Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Siber]

Argron, welcome to the forums! I don't entirely agree with all your points, but before I get into a long rebuttal let me just say that it's all in good fun, and it's always nice to have a fresh face to stir the pot.

That side, I don't think that's all clear-cut advantages. Some of them could definitely help out in some situations, but I think many of them could hamper progress too. I'll go point by point.

Biology: Fast maturation is probably a clear leg up, but longevity might not be. Many people in history have suggested that after their first bursts of brilliance, many if not most of the great minds in history become resistant to change and scientific progress is somewhat slowed until their influence fades or they die. Einstein's resistance to quantum mechanics is a classic example of this, I believe. Whole debates have and could still be had about if this is a real factor or not, but if it exists at all the extreme longevity of Loroi could amplify it greatly.

Telepathic grid: I don't think it works as machine-like as you've made it out to be. As I understand the mechanics, every notable scientist would need a network of listel grad students between them, spaced out one every 80 meters or so, for something like what you suggest to be feasible, and it still wouldn't be instant.

Telepathy: I think many people underestimate how inexact perception and memory is, and your chart example is under that umbrella for me. The whole point of a chart is that it's representing an amount of data that is hard to hold all in your head at once, so it's useful to draw illustrative lines and figures that allow an at-a-glance understand and then deeper understanding at study. Most of the Loroi population aren't Listel, either.

Listels: I don't know the details on cognition and editic memory, and when I've looked into it there seems to be doubts that the ability, at least as portrayed in most fiction, exists at all, but I have to assume that even if you can store all that information instantly it takes time to comprehend what you've stored and extract useful meaning on it. And when it comes to transference, even if you have perfect recall, marshaling a lifetime of facts and experiences and transmitting it has to have practical limitations, otherwise a group of Listel could train in disparate skills and then share them. Intellectual skills are things that need practice just like physical ones, and while I can believe that Listel are walking libraries, I can't believe that being able to perfectly memorize and on demand regurgitate a calculus textbook automatically makes you good at calculus.

History: Supertech artifacts might spur development at times, but it might also be regarded as un-reproducible supernatural things. If an alchemist had discovered a hunk of plastic or stainless steel or a airframe incorporating titanium and aluminum would it have turned him from alchemy or would he have viewed it through alchemical terms and tried to reproduce it through alchemical means?

Society: The Loroi seem perfectly capable of scorched earth tactics. I expect that their wars among themselves have seen both progress-aiding absorption of great minds, and senseless wholesale slaughters of civilians, just like our history.

Habitat: No argument on the facts, but they do say necessity is the mother of invention. Being more comfortable in their environments might give them more resources, but less impetus to use them.

The rest I don't have much comment on, except unity, which Anamiac covered.

[Arioch]

What are the Trade equivalent for month and meter?

The mannal or "pace" is 0.776 meters.

The nanapi is 241.92 hours (10.08 Earth days).

[Argron]

@anamiac: By unity I don't mean single minded ideas, but pulling many people together, amassing resources towards achieving a single goal by whatever means. For example, things like the great wall in china, the trans-siberian railway, the suez and panama channels, the manhattan project, the three gorges damn would be impossible with a massive pool of resources focused on achieving a single purpose.

We know that with such a massive empire, once the ones in charge find the need for a particular goal to be achieved, be the perfection of some travelling or communications technology, the design of a particular vehicle or weapon, etc. the empire will asign massive amounts of resources to this project. Way more than the human government could ever muster because they are 5 times as big and way more advanced, that is a fact.

What isn't a fact is that the Loroi would be monolithical in their research and only follow single ideas. For example in the real world companies often compete fairly for engineering projects issued by the government and the best solution wins, at least in theory, as many countries appoint those to particular companies for political or other reasons rather than the merit of the company's solution. There is no reason to think the Loroi wouldn't do this, in fact seeing as how different castes oppose each other, it stands to reason if they were working on similar projects they would try to outdo each other. Which might include that each caste could have different teams on different planets all working on the same project, maybe working together in some areas and sharing information, or not, if competing teams would be seen as a better solution.


As I previously pointed out, they have hundreds if not thousands of years of advanced science and engineering research experience over us, they have tried and tested scientific and research methods we haven't yet come up with, and for each they have found it works they have also found a hundred that don't, so they won't lose as much time and effort as we do from now on.
We still have to bump into all those dead-ends on how best to do and how not to do research they have already discovered before we actually find the wrong research solutions, let alone the actual correct ones they have also already discovered. And will likely not fully share.


