gbaba speculation

ChaChaCharms wrote:A couple of questions:

1. Human Space Explorers discovered settlements on other planets that appeared to either end in MAD or by a intergalactic conflict between different species. I know that many wanted and hoped that it was just one race that destroyed itself, but the other crowd thought there may be something out there that the TF would be needed for. My question is did they discover any of the said settlements within their own solar system?

2. Is it possible that the Gbaba had visited Sol before and possibly even Earth to wipe out even older civilization settlements that the people of Earth could have mistaken for their own ancestors, or perhaps the people of Earth were the remnants of another space faring race that eluded detection while the Gbaba searched for them and this is a wicked cycle that Nimue will finally break.

That is I'm sure far from the end of my questions/speculation, but I will continue to hold out hope for other humans in the galaxy due to the definition of Gbaba: "The Gbaba completely destroyed the Terran Federation and, so far as is known, all human beings in the galaxy aside from the population of Safehold."

I don't know about your 1st question, but regarding your 2nd...

There is a fairly interesting show on TV called "Ancient Aliens". This show hypothesizes that there were indeed previous advanced civilizations on earth that were somehow destroyed or just left earth. So in that regard I think the Gbaba could have hit earth before. However the flip side to that is that no survivors were ever found TMK on any of those other planets. So to me that means the Gbaba were relentless in destroying all vestiges of the population(s). So if the Gbaba had hit earth, I doubt if they would have left survivors, nor would they have left any major construction type sites such as the pyramids intact. IMO...

TBird50 wrote:

ChaChaCharms wrote:A couple of questions:

1. Human Space Explorers discovered settlements on other planets that appeared to either end in MAD or by a intergalactic conflict between different species. I know that many wanted and hoped that it was just one race that destroyed itself, but the other crowd thought there may be something out there that the TF would be needed for. My question is did they discover any of the said settlements within their own solar system?

2. Is it possible that the Gbaba had visited Sol before and possibly even Earth to wipe out even older civilization settlements that the people of Earth could have mistaken for their own ancestors, or perhaps the people of Earth were the remnants of another space faring race that eluded detection while the Gbaba searched for them and this is a wicked cycle that Nimue will finally break.

That is I'm sure far from the end of my questions/speculation, but I will continue to hold out hope for other humans in the galaxy due to the definition of Gbaba: "The Gbaba completely destroyed the Terran Federation and, so far as is known, all human beings in the galaxy aside from the population of Safehold."

I don't know about your 1st question, but regarding your 2nd...

There is a fairly interesting show on TV called "Ancient Aliens". This show hypothesizes that there were indeed previous advanced civilizations on earth that were somehow destroyed or just left earth. So in that regard I think the Gbaba could have hit earth before. However the flip side to that is that no survivors were ever found TMK on any of those other planets. So to me that means the Gbaba were relentless in destroying all vestiges of the population(s). So if the Gbaba had hit earth, I doubt if they would have left survivors, nor would they have left any major construction type sites such as the pyramids intact. IMO...

If the Gbaba had visited Earth before, it would not be in the span of thousands of years. There hasn't been a major extinction event since the Cretaceous-Paleogene, some 66 million years ago, thought to be caused by the Chicxulub asteroid.

That number could fit one of the earlier Achuultani Great Visits in the Dahakverse. However, we know less about the Gbaba than we did about the Achuultani.

I can't remember if textev was clear about how long ago those other civilisations found by the Terran Federation were destroyed.

munroburton wrote:If the Gbaba had visited Earth before, it would not be in the span of thousands of years. There hasn't been a major extinction event since the Cretaceous-Paleogene, some 66 million years ago, thought to be caused by the Chicxulub asteroid.

So, what you're saying...

The Chicxulub crater was created by a Gbaba planet-killer that wiped out a space-faring troodon civilization?

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:If the Gbaba had visited Earth before, it would not be in the span of thousands of years. There hasn't been a major extinction event since the Cretaceous-Paleogene, some 66 million years ago, thought to be caused by the Chicxulub asteroid.

So, what you're saying...

The Chicxulub crater was created by a Gbaba planet-killer that wiped out a space-faring troodon civilization?

