Page 98

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Solemn
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Re: Page 98

Post by Solemn »

TrashMan wrote:You're missign the point - if they have the biological know-how to make an engineered species thats immune to telepathy, then they should be abel to make themselves immune.

In other words - why bother with humans in the first place?
If the lotai is a weapon, why give it to a slave species, but not yourself? Why make humans
AT ALL?
Because that would require fundamentally altering the brain of an individual through a possibly expensive process, or forcing this process to work on a possibly incompatible template.

The first is expensive and doesn't fit the Umiak "use-and-discard" modus operandi, which states that it is better to make a new spaceship than upgrade an old one.

The second? Maybe because neuroscience is some complicated shit and they aren't entirely and wholly sure exactly how telepathy works (otherwise they would have engineered telekinesis and such as well, and we have no evidence that they have done so), and because creating humans to block telepathy would have involved a long and horrific process of modifying and purpose-growing Loroi samples and prototypes for that reason. The ability to do horrifying shit to Loroi biology and neurology--which already have examples of lotai amongst their own kind--does not mean that you can similarly modify an entirely different creature with the same ease.

Easier to purpose-build the cheapest possible lotai creature and then discard them after their usefulness is exhausted than to put in the extra work to make a fundamentally different creature capable of long-term lotai.

But let's say that it's even possible to make a lotai brain for a bug body.

After all of your experiments on Loroi capable of decent lotai but with none of the other, potentially-dangerous-to-experimenters powers, and gone through increasingly unLoroi-like prototypes, and you've finally come up with a brain that boasts permanent lotai, whether the mind is conscious or not.

So you've done all this, and then poured in the extra money to get something physically compatible with an Umiak-looking body.

But, thing is, the psi-signature and telepathic abilities, as described in the Insider, are emergent properties of the system. You can't afford to modify the system to be more like a normal, conventional Umiak, and hope to preserve that lotai. You have to put this essentially un-Umiak brain back in, with its un-Umiak social center and all.

So you'd spend all of that expense to create a creature that still has all the disadvantages of using a non-Umiak; it doesn't think like an Umiak, lacks that Umiak social center that lets them prioritize the species as a whole so much and themselves as individuals so little. And is thus just as likely to rebel or resent Umiak rule as a non-Umiak, because, in the only way that really matters, it still isn't really an Umiak in its heart.

And by doing so, you have lost the ability to easily tell these non-Umiak apart from real Umiak should they scatter to the four winds afterwards; they are now if anything more capable of damaging your empire from the inside and less controllable as they are more capable of blending in with those who are both physically and mentally fully Umiak.

You have furthermore sacrificed much in the short term; the Loroi simulacra would be just as hardy in normal and high gravity environments as Loroi are, whereas the Umiak frame (which is ALL you would be able to give them, because you HAVE to preserve the form of the brain to preserve its emergent telepathic properties) has a great deal of difficulty doing so. You have furthermore ruined any capacity to act as infiltrators, spies, or saboteurs against the Loroi for the current war that they might have had, while, again, granting them an increased capacity to do so within your empire for ages to come.

The Umiak individuals are no less slaves to their society than the non-Umiak individuals are, so far as we know. Umiak are an Umiak slave species. These creatures would be no more or less slaves if they shared an Umiak body, and these brains would not be any more nor any less likely to resent their slavery were they put into Umiak form, for their resentment would come principally from their natural mindset, as they would be granted the same culture and upbringing and education were they made as weapons in Umiak form as in Loroi-esque form.

It just really seems an unwarranted extravagance at best.

javcs
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Re: Page 98

Post by javcs »

Again, the way to prove that humans are not an Umiak construct is for Alex to instruct someone in the English language.
It's more or less the exact antithesis of the Umiak mindset, and the Umiak would never create it or anything like it.

