Well of Souls Forums

Zakharra wrote:Arioch cleared it up for the most part with this:

Arioch wrote:I don't expect that there would be much printed material lying around the Bellarmine. I would guess that society in 2160 is pretty close to paperless, and especially on a deep-space starship, you'd want to keep the amount of required consumable supplies to an absolute minimum; prinouts would be an unnecessary luxury. Printed books still exist, but mostly as antiques, curios or collectibles; I'd think mass-market paperbacks will have been replaced by digital editions.

A crew on a deep-space first contact mission would be allowed to bring only the absolute minimum in terms of physical personal belongings, which would be carefully inspected and vetted prior to boarding. Crewmembers would be allowed a generous amount of personal data (music, images, books, software, etc.), but this would all be stored in encrypted ship systems; crew would have access to portable data appliances, but these would be "company" issued devices and not the crewmembers' personal devices, which would not be allowed on board.

Very few personal items. Probably mostly clothes, uniforms. Most entertainment would be electronic to save space and most importantly in a space craft, weight. The devices would be all military made and owned, so no kindles or any such privately made things like that. I imagine that everything was screened, check, checked and checked again before being loaded on the ship. On a mission this important, the military and government would not want to screw this up by someone smuggling aboard a personal stash of sex toys or porn.

Where there is a will there is a way. Soldiers on today's battlefields have their laptops, and many have a whole hard drive dedicated to porn. That and I'm sure, as with just about every war previously, there would be a few pinups here and there.

Also, they military has to have some entertainment (maybe more G to R in rating but you get the idea). US aircraft carriers were often called cities at sea, and in some of the meeting rooms often doubled as movie theaters. Some of the super carers are big enough to actually have their own library.

ANother thing would probably be video games. I saw a documentary a few years back where they were looking at the duties and lifestyle on a nuclear submarine, and some of them brought their video games.

Also given the advances in technology, I doubt space for holding all of this would be a problem. I can see a few thousand terrabites of media entertainment not taking much space,

Actually, they might have brought movies and books and other such sundries just to show off human culture, too--say, for example, if they made contact and were then cut off from returning to Earth for the next few years for whatever reason. New allies will want to know stuff about you!

Personally I think food will be a major issue, the Bellermine probably has a lot of dry store goods, and thats going to help Alex in the long run, as stated before the poor guy might break down crying when they hand over soem chocolate and coffee!

But at least they should be able to analyse it to give him something more digestable.

As for what workign out what stuff is, I think putting them in contact with Alex and just.. watching.. would probably shorten a lot of research time
on the flipside, Alex is a smart cookie and he might be able to do the noble thing and delete stuff he thinks they should not have.

DevilDalek wrote:Personally I think food will be a major issue, the Bellermine probably has a lot of dry store goods, and thats going to help Alex in the long run, as stated before the poor guy might break down crying when they hand over soem chocolate and coffee!

But at least they should be able to analyse it to give him something more digestable.

As for what workign out what stuff is, I think putting them in contact with Alex and just.. watching.. would probably shorten a lot of research time
on the flipside, Alex is a smart cookie and he might be able to do the noble thing and delete stuff he thinks they should not have.

I just thought of something. They could probably put a pill or something in some of his food, and that pill could have a device that could scan Alex in much more detail. I'm sure they have the tech, and I'm sure it's cheap enough of gear they won't worry about retreaving it when Alex has to use the Little Male's room.

saint of m wrote:

DevilDalek wrote:Personally I think food will be a major issue, the Bellermine probably has a lot of dry store goods, and thats going to help Alex in the long run, as stated before the poor guy might break down crying when they hand over soem chocolate and coffee!

But at least they should be able to analyse it to give him something more digestable.

As for what workign out what stuff is, I think putting them in contact with Alex and just.. watching.. would probably shorten a lot of research time
on the flipside, Alex is a smart cookie and he might be able to do the noble thing and delete stuff he thinks they should not have.

I just thought of something. They could probably put a pill or something in some of his food, and that pill could have a device that could scan Alex in much more detail. I'm sure they have the tech, and I'm sure it's cheap enough of gear they won't worry about retreaving it when Alex has to use the Little Male's room.

try to hide something in the food of an alien that sample every inch of food to see if it edible? Am pretty sure he would notice.

Karst45 wrote:

saint of m wrote:

DevilDalek wrote:Personally I think food will be a major issue, the Bellermine probably has a lot of dry store goods, and thats going to help Alex in the long run, as stated before the poor guy might break down crying when they hand over soem chocolate and coffee!

But at least they should be able to analyse it to give him something more digestable.

As for what workign out what stuff is, I think putting them in contact with Alex and just.. watching.. would probably shorten a lot of research time
on the flipside, Alex is a smart cookie and he might be able to do the noble thing and delete stuff he thinks they should not have.

