Devs: Will you ever fill in the plot holes?

They probably need a plot first. The game so far is just what would be a typical situation for a multi-decade galactic civil war, with only vague clues as to the story. The third question though is the only one that really needs to be asked.

I second the op's questions. This game does indeed have a plot. Otherwise, how would these questions arise in the first place?

There's an underlying plot.  Rather than us playing the game from start to end of the war, we are generals (Or Admirals if you wanna be technical) in the overall armies of our chosen race.

Who the Vasari's enemy is is the biggest issue, but TDN bugs me.

My theories:

TDN = Trader Defense Network (The other major theory is Trader Defense Navy, both are tied for followers but I prefer Network myself)

The Vasari's Enemy, as stated in the lore, is something of their own creation, and nearly destroyed an entire wing of the Dark Fleet, minus one ship.

I believe it was a result of their Nano-technology going berserk.  What else could do that to the Dark Fleet, the veterans of the Vasari Army, without being equally damaged?  How do you fight enemies the size of dust particles?  just my own theory, nothing really to back it up, or the TDN thing for that matter.

-Twilight Storm | My life for the Dahkri

I think you're confused about what a plot hole is.  A plot hole is an inconsistency or irregularity within the plot that has no real explanation except author oversight.  What you're describing are certainly not oversights, merely information that was never given in the first place. 

As for whether we'll see the answers or not, probably not any time soon.  I actually think one of the magical things about the Sins canon is how ambiguous and open to interpretation it is.

The answer is the following word spelled backwards:

ON

Xer0 \^/

From what I remember reading, the Vasari didn't create whatever is chasing them. They used technology that was in existance long before their empire ever existed. Who left this technology just laying around all over the universe (almost like they wanted other races to use it) nobody knows. The Vasari attempted to study the technology to understand more about it, and in doing so started whatever it is wiping them out. Whether it is the original race that created the jump phase technology being released by the Vasari from another universe/dimension is a theory I currently hold. Regardless, I don't believe the Vasari created whatever is chasing them....they just released it.

Directly in the lore, it says they are running from an enemy of their own creation.  Where did you read that?

-Twilight Storm | My life for the Dahkri

I don't think what is chasing the Vasari creating phase jumping, or at least the other races discovered it independently. Otherwise the TEC and Advent couldn't possibly have had it before the Vasari appeared, and it seems that it was known to them for at least 1,000 years as how else would the TEC have gotten tot he Advent homeworld anyways?

As to what is actually chasing them, I think it is some other super advanced race (or perhaps machines?) that they were unfortunate enough to discover while expanding their once mighty empire. However, it seems the Vasari aren't completely outmatched against them, as it has been what, 25 years since they first appeared by diplomacy, so they must at least have better phase jump technology. I don't think it is Nanotech, and technically we don't know if the Dark fleet managed to do any damage or not, all we know is that one ship survived. They could have taken out half of the enemy fleet they faced for all that we know. I would be willing to bet however that they appear in whatever is next for Sins.

Also, Trader Defense Navy FTW!

If you want a sci-fi plot, curl up with a good book.  (Start with The Mote in God's Eye.)  If you want a kick-ass online multiplayer 4X-RTS, play Sins.

Of course all the races had the phase jump technology. It was spread around the galaxy before the Vasari even found it. I'm not sure where I got all this info. I think it may have been in the game manual. I'll see if I can find it.

You're thinking of the Phase jump inhibitors I think, not Phase jumping altogether.

-Twilight Storm

Correct. Phase Jump Inhibitors have been around since before the Vasari; the Vasari don't even know how PJI's work, they just know that they work and that they can be successfully replicated with nanotechnology.

Because PJIs predate the Vasari Empire, it's plausible to conclude that whatever created the PJI's may not have had Phase Drive technology, but was fighting a foe that did; thus, to prevent the foe from disengaging at will, this race created PJIs.

It's also quite possible that PJIs are why the Dark Fleet was virtually destroyed. After all, in-game at least, the Vasari require either a Marauder with Distort Gravity or they destroy the PJI to escape its influence.

"I don't grin like a moron, I grin like a sociopath."

