There just being culture bombed by the advent and loosing their colonies. Its an easy wipe out anyways with a fully upgraded advent fleet. The Dark fleet couldn't stand a chance: if its not the advent then its definitely the Borg.

Clever misdirection...Vorlon!

 Well whoever it is, they're going to die if the TEC come out of this alive. The TEC have already proven to learn very quickly how to combat their opponents, and it just seems like a staple of sci-fi for humanity to beat the sh** out of ancient bad guys.

This idea's already been taken, developed, and finished.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/411321

By me, in fact.

The race is made up of intelligent nanites.  The race is the Darkness.

Ludovsky: That is a very interesting idea.

I personally think though that the PJI's were artifacts just like those you can discover on planets.  I'm inclined to think that some super-race built them before either exiting the galaxy or universe.  If you ask me, the PJIs' ability to slow phase jumps is just a side-effect of it's true purpose.  The TEC don't get it;neither do the Advent.  The Vasari probably have some idea of it's nature, but cannot prove anything.  Let's say they are inter-dimensional gates?  If that's the case, it makes sense that on Kron, they accidentally turned one on and came face-to-face with the most powerful race to ever exist in this universe.  The energy released would explain the massive burst shown in the video.

 

If it isn't that, I still vote grey goo.  Sure, it isn't as complicated or awesome sounding, but it is far more realistic.  As they develop more advanced nanites, they ultimately lose control.  I'm not voting for intelligent goo.  As shown by pbhead, it has to be something subluminal (aka no phase drive for you) which is perfectly in line for a slowly growing goo.

While the first option is more epic, there's no way a race that unimaginably advanced would be subluminal.  PJI's are incredibly advanced.  The idea of them being uberweapons or interdimensional gates makes a lot more sense than just being PJI's.  The Vasari probably just started hitting random buttons when they found them and most of the combinations probably resulted in booms, but one at least resulted in phase lane distortion.

 

The Kostura and RC also support the idea of GG.  If you have a weapon that damages everything in orbit from long range, that's a pretty dang good way to slow the spread of nanites.  RC if you think about it is wildly wasteful.  You are dumping teraliters of nanites into deep space for repairs.  Nanites really aren't that good at repair.  They can do it better than anything else, but also slower.  What they would be suited for is defense against EMP resistant deconstruction nanites, aka grey goo.  It's effectively a barrier designed to prevent the nanites from landing on the hull, because once they get on, nothing's getting them off until the whole ship is dissolved.

 

In other words:

Ancient awakened super race: Awesome but illogical

Grey Goo: less awesome, but still nearly impossible to stop and logical

Been a while since I watched the intro video, but it starts with a screenshot of an...

Experimental Transport Lab

Which to me would suggest they were experimenting with manipulating phase space.

The third scene shows a lot of energy being released and striking what looks like asteroids

Is it possible that it isn't an enemy per se', but they've somehow destabilized the galaxy itself? or perhaps space/phase space is collapsing because of what they did?

Maybe that's their sin, breaking "space", heh.

Seems like they'v ebeen on the run for 10,000 years, which seems odd, in that time, they should've advanced a heck of a lot more than they have (I would've thought)

But, If the Vasari "broke" space, wouldn't we have noticed it in game?

But, I agree with TEC_Commander about his view on the subject.  The Darkness might just be a really pissed off, yet still merciful god.

 

The god is still merciful, in that It lets the Vasari survive.  If It hadn't been merciful, then no Sins universe, so we can throw that possibility away.  I think TEC commander is trying to say they aren't a race, maybe just some uber thing with very good culture.  In-game, I think this "god" would show up as a Titan if Rebellion's Titans were frigates.

This ship would be huge, as an example of the scale I'm talking about, maybe a cruiser would be a planet-sized object.

 

But this huge mesh would probably fry your graphics card because it was so damn huge.

True, I was thinking more along the lines of that scene from Startrek Insurrection, where the enemy ship fires a subspace weapon which creates a subspace tear which grows in size until it's closed.

Granted, that's Star trek, but the Vasari are experts (or so they thought) at manipulating gravity and space travel.

But I'm still convinced they created something like the replicators from Stargate and they've run amok and slain all the Vasari.

A sort of "Grey Goo" concept?

HAhahaha lol that was a good one the reapers!!   made my day!

I'm trying to make up good catch phrases for the Darkness, like stuff for them to say, and I need help.  I currently only have one:

"We are the Darkness, lower your shields, surrender your ships."

If anyone can provide any input, feel free.

I think the Vasari fell apart like any other great power, from within.

 

Experiments on god knows what could of resulted in some ugly weapons, even if they were turned on fellow Vasari. Maybe the Vasari werent the only ones from their homeworld, maybe the first slaves the Vasari had were a species much like the Vasari. But werent considered "High-Borne".

These "low-born" Vasari eventually rise up taking control of some nasty technology and use it against their Overlords. This would explain why planets at the core went silent first and why any attempts to send Fleets back to fix what was going on never succeeded. Why what little did come back from the Core worlds were out of their minds. The Vasari fearing the worst pick up and take off.

Their persuers are descendants of slaves who feel the Vasari, even their descendants deserve to be punished for their ancestors sins.

The Vasari are all just pretending; nothing happened, they just want to garner sympathy...

so humans do pick up the pieces!!! does this mean in SOASE 2 we're gonna have the SR2 normandy?

but yea, could it maybe be some kind of implosion? which would explain the damaged ship as it could of been the first in thus being further away from it then when the others enterd or something and while escaping it caught the ship? phase space destabalizing behind them as they exploit their technology about it? Idk, i think they probly left it to speculation for a reason as it can make their backstory more intresting then saying something that is commonly used