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{{work|wppage=Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War}}
{{Multiple Works Need Separate Pages}}
[[File:Freespace_4385.png|frame]]
{{quote|''When the Destroyers came for us, we attacked. Never had we been defeated. They were like the others: strange, hideous, resisting, fighting. Only these were not like the others. They did not die. We made our first retreat--we could forego one system. We left it to the Destroyers and went elsewhere. [[Oh Crap|But they followed.]] They hunted us. They followed us when we retreated, discovered where we lived. For a long time, we did not know why they chased us. They were no ordinary enemy. They did not seek our territory, our technology, our resources.''
'''''Now we know our crime was sin.'''''
|Monologue from the fifth [[Cutscene]] from the first Freespace game, spoken by one of [[Precursor|the Ancients]], about [[Abusive Precursors|the Shivans]]}}
''
In ''FreeSpace'', the Galactic Terran Alliance is at war with an alien race called the Vasudans. The player character is an ensign recruited to fight the Vasudans. However, partway through the campaign, a new alien race called the Shivans suddenly appears and begins attacking both sides. The Shivans possess technology far superior to the Terrans or Vasudans, and threaten to annihilate both sides. Both races team up in an attempt to prevent the Shivans from locating Vasuda Prime and Earth.
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''FreeSpace 2'' takes place 32 years later. The Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance is embroiled in a civil war with Admiral Aken Bosch and his xenophobic, Vasudan-hating Neo-Terran Front. Then the Shivans return in force, effortlessly sweeping aside all opposition. The battle is on to find a way to contain them before they overrun known space once more.
''FreeSpace'' received mixed reviews, with reviewers praising the graphics - particularly the explosions - but calling the [[Standard Sci
The franchise ended there despite the [[Left Hanging|incomplete story]] of the second game, due to a split between the publisher and the developer. However, in 2002, Volition released the source code for the game. The result of the fandom getting their hands on it is the FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project [http://scp.indiegames.us/] [http://www.hard-light.net
== Notable Fan Projects ==
* ''[[Silent Threat Reborn]]''
* ''[[Blue Planet]]''
* ''[[Inferno (
* ''[[
* ''Homesick''
* ''[[Wings of Dawn (
* ''[[Just Another Day]]''
* ''[[The Babylon Project]]''
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Ace Pilot]]: The number and size of the ships you
▲* [[Ace Pilot]]: The number and size of the ships you single handedly destroy during the course of a campaign will put any major fleet battle group to shame.
** Although the games strive to present a "cog in the war machine" feel, that you are just one good pilot among many the Alliance possesses, your character is singled out near the end of the first game to lead an extremely dangerous mission past the Shivan blockade... the same mission that ultimately turns the tide of the entire war.
* [[A Nazi
** The Hammer of Light believes that the Shivans are Cosmic Redeemers and that they are chosen to eradicate all who would oppose them. The Shivans don't really care for them anyway, and destroy them regardless.
* [[All There in the Manual]]: A document called the Freespace Reference Bible, a collection of the developers' notes on the first game, contains a few story details not made clear in the main game, such as some backstory on the GTA and the precise workings of subspace, as well as some hints as to [[What Could Have Been]], including storyboards for a couple of canned cutscenes.
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** [[Watching Troy Burn]]: When the GTI destroys the {{spoiler|GTD ''Krios''}} in ''Silent Threat''.
** And in ''Freespace 2'', when the GTVA Colossus is destroyed by {{spoiler|one of the}} Sathanas Juggernaut {{spoiler|s}}.
* [[AFGNCAAP]]: Your character is only ever referred to as Alpha 1.▼
** User made campaigns don't even necessarily make you Alpha 1. FS2_Open can allow a mission designer to assign the player to any slot in any wing.▼
* [[Aliens Speaking English]]: Averted, you can hear the Vasudans speaking and the translator do the rest for you and by FreeSpace 2, a more advanced Terran-Vasudan translator which also bring along things like intonation is standard issue for all GTVA radio and communicators.
** The Vasudan codex entry mentions the war was started by a translation issue.
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* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: Mid-space collisions between AI-controlled ships are common.
* [[The Asteroid Thicket]]: Asteroid fields will malevolently and continually hurl rocks in the direction of any ship you are assigned to protect. And then they'll stop as soon as you remove that ship from your escort list.