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Trantor
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Re: Page 98

Post by Trantor »

javcs wrote:Again, the way to prove that humans are not an Umiak construct is for Alex to instruct someone in the English language.
It's more or less the exact antithesis of the Umiak mindset, and the Umiak would never create it or anything like it.
How could they be sure that english is not just an artificial language?
How could they tell the difference?
sapere aude.

javcs
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Re: Page 98

Post by javcs »

Trantor wrote:
javcs wrote:Again, the way to prove that humans are not an Umiak construct is for Alex to instruct someone in the English language.
It's more or less the exact antithesis of the Umiak mindset, and the Umiak would never create it or anything like it.
How could they be sure that english is not just an artificial language?
How could they tell the difference?
If someone were making a language on purpose, it wouldn't have all the stupid rules, exceptions to the rules, and crap that English does.

It wouldn't rule out humans being a race that the Umiak found and subjugated, with its own native language, but that would probably be better than 'Umiak-weapon-construct'.

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Trantor
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Re: Page 98

Post by Trantor »

javcs wrote:If someone were making a language on purpose, it wouldn't have all the stupid rules, exceptions to the rules, and crap that English does.
Isn´t that a feature of every "quick´n´dirty"-job? :D
javcs wrote:It wouldn't rule out humans being a race that the Umiak found and subjugated, with its own native language, but that would probably be better than 'Umiak-weapon-construct'.
Not so sure on that one.
sapere aude.

javcs
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Re: Page 98

Post by javcs »

Trantor wrote:
javcs wrote:If someone were making a language on purpose, it wouldn't have all the stupid rules, exceptions to the rules, and crap that English does.
Isn´t that a feature of every "quick´n´dirty"-job? :D
Heh.
Trantor wrote:
javcs wrote:It wouldn't rule out humans being a race that the Umiak found and subjugated, with its own native language, but that would probably be better than 'Umiak-weapon-construct'.
Not so sure on that one.
Well, maybe, maybe not, but I would think that demonstrating that we are not an 'Umiak-weapon-construct' is a good thing. I'm not saying that the next worst thing isn't being an Umiak subject race, because that's pretty bad too, just not quite as bad from the perspective of the Loroi.

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Trantor
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Re: Page 98

Post by Trantor »

javcs wrote:
Trantor wrote:
javcs wrote:It wouldn't rule out humans being a race that the Umiak found and subjugated, with its own native language, but that would probably be better than 'Umiak-weapon-construct'.
Not so sure on that one.
Well, maybe, maybe not, but I would think that demonstrating that we are not an 'Umiak-weapon-construct' is a good thing. I'm not saying that the next worst thing isn't being an Umiak subject race, because that's pretty bad too, just not quite as bad from the perspective of the Loroi.
I understand. But i also think that it would be bad at all to be connected to the Umiak side. Especially because of our resemblance with the Loroi and the cultural impact that it bears.

Fortunately this isn´t the case, and the Loroi will find out soon about this.
sapere aude.

javcs
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Re: Page 98

Post by javcs »

Trantor wrote:
javcs wrote:<quote limit snip>
Well, maybe, maybe not, but I would think that demonstrating that we are not an 'Umiak-weapon-construct' is a good thing. I'm not saying that the next worst thing isn't being an Umiak subject race, because that's pretty bad too, just not quite as bad from the perspective of the Loroi.
I understand. But i also think that it would be bad at all to be connected to the Umiak side. Especially because of our resemblance with the Loroi and the cultural impact that it bears.

Fortunately this isn´t the case, and the Loroi will find out soon about this.
Oh, definitely. I'm not saying being an Umiak subject race would be good - it'd be pretty bad, but being an Umiak-weapon-construct would be even worse. It's like ... being in Alcatraz was bad (Umiak subject race), but that's still better than being in Auschwitz was (Umiak-weapon-construct).

TrashMan
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Re: Page 98

Post by TrashMan »

Solemn wrote: Because that would require fundamentally altering the brain of an individual through a possibly expensive process, or forcing this process to work on a possibly incompatible template.
I'm sorry, but I disagree. If you know how lotai works and know how to make something from basicly scratch, then you should be able to make lotai work for umiak.
You're talking as if lotai and umiak are inherently incompatible, which is silly. Why would it be?
We already know there are several different species with differnet levels of resistance to Loroi mind-probing.

So you'd spend all of that expense to create a creature that still has all the disadvantages of using a non-Umiak; it doesn't think like an Umiak, lacks that Umiak social center that lets them prioritize the species as a whole so much and themselves as individuals so little. And is thus just as likely to rebel or resent Umiak rule as a non-Umiak, because, in the only way that really matters, it still isn't really an Umiak in its heart.

