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dragoongfa wrote:I think that the battle of Naam was the 'field test' of the telepathic masking ability. Whenever a new kind of weapon is introduced the following two phases always happen:

1st: Familiarization of the equipment by the personnel who will use it and testing if the equipment is properly integrated into the existing systems.
2nd: Once familiarization and integration are at acceptable levels, field testing of a large scale is carried out.

If the field test is successful then the gloves are off.

So are we looking at a possible stealth attack on the shuttle?
Perhaps forcing a crash landing in an uninhabited area and forcing a reliance on human survival techniques to keep the group alive? there by forging a more equal relationship and respect?

DevilDalek wrote:

dragoongfa wrote:I think that the battle of Naam was the 'field test' of the telepathic masking ability. Whenever a new kind of weapon is introduced the following two phases always happen:

1st: Familiarization of the equipment by the personnel who will use it and testing if the equipment is properly integrated into the existing systems.
2nd: Once familiarization and integration are at acceptable levels, field testing of a large scale is carried out.

If the field test is successful then the gloves are off.

So are we looking at a possible stealth attack on the shuttle?
Perhaps forcing a crash landing in an uninhabited area and forcing a reliance on human survival techniques to keep the group alive? there by forging a more equal relationship and respect?

I doubt that the shuttle will be attacked, after all they are using it to board a nearby armed escort vessel with is part of a military convoy. Also a stealth attack is nearly impossible in space, the Loroi were ambushed in Naam for two reasons, first the telepathic masking and second the clouds of Naam that made detecting ships with non telepathic means impossible at long distances. Generally speaking the only way that one can hide in space waiting to ambush someone is by hiding behind a planetary object (or anything bigger than the ship they are in) and when the target is too far inside the system the attacker would rush out of cover with max acceleration in order to catch and destroy the target before they make a runner at a jump point.

So stealth attack in a friendly system with plenty of friendly shipping is practically impossible, unless the attackers are Loroi themselves.

Minor spoilers for the comic:

dragoongfa wrote:...unless the attackers are Loroi themselves.

Wait.. you don't think...



CJSF

I just wanted to say that when I saw the new page up I gasped and clapped like a small child.

So happy to see the page Arioch.

For a comeback after a long, long absence myself, my eyes are full of glee.

hi hi

In the past, there were some discussions about the plausibility of the Umiak sneak attack. I'm not saying they were necessarily telling the truth, but being undetectable to farseers could potentially allow the Umiak to take some kind of "long way," around the steppes region and the biggest Loroi defensive outposts. Normally, taking the long way around is totally useless for the Umiak because farseers would see them coming a long ways away, and all they would accomplish would be greater fuel expenditures on their part and allowing the Loroi more time to respond. But if farseers can't see their fleets, taking an obscure route that requires a dozen jumps or so, might suddenly become viable.

I got the impression that the Umiak generally don't tell their military personnel anything they don't need to know. So... does Kikitik-27 have a need to know? If he doesn't, then he's probably lying out of his chitinous arse.

If their behavior bears any similarity to insects... It may be possible that most Umiak know nothing about what most Umiak are doing. That would be a rather interesting twist.

Wooh he returns! Been pressing refresh for the last year. Can finally give me finger a rest

SWEET! New Page! hehe!

Ahhh.. the interactions between men and women.. even if alien elf-girls! Wonder if the psychological make-up of men versus women is so dramatically different between the two species Human vs Loroi? Socially, the two species are organized differently... mostly due to the differences in gender balance and roles and on the surface one would think with what we know of Loroi culture.. that would make the usual psychological makeup of the genders interact differently..but I wonder how actually true that is? I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere.. but I'd not know where to find it. I can't help but wonder what kind of arguments are common between Loroi females and males?

Cool, I just sent in a donation and then I see this! At a 100 USD that is a very expensive page but I am cool with it. Maybe I could consider it a payment for what we got so far and then consider a smaller monthly donation, as a motivator. Anyway, time to actually read that new page.

Yiuel wrote:If their behavior bears any similarity to insects... It may be possible that most Umiak know nothing about what most Umiak are doing. That would be a rather interesting twist.

