Freespace the Forgotten Classic [Part 3]- The Shivans
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- Опубліковано 7 лис 2024
- Patreon: / firesteel
Twitter: / _firesteel_
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Join me as I analyze one of the finest introductions in games.
The Shivans' real introduction flies in the face of a lot of conventional wisdom regarding how players meet their foes. Instead of some massive cutscene or scripted even, they're just dropped in your mission area and left to wreak havoc. I know technically they were introduced in the opening but they're barely shown and while they make an impact, until the 5th mission, Freespace does as much as it can to make you forget about that cutscene.
Also by the way they're introduced, the Shivans don't fit into the established rules of Freespace up to this point. They can't be targeted and more importantly they have shields. This was why I harped on about it. You're introduced to shields through the gameplay, not some piece of exposition. You get to experience the world shattering nature of the technology as it makes killing even a single Shivan ship an achievement unto itself.
The following 2 missions mainly focus on pacing out the experience after such a massive event and Paving the Way is at its heart about forcing you to think about what happened in the previous mission. The final mission I talk about does more to set up a majority of the game's big emotional beats than you might expect and tells you a hell of a lot about the Shivans without actually telling you anything about their history and push the Lovecraftian influence even more.
All this is why the Shivans continue to be one of the finest antagonists and examples of cosmic horror and Lovecraftian monsters in games. It doesn't matter how many you kill. It doesn't matter how many you save. They are coming.
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Missions:
Out of the Dark, Into the Night
Paving the Way
Pandora's Box
*Some footage from A Failure to Communicate
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Thank you all for the support and continued feedback! You're making these videos better and keeping them coming!
![Freespace the Forgotten Classic [Part 2]- The Beginning](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/AJTGsVktves/mqdefault.jpg)
![Freespace the Forgotten Classic [Part 2]- The Beginning](/img/tr.png)
If you want to check out all the community content, the best place to start is the Knossos Launcher: fsnebula.org/knossos/
Are you still planning in to continue your series on Freespace?
@@Nagrachlp Once I have more time to devote to side projects I will.
would be cool for some young players which may stumble upon this videos
@@Firesteel I Hope everything is going OK, I'd love to see another series on FreeSpace. I always recommend this video to people when I'm trying to describe how perfect these games are at setting up their antagonist.
@@SRosenberg203 things are about as okay as they get in 2020. I've just been extremely busy with work and not had the time or energy to keep working on videos.
The Shivans are one of the most terrifying enemies in any video game if not the most.
When we first learn of them, you couldn't even target them or communicate with them and their shields made their small craft almost invincible without minutes of sustained fire. They just came out of nowhere in the middle of a battle and wiped out the Vasudans and left. Briefly you're left confused and then they came back and went after you. Over time with gaining better weapons and shields of your own you are able fight them on equal grounds and seemingly overcome them. Then the Lucifer comes out of left field and just crushes all hope. It's by chance a weakness is discovered and they stop it.
Fast forward to FreeSpace 2 and when they appear again everyone's scared but they also have hope with the advancement of their technology after 30 years. After many victories in the following skirmishes the terrans feel they have surpassed and conquered their old foe. Even when the Santhanas appears, the destruction of it by a coordinated assault and the Colossus leaves the Shivans seemingly driven back, which reinforces the idea the terrans have nothing left to fear of them and become an afterthought as the campaign reverts back to defeating the NTF.
Next thing you know you're in the middle of a battle defending the Colossus and another Santhanas jumps in and just crushes it. Then you learn of countless other Santhanas ships gathered around Capella, which in some missions you can see them in the distance around the sun. All hope seems lost and now you're the ones being driven back. Reality sets in that the terrans are not superior to the Shivans nor are they even equals. The Colosses took decades to build and yet the Shivan's Santhanas seemed like a dime-a-dozen. The game doesn't end with you somehow beating the final boss with some convenient twist either. Instead you're left fleeing with your tail between your legs, fighting all the way to the last node before Capella goes supernova by the Shivans, and even then a lot of ships didn't even make it in time and were engulfed by the supernova. The terrans don't win. They only survived. In hindsight for FreeSpace the terrans thought they were fighting the Shivans force at full strength and it took all the terran's muster to fight them off, but it turns out all it was was just their scouting party. They were never going to be a match for them. They were out of their depth they just didn't know yet.
I like how the game had a balance of the forces. The Shivans were superior when it came to numbers and anti-ship beams, but it seemed with weapons like the Kayser and ships like the Perseus and the Erinyes is where the terrans were more advanced than even the Shivans. Hell, even the reversed engineered Maras were superior to the Shivans standard ones. I like that the Shivans weren't just completely superior in everything, but enough where they clearly were something to fear still.
I love how the developers created the atmosphere of the game. For example the Black ops mission where you're surrounded by Shivans in the Mara and your enemy targeting alarm keeps going off, and you see these giant devices and you have no idea what they are for and you never find out either. Overall the game treats you like you're a pilot and you only know what you're allowed to know. I love that the game doesn't cheapen the experience by revealing what the Shivans want or how they came to be. You don't know what really happened to Admiral Bosch.
An underrated game for sure.
The worst part is whatever Shivans planned at the end of freespace 2, they surely suceeded, and I don't believe its a good thing for humans.
Very well said, I haven’t played through both games for maybe 25 years since my high school days, but I bought both on sale on GoG to re experience these masterpieces.
The story and scale of both games were so well done, I’ve never felt that same way in terms of awe and fear and scale like I have with Freespace.
Shivans are quite literally the standard upon which I judge all other science-fiction antagonists. An astute commentary as always, and I wish you the best for this project.
Thank you! They have certainly aged well and are definitive proof that less is more. Plus I'm planning on finally doing a series on Mass Effect now that this video's up to provide even more context for my opinions on that series.
Firesteel omg that would be a intence analysis.
Right now the uploads are Freespace every other video and it'll stay that way for as long as I can manage. I'm planning on doing Mass Effect in a similar style to this, though I'll warn you it's coming from a very different place. As far as that series goes I have it planned for every fourth upload (FS, ME, FS, Other, repeat) in part because how long it is compared to pretty much every other game I want to cover.