And by doing so, you have lost the ability to easily tell these non-Umiak apart from real Umiak should they scatter to the four winds afterwards; they are now if anything more capable of damaging your empire from the inside and less controllable as they are more capable of blending in with those who are both physically and mentally fully Umiak.
And I disagree with this. You postulate that Lotai would make a umiak completely non-umiak. Which is bollocks.

You have furthermore ruined any capacity to act as infiltrators, spies, or saboteurs against the Loroi for the current war that they might have had, while, again, granting them an increased capacity to do so within your empire for ages to come.
Given that they don't look like Lori, acting as spies and saboteurs was unlikely in the first place.
And the very notion that tehy AREN'T Umiak creates control and loyalty problems.


It's creating humanity that is extravagance, given the stupidity of the endaveour and the resources that could be used much more efficently.

Solemn
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Re: Page 98

Post by Solemn »

TrashMan wrote:And I disagree with this. You postulate that Lotai would make a umiak completely non-umiak. Which is bollocks.
Here's how I see it.

You have a brain.

This brain creates a certain pattern.

This pattern is called the "mind," and this "mind," just by virtue of existing as that pattern, has a signal to detect of various potential degrees of strength, which changes not with the physical energy pumped through that pattern, but with the form and scale of the pattern itself.

You cannot both alter and not alter the pattern. If you want to alter the signal, you must alter the mind. A given mind will produce a signal of a certain strength; an Umiak mind, if it remains in the same pattern as an Umiak mind, will produce an Umiak signal.

If you can alter the mind to create a pattern resistant to telepathy, then… the mind has been altered. It isn't the same anymore.

You sound as though you are assuming that the Umiak brain can necessarily and in all circumstances both be altered to a completely different form that would be immune to telepathy, and maintain the original pattern.

It is plausible that creating a bio-engineered form of lotai based on the known phenomenon of lotai among the Loroi, then you would need to preserve the pattern of that modified Loroi brain.

And that pattern--that mind--would either already be an Umiak mind in every meaningful sense, or it might never be an Umiak mind. But in either case it doesn't need an Umiak body to be or not be according to its nature.

You are describing a race that constantly alters their body type and physical capabilities through artificial means as though their racial identity were inherent to the shape of their limbs. In my view, if an Umiak-created organism cannot be an Umiak on two legs, it could never be an Umiak on four; it seems to me that a race as heavily into cybernetics and extreme body modification as the Umiak should derive all of their notions of personal identity from social role and the mind and not at all the body, which is a constant flux of flesh and cybernetics. The social role of lotai-enabled creatures is clear; to fight the Loroi. That leaves the mind. Which you have just altered into a different pattern to produce lotai.

You seem to believe that this alternation can necessarily be carried out in essentially consequence-free ways, that it is necessarily true that nothing that makes an Umiak mind truly Umiak rather than Morat or Nissek or Loroi be lost in the process.

The idea that this is a logical necessity does not make any sense to me.

If you were to make bioengineered lotai from pre-existing Loroi lotai, you would do so through careful, precise, painstakingly slow and gradual modification of the Loroi brain. This would be even more careful and meticulous than our own modern neurological studies, because we don't have to worry about accidentally creating a brain that can rip a space station in half. But that will still be a matter of gradual modification of a non-Umiak brain in order to understand and enhance the desired effect.

I acknowledge that it is possible that after going through such process, one could apply its lessons with great ease to a handful of simple modifications to the Umiak brain, retaining its fundamentally Umiak nature. However, for all we know, making lotai work on an Umiak mind might require that not one synapse be laid as it was before. It might not be possible to have an Umiak mind emerge from such a brain.

