What is better not offer to Loroi

[bunnyboy]

Inspired by
Topic: What can humaniti offer to Loroi: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... f=4&t=1028
Chapter 2 Cover: http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/outsider_ch2.html

I want to heard all the things, why Loroi (or Umiak) should avoid all contacts with humaniti.
Anything, which can ruin their empire, be it cultural, physical or what ever you could think.
_________

I start with a delicious poison, the chocolate.

While human and loroi have different biochemistry, there are common elements. We both breath oxygen, drink water and eat things based on carbon.
The sugar and fat have probably same effect to human and loroi, but chocolate have also theobromine, which is alkaloid. Some other examples of alkaloids are morphine, cocaine, caffeine, as well some medicines and other things. Now, you can kill people with chocolate, 50% lethal dose for human is 1 gram for one kilo, meaning that eating 5 kilogram of chocolate could kill adult man, which should be eaten within hour as our liver can break it quite fast. For dogs, 50% lethal dose is 0.3 grams for 1 kilo, meaning that you might kill 10 kilo dog with 200 grams chocolate bar. And if it survives, it takes days to clean it all out of system. The cats are even more sensitive.

Edit: I am only guessing next, but if we could only post proven facts, there wouldn't be much posts on this forum. End Edit

Now give chocolate bar to Beryl. She tastes chocolate, likes the taste and get chemically hooked on it. She is now a junkie. She sends her feelings around. Every loroi at her telepathic range is also strongly attracted toward chocolate. After eating one bar she is hyperactive and start sweating. She and all loroi around are fighting their way toward the stash of chocolate. Each loroi, who get piece of chocolate, turns to junkie and strengthens the telepathic call. 10 minutes later, Beryl have serious headache and her nose start to bleed. This is only minor nuisance for those, who have tasted chocolate. Two days later, half of those who ate chocolate are dead from cardial arrest and rest are trying to get on earth for more chocolate. Also, any loroi contacting with them gains crawings for chocolate and it depends on person, if she joins to the chocolate quest.

[dragoongfa]

Without knowing how the Loroi digestive system works the chocolate angle is a little far fetched. Loroi do indeed have a lower metabolism (at least in their adult life since their fast growth spurt means that there is a high metabolic period during their childhood) but we can't know if they digest food the same way humans do. For example the human digestive system processes all of the nutrients that enter our digestive track, the Loroi however, with their different biochemistry and metabolism, could work in a different manner, as in they could metabolize only as many nutrients as the organism can use in a reasonable timeframe. This could mean that if a Loroi eats too much sugar for a period of time then their digestive track would process just part of it and then throw the rest out with the garbage.

They could translate this as an other basic adaptation for 'warrior oriented species', as in they would regularly have to find food and that they should not waste food with excesses.

Now to give my opinion on this matter, Humans by their mere existence are a headache to the Loroi and that's before we get to the 'religious stuff' that has been hinted already.

1st: Sociologically speaking humans have thrown out the caste system (even in India they are trying to root it out although progress is slow) because it is inefficient. Humans like to have a say in how things are run even when the government is not democratic, in contrast Loroi are separated in castes with certain castes being assigned certain duties. In such a system there is bound to be a low caste (civilians in Loroi case but there may be a lowest of the low caste in the civilian population) that has very few rights and is always the root of instability.

Humans naturally move between jobs (move between castes in Loroi thinking), a generation of humans may be civilian but the next generation may follow a military path. This way of doing things will undoubtedly shake the Loroi social structure depending on how disenfranchised the members of each caste are with their lot. Warrior society or not, if the Loroi way of thinking is anything like a human's then they do have dreams, different ambitions and hidden desires. Our social structure (at least in the western world) allows us to pursue these ambitions as long as we are good at them.

2nd: Human males make far better soldiers than the Loroi warrior caste (with the exception of the Unseathed but they are rare and they still bleed).

