Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

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icekatze
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

The pole is called a yoke, or just simply a carrying pole. (Tenbinbō in Japanese, meaning balancing pole.)

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Tamri »

Arioch wrote:The Soia-liron farm ecosystem has holes because it's designed for ultra-tech societies, not start-over-from-the-stone-age societies. Horses were a crucial resource for us TL0-5, but they're completely useless TL6+ (except as novelties).

The concept of a society without wheels is not unprecedented. If you take a look at medieval Japanese woodblock prints of farm or market activity, you won't see any wheeled carts. What you'll see are people carrying big loads on backpacks and (whatever you call a pole that goes across the shoulders with a burden hanging from each end). You also won't see a lot of beasts of burden. Rice farming is a completely manual process that doesn't benefit from plows, etc.
You still will remember the Indian peasants, who are carry luggage on his head. Agriculture without animals and complex tools like plow possible. The question is that this requires: 1) a warm climate, and 2) a sufficient amount of water. On Deinar neither one nor the other. With a single hoe at the ready in the same middle lane Eurasia you hasn't cultivated much many.

At the same time will remember the American Indian - im the horse was unknown, that didn't stop them tame the same llamas and attach them to the case. The peoples of the North, too not bad did without transport animals if they had something to do near the village. But for move long distances have come up with dog sleds. In short, the idea is this: If the goods haven't to carry far and long - all good, man is enough. But for the transportation of goods and people themselves over long distances longer desirable to have at least something resembling transport, even if in will result it motion the man himself.

But it's the lyrics. The Question was, where Loroi find the idea of ​​mechanical transport, if the ideas source, like people, according to you, they did not. Just levels difference: the same primitive scraper, to invent of them quite easily. Harness the animals to it and attach to them the skids or wheels is also a particular genius not required. And replace the animal for a motor suggests itself. But what was the thinking Lorai engineers, when they didn't have this chain before their eyes? Before the creator of the first vehicle were many problems, but they were mainly related to the engine and the "connection" to his cart. But he already had the idea before his eyes, and the base (ie, the cart itself) which has been technically polished and worked out in the previous hundreds of years to the maximum extent possible, at the time. But, according to you, at the Loroi had no idea, no concept, no bases, no motor. And then suddenly they are taking, and invent transport. "I don't believe", as Stanislavski said. Too many impossible coincidences and eventuality.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

Humans were farming barely-domesticated crops for thousands of years before cattle were domesticated for plowing fields, 11,000 BC for lentils and vetch in Greece, 9,500 BC for the eight founder crops in Neolithic B sites, and 8,500 BC for cattle in Turkey and Pakistan. Llamas weren't domesticated until about 4,000 BC, some 11,000 years after people settled in the Andes region. The earliest archeological evidence of sled dogs isn't until about 2,000 BC, some 14,000 years after people arrived, and even then, they were only prominent in the Yukon and Alaska regions of North America.

It turns out that human legs are well adapted to long distance travel. And presumably, the Soia-Liron crops are engineered to grow well in a variety of conditions that humanity's early crops were not.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Also, the Loroi aren't farming wheat or rice. They're farming misesa and other crops that are genetically engineered to be productive and easy to farm in marginal conditions.
Tamri wrote:The Question was, where Loroi find the idea of ​​mechanical transport, if the ideas source, like people, according to you, they did not.
I don't accept the premise of the question, which seems to be that invention of mechanical transport is impossible without the idea of pack animals. If you have a steam engine, and you're looking for things it can do, eventually you can figure out to make a vehicle even if you've never seen a horse. The Loroi had ships from early days; the concept of a vehicle was not alien to them.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Absalom »

Tamri wrote:
Arioch wrote:The Soia-liron farm ecosystem has holes because it's designed for ultra-tech societies, not start-over-from-the-stone-age societies. Horses were a crucial resource for us TL0-5, but they're completely useless TL6+ (except as novelties).