And if it is an Umiak brain that emerges from such a meticulous study of the Loroi brain, then the first generation would naturally be an Umiak brain developed from and within modified Loroi subjects, through that aforementioned long and slow process. Forcing this Umiak mind into a body that requires cyberneticization in order to function on the worlds where it is most likely to see combat is pointless when you already have it in a body that does not--whether or not ground combat actually occurs over the remainder of the war is beside this point, whether or not you minimize the cost of maintaining the utility to engage in groundside combat is not. Forcing this Umiak mind into a bulky, two meter tall by three meter long form before you haul it across the galaxy is pointless. The Umiak body ceased to be any sort of standard requirement the moment they decided they could make do with robot bits; if it is an Umiak mind, then it will exist in a purpose-built body, as a purpose-built tool for the Umiak Hierarchy, no different in any meaningful sense than any of the other purpose-built living tools of the Hierarchy.

If the brain you have developed capable of lotai is Umiak, then it is Umiak regardless of form, just as the cybernetic hardtroops are Umiak, just as the spacebound fleet Umiak are Umiak, just as the tireless laborers of a dozen worlds are Umiak.

This is going pretty far into fanfiction territory, but from my perspective, what it is to be Umiak is not to walk in a certain way or to have certain appendages, but to live for the Hierarchy, to know that you exist for the Hierarchy's purpose and to breathe for that purpose and accept it as your own, though how you execute that purpose is sometimes a more flexible matter. If this brain does that, then you do not need to redevelop it all over again for a more traditional Umiak body. If this brain does not do that, then you might not be able to create a brain that can. If you have hit a middle ground wherein you have a non-Umiak brain in your modified Loroi test subjects, but also have gained the ability to easily produce an equally lotai-capable but entirely different and unquestionably Umiak brain in Umiak subjects, then by all means produce the modified Umiak. But there is no guarantee whatsoever that that is even possible. There is no anti-telepathy gland or lobe, but rather, the form of the totality of the pattern produced by the brain.

Given that telepathy is tied directly to communication in the Loroi, it is entirely possible that the social center of the brain necessarily must be reformatted in its entirety to alter a mind's telepathic properties. The result of a brain with an altered social awareness may be slight, or it may be significant. If slight, there is no reason to require it conform to a non-existent body standard. If significant, it is potentially dangerous and disruptive to do so. All that we know is that the pattern of the mind is at issue.

This pattern can be dampened or enhanced by technological means; we have seen as much with amplifiers. I believe that it is therefore with technology that the secret of Umiak lotai most likely lies, rather than reverse-engineering telepathic powers. Should it become apparent to the Loroi that humanity is not an artifice of the enemy, I believe that they will believe this as well.
TrashMan wrote:We already know there are several different species with differnet levels of resistance to Loroi mind-probing.
You don't see this as a sign that there are fundamental differences in how those species think? What sort of mind their minds are?
TrashMan wrote:I'm sorry, but I disagree. If you know how lotai works and know how to make something from basicly scratch
Who says they necessarily know how to make it from scratch? They've had worlds full of Loroi to experiment on for (I think about) 21 years, that's perhaps enough time to be able to make it from templates with gradual and meticulous modification passed down across multiple manipulated gene lines, each successor manipulated as little as possible in order to proceed further. Even something as seemingly irrelevant as Alex's red blood might have been the minor alteration that unlocked the secret to creating his brain with his supreme lotai. I have said nothing about scratch, and that notion seems absurd; if they understood lotai well enough to do that, then it seems likely they could reasonably be expected to know everything there is to know about any and all of the patterns forming any and all psionic powers, and you no longer simply have to worry about Umiak lotai, but also Umiak Farseers, Umiak Teidar, Umiak Mizol, and Umiak sanzai, all as genetically perfected as Umiak lotai has been.

I do not think they have come so far.

TrashMan wrote:Given that they don't look like Lori, acting as spies and saboteurs was unlikely in the first place.
Alex seems to have gotten pretty far, looking the way he does.
Got within spitting distance of the Storm Witch on his first day there, that's pretty decent.
Maybe he'll be in a better position to do some real damage than you imagine.
TrashMan wrote:And the very notion that tehy AREN'T Umiak creates control and loyalty problems.
They either are Umiak, or aren't. But I do not think that has to do with how many arms they have, as a little thing like that varies between the existing Umiak already, much less a new breed meant for a new purpose.

Whether they are or are not Umiak, though, does not mean that it is possible to make an Umiak that is their match. No more than the current Umiak fleet lotai means it is possible for the Umiak to make themselves into Farseers.