You know iN Freespace 2 the shivans fighters and bombers are actually the weakest, yet they maintain thier edge in other ways. Like in Freespace 1 shivans posses almost invulnerable sheilds
Yeah I loved the Shivans. The grainy security camera of the Shivans breeching the hull of the ship sticks in my mind to this day. "Their limbs are all over thier body, making no dinstinction between up and down suggesting they evolved in zero gravity" my ten year old mind was blown imagining that haha.
The Shivans have always been an interesting and frightening enigma and all we can do is guess at their motives and origins. With that said, that does not mean we can't make an educated guess from pieces of information Volition has left us.
As said by the Ancient monologues in Freespace 1, the Shivans appeared after the Ancients had destroyed an unknown number of civilizations. In the beginning of Freespace 1, the GTA and PVE had been at war for 14 years prior to the arrival of the Shivans. Both appearances of the Shivans are after a series of prolonged conflict (this is probably where the theory that the Shivans are great preservers originated), and the only result was death.
The Shivans got the Ancients, and they nearly got us. The only obstacle that stood between the Shivans and total victory was the product of two niches of the Ancients and the Vasudans. The Ancients were said to be highly proficient in subspace physics, and the Vasudans are said to be very proficient at recovering and preserving knowledge. These two very specific niches from two distinct races resulted in the re-discovery of subspace tracking, and the downfall of the Shivan superdestroyer Lucifer.
The destruction of the Lucifer caused the Shivan forces to become severely disorganized before being wiped out by the GTA and remaining PVE forces. This turn of events after the Lucifer's destruction has two meanings:
A. The Lucifer had almost if not all command assets aboard.
B. The Shivan fleet was not designed to counter subspace attacks.
This is an interesting conclusion that may have ties later on.
31 years after the Great War, the NTF Rebellion began, and 18 months later, the return of the Shivans. This Second Shivan Incursion provides even more clues as to the intentions of the Shivans. Just as in the Ancient-Shivan War and the Great War, the Shivans arrived after prolonged conflict (the 18 months of the NTF Rebellion), however this time may be by design. Admiral Bosch has been obsessed with the Shivans for a long time, and he may know that the Shivans are seemingly drawn to conflict, hence the rebellion itself, a front to draw out the true objective.
The GTVA, once destroying and pushing back the small Shivan force through the Ancient subspace portal in Gamma Draconis, sent an expedition through the portal. Their inital discovery was a nebula (massive foreshadowing to the destruction of the Capella star) and a ship, the NTC Trinity. The NTC Trinity was badly damaged upon inspection and destroyed shortly after, however only defected to the NTF ten days prior to its discovery. There are many theories regarding the Trinity and its business inside the nebula, however what is known is that the Shivans only recently emerged from the subspace portal as evident by their mid-construction of a cargo depot in Gamma Draconis, and that the Trinity was inside the nebula prior to the GTVA blockade of the portal (this is probably where the theory that the Trinity opened the subspace portal to bring the Shivans stems).
Throughout their campaign in the nebula, the GTVA encounters a new major threat: the destroyer Ravana. This threat was quickly annihilated, and following this, the remaining Shivan forces in the nebula were systematically defeated. This series of events is a parallel to the end of the Great War when the Lucifer was destroyed and the Shivans, despite still possessing a threatening force, were defeated.
After the destruction of the Ravana and the systematic destruction of much of the Shivan forces in the nebula, a more powerful threat emerged, the Sathanas. The GTVA had to deploy its best weapon, the Colossus, against the juggernaut in order to destroy it. Its destruction did not have the same effect as the destruction of the Ravana and Lucifer, however, and Shivan forces began to appear all through the nebula. Eventually, more Sathanas juggernauts would arrive. The juggernauts forced the GTVA to destroy the subspace portal, albeit to no avail, and then retreat to Capella before witnessing the destruction of an entire star. The reason for the destruction of the Capella star appears to have many possible answers, and is thus the most questionable of the Shivans' deeds, however we have enough information to determine that the Shivans destroyed the star in order to neutrilize the GTVA fleet, particularly the Colossus. Why is this the deduction? The answer to that is the culmination of this essay: the Shivans are protecting themselves.
The biggest pieces of evidence for why the Shivans do what they do have all been laid out and the final conclusion to be made has been stated. The Shivans are a hive-minded race controlled by intelligences based on key ships (hence their insect like appearance, and possible relation to bees) and, in the end, are here to destroy us, but they destroy us in order to protect themselves. Everything from their cyborg bodies to their star-destroying ships are built as layers, contingencies used to scale the threat level of a species. This offers an explanation as to why they only appear after times of great intra-galactic conflict: the Shivans wait to see if a species could have the potential to one day threaten them. This also shows why the Shivans leave smaller civilizations alone such as early Ancients, Humans, and Vasudans: they do not know if we might one day evolve to be a pacifistic, peaceful civilization. A civilization will never stop advancing, and will almost always advance exponentially, this is why as soon as the Shivans determine that their target race has chosen their empire to feed on war, they wipe them out in as efficient way as any sentient race knows how: with as little expended energy as possible. This explains the Lucifer fleet makeup, and how they did not believe us capable of defeating it and rightly so. The GTA and PVE only survived because of the partnerships they had made (Ancient interference with Vasudans a long time ago leading to the discovery and translation of subspace tracking as well as Vasudans and Humans, the Vasudan Empire had all but fallen under the Shivan might and were not capable of preparing and launching a full scale assault on the Lucifer without their newfound ally, and humanity would have fallen too if the Vasudans were not so keen on preserving knowledge). The Shivans are not stupid, and definitely took note of how bitter rivals became allies against impossible odds to survive. They left us alone for quite a while before returning after another interspecies war broke out (maybe Bosch knew that interspecies fighting was the only fighting Shivans took note of, hence the focus on Vasudans). This time, we pushed back immediately, destroying the new hive mind before they were able to organize an effective foothold in our space (again, the Shivans aren't dumb, and would not use another Lucifer because we could just follow it into hyperspace again and destroy it with our fleet, so they use ship bred for heavy anti-fleet combat). This alarmed the Shivans so they sent an even more powerful ship and fleet to annihilate our presence in the nebula and beyond, but the Sathanas was destroyed by the Colossus. This probably provoked the Shivans into thinking our fleets are a major threat to them as we can destroy them in and outside subspace, destroy any ship they throw at us, and attack them before they're ready for us (subspace portal depot), thus they deduce that if they can't match our ships directly, they can surpass our entire fleet indirectly, and deploy a fleet of Sathanas to obliterate the Capella star.
