Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Siber]

Perhaps a distinction is being made here between restrictions imposed by the central military government and those imposed by the civilian castes or cultures. So long as the military keeps the restrictions on who gets in the warrior castes, and the civilians stay in line, they can manage their own affairs and castes? Afer all, the military wouldn't want to worry about lowly civilian trades and their concerns.

[Jayngfet]

The military caste is entirely self contained. You're born into it and you die in it. Nobody just gets into it.

[Arioch]

The idea of a lack of restrictions in a caste system is ridiculous. That's the point of a caste system. The Loroi civilization is a military dictatorship with rigid and all encompassing civic roles. That's how you wrote them.

I'm not sure I understand your objection. Loroi civilians have restrictions in terms of what kinds of roles they can perform -- they're not allowed to join the warrior class or do any of the jobs that are reserved for warriors. That's not what I mean by "restrictions on everyday behavior."

[Jayngfet]

The idea of a lack of restrictions in a caste system is ridiculous. That's the point of a caste system. The Loroi civilization is a military dictatorship with rigid and all encompassing civic roles. That's how you wrote them.

I'm not sure I understand your objection. Loroi civilians have restrictions in terms of what kinds of roles they can perform -- they're not allowed to join the warrior class or do any of the jobs that are reserved for warriors. That's not what I mean by "restrictions on everyday behavior."

Yes, but you must see how this is disingenuous sounding. You're essentially claiming that you're born and die on an assignment handed out by a military dictatorship, wherein you have no real chance to enact political change at a meaningful level, no political representation for a majority of the citizens(for a certain value of citizen that discounts most of the empires population already), and that whatever measures exist to theoretically counter this have never been attempted(and even then there are obvious problems with with if any of that would ever actually work).

Which is one thing and consistent with itself, but then you also claim that in another context this is a reasonably liberal society where people can say what they like and voice objections ...provided they never act on them.

You're using implicitly contradictory terminology to describe a situation and that's the kind of thing people will call attention to.

[dragoongfa]

Loroi are telepaths. You can't stop them from thinking and each and every individual will think of their toll in life and their very thoughts will be dissentious if they don't like it. As telepaths that is the reality they cannot change, what they can do is make sure that everyone who acts on those thoughts is severely punished. The Loroi government will bring down the hammer hard if someone acts on their thoughts but since they are completely unable to police their thoughts then they allow them to think. In short its impossible for the Loroi to stop the exchange of thoughts, their telepathy has no 'off' button and as such they have no choice but to allow the thinking of dissent.

Human totalitarian regimes can police 'thoughts' up to a point by making sure to police discussion itself. The people simply cannot know what others nearby think and as such they cannot act even if the majority thinks the same. It's an old trick where by making sure that there is no safe alternative to information the people will trick themselves in thinking that whatever the government says is the only explanation. Even in the western world the danger of this happening is present. This is the real danger of having news outlets collude into what they report and tech giants deciding to police the content of the internet. Completely free exchange of all ideas and lines of thought is the only way of avoiding our societies be tricked into becoming totalitarian.

The Loroi cannot do anything but allow their free thought but because of this they have to make sure to stamp out any and all acts of rebellion early and absolutely. This is probably the reason as to why the warrior castes are fully half of the Loroi population despite the fact that most of them haven't fought in any meaningful way in the war and as thus they aren't warriors in the way we picture them. The warrior castes have just made sure that the disgruntled civilians never outnumber them, thus making the act of rebellion itself all the more difficult since successful rebellions and revolutions always relied in the strength of numbers to violently enact change.

[Victor_D]

(...)
As you might expect of a military dictatorship, the Loroi can be harsh in how they deal with criminality. Loroi generally do not use long-term incarceration as a punishment. If an offender does not respond to attempts at correction (fines, counseling, removal of privileges, corporal punishment), she will often be eliminated. In a martial society in which even the privileged warrior class must accept that death is often part of their duty, they are not shy about using capital punishment. In ancient times, exile was sometimes used as a punishment (making the offender someone else's problem), but in modern times with global and interstellar governments, that's not really a beneficial option.

Thank you, that answers my question.

Though I think the idea of a penal colony is not necessarily anachronistic for a star-faring civilisation (provided they are not entirely happy with just killing people outright); especially the Loroi. All they need is find some marginally habitable planet far from anywhere and dump the dissidents there without industrial-era technology. Without access to males, they couldn't breed, but being long-lived, they'd probably spend centuries there as hunter-gatherers.