Males being the primary soldier pool and what's worse every male that doesn't suffer from a medical defect can become an excellent soldier. Arioch hasn't elaborated on how strong are the Loroi females but their body types hint that they are at best equal to human women, what's worse is their low metabolism, humans buildup of muscle mass during extended periods of physical labor is heavily dependent on metabolism, low metabolism means lower muscle mass gain, high metabolism means high muscle mass. The Loroi thus have a severe disadvantage in physical capabilities even when compared with human females because all humans can build a respectable amount of muscle mass easily (in a couple of months depending on exercises and diet).

Then there is the obvious advantage of humans being completely impervious to Loroi telepathy which translates to 'they can't kill what they can't see', i.e. we can ambush them at will.

This translates to several advantages in traditional ground style warfare and a warrior society certainly won't like to admit that there are better ground pounders than them around, especially if they are looking exactly like them. Their society will be shaken from this.

[Arent]

I want to heard all the things, why Loroi (or Umiak) should avoid all contacts with humaniti.
Anything, which can ruin their empire, be it cultural, physical or what ever you could think.

Well, first and foremost, what humaniti can offer the loroi, and might at the same time destroy them, is their obvious immunity to telepathy/telepathic detection. Both the loroi and the umiak might gain something from the understanding of that immunity.

Concering MOO1/2, humaniti is first and foremost a diplomatic race that everyone likes & everyone wants to trade with. Humaniti could forge an alliance to free the galaxy from loroi & umiak oppressors, make peace between umiak and loroi, talk loroi and umiak into giving them all their secret techs or simply being nice to humaniti for no reason.

[Siber]

...humans buildup of muscle mass during extended periods of physical labor is heavily dependent on metabolism, low metabolism means lower muscle mass gain, high metabolism means high muscle mass. The Loroi thus...

I would be very surprised if two things weren't true.

A) Loroi have a more efficient metabolism and perhaps even muscle tissue, needing less mass for a given level of strength and less caloric intake for a given amount of activity.

B) Loroi have as much ability to put on strength if needed as any human, but that doesn't affect their calorie budget when they aren't bulking up.

It really seems like the Loroi are custom tailored high tech soldiers, and it makes a lot of sense to make have them have as little appetite as possible when they're not doing physical labor. Given the engineering skill implied of their creators by their very existence, I wouldn't assume that gets in the way of their ability to turn into beefy ground-pounders when they need to.

[Grayhome]

It really seems like the Loroi are custom tailored high tech soldiers,

No.

No they are not.

They are not even anywhere close to a high tech engineered warrior. Hell, I wouldn't classify them as a low-tech engineered warrior.

The tech level of the entities who are surmised to have created the Loroi are Death Star engineering, if not much, much higher.

They would have had the tech to easily create races like the Zerg, the Tyranids, the Necromorphs (psychic beacon telepathically drives your enemy insane, biokinesis reprograms their biology into hyper-aggressive pack oriented combat forms), the Xenomorphs, etc, etc, etc.

The Loroi are augmented to breed faster, work for longer periods of time, and be cheaper to maintain (lower food/water/air/medical requirements). Those are labor drone augmentations.

Combat drone augmentation would be small-arms proof skin, sub dermal armor, reinforced skeletal structure, reinforced musculature, regeneration, vacuum proof skin (most combat takes place in space), no need to breathe, eat, sleep, drink but once a year, if not longer.

And if i was making a combat drone with high-tech bio-engineering, I would make it able to kill battleships. Think Tyranid Leviathans that fire bio-plasma.

As for telepathy, well let's just say that telepathy according to the GURPS Psi-Powers can be... harvested from telepaths.

[Siber]

The zerg, tyranids, and so on tend to appear to violate thermodynamics, so the ability of good engineering to produce them reflects on the worldbuilding, not on the capabilities of the creators. But my point was the Loroi appear to have been created to be soldiers in a high tech war, one where things like slender pilots is an advantage, not that their creators themselves were high tech.

