Well of Souls Forums

A pre-release version of the page on the Barsam is currently up here:
http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/forum_barsam.html

If you would like to peruse it to point out errors or ask questions, now would be the time.

Thank you.

At the end of the text, there's a "test question" and a "test answer". You might want to delete/remove that...
Or did you want us to pass a test before being allowed to return to the forums?

(might avoid unnecessary discussions, if everyone has to pass a test of knowledge first)

Yeah, that's a placeholder for a potential Q&A section.

Amazing work. I really like the amount of background for the individual races and would like to read about the others as well.

I get now why the Barsam seemed to be so "amused" by the existence of Humanity.

Victor_D wrote:I get now why the Barsam seemed to be so "amused" by the existence of Humanity.

Really? I don't. They're humorless.

No new page this week?? And what's this then!? A gem page choke full of potential for numerous forum discussions.

So are the nibiren to the Barsam what humanity is to the loroi?
Ie, visually similar but with different biochemics?

It seems weird that this should happen not once, but twice.

boldilocks wrote:So are the nibiren to the Barsam what humanity is to the loroi?
Ie, visually similar but with different biochemics?

It seems weird that this should happen not once, but twice.

Yup, the Nibiren most certainly are the Barsam's template species like humans are (supposedly) to the Loroi. It is safe to assume that the Neridi also have a naturally evolved template somewhere but they are either not a local species and have't been found yet (they could, for all we know, live inside the Umiak sphere of influence) or they have went extinct. It's the Soian MO - they explore the galaxy, find a species, animal, plant, doesn't matter, with a desireable trait and make their version of said species for own use.

I might just regret asking this... but what happens if a barsam eats his own sack?

Jericho wrote:I might just regret asking this... but what happens if a barsam eats his own sack?

By analogy with known hermaphrodytic species (e.g. snails) he should become pregnant by asexual reproduction. It might be that the Soians have put safeties in place to prevent this though, again, to keep the barsam population under control.

I think for the system to work properly, there would have to be some built-in mechanism to prevent two isogametes from the same individual from fertilizing each other (otherwise, they might start doing so in the sac), and so normally, eating your own sac would not result in a pregnancy. But if it did, that would be asexual reproduction, and the offspring would more or less a clone of the parent.

I can imagine that the first stage of fertilization is a race between the isogametes to the egg implantation site, and the winner starts to transmogrify into an ovum. Then the others try to be first to enter the ovum, and there could be chemical markers that resist penetration by isogametes that bear the same origin markers as the ovum.

How ritualistic (If at all) is the process of sack swallowing for the Barsam? Are there varying cultural traditions associated with the process?

A question linked to the Agumo.

Did the Barsam discover usable relics in this megastructure, helping their technological advancement?
And if so, how did this affect their technology compared to nations that advanced through the discovery of Soia relics? Was it as a result markedly different from the other races in the region?

Dorfington wrote:How ritualistic (If at all) is the process of sack swallowing for the Barsam? Are there varying cultural traditions associated with the process?

I think it would vary by subculture, but I can imagine a ceremonial feast.

GeoModder wrote:A question linked to the Agumo.

Did the Barsam discover usable relics in this megastructure, helping their technological advancement?
And if so, how did this affect their technology compared to nations that advanced through the discovery of Soia relics? Was it as a result markedly different from the other races in the region?

There were/are both Dreiman and Soia artifacts in the Agumo (which still has largely unexplored sections) in addition to the structure itself, some of which are well-preserved. However, it was discovered c.1300 CE, when the Barsam were already at TL10+, and so the Dreiman relics (which are lower-tech than the Soia artifacts that the Barsam had been studying on Justa for millennia) are more of archaeological interest than of technological interest. Studying the structure probably did help with Barsam materials science, which is at a high level compared with the rest of the Union.

It goes something like this: the world is eternal, but is one of many worlds managed by an order of angelic beings of light known as the "Gatherers" who dwell in some otherworldly plane of existence that is roughly analogous to Heaven, connected to our world via a radiant portal called the Well of Souls.

[cinemasins]Roll credits.[/cinemasins]

Finally got a chance to read the whole page and it is very well put together. Should a sizable Barsam mission ever come to Earth, I think they would find a large number of otherwise listless, directionless people who would gladly convert (basically the same crowd that follows every new age fad). Unfortunately, I think this would create a negative backlash from the established religions, who would see the Barsam as a threat.

Now... if the Barsam were able to 'recognize' a major human religion and integrate its dogma so well that even its leaders could agree with them, then I could see perhaps one or two human faiths actually embracing the Barsam Church in a bid to generate interest and garner more support in what I predict will be a largely secular future.

