of the world *the "invention" of soul was necessary
-We have a certain sense of down, and tend to think in 2D or 1D systems

All these things we take granted, but lets see the Shivans may diverge it on several points:
Equal individuals
-what grants that the hardships of living in space hasn't already lead to the development of a horrible cast systems
-or what if it did - to become super equality, that actually sees everyone completely identical
Individualism
-what if they don't even support the idea of individum, you exist merely as an extension of society, and don't' even have a language to describe things otherwise, the ancient Greeks and many societies in the antiquity used to live like that
Speech
Note: Language can be a very powerful thing as you see, It may explain why are Vasudans so entirely different than us. Without the tool to describe something or ideas you can't get anywhere. Read 1984 with regard to newspeech
-What if their speech has entirely different basis. I don't speak about words or grammar, what if their language is focuses on comparison alone and dismisses the idea of fixed ideals, this may also lead to a certain Ãœbermensch morale foreshadowed by Nietzsche
Sense of Space
-I've found a very good comparison with Gundam ideals, where people who live in space evolved into newtypes (well some of them, and become something quite similar to a Jedi from SW), because they spent their lives in spacecolonies, where it does matter whether you go left or right because the spinning of the station will alter the objects’ behaviour
-Shivans spent their lives in Zero-G environment, but they also had to develop a sense of gravity or rather a sense of orbit - "if you slow down, you go down, if catch up on speed your on a leave"
-Their physiology could be so altered that they are dependant on cybernetic implants, imagine the effect of being able to be anything you're plugged onto, even other people
Sense of Time
-What if Shivans had a circular concept of time like the Greeks did, or what if they have a Nietzsche type image *Check Zarahustra I don’t know the English title

All this may seem like some rambling - which it is - but I felt I need to express in a depictive manner, that our thoughts of train tend to move on a very narrom plane of possibilities without us even noticing

2000 years is long time try to figure our history like that, our ancestor would seem more alien than the Vasudans

Well I hope it would spur some grat ideas

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Like you I believe in giving aliens alien motives. One of the few things I found annoying about the plot of the freespace series was that the vasudans really suffered from the "humans in funny suits" syndrome.
Give the humans a translator too and you`d have difficulty telling if you were talking to a human or vasudan. That's silly, a culture that evolved on another planet should be vastly different from us (especially considering all the differences in culture on Earth that you`ve pointed out)

When you get to the shivans volition did a better job. Years after the games release we are no clearer about their motives, culture or even social structure.

Unfortunately as far as I can see that seems to be the way games work. Either the aliens are funnily shaped humans or they are so mysterious we never learn anything much about them. FS2 isn`t the only space sim to suffer from this (AFAIK they all do) but if you want some weird motives for the shivans here goes

1) The shivans believe that they have achieved perfection and that any deviation would lead to falibility. The shivans vaciliate between believing that they must wipe out any other race to prevent contamination (FS1 outlook) and being content with simply preventing any other race to disturb their perfection (FS2 outlook)

2) The shivans believe that they are an inferior race and that the only way they could gain the favour of the gods is to wipe out the more favoured races.

3) Check out the MindGames link in my sig for a third odd motive for the shivans.

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Well I have to agree that the Vasudans are too human - in their appearance and phisiology; but I still think Volition did a great job.
It only appears that we understand them, still nothing is known about their culture; check the tech reference - I love the way the whole is bent around language.
Just because we could figure their messige doesn't mean we understand them - the Vasudans are still just as mysterious as the Shivans.
We don't know anything about them, except that they live in a layered society lead by a king - but this could be anywhere from the Frank Empire, to an Enligtened Absolute Monarchy.
Furtheremore we don't know much about their everyday life - their ideas, their concept - almost nothing.
Only messages that they either want to do this or that in a mission - but never the reason!

Another note: if there is too much similarity to be accidental, then it's not. - Maybe the ancients did more than what meets the eye

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