Arioch wrote:
Judging which is the more "rich" of two cultures seems to me to be highly subjective, but in any case culture spreads as much for reasons of power and influence rather than richness or diversity. Was British culture richer and more diverse than the culture of India? I think most Indians would say not. English language and British customs were adopted in India because of British occupation, not because the Indians envied their conquerors' rich and varied culture. I do not believe that the Loroi consider the cultures of the Barsam or the other Union races richer than their own.
"Rich" can be considered any culture that is able to offer you many new look at familiar things, and probably one or more of some unexpected issues. With respect to such Loroi is probably not possible to consider all the neighbors, but someone like a Barsam or Pipolsid clearly noteworthy, perhaps even Neridi, but it is even less data for him than jellyfish. And for all these time intervals that they were able to take from them, it is "some of the technology and economic schemes"? With this level of integration processes, I just can not imagine what both sides should be mind hygiene, that they would not in any way to each other is not affected.
This is one of the ways, the easiest and, as history shows, is not the most effective. Americans have suppressed the redskins and the British for Indians, exactly like many people before them did the same, BUT: the Americans eventually learned something from Indian cultures, but about the British, I generally keep quiet. A historical example, when the conqueror is actually absorbed more developed culture, even without number.
Absalom wrote:
But what if it wasn't unnecessary? When the Soia fell, food supplies likely collapsed as well. The possibility of insufficient resources is very real, and the primary question would be which groups won the battle for resources. However, complete warfare isn't survivable in such a situation, so you occasionally need some way to negotiate, even if just as the opening salvo of a battle: speech would have likely proved priceless within the first one or two years. The long lifespan of the Loroi would in turn have made retention of written language more likely. Finally, supposing the existence of Listel at the time, you would have an extremely long-lived perfect memory of both written and verbal language within the first generation: if they had enough time to start child warrior bands, then they had enough time to teach those bands verbal and written language for pragmatic purposes (negotiating with neighbors that you don't trust, leaving messages for people expecting to find you somewhere that you have to leave, etc.).
Retaining both written and spoken language is actually fairly likely for the Loroi.
The only similarity that should be counted upon is the ability to recognize patterns, and use them to make predictions. Even within human civilizations, anything else is not entirely reliable: if you have an insular culture, then your uptake of external elements will be drastically slowed. If you use an incompatible communication technique, then your uptake will be slowed even further.
The distinction between compatible cultures and incompatible cultures is primarily perceptual, just as relative superiority is primarily perceptual. The interaction of the Norse and Inuit (or was it the other group?) illustrates this: the Inuit were far more acclimated to the Greenland environment than the Norse, but the Norse rejected an adoption of Inuit practices, due to a self-perception of the superiority of their own ways. Cultural contact might always result in a merging, but the merging isn't always large enough to be of note.
The catastrophe that can in a relatively short period of time to drop the whole sector is highly developed civilizations in substone century hardly involves saving a huge population, and still a compact arrangement. Even if a sufficiently large number manage to survive the catastrophe, 60-80% of them are likely to die one way or another, if only because of the banal hunger and disease. And if Listel as a percentage of the whole of the Early Empire was about as much as we see them in the comics - they simply could not just as well stay a lot. Five teachers can not, not what to teach - even just to keep from degradation five thousand of his countrymen. Especially because 95% of their knowledge after this will probably simply not in demand, and sharply increased mortality and life expectancy catastrophically fallen, likely replacement in the preparation of replacement only to transfer critical needed knowledge and skills. And somehow I doubt that it will fall into a verbal communication.
You can even try on the result: If Loroi (not to mention all the other Soia-Liron, who, not having the disadvantages of Loroi, also somehow not particularly in a hurry with restoration) remains enough teachers to keep their society from total collapse and degradation, recovery would not take by 200k years. And just we seeing that there is - it means they were not enough. With all the ensuing consequences.
Insurmountable obstacle really is not much, if communication and understanding are possible, everything else is somehow attach with time. 500-600 years for "grinding" should be enough with the head and gills, but judging by what they see, it seems that this thousand years the neighbors have lived in factual isolation, not talking quite closely.
Contact and closer mutual integration is slightly different things.