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: The GTVA ''Colossus'' ends up being this despite the best of intentions. It follows a standard Terran design despite being co-developed by Vasudans; it can't project very much of its firepower in one direction but can engage multiple smaller ships in all directions at the same time, and is durable enough to win even if heavily outnumbered. This is exactly what the GTVA needs against the NTF, and is exactly what they could've used during the Great War. Unfortunately, the designers never imagined it would ever have to fight something of comparable size and durability, where its inability to deliver most of its firepower into a single target turns into a massive handicap.
* [[Badass]]: Lieutenant-Commander Snipes, your superior for the optional SOC missions. He's an awesome pilot, he got the commander of an NTF ship executed without him doing anything wrong, and apparently survived for quite a while in a transport in a nebula, and even in such a life-threatening situation, he can ''still'' remain calm:
{{quote|
** Alpha 1 too, although "Badass" may not even be enough; after all, he wins entire battles against himself.
* [[Bald Black Leader Guy]]: The voice of 3rd Fleet Command in the second game.
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** And in regards to the Helios, it's ''bigger than a fighter'', but what's really ludicrous is that a Myrmidon fighter can carry ''four of them!''.
* [[Bizarrchitecture]]: The interior of Vasudan ships.
* [[Black and Gray Morality]]: [[Humans Are
* [[Big Bad]]: The Shivans in general, but the first game had their flagship, the SD ''Lucifer'', that more singularly took on this role.
** The Sathanas seems to take over this role in Freespace 2, {{spoiler|until you learn shortly afterward that there's more than one. [[Oh Crap|Lots more]]}}.
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: You occasionally are, particularly during the missions where you have to save escaping civilians from the indiscriminately-murderous Shivans.
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* [[Boss Battle]] - The SD Lucifer, GTD Hades, SD Ravana, and SD Eva are examples of this. The Lucifer [[Reactor Boss|requires you to destroy all of its 5 reactors to take it down]]. All of them are [[Cores and Turrets Boss|armed with several turrets that aren't actually that deadly (well it depends on your skill anyway, but they're so large that their turrets are fairly dispersed and only a few can fire at you at a time)]]. All four of these [[Battleship Raid|require one whole level to take down]]. The Lucifer and the Hades [[Big Bad|are usually the main driving force behind each's respective villain faction]].
* [[Boss in Mook Clothing]]: The ''Lilith''-class cruiser looks ''exactly'' like the much weaker ''Cain'' in both games, a big surprise for players who don't read the tech description.
** Averted in the latest SCP versions, where the ''Lilith''{{'}}s hull has been made [[Dark Is Evil|black]] compared to the ''Cain''{{'}}s gray.
** The ''Fenris'' and ''Leviathan'' cruisers in the first game are not significant threats, but they both [[Took a Level
** According to the techroom, the Satis-class Vasudan freighter was originally classified as a small Cruiser during the Terran-Vasudan War, because of the many laser turrets it carried.
* [[Bring My Brown Pants]]: Invoked by Snipes right after {{spoiler|diving to avoid a collision with a ''Sathanas'' jumping out in his path}}.
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* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: A single tiny weak laser shot can make a sufficiently weakened capital ship explode. This looks quite strange if a giant anti-capital beam barely scrapes an antenna.
* [[Collision Damage]]: Collisions all around primarily due to [[Artificial Stupidity]], mentioned above.
* [[
* [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]: Energy leech weapons don't stop the AI properly. Strangely, they can also target stealthed enemies, allowing you to target Shivans with the "Target my Target's Target" key.
* [[Contest Winner Cameo]]: Of a sort. The other two pilots who accompany the player and Snipes in "Into the Lion's Den" are named Xinny and Zero. Those were the screen names of two of the top-scoring Descent: FreeSpace multiplayer pilots.
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* [[Death of a Thousand Cuts]]: You could destroy capital ships [i.e. anything above cruiser class] on your own without heavy weapons—if you're ''very'' patient in the first game. The sequel made for an aversion, in which the player could reduce a capital ship's hull integrity only to a certain percentage (except for bombs).
** The [[More Dakka|Maxim gun]] is a humorously effective way to [[Game Breaker|mow down an enemy Cruiser without taking any damage]]. Not only does it have the fastest fire rate of all weapons in the game, it has bonus damage against hulls. Fly 3 kilometers away from said Cruiser's field of fire, and begin pounding on it until it explodes.