[Arioch]

You're essentially claiming that you're born and die on an assignment handed out by a military dictatorship, wherein you have no real chance to enact political change at a meaningful level, no political representation for a majority of the citizens(for a certain value of citizen that discounts most of the empires population already), and that whatever measures exist to theoretically counter this have never been attempted(and even then there are obvious problems with with if any of that would ever actually work).

Which is one thing and consistent with itself, but then you also claim that in another context this is a reasonably liberal society where people can say what they like and voice objections ...provided they never act on them.

I never claimed that Loroi society is liberal, but the nature of telepathy means that suppression of speech just isn't a practical possibility. While I do believe that free speech is a requirement to have a free society, I don't agree that it follows that lack of suppression of speech will necessarily lead to a free society. For one thing, the forced honesty required by telepathy cuts both ways; it makes it harder for the government to keep secrets from the people, but it also makes it easier for the government to maintain control. I think it's possible for a government to be transparent while still being authoritarian.

The vast majority of human beings who ever lived on this planet were born into a working class in which they were expected to work at the same job as their parents for their entire lives, with no opportunity for advancement, no political representation whatsoever, and no ability to enact political change at any level. They were usually ruled by an aristocratic warrior class that maintained power by force. Prior to the Enlightenment, this was considered the normal way to live. It did work, for some ten thousand years for nearly every civilization on the planet, right up to and including the present day. I don't accept the premise that this system succeeded only because no one ever bothered to talk about it, and I don't think it's true that all of these societies strictly controlled speech or were inherently repressive (some were, some weren't). It's possible to have consent of the governed in non-democratic systems; not all monarchs must be tyrants. The social controls that keep a society in order are usually exerted by every element of the society, not just the government. Speaking out directly against the rulers was often illegal, and no society ever tolerated fomenting of rebellion, but short of that, these governments usually didn't have the resources to concern themselves with the petty grumblings of every peasant. It was not really until the modern age that certain governments attempted to exert total control over the populace (which didn't work very well even with the aid of modern technology).

Though I think the idea of a penal colony is not necessarily anachronistic for a star-faring civilisation (provided they are not entirely happy with just killing people outright); especially the Loroi. All they need is find some marginally habitable planet far from anywhere and dump the dissidents there without industrial-era technology. Without access to males, they couldn't breed, but being long-lived, they'd probably spend centuries there as hunter-gatherers.

Perhaps if there was a huge pool of convicts... maybe if there was a large scale rebellion that failed, and the losers refused to reassimilate, and if executing tens of thousands of people might cause further unrest... maybe. Otherwise, interstellar transport and colonization have significant costs; it doesn't seem like an efficient way to dispose of criminals. Any planet habitable enough that people could live on it without advanced life support is very valuable; I don't think you'd want to seed it with criminals. I think that most historical penal colonies were first and foremost labor camps. In an age of robotics, I don't think the value of unskilled labor is high enough to make forced labor viable.

[Siber]

Freedom of personal speech doesn't automatically imply a free press as we'd recognize it either, which is an important element of 'free society' as we know it. Seems like Loroi culture wouldn't put as much stock in such a thing anyway, since anything not transmitted by 'word of mouth' is less trusted. That would likely limit the ability for personally expressed dissatisfaction with the way of things to become sweeping unrest or pushes for change.

[boldilocks]

Yes, but you must see how this is disingenuous sounding. You're essentially claiming that you're born and die on an assignment handed out by a military dictatorship

When it comes to civilian 'assignments' my understanding is that the military doesn't concern itself overly much. (Probably will involve themselves in matters of civilizational security)

As for military assignments, that's how it works in liberal societies today. You join the military, you obey. Loroi society technically offers the civilian caste more liberty from military dictatorship than a liberal human society that has a draft.

[entity2636]

Governments of all kinds are bound to have ministries of Health, Infrastructure and Education that are staffed by people who know how to run them. For the Loroi to not have the equivalent of them is ridiculous to even consider.

Actually, the Loroi government doesn't have any of that, as far as one can gather from the Insider info and other Arioch's posts about their government.

Education - there is no one central Ministry of Education, because each Loroi caste has it's own system of education that is run by the corresponding caste's top brass. Each caste has it's own caste specific nurseries, kindergardens, boot camps and schools. Do understand, that every Loroi person is, in fact, property of their caste and to an extension - the state (being equal to the military) from the day they are born until the day they die and beyond. Also, understand, that after maximum of a couple weeks (for males - I understand it's instantly) a Loroi child is separated from it's mother and transferred to it's caste's nursery. As soon as the child is taken over by the system, it is systematically brainwashed into blindly and unquestioningly following the course of the system. Those who do not meet the castes' quality criteria, are rejected and become civilians and are handed over to guilds who raise them and train them. I don't remember reading anywhere that civilians were even allowed to reproduce, so I assume they are not.