It can't be ruled out yet.

Or possibly that asteroid wiped out another alien civlisation's colony but wasn't intended as a full planetkiller. Earth was barely habitable for about 30 thousand years after that event.

It would be strange if humanity's eventual evolution was the accidental byproduct of an enduring xenocidal crusade.

munroburton wrote:
If the Gbaba had visited Earth before, it would not be in the span of thousands of years. There hasn't been a major extinction event since the Cretaceous-Paleogene, some 66 million years ago, thought to be caused by the Chicxulub asteroid.

That number could fit one of the earlier Achuultani Great Visits in the Dahakverse. However, we know less about the Gbaba than we did about the Achuultani.

I can't remember if textev was clear about how long ago those other civilisations found by the Terran Federation were destroyed.

However, this line of thought does make you wonder - If you were to transport an Amish community or a group of survivalists with no more than "camping" gear to an earth-like, survivable world but never build an advanced civilization (in short, drop them off and run), would the Gbaba do anything about said humans? Or would they sterilize an entire planet just because they saw a Terran ship land for an hour?

Theemile wrote:

However, this line of thought does make you wonder - If you were to transport an Amish community or a group of survivalists with no more than "camping" gear to an earth-like, survivable world but never build an advanced civilization (in short, drop them off and run), would the Gbaba do anything about said humans? Or would they sterilize an entire planet just because they saw a Terran ship land for an hour?

I believe they would kill all of the humans, even if they never saw the ship land for an hour. I think they're xenophobic, and all it would take would be the existence of a thinking race. The jury's still out whether just being a living species would be enough.

~Tonto

Using the Achuultani Great Visits as a clue, I suspect that the Gbaba would (like the Achuultani) would destroy a low-tech civilization if they accidently found it but they are mainly looking for high tech civilizations which would be easier to find.

Of course, David Weber hasn't said if the Terran Federation discovered the remains of destroyed low-tech civilizations.

I also suspect that the Terran Federation did not find any surviving low-tech civilizations as those would have been mentioned as why Langhorne thought a low-tech Safehold would survive even if the Gbaba found it.

Tonto Silerheels wrote:Theemile wrote:

However, this line of thought does make you wonder - If you were to transport an Amish community or a group of survivalists with no more than "camping" gear to an earth-like, survivable world but never build an advanced civilization (in short, drop them off and run), would the Gbaba do anything about said humans? Or would they sterilize an entire planet just because they saw a Terran ship land for an hour?

I believe they would kill all of the humans, even if they never saw the ship land for an hour. I think they're xenophobic, and all it would take would be the existence of a thinking race. The jury's still out whether just being a living species would be enough.

~Tonto

DrakBibliophile wrote:Using the Achuultani Great Visits as a clue, I suspect that the Gbaba would (like the Achuultani) would destroy a low-tech civilization if they accidently found it but they are mainly looking for high tech civilizations which would be easier to find.

Of course, David Weber hasn't said if the Terran Federation discovered the remains of destroyed low-tech civilizations.

It could be that the Gbaba treatment would not leave remains of low tech civilizations. TF building materials are really, REALLY durable; comparable civilizations can be wiped out without eliminating all records of them in chunks of artifacts. Orbital bombardments sufficient to make sure that no tool-users survive are going to be much harder on stone, marble, concrete, wood, or rebar.

I also suspect that the Terran Federation did not find any surviving low-tech civilizations as those would have been mentioned as why Langhorne thought a low-tech Safehold would survive even if the Gbaba found it.

Not necessarily. Everyone seemed agreed - albeit for reasons we're not privy to - that Safehold would be safe, apparently, longer than the Gbaba or humanity would survive as species, if it didn't develop and draw attention to itself. So the Gbaba willingness to let them live if they found Safehold wouldn't arise as an issue.

