Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 5:06 pm
I'm not Fred, but to me the possible implication can be phrased in two words: "We're doomed!"Trantor wrote:Fredge, your 2c on the implications pls?
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I'm not Fred, but to me the possible implication can be phrased in two words: "We're doomed!"Trantor wrote:Fredge, your 2c on the implications pls?
Oh, you missed the other thread?GeoModder wrote:I'm not Fred, but to me the possible implication can be phrased in two words: "We're doomed!"Trantor wrote:Fredge, your 2c on the implications pls?
Yes, both their asses and assets were seized.Jericho wrote: And these civilian magnates were the first to have their assets seized i presume?
Games and sports would be popular. There would be a wide variety spread across many different worlds. The Taben windsurfing/water polo proposed by Icekatze looked like fun.CJ Miller wrote:What do Loroi have for pastimes? Are sports a thing over there? And if so, which ones?
That information probably wouldn't be available to the main characters.Trantor wrote:Can the Loroi farseers detect Historians?
The conversation from before was:fredgiblet wrote:I may have asked this before, but if I did it was a long time ago. Do the Loroi have words/concepts that would translate to Good and Evil? If not do they have replacement analogues like Duty?
I hope that answers your question.Arioch wrote:Yes, Trade has a variety of words that could be used to translate that passage. If you are asking specifically about Loroi culture however, the passage above is steeped in Judeo-Christian/Muslim beliefs that the Loroi do not share (that evil is a living entity with a will of its own personified by a "Satan," and that mortal man is tainted by "Original Sin" and is therefore inherently corrupt). The Loroi mostly view good and evil in terms of "right and wrong", or rather "correct and incorrect" in terms of societal norms; this is, after all, a society for whom war is considered normal. The Loroi concept that could most closely be identified with our concept of evil is related to the word for "decay" and refers to corruption or descent into madness. "Triumph of evil" might be translated as "triumph of the enemy."fredgiblet wrote:2. Does Trade have concepts for "Good" and "Evil" that would map to anything like the concepts for those words in English? Would the statement "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Be translatable in anything close to an accurate form?
The Barsam concept of evil is as the absence of good, in the way that darkness is the absence of light, so for them evil literally is when good people do nothing. They would assume that "triumph of evil" is a metaphor (as the Barsam religious tales have villains who oppose the believers, but not an actual Satan).
Telepathy between Loroi does have more bandwidth than spoken communication. The Insider page on Telepathy definitely needs a revamp, but there's a lot on it in the forums and the compilations. Here's a previous conversation on the subject:Jericho wrote:Telepathic communication is considered deeper then regular right? Is this a just a loroi opinion or is it widely accepted? If a telepath is eager and excited to tell a story will that eagerness and excitment be apparent in the story and make it more interesting for the listener?
When an alien and loroi mind-meld they don't recieve that intimate connection from the loroi to loroi mind-meld because the alien is not a telepath. Ok so what difference does it make when the loroi is already poking around the mind of another creature?
Physical touch increases the bandwidth of any telepathic connection.Arioch wrote:Loroi telepathy is not normally the sharing of literal "thoughts" or "emotions"; telepathic messages are similar to a spoken message, but there is a lot of extra bandwidth (which varies with the quality of the connection) that can contain subtext information, including emotional or sensory information. If there is enough telepathic bandwidth (especially if the two conversants are touching), then there may be so much information in the message that it almost seems like sharing thoughts or emotions or viewing through someone else's senses, but that's not the "normal" mode of operation for telepathy.
A Loroi who stubs her toe might "cry out" telepathically, and the subtext of this telepathic message would probably contain information that the crier was in pain, but this would not be literally be a transmission of pain.
It's difficult to knowingly transmit false information via an ordinary telepathic connection, because much of the "subtext" information is semi-conscious or unconscious. The higher the bandwidth, the greater the detail and depth of the subtext, and the harder it is to consciously control. It's possible to intentionally omit this subtext, but then the receiver definitely knows something's up; it's a bit like when someone refuses to look you in the eye when talking to you.
However, just because it's difficult to knowingly lie doesn't mean that the message must be impartial or strictly factual; it can contain opinion or judgment. Every Loroi has her own point of view, so information that she believes to be true is always colored to some extent by personal biases. Two people can watch the same event and form different interpretations of it.
Touch contact is peer-to-peer; Fireblade touching Tempo doesn't give her direct access to Beryl. However, Tempo could choose to act as a telepathic relay, giving Fireblade and Beryl access to each other (that's not quite as high-bandwidth as direct touch, but close). This is of limited use, since if she's close enough to touch Tempo, Fireblade is probably close enough to lean over and touch Beryl herself. As osmium suggests, there are practical limits on how many people can be linked in this manner, as the amount of information being passed back and forth quickly becomes unmanageable.fredgiblet wrote:if Tempo is holding Beryl's hand in her left hand and Fireblade's hand in her right, does Beryl have a connection to Fireblade, or do both of their connections stop at Tempo? Would a mosh pit of Loroi all be connected?
The only practical use I can think of for multi-person links is groups of Listel transferring information.
Alex was referring to fictional stories, legends and fairy tales of magic and the like. We do, after all, have a word for telepathy, even though it doesn't exist.Trantor wrote:Beryl asks about "human sanzai", and Alex answer is "...only in old sories." Is he referring to sth "real" in outsiderverse history, or just to some fictional stories, e.g. books or movies?