The concept of a society without wheels is not unprecedented. If you take a look at medieval Japanese woodblock prints of farm or market activity, you won't see any wheeled carts. What you'll see are people carrying big loads on backpacks and (whatever you call a pole that goes across the shoulders with a burden hanging from each end). You also won't see a lot of beasts of burden. Rice farming is a completely manual process that doesn't benefit from plows, etc.
You still will remember the Indian peasants, who are carry luggage on his head. Agriculture without animals and complex tools like plow possible. The question is that this requires: 1) a warm climate, and 2) a sufficient amount of water. On Deinar neither one nor the other. With a single hoe at the ready in the same middle lane Eurasia you hasn't cultivated much many.

At the same time will remember the American Indian - im the horse was unknown, that didn't stop them tame the same llamas and attach them to the case. The peoples of the North, too not bad did without transport animals if they had something to do near the village. But for move long distances have come up with dog sleds. In short, the idea is this: If the goods haven't to carry far and long - all good, man is enough. But for the transportation of goods and people themselves over long distances longer desirable to have at least something resembling transport, even if in will result it motion the man himself.

But it's the lyrics. The Question was, where Loroi find the idea of ​​mechanical transport, if the ideas source, like people, according to you, they did not. Just levels difference: the same primitive scraper, to invent of them quite easily. Harness the animals to it and attach to them the skids or wheels is also a particular genius not required. And replace the animal for a motor suggests itself. But what was the thinking Lorai engineers, when they didn't have this chain before their eyes? Before the creator of the first vehicle were many problems, but they were mainly related to the engine and the "connection" to his cart. But he already had the idea before his eyes, and the base (ie, the cart itself) which has been technically polished and worked out in the previous hundreds of years to the maximum extent possible, at the time. But, according to you, at the Loroi had no idea, no concept, no bases, no motor. And then suddenly they are taking, and invent transport. "I don't believe", as Stanislavski said. Too many impossible coincidences and eventuality.
On Deinar, probably it was like this: water wheels + windmills (food & ore grinding, forge bellows) -> primitive engines (for places that are bad for water wheels) -> powered ships + powered ore mines (better transport, more workers focused on mining).

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Tamri »

icekatze wrote:hi hi

Humans were farming barely-domesticated crops for thousands of years before cattle were domesticated for plowing fields, 11,000 BC for lentils and vetch in Greece, 9,500 BC for the eight founder crops in Neolithic B sites, and 8,500 BC for cattle in Turkey and Pakistan. Llamas weren't domesticated until about 4,000 BC, some 11,000 years after people settled in the Andes region. The earliest archeological evidence of sled dogs isn't until about 2,000 BC, some 14,000 years after people arrived, and even then, they were only prominent in the Yukon and Alaska regions of North America.

It turns out that human legs are well adapted to long distance travel. And presumably, the Soia-Liron crops are engineered to grow well in a variety of conditions that humanity's early crops were not.
The oldest agricultural cultures dated for roughly 8-10k years ago, the first domestication of animals, too, about this period + - 1000 years. Yes, not all, but the first culture of this period arose in Mesopotamia, which is uncomfortable for life is clearly not name. More northern culture emerged much later, and they have just been and sophisticated agricultural tools and machinery of agriculture and domesticated animals. Dogsled charges according to the vision of the information I have about 8000 years, the dumping of 2000 on the development of the idea and get about 6000 years of operation. And it has been used mainly in cold countries like Chukotka and Alaska. Scraper even older, they were known as far back as the Stone Age. In general, you can plow a field manually, but in the world it is effective in not so large range of areas. In other places it is the development of technology of agriculture and domesticated animals were given a major boost to the development of agricultural cultures.

If you need to move only the man himself - yes, as I already said. But if you have to drag myself to 20-50 kilogram - then the problems begin. Because we are good evolutionary adapted to move on a fairly long distances and not to carry heavy loads on these same distance. What do you think, why any trader image includes at least a pack animal or at least a truck?
Arioch wrote:Also, the Loroi aren't farming wheat or rice. They're farming misesa and other crops that are genetically engineered to be productive and easy to farm in marginal conditions.

I don't accept the premise of the question, which seems to be that invention of mechanical transport is impossible without the idea of pack animals. If you have a steam engine, and you're looking for things it can do, eventually you can figure out to make a vehicle even if you've never seen a horse. The Loroi had ships from early days; the concept of a vehicle was not alien to them.