Infrastructure that is not military installations (managed and operated by Soroin/Torrai and run at the pipes-and-bolts level by Gallen) is "beneath" the Loroi military government and under civilian management. Note, that in the Loroi society civilians are rejected/failed warriors, those that are deemed defective or unworthy at kindergarden age and are seen not as "second class" citizens, but more like "subhuman" by the State and ruling elite. Second class citizens are the military support castes. Also, the Loroi don't even build their own starships and installations. IIRC Neridi build their starships, the Pipolsid provide them with the drives and other high-energy systems. Their weapons are based on reverse engineered excavated Soia artifacts or on tech provided by the Historians. Actually, the Loroi as a society have not invented or developed anything or close to anything. What they have they have dug out of the ground, found in space, were given by others, or blatantly stole from other races.

Health - Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression, that the Doranzer are the lowest of the military support castes, even below the engineers and just a hair above civilians, given how the Loroi value life. I would imagine a Loroi "warrior" would prefer to die from the flu or from a grown in toe nail than visit a doctor, because it would make her look weak and unworthy. Keep in mind, that for a Loroi death is preferable to demotion or discharge from the military. Reading about the Loroi society in general and how it "evolved", I'm honestly surprised that they even have medics in their military, or at all. Were it not for the Soia artifacts littered around their homeworld, the Loroi would probably still be bashing each others' skulls in with rocks on a stick.

There is bound to be a Doranzer Surgeon General who is the chief adviser/minister of Health. There is bound to be a Gallen Engineer general responsible for all the infrastructure and there is bound to be a Listel Master/Chief Archivist to hold all of the top secret knowledge that the heads of the government may need. Now if these chiefs don't ascend to Torrai before getting these positions doesn't mean that they aren't part of the government or that their castes don't get a say in how the government runs.

No, it means exactly that - they are not part of the government are don't get a say in how things are run. They are little more than civilians, one could see them as civilian guilds that the military reluctantly accepted as "warriors" because they somehow kind-of needed them for their war effort.

[entity2636]

Loroi are telepaths. You can't stop them from thinking and each and every individual will think of their toll in life and their very thoughts will be dissentious if they don't like it. As telepaths that is the reality they cannot change, what they can do is make sure that everyone who acts on those thoughts is severely punished. The Loroi government will bring down the hammer hard if someone acts on their thoughts but since they are completely unable to police their thoughts then they allow them to think. In short its impossible for the Loroi to stop the exchange of thoughts, their telepathy has no 'off' button and as such they have no choice but to allow the thinking of dissent.

Actually, as Arioch himself said, they can and do police thoughts

Nedatan Timadi: sensitive telepaths who remotely monitor the distribution and well-being of the populace. They use similar techniques and devices to those also used by the Farseers.

Civilian institutions exert control over civilians through means other than direct force: social pressure (enhanced through telepathy), employment pressure (if you engage in destructive or antisocial behavior, you probably won't keep your job), and "religious" pressure (the Nedatan order offers counseling that is part spiritual and part psychological, and provides the Powers That Be with feedback on the mindset of the populace). Those Loroi civilians who fall through the cracks of this system into the (military-run) criminal justice system are often dealt with harshly, but they are comparatively few in number.

You can make it so that your entire population thinks the same way. You brainwash the young, beat the ones who don't comply right away into submission or terminate them if they won't bend (or let the other young ones take care of the problem for you). After that in addition to everyone's thoughts being open to everyone else you have the Thought Police (Nedatan) who look for and report anyone who's deviating from the course or has thoughts not in line with the State.

[Siber]

Actually, as Arioch himself said, they can and do police thoughts...

The text you are quoting does not contain the conclusions you are drawing from it. To say the nedatan as described there police thoughts is like saying that the census or a polling agency does. Arioch does address the idea more directly in this though.

"dissent" (the expression or holding of opinions at variance with those previously, commonly, or officially held) is not illegal and is tolerated. As a practical matter in a telepathic society in which truth is almost unavoidable, trying to restrict speech would be essentially trying to restrict thought, which I don't really think is practically possible outside the most extreme Orwellian thought experiments.

Or to rephrase, to aggressively police speech would require policing thought, and that is impractical and not done. It can be safely inferred then that the Loroi don't have thought police. The nedatan in the bits you quoted sound to me like a psychic public relations department more than anything else.