@Siber: thanks man, nice to have geeky discussions about blue space elves haha. Answering your points.

Biology: yes, old humans are resistant to change and accepting of new ideas, but it may be another number of reasons, for example, getting old affects people not only physically, but also psychologically, the weakening body and fear for their health and lives likely make them more adverse to risks, wary of things that haven't been experienced, etc. A 200 or 300 years old Loroi, while conscious of time, would not be remembered every waking minute of her own age and impending doom by a set of unreasonable pains and weakness so it wouldn't affect her psychologically as much, if at all. They would be worried about some young one proving wrong her legacy, but then again, insisting on it being right and being proven not only wrong but a persistent idiot would be even worse. But this problem would be faced also by humans, who are also almost entirely ruled by old geezers btw.

Telepathic grid: I stand corrected.

Telepathy: can they not send images? if they can't, I still think I could more easily describe something like a video or a chart by thought than through words but I may be wrong, while for written articles and opinions telepathy would work as spoken communication, only faster.

Listels: I see what you mean, and it makes sense, memorizing a whole book of calculus wouldn't mean you instantly know how to calculate, but you could quickly access the sections needed to understand a particular problem.
Since I think Arioch confirmed they learn by being transfered information, or at least some are, I would guess they have the equivalent of "courses" optimized to be transmitted and received telepathically, and after the first course on some specialty the loroi would "digest" these concepts by themselves, asking when they don't understand something, and then successive more advanced courses would be transfered. Listels would just be able to digest this information faster and way better, and I guess when they have reached a considerable understanding in a particular area of expertise they could gobble up the whole scientific knowledge of an older loroi, remembering it exactly. More like years rather than 10 minutes but still the whole concept makes sense to me.

History: yeah while supertech artifacts wouldn't make sense at times and would make people run in circles for a long time, at some point they would push research massively, and even when not fully understood they could point towards the right direction. For example, if said artifacts were on earth we could have had similar languages all over the world, similar or at least relatable religions or lack of them, if some of those artifacts were made of some metalic alloy maybe they would have pushed humans towards developing of similar metals earlier by imitation, or imagine if we had nowadays a piece of really advanced nanotechnology conserved from ancient times, we might have discovered the workings of electricity earlier and we would be milking that thing like a cow right now.

Society: yeah the Loroi would definitely massacre whole populations but while in the 20th century we have 100 million deaths caused by countries own governments over its civilian populations, the Loroi would have only organized this "industrialized murder" on the military castes, leaving most of society working unimpeded. The same with civil wars.
Total wars would still obviously target everything on the other nation, but as bloody as those are, they are small compared to what our own governments have done over its own people for thinking differently -or the chance of it ever happening-.

Habitat: yeah, necessity is the mother of invention, but advanced societies only started showing up when people had full belies so... XD

[dragoongfa]

snip

The greatest problem is their warrior culture, their constantly active telepathy and the lack of incentives to innovate.

Warrior cultures have always been traditionalists who not only refused social change but placed high social status on warriors and warrior like activities. Research and Development are not warrior like and in fact free thinkers were seen as useless pariahs. Remember that the most successful human warrior society was Japan and they remained technologically stagnant for centuries because the best and brightest went into the warrior class while the free thinkers were regularly cast out of society.

Telepathy also plays a huge part imho, Loroi are constantly using a lot of mind power to both cut out the noise and for sensing their surroundings. This places a huge burden on their minds and that is before accounting for how militant warrior societies abhor free thinkers. The Loroi are an anomaly in this regard, as in they allowed technological research and innovation but as Arioch has put it, their society doesn't offer incentives for technological innovations.

Incentives to innovate are key and we humans are naturally curious and always wish for the next big idea for the next big thing. Our society is naturally geared for technological innovations and this is why we essentially jump through tech levels in break neck speeds when compared to the Loroi and the rest of the alien species.

EDIT: Also reproduction is a doubled edged sword.