It is conceivable they have run against limits to what is physically possible. It is also conceivable that they are running out of time, and that even their resources are not so limitless as to fully perfect their knowledge of telepathy over the course of a mere 50 years since first contact with the Loroi.
TrashMan wrote:It's creating humanity that is extravagance, given the stupidity of the endaveour and the resources that could be used much more efficently.
You already know that I do not believe that the Umiak have actually created humanity. Therefore I can only assume that you understand that I have attempted to speak on behalf of the voiced, in-comic belief of certain Loroi that that is what has happened.

I would not call the Loroi stupid to believe that Alex and humanity may have been created by their enemy, nor would I consider them illogical and unreasonable to consider him a good explanation for the unexpected Umiak fleet lotai. I think that was a perfectly sound and reasonable stance to take from their limited information, and that it still is to a great extent. I do not think that Stillstorm is thinking overly irrationally; her name and her actions in battle suggest that she keeps herself collected better than most. I think Stillstorm is quite possibly a great thinker, it's just that she and others are thinking in the wrong terms. I believe she is great at analyzing and understanding enemies, and that it is because of this analytical ability rather than in spite of it that she distrusts Alex. I think that there was good reasoning underlying her categorizing Alex as an enemy initially, and remains insufficient evidence to entirely remove him from that category. That in evaluating him as an enemy she started from a false, but understandable, premise. I think she sees an enemy where one was not; you argue that she has seen an enemy where one could not be. This is the difference between jumping at shadows in the night, and lighting yourself on fire because you believe your skin is turning into scorpions. The one is something we can all understand and sympathize with, the other, the act of a lunatic.

TrashMan
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Re: Page 98

Post by TrashMan »

Solemn wrote:
TrashMan wrote:And I disagree with this. You postulate that Lotai would make a umiak completely non-umiak. Which is bollocks.
Here's how I see it.

You have a brain.

This brain creates a certain pattern.

This pattern is called the "mind," and this "mind," just by virtue of existing as that pattern, has a signal to detect of various potential degrees of strength, which changes not with the physical energy pumped through that pattern, but with the form and scale of the pattern itself.

You cannot both alter and not alter the pattern. If you want to alter the signal, you must alter the mind. A given mind will produce a signal of a certain strength; an Umiak mind, if it remains in the same pattern as an Umiak mind, will produce an Umiak signal.

If you can alter the mind to create a pattern resistant to telepathy, then… the mind has been altered. It isn't the same anymore.
You assume that the "pattern" is a mind. There there isn't a simple change that blocks the signal. It's not the thoughts/personality that deterimine the lotai.

After all, what makes you "you"? Your personality. And take a look at many, many different personalities humans have - despite all having a common brain structure.
Does altering your DNA automaticly mean you are no longer you? Of course not. Only if your personality is altered drasticly. Does altering the brain necessairly mean you persoanlity MUST change? Nope.
What is that that makes a Umiak an Umiak? Can you even define it?

So a changed Umiak would still be a Umiak.


After all, don't some Loroi also posses lotai? Would that mean that they aren't "true loroi"?

fredgiblet
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Re: Page 98

Post by fredgiblet »

TrashMan wrote:After all, don't some Loroi also posses lotai? Would that mean that they aren't "true loroi"?
The implication is that it can be learned by Loroi, though details of how many can and what it takes are not present.

wileama
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Re: Page 98

Post by wileama »

An entire page has passed since I last posted, and I'm drunk? Ignore a conversation that has clearly moved on? NEVER!
Solemn wrote:
wileama wrote:I think there is one fundamental issue with this. Why bother putting them on a planet for them to evolve on for a couple thousand year, or even the memory of it?
From a Loroi perspective
Well there's your problem. I was assuming a neutral third party for my analysis of the situation. I'm looking at it is a reader, not the Loroi. Which is why I'm so keen to hold on to the idea of humanity actually existing in the fossil record of earth. Earth turning out to be a hypnotic suggestion in Alex's's mind would simple be so strange to a reader as to break my suspension of disbelief, and thus detract from the story. Assuming the point of view of the Loroi changes that radically. I might have already thrown him out the air lock. Maybe that's just, because I'm a firm believer that nuking it from orbit is the only way to be sure.

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