[Nightmare]

Wow, that's an interesting read! I had some similar idea with the Ancients having been a species that never discorvered subspace for a prolonged time, instead relying on STL colonisation of nearby systems and thus not were engaged by the Shivans (something that I took from that "Unx" species in Venoms/Nicos OTT).

BTW, is PS somewhat related to your "Dreamland" story, or is that just due to this "idea pool" that I was told to exist among early FS community from which several campaigns grew? (I mean due to concept of exploration fleets and fortification mentioned in the other story too)

[Ace]

Yeah the Unx were initially modeled by Dark and were meant to be a pre-warp species that were bumped into with a parallel but different tech development. But a case of a species that'd be easily swatted unintentionally by the Shivans due to the meddling by Terrans and Vasudans.

[Nightmare]

I personally love the concept of Vasudans = Ancients; given how small GTVA space is it is much easier to explain the rise of 2 species within a rather small timeframe than of 3. However, it got me thinking too- if the GTVA (or just the Vasudans before that) would excavate Ancient sites and only find Vasudan skeletons, it'd pretty much tell the truth about the Vasudan-Ancient relationship.

While there might be political reasons for that (in particular when the HoL was still active) I doubt that such a discovery could be kept a secret forever. Or is it possibly an oversight that such a finding might be leaked, like with "wouldn't it be possible to have sublight communication to learn of Earths fate"?

[Gloriano]

I agree that Vasudan's being Ancients would been interesting and i think would add more to the story than just adding an another race

[Nyctaeus]

Vasudans as a species obsessed about history would be certainly aware that they originated from another race. Especially considering the fact, that Vasudans and Ancients coexisted for at least 2000 years. I think both games provide enough evidence that they were always separate species, but Vasudans were aware about existence of both Ancients and Shivans. They presumably witnessed the Ancient-Shivan War from the surface of Vasuda Prime. I don't buy this part of the plot completely. I would believe that Vasudans can be somehow altered by the Ancients, but that's all.