Uncontrolled population booms are chaos inducers for all societies. Resources are finite and as such a population boom will undoubtedly result in warfare. Then there is their telepathy to consider which obviously puts a toll in Loroi tolerance for crowded spaces. Bear in mind that the total Loroi population is 50 to 100 billion and the total human population is 25 billion. The Loroi have a few dozens of worlds, the humans have six but Earth alone holds 99% of the population.

[Siber]

Dragoongfa: I wonder if those reproductive issues bias Loroi towards very restrictive societies. You need a culture that allows very centralized control of everyone's reproductive rights, otherwise the biology lends itself to destructively aggressive population growth that selects against the culture that allows it.

[dragoongfa]

Dragoongfa: I wonder if those reproductive issues bias Loroi towards very restrictive societies. You need a culture that allows very centralized control of everyone's reproductive rights, otherwise the biology lends itself to destructively aggressive population growth that selects against the culture that allows it.

Considering everything that has been shown about Loroi society I would be surprised if this wasn't the case.

[Argron]

@dragoongfa: hey I love your series, glad to see you updated
I see what you mean about warrior cultures, and indeed they are in charge and might get the best telepaths for their caste, but still among the Loroi there are many well differentiated castes and each seem to govern themselves as they see fit (as long as they produce results for society as a whole), so while the military castes don't favour or reward scientific innovation or free thinking, advancement among a more science oriented caste would be achieved by scientific results would it not? each caste could have very different sets of values, and actually free thinkers and intelligent individuals fed up with their caste could even try to be demoted to a caste more of their liking although that would be rare I guess.
Also the military castes seem to only want telekinetics and telepaths from other castes, not the exceptionally intelligent individuals which would only be found later in life, so the other castes wouldn't lose their best and brightest, only some particular not-so-necessary traits.

I see what you mean about telepathic blocking, didn't think of that and might be a considerable waste of resources over such a huge population, but then again they have been doing that since they were babies and were engineered for that, so maybe it is almost a conscious/subconscious action like breathing, where you can wrestle control from your brain, but when you forget about it it goes back to fully automatic mode. At worst I guess it would be something pretty automatic and non-intrusive in your ordinary actions, like smoking, only more subconscious as it doesn't require any physical action.
Also, according to your fiction story -and maybe Arioch's cannon, I don't know for sure so don't take this comment wrong- humans are also telepaths, so who knows what the hell is going on inside this weird psychic two-way faraday cage that is the human body in Outsider, maybe our telepathic side is fully active and going nuts trying to unsuccesfully communicate. j/k

About population, they seem to have a lot of fully terraformed virgin worlds, many with ideal habitats and species designed to best support advanced civilizations, obviously most won't be as good as whatsisname (what was it called the most populous Loroi world? Maia?), but it seems that after the last mass extinction different empires were still "racing towards the frontier" until the start of the current war, so a bit of overpopulation wouldn't be so bad if it meant helping expand the empire by 10 or 20% quickly.

[dragoongfa]

@dragoongfa: hey I love your series, glad to see you updated

Thanks

I see what you mean about warrior cultures, and indeed they are in charge and might get the best telepaths for their caste, but still among the Loroi there are many well differentiated castes and each seem to govern themselves as they see fit (as long as they produce results for society as a whole), so while the military castes don't favour or reward scientific innovation or free thinking, advancement among a more science oriented caste would be achieved by scientific results would it not? each caste could have very different sets of values, and actually free thinkers and intelligent individuals fed up with their caste could even try to be demoted to a caste more of their liking although that would be rare I guess.
Also the military castes seem to only want telekinetics and telepaths from other castes, not the exceptionally intelligent individuals which would only be found later in life, so the other castes wouldn't lose their best and brightest, only some particular not-so-necessary traits.

The key problem is with the allocated resources; resource and development is a very resource intensive endeavor. A restrictive warrior centric society would show preference to allocate resources to the warrior castes instead of the secondary/supportive scientific castes. As for intelligence and telepathy, remember that Loroi are practicing eugenics with the way their population controls work. Intelligence is a varying trait of course but it is still heavily hereditary (at least the fluid type of intelligence). I suspect that certain castes do have more intelligent people in them (Mizol, Listel, Doranzer and the Gallen) due to heredity. The Loroi do have scientific innovation, they wouldn't have been there without it, however they are not using their innovative potential to its full capacity due to their restrictive society.