[Grayhome]

... if they wanted to create entities that could be better pilots they could have created DRONES LIKE WE DO TODAY IRL. Which at the Soia's tech level would have been laughably cheap and ridiculously superior to any Loroi pilot.

[dragoongfa]

Yeah, vocabulary fubar from a non-English speaker As the prophet of FBT I am going to flagelate myself in shame

Still an efficient metabolism does not necessarily equal the same muscle mass buildup and performance during physical activities. The parallel between an efficient engine and a high performance engine comes to mind. The efficient engine consumes less fuel to get from point A to point B but the high performance engine consumes 3 times the fuel while covering the same distance in half the time.

Then there is the fact that all things considered humans are a very efficient biological machine as well. We are by far the best long distance runners on our planet and we can easily perform strenuous physical activities for an extended amount of time; all this without a ridiculous spike in our necessary nutrient intake. The Loroi being far more efficient than us (three times more efficient than us if the meal thing is to be taken as a measurement) will have to be real monsters on the biochemical level but on the physical performance front they have to be on a lower tier than us.

I believe that those who designed the Loroi had two things in mind, mass production and instant communication capability. A large number of soldiers that can instantly communicate by their very nature is a very dangerous proposition. Those large numbers also need sustenance and that's where I believe the efficient metabolism comes in, millions of Loroi soldiers that eat once a day consume three times less supplies than an equal number of human soldiers. Even if the Loroi are half as strong as their human counterparts they can field three times the soldiers while having the same supply requirements. They are efficient soldiers, there to drown the enemy in numbers.

But an army also needs a high performance soldier for certain delicate situations. I doubt that humans are that high performance model (since humans have no relation to the Soia empire and we are also highly efficient ourselves), the high performance model are either the Barsams (I think that they are bodyguards) or an as of yet undiscovered species that is probably carnivorous.

EDIT: What Grayhome say of high efficient manual labor is also a possibility and a highly probable scenario especially with the telepathic capabilities and idiosyncrasies of the Loroi taken into account. Being able to accurately and instantly relay orders to a large workforce is ideal on all large scale projects and with the Listel class as a moving library then the Loroi are an industrialist's wet dream. The question that would arise is how to control that workforce in order to stop it from rebelling, some sort of telepathic lease perhaps.

[Siber]

... if they wanted to create entities that could be better pilots they could have created DRONES LIKE WE DO TODAY IRL.

The Loroi should have that ability too, yet they use combat pilots. Possibly due to the telepathy, or possibly cultural issues, or just the genre needing fighter pilots. And that advantage applies to transporting troops to and from combat zones as well. More generally, a lot of war is labor, and so having a soldier force with 'labor drone augmentations' makes a lot of sense to me. Your proposed 'combat drone augmentations' are mostly things that seem either impractical, impossible, or better done with wearable technology so your soldiers don't have to bear their burden the rest of the time when they're doing labor tasks in their downtime.

The Loroi being far more efficient than us (three times more efficient than us if the meal thing is to be taken as a measurement) will have to be real monsters on the biochemical level but on the physical performance front they have to be on a lower tier than us.

Well, hopefully the Soia had a good reason for retooling their biology to use completely different blood

Edit: curse my running battle with BBCode.

[RedDwarfIV]

You mentioned communication capability.

Yes, that's very important in war. But there's a problem here. Loroi cannot turn it off. A race of similar technology level to the Soia-Liron could probably make a creature capable of recieving the thoughts being sent, or possibly (since psi-amp tech exists) simply make a machine capable of receiving it.

At which point it would be like a soldier constantly using their radio, when they should be trying to exercise radio silence most of the time. Not only are you giving away your position, but they would be giving away their plans in detail.

The Loroi are lucky they haven't come across an enemy with such a capability.

[dragoongfa]

You mentioned communication capability.