This is a common problem in military operations. If everyone knows the plan, things goes more smoothly but there is an increased risk of the enemy catching wind of the plan. With a "needs to know" approach, things can get awry if the people knowing the plan ends up dead. Soldiers that knows what needs to be done can keep going even if all their commanders are dead. I guess that some kind of mix between the approaches are most common.

Sweforce wrote:

Yiuel wrote:If their behavior bears any similarity to insects... It may be possible that most Umiak know nothing about what most Umiak are doing. That would be a rather interesting twist.

This is a common problem in military operations. If everyone knows the plan, things goes more smoothly but there is an increased risk of the enemy catching wind of the plan. With a "needs to know" approach, things can get awry if the people knowing the plan ends up dead. Soldiers that knows what needs to be done can keep going even if all their commanders are dead. I guess that some kind of mix between the approaches are most common.

The above is both true and untrue.

To put it plainly there are three tiers of military command:

Low tier: NCOs and low ranking officers (sergeants to lieutenants).
Mid tier: Mid Ranking officers (Captains to Colonels)
High tier: High Ranking officers (Generals and Admirals)

Military orders are generally given to the tiers that they apply to. Generals will know the detailed plans that the Field Marshal has come up with. Captains and Colonels will know the plans that the General has come up with and NCOs and Lieutenants will know the plans that the Captain has come up with.

There is no reason for a lieutenant to know the full disposition and decided battle plan of a regiment. However they are more than prepared to assume command of their company if the Captain becomes incapacitated or has to assume an other command in the heat of battle.

As a rule of thumb everyone knows the assigned tasks and plans of those that are two ranks higher than themselves. This both limits the possibility of a leak (since those who know anything important are already in a tight circle of commissioned officers) but also allows for the force to continue functioning in case of a decapitation.

If the Umiak are following the same principle (Likely because it is very efficient) then Kikitik-27 as an admiral knows the plans of his sector commander.

Time to reset ye olde "Days since last update" counter.

hi hi

Good old Clicky is apparently a veteran who has survived encounters with Stillstorm's fifty first strike group in the past. For all we know, he/she helped plan the campaign. Really though, we'll have no way of knowing what the shells are up to until later in the story, but I have a feeling they won't just be sitting around and waiting for the entirety of the story. Call it a hunch.

At the very least Farseers were still able to determine Umiak fleet(s) were going in Naam, otherwise there wouldn't have been previous strike groups being ambushed and destroyed in the system.
No, it more looks like the Umiak in at the very least the Naam system can now mask their numbers, but not their presence.

GeoModder wrote:At the very least Farseers were still able to determine Umiak fleet(s) were going in Naam, otherwise there wouldn't have been previous strike groups being ambushed and destroyed in the system.
No, it more looks like the Umiak in at the very least the Naam system can now mask their numbers, but not their presence.

I think that they are just able to selectively choose which ships are masked and which ships are not, because if they could not mask their presence then the ambush still wouldn't have worked; since the Loroi would still be able to determine where in Naam those attacking ships were. If that was indeed the case then they wouldn't need to put picket ships in place.

dragoongfa wrote:I think that they are just able to selectively choose which ships are masked and which ships are not, because if they could not mask their presence then the ambush still wouldn't have worked; since the Loroi would still be able to determine where in Naam those attacking ships were. If that was indeed the case then they wouldn't need to put picket ships in place.

Or else this 'farseer degrading ability' works just fine and dandy as is at interstellar instances, and the proplyd material hides/masks the physical presence of Umiak ships for Loroi ships sensors.
Farseers are not reliable 'detectors', they merely 'sense' the presence of certain mind signatures over interstellar distances.

hi hi

Tempo seems to indicate that their farseers should have been able to detect the general concentration of enemy forces in the system.

Appearantly she had detected the 'general concentration' of enemy forces in the system, or the strike group was given that info by other means, hence their presence in Naam.
But a 'concentration' isn't the same as 'exact numbers'. For all we know farseers detect the presence of awake minds, and if there's a significant higher then unusual percentage of the Umiak in Naam in a sort of hibernation/sleep state, farseers wouldn't be able to 'sense' there's a high concentration instead of an average one in the system.

The key word Tempo uses on that page is 'reliable' in my view.