To your other post, it is ridiculous to think that the Loroi can't build their own weapons and infrastructure. If they couldn't, they wouldn't be in a position to conquer other spacefaring civilizations in the first place. It is typical for a people with many conquests or allies to have others take over parts of their infrastructure, even important parts, and certainly doesn't imply an inability to do those things themselves. I also find it absurd to assume that all the civilian Loroi are disgraced or outcast warrior caste members. Sure, that's one possible outcome of the warrior trials, but even if it's a 50/50 split of warrior to civilian that's a huge washout rate, and I think would make for a rather bitter civilian population, especially if they were universally blocked from breeding. There is some potential evidence in the insider to suggest that the civilians are all washouts, a mention of the military viewing the civs as 'failed warriors' mainly, but I don't find it conclusive. There's considerable evidence there that civilians are allowed to breed, just at a lower priority than the military, and also that the child of a civilian is going to always be civilian themselves, so that seems to indicate there are in fact people born into civilian castes directly.

You brainwash the young, beat the ones who don't comply right away into submission or terminate them if they won't bend (or let the other young ones take care of the problem for you).

If you were being uncharitable(and I would say you are) you could describe nearly every society that has ever existed this way, with only minor modification for the ones that don't allow capital punishment. The young are taught how society works, and those who refuse to work within society are ostracized or punished depending on the nature of their refusal. This in itself is not exceptional. There are plenty of ways in which Loroi society is actually rather nasty without needing to invent new ones.

[dragoongfa]

Actually, the Loroi government doesn't have any of that, as far as one can gather from the Insider info and other Arioch's posts about their government.

Education - there is no one central Ministry of Education, because each Loroi caste has it's own system of education that is run by the corresponding caste's top brass. Each caste has it's own caste specific nurseries, kindergardens, boot camps and schools. Do understand, that every Loroi person is, in fact, property of their caste and to an extension - the state (being equal to the military) from the day they are born until the day they die and beyond. Also, understand, that after maximum of a couple weeks (for males - I understand it's instantly) a Loroi child is separated from it's mother and transferred to it's caste's nursery. As soon as the child is taken over by the system, it is systematically brainwashed into blindly and unquestioningly following the course of the system. Those who do not meet the castes' quality criteria, are rejected and become civilians and are handed over to guilds who raise them and train them. I don't remember reading anywhere that civilians were even allowed to reproduce, so I assume they are not.

That's... a whole lot of misunderstanding in one paragraph. Loroi children, especially of the warrior castes, get little education before reaching physical maturity at ages 8 to 9. The child is also not part of any caste until after she has passed or failed the diral band phase which is like the spartan Agoge. Before that they are placed in communal creches which aren't caste related because the children themselves are not part of any castes yet. Only after they pass the diral trial do Loroi warriors get an education and they are full blown adults physically at that point.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that a society of that tech level has to have standardized curriculum for a wide range of subjects or the society itself would collapse because there would be people with 'high school diplomas' who were taught everything wrong. Said standardized curriculum is set by the central government like our standardized curricula are. It would be counter productive at the very least for a military dictatorship not to have a standardized curriculum that all castes have to teach.

Also civilians are allowed to reproduce, they just don't have the same perks as warriors and as such get the opportunity to reproduce sparingly.

Infrastructure that is not military installations (managed and operated by Soroin/Torrai and run at the pipes-and-bolts level by Gallen) is "beneath" the Loroi military government and under civilian management. Note, that in the Loroi society civilians are rejected/failed warriors, those that are deemed defective or unworthy at kindergarden age and are seen not as "second class" citizens, but more like "subhuman" by the State and ruling elite. Second class citizens are the military support castes. Also, the Loroi don't even build their own starships and installations. IIRC Neridi build their starships, the Pipolsid provide them with the drives and other high-energy systems. Their weapons are based on reverse engineered excavated Soia artifacts or on tech provided by the Historians. Actually, the Loroi as a society have not invented or developed anything or close to anything. What they have they have dug out of the ground, found in space, were given by others, or blatantly stole from other races.

Infrastructure includes: Ports, power plants, roads, factories, satellites, communication networks and everything a society of that tech level needs to function. That's a LOT of critical infrastructure that the warrior castes would let out of their hands and into the hands of 'subhumans' as you describe them. The rest is your personal suppositions and I fail to see where you came up with all of this.

Health - Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression, that the Doranzer are the lowest of the military support castes, even below the engineers and just a hair above civilians, given how the Loroi value life. I would imagine a Loroi "warrior" would prefer to die from the flu or from a grown in toe nail than visit a doctor, because it would make her look weak and unworthy. Keep in mind, that for a Loroi death is preferable to demotion or discharge from the military. Reading about the Loroi society in general and how it "evolved", I'm honestly surprised that they even have medics in their military, or at all. Were it not for the Soia artifacts littered around their homeworld, the Loroi would probably still be bashing each others' skulls in with rocks on a stick.