Yes, that's very important in war. But there's a problem here. Loroi cannot turn it off. A race of similar technology level to the Soia-Liron could probably make a creature capable of recieving the thoughts being sent, or possibly (since psi-amp tech exists) simply make a machine capable of receiving it.

At which point it would be like a soldier constantly using their radio, when they should be trying to exercise radio silence most of the time. Not only are you giving away your position, but they would be giving away their plans in detail.

The Loroi are lucky they haven't come across an enemy with such a capability.

Which gives credence to the Loroi being designed as highly efficient manual labor instead of a bio engineered warrior species. Hell thinking about it the ridiculously high life expectancy is perfect for highly skilled manual labor, easily replaceable hands are one thing but being able to have highly skilled engineers that live for centuries is extraordinarily efficient in and onto itself.

Think about it, the most highly skilled architects and engineers are above 40, needing decades of training and hard earned experience before being trusted to build anything of real value. These decades are nothing for a Loroi and what's better, with the use of the Listel class skills that Loroi could pass her experiences to the rest.

Hmm...

The more I think of this the more it clicks that the Loroi were meant for efficient and highly skilled labor and not for combat. Their militant cultural heritage could be a side effect of the events that caused the collapse of the Soia empire, if it was internal civil war then it is certain that both sides of the conflict would want to remove the Loroi from the opposing side's workforce and what better way to do that by making them militant. They could always make more after they annihilated both the opposition and the rebelling Loroi.

But they miscalculated and somehow the Loroi survived when they didn't.

[RedDwarfIV]

And the ones like Beryl who can retain and send large amounts of memories would be good for recieving, storing and sending engineering plans, like the biological equivalent of a building's computer server. Loroi Worker Surefire needs plan 477-528/7734B to complete a PDA? The electronics company's Listel can provide it straight to her in milliseconds, allowing Surefire to finish the device and move on to the next project. Meanwhile, those guys in Quality Control can be looking over each plan themelves in their minds, making sure nothing's out of place.

[Arioch]

If one were going to design a race of ground troops, they might look something like... the Barsam. But ground troops are not the only kind of warrior. And in this milieu, they are actually the least important kind of warrior. Wars are won in space, not on the ground; yes, you need troops to hold the dirt, but after the space battle is over, eventual victory on the ground is fait accompli.

Unless you have FTL communication or great faith in your AI, as well as impeccable self-repairing systems, drone starships are not a good option; you need someone to man them.

[RedDwarfIV]

Unless you have FTL communication or great faith in your AI, as well as impeccable self-repairing systems, drone starships are not a good option; you need someone to man them.

I think they were referring more to drone fighters than starships.

But good point on starships anyway.

[dragoongfa]

If one were going to design a race of ground troops, they might look something like... the Barsam. But ground troops are not the only kind of warrior. And in this milieu, they are actually the least important kind of warrior. Wars are won in space, not on the ground; yes, you need troops to hold the dirt, but after the space battle is over, eventual victory on the ground is fait accompli.

Unless you have FTL communication or great faith in your AI, as well as impeccable self-repairing systems, drone starships are not a good option; you need someone to man them.

In the space front the perfect soldier race would probably be a race that instinctively thinks in 3D movement, is not afraid of enclosed spaces, has very fine motor skills and lighting fast reflexes.

Jack Campbell in the Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier series accidentally touched on this subject when he introduced the Dancers (Spider Wolves or Butt Ugly Bugs). The Dancers are spider like creatures with extremely fine motor skills and a natural ability to think in 3D movement. Humans have the natural instinct to think with up and down bias because our land based evolution dictates so, the Dancers however are spiders they think and move in all directions without bias (up, down, left and right) and the way they designed their ships reflected on this. The description of their bridge portrayed it as a fully 3D environment where every surface imaginable was used since the Dancers didn't have a problem to have work stations that literally hanged on the ceiling. This translates in a fully efficient internal environment where no centimeter of surface goes to waste. Further more with their natural propensity for 3D movement the dancers were exceptional navigators showing no bias in the Up and Down spectrum, a bias that all humans have.