* [[Deflector Shields]]: Standard issue for Shivan fighters. By the end of the first quarter of the great war, everyone has them.
** The Lucifer takes it [[Up to Eleven]], being the only Destroyer-class warship equipped with shields.
* [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: In the mission builder, FRED. It names newly placed ships ''<class of ship> 1'', ''<class of ship> 2'', ''<class of ship> 3'', etc. Attempting to crash it by naming any ship, for example, ''Ulysses 2'', when the next Ulysses would be auto-named that, results in the new ship being called ''[[Take That, Audience!|URA Moron 1]]''.
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** In the mission ''Straight, No Chaser,'' when {{spoiler|the second ''Sathanas'' juggernaut destroys the GVD ''Psamtik'', the ''Sathanas'' will normally blow the ''Psamtik'' away in seconds. However, its beams aren't scripted, just flagged as allowed to fire at will. On the off-chance that they miss enough so that the ''Psamtik'' is not immediately obliterated (essentially requiring all but one beam in the first two volleys to miss) the ship's commander and Command will exchange increasingly panicked dialogue as the damage starts to pile up. The commander even reports that their jump drive has been destroyed, so you won't wonder why the ''Psamtik'' doesn't just take advantage of its luck and retreat while still in one piece.}}
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: Whenever the Shivans lose a fleet asset (which could be anything ranging from a ''Sathanas'' juggernaut to ''a wing of fighters'', they deploy a larger force that the GTVA is unable to handle. For example, when you're defending the GTC Trinity in the first Nebula mission, they'll send several Basilisk fighters to attack you. After that, they send in a wave of [[Demonic Spider|SF Dragons]].
* [[Earth
* [[Easter Egg]]: There are a few secret videos on the Silent Threat disk in the Secret/Supersecret file. They include a looped clip of a Terran Soldier running down a hall, a Vasudan in a kitchen who pulls out the severed head of a Volition exec, a Terran in a losing fistfight with a Vasudan, and a clip of a Shivan wailing on a Vasudan fighter.
* [[Enemy Mine]]: By the first quarter of the first game, the Terran-Vasudan war has pretty much over, cemented further by the formation of the GTVA during the [[Time Skip]] between both games, which extinguished all stereotypes they previously have, though the Hammer of Light and Neo-Terran Front does not share the same views.
* [[Escort Mission]]: Of varying difficulty.
* [[Evil Is Bigger]]: Aside from the fact that Shivan ships are generally more advanced than their Terran/Vasudan counterparts, many Shivan designs are the largest of their specific class. [[Giant Mook|Seraphims are the largest bombers]]; the [[Final Boss|SD Lucifer]] is the largest warship of the first game; the SD Demon has 60% more hitpoints than most destroyers in the sequel and is slightly larger than its Allied counterparts; and the SJ Sathanas actually ''looks'' larger than the Colossus, mainly due to its protruding armor plating.
** The Shivans themselves are physically the [[Overly Narrow Superlative|largest of all three]] races, measuring about
* [[Expansion Pack]]: ''Silent Threat'' for ''Descent: FreeSpace'', along with many user-created campaigns.
* [[Explosions in Space]]: Played straight, but worth mentioning just because of how amazingly good they look if you're playing with the SCP engine and all the graphical upgrades.
* [[Fantastic Racism]]: The Neo-Terran Front, a splinter group of anti-Vasudan humans, and the Hammer of Light, a splinter group of anti-''everyone'' Vasudans.
▲** User made campaigns don't even necessarily make you Alpha 1. FS2_Open can allow a mission designer to assign the player to any slot in any wing.
* [[Fission Mailed]]: Failing to achieve a primary objective doesn't necessarily mean you lose the mission. Just like in real war, unforeseen circumstances can render the original objectives either impossible or moot.
* [[Fling a Light Into
* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Light fighters such as the ''Loki'' or ''Astaroth'' can fall apart if you sneeze on them too hard.
* [[Friend or Foe]]: The Hammer of Light just love to pose as your reinforcement, and then turn on you as soon as you turn your back.
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** That's in the intro cutscene of the first game. You can experience a similar situation as one of the "FIGHTERS!!" in the second game, encountered in a less hellish, but still [[That One Level|one of the nastiest, most frustrating missions in the entire game]]. Readers who have played "A Game of TAG" can commiserate.