Despite all of this deduction, this is only still just speculation, and there are a great many questions left unanswered even with this theory. We will never know exactly what the Shivans are doing or why, after all, what can an ant understand when a human destroys its colony. To end, if only two things can reliably be taken away from this, it's that:
1. Never start a war but always be ready for it, and
2. It truly is a miracle that we won the Great War.
Excellent ! Your explanations are so good to read. But what I can't understand is why the Sathanas fleet rushed to the Capella star while they could destroy all in their way if they had choosen to enter in GTVA spaces because the GTVA at that time was outnumbered, and that development left the GTVA enough time to prepare a contingency plan with the Meson bombs. You said that they did it in order to wipe out the GTVA fleet hence to destroy also the Colossus. But I think this fleet was so powerful comparing to all assets of GTVA. That's this enigma that Volition developers left us and that's what I can't understand also because in a fight you don't let your enemy rest if you have the upper hand, you must finish him quickly before he can recover. Rushing to the Capella star and jumping in an unknown subspace location before destroying it is a nonsense to me, it is like the Shivans decided to capitulate
@@MaverickDiouf Maybe the assumption that the Shivans are engaging with the GTVA as a military force is faulty. That's the basis of every insight into the Shivan's motives but they don't really seem to be a military in Freespace 2, or at least for a military their tactics are non-existent. The Sathanas 1 basically just applies energy to it's weapons and engine subsystems and even when its weapons are entirely disarmed it just keeps going. In the state the first Sathanas juggernaut is in when it reaches Capella you would think when the Colossus jumps in and opens fire a tactically sound option would be to retreat to a supply depot or the now Shivan controlled Gamma Draconis and repair and maybe wait for the dozens of other juggernaut-class ships which are probably already en-route or even just some more fighter/bomber support. Instead it sits there, takes it's beating and is destroyed.
@@brady8481 Yes I think you're point on. The Shivans actions in FS2 are not militaristic in nature. Only once, throughout the entire campaign, do they go on the offensive against the GTVA itself - under all other circumstances they are either attacked by the GTVA, or they encounter GTVA blockades en route to the Capella star. In fact, it's almost as if the Shivans don't even recognize the existence of the GTVA at a strategic level; local forces will respond upon contact but beyond that it seems like the Shivans see Humans/Vasudans as flies so minuscule in nature that they aren't even worth bothering about. This is evident by the juggernaut fleet which, despite numbering in an overwhelming 90 ships, travel through the Gamma Draconis choke point one by one in a convoy like manner rather than as a concentrated attack formation. They also completely ignore the main GTVA fleet in Capella despite having the power to wipe it out without much losses at all (except for that one time where they finally recognize the existence of the Colossus by taking the bother of diverting a single juggernaut to dispatch it), and instead they head to blow up the Capella star and thus needlessly, from a military perspective, lose/sacrifice a big portion of their juggernaut fleet.
When they blow up Capella most of the juggernaut fleet jumps out (god knows to where; not within Capella for sure - but then again they didn't enter a inter-system node either) while the rest of the juggernauts stay behind to maintain the supernova trigger and thus sacrificing themselves. Not to mention that it is explicitly shown (highlighted even) that they consequently destroy ALL other non-juggernaut Shivan ships swarming Capella. This seems completely unnecessary, baffling even, in a military context considering how nonexistent the GTVA is as a threat to the juggernauts - yet it was clearly a intentional part of the story. For this reason it is safe to assume that whatever the Shivans did to the Capella star they did it for reasons other than to combat the GTVA (this is further hinted at with the admirals speculations in the ending monolouge); and they probably would have done it whether or not the GTVA was there in the first place. I think the FS2 story can best be summarized as a bear traveling through the forest to get some water, on it's way to the river it steps on an anthill; as the bear moves on the ants celebrate their bravery and how they just survived the greatest existential war there ever was - while from the bears perspective it had hardly noticed that the ants were there in the first place; and it's motives hadn't included, or even considered, the ants at all.
Colossus was already destroyed by the time they initiated the supernova. So I'd tend to agree with other commenters: this event was of non-military purpose. And yes, I do believe Bosch communicating with Shivans have had something to do with it.
@@MaverickDiouf I think the fact that Shivans are shown as if they just have seen some kind of opportunity with the activation of the Kronoss portal and went to reach it is brilliant way to make them even more frightening. Yes, they are pretty effective in annihilating everything GTVA trows at them and in the end destroy their major star system. But all this time they are never shown be focused in some way on what GTVA calls "Second Great War". And while we can try to imagine that they actually did pay some special attention to us (at least to the "close the sink hole, roaches may enter" level, enough to spare some of our ego), there is really strong impression that in the second game Shivans just pass by.
Lucifer's task force at least was actively focusing on Vasudan and Terran destruction. They had strategy aimed to destroy us. Heck, they even applied tactics at several occasions. It was personal. You were actually fighting monster.
With Freespace II Shivans two thing immediately catch your attention: First, they are much more technologically advanced than those, escorting Lucifer, and second, you never really feel them to antagonize you. They feel much more like an automated perimeter defense that prioritizes resource management just as much as threat elimination. Of cause you are still given the chance to convince yourself that things remain personal. You can appoint monsters, twice actually, when the first Ravana and first Satanas appear and can even try on the mantle of a monster-slayer for a brief moment. But this all is then ripped from you. You are not fighting monsters. You stand against something the scale of a force of nature and if you survive "the final victory" it is not because of GTVA efforts or Shivan failure, but because eradicating ants is not what forces of nature exist for.
