Well of Souls Forums

I am totally unfamiliar with Russian aircraft during WWII, now I have something new to research! Thanks Arioch!

Arioch wrote:

Trantor wrote: The best US fighter pilot had only 40 kills, and he didn´d survive the war. The best soviet pilot, Ivan Kozhedub, had 62.
(<chauvinism on>...and BTW, there were more than 400 german aces more succesful than mr. Bong...<chauvinism off> )

The best German ace had 352 kills. That doesn't necessarily mean the Germans were better pilots.

Oh. In that Iowa/Bismarck-flamewar it was all ´bout the "nummmbaaas".



SCNR, just kidding.
...thought the "<ch...>-tags would do it. Next time i´ll place more additional smilies.

and the top 100 aces of the war were nearly all German.

Ahem. You mean "Top 400". All of them.
Edit: I counted these numbers a mere 20 years ago or so. There were 433 pilots better than the best american ace. But i´m not correct on the "all of them", 12 russians and a handfull japanese pilots also blend into the top 400 with the best russian @ around position 235.

Far from it; the Americans had an overall 9 to 1 kill ratio against the Luftwaffe.

As it is mathematically impossible, i dare to say i respectfully doubt that.

Arioch wrote:It also has something to do with the quality of the opponents they were facing -- the majority of the kills from the 200+ kill German aces came on the Russian front...

...who weren´t that bad pilots.
And most of them proved their skills against USAF also: According to Constable/Toliver, Erich Hartmann (the #1 top-ace) fought one of his last dogfights against 8 (!) Mustangs before he ran out of fuel and bailed out. Fortunately, the american pilots were fair and didn´t kill him when he parachuted down to earth.

But just leave it, no interest in another useless flamewar.

Arioch wrote:

Trantor wrote: Also, their early Jetfighters were superior to those of the USAF, thanks to the german intel they collected.

And now, the MiG-15 vs. F-86 debate.

YAY!

Nemo wrote:I would think not. The US had the bomb all by itself and the most powerful wartime economy in the world at the end of WW2. We could have dominated the world, or blown anyone who would not bend the knee into non existence, literally without resistance. We did not. I think both the Loroi and Umiak would view that as foolishness, especially given the events of the following century. Its not in the West's nature to do such a thing owing to its religious Protestant/classic liberal nature, but has been and is the predominate method of establishing order throughout history, even to this day in other parts of the world.

Not only that, despite waging total war on our enemies, did not desire to eradicate them, but instead help rebuild them after the conflict, and became close allies.

Arioch wrote: And now, the MiG-15 vs. F-86 debate.

How about spitfire VS F-22?


Anyone heard about that pilot who actually scared a squad of Germain fighter even though his weapon were jammed?

hi hi

To flip this on its side in a hypothetical situation: Suppose the Loroi come to visit Earth and one of the Loroi ambassadors is taking a sight seeing cruise of the ocean. Suddenly, a deep frown appears on her face. "You didn't tell me you were oppressing a peaceful sentient race here on your home planet, and they were never any threat to you at all! This dolphin over there has told me quite a horrifying tale." (turns out dolphins can talk to Loroi via telepathy just fine, or maybe its just too much hitchhiker's guide...)

Kind of makes me wonder if the Loroi have a better understanding of the degrees of sentience that various creatures possess, since their telepathy might provide something of a cheat around the language barrier.

hehehe, back in the old forum we had a little story about the Loroi discovering Alex along with a Pet cat. Just by watching their behaviour together they came to believe that Alex was the subordinate.

Humans almost always seem to want to see aliens as nobler and better than us. (Though apparently many of us simultaneously also still want to see ourselves as somehow inexplicably militarily superior.)

No Loroi has any right to pass any kind of moral judgement about "oppression" against any Human entity. They have a much worse record than we do on the subject, which extends to the present day... the Loroi still maintain a military occupation over four aliens species.

But... how do we know that the Human telepathic resistance is not shared by dolphins?

Your saying that it may be a feature from organisms that evolved on Earth? I had given thought to the possibility but discounted it when I read that telepathic resistance/susceptibility was related to the interior workings of the mind. Neat!

I'm speaking hypothetically, but Humans are related to every organism on Earth. Humans brains are very closely related to all other mammal brains. If Humans have a characteristic that makes them hard for Loroi telepathy to read, it's probably not scientific to assume that other Earth mammals don't have the same characteristic.

This is not at all relevant to the story. I'm just saying this because the happy telepathic dolphin is a silly cliche.

icekatze wrote:hi hi

To flip this on its side in a hypothetical situation: Suppose the Loroi come to visit Earth and one of the Loroi ambassadors is taking a sight seeing cruise of the ocean. Suddenly, a deep frown appears on her face. "You didn't tell me you were oppressing a peaceful sentient race here on your home planet, and they were never any threat to you at all! This dolphin over there has told me quite a horrifying tale." (turns out dolphins can talk to Loroi via telepathy just fine, or maybe its just too much hitchhiker's guide...)

Kind of makes me wonder if the Loroi have a better understanding of the degrees of sentience that various creatures possess, since their telepathy might provide something of a cheat around the language barrier.

"You didn't tell me that you let hostile carnivorous sentients live in your oceans, developing the technology they need to overthrow you. What kind of sad fools are you for not enslaving them to the yoke of your war machine?"

hi hi

I didn't mean to imply that the Loroi have some sort of moral authority to admonish humanity. Its just that I don't think the Loroi would be the type to be above holding their client races to a double standard. "Do as I say, not as I do," sort of thing. Or maybe they're like the politician that crusades against drug abuse, only to get busted doing drugs himself.