I still think the Vasari were attacked by a nanite cloud.

Why else would the crew of that one ship have gone mad?  They were fighting off a foe that they couldn't shoot.  Maybe it had attacked their hull, they thought they were all gonna die, and then some 1,000,000 to one chance thing happend and somehow they were saved.  (Electrical surge or something fried the nanites or something.)

TDN = Trader Defense Network as far as I'm concerned until a Dev says otherwise.

-Twilight Storm

The fact that Vasari would rather fight their way through a 1.18 battleball is evidence of just how terrifying their foe is...

You're right. It was the phase jump inhibitors. I finally found it in the manual. I still think that there is a link between some ancient civilization, the phase jump inhibitors, and whatever is chasing the Vasari. The manual says, "Phase Jump Inhibitor: During the initial Empire expansion, the Vasari found these devices scattered about the galaxy, even in area with no evidence of settlement....Over thousands of years the mystery eventually faded into commonality". (Pg 43 Emphasis added.)

And if you look under the TEC and Advent, the manual portrays that phase jump inhibitors are so valuable to combat that the TEC and Advent are gobbling them up like gold. So to me, it makes sense that they were left behind by an ancient civilization, whether or purpose or not, and then the Vasari somehow summed the civilization back from Phase space or something. Kind of like the Galactic Civ 2 Dread Lords game.

They were indeed left behind by some ancient civilization, on that we can agree, but on the back cover it says:

"Assume ultimate control over one of three galactic powers: and ancient alien civilization running from a terror of their own creation, a loose coalition of traders forced to annex their own people, or an exiled empire of powerful psionics bent on revenge"

terror of their own creation means to me that they...umm...created it.  And nanites are the vasari's favorite technology.  It could be that they made some experimental type that went nuts and attacked everything in sight.  The vasari we play as have never actually seen the thing chasing them, which explains why they still use nano-technology.  Ignorance is bliss.

-Twilight Storm

Of their own creation doesn't have to mean that they are the literal creators. All it means is that they brought it on themselves. In other words perhaps all they did was discover/provoke whatever is chasing them.

Also, assuming that whatever is chasing them will eventually be in a SoaSE game, a simple nanobot cloud would be rather anticlimactic. You can't really fight it, it would be difficult to make graphically interesting and would probably be of little value as a game mechanic. Yeah this reasoning isn't at all based on the lore, but from a pure game making perspective I would think that they would use this "plot hole" to make a new race when they want one. And if this thread has proven anything, it is that the Devs left plenty of room to make the threat pretty much whatever they want.

Nanites come to SOASE galaxy

TEC/Advent/or Vasari Come up with a way to neutralize Individual Nanites, so the cloud forms into ships.

You could even have Nanite Clouds out there as a new Neutral Grav Well that hurts your ships until you research the counter to it.

That's just one way to makeit work.

But I do see your point, it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be something they actually made.  I just think that's the way it reads.

-Twilight torm

Lemon Pledge cannons?

Its lemony fresh, LOL

I've got my own backstory that I've been thinking up for the vassari and the "darkness".  But I never thought about the PJI's.  Hmmmm... I'm gonna have to write and brainstorm some more....

The PJI's don't necessarily have to be from the thing attacking them.  I think of them as more of a Common Artifact.

-Twilight Storm

I like your theory, though one thing kind of bothered me about it. The nanites may have gotten out of control, but would they really be determined enough to chase the remaining Vasari through space?

I don't think that nanites perpetually chasing the Vasari seems very probable unless there is something controlling them. I would think that the nanites are rather nondiscriminatory left to their own tendencies.

If they are nanites, I think that there must be some kind revenge/hate plot with a member of a conquered race that somehow is able to control them.

It less of a 'plothole' and more of a gravity well. The devs have left it open so we can come up with our own theories, as you all have done and quite well. Eventually they may give a story in the 2nd sins, which i will be getting, laptop is back ppl!!!

I think the Diplomacy expansion makes it clear as to who exactly chased the Vasari off - the PIRATES

True, in that case it could actually just be one person(Well...you know, one being of some sort anyway.)

-Twilight Storm