Also, if you suppose that indefinite technological progress and territorial expansion is the default state of surviving tool-using species - and that the Langhorne Plan would have been a necessary but effective way to stop that for Safehold, and that the Gbaba were exceptions for some reason - then low-tech civilizations wouldn't be low-tech for long on the time scales involved. Finding ruins of one the Gbaba destroyed would mean that the Gbaba caught them in the tiny window between getting serious about cultural transmission and accumulation and getting to the stars and stumbling into the Gbaba. More likely, absence of low-tech Gbaba murder scenes would just mean the Gbaba didn't stumble onto them in place before they got FTL and stumbled into the Gbaba in the Gbaba's place (counting patrol regions). And even then, there's still the question of whether or not those really unlucky low-tech sorts would have the materials to leave evidence after the Gbaba were through.

I thought the answers were pretty clear from the first book.

1. As the Terran Federation expanded, a solar system with the remains of a system spanning civilization had been found.
2. Evaluation of this system indicated that the race had been destroyed by external forces.
3. That system was likely in Gbaba space.
4. Given the timing, it appears that this system was discovered roughly the same time Crestwell's world was explored/settled, which, being the first colony attacked, appears also to have been within Gbaba space.
5. It was clear that the Gbaba had observed the TF for at least a short time before the attack, but had also seriously misjudged the resistance that would be offered. (Presumably because most others they attacked had no warning that they were coming.)
6. During the initial stages of the war, the TF took a number of Gbaba worlds. Presumably this gave them a lot of information as to the extent of the Gbaba presence in the local region of space, and the direction as the remainder of the Gbaba space.
7. Earth was NOT inside Gbaba space, had it been so, Earth would have been attacked before the existence of the TF.
8. Operation Ark specifically headed away from known Gbaba space, and spent ten years traveling after operation Break Away. Presumably, this occurred within days or weeks of the departure from Earth.
9. The low-tech period was chosen based on the distance the fleet could travel in ten years and the rate at which Gbaba could search each system - the speed of Gbaba ships is known, as is the number of system they would have to search. The assumption was that the search would be solar system by solar system, but not a detailed search within the system. In other words, they would drop out of hyper near a system and listen for high tech signals for a while, then move on. I imagine that they chose a low tech time with a very large margin. Likely the Gbaba could put a huge number of ships out for the search, and probably swept the system within 150 to 200 years. Fortunately, the War of the Fallen was over by then, otherwise that likely would have led to Safehold's discovery and destruction.

Hildum wrote:I thought the answers were pretty clear from the first book.

...

We also know that the Gbaba don't innovate at all:

Off Armageddon Reef wrote: "Do you think we gave them enough of a shock that they may start actively innovating, Sir?" Thiessen asked after a moment. Pei looked at him and raised one eyebrow, and the chief of staff shrugged with a crooked smile. "I'd like to think we at least made the bastards sweat, Sir!"

"Oh, I think you can safely assume we did that," Pei replied with a humorless smile of his own. "As to whether or not it will change them, I really don't know. The xenologists' best guess is that it won't. They've got a system and culture which have worked for them for at least eight or nine thousand years. We may have been a bigger bump in the road than they're accustomed to, but the formula worked in our case, too, in the end. They'll probably be a little nervous for a century or three, if only because they'll wonder if we got another colony away somewhere without their noticing, but then they'll settle back down."

...

Personally, Pei wondered if they were actually still capable of a reasoned response at all. Some of the ships the Federation had captured or knocked out and been able to examine had been ancient almost beyond belief. At least one, according to the scientists who'd analyzed it, had been built at least two millennia before its capture, yet there was no indication of any significant technological advance between the time of its construction and its final battle. Ships which, as Alban had suggested, were brand-new construction had mounted identical weapons, computers, hyper drives, and sensor suites.

That suggested a degree of cultural stagnation which even Pei's ancestral China, at its most conservative rejection of the outside world, had never approached. One which made even ancient Egypt seem like a hotbed of innovation. It was impossible for Pei to conceive of any sentient beings who could go that long without any major advances. So perhaps the Gbaba no longer were sentient in the human sense of the term. Perhaps everything—all of this—was simply the result of a set of cultural imperatives so deeply ingrained they'd become literally instinctual.

The whole premise of Operation Ark was that the Gbaba would still be at the same technological level no matter how long it would take to surpass TF technology and eliminate the Gbaba threat once and for all.