* [[Harder Than Hard]]: Insane difficulty, which removes all fire and turn rate delay caps from AI-controlled ships, allowing them to turn and shoot as fast as you, and reduces your energy and shield recharge rates to an equal level as theirs. It's almost like playing against many very experienced players, really.
* [[Heads I Win, Tails You Lose]]:
* [[Hello, Insert Name Here]]
* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: Admiral Petrarch in ''FreeSpace 2'' is also a General ... [[Independence Day|General Grey]], to be specific, and Admiral Bosch in the same is [[Stargate SG
** The narrator of the ''Colossus'' cutscene is Red from [[That '70s Show]].
* [[Hoist
** ''Never'' try to shoot down a fighter [[Artificial Stupidity|when it accidentally collides with yours]]. Not only will you [[Collision Damage|take physical damage]] from the impact of the hit, you will be hurting yourself about as much as your opponent with your own weapons. This is especially fatal on harder [[Difficulty Levels
* [[Hopeless War]]: The war against the Shivans.
* [[Hope Spot]]: ''FreeSpace 2'' is basically a succession of these.
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** The weakest Shivan scout seen in the initial encounters is mistaken for their best fighter, and this pretty much sets the trend: {{spoiler|The biggest baddest Shivan ship we're scrambling to destroy before it single-handedly wipes out our civilization either turns out to be just an average-sized vessel in their fleet or has scores of identical ships right behind it.}}
* [[Horde of Alien Locusts]]: Shivan ships seemingly shaped to make them look like fearsome creatures. However, they are still "normal" ships otherwise in term of functions.
* [[Humans Are
{{quote|
'''Will''': "I don’t know about that, Jake. I’ve heard some evil shit about the Shivans…"
'''Jake''': "Oh they’re all in it together. First those stinking Shivans show up. That’s why they signed that treaty. They knew they would lose. They’re in it together I tell you." *Vasudan glances at them* "Yeah buddy! What are you looking at?"
'''Vasudan''': "You have a loud mouth, human. If you knew the truth you would not say such things."
'''Will''': "Hey man, he just had a bit too much to drink. Give him a break."
'''Jake''': "Yeah! Give me a break! In fact I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you come over here and I’ll give you a break! I’ll break your face into little alien pieces and flush it down the toilet!"
'''Vasudan''': "You should leave now."
'''Jake''': "Me leave! Ha! This is our damn ship you stupid bastards! You think you own it! Here, own this!"
* followed by a [[Bar Brawl]]*" }}
* [[Humans
* [[Hyperspace Lanes]]: Travel between systems is done at jump nodes, essentially the end points of established wormholes that travel between systems.
* [[Hyperspeed Ambush]]: Most enemies, especially the Shivans, prefer to ambush you or the vessels you're escorting by warping in close by. Shivan warships love this tactic, as they often jump in and tear apart their targets with their beam cannons in seconds, usually done by their Ravana-class destroyers and the Sathanas juggernauts.
* [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten]]: The end of the first SOC loop mission in [[FS 2]] (in which you are undercover), after you are done with your initial objective, the squad leader orders you to destroy a civilian transport that just jumped in. You actually ''can'' destroy it, but regardless of what you do, your rebel squadmates will turn on you anyway, claiming they already know who you are.
** {{spoiler|If you do destroy the transport, you get a [[Nonstandard Game Over]] and a court-martial. Oops.}}
* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]: In ''FreeSpace 2'', the GTF ''Ares'' heavy assault fighter and the Trebuchet missile. The former is a [[Took a Level
** [[Two Words]]: Terran ''Mara''.
* [[Infinity-1 Sword]]: The GTF ''Apollo'' and GTW-15 Avenger in ''Descent: FreeSpace'', and the GTF ''Perseus'' and GTW-5 Prometheus S in ''FreeSpace 2''. The ''Apollo'', Avenger, ''Perseus'' and Prometheus S aren't the best guns and ships in both games, but they are still used very heavily throughout both games, even after the introduction of better weapons and vessels, simply because of their versatility on the field. However, if you have bad aim and can't handle the Prometheus, then you will most likely stick with the rapid-fire Subach/Mekhu HL-7 most of the time until you get the Kayser as even [[Death of a Thousand Cuts]] will maul the ''Nephilim''/''Seraphim''/''Taurvi'' without fail since you just can't miss those oversized bombers.