The invention of mechanical transport impossible if inventor not have concept of transport. Innovations are based on the improvement of existing concepts and introducing new ideas according to actual technological development. And if you have not borrowed the idea from someone else, you cannot jump over several development steps at a time. Roughly speaking, if you have a cart and ICE - the machine as a result it may well succeed. But if you have no carts at all, or there is only a scraper - the way to the first car will be long and thorny. Because all of the missing steps some inventor will have to pass in one technological stage. Jet aircraft appeared after piston-engined airplane has reached its peak of development, and not vice versa.
Absalom wrote:On Deinar, probably it was like this: water wheels + windmills (food & ore grinding, forge bellows) -> primitive engines (for places that are bad for water wheels) -> powered ships + powered ore mines (better transport, more workers focused on mining).
This engine development, and it is, in principle, similar to the hypothesis of their development. But the car is, roughly speaking, the motor and the cart. Where's the cart, that is the question.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Suederwind »

The oldest agricultural cultures dated for roughly 8-10k years ago, the first domestication of animals, too, about this period + - 1000 years.
Which is precisely what icekatze wrote. The oldest crop domesticated was afaik lentils, but archaeologists are unsure if the earliest found ones (13000-10000bc) were just gathered or already cultivated.
Yes, not all, but the first culture of this period arose in Mesopotamia, which is uncomfortable for life is clearly not name. More northern culture emerged much later, and they have just been and sophisticated agricultural tools and machinery of agriculture and domesticated animals.
Many of the first civilizations arosed in the so called Fertile Crescent, which Mesopotamia is a part of. I am not sure what you meant by "uncomfortable for life", but that region is part of that Fertile Crescent for a reason. Its a good example for Landscapes that change over time quite dramatically.

However, many different cultures have aroused before those civilizations (and many did so later) in various parts of the world: Link

The question is: what is the oldest and how to deffine civilization?
Currently, the earliest example of a possible civilization is Göbekli Tepe in modern day Tuerkey and it dates back to around 10th-8th Millenia bc. It was most likely some kind of temple build by people on the edge of the neolithic periode. The builders are assumed to have settled in the surrounding area and there are similar sites nearby.
Some genetic researcher even suggests that many of our domesticated animals and crops originate from the region around that hill, too. Thats why some archaeologists assume it was the place, the so called "neolithic revolution" started.
In general, you can plow a field manually, but in the world it is effective in not so large range of areas.
The oldest known tool for field work is a digging stick. We don't know much about the crops the Loroi are cultivating, but assuming that they are genetically enhanced, they might not need much more than a little hole in the ground.

I wonder, what kind of human crop is misesa comparable to? Judging from the picture of Maia in the insider, it looks a bit like wheat.
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Tamri »

Suederwind wrote:
Which is precisely what icekatze wrote. The oldest crop domesticated was afaik lentils, but archaeologists are unsure if the earliest found ones (13000-10000bc) were just gathered or already cultivated.
Perhaps we each other did not understand. icekatze, as I understand, talking about all domesticated forage crops. I'm talking about food crops such as cereals, legumes, etc., whose cultivation requires serious cultivation. Plant a tree or bush, and field of rather choosy crops - it's not the same thing.
Suederwind wrote:Many of the first civilizations arosed in the so called Fertile Crescent, which Mesopotamia is a part of. I am not sure what you meant by "uncomfortable for life", but that region is part of that Fertile Crescent for a reason. Its a good example for Landscapes that change over time quite dramatically.

However, many different cultures have aroused before those civilizations (and many did so later) in various parts of the world: Link

The question is: what is the oldest and how to deffine civilization?
Currently, the earliest example of a possible civilization is Göbekli Tepe in modern day Tuerkey and it dates back to around 10th-8th Millenia bc. It was most likely some kind of temple build by people on the edge of the neolithic periode. The builders are assumed to have settled in the surrounding area and there are similar sites nearby.
Some genetic researcher even suggests that many of our domesticated animals and crops originate from the region around that hill, too. Thats why some archaeologists assume it was the place, the so called "neolithic revolution" started.
I meant exactly what I wrote. For farming in areas with more stringent environmental conditions already needed some invertar. Exclusively manual labor is possible, but ineffective - forces to maintain farming in more northern latitudes, will take much longer for the normal return on it. Try to at least 10 square meters of the usual grassy fields to dig up a hoe, then Lift their efforts in the cube, and you will understand about how much effort it takes. Plus, the north begins a harsh change of seasons, which further increases the demands on the productivity of agriculture who live there, because in addition to food reserves can be mined in the winter except hunting. In general, for sedentary farming without livestock and at least some invertar there will be catastrophically hard. One bad year - and that's end.