If the animals of Earth all share a certain Sanzai resistance, it would help in part to explain why Earth was never found in general.

You didn't tell me that you let hostile carnivorous sentients live in your oceans, developing the technology they need to overthrow you. What kind of sad fools are you for not enslaving them to the yoke of your war machine?

On second thought, lets not enslave dolphins... they are a silly race. (We're pods of the wide ocean, play wherever we're goin, we dine well in this fishing spot, we eat salmon, cod and tuna lot.)

elizibar wrote: You didn't tell me that you let hostile carnivorous sentients live in your oceans, developing the technology they need to overthrow you. What kind of sad fools are you for not enslaving them to the yoke of your war machine?"

To which we respond,

But they are so cute, do trick very well and according to the "Hitchhiker guide to the Galaxy" are very good doom-day predictors ( thought we can't understand the warning though)

being serious here, Arioch has a point that judging other races by our own standards is a tricky slope (as humanity learns and then forgets or ignores). I like the creative point that both of the main races, Loroi/Umiak aren't golden in their eyes and both have done extreme actions ( yes yes not following my own point here . . .) to both each other and to other alien races (well Loroi's theory about them being Soia descendant should be interesting to see if true; while the Umiak have may have their own believes/ pretext's)

icekatze wrote:If the animals of Earth all share a certain Sanzai resistance, it would help in part to explain why Earth was never found in general.

Oh yeah. Think of Sanzai-Ants. Earth = Telepatically "loudest" place in the universe.

Trantor wrote:

icekatze wrote:If the animals of Earth all share a certain Sanzai resistance, it would help in part to explain why Earth was never found in general.

Oh yeah. Think of Sanzai-Ants. Earth = Telepatically "loudest" place in the universe.

Then I think the Loroi would destroy us for just being annoying......

Another off-topic tangent: Sometimes I wonder how Loroi/Umiak food cultures would compare to human food cultures in terms of diversity and complexity given their other cultural differences/values. It would be funny if there was something relatively innocuous to Earthlings that was highly addictive to an alien species (desirable enough to conquer our planet maybe ).

Hi there, long time reader, first time poster. I just have to say, when I heard the insect's speech, I could hear the main character going "oh, crap." Is there a betting pool on whether the Loroi will give the earthman up?

Ktrain wrote:It would be funny if there was something relatively innocuous to Earthlings that was highly addictive to an alien species (desirable enough to conquer our planet maybe ).

I believe this is called the Maple Syrup option (at least by me)

Ktrain wrote:It would be funny if there was something relatively innocuous to Earthlings that was highly addictive to an alien species.

like the lizards in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar becoming addicted to ground ginger

Ktrain wrote:Another off-topic tangent: Sometimes I wonder how Loroi/Umiak food cultures would compare to human food cultures in terms of diversity and complexity given their other cultural differences/values. It would be funny if there was something relatively innocuous to Earthlings that was highly addictive to an alien species (desirable enough to conquer our planet maybe ).

Chocolate.

Turns Loroi telepathy to 11.

Umiak's heads asplode from light years away.

Alternatively...

**Beryl nom's chocolate**

**her pupils dilate**

Beryl: Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Alex: Oh crap...

Pistachios, scenario: Umiak gain access to the wreckage of the Bellarmine and find a package of pistachios... collapse of Umiak civilization soon follows.

Though I can see an Umiak just pulling a bunch of spaghetti into its mouth with two forks/chopsticks.

suryasm wrote:Hi there, long time reader, first time poster. I just have to say, when I heard the insect's speech, I could hear the main character going "oh, crap." Is there a betting pool on whether the Loroi will give the earthman up?

They don't seem to have any idea that Alex exists, or just expect a flat refusal by the Loroi to hand over anything they've already recovered...they're asking specifically for the Loroi to negotiate for the wreckage they're defending, not for any recovered survivors or equipment. They may even be being diplomatic by asserting that Alex's distress calls came from the wreckage rather than a survivor that was recovered, saving Stillstorm from having to lie about such a thing.

<ahem>

The real point I was trying to make (before the flame degeneration) is that mankind in general is pretty quick on its feet, technologically. The Loroi and Umiak technology is pretty impressive, but their science is not. I still think that Terrans, given some pretty basic technologies enjoyed by either Loroi or Umiak, could reverse engineer and improve upon these technologies, then extend them to even better "stuff."

For instance, artificial gravity control could lead to at least a half dozen weapon systems I can bring to mind off the top of my head. And I'm not as smart as the people who are charged with the responsibility of defending the country -- or the world, or the empire, or whatever. Any scientific advance can be turned into a useful and potent weapon if the right <cough, ack, thpth> people get a hold of it.

Perhaps Arioch will expand on this idea, but I'm pretty sure the reality of such a situation as the Outsider 'verse would lead to a worldwide (system-wide? empire-wide?) war footing and the unification of humanity against the alien threat. Given small advances in science we've been able to make huge advances in technologies. Think selenium/germanium to silicon in semiconductors; ruby to polymers in lasers; iron to steel in swords; comp-4 to Semtex in explosives; yada yada yada. The list of small science to big technology is endless. How not so in space flight, weapons, defenses, etc.?