[sunphoenix]

Unless you have FTL communication or great faith in your AI, as well as impeccable self-repairing systems, drone starships are not a good option; you need someone to man them.

I think they were referring more to drone fighters than starships.

But good point on starships anyway.

Yeah... about that. Do YOU want the Umiak foes with their innate stack-task orientated mentality to have the chance to take a crack at hacking your command controls for your drone air force to turn them on you? Even if they just Electronic Warfare jam your control frequencies that can shut your entire control battle net down.

The reason why we use drones now is because no one else we are currently blowing the hell out of has sufficient drone tech and Electronic Warfare countermeasures to shut down or hack our encrypted control frequencies with our drone units... currently.

Were America to start using such weapons against a BIG world power of similar technological proficiency, like Russia..., I think we'd learn FAST that drone weapons have best use against foes who are mostly technologically inferior.

Shrug.. but that's just my opinion.. the Facts may support other truths.

[RedDwarfIV]

On the other hand, the Dancers had a tendency to overengineer and overcomplicate. Where the humans might get into a disc formation that they can aim at a target for best versatility, the Dancers would be in a formation that constantly changes as they maneuver around each other. Not only does that mean they're probably getting in each others' way a lot, but they're also using a lot of fuel cells they otherwise wouldn't need to. Where the Alliance stick their sensors and shield generators out on pylons (but not overlong fins like the Covenant of Sol does) the Dancers try to hide them under baffles so their spacecraft can be smooth ovoids. the Dancers also don't build their spacecraft very large.

Given the defences the Spider Wolves have about their territorial borders though, they probably only need spacecraft strong enough to mop up what's left.

[dragoongfa]

On the other hand, the Dancers had a tendency to overengineer and overcomplicate. Where the humans might get into a disc formation that they can aim at a target for best versatility, the Dancers would be in a formation that constantly changes as they maneuver around each other. Not only does that mean they're probably getting in each others' way a lot, but they're also using a lot of fuel cells they otherwise wouldn't need to. Where the Alliance stick their sensors and shield generators out on pylons (but not overlong fins like the Covenant of Sol does) the Dancers try to hide them under baffles so their spacecraft can be smooth ovoids. the Dancers also don't build their spacecraft very large.

Given the defences the Spider Wolves have about their territorial borders though, they probably only need spacecraft strong enough to mop up what's left.

Mines that equal a star going Super Nova have that effect on people.

The way I understand the dancers are calculating predators who think in patterns, they think and act only within the patterns that they have calculated. Their predatory nature makes them somewhat selfish but their pattern like thinking made them excellent engineers with some heavy OCD as a side effect. And let's not forget the precious 'universal adhesive substance' they wanted or duct tape as we call it.

All things considered I have to give credit to Campbell for his Aliens because they are truly alien and yet believable.

The Enigmas are mixture between turtoises and snakes and their primary goal is privacy, willing even to commit mass suicide to keep themselves and their technology hidden.

The Kicks are herbivores who know that they are at the bottom of the food chain and they overcame everything by becoming the most psychopathic beings imaginable since nothing dead can eat them.

The Dancers are spiders with OCD, trying to keep the pattern stable but without looking outside of it, ignoring the most obvious and reasonable approach to things in order to adhere to a stable and visibly pleasing pattern.

[Voitan]

But my point was the Loroi appear to have been created to be soldiers in a high tech war, one where things like slender pilots is an advantage, not that their creators themselves were high tech.

The Loroi are not engineered for combat.

They are engineered to be cheap FTL communication devices if anything.

You're buying into the Loroi Empire's own narrative, that they are a superior species, "naturally" adapted to be warriors.

[bunnyboy]

That derailed fast.
While human males and freedom of choices surely disturb loroi society, I still hope that there will be more ideas how to poison or corrupt them.