Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

Victor_D
Posts: 188
Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:46 am
Location: Czech Rep., European Union

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by Victor_D »

Arioch wrote:
Victor_D wrote:I'd also point out that what we consider "racial" features (skin colour, hair, facial features) are all in fact pretty recent changes in human appearance. For instance the East Asian subtype is what, 10-15,000 years old?
I don't believe that this is correct. My understanding is that earlier hominids such as homo erectus pekinensis from 750,000+ years ago had distinctive, recognizably Asian skull features.
Well, that is what many Asian, especially Chinese, anthropologists want to prove, largely unconvincingly.

I am of course referring to the decades old struggle between the multi-regional hypothesis of modern human evolution and the 'recent African origin', also known as THE 'out of Africa', hypothesis. First it looked like multi-regionalism had strong basis, then, when genetics came into play, it was swept out and almost discredited by 'out of Africa'. According to the most extreme versions of 'out of Africa', a very small number of homo sapiens left Africa, either following the Nile or crossing the Red Sea, and then very quickly and without significant hybridization replacing all the other hominin species, including Neanderthals and various Asian descendants of the homo erectus migration wave, if they were still there.

That extreme version has subsequently been challenged, again by genetic evidence, and now it seems some sort of a blend between multi-regionalism and 'out of Africa' might be the likeliest explanation of where we come from. From what I read, a vast majority of our gene pool is undeniably African homo sapiens. Small portions (1-5%) come from either the Neanderthals and/or Denisovans, who were their Asian cousins. Incidentally, we know very little about Denisovans - our knowledge of them is derived from sampling their DNA from like one fingerbone.

As for racial traits, it is my understanding they are of very recent origin. Broadly speaking, the expansion of homo sapiens from Africa probably came in waves. First was the southern branch:

ImageImage

This was easier because homo sapiens was a tropical animal, still lacking the technology to survive in colder latitudes. Eventually, the northern branch developed this technology and moved north to hunt the megafauna:

Image Image

As glaciers retreated and megafauna went (near) extinct, they expanded over the rest of Eurasia:

Image
ImageImageImageImage
Image


Image

---

At least, this is very close to the "mainstream" view.
But would such extrapolation be necessary? If humans have changed in 200,000+ years, would not the Loroi have done so also? And is it unreasonable to assume that given similar environment, such evolutionary paths might be similar?
Well, that's what I suggested first :)

User avatar
Imbrooge
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:17 pm

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by Imbrooge »

Actually, on closer inspection of that tapestry I noticed that 2-3 of those skulls are oddly shaped and distinctly not human in appearance. Lastly, that wasn't made by Arioch but one of his friends I believe.

The only real oddity of the Loroi I would find from thinking about it "in-universe" is they look almost exactly like humans with the only exceptions being colour, size, and ears. Specifically that they look exactly like space elves, something we've had in science fiction for a long time.

As far as alien species evolving into the same form as another artifical one with little difference between them, I personally find it more believable then two species evolving to look like eachother through the consequences of traits being passed down that worked for past and present conditions for the species' ancestors. Since it is because the chance that those past conditions leading to the same result being extremely unlikely. On the otherhand an artifical species stumbling on another natural one like itself would be a matter of time and location.

*EDIT*

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by Arioch »

Absalom wrote: Arioch, speaking of the Dreiman, have any of their corpses been recovered? Certainly the dessication would be phenomenal, but I don't recall what reason you gave for people knowing how large they were.
It's unlikely that any Dreiman remains were recovered, but the remnants of the Dreiman space facilities and the artifacts therein would have given pretty strong clues as to the size and appearance of their users.
Imbrooge wrote:Actually, on closer inspection of that tapestry I noticed that 2-3 of those skulls are oddly shaped and distinctly not human in appearance. Lastly, that wasn't made by Arioch but one of his friends I believe.
The tapestry is based on a design provided by my sister, but it was drawn by me. I did ask her to draw it for me, as I wanted the style to be visibly different from my own, but she didn't have time to do it.

I'm not sure which skulls you're referring to which are "distinctly not human"; perhaps you mean the three on the left that are viewed from underneath. The skulls are probably drawn more realistically than they should be, as the tapestry is meant to be stylized.

Absalom
Posts: 718
Joined: Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:33 am

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by Absalom »

Solemn wrote:The Loroi claim to be a warrior race, and I am willing to believe them. I believe that that is what they were created for, that is. I do not know what role they played in the militaries of the Soia Empire, but as telepaths it was presumably something of extreme value, otherwise I believe their telepathy would make them too dangerous to be permitted to live.
If the Loroi were intended as telepathic ground troops, then they presumably wouldn't be too dangerous. They would have little if any of their own air-support, and presumably no space-superiority of their own. They would, instead, get used in the less threatening ground role, and could be either isolated or eliminated from orbit if they rebelled.