The atmosphere of these games is so cold and mysterious. I remember being completely immersed through the progression of the entire story. Next to the introduction of the shivans and the mystery around then, the Ancients had be captivated as a kid... I don't know of another Sci fi game that pulled something like this off so well. The fact you never learn all that much about the Ancients only made my imagination go wild and brought the while experience to life for me.
I always loved that when you managed to kill a shivan craft in their introductory mission the debriefing reflects that telling you what a boost to moral that was.
It reminded me of the Sheridan and the Black Star in Babylon 5.
When I first played Freespace at 8 years old there was nothing else that was as terrifying as the Shivans
Freespace & Freespace 2 have deserved a video series like this one for ages. You're doing an excellent job. Take as long as you need to finish these to ensure they get done right
Thank you! I'm glad people still have fond memories of it and are finding these!
I wish you'd gone further with this series. I loved it.
After watching it again I came to the conclusion we will never have an iconic and terrifying enemy like them. Not even the Reapers from ME come close to them, because the reapers depend on others for their numbers and the shivans dont. They need planets and resources to sustain their campaign the shivans dont. The perfect enemy to be afraid of every time you encounter them because you know that no matter how powerful you are and how many you destroy they keep coming and they will kill you cause they're existence and numbers are infinite and you dont know why they kill or why they exist
The Shivans...
They could survive and maybe even thrive in the 40k universe.
They would give Tyranids run for their money ;-)
Shivans smash everything then disappear.
Tyranids atleast cleanup after they're done, for what it's worth.
They could if we go with the depiction Blue Planet gave us. They're practically Chaos meets Replicators with The Beast from Homeworld served on the side, hook it all up to the brain of a Reaper and that's how you get the Shivans.
I also like Inferno's idea where the Shivans could just escalate _endlessly_ if and where needed.
BP versus orks would be... frightening. Shit would go back to the War In Heaven in short order.
Shivans => Reapers (mass effect)
This was a very nice look into the introduction of the shivans. To data I have yet to see a game that has established a enemy so well and maintained that felling of utter helplessness. Even when slaughtering them you know in the end it dosent matter. You lose either way. I'm a huge sci-fi nut, it's a shame that no other series has had a enemy that has ever come close to instilling the silent horror and fear that the shivans so excellently do. A lot of this comes from the writing. They are so far from human, so far from understanding. In this genera they are the most unrelatable antagonist and they truly feel alien in every sense of the word. Great job. Can't wait to see more.
The writing plays a huge part but I still think one of the best things Freespace did was make them far more at home in space than the Terrans and Vasudans. You can even see this in how the Shivan ships maneuver compared their counterparts. I think there's a bit of footage of the scorpions here doing their weird Descent style slides and once the Dragon gets introduced that's when stuff gets really crazy.
Thanks for the continued support! It really means a lot!
this game and story was so awesome, specially the introduction of the shivans ... they where real horror in the first playthroughs.
Freespace and freespace 2 are some of the best thought out and well told stories in video game history. Its a shame that we will never get closure to freespace 2 and that hurts me even to this day.
I think F2 ended perfectly. The Shivans halted the GTVA conquest of the galaxy, simply because they were expanding too quickly and covering too much territory. Many battles were victorious against Shivans, but the war was in their favor all along. All the alliance can do is pull back and learn from the 30 year timetable that was Freespace in a nutshell. The portal to Earth was able to be built from Knossos, and the Shivans restored peace. Plus they remained an enigma all throughout the series which is amazing.
A damn good and bittersweet ending to me that's not cookie cutter. I don't want a Freespace 3. The story is concluded.
@@Amp661 Not really. Admiral bosh was captured by the Shivans and we have no clue what happend to him. We were also told Shivans had interstellar jumpdrives so they can easy come back again from whatever system some of the surviving juggernaut jumped to. The FS team even revealed that an actual FS3 would story line would focus on finding Bosh and strike back on Shivan homeworld in the end.
@@queenbrightwingthe3890 Maybe the FS team could have pulled off a third installment and still allow FreeSpace to remain an absolute gem. But the problem here is that most of the emotional effect of Shivans comes from their mortal, yet overwhelming and unknown nature. FreeSpace 2 didn't interfere with that, it built on that. Shivans started as a mystery and remained a mystery. I'm afraid that the third installment would be more likely to reveal too much or change the nature of the Shivans to something much less scary. Like Kilrathi in Wing Commander. Blow up their homeworld and you're done. They surrender.
It's like the Borg in Star Trek. I liked the original Borg. No queen, just a hive mind. A huge colony of ants. They keep coming no matter what in an undefeatable fashion. Like the Shivans. Then they added the queen which you eliminate and you're done. Made them much less scary, much less lovecraftian. So, I'm not sorry that there's no FS3, even though it would be fantastic if the FS team could pull it off and still make it good. But it would be much harder to expand the story and not do something to ruin it, I'm afraid.
This breakdown is supremely next level... I'm going to have to watch this a couple more times. Brilliant.
Something I feel goes unmentioned quite often is how much modern Ace Combat games mirror what Freespace was doing around the turn of the millennium in both gameplay style and storytelling. No wonder I've taken such a liking to the series!
Also, great work on this series so far. I hope you get to continue it some day!
And then in Freespace 2 the GTVA severly underestimates the shivans and Severly overestimate themselves ending up in tremendous loss, which still paints the Shivans as a threat even if you have become more technologically advanced the shivans are still a threat.... they are still scary....
The Shivans are a complete mystery and I'm glad they were kept enigmatic and silent killers with very little intelligence on them. The GTVA were fighting a losing war since the death of Lt. Ash. Some think the Shivans were the protectors of outer reaches of space filled with secrets, and easily halted the Terrans advance. Many theories, but no one knows the truth,and that makes the Shivans amazing.
