I think, with the introduction of the Arda Seed and the indication that their efforts largely generate the warp lane network in the local galactic region, we have the hint that may help us understand what happened to disrupt FTL travel for the past 3000 years. We know for the fact that during the Great War, there was an extremely destructive conflict featuring, at the very least, the Ashdar Empire, the Gremak Empire, and, based on some of the codex materials, what was actually a strong and advanced Human state. A state of total war existed, presumably with the stakes being control of the entire local galactic region with its existing warp lane network. We also know that with the state of technology that existed in the Great War, detecting the Arda Seed hyperspace anomalies would have been within their reach.

I suspect that what happened is that one of the belligerents of the Great War made an effort to take control of the hyperspace anomalies in an effort to gain greater control over the warp lane network. In the aftermath of this effort, either the Arda Seed deliberately collapsed the network as a defensive measure, or the attacks on the Arda Seed caretakers of the warp lane network caused damage to the ability of the HSAs to generate the warp lane network. The hints extant where both Gremak and Humanity have grudges against the Ashdar, but Humanity has no current grudge against the Gremak, the fact that there's less evidence of heavy bombardment on Ashdar Prime than on Gremal (and the ancient stargate at Ashdar Prime still survives!), and the Gremak actually manage to remember the Ashdar as villains (which must take some doing!) suggests to me that the Ashdar Empire may have been the primary aggressor of the Great War, and may well have been the state that attempted to invade and conquer the Arda Seed HSAs.

Anybody have thoughts, supporting evidence, counterevidence?

On the last part, I think it's likely that the Gremak were winning the war, and were the "bad guys". They are slavers, and in game lore hints that they are not above eating their slaves. Further, their marauder bases are stocked with generational chattel slaves that are either Human or Ashdar.

At the onset of the game, the Haduir and Teros worlds are completely separate, with the old and new governments independent. Out among the stars, Humans and Ashdar exist as splinter colonies, and Humans as refugees. Meanwhile, the Gremak have marauder bases armed with interstellar ships, and stocked with Human and Ashdar slaves. There are also Human pirates, but they appear to be cyborgs.

If the Gremak had the advantage in the past, the present situation would be a likely outcome.

And wild speculation:

I think (again, wild speculation) that the star Sol was sacrificed to shut down the hyperlanes.

The Human's home system is "lost". There is no "Sol" or "Terra". I think one possible event is either the human's found a way to either detonate Sol into the hyperspace lanse, or flood the energy into the lanes, and did so to let some human's get somewhere and hide from the Gremak, and out of some bit of altruism cause a cease-fire by halting all travel. Or, the Ashdar (who do not seem inclined to "altruism") decided they needed a star to go boom, the humans were a potential threat which could be used to bait in the Gremak, and so the Sol system became a trap for the old Gremak fleet that would collapse the hyperspace lanes.

As for the Arda, I think they were the neighbors who lived in the apartment two floors up who finally had enough of the noise. My wild speculation is that their involvement is far more reactive.

akkamaddi wrote:On the last part, I think it's likely that the Gremak were winning the war, and were the "bad guys". They are slavers, and in game lore hints that they are not above eating their slaves. Further, their marauder bases are stocked with generational chattel slaves that are either Human or Ashdar.

Oh, yes, I certainly gathered that- but the fact is that Ashdar Prime didn't get severely bombarded, and Gremal did- and the matter of who Humans are holding grudges against. I don't think the Gremak are blameless by any means, and they obviously carried on the slave trade on a horrific scale before the Great War- but I strongly suspect that the Ashdar are the ones who eventually arrived at the belief that the entire region must be united under their rule.

As far as 'Haduir and Teros being seperate'- both Haduir and Teros inhabit Ashdar Prime, which makes sense. On Rastaban, which has evidence of heavy bombardment, it's suggested that the greater physical endurance of the Teros was the deciding factor between survival and extinction- I suspect that Rastaban was once a major fleet base that got overrun, but Gremal itself was overrun (probably by the Ashdar) and bombarded so severely the old highlands ecosystem on Gremal was wiped out, leaving only lowlands life surviving- and you can still see evidence of major cratering both on Rastaban and Gremal.

I'll agree the fate of Sol is mysterious, but I'm not convinced it was 'sacrificed'.

nweismuller wrote: I'll agree the fate of Sol is mysterious, but I'm not convinced it was 'sacrificed'.

Haven't actually thought about Sol missing, but was more-or less asserting that this is to give the maps a more fresh feel, as most games end up having this fix point in the galaxy which is familiar but also does not leave much to the imagination.

If I was to speculate on its whereabouts I would hope that it is a "hidden" system that will pop back in again via the next DLC
To make it more fun, it would need to look and operate quite differently to what we are expected to see.