As for ship-board, they could be contained, perhaps even in a brig similar to that of Tempest. They would presumably also be restricted to lightly-armed and comparatively slow ground-assault ships in the first place, making it much easier to eliminate them than would otherwise be the case.
Solemn wrote:If I were the creator of the Loroi, I would not want them birthing their own children independent of my race's patronage and our own medical procedures. If they do that, they might start raising their children on their own. Making their own families. Their own culture. Their own civilization. And where does that end? With a conflict between our two different civilizations, which we had allowed to grow apart? I would not want to fight a race I had engineered to be psionic warriors.

I would want all Loroi children to be raised by my people.
Reasonable plan, but what if you knew that
1: You could not guarantee that enemy raids would never eliminate your access to your soldier-production regions for extended periods, and
2: That you could ensure through a variety of means that you would likely be able to reassert your control over the "nativized"/feral descendants of those soldiers if and when you were able to regain your previous access? Remember, I'm talking about the equivalent of an island of tribal warriors in the face of the 18th century British Empire: they'd presumably be able to regain control through a short but overwhelming offensive, and if they couldn't then they'd likely have already been reduced to the point that they were no longer a major power anyways.
Solemn wrote:Of course, if the Loroi were not created to be warriors, that makes things more complicated. You suggested that they might have been created as survivalists. Perhaps the intention was that the Soia knew some cataclysm was coming that would destroy their civilization, and that they themselves lacked the ability to return themselves to their previous state after whatever catastrophe struck, so they created the Loroi as essentially a time capsule of Soia culture. That would make the Loroi the true heirs of the Soia empire, entrusted by the Soia with the burden of carrying on the ways of their ancestors and so forth, so the discovery of humanity and the truth of their origins would if anything help cement their grip on the galaxy.
Actually, I was just thinking that the artificial travel link that allowed FTL to this back-water of the Soia empire, and had presumably taken several thousand years to prepare, could potentially have been destroyed by an attack by a rival empire. The Soia discover that they can't stop the offensive before it gets here, but do have enough time to withdraw their own forces; so they seed several worlds with the warrior strains to "harvest" whenever they get around to coming back, leave, and their rivals sweep through destroying anything that they can figure out that they want to. They eliminate two of the Soia-engineered races in the process (or maybe those two just got really unlucky), but miss enough of the Neridi, Barsam, and Loroi for those races to reach their current status.
Solemn wrote:Or perhaps the Neridi are the true Soia, and the Loroi were expected to protect and shield them during and after the disaster.
Quite possible! They might have also be the descendants of some Soia tourists who got stranded when the accidentally missed the last ferry out before the line got scrapped as uneconomical, or something else comedic.
Solemn wrote:
Absalom wrote:Then again, maybe the Soia just had the ability to produce mind-control effects at Farseer ranges, in which case the development of Lotai-capable Loroi was possibly their downfall.
That raises more questions than it would answer. Questions like "why would they give the Loroi shorter range telepathy if they're going to be using their super-telepathy to telepathically control the in-range Loroi into using their weaker telepathic powers, instead of just doing whatever telewhatsis themselves, since they have both the range and the power to do so?"
Ah, no, that was intended as a separate scenario. Imagine that the Loroi were created as part of an experiment to try to figure out why Humans had Lotai, so that the Soia could counter it, and you'll be closer to what I was thinking. Telepathy would have been entirely unintentional.

For that matter, the Soia could have been more telepathically sensitive than the Golim.

I do think this entire line of reasoning is rather flimsy, though, since I doubt that there would have been enough opportunity for the Loroi to actually achieve this.
daelyte wrote:The advantage of narrow hips is a more efficient, energy-conserving gait when walking or running.
At the expense of natural births. Ergo, natural births were considered more important. One of the reasons I think the Loroi were intended as survivalists.
daelyte wrote:Large breasts seems to be mainly due to sexual selection, small ones work just as well for lactation purposes. Given that Loroi males don't really choose their mates, big boobs make little sense.
As I understand it (I'm not a doctor by any means), bigger breasts == bigger fat stores == more chance of bringing a child to term, AND of keeping that child alive long enough to wean. Another reason in favor of the Loroi being designed as survivalists.
daelyte wrote:Wide shoulders give more reach which is a great advantage in melee. Broad backs gives more room for muscles for increased upper body strength. Large lungs give more oxygen for high exertion in combat.