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* [[Lethal Joke Weapon]]: The GTW Flail. At first sight, some people may feel like dismissing it as a novelty, and it really isn't all that useful in single player when confronted with huge waves of enemies. But when used by a player with good aim in multiplayer, good luck trying to get a lock as you get ragdolled across half the playing field.
** In the sequel, the Flail gets upgraded into true lethal weapon, the Morning Star. It still has the original's kinetic effect, but it is devastating against fighters.
* [[Little Hero, Big War]]: Some early missions you fly are rigged to fail, which is later revealed to be due to behind-the-scenes politicking by the GTVI and Admiralty, who want {{spoiler|Bosch's ETAK Shivan communication device for themselves.}} A few of your pilots complain about it.
{{quote|''Why did we attack the ''Iceni''? Why did we destroy that cargo? I can live with being a pawn if the game makes sense!''|Nameless pilot}}
* [[Light Is Not Good]]: The Hammer of Light.
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** The TAG Missiles (TAG being short for Target Aquisition and Guiding). When it hits an enemy, the missile activates a beacon that marks it as a target for capital ships.
* [[Mercy Mode]]: You may skip a mission if you fail it five times in a row.
* [[Mighty Glacier]]: The bombers, the ''Hercules'' series fighters. Destroyers too, albeit [[Standard Sci
* [[Military Mashup Machine]]
* [[Mission Control]]: Command.
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** Confirmed by the Word of God in another link. {{spoiler|Shivan send out a scouting party, then send in a main group, create a gate by collapsing a star, then...um...they hadn't figured the next step out, but probably port in the REAL armada.}}
* [[Organic Technology]]: The Shivans seem to be some kind of biology-electronics hybrid species; in fact, there are theories that the ships themselves are creatures.
* [[Our Graphics Will Suck in
* [[Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in
* [[Outrun the Fireball]]: Fighters and bombers lingering near a warship approaching critical mass do this all the time. You also get to run from a ''really'' big one {{spoiler|1=in the last mission of ''FreeSpace 2''}}.
** For those unfamiliar, {{spoiler|Command informs you that the Capella star has gone supernova and you've got 40 seconds to get the hell out before the shockwave hits. Good luck if you so happened to be on the wrong side of the battlefield. You still win, though. Technically.}}
* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: The main menu.
* [[Pay Evil Unto Evil]]: Snipes rigs an entire wing of NTF fighters to detonate, massacres a whole bunch more (alongside Alpha 1), then blames it on the "laziness" of the captain of the Sevrin, who is then executed.
{{quote|
* [[Photoprotoneutron Torpedo]]: The gigantic [[Wave Motion
* [[Planar Shockwave]]: Used and averted. The graphic effects use several planar shockwaves, but the actual blast zones are spherical and can knock you around whether one of the "waves" grazes you or not.
* [[Planet Terra]]: The Galactic Terran Alliance.
* [[Point Defenseless]]: True in the first game, as capital ships were only armed with "blob" turrets, which did decent damage but were pathetically slow and easy to avoid. And once shields came into the picture, they almost became a non-issue. The sequel, on the other hand, [[Averted Trope|averted this with a vengeance]]: including shield-piercing [[Frickin' Laser Beams|anti-fighter beams]] and flak cannons that shred any fighter stupid enough to fly into their range. Blob turrets are still around, but more advanced turret AI meant that they'd concentrate on incoming bombs, which they actually are capable of shooting down.
** The heavier bombers also have defense turrets, but they will only fire at whatever you are targeting. At least this is the closest thing to an auto aim.
* [[Portal Network]]: [[Faster
* [[Precursors]]: The Ancients.
* [[Precursor Killers]]: The Shivans. Exactly how many times they've done so is up for debate.
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* [[Recursive Ammo]]: Cluster bombs.
* [[The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified]]: The debriefing of the last level of ''Silent Threat'' has a comment that had the player's side lost against the Hades, "GTI would be writing the history books".
* [[Red and Black
* [[Retcon]]: The Battle of Deneb is completely different in the FreeSpace 2 intro than when you play it in the first game.
** This is due to the people making the cutscenes [[Did Not Do the Research|not doing the research.]] This same cutscene later has wreckage of a ''Hades''-class superdestroyer on Deneb III, when the Battle of Jotunheim (in which the ''Hades'' was destroyed) took place all the way across Terran space from Deneb. ''[[Silent Threat Reborn]]'' corrected this seeming [[Plot Hole]] by having the ''Hades'' escape the Battle of Jotunheim and continue to hound the [[The Alliance]] until they finally shot it down over ... Deneb III.