I for approximated conclusions use this map. It is incomplete, but the idea of resettlement of people give.

Suederwind wrote:The oldest known tool for field work is a digging stick. We don't know much about the crops the Loroi are cultivating, but assuming that they are genetically enhanced, they might not need much more than a little hole in the ground.

I wonder, what kind of human crop is misesa comparable to? Judging from the picture of Maia in the insider, it looks a bit like wheat.
If we assume that we have a food culture that grows like grass, not whimsical to the treatment, that easily tolerates dry climate, cold and heat, doesn't degenerate with all and this good fruit - all of the above can be ignored. Of course, in this case, again, questions emerge as Loroi with this set of starting bonuses managed to slip into substone age of nomadic gathering and get stuck in it at 200k years. Not to mention the fact that if there is such a miracle herb agricultural crops were supposed to get a distinct advantage over the nomads, because unlike the Seconds, farmers problems with food certainly should not be. But, according to the story, they were. Something suspicious ...

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by SVlad »

Tamri wrote:Loroi with this set of starting bonuses managed to slip into substone age of nomadic gathering and get stuck in it at 200k years
I think, it's nothing to do with agriculture - slipping in stoneage is rather easy, if all your civilization based on alien technology you don't understand and can't recreate. When all machines break, you stay with nothing at all.
But with such a cheating crops it would be hard to rise civilization back, because you wouldn't have any stimuli to invent something - your food growth itself.
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I explicitly stated which crops I was talking about, Tamri. Lentils and vetch are legumes. The eight founder crops are: Emmer wheat, Einkorn wheat, Barley, Lentil, Pea, Chickpea, Bitter vetch, and Flax.

As for distances moved:
• A typical family of plains Native Americans hauled 272 to 318 kg of materials 8 to 9.6 km a day without the horse.
• A typical family of plains Native Americans hauled 272 to 318 kg of materials 16 to 24 km a day with the horse.
• Both of the above were able to successfully follow the bison herds.
• US infantry are expected to be able carry 31.75 kg on a 19 km march.
• In rural Kansas, you will find small agricultural towns placed about 16 km apart.
• In rural England, you will find small agricultural towns placed about 1 to 2 km apart.
• In both cases, it is possible to reach a town from one's farm in a day's travel, a farm generally being about half that distance or less from the nearest town.

Agricultural civilizations existed for at least a thousand years before domesticated draft animals existed. By today's standards that is not even close to the same time period. The industrial revolution didn't even get started until about 256 years ago. The simple fact of the matter is that, even if there were difficulties, agricultural civilizations worked year after year, for centuries without large domesticated animals. There were undoubtedly bad years, but never so bad that people stopped farming.

As someone who grew up in the midwest USA, I've done farming by hand. I know how much effort it is to till a half acre (2000 square meters) by hand, which is enough area to feed a family. For someone who dedicates their life to growing food, that is not a serious obstacle.

We are in a forum talking about space warfare, something that has never happened before in real life. I think it is fair to say that people have the imagination necessary to imagine things that they do not see directly in front of them.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Suederwind »

@Icekatze
There were undoubtedly bad years, but never so bad that people stopped farming.
It is known from research on neolithic human bones, that the human lifespan in that time periode was significantly shorter than before. The reasons among others were diseases, malnutrition and parasites. So not everything was better than before.
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

People also grew shorter in early agricultural societies than in hunter gatherer societies, almost certainly due to poorer nutrition. And yet, people still kept farming, and farming cultures spread to dominate hunter gatherer cultures. It would seem that, empirically speaking, the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, not that there were no disadvantages.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by cacambo43 »