I fell in love with this series and I'm sad it's over. It had so much potential as a story and as a genre.
The shivans are an amazing species. Simply because we have no idea what they want.. and they are far far more advanced than we are. The shivans have and will always be one of my favorite species in a space series. however its strange that i just realized. that the shivans are the reason i love Lovecraftian horror.
The Shivans are amazing. Enigmatic, don't care to communicate, no knowledge of who they are, where they come from, what their goal is, and they still emerge victorious and insanely strong. No nonsensical gab to the GTVA about their motives. They rule forever.
Since I've gotten a couple questions about the future, this is a long haul project and will exist as long as this channel does. The next episode (after another non-Freespace video) will cover the Hammer and the Anvil through the Aftermath.
I know there's some chomping at the bit for Freespace 2 but hang in there. Silent Threat (if you don't know) is a curious creation and a hugely important part as to why Freespace 2 is the way it is. And that's coming once I get through FS1.
I think the best way to describe the vessels of each faction
Terrans: Utilitarian. Some boxy, some streamlined, but all where function is more important than form.
Vasudans: Ornate. Vasudan vessels are elaborately designed, and often feature motifs like scales or are based on creatures.
Shivans: Insectile/Arachnid. Very elaborate and menacing. Ships may be "grown" due to their strange designs.
Can't wait for part 4! This was one of my first games as well and I'm really enjoying the videos!
The fact that the mod community made it so the Galatea can actually use their turrets and use them all effectively.
I remember scrambling all over before mods going crazy as only like 2 turrets worked for me and here I only had to get like 7 since they handled it themselves.
I've been in love with this game since it came out. Thanks for the great videos!
Thank you for the support. I have a Dark Souls video close to being finished and then we're on to Part 4!
The first time you do paving the way you keep looking over your rear view displays thinking "ok when are the shivans coming to kill us"
Great breakdown, when I first played game i didnt killed shivans was too young by that time, but on second runn well i tryied so hard i succeded :-)
20 years after and this game(s) is stil THE KING of space shooter games... thats insane.
Excellent commentary! Very good at making out what makes the narrative around the Shivans and why it works so well
I played Starlancer after I was hardened by the Shivans and literally destroyed everyone that got in my way. NOTHING compares to fighting the Shivans without shielding and in a nebula.
Man, this is soooo well done! Your views are missing a few zeroes, for sure.
I remember when FS2 came out. In the initial training mission when the Shivan craft shows up....it literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. THAT'S how effective the Shivans are.
Bruh remember the fs2 demo command briefing? that was the scariest.
@@Flyinghotpocket I don't recall that but I remember the beams of the Moloch...
@@RuralTowner the Ravanas first appearance inside the nebula as just a silhouette on my sensors was horrific! That was scary at first!
@@Amp661 But little can really compare though to trying to avoid having your MARA go SPLAT on the SATHANAS windshield.
"DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT!"
I must've died at least a half dozen times or more before succeeding.
@@Amp661 Still not as much as that Basilisk in the training mission. :)
A pretty great analysis of an all time favourite
love this in depth commentary look at the campaign. looking forward to more
The destruction of that one Shivan craft in their introduction mission is a microcosm of the rest of the game. Yes, the Shivans can be beaten, but only with extreme effort and at great cost. You can't rescue the Plato, and while the crew can be saved, the loss is real. Same with the Galatea later on.
The Shivans are very similar to the Reapers from Mass Effect, both in terms of designs and sheer power of destruction. If Freespace had been developed further they’d share the same purpose which is to preserve the civilizational balance in the galaxy.
Mass effect almost appears to have borrowed their ideas from freespace.. Reapers = shivans, prometheans = Ancients. I'm biased because this game had such a huge effect on me as a kid and while I love the first mass effect game nothing comes close to the story and vibes of freespace and freespace 2 for me...
Really great video with good descriptions, only issue is the music volume was rendered in way too loud, especially at 17:00 in, tough to hear with the epic music going lol
I would love to see more videos about freespace or anything from you, this was well done
though i only played fs2 i definitely found the shivans v memorable, but i hadnt considered what you correctly pointed out - that they're a narrative/literary accomplishment in addition to a well executed part of the gameplay. there's also someth thematically v interesting about how the "legacy of the ancients," the culmination of their people's entire history, was just a lead to help the allies *barely* avoid oblivion
You must play FS1. Once their super destroyer, The Lucifer, shows up, It gets pretty intense between both the GTVA and the Shivan armada. Plus you experience the final fights between the vasudans and their renegade faction: the Hammer of Light. Give it a go. I highly recommend that game!
il never forget when i went all out to try to kill the first shiven i encountered, it was one hell of a task, but il never forget my co giving me a commendation for inspiring humans to fight the shivans after i killed it.
Shivans are a kickass force. plus they are silent killers and no one knows anything about them. Less is more!!
How can i get this version of the game , that is been display on this video, it seem a very high QA HD graphics, i been left behind so far on the times, hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thank you.
This series made me consider playing Freespace 1.
Excellent stuff!!! The shivans are the ultimate crushers. The Ravana is the best destroyer by far, and the Sethanas is so OP that it could take down half a dozen Collossus's
Btw in the mission from 6 minutes you can protect the science vessel. did it a few times. You can ram shivans away before they fire and have ships intercept the rockets
Thanks for putting into words the qualities of Freespace that made it such a classic, even after all these years. Do you plan on writing about Freespace 2 and possibly the exceptional Blue Planet mod?
Yes! Other than for chronology's sake, the reason I started with Freespace 1 is because it has a bit of a lesser reputation than its sequel and I thought the first thing I could do was point out the wealth of positives it has other than allowing Freespace 2 to exist.
Freespace 2 is down the road a bit since I'm doing Silent Threat Reborn once I get through Freespace 2 (and I'll talk about why that is in some detail later) and after Freespace 2 it'll be the pages upon pages of community campaigns, Blue Planet among them.