I just thought of something. They could probably put a pill or something in some of his food, and that pill could have a device that could scan Alex in much more detail. I'm sure they have the tech, and I'm sure it's cheap enough of gear they won't worry about retreaving it when Alex has to use the Little Male's room.

try to hide something in the food of an alien that sample every inch of food to see if it edible? Am pretty sure he would notice.

Tell the pink alien its a nut, an insult upon pain of mind probe to not swallow it.

One thing that I fear which is relevant to Loroi culture and biochemistry is male based proximity effect.

Among those species where access to males is restricted and limited, their bodies are typically programmed to react to the stimulus of male contact by becoming receptive, and then triggering ovulation and other aspects relevant to sustaining and perpetuating the species.

Stoats display an interesting example of this, with females almost eternally pregnant.

I was pondering the reason alex was kept in the brig... and this came up in my mind recently when i was completing a rather mind numbing task at work.

Could their locking him away be a mean to help keep their crew 'focused'? Heck, do loroi have this instinctive reaction to attempt to utilise the available men in their midst?
Given that we know the Loroi are anything but naturally evolved, odds are they were built around the 'male protecting' culture even when they were originally established, so such 'proactive' conditioning by evolutionary pressure is significantly less likely...

On the other hand, who knows how many 'back massagers' got found on board, and exactly where those devices are now stored around the warship...

@Fotiadis_110

So would they let him bathe at least? Humans release their pheromones in their sweat glands, and even if the ship is slightly cooler then he was expecting, he is still going to put up a sweat.

saint of m wrote:@Fotiadis_110

So would they let him bathe at least? Humans release their pheromones in their sweat glands, and even if the ship is slightly cooler then he was expecting, he is still going to put up a sweat.

It won't be as bad probably. Remember that the crews are probably very massively desinfected. And quite a lot of "smell" you get off other people comes from the plethora of microorganisms working on your bodies produce.

junk wrote:

saint of m wrote:@Fotiadis_110

So would they let him bathe at least? Humans release their pheromones in their sweat glands, and even if the ship is slightly cooler then he was expecting, he is still going to put up a sweat.

It won't be as bad probably. Remember that the crews are probably very massively desinfected. And quite a lot of "smell" you get off other people comes from the plethora of microorganisms working on your bodies produce.

soooooo? Am not attracted to you, Am attracted to your microorganisms?

A man doesn't have to smell a womans scent to show signs of attraction to her, because of past experiences and biological imperative a human male can become attracted to a woman by something as simple as a phonecall...
For women I have no direct experience, but my understanding is for them similar substitutes for pheromones are the most common in fact most women despise strong body odors, so modern society has changed core evolutionary traits.

I should point out that all these traits are human.

Loroi sharing a similar body structure are easily capable of attracting a human male, humans sharing a similar physical structure may trigger a similar reaction in Loroi as well (i'm pretty sure a Loroi male might find the novelty of a human female interesting and entertaining in it's own way).

The odds of Loroi having the necessary chemical receptors and brain wiring to acknowledge human body odor as attractive as being very very low, to the point of near impossibility, so no, the access to showers isn't going to change Loroi biological behaviours.

No point leaving you barking up the wrong tree :p

That said, maybe the smell of Alex's pheromones is addictive? Maybe Beryl is getting a chemical buzz just by spending time near him.

True, the way she was smiling at him within breathing distances (I think that was a smile on her lips) make her seem like a kid with a new kitten and a can of Red Bull

saint of m wrote:make her seem like a kid with a new kitten

Will there be runny noses, constant sneezing, and red eyes?

Voitan wrote:

saint of m wrote:make her seem like a kid with a new kitten

Will there be runny noses, constant sneezing, and red eyes?

You seem to be speaking from experience.

The poster before you must have been around kids alot.

In any case I'm hoping that's the case. I'm sure there's already fan fiction for if I'm very, very wrong.

Fotiadis_110 wrote:A man doesn't have to smell a womans scent to show signs of attraction to her, because of past experiences and biological imperative a human male can become attracted to a woman by something as simple as a phonecall...
For women I have no direct experience, but my understanding is for them similar substitutes for pheromones are the most common in fact most women despise strong body odors, so modern society has changed core evolutionary traits.

I should point out that all these traits are human.

Loroi sharing a similar body structure are easily capable of attracting a human male, humans sharing a similar physical structure may trigger a similar reaction in Loroi as well (i'm pretty sure a Loroi male might find the novelty of a human female interesting and entertaining in it's own way).

The odds of Loroi having the necessary chemical receptors and brain wiring to acknowledge human body odor as attractive as being very very low, to the point of near impossibility, so no, the access to showers isn't going to change Loroi biological behaviours.

No point leaving you barking up the wrong tree :p

That said, maybe the smell of Alex's pheromones is addictive? Maybe Beryl is getting a chemical buzz just by spending time near him.

It actually depends - it's possible that human males are not very attractive to female loroi because they look bigger and stronger than loroi men. It's similar how a lot of men might be put off by a female that looks very buff.

Since loroi males were historically more sheltered it's certainly possible that humans might consider them very feminine.