1) I know that Loroi avoid physical contact but are they still trained in had-to-hand combat?

2) do the support castes like Listels get combat training or are they completly dependant on other cast for protection?

Yes, Loroi of the warrior castes are trained in unarmed combat. The primary taboo against touching is that it's an impolite intimate telepathic contact; there's nothing polite about hand-to-hand combat. The other significant risk of touching is that the contact can be used as an avenue of telepathic attack, but that avenue runs both ways. Whether it's to her benefit to avoid or seek touch contact with another Loroi in combat depends on whether the opponent is judged to be more or less powerful a telepath.

All of the warrior castes are trained in combat skills first, and specialty skills second. Including the Listel and other support castes.

For question number one, I'd say yes. If we take a look at the insider:http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/forum_loroi_rites.html, among other interesting things, we'll see this section:



Since children don't have high tech, it wouldn't unreasonable to assume that some of the duels are fought hand to hand.

Another thing which confirms that idea is Stillstorm. For example here: http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/outsider062.html (sorry, I couldn't find a better thigh shot at the moment) we can see that she has a dagger. Since we know from the bottomless sea of old quotes and discussions (mostly on the old forum) that in Outsider boarding enemy ships is extremely rare, it's safe to conclude that the dagger is for ceremonial use. I think that it's safe to assume that hand-to-hand combat has at least some importance to them.


I too would like to hear more about number two.

EDIT: Arioch beat me to it.

If I might make a further inquiry I'd wonder just what kind of combat skills they are proficient in. I wouldn't expect a naval crew to be familiar with anything but small arms and hand to hand combat and the urban tactics that go along with them but in their initial training are they given any formal education in infantry doctrine mechanized or otherwise?

I do realize it's probably not within the scope of the story but I would be interested, if you've the time to spare, in the kind of forces they put forward terrestial wise. Weapons, support, whether they favor the sort of blitzkrieg strategies popular today or more easternly light infantry or if they maintain a mindset of flexibility.

Item of authority used to silence any objection.

Question, would a Loroi be able to mentally attack a human effectively while in hand to hand combat?

Loroi "basic training," conducted in the child-bands, is essentially survival training. The children have few weapons, mostly knives and makeshift javelins, and perhaps a few small arms if the local environment is hostile enough to warrant it. While the weapons they are given at this stage are minimal, the challenges the children face can in some cases be extremely savage. Beryl and Thorn recount some of their experiences in the child-bands early in chapter 2, so I'll leave more on that until then.

Secondary training for shipboard disciplines includes squad-level combat and the kind of formal training in small arms that you would expect for any unit capable of infantry combat. Though the Loroi have dedicated security units (Teidar and specialized Soroin), every member of the crew is expected to be able to be armed and fight in a boarding action. And yes, this means Beryl too (as we will soon see).

Ground combat is a different specialty than the shipboard forces that we see most of in the story. There has been plenty of terrestrial fighting in the war (and there are some flashbacks of this), but it has always been asymmetrical; whichever fleet owns the space around a planet makes conventional ground warfare for the other side very difficult.

Loroi ground forces are based around heavily armed and armored infantry, led by psionic Unsheathed that can pack quite a punch. The infantry forces are supplemented by a variety of armored fighting vehicles (a merge of functionality between hovertanks, dropships and helicopter gunships), dedicated artillery and air superiority vehicles, and a mix of just about anything else that you can think of. But the emphasis is on basic infantry, for two reasons. Infantry can be dispersed and is resistant to bombardment, whereas armored vehicles are often easy to target from the air or from orbit. But perhaps more to the point, a powerful Unsheathed can junk most armored vehicles.


That depends on what you mean by a mental attack. Three Teidar were unable to telepathically penetrate Alex's mental defenses while he was strapped to a table, but Alex did get some "feedback" from Fireblade, so this may have been distracting if he wasn't prepared for it. What caused Alex to black out was that his breathing was being telekinetically restricted, which is not a telepathic attack, but I suppose could be considered "mental." But telekinetic attacks generally do not require touch range.

Woah. I'm guessing the the Umiak are playing hard ball here with regards to trying to get their hands, er claws on Alex.
I'm guessing that Fireblade figured that perhaps part of Alex's resistance to scanning was due to mental resistance. So they figured she might induce pain/disorientation to get inside his mind.

Though one wonders if Fireblade might have been over zealous in mind melding with Alex. Cause knocking him out DID sorta put them back to square one when they were mind reading him.

Well I thank ye for the quick and detailed response and if I might ask one question more, what's the nature of said small arms (ground combat)? Are they good old rifle cartridges or are they using plasma and laser weaponry? I saw on the ships the guards are using something that resembles a SMG in size though it doesn't look like it holds a magazine of any sort we might recognize. I imagine shipboard personnel would be more inclined to use some kind of advanced weaponry to save on the chances of richochets but for ground combat I imagine penetration and just pure sensory shock value, sound, pressure, light, might all be enough for the Loroi to keep chemically propelled firearms around.

Or have these Umiak hard troops just had the fear wired out of them?

According to Fireblade's character sheet, the Loroi use both laser and "blaster" small arms.

I think in ground combat you would see anything and everything -- kinetic slugs, lasers, particle beams, plasma, you name it. I'm personally very fond of basic kinetic slugthrowers -- I think they are the most simple and hard to counter. As you suggest, slugthrowers are not ideal for shipboard environments, and so the Loroi small arms we have seen (and will see again) are blasters -- lasers and particle beam weapons with settings that can be adjusted to fit the situation.

Kanetic Slug throwers, you mean like mass effect?

If by mass effect do you mean man-portable coilguns? They would have to be comparable in power to conventional chemical driven weapons because without the recoil-dampening mass effect the coilguns would be too powerful to use without a tripod.

I'm really interested in what you mean by "heavily armed and armoured", we have seen some armoured Loroi in the brig section of the ship. But they don't have full face helmets, so the armour gets heavier than that?

Probably power armor with synthetic muscle/strength enhancements (there are material like this currently in development).

I don't believe outsider verse has power armor. The closest you have is cyborg augmentation like with the Umiak.

Yep, and this, too:

Stillstorm, Fireblade and Beryl together as child.

ah AH! the cat out of the bag, after saying for a long time that boarding was near impossible, it was just a distraction to turn us away from the true! aka alex going to curl in a ball of fear as the loroi fight off the umiak. i knew it!

No, I expect him to sucker punch an Umaik.

I'm sure alex could handle himself, He's gotten throught chapter 1 well enough.

as for the "Boarding Action" on the Tempest, I though, from the old forum, the usual operation was is boarding was going to happen ( IIRC) that A) the target ship self-destructs, or B) the target ship is attacked so quickly the crew can't fight back.

So does this mean the Umiak have a method of boarding the faster Loroi ships? I know that SG 51 is stationary and confronting the newest Umiak wave, Thus the only way i can a boarding action happen is

Spoiler

on the plus side, we get to see Fireblade and Beryl is action

For boarding to be successful there boarding party needs to have some electronic warfare capabilities and be able to lock out the crew from their computer systems, which might not be too difficult given the enemies physical contact with the ships systems.

I was thinking something more along the line of transporters obtained from the Orgus (the Orgus would have researched the technology and used them to quickly transport their freight to hasten trade.) But boarding pods are a distinct possibility.

Following is from: http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_ ... er_Fission
Transporters: Ship Special System that:"beams" Marines into enemy ships and Star Bases, and enables you to bomb planets from up to 12 spaces away.

Perhaps "boarding action" is not the most appropriate term. A tactical engagement in which small arms are used.

Space drive-by?