Arioch has put an amazing number of hours and energy into the back=stories for this comic. Anyone should be massively impressed with his world building. But all of this is tangential, at best, to what's going on in the story. So there's aspects of how and why the Loroi did what and when in their distant past we don't really know. Arioch probably doesn't even know. That's the way it goes with ancient history, real or imagined. Maybe that's a new area of fan fiction we could delve into while we wait for Arioch to get back on track: ancient historical fiction of the Loroi. I'm half-kidding.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by thicket »

icekatze wrote:hi hi

People also grew shorter in early agricultural societies than in hunter gatherer societies, almost certainly due to poorer nutrition. And yet, people still kept farming, and farming cultures spread to dominate hunter gatherer cultures. It would seem that, empirically speaking, the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, not that there were no disadvantages.
one big disadvantage is that when there is a drought, farming peoples die but hunter-gatherers hardly notice/move on. Also farming is lot more labor intensive. There is a theory that farming was the only way to make beer, and that was the major push to civilization.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by discord »

thicket: there is a single great advantage to farming(or better yet mixed economy with fishing, hunting, and lots of other sources of food) as compared hunter gathering.

population density is the advantage.
why you ask?
#1 defensiveness, having more people is safer from external attack, since if you significantly outnumber the attackers(as in 10 to 1 or more possibly MUCH more) it's good for you.
#2 specialization, you can't really have a smith and any real kind of industry without a high population density.
#3 trade, becomes much more pronounced with larger settlements, which incidentally seems to be the best way to keep peace, too busy making life better so no time for pesky wars.
this is also most likely the reason for the current long peace, trade and the increase in opportunities to earn a living and improve without taking from others, might be getting to a state of equilibrium on that in our lifetime, which makes it more likely for a resource war to start again.

and others, but population density is catalyst and for that stable food sources from smaller areas are needed, aka farming.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

Civilizations around the world, both hunter/gatherer and agricultural, have experienced total collapse before. Most of the time when there is a problem, a percentage of the population dies, while the rest eventually recover. The NASA study on civilization collapse was actually rather interesting on this matter.

Also, it is hard for nomads to carry stone and clay tablets, anvils, and the like along with them wherever they go.

I'll happily admit that it is a good idea to be careful when examining ancient history though, as there are a great many uncertainties and lots of really neat ideas that probably aren't true. But in the contest between hunter-gatherer and agriculture, agriculture won. For whatever reasons, only the tiniest fraction of human population lives a hunter-gatherer lifestyle anymore, compared to the rest of the population.

((Industrial civilization will get its chance to prove it can withstand the test of time eventually. Hopefully we can figure out how to deal with the ecological overshoot we're in the middle of.))

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Absalom »

icekatze wrote:((Industrial civilization will get its chance to prove it can withstand the test of time eventually. Hopefully we can figure out how to deal with the ecological overshoot we're in the middle of.))
Here's some: to combat drought the staight-forward way (the subtle way is to establish a rainforest by an ocean or sea, and gradually expand it inland) you:
1) stick nuclear plants designed for sufficient immunity to pressure waves in the sea (establish safety measures, of course),
2) use the output of the plants to break down water for the hydrogen: throw the oxygen overboard or something,
3) pipe the hydrogen far inland (it may need to be converted to a hydrocarbon first to reduce losses due to leaks: there are ways to do this),
4) burn the hydrogen, releasing the water vapor into the air with the goal of increasing area humidity.

Not perfect, but if you're aiming to increase the general humidity of an area (e.g. the US Great Plains region, which is often semi-arid) then this will usually do the job, while not increasing green-house gasses.

If you're talking agriculture, minor green revolutions are being experimented with as we speak.

If you throw out a few options, then I'm sure you'll get a few solution concepts to play around with.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

Rational solutions always seem to cost money though. :lol:

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Absalom »

icekatze wrote:hi hi

Rational solutions always seem to cost money though. :lol:
I assure you, with the accounting methods that at least the US Congress uses, that is not the problem that it's very members would have you believe ;) ... the inevitable ultra-inflation is the problem :p .

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by discord »

absalom: pipeline the cooling water for the nuke plant from the sea should work just as well(or if salt is such a issue, just reuse the river water?), gets the water to the arid area, still uses a nuke plant, and you get to keep the power generated instead of using it all....

well, i suppose you could just crack water for hydrogen fuelcells, and let the cars and such do the watering?

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