Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Arioch]

They are, but colonizing new systems takes decades.

[Onaiom]

What the Loroi think about creating/producing weapons ? They think it's honorable like when a Blacksmith forged a sword/armor or it is just another job that need to be fulfilled by the civilians ?

[icekatze]

hi hi

Colonization speed is one of the things that gets glossed over in a lot of settings. At least with humans, it takes years before one generation is old enough to start having kids of their own. Unless they're constantly getting new immigrants, or they have millions settling in the first wave, its going to take a lot of generations before they can start competing with the homeworld in terms of numbers. (And thats not counting the infrastructure that needs to be built)

I suppose cloning centers can be an option if you tech level is high enough.

[GeoModder]

Well, in Outsider constant migration doesn't seem to be a show stopper.

[Mackus]

As long as there are incentives, usually economical, people from "core" world will emigrate for colonies.
As long as colonies aren't established sorely for prestige, but, for example, new colony has some valuable resource thats so much cheaper to mine that it offsets cost of interstellar transport, enterprises will invest into it, and people will move to get jobs. Those jobs will create more jobs (miners will need dentists...). And those colonies will not be money sink holes, unlike many "scramble for africa" ones, which were mostly overcompensation for something. Again, unless its sorely for prestige, or are receiving subsidies from metropolis.

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Got it...

Just surprise no one expanding there flanks thats all.

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Are there legal pirates and mercs? Id not do they use those services that others do provide?

[Arioch]

Just surprise no one expanding there flanks thats all.

They are expanding. The Umiak occupation of the Periphery is one example of such expansion. But setting up colonies in previously uninhabited star systems takes time.

Are there legal pirates and mercs? Id not do they use those services that others do provide?

Commerce raiding doesn't really exist in this setting, because there is no easy access to enemy territory, and if there were, you could do much worse than raid shipping; you could bomb the enemy planets back to the stone age. So there's not much of a role for privateers.

The Umiak do use some local allied forces for defensive operations, but I'm not sure it would be appropriate to call them mercenaries.

The Loroi use some allied forces for mostly non-military functions (such as Mozin's Barsam courier). But again, not really mercenaries.

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Will any side tolerate a powerful third party?

[Hālian]

Will any side tolerate a powerful third party?

Um.

*psst*

Historians.

[Arioch]

Well, technically the Historians are on the Loroi side.

How either side would react to a hypothetical powerful third party would depend on the details of who and where this party was. It's one thing to be able to bully weaker opponents who are trying to stay neutral, but neither side can really afford to have a second front against an opponent of similar power.

[Senanthes]

How would the Loroi (broadly) react to a nation/empire/organization too powerful to be easily dealt with via intimidation, that wasn't looking to wipe them out or swallow them up? Both in their current crisis, and in a situation where they were not engaged in total war? For simplicity, assume that said entity isn't begging for attention, is willing to talk, and won't start shooting unless the Loroi shoot first.

[fredgiblet]

You're describing the Historians. You can look at how the Loroi dealt with them.

[Hujedamig]

"The Keeper is aware. The Keeper understands. The Keeper has seen the enemy."

[Senanthes]

You're describing the Historians. You can look at how the Loroi dealt with them.

Fair enough. Suppose I'm splitting hairs in my own head.

[Username]

"The Keeper is aware. The Keeper understands. The Keeper has seen the enemy."

Even though I hated his guts, the keeper had a hell of an entrance.
When you think about it, it seems improbable that there would be so much progenitor tech still around and functional.

[saint of m]

A human's brain falls pray to optical illusions because it's lazy, fills in gaps and speeds things along (I know I just my a physiology expert cry somewhere). The human brain takes these shortcuts as it speeds up the thinking process and gives us a better chance to avoid that falling rock or pay attention to that odd looking shape that looks like a short faced bear.

With this in mind, do Loroi have any similar short comings, or does telepathy and other fun mental abilities they have need their brains to somehow not have this issue to deal with the potency of being to kill by thinking real hard?

[Arioch]

A human's brain falls pray to optical illusions because it's lazy, fills in gaps and speeds things along (I know I just my a physiology expert cry somewhere). The human brain takes these shortcuts as it speeds up the thinking process and gives us a better chance to avoid that falling rock or pay attention to that odd looking shape that looks like a short faced bear.

With this in mind, do Loroi have any similar short comings, or does telepathy and other fun mental abilities they have need their brains to somehow not have this issue to deal with the potency of being to kill by thinking real hard?

I read somewhere that the focused, high-resolution portion of the image that your eyes provide to your brain is only as large as your thumb held at arm's length; what we perceive as a large video image is a low-resolution mishmash that's stitched together by your brain along with residual high-res images of where you were looking over the past few fractions of a second. I think that any cognitive system like this is going to have optimizations that can result in loss of data, and Loroi brains will have similar (if not the same) shortcomings. What telepathy (and psi in general) does require is intense concentration, as well as a certain amount of mental discipline, and Loroi are better at this than most humans.

[Jeremy]

Without wanting Humans to be an incredible species, IS there something that Humans do BETTER than Loroi? I note that the Loroi took 375 years to go from their version of Sputnik to jump drives, while it took humans 150 years to do the same thing. We got there 2.5 times faster, on our own.

There's gotta be something in humans thats pretty good in order to do that.

[cacambo43]

Well, to be fair, the name of the comic is "Outsider," so there really might not be anything "we" do but get to watch things unfold from Alex's eyes. Does there really need to be a "Don't worry, I'LL save you!" moment from humanity in this situation?

CJSF