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* [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]]: The Hammer of Light and the Neo-Terran Front, the latter of which are actually scary dogmatic ''humans''.
* [[Schmuck Bait]]: In one mission, the Shivans leave behind some cargo containers, which Command immediately captures. Two of them are rigged with explosives, which were presumably left as a trap by the Shivans.
* [[Sci
* [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]]: The captain of the GTD ''Phoenicia'' pulls this when Sathanas' first salvo nearly destroys the mighty Terran warship. In hindsight, probably a smart move, as the destroyer definitely wouldn't have been able to take another hit.
* [[Script Breaking]]: Disabling certain ships in the final mission of ''FreeSpace 2'' can screw up the entire end sequence.
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** "IFF confirmed! Hostiles inbound!"
* [[Shiny-Looking Spaceships]]: Most Shivan capital ships except the ''Ravana'' and ''Rakshasa'' (or the ''Lilith'' in the upgraded engine), Terran cruisers, and mostly averted by the Vasudans except for the ''Typhon''.
* [[Shout
** ''FreeSpace 2'' gives us the [https://web.archive.org/web/20150516101350/http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/RNISystems-inv.PNG RNI Systems logo]. It resembles [http://images.wikia.com/wasteland/images/5/5f/760px-Electronic_Arts_historical_logo.svg.png another logo] from the nineties.
** The whole aesthetic of the series, from how the first cutscene is staged to the capital beam weapons of the second game, is very much inspired by the contemporary ''[[Babylon 5]]''. The Shivans, in particular, ''are'' the Shadows - except that they don't care [[Catch Phrase|what you want]], they just want you to [[Omnicidal Maniac|die]].
** A surprisingly cultural one: Admiral Aken H. Bosch. As in the painter Hieronymus Bosch, a.k.a. Jheronimus van Aken.
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* [[Space Marine]]: A squad of Terran marines [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpAcztB2F-Y board a disabled Shivan transport]. For Space Marines, they aren't all that [[Badass]], since they {{spoiler|[[Red Shirt|predictably end up slaughtered]] by the Shivans}}.
* [[Special Effect Branding]]: The factions' laser cannons all have distinct colors. The MediaVPs take this further with the shields being different colors.
* [[Spell My Name
* [[Sprint Meter]]: The afterburner.
* [[Standard Sci
* [[Standard Sci
* [[Starfish Aliens]]: The Shivans. They more closely resemble giant five-legged spiders than anything else, having apparently evolved in a zero-G environment. Among other interesting quirks about them are: nearly bulletproof exoskeletons, multiple [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|red]] [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]], and the ability to survive prolonged exposure to vacuum. Don't forget the integrated laser beams.
** There were some [[Epileptic Trees]] that went along the lines that the "Shivans" we see in the games are actually robots or combat suits or something similar. [[Word of God]] says that the Shivans shown in the cutscene are the true Shivans, not suits or robots.
*** Then again, according to the devs in recent interviews, the Shivans may be {{spoiler|an engineered species, designed rather than "evolved" for zero-G}}. Which would make them {{spoiler|alive AND 'robots' of a sort - biological tools of their creators}}.
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* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: Especially in the new FS2_Open, those explosions are purdy and will make any pyromaniac drool.
* [[Subspace Ansible]]
* [[Subsystem Damage]]: Getting hit at the same spot multiple times when your shield is down may damage and destroy a subsystem in addition to your ship taking hull damage. Most ships come with the standard Sensors (affects radar integrity), Engines (affects ship movement), Navigation (theoretically affects jumping out) and Comms (affects the success rate of sending ship-to-ship orders or requests).
* [[Suicide Attack]]: Both the Hammer of Light and Neo-Terran Front tried to do this several times.
* [[Taking You
* [[Tempting Fate]]: In ''FreeSpace 2'', after a successful mission, a Vasudan commander proclaims: "''This victory proves without a doubt our technological superiority over our Great War nemesis. For the second time, the Alliance defeated a species which has annihilated entire civilizations across this galaxy. With the ''Colossus'', we will have nothing more to fear.''" Now, this kind of blatant [[Genre Blindness]] is [[Tempting Fate]] by itself, but in a [[Darker and Edgier|Dark and Edgy]] setting where the storyline constantly reminds you how hopeless your situation is and how insignificant your victories are, this really takes it [[Up to Eleven]].