Aha! Question time .
The Agumo is described as a Dreiman-era megastructure. Is this where those remains of Dreiman living/working space were found? (I'm talking about the ones that gave the size of the Dreiman themselves)
Did those soaring cities on the surface also have Dreiman relics? Were they established at the bases of the orbital elevators that connect the planet to the ring?
How big is the Agumo in terms of thickness? It's described as being a skeleton upon which shipyards were built, so it does not seem very big. More like a wispy wire. How big is the planet?
Why would the Barsam not be interested in Dreiman relics? Sure, they may not be as advanced as the Soia ones, but they still be miles ahead of what the Barsam have. And their lower technology level may make them easier to reproduce.

Mr.Tucker wrote:The Agumo is described as a Dreiman-era megastructure. Is this where those remains of Dreiman living/working space were found? (I'm talking about the ones that gave the size of the Dreiman themselves)
Did those soaring cities on the surface also have Dreiman relics? Were they established at the bases of the orbital elevators that connect the planet to the ring?

Yes, the Agumo is one of the several spaceborne Dreiman relics that provides evidence of their physical habitation. However, only a very small portion of the megastructure seems to have been inhabited, and there is no evidence of Dreiman settlement on the surface beyond the infrastructure at the base of the orbital elevator. This is a common characteristic of the Dreiman megaworks: they terraformed planets and built orbital megastructures, but then did not appear to have used them. The current cities on the surface were built by the Barsam.

Mr.Tucker wrote:How big is the Agumo in terms of thickness? It's described as being a skeleton upon which shipyards were built, so it does not seem very big. More like a wispy wire. How big is the planet?

Here's where my initial concept and the old piece of artwork I fished up to illustrate it don't quite match. The former was envisioned as a sort of backbone with connecting spots and a few attached "ribs", while the artwork depicts it as a tube (presumably with the backbone inside). Ideally in the future I'll redo the illustration to fit more of what I had in mind, but the scale should be that the tube is around 50-100 km in diameter, and the radius of the ring is probably about 20,000 km (Armis being less massive than Earth and rotating more rapidly).

Mr.Tucker wrote:Why would the Barsam not be interested in Dreiman relics? Sure, they may not be as advanced as the Soia ones, but they still be miles ahead of what the Barsam have. And their lower technology level may make them easier to reproduce.

The Barsam were certainly interested, and studying the structure of the ring helped to advance Barsam materials science, but most of the objects that they found were comparatively ordinary compared to the Soia relics that they had been studying for about a thousand years, and were built for creatures much, much smaller than the hulky Barsam.

hi hi

Hmm, things aren't looking up for humanity. Here's another major race/culture in the Union who probably aren't going to be very interested in human entertainment as a trade good. We'd better hope the Neridi have a cavernous appetite for cheesy human romance novels and hollywood action flicks.

Seriously though, it was an interesting read. For some reason, I've got the notion in my head that the Soia and the Gatherers might have been enemies at the fall of the Soia empire, instead of one and the same, or maybe a different faction of Soia. Not that I have any conclusive reason to think that, just a feeling that maybe the Barsam are jumping to conclusions on some of their religious beliefs, even if they look supported on the surface.

Also, Josetchi sounds like a nice place for Alex to live, should he remain the sole human diplomat for the rest of his days. Or, if he gets promoted to the post after returning to Earth a hero.

I wonder what the Barsam think of the higher dimensions that are used for FTL jumps, if those factor into their mythology at all.

Arioch wrote:...but the scale should be that the tube is around 50-100 km in diameter, and the radius of the ring is probably about 20,000 km (Armis being less massive than Earth and rotating more rapidly).

Impressive. I was mentally scaling the ring to about 100m dia, but that's probably because I'm thinking about what current-tech OTL Humanity could do if we really wanted to.

icekatze wrote:Hmm, things aren't looking up for humanity. Here's another major race/culture in the Union who probably aren't going to be very interested in human entertainment as a trade good. We'd better hope the Neridi have a cavernous appetite for cheesy human romance novels and hollywood action flicks.

Our many and varied religions might be quite interesting to them.

I still don't get why the Loroi agreed to form the Union with the "lesser" races like Barsam, Neridi and others, when they likely could have just defeat and occupy them. Submitting to war crimes tribunals? It seems a bit "out of character" for the Loroi.

Was it because it would have been simply too much of an inconvenience to laboriously crush all the smaller species and then occupy them at what would likely have proven to be quite a costly affair? Is the Union in fact a form of "benign overlordship", in that its creation essentially gave the Loroi what they wanted (control over the smaller nations) without having to fight them openly?

I guess if e.g. the Barsam wanted to leave the Union (Barxit?), the Loroi would not take kindly to the notion, am I correct? So what is this entity if not the Loroi Empire going by other name?