[Kie99]

What was the motivation behind it, and what would the eventual victors have done once they won?

Opinions, please.

[Polpolion]

I heard from probably a non-canon source that Vasudans highly ritualized "The Conversation" and a Terran ignorantly offended some Vasudan official or something like that, then the Vasudans declared war out of rage.

[Kie99]

I heard from probably a non-canon source that Vasudans highly ritualized "The Conversation" and a Terran ignorantly offended some Vasudan official or something like that, then the Vasudans declared war out of rage.

Sounds utterly ridiculous to me.  You don't go to war for 14 years over a cultural misunderstanding.

[Jeff Vader]

Now now. It's in the Tech Room (in FS2 I think). The way a Vasudan talks depends on who he is talking to, what is his or her relation to that person, where are they talking, in what position are the stars and the planets etc. And some Terran politics messed up in a meeting or something, since they couldn't talk properly. Result: a ****ing lengthy war. Right on.

I'm gonna check this immediately.

Edit:

Vasudan society is complex and filled with peril for the outsider ignorant of their culture.  Vasudans have a range of social tests and protocols, such as The Conversation.  A Terran mishandling of The Conversation is presumed to be one of the major causes of the V-T War.

The crowning achievement of the Vasudan civilization is its language. For the average Terran, the formalities governing its usage are beyond comprehension. Syntax and vocabulary are dictated by such factors as the speaker's age, rank, and caste, the time of day and the phase of the Vasudan calendar, and the relative spatial position of the speaker to the Emperor. This is further compounded by the existence of several alphabets, dozens of verb tenses, and thousands of dialects. A translation device is standard on all GTVA communications systems, enabling Terrans and Vasudans to understand each other.

[Polpolion]

I heard from probably a non-canon source that Vasudans highly ritualized "The Conversation" and a Terran ignorantly offended some Vasudan official or something like that, then the Vasudans declared war out of rage.

Sounds utterly ridiculous to me.  You don't go to war for 14 years over a cultural misunderstanding.

Can you be sure about that? How many other intelligent species similar to the Vasudans have we made first contact with? The fact is, we don't know enough about Vasudan culture. For all we know, they thought they could have been fighting a holy war or something. What is likely that happened is that the Vasudan's faith was somehow insulted, and I suppose the Vasudan's fanaticisms dwarfs even the craziest radical on Earth. I'd be willing to bet that the Terrans tried to make peace, but the "wounds" were still fresh, and as the war raged on, both sides probably felt like something had to come of the war given how much they had lost. I don't know the specifics, though. It wasn't my theory.

[Hellbender]

Considering our own history as a species, why should a cultural misunderstanding be so far fetched as the cause of an interspecies war?

[Jbman]

If the Vasudan's insulted us early on, I'm sure we would be very forgiving  There would be no political outrage or grandstanding here  .  I pretty sure that we would have taken a hard line to show that we aren't a weak species.  Considering the worlds that support life aren't that easy to come by and both races are looking to expand, appearing weak would be the wrong signal to send to a new contacted species.

[Snail]

In the FSRB it describes the first stages of the war as a show of strength which turned into a war of attrition.

[NGTM-1R]

It's difficult to say what the victors would have done. The Terrans seemed to have adopted a "scorched earth" policy, best represented by the existence of the fallout-increasing Harbinger bomb, perhaps due to frustration at how long the war has run, perhaps for tactical reasons. The Vasudans seem to have been more restrained, but we don't really know them as well.

[Gamma_Draconis]

The Harbingers are basically nukes used to bombard planetary positions. I'm pretty sure the Vasudans have something similar.

[Snail]

I think the Harbinger was described as a "salted bomb." I looked up "salted bomb" on Wikipedia and I came up with this.

Pretty interesting.

[Solatar]

So we know what happened when the Lucifer bombared Vasuda, but what would the Terrans have done?

[BlueFlames]

....but what would the Terrans have done?

After fourteen years of war, and a grueling ground campaign on the surface of Vasuda Prime the troops' motivation became tempered by fatigue.

[Solatar]

You're right I think. Human nature demands vengeance, but I think that only holds true to a certain point. After awhile you get the feeling that there's been enough Montagues vs. Capulets action and the war needs to stop. I wonder, however, how the stalemate would have been broken had the Shivans not entered the equation? Some charming Vasudan/Terran couple...

[TrashMan]

I wonder, however, how the stalemate would have been broken had the Shivans not entered the equation? Some charming Vasudan/Terran couple...

DAMN YOU! Causing nightmares on Christmas!

[Jbman]

I have a feeling that the war would have turned into a North/South Korea type of thing with a DMZ and no real halt to the hostilities since there would be no pressing reason for us to allow the Vasudian into our sphere of influence unless we had too.   We would have probably tried to expand around the the Vasudians.

[Mars]

In a lot of ways it never really ended

[Solatar]

How so? The two races seem to be fairly open with one another at the time of Freespace 2, and it's obvious that steps are being taken to get people used to working with one another (officer exchange, mixed task groups, etc.)

[BlackDove]

The Conversation is most likely the public reason, it puts convenient blame on the Vasudans for why the war started.

We all know public reasonings, much like in real life, mean **** in reality (go play Silent Threat).

GTI probably pissed them off by destroying some of their ****, and everything else was escalation. Either way, you can be sure the GTI was involved with the start of the war one way or the other.

[Vidmaster]

you can safely blame the humans

humanity has one big problem: One human can be smart and reasonable.
A lot of humans are just dumb and aggressive animals.

Want proof? Just watch the news or read some history books.