Ever been in the Hamburg Subway at rush-hour? ThereĀ“s no big difference to Tokyo, except the Japanese are way more polite.Sprawl63 wrote:How densely packed are Loroi cities? Is there anything that can compare to modern American/Asian cities, much less future ones?
I'd imagine, given their disposition towards personal space, cities would be more European. Shallow but spread out. I have a hard time imagining Loroi bumping into one another and walking shoulder to shoulder as happens in larger cities.
How about the audience?Arioch wrote:That information probably wouldn't be available to the main characters.Trantor wrote:Can the Loroi farseers detect Historians?
Search first, ask questions later. Thanks.Arioch wrote:The conversation from before was:
"The price is worth it?"fredgiblet wrote:How does the average Loroi civilian feel about the genocides?
I think there's some variety. I imagine Deinar as being fairly European in urban character, but there are probably lots of locations that require higher density. Shipboard Loroi have to live in pretty close quarters.Sprawl63 wrote:How densely packed are Loroi cities? Is there anything that can compare to modern American/Asian cities, much less future ones? I'd imagine, given their disposition towards personal space, cities would be more European. Shallow but spread out. I have a hard time imagining Loroi bumping into one another and walking shoulder to shoulder as happens in larger cities.
For this very reason, dice-style games won't be popular with the Loroi, nor will the sort of card games in which you need to keep your hand hidden from the other players. Even in games of strategy like chess, a significant part of the challenge will be keeping your plans secret from the other player.JQBogus wrote:Concerning Loroi and games : Alex was the academy chess champion (pg 94) so maybe he will introduce the game to the loroi on the long shuttle trip. A good game for Loroi as there are no dice to be telekenetically manipulated. Though, unless Tempo is along, I wouldn't worry about that. Fireblade might be able to crush the dice, or push them through a bulkhead, but I doubt she has the control to subtly manipulate their outcome.
JQBogus wrote:Speaking of which.. can Loroi detect the use of telepathy (specifically subtle tk) by other Loroi?
The Tithric are viewed by the Loroi as traitors who were aiding and abetting the enemy when the Loroi were at their lowest point and on the verge of collapse and annihiliation. Sunfall's successes in the Tithric campaign were the first unqualified Loroi victories in five years of war that had been one disaster after another. The incident was cause for great celebration among the Loroi. Even if individual Loroi were inclined to be troubled by the loss of life, most believe that the Loroi had few alternatives.fredgiblet wrote:How does the average Loroi civilian feel about the genocides?
Uhm, a few things about this: first, Europeans don't have more personal space than Americans. The average flat sizes in Europe are much smaller than those in America, and the same goes to houses. Second, European cities usually lack the skyscraper-packed skylines of their American counterparts, but most of them actually have greater population density. This is because in Europe, people actually *live* in the cities, as opposed to America where people (those who can afford it, anyway) live in suburbs/exurbs and *commute* to cities for work/entertainment. Due to the somewhat lacking public mass transportation in most American cities, cars are a necessity, and once you rely on your car, why should you live in the inner city (another American phenomenon) at all? In Europe, the situation is reversed - you want to stay close to the city centre so that your commuting time via bus, tram, or subway isn't too long. Not that we don't have suburbs at all, but those are very rarely as sprawled out as in America.Sprawl63 wrote:How densely packed are Loroi cities? Is there anything that can compare to modern American/Asian cities, much less future ones?
I'd imagine, given their disposition towards personal space, cities would be more European. Shallow but spread out. I have a hard time imagining Loroi bumping into one another and walking shoulder to shoulder as happens in larger cities.
Loroi games that require a random element would, perhaps, rely on drawing numbers randomly from a bowl then, or on using a computerized RNG.Arioch wrote: For this very reason, dice-style games won't be popular with the Loroi, nor will the sort of card games in which you need to keep your hand hidden from the other players. Even in games of strategy like chess, a significant part of the challenge will be keeping your plans secret from the other player.
But here's the other key difference. Stillstorm grew up in an era of unquestioned Loroi dominance, Talon grew up during a period of total war. I'm not saying it'll be EASY for Talon to accept the losses, but she's grown up her entire life knowing that losses were going to be high, Stillstorm didn't.VonWolffe wrote:Looking at Talon's bio she is one of only two survivors of her squadron that have been in service for less than nine months. It's getting so bad that they have put her on shuttle duty just so that she can live long enough to train some new recruits, and she's only 13 years old. As a military man myself this blows my mind, I get that this is total war but being a sole survivor of a group of people that you know closely and trained with and came up into the military with would be devastating. I get that Stillstorm has had a very long time to collect battle scars, but to me Talon has yet to have the chance to harden herself to that kind of thing. If you wiped out 90% of my unit in front of me, as it would have been for her, it would certainly effect me.
I see where you are coming from fred, I suppose having that expectation would give someone a chance to steel themselves to what was coming. Having your instructor tell you that only a certain percentage of a graduating class will be alive at the end of the year or something like that (10% and there's three months left on that year).fredgiblet wrote:But here's the other key difference. Stillstorm grew up in an era of unquestioned Loroi dominance, Talon grew up during a period of total war. I'm not saying it'll be EASY for Talon to accept the losses, but she's grown up her entire life knowing that losses were going to be high, Stillstorm didn't.
I would expect that Talon is far harder than Stillstorm was a year or two into the war.