I hope you can make more of thease soon
My quarter is almost over so I should have some more time to get back to it
There is a thread going through good science fiction: The shadows in Babylon5, the shivans in Freespace, and the reapers in Mass Effect. It seems there is a liking to enemies who unify a hardware like graspability with a lovecraftean, beyond understanding threat scenarios.
Oh man, I love how you include the tracks of the game's score at their appropriate places. I will never forget the feelings I had when Ambience 4 was playing during the Galatea escort mission (13 year-old me had to try that one so. Many. Times!) or the rising tension of Ambience 5 during Playing Judas. The combination of sober storytelling and austere visual design really accents the music, which adds immensely to the game's atmosphere.
Any chance of you continuing this series and covering FS2, was well?
thank you for the kind words! one day I do plan on coming back and working on more videos but for now and likely for a while I don't have the time to devote to video production. I did however stream all of FS1, ST:R, and FS2 doing this kind of commentary on the twitch channel I help run: www.twitch.tv/scholarsplay
The Shivans of FS1/2 are the only ones I've come across that can be more menacing than any of the First Ones from Babylon 5 (favorite Sci-Fi series)...specifically the Shadows. Perhaps that is because whereas the Shadows you are merely a spectator while viewing the series, the Shivans on the other hand you play an active part in combating them. From the first nearly impossible encounter with them in FS1 to the ultimately futile attempt to stop them in FS2. The Shadows of B5 pale against them. As another commenter has said that "they are a standard" to be compared to. I've only seen the PRIME series of The Expanse but I sort of get the same feel for the ones that destroyed the Ring Builders in there that comes with the Shivans. But somehow the sheer scope there falls short from what I've read from book excerpts. In truth am not sure if there is a "villain" in any Sci-Fi that can match the Shivans. The closest match I can think of is the BORG early on in TNG. The episodes "Q Who" & "Best of Both Worlds 1 & 2" being prime examples.
Two things: is there a way to tone down the atmospheric music? It tends to garble your terrific narrative;
Second thing: What do you think the Shivan designs resemble/are inspired by? I mean the Humans have the standard naval/aviation architecture look; the Vasudans seem to look like Egyptian/Pharoahic artifacts/symbols--but the shivans? The cap ships look like gnarled Corals (Lilith & Cain); mutant crustaceans (if Lucifer don't look like a overgrown mantis shrimp, I don't know what does) ( Some of the fighters resemble the B5 'shadows')--;
What are you watching these on? I know my phone's speakers hate my voice regardless of music or not. I think my voice is just at a really bad pitch for certain speakers. There is a piece of music I won't use anymore because at least on my various speakers it comes close to being too loud.
The Shivan capital ships are definitely inspired by Lovecraftian monsters and sea creatures (who in turn probably inspired Lovecraft). They all have some type of arms/tentacles on them. As for the fighters and bombers that's a bit harder to pin down but they are often more asymmetric than their Terran and Vasudan counterparts to quickly get an alien feel to them. Not knowing the design process behind them I can't really say much more because they're more eclectic than the capital ships.
I also find the music too loud in comparison to your voice.
Headphones or speakers make little difference in that regard.
It is good naration, would be a shame to miss something you said.
I guess my dilemma right now is whether re uploading this is worth it. Not that changing it is hard but UA-cam isn't conducive to that sort of thing.
RE: the sound it's all good--I can listen past the music (Kinda how I can block out the screeching cicadas when I'm in Greece) as for Lovecraft's 'inspirations', I reckon that's why that parody song is called 'It's beginning to look a lot like Fishmen'.
Anyway, Y'all keep 'em coming--and I hope you branch out into FS2 (and maybe the fan made campaigns too, while you're at it)
Some of the sound stuff is also how shitty my editing software is but I'll definitely keep an ear on it in the future.
I'll be getting to Freespace 2 in a while, after going through Silent Threat Reborn (and there will be a video specifically about why Reborn and not retail). So it's in the pipeline, just there's a lot to get to when you're unpacking 15 years of your life.
After FS2 I'll be going through some amount of community campaigns (Blue Planet, Transcend, Vassago's Dirge, Derelict, Between the Ashes off the top of my head). So there will be plenty of Freespace content for years to come.
Recently finished another run of Freespace retail campaigns. Would be really cool to see you do a video on Fs2 if you ever came back.
An interesting comment I saw on another video was someone commenting that the Reapers of Mass Effect were a rip off of the Shivans... And on seeing that it got me thinking there are a lot of parallels (beyond colour scheme and design, a Reaper slotted into a Shivan fleet wouldn't look too out of place) a powerful race (possibly Bio/Mech-synthetic) return in cycles across millennia for unknown reasons purging all space faring species they encounter, with your primary source of info and technology to fight them being from the ruins of an ancient extinct race who conquered and genocided their way across the galaxy before encountering the Shivans and being wiped out in turn for their hubris... The Reapers even use beam weapons something unknown prior to their arrival. An awful lot of parallels!
The true rip off is Saren who is just an alien version of Aken Bosch.
@secondaryfront you are not wrong!
Would love to see a video about Freespace 2!
I enjoy it a lot. i love the saga.
i have 10 or 11 years when this game strike in my heart, This is my Childhood!., and.. i have memories., Remember something about getting a Ursa, full it of Fusion torpedoes., Harbingers., And blow that big black ship out of the subspace., , the guys throwing escape pods because lucy blow the station, and also GTF Valkyrie and Athenas!!!! Beutiful ships!
And shivans., is a common joke with some of my friends that also play the game, that the shivans come from everywhere including the from below the tiles.
Thanks for bringing the memories.
Such a fantastic game. I doubt any game made in my lifetime will top it..
I hope you will continue the series...
So against the shivans resistance is futile ... literally
But still hope is there ...
Fantastic video, fantastic antagonist, fantastic game
Paving the way wasn't boring. Not to me, at least. Fighting your way through an asteroid field while waiting in dread of a Shivan attack which could come out of nowhere at any time? Yeah, shooting rocks is an odd way to put it. I suppose warfare in real life is largely down to "apes shooting other apes", too.