I see what you mean about telepathic blocking, didn't think of that and might be a considerable waste of resources with such a huge population, but then again they have been doing that since they were babies and were engineered for that, so maybe it is almost a conscious/subconscious action like breathing, where you can wrestle control from your brain, but when you forget about it it goes back to fully automatic mode. At worst I guess it would be something pretty automatic and non-intrusive in your ordinary actions, like smoking, only more subconscious as it doesn't require any physical movement.

I think that it is much like subconcious body movement, like walking. You are not concious of walking but you walk, burn calories and your feet begin to hurt after a while. Telepathy itself may not use calories but the brain still 'walks' and gets tired after a while. I think I read somewhere that Loroi do use some sort of telepathic blockers to ease their sleep and they have to train themselves not to telepathically speak in their sleep. Fireblade hasn't been trained and thus she speaks in her sleep.

Also, according to your fiction story -and maybe Arioch's cannon, I don't know for sure so don't take this comment wrong- humans are also telepaths, so who knows what the hell is going on inside this weird psychic two-way faraday cage that is the human body in Outsider, maybe our telepathic side is fully active and going nuts trying to unsuccesfully communicate lol

Not spoilers per se so let's put it like this. You wake up and you find yourself standing on an invisible treadmill and for some reason you can't feel or see your legs. You are not going anywhere if you walk but your legs are still there and you can still order them to walk but you see no difference if you do and after a while you will wonder if you even have legs. Lots of time passes, your legs haven't atrophied or somehow changed but you don't even know they are existing anymore and for your sanity it is best to not think about them. You are beginning to use your hands because things happen when using them and since you don't have anything else to do you start using your hands exclusively. With your hands you build things that replace your legs and your legless sanity is saved up to a degree. The Loroi are not on a treadmill, they know how to use their legs to the fullest, know what they are capable of doing and not doing. They are not however as good with their hands as you have become.

In time they will show you the treadmill and your legs. Maybe you will both find a way to dismantle the treadmill and see the world as they see it.

About population, they seem to have a lot of fully terraformed virgin worlds, many with ideal habitats and species designed to best support advanced civilizations, obviously most won't be as good as whatsisname (what was it called? Maia?), but it seems that after the latest mass extinction different empires were still "racing towards the frontier" until the start of the war, so a bit of overpopulation wouldn't be so bad if it meant helping expand the empire by 10 or 20% quickly.

The problem is again societal and remember that Loroi can populate very quickly. If all of their females were impregnated (and both of their sexes would certainly try to do exactly that) their population would be effectively doubled in 16 years. The 10% to 20% increase of the population you are describing is probably very close to their pre war population growth due to the expanding to new frontiers and new planets. If they don't have any more room however, the above would be sliced.

Population booms higher than 20% are problematic and anything higher than 30% are just asking for trouble and social instability. The chinese instigated the 1 child policy for a reason, knowing full well that it had its own pitfalls.

[Argron]

I see what you mean about warrior cultures, and indeed they are in charge and might get the best telepaths for their caste, but still among the Loroi there are many well differentiated castes and each seem to govern themselves as they see fit (as long as they produce results for society as a whole), so while the military castes don't favour or reward scientific innovation or free thinking, advancement among a more science oriented caste would be achieved by scientific results would it not? each caste could have very different sets of values, and actually free thinkers and intelligent individuals fed up with their caste could even try to be demoted to a caste more of their liking although that would be rare I guess.
Also the military castes seem to only want telekinetics and telepaths from other castes, not the exceptionally intelligent individuals which would only be found later in life, so the other castes wouldn't lose their best and brightest, only some particular not-so-necessary traits.

The key problem is with the allocated resources; resource and development is a very resource intensive endeavor. A restrictive warrior centric society would show preference to allocate resources to the warrior castes instead of the secondary/supportive scientific castes. As for intelligence and telepathy, remember that Loroi are practicing eugenics with the way their population controls work. Intelligence is a varying trait of course but it is still heavily hereditary (at least the fluid type of intelligence). I suspect that certain castes do have more intelligent people in them (Mizol, Listel, Doranzer and the Gallen) due to heredity. The Loroi do have scientific innovation, they wouldn't have been there without it, however they are not using their innovative potential to its full capacity due to their restrictive society.