** Shivan ships' weapons do ''considerably'' more damage than their allied equivalents. For example, the main beam cannons of the ''Sathanas'' do almost twice the damage per-shot and fires twice as fast than the beam cannons of the ''Colossus'', and the latter does not even ''have'' an equivalent. Its huge beam cannons, while assigned as specific weapons in the mission editor, ''don't exist'' in-universe - they're just what happens when the gunners overload the next-step-down beams to the point where they start melting. Shivan beams even look more efficient, with a near-solid beam, whereas Vasudan beams look less focused, and Terran beams are even worse. It brings the Vasudan commander's comments into full-on arrogance.
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** ''Freespace 2'' gives us the ''Sathanas'', which is actually called a Juggernaut in-game since its size and firepower surpass Destroyer classification. The ''Sathanas'' is so powerful, only a large fleet of Destroyers or the ''Colossus'' can defeat it.
* [[The Mothership]]: The SD ''Lucifer'', responsible for glassing Vasuda Prime in 13 hours. Its destruction caused the remaining Shivan fleet during the Great War to be greatly disorganized, easing the Terrans and Vasudans in finishing them off.
* [[That One Level
* [[Theme Naming]]: Applied to both ship classes, designations of individual ships and [[Reporting Names]] for wings/squads: Specifically
** In the first game, Terran spacecraft classes take names from Greek or Norse mythology (Apollo, Hercules, Loki, etc.); for Vasudan vessels, Terrans employ Egyptian mythology (Anubis, Seth, Osiris, etc.); and Shivan ships receive biblical terms (Cain, Lilith, Dis, etc.), outright demonic names (Lucifer, Demon, Asmodeus, etc.) and mythological monsters' names (Manticore, Basilisk, Dragon, etc.). [[Reporting Names]] for Terran squads use Greek letters; Vasudan squads are named after the zodiac (Aries, Taurus, Pisces, etc.) and Shivan squads are given Hindu/Sanskrit terms (Arjuna, Bheema, Rama, Krishna, etc.)
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* [[Weak but Skilled]]: Nearly every time, the Terrans and Vasudans get to outsmart the Shivans' superior technology with better tactics. In fact, they're the only ones who bother about tactics at all; they're fighting a foe who sometimes can't [[Unskilled but Strong|even bother to repel some wings of bombers trying to take out the main guns of one of their Juggernauts]], and [[Too Dumb to Live|attack a huge GTVA warship with one Sathanas ''with the latter's guns disabled'']] (though of course, {{spoiler|there are nearly a hundred to back it up in case it gets destroyed}}).
* [[What a Senseless Waste of Human Life]]: The Captain of the ''Colossus'' when he frantically tried to hail the NTF Admiral on board the Repulse to surrender. Of course he didn't, and even tried to ram, which did nothing but some minor dents in the Colossus.
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** At the beginning of the game, we face a similar situation between a Vasudan capital ship, the GVD Psamtik, and a badly damaged NTF corvette, the NTCv Belisarius. The captain of the rebel ship refuses the Psamtik's orders to surrender, which forces the Psamtik to destroy the corvette.
* [[Woolseyism]]: In-universe example; the Vasudans consider the Egyptian theme of the Terrans' naming convention for their ships flattering, given the longevity and importance of Ancient Egypt in Earth's history, so [[Ascended Fanon|they adopt it as official translation]] for their proper nouns and individuals take Egyptian names for Terrans to refer to them by in conversation.
* [[Wronski Feint]]: The sheer size of capital ships makes this a practical tactic in the first game. The flak cannons of capital ships pack in the second game make it impractical, simply because they don't distinguish between sides.
** Flak cannons ''do'' distinguish friends from foes: it's just that they have a large area of effect, so if you are near an enemy they are targeting, you will get caught in the shrapnel cloud.
* [[You All Look Familiar]]: The game only has a few voices for your nameless, expendable wingmen.
** This is especially jarring, because, well... they tend to die. A lot.
** Averted with Lieutenant-Commander [[Deadpan Snarker|Snipes]].
* [[You Shall Not Pass]]: One series of missions in ''Freespace 2'' has you fighting the remnants of the NTF fleet as they make a frenzied charge to the Knossos Portal in Gamma Draconis.
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