I really like it but it has a (somewhat deserved) reputation in the community as far as its actual design goes on replay. The first time through the campaign it's an incredible experience. On the 50th replay, not as much. I really like it but it's one of those missions that loses almost all of what made it special when you replay it.
I've only replayed it a handful of times. That's the trick, I guess.
I always thought of it as boring but that's because I've played through this campaign SO many times over the past 20 years. Watching this video actually made me remember my first play-through vividly, for the first time in years, and I think it was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences 11-year-old me ever had lol.
I played the FS1 port after playing FS2, and when that asteroid mission came up, I was like "oh they have one of these here as well?"
It turned out to be ok after the surprise
What Settings did you use and What mods? This looks better then my Download of the Freespace 2 Open, so is there additional settings or mods you used to archive this level of detail?
Resolution?
Mods?
what version of the mediaVP's did you use?
I wish to make mine look as good as yours, also did you use any costume flags in the settings?
I can't remember if this was recorded on 3.8.0 but it was whenever the renderer got a major overhaul. If you downloaded something recent then you should have the same renderer as I was using.
The mediaVPs are the 2014 ones.
I also disable emissive light, have all lighting related options enabled, enabled 3D shockwaves/soft particles/framebuffer shockwaves and thrusters
I love this series! Make more stuff!!!
How do you feel about Admiral Boch trying to communicate with them?
Takes balls. Shivans killed his entire crew and took him hostage. No one knows what happened to him!
Just stating my interest in watching a continuation of this :)
For me it was something like the Aliens but with spaceships.
Another thing i have to say is that FS1 was the best space game i truly loved.
Another thing was that because i am from Greece and writer Mike Kulas(story writer) is also Greek the use of Greek names on the ships and weapons did it as well.
Nothing else came even close, and here is where i my PC love also escalated over the consoles.
Atari was the top for me.
I did such a good job of defending the Plato the game kind of Glitched, the plato reached the jump point, and just sat there, and then after about 1 min it just blow up and the escape pod then jumped lol
Great video - and I'm still kinda irritated that greed kept us from seeing a Freespace 3.
That one Shivan that somehow forgot to hyperspace away at the end of the mission was basically how I learned proper speed control and how to stay on the enemy's ass.
coming from a vet freespace player i recommend that you bind a key to break, as in cutting your speed down to zero, give it a try, you will find your accuracy will improve dramatically. The main issue with accuracy in this game stems from overshooting your target, if you slow down you can catch them.
Would be tough to dress up as a 5 legged cyber monster which seems to have evolved in zero G.
Omg the... the detail! What mods are used? Holy bugger! How do we get these mods!?
There is a trick on the mission where you first encounter the shivans. Press T until you have one of your Teammates is targeted, then press J. It will target one of the Shivan ships, as it is a command called 'Target my target's target.'
It's the [fairly] roundabout way I hinted at. Unless you go into the control mappings you won't know about it though. It's also a fun little view of how the AI functions.
Yeah, to be honest I didn't learn about that until just a few years back. X3 I felt like an idiot, but MAN did it make that mission much simpler for the bonus objective.
Hah. I've found the Shaitens to be a little easier to go after since they let you stay behind them a fair amount and Furies are the only things that do worthwhile shield damage. The ML-16 at least keeps the shields from regenerating.
Fire;steel Haha, yeah.
Also, if you equip a Valkyrie with only one ML-16 laser and call support ship, this will add a Prometheus cannor on second empty slot, the Apollo will get an avenger cannon along with a ML-16 laser if you start the mission with only secondary slots filled.
Great series!
Why did FS2 end so abruptly...at the end of last mission, when Capella went supernova? Is this the end of the storyline? Why the disjointed transition to the saga of H.O.L? Overall, FS2 is the best game I have ever played. Do you think there will/can be FS3?
FS2's ending was probably a combination of time constraints and deciding that within the game itself, there weren't many places to go immediately after they destroyed a solar system. As for FS3, I'd be shocked if it ever happened, if you want some things gesturing that direction I'd recommend the Blue Planet or Inferno campaigns and in general the modding going on at Hard Light Productions.
Freespace 3 : The Search for Bosch
(It's not a serious campaign, but it has the name XD)
I just subscribed! I hope you make more Freespace videos this year. Have you played the RTS Homeworld?
Thank you! Summer is looking pretty good for getting back to this. I have Homeworld sitting on my hard drive and I really need to play it at some point.
Are you going to keep doing videos?
I will be but at a far reduced pace. The real world has loaded me down with a ton of stuff and even the video I had about 60% done hasn't been worked on in a month.
Firesteel ok, just checking your videos are good.
Thanks! All the comments of support are mostly what's keeping this on my mind as much as it is.
This is a great series, I can't wait for the next one.
What mods did you use for the upgraded graphics?
Look up the Freespace Source Code Project and Freespace Open. They completely overhaul the engine and bring the FS1 and FS2 campaigns up to date, along with having tons of fantastic community content. Be sure to also check out the Blue Planet mod for FSO for a really satisfying continuation of the main storyline after FS2.
loved this. well done
What I would like to know is: What happened to Admiral Bosch after the Shivans took him with them?
No one knows. That's the beauty of it. It's so full of mystery.
I think the Shivans were protectors! They destroyed the Ancient cause they conquered and killed many species!!
And they came for the Humans and Vasudans because they were at war and the Shivans felt it and start the hunt!
I believe that Shivans are fully omnicidal. Yes, even to primitive races. I believe the only reason why the Shivans didn't kill every advanced life in the galaxy yet is the huge numbers of systems to patrol, so Shivans must rely on their sensitivity to subspace disturbances (like the ones made by massive fleet movements during the interstellar wars or creating new portals by Knossos devices). I also believe that Shivans are not fully sencient, or at least not sencient in the sense of human being sencient, so they do have limited long-term planning abilities.