Therefore a race of warrior women would be more likely to have large muscular chests and small breasts.
Hence, Barsam == Primary assault troops (the regeneration helps too).
daelyte wrote:If the Loroi were developed/intended as special forces their attributes would be a better fit.
Agreed.

Solemn
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:35 am

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by Solemn »

Absalom wrote: If the Loroi were intended as telepathic ground troops, then they presumably wouldn't be too dangerous. They would have little if any of their own air-support, and presumably no space-superiority of their own. They would, instead, get used in the less threatening ground role, and could be either isolated or eliminated from orbit if they rebelled.

As for ship-board, they could be contained, perhaps even in a brig similar to that of Tempest. They would presumably also be restricted to lightly-armed and comparatively slow ground-assault ships in the first place, making it much easier to eliminate them than would otherwise be the case.
Consider the traits of Loroi telepathy.
  • It grants nearly all of them unhindered short-range lines of communication regardless of obstruction.
    It grants some of them unhindered short-range living-foe detection abilities regardless of obstruction, and grants a special few detection ranges at the astronomical scale.
    It grants a few of them unhindered telekinetic kill abilities regardless of obstruction.
    It grants them the ability to interrogate other telepathically-receptive species regardless of language, albeit presumably in a very limited and rudimentary way.
These traits, to me, indicate that the Loroi were given telepathy as a means of excelling at in-close fighting, in environments with a lot of obstructions and obstacles and perhaps multiple noncombatants. Whereas the Barsam would be field troopers of the sort you describe, the Loroi would be building breachers and ship boarders, and I believe that there would be an emphasis on the latter. Which means they are not ground troops, but a vital part of the Galactic Patrol. Neither of these roles would involve stationing the Loroi on a planet for long; their contribution to ground combat would be to have them seize the capitol and pull them out back to the Doomstar. Perhaps you would leave a couple of Mizol-types to help oversee the rule of your shiny new world, but if so you would certainly not want those Mizol to establish themselves too firmly or become too rooted; producing family on the planet would not help you. Replacing them with shipbred Loroi as needed would be cheaper than smashing some pocket empire created by a localized clan.

I understand that boarding operations are extremely dangerous and extremely unlikely in the Outsider universe, because the enemy ship must first be disabled and its contents must then be considered worth the boarding risk.

I also understand that the Soia used to cruise around in mini-Death Stars and strongly discouraged independent space travel. So presumably they if anyone would have the ability to disable and then take non-Soia ships at will, provided they won the fight in the corridors before the enemy could self-destruct. Furthermore, if anyone had the ability to create a device that could hold a ship still in space without damaging it excessively, it would be the people who have been proven able to bio-engineer telekinesis. And I would also assume that they if anyone would have the desire to do so in most cases, if only to find out where said ship had come from and what its purpose was.

We also know that Farseers are now considered most useful at discerning fleet movements at astronomical ranges, and that the technological amplifiers that allow them to do so were artifacts the Loroi discovered in Soia ruins. I assume this means that Farseers were always intended as shipboard presences, which in turn means you are guaranteed a Loroi presence aboard a ship, and since Soia ships were very, very large, you would presumably also have the space for Loroi production facilities or populations with associated education and medical support if only to replace lost or damaged Farseers.

However, that would require that the Loroi be armed and trained aboard the Soia Death Stars. Armed, because telekinetics and telepaths are never unarmed. Holding them locked down in isolated facilities aboard these megaships would be counterintuitive, as their purposes, as soldiers, farseers, possibly farseer-parents, and perhaps other support roles (consider the Listel, a nontrivial percentage of their population with perfect memories) would actually be hindered by doing so.

I think they are much more useful in those roles than as "survivalists," that their masters have more to gain and less to lose that way.

I am also dubious of your claim that the ancient Loroi could be contained in a smallish brig on a ship full of non-Loroi. They are telepaths and telekinetics, and I assume that in the Soia days they may have been significantly more powerful than they are now, since their genes and development were presumably actively maintained by the greatest biologists this galaxy has ever seen. If a Loroi rebels on a ship exclusively manned and operated by Loroi, perhaps they could be contained, but if the ship is in fact run by a telepathically vulnerable race then very frequently the only real option would be to kill her as soon as possible.
Absalom wrote: Reasonable plan, but what if you knew that
1: You could not guarantee that enemy raids would never eliminate your access to your soldier-production regions for extended periods, and
2: That you could ensure through a variety of means that you would likely be able to reassert your control over the "nativized"/feral descendants of those soldiers if and when you were able to regain your previous access? Remember, I'm talking about the equivalent of an island of tribal warriors in the face of the 18th century British Empire: they'd presumably be able to regain control through a short but overwhelming offensive, and if they couldn't then they'd likely have already been reduced to the point that they were no longer a major power anyways.
1. The Soia cruised around in artificial moons, in which I assume the majority if not entirety of their population resided. I think it's safe to assume their Loroi production facilities would always be on-hand.
2. Why bother?