Here is one take on that:
1. War between Human+Ashdar Alliance against Gremak was not going well (due to the sneaky Gremak Cloaking tech) even though Humans have created the Arda Seed (they should not be created by a much elder race to avoid this cliche)
2. Gremak were invading the high world or the Humans, and the Humans pushed the last resolve button outright breaking down the hyperspace network that they have built (with the help of the Ashdar of course )
3. The system of Sol has survived, but has been trapped in a subspace bubble, thus the remnants of the High-world, (even though technologically advanced) could not get out until the Arda-Seed have restored the network

So what was trapped in the bubble?
- Earth is devastated with radiation due to intensive bombing (queue the new fallout function that is planned). The planet art should be scattered with huge scars and impact craters and the planet itself rendered useless though nice eye-candy. Maybe sprinkle a few Super-dread hulks in the atmosphere as well..
- The only habitable places left would be a small colony on Mars with some mines + a research base, and a space fortress (a tier III space station that could be introduced for all, or only for this new race).
- The new race would be high-humans, genetically modified super-humans with stuck-up attitude and sleek high-tech vessels (thinking along the lines of Andromeda star-ship), though they are not militaristic as we already have the Yoral and Gremak for that. They should be research and trade oriented: a balance between Phidi and Yoral to strengthen the non-military victory options slightly for the time when this is feasible with diplomacy victory- a feature that might be implemented with this DLC. Consequently they should have low reproduction rate but most of their ship hulls should come with a more advanced version of the science module (also researchable for others)

As for the meta-lore, a goal of each civilization would be to grasp control of the hyperspace lanes providing a new victory condition:
- High-Humans would get a leg up for this victory type with Hyperspace anomalies tech already researched + being research oriented (see last point regarding research victory)
- In order to win an empire needs to conquer all hyperspace nodes and build a special station on them
- Once a node has been captured the Arda Seed get grumpy and will retaliate in multiple locations and will eventually try to take back the node
- Research victory would basically be a tech that allows the empire to take direct control over the Arda Seed, and thus controlling the Hyperspace network as it was conquered by force just like the Humans have controlled them before they put an end to the great war

Also: such a scenario (DLC + lore direction) would not only allow for new victory conditions (even pacifist ones), but would also enable scenarios where the great war is repeated so that a final winner can put an end to the conflict after quite a break It would not be as mysterious as the traditional direction these games take, but would be self-contained and only use elements that are also explored and utilized

I'm absolutely certain Humans were not allied with the Ashdar Empire against the Gremak. Humans, after all, still retain a grudge against the Ashdar, at least as much as against the Gremak. And there's a lot of evidence to suggest the old Ashdar Empire was aggressively expansionist, even if not as tyrannical as the Gremak Empire.

nweismuller wrote:I'm absolutely certain Humans were not allied with the Ashdar Empire against the Gremak. Humans, after all, still retain a grudge against the Ashdar, at least as much as against the Gremak. And there's a lot of evidence to suggest the old Ashdar Empire was aggressively expansionist, even if not as tyrannical as the Gremak Empire.

Can be a three sided conflict as well. The Ashdar not helping out their allies would give grounds for quite a grudge. They do not have to attack the Human empire for that, but simply swoop in to weakened Gremak systems previously taken from Humanity and only caring for themselves.

Gremak can also have disdain against them for being the opportunistic dinosaurs that they were and hogging the star-gate tech for themselves (just like the humans)

Yeah, all the evidence I can find seems to suggest a three-sided conflict to me, and some of Praetor Yunki's comments about 'paying for the violence of our ancestors' combined with other bits of lore here and there really suggest to me the ancient Ashdar Empire was not shy about expanding by force.

akkamaddi wrote: The Human's home system is "lost". There is no "Sol" or "Terra".

Or, it could be "lost" in another sense. If Sol still existed, but the star charts didn't identify the system as "Sol", and there was no current human habitation there, would you know it if you saw it?

Arioch wrote:Or, it could be "lost" in another sense. If Sol still existed, but the star charts didn't identify the system as "Sol", and there was no current human habitation there, would you know it if you saw it?

I've wondered if Sol will be hidden, and the humans are doing a "broken wing bird" feint to protect the home world.

But, I would question no one else seeing Sol. I suppose it's possible, but there are three surviving intergalactic races (that we know of). I suppose no one may have questioned where the humans come from. That may be why diplomats now pace their embassies on the home world of the other races. (Presumably, there would have been embassies on earth.)

I got the impression that the Great War was a *long* time ago, and the races were well and truly savaged by it, so I'd expect that their records from the Great War would be spotty at best, if they even exist. Like the Ashdar were probably one race during the war, and only became Teros and Haidur since. There are probably one or three major races that were made extinct during the war (maybe even one or two of the "minor" races we find now are remnants of such a race that never recovered). So, as to humanity's cradle:

If the tech in the Great War was higher, and we can make stellar surge beams now, then Earth and Mars could easily have been casualties of the war.