I understand what you mean about not using their full capacity and I agree, yet I think not even at their full capacity might be enough for the loroi to have an edge over humanity. With such massive funding going to the warrior castes, military projects probably advance quickly, and this technology will likely in turn be used for civilian purposes later, and contribute a solid base from where civilian castes can initiate purely civilian research. Advancement is advancement, and what starts from the military provides civilian fruits, while civilian research might later provide solutions for the military. Not ideal but it works.

Well their eugenics system is likely raising the intelligence of their race as a whole, as each caste is a meritocracy where the higher you get the more children you have. Intelligent individuals will statistically rise to the top in higher numbers and have more children, and thus all castes will enjoy slightly more intelligent children each generation by the tiniest of margins (although their generations are very close to each other, so that should increase this evolution), as long as there are some restrictions to population growth.
Telepathy, telekinesis and eidetic memory -that we know of- seem to also be selection conditions to include children in military castes, which in turns means these useful traits will become more commonplace in the race as a whole, as long as there are population controls.
Their society's leaders, the torrai, are made of their own caste and the best of other military castes, so while yes, military castes should have on average more intelligent people than other castes, and torrai have more intelligent people than the other military castes, there are also some positive factors:
- Before reaching torrai, a loroi likely has had several children in her previous caste, that will likely remain in said caste (dunno) so the original caste doesn't lose intelligent people in the grand scheme of things, rather its intelligence should grow, just at a smaller rate than the torrai caste.
- Unlike human leaders where wealth, family power, slyness, ruthlessness and charisma, are just as important to reach power as intelligence, but aren't necessarily paired with this quality -very often aren't-, loroi leaders have the distinct biological advantage of having been bred as part of a ruling caste that due to its rigid design is statistically made of the brightest, and regularly poach the best the other castes have to offer. While the ruling caste may be set in their ways and military traditions, and the way human leaders rise to power yet most often don't transfer their position to their children provides some obvious advantages (weeding out the biggest idiots for one), the loroi leaders should be no fools either, and they are getting more intelligent at a particularly accelerated pace compared to the general human and loroi populations.

Statistically, this empire-wide meritocracy and population control, and the small gap of time between generations should contribute to make them the race to more quickly grow in intelligence in the known universe, unless the Umiak are even more ruthless at that, like killing their less intelligent hatchlings and selective breeding their brightest, which is not unlikely considering what we know of them -although they have implants for that-. +1 for Loroi science lol

The problem is again societal and remember that Loroi can populate very quickly. If all of their females were impregnated (and both of their sexes would certainly try to do exactly that) their population would be effectively doubled in 16 years. The 10% to 20% increase of the population you are describing is probably very close to their pre war population growth due to the expanding to new frontiers and new planets. If they don't have any more room however, the above would be sliced.

Population booms higher than 20% are problematic and anything higher than 30% are just asking for trouble and social instability. The chinese instigated the 1 child policy for a reason, knowing full well that it had its own pitfalls.

Well I meant a 10 to 20% increase in the size of the empire as a whole, by claiming those worlds close to the umiak border. Relaxing the population control so they have a surplus of bodies, then favouring relocation to said colonies in the most overpopulated worlds would seem like a good way to turn newly claimed territories into fully functional and productive worlds of the Loroi empire almost overnight. Then again there is no reason for such aggressive colonization if they didn't fear hostile competition I guess, and as you mentioned this cause unnecessary strain and chaos in the system.
I also underestimated their population growth in peacetime, no wonder the Umiak feared them blue elves.


I stand corrected/agree with your other points.

[dragoongfa]

Snip

The key problem to all of the above is population attrition due to internal strife and life style.

The Loroi aren't female in the sense we are seeing females.

Loroi females are warriors, they are naturally risk takers and violent. Remember that although their birth ratio is 1 male for every 10 females their population ratio is 1 male for every 8 females. This means that for every 10 females that are born, 2 will die off and their society sees that as acceptable and they are even promoting it.

Human males are similar; we have a higher attrition rate than our females and our society sees it as acceptable, not promoting it but still acceptable.

Add the population controls that limit access to males to such a degree that only the most successful females of a warrior society are allowed relatively frequent access and then you have a big problem for anyone who isn't a successful warrior passing down their genes.

What I would also like to mention is that tech research for military applications is a relatively recent development. True all modern tech is used for military matters without exception but historically speaking militant leaders didn't invest in research and development. They made sure to adopt obvious innovations but they didn't pursue new innovations.