Absalom wrote:As I understand it (I'm not a doctor by any means), bigger breasts == bigger fat stores == more chance of bringing a child to term, AND of keeping that child alive long enough to wean. Another reason in favor of the Loroi being designed as survivalists.
Any sort of fat storage would do for that purpose. Human breasts are something of a Fisherian Runaway. They have been selected for size, and we know this because our breasts are so much bigger than those of other primates, but they can cause back pain, impede sprinting, develop cancer at an above average rate... the most sensible explanation for their emergence is that guys like them.

Voitan
Posts: 214
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:04 am

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by Voitan »

Solemn wrote:If I were the creator of the Loroi, I would not want them birthing their own children independent of my race's patronage and our own medical procedures. If they do that, they might start raising their children on their own. Making their own families. Their own culture. Their own civilization. And where does that end? With a conflict between our two different civilizations, which we had allowed to grow apart? I would not want to fight a race I had engineered to be psionic warriors.

I would want all Loroi children to be raised by my people.
It might have started out that way.

Perhaps through some conspiracy, or by a morally conflicted Soia, the restrictions were removed.

Might have even caused some huge conflict even.

User avatar
DevilDalek
Posts: 191
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by DevilDalek »

Voitan wrote:
It might have started out that way.

Perhaps through some conspiracy, or by a morally conflicted Soia, the restrictions were removed.

Might have even caused some huge conflict even.
Maybe they were controlled through their restricted access to menfolk?

VictorValor
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2013 10:58 am

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by VictorValor »

DevilDalek wrote:Maybe they were controlled through their restricted access to menfolk?
Bravo sir, bravo.
SpoilerShow
Image

User avatar
DevilDalek
Posts: 191
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by DevilDalek »

Jericho wrote:
DevilDalek wrote:
Now that is very intersting, if they are very similiar biochemically but differ wildly in their phsiology, it might be proof of the Loroi being a Soia construct with humanity as a base.
Now al lthey need to do is compare Nibiren with Barsam and use the difference as a template to see if it would make the Loroi any more human ..
Well I dream,
But if the Loroi are Human related, having Alex around may trigger any number of suprising dormant needs the Soia have supressed... or designed to be triggered when humanity was met.
That is very unlikely given the fact that the loroi have been around for atleast seventyfive thousand years prior to humanity ever existing. I suppose you could say they based them off our more primitive ancestors but given their superficial similarity to us (Caucasians to be more exact) i find that unlikely.
Then your going to LOVE my theory that the moon is in fact a disguised Soi Dreadstar and Tswaing crater in Africa is the bombardment site where the planetside base was destroyed, a base that was used to monitor human development from the uplift that started with Dreiman Empire, and likely where the adaptation to Loroi took place.
Still think thats why we have a love for cats, an inbuilt safety device put in place by Dreiman, small lapdog sized creatures...
Come to think of it, I wonder how Anunnaki translates into trade....
After all the Annunaki did mate with the daughters of men and produce offspring, some of which are blue skinned.. several religious texts do show blue skinned individuals.

Of course all of that is complete hokum and ridiculous, but still, would make an awesome addition to humanities history and make for a cracking story.
SpoilerShow
Image

Jericho
Posts: 251
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:11 am

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by Jericho »

DevilDalek wrote:
Then your going to LOVE my theory that the moon is in fact a disguised Soi Dreadstar and Tswaing crater in Africa is the bombardment site where the planetside base was destroyed, a base that was used to monitor human development from the uplift that started with Dreiman Empire, and likely where the adaptation to Loroi took place.
Still think thats why we have a love for cats, an inbuilt safety device put in place by Dreiman, small lapdog sized creatures...
Come to think of it, I wonder how Anunnaki translates into trade....
After all the Annunaki did mate with the daughters of men and produce offspring, some of which are blue skinned.. several religious texts do show blue skinned individuals.

Of course all of that is complete hokum and ridiculous, but still, would make an awesome addition to humanities history and make for a cracking story.
Actually i do like it :D . Seems just as legit as any other right now.

I don't know about old religions depicting aliens in outsider (Human ones). Seems a bit stargatey to me :roll: .
If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through. General C.H Melchett commander of some unknown british regiment in the western front.

User avatar
DevilDalek
Posts: 191
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Loroi Sexuality continued (no politics this time)

Post by DevilDalek »

I was refering to the blue skinned gods and demi gods you find in a lot of ancient hindu texts!

Post Reply