Alternatively, we might have achieved the ascension victory in the last war and just said "peace out" to the galaxy, except for that one unlucky fleet that didn't get the memo.

Sol could have just been cut off from warp lanes. I mean, even if it were a mere 4 LY from Fargone, without warp lanes, it might as well be an eternity away. And, truth be told, doing some kind of experiment that messes with warp lanes (and pisses off the Arda) sounds like just the kind of thing our species would do.

Given there are billions of stars in the galaxy, but <150 in the game, there could be entire alternative warp lane networks right next to the one we play in that have their own races and wars going on. Sol might be in one of those - so close yet unfathomly far away. For all we know, there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens.

I had always just assumed that once in a great while, mankind unlocks a secret so profound that <their> future is altered forever. Fire, electricity, splitting the atom. At the dawn of the [??]th century, <they> unlocked another. It had the potential to change humanity's role in the universe. <They> called it [Arda Seed] and it was a testament to the limitless power of the human imagination. Perhaps that was what the [Arda] feared most, for it brought them down upon <them> without warning and without mercy.

...Or something along those lines. It just seems to fit somehow, can't put my finger on it.

Hi, first time poster here, been playing the game since it came out on GoG and loving it .

Now on to the topic at hand,

my personal hypothesis is that Gaia is actually an immensely terraformed Earth, and in accordance to that the Gaiads are genetically engineered humans. I'm mostly basing that on the references in the planet description, which admittedly is not much to go on, but it ties into another idea I had, which is that the sun was sapped of most of it's energy (transforming it into the star it is now), that energy being needed to collapse the warp lanes.

Now as to way one of the elder races decided to do that, my thinking is that while the great war started as a multi-fronted series of wars with shifting alliances, betrayals etc. (kinda like the 100 years war in human history), at some point it was actually discovered that the warp lane network was not in fact built to allow interstellar travel in "real space", which was just a side effect of it being there, but for some other most likely nefarious purpose, by beings existing purely in hyper space, for whom the Arda Seed are just artificial workers. The culmination of that conflict, and the threat from hyper space, were later forgotten due to the passage of time, and possibly because of interference from some groups who wanted it forgotten (the hyper space beings themselves, their agents, or some other force that didn't want people messing with hyper space again).

I admit that's kind of a wild theory, but I don't think anything in established game lore contradicts it, so while improbable it is possible.

Astroth16_6 wrote:at some point it was actually discovered that the warp lane network was not in fact built to allow interstellar travel in "real space", which was just a side effect of it being there, but for some other most likely nefarious purpose, by beings existing purely in hyper space, for whom the Arda Seed are just artificial workers.

I like this idea, as there are also Stargates in the game that are way more efficient, so why use Hyperspace at all? Surely it is handy if you do not yet have gates, but if the races during the Great War were so advanced to have Super dreads, then why would have they still be using Hyperspace to get around?

Though this raises another question altogether: Where have all the other Stargates gone and why is there only one left?
Please don't pull a Mass Effect 3

zolobolo wrote:

Astroth16_6 wrote:at some point it was actually discovered that the warp lane network was not in fact built to allow interstellar travel in "real space", which was just a side effect of it being there, but for some other most likely nefarious purpose, by beings existing purely in hyper space, for whom the Arda Seed are just artificial workers.

I like this idea, as there are also Stargates in the game that are way more efficient, so why use Hyperspace at all? Surely it is handy if you do not yet have gates, but if the races during the Great War were so advanced to have Super dreads, then why would have they still be using Hyperspace to get around?

Do Stargates work on a different principle though? I assumed they were sort of hyperspace slingshots, essentially propelling ships along the warp lanes much faster than their own engines could. That could also explain way most were destroyed, the destruction of the warp network causing a backlash effect of some kind on them. It still leaves the question of why the haduir one survived open though.

Astroth16_6 wrote:

zolobolo wrote:

Astroth16_6 wrote:at some point it was actually discovered that the warp lane network was not in fact built to allow interstellar travel in "real space", which was just a side effect of it being there, but for some other most likely nefarious purpose, by beings existing purely in hyper space, for whom the Arda Seed are just artificial workers.

I like this idea, as there are also Stargates in the game that are way more efficient, so why use Hyperspace at all? Surely it is handy if you do not yet have gates, but if the races during the Great War were so advanced to have Super dreads, then why would have they still be using Hyperspace to get around?

Do Stargates work on a different principle though? I assumed they were sort of hyperspace slingshots, essentially propelling ships along the warp lanes much faster than their own engines could. That could also explain way most were destroyed, the destruction of the warp network causing a backlash effect of some kind on them. It still leaves the question of why the haduir one survived open though.

Because the wave of destruction was initiated from that specific Stargate?
With every step, I can feel the icy cold grip of the ME3 narrative