This changed in the industrial age however.

[Argron]

Well, I don't know how violent the Loroi are as a society, we know that as a civilization they are not warmongers. Do members of the warrior castes usually solve problems and disagreements with blood and violent coups? I would expect the caste system would make loroi in the same caste more peaceful towards each other, while relationship between castes, particularly those that are close in function would ignite sparks, but not continuous fighting as maybe such things bring shame to their whole caste. But dunno.

Regarding attrition, is it systemic or something to do with the Umiak? because we know the Loroi evacuated everyone they could from the colonies and front lines while their warriors delayed the Umiak, so you can bet the first ships to leave were full of males. I kind of also expect high ranking females of civilian castes to be the next to be evacuated, then normal civilians, with warriors last, except for maybe the Torrai that aren't directly needed in the fighting and would by their status receive the highest preference in evacuation. Or maybe not, if that is considered dishonourable.
Most of those that stayed would be massacred and this was repeated all along the front lines, so maybe that's the reason for the relatively higher amount of males.

In the long term though, they would return to population control and I think the system would continue to work the way I mentioned, after all wars would be uncommon, and against most other galactic powers, also brief and less bloody -for the loroi, that is-.

[Turrosh Mak]

I don't think this question has ever been asked. What do Loroi smell like? Is the smell described in #48 (smoky and sweet like smoldering vanilla candles) the natural scent of Loroi?

[Arioch]

Well, I don't know how violent the Loroi are as a society, we know that as a civilization they are not warmongers. Do members of the warrior castes usually solve problems and disagreements with blood and violent coups? I would expect the caste system would make loroi in the same caste more peaceful towards each other, while relationship between castes, particularly those that are close in function would ignite sparks, but not continuous fighting as maybe such things bring shame to their whole caste.

In the current era, violent internal conflict happens but it rare. When it happens it is usually at the higher levels and is due to a schism in the leadership. Three of the four Emperors came to power under violent circumstances (Loremark and Eighth Dawn rose to power in civil wars, and Greywind had to put down a rebellion immediately after rising to power). But I guess three civil wars in 750 years isn't too bad of a record. (Though there were also four foreign conflicts during that span.)

There is some rivalry between castes, but it rarely becomes violent (aside from the odd bar brawl). Duels between individuals are illegal, but they do happen from time to time.

Regarding attrition, is it systemic or something to do with the Umiak? because we know the Loroi evacuated everyone they could from the colonies and front lines while their warriors delayed the Umiak, so you can bet the first ships to leave were full of males.

Beryl said 1 in 8 just because she thinks in a base-8 system, kind of like how we would say 1 in 10 even if the actual number was 12%. But it's true that Loroi females would have a higher mortality rate than makes, just as human males have a higher mortality rate than human females. We do more dangerous things, have more dangerous jobs, etc.

Is the smell described in #48 (smoky and sweet like smoldering vanilla candles) the natural scent of Loroi?

Yes.

[Argron]

Is the smell described in #48 (smoky and sweet like smoldering vanilla candles) the natural scent of Loroi?

Yes.

"Ok, people, final pre-production check of the new courtesan race.
10 females per male: check, almost everyone prefers females, good efficient ratio.
Pretty, young looking all their lives: yes, check.
Blue: duh, check.
Varying hair and eye colours: check, customization is a prerequisite.
Telepathic: check, they will know exactly the most intrincate desires of their masters.
Telekinetic: whu... why? *gets whispered something in the ear* oooh kinky, check!.
Vanilla smell: check, we are going to save a gold mine in sensual scented candles.
Pointy ears: ... DID XABAT SLIP HIS FETISH IN AGAIN? where is that idiot? ... well whatever, it's going to be a pain to undo this so we'll just call it a minor production error. And someone get me Xabat, I'm going to have some words with him..."

*270.000 years later, two Loroi rest after a long sparring session*

-"Truly we were designed to be the best warriors in the galaxy"
-"Indeed"
-"Healthy bodies, excellent coordination and detection through telepathy, and don't even start me on our telekinesis!"
-"Yeah, nobody can compare"
-"Still, what the fuck is up with that annoying smell of vanilla candles?"
*uneasy silence*

[dragoongfa]

Yes.