Part 4 please!
this is a good learning video
6:20 yeaaaa about that..... you can in fact kill them all with infinite ammo cheat (thou you cant complete the mission with that as the ship has to be wiped out). And even without you can, with the proper ship wich you didnt fly, wipe out 2 of the attacking bombers (the missles on the interceptor are just so perfectly placed compared to the ulysses. just beware of your extreme low HP)
Thanks for your Freespace videos, it is so good to see thay there are others that enjoys this game in 2018.
But what I can't understand is why the Sathanas fleet rushed to the Capella star while they could destroy all in their way if they had choosen to enter in GTVA spaces because the GTVA at that time was outnumbered, and that development left the GTVA enough time to prepare a contingency plan with the Meson bombs. Some said that they did it in order to wipe out the GTVA fleet hence to destroy also the Colossus. But I think this fleet was so powerful comparing to all assets of GTVA. That's this enigma that Volition developers left us and that's what I can't understand also because in a fight you don't let your enemy rest if you have the upper hand, you must finish him quickly before he can recover. Rushing to the Capella star and jumping in an unknown subspace location before destroying it is a nonsense to me, it is like the Shivans decided to capitulate
My long answer is coming much much later but the short answer is the Shivans simply don't care about the GTVA and any interest they might have had went with Bosch
@@Firesteel and Maverick Diouf www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=74745.0
@@tlfearofthedarkhun387 Yeah that's a good post. I don't have much to add about the Shivans' motives that Volition may or may not have clarified but the best thing they did (that comes up in that post) is build a solid foundation. Also I'd forgotten that they'd been reading about Bosnia and the Balkans while they were developing the game (which makes a ton of sense)
@@Firesteel Most likely we will never know more about them except what we have. (Established FS cannon and this interview). It appears that the Shivans are just tools created by another race (Blue Planet age of aquarius actually gives a hint who they are), and they are creating jump nodes by destroying Stars in order to connect those systems with their homesystem for some reason. They are also the great destroyers, eliminating highly advanced races, and due to this they also take up the role of great preservers. I believe The Lucifer fleet was indeed some kind of a scouting party to clear the area for the Juggernauts to perform their star operations in safety.
All in all, Blue Planet and Inferno have their shot to conclude the story. Both of them are true and spiritual Freespace 3 continuities. (mods).
In Blue Planet, there is a 3rd race, the Vishnans, whose presence further complicate the story.
@@tlfearofthedarkhun387 At least when I talk about the retail games for this, I'm not going to talk that much about Blue Planet's interpretation since while I do enjoy it a lot, I don't completely buy in. I still think the two most important things the Shivans did was 1) actually tying themselves into the (likely) origin of their name, being both the destroyers and the preservers and 2) allowing things like Blue Planet and Inferno to mold them. Battuta's thoughts here: www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84744.msg1692461#msg1692461 are about as spot on as you can get
Still one of the best damn games ever made!!!
For question why Shivans didnt attacked human-vasudan space instead destroying Capella it must be said that Shivan status as sencient species is really doubtfull. They do act chaotical and are difficult to comprehend. They are also pretty poor tactitians and strategists, and are surprisingly easy to trick, as seen multiple times during both games. They may be robots with only basic instructions as their aim, with hostility against others being only constant.
They are a sentient species, but they have a "hive mind" structure that give them one purpose. They wear exoskeltal suits than integrate the shivan into their assigned fighter/bomber (not necessarily capital ships or transports). It's all very alien. That's all what I read.
You doing a part 4 at some point?
Yes I have something lying around that I'll be able to work into a script at some point but I haven't had the time and I was lucky to get anything up in 2018 because of my schedule
@@Firesteel Cool, man. I'm glad you were able to upload this, it's very insightful. No rush, if you choose not to make part 4 then that's ok, but if you do, I'll be waiting with bated breath, lol
@@Firesteel Bated breath mayne, lmao
Thank you for the video. Made me reinstall FS. For better or worse..
Man, I rather play this old game than Star Citizen.
Does anyone know if there have been made detailed (head trackable) cockpits for these games?
did they remasrter this game? i dont remember it looking so good back then :P
Mods dude. Get the Freespace Knossos mod manager and install from a list of mods presented there.
Some info:
www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/02/04/freespace-2-deploys-massive-mods-and-fangames-from-knossos/
Great content! Subscribed!
Man... You get it.
We will never know why the blew up that star
And it's best left alone as a mystery. Less is more and it's beautiful.
It makes you wonder if you destroying a Shivan didn't exactly endear humanity to the Shivan cause. Though that is making the pretty arrogant viewpoint (in light of the universes' scale and history's perspective) that anything you do actually matters. The Shivans are eternal. Humans are just a bug on the windscreen.
I would ask Hollywood to make a movie on this but they ALWAYS fuck up movies based on epic video games lol
Do NOT let Hollywood destroy this piece of art. Seriously.
You must have played a different version because you could defeat the Shivans easily if you kept behind one during that mission.
Do more freespace
how did you get to run Freespace 1 on your computer? i always failed
This footage is using Freespace Open and FSPort made by the fine folks at Hard Light Productions.
Retail Freespace 1 doesn't like multi monitor setups. I've gotten the GOG version to work on my Win10 desktop though I haven't tried my original disks in a long time, they should act similarly.
installed some microsoft update? no wonder it seized to work.
actually i had it installed on my former computer when it didn't work. On my current PC it worked suddenly.
:) Thank you.
The only thing that annoys me about Freespace is the ship classes are all wrong.
Freespace: Destroyers > Cruisers
Everyone else : Cruisers > Destroyers
I didn't know of that, so it annoyed me when I found out that cruisers were bigger than destroyers in other things.
Destroyer also sounds more ominous for a 2km long ship rather than a 250m long ship
wtf, UA-cam unsubed me from you channel!
UA-cam has been doing some pretty questionable things lately. Glad you resubbed!
Man there such creeps. I hate them so much
MAKE NETFLIX OR AMAZON OR DISNEY SERIES!!!
Eh, I don't see what the big deal is with these shivans, just fix bayonets or something.
Submarine in the Sky or throw the pommel at 'em to end them rightly