So the alien, genocidal, telepathic warrior race that looks exactly like attractive elf women smells like the candles that half of the women I...dated with... used to set up the mood?

If any of the below actually happens to be canon I will blow a brain artery.

http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 966#p17966

[NuclearIceCream]

"Ok, people, final pre-production check of the new courtesan race.
10 females per male: check, almost everyone prefers females, good efficient ratio.
Pretty, young looking all their lives: yes, check.
Blue: duh, check.
Varying hair and eye colours: check, customization is a prerequisite.
Telepathic: check, they will know exactly the most intrincate desires of their masters.
Telekinetic: whu... why? *gets whispered something in the ear* oooh kinky, check!.
Vanilla smell: check, we are going to save a gold mine in sensual scented candles.
Pointy ears: ... DID XABAT SLIP HIS FETISH IN AGAIN? where is that idiot? ... well whatever, it's going to be a pain to undo this so we'll just call it a minor production error. And someone get me Xabat, I'm going to have some words with him..."

*270.000 years later, two Loroi rest after a long sparring session*

-"Truly we were designed to be the best warriors in the galaxy"
-"Indeed"
-"Healthy bodies, excellent coordination and detection through telepathy, and don't even start me on our telekinesis!"
-"Yeah, nobody can compare"
-"Still, what the fuck is up with that annoying smell of vanilla candles?"
*uneasy silence*

Humanity would have the best time with propaganda if they ended up fighting loroi.

[Namaphry]

If anybody wants a more prosaic explanation for the Loroi scent, there's always the 'life on a space warship' bit. If you live on a space warship, body odour is one of the worst problems you can have short of enemy action and mechanical failure. Even as bad as bland rations. I know if I was designing a race that was going to spend more hours in turbolifts and maintenance passages than out on the open prarie, I'd do something about it, for sure.

[Hālian]

What does the Loroi Imperial Fleet look like right now, in the year 2015? What warship classes and weapons do they have now that will be obsolete in 145 years, and what does the fleet of 2160 have that the present-day one doesn't?

[GeoModder]

What does the Loroi Imperial Fleet look like right now, in the year 2015? What warship classes and weapons do they have now that will be obsolete in 145 years, and what does the fleet of 2160 have that the present-day one doesn't?

Interesting question. Weapons are a bit too 'volatile' in their development cycles to make a fairly accurate guess, but some ship classes mentioned in the Insider jump out at first glance.

I'd say the Skymaster (Laimollei), an earlier version of the Halberd (Lerrir) battleship, Catapult (Demen) carrier and Cutlass (Binessit) cruiser ship/classes are pretty sure to be fielded as of now.
Less certain are the Typhoon (Naleil) carrier class, Eye of Heaven (Dostei Sizet) sector command ship, and maybe a first generation Scimitar (Nezatin) heavy cruiser ship/classes.

[Arioch]

What does the Loroi Imperial Fleet look like right now, in the year 2015? What warship classes and weapons do they have now that will be obsolete in 145 years, and what does the fleet of 2160 have that the present-day one doesn't?

2015 was in the late phase of Seren sector expansion, and was just 20 years after the civil war that brought Eighth Dawn to power and restored central control to the empire.

The Loroi ship classes of 2015 look very similar to the pre-Semoset classes (Halberd, Starblade, Cutlass, Catapult, Curved Knife), armed with particle beams, lasers and fighters, and using similar drives and ship systems. An early version of the Halberd class would be one of the only current classes already in production at that time; all the other 2015-era classes would have ceased production by the start of the Umiak war (being upwards of 120 years old), and the ships of those classes still in service did not survive the first 20 years of the war. The major difference between the 2015 fleet and the modern one was that there were still a number of hybrid cruiser-carrier classes, with fighters figuring prominently in tactics. The only major armed conflict of that era was Loroi-vs.-Loroi. There was also a larger number of classes, as the empire had been split into multiple factions under Azerein Swiftsure, with separate production facilities, and most of the command ships were one-off designs built specifically for individual flag officers (the top brass having had too much free time on their hands during the long peace prior to the civil war).

2160 ships have plasma weapons (which were not available prior to 2142), newer and more powerful blasters, better-miniaturized lasers, and improved armor and defensive screens. They tend to be faster than their 2015 counterparts. They are also more uniform and mass-produced.