I don't know where you got any of the above, any short of individual who would prefer to suffer pain or even die than visit a doctor is bound to be mentally unstable and kept under watch for their own well being. People don't like pain, never mind warriors who by necessity want their bodies to be at perfect health at all times and who know that sooner or later they will need a doctor to save their lives; its simply impossible for the profession of the doctor to be looked with such disdain in a warrior society, especially one with an established hierarchy that knows the value of keeping experienced personnel alive through injuries and diseases.

No, it means exactly that - they are not part of the government are don't get a say in how things are run. They are little more than civilians, one could see them as civilian guilds that the military reluctantly accepted as "warriors" because they somehow kind-of needed them for their war effort.

All of the above are baseless suppositions.

You can make it so that your entire population thinks the same way. You brainwash the young, beat the ones who don't comply right away into submission or terminate them if they won't bend (or let the other young ones take care of the problem for you). After that in addition to everyone's thoughts being open to everyone else you have the Thought Police (Nedatan) who look for and report anyone who's deviating from the course or has thoughts not in line with the State.

Nowhere in what you quoted is any of the above written and you will have to stretch things a lot to imply any of it.

Modern human societies function in much the same way as the Loroi in regards to the 'brainwashing' you point out when you think about it: Children spend far more time at school and other educational activities being taught whatever the state wants them to be taught than being with their family. Adults who don't comply with the laws of the land get punished according to the crime they committed. Everyone's 'thoughts' are currently being monitored through social media, in some nations (even western ones) posting the wrong 'thought' would send you to jail.

Thankfully for the Loroi the Nedatan are observing the general mood of the populace, which includes both civilians and warriors, they don't spy from afar to discern everyone's thoughts like some of our governments want to do.

[Siber]

I think it's also worth realizing that for ideas about paranoid thought police, the honesty of sanzi cuts both ways. Consider this scenario. Nizar, a poor put upon worker, overreacts to an unwanted work reassignment and expresses her wish that the government would just fall already and be replaced by one that'd not piss her off so much. Aria, no friend of Nizar and eager to curry favor with the government, reports this outburst to the authorities, and Nizar is pulled in for questioning. She's hauled before Mizol Parat Miras for an interview, who asks her if she made such a statement. If we're dealing with evil oppressive thought police that guilt would have been assumed, but you want to go through the motions anyway. Next she'll want to find out if Nizar is connected to something larger, naturally there's going to be an at least imagined sinister corrosive underground if you've got thought police, so Miras will ask if Nizar has any plans to enact this overthrow, or has contacts with like minded people and if they have such plans. Nizar will reply with the truth, that it was just a frustrated outburst, that she's unhappy with how things are run but she has neither the desire nor the ability to actually try to do anything about it.

Now if we've got evil thought police then traditionally they'd assume this is a lie and go about brainwashing the person, torturing a confession out of them or make them name some names, or just disappear them. But we're dealing with compulsively honest telepaths here, so Miras knows Nizar is telling the truth and is no real threat. And since it's so hard to conceal anything, you don't exactly need to haul anyone in for extensive questioning, just meet with them.

What I'm getting at is that even if the Loroi did police that kind of thing, the nature of sanzi would probably make it a lot less brutal and implacable than the real world attempts. It being harder to lie makes it harder to call an honest statement false. Maybe it'd just make the whole thing more comfortable rather than actually less evil, but it's something to think about.

(edited to prune some ugly redundant words. Also, this whole post might have been an excuse to pilfer the insider for names and I'm not sorry.)

[Arioch]

Loroi children, especially of the warrior castes, get little education before reaching physical maturity at ages 8 to 9. The child is also not part of any caste until after she has passed or failed the diral band phase which is like the spartan Agoge. Before that they are placed in communal creches which aren't caste related because the children themselves are not part of any castes yet. Only after they pass the diral trial do Loroi warriors get an education and they are full blown adults physically at that point.

I would like to clarify a few points here. Loroi children do receive the rough equivalent of our primary school education in their creches before trials; the education afterward is the rough equivalent of our secondary education. There are a variety of different creches, some government-run, some run by local extended families, some by organizations affiliated with castes. While it's true that a warrior is not officially part of a caste until completing trials, the vast majority of the time she will go to the same caste as her mother (and usually the rest of her extended family), and so some creches do offer early education that is oriented towards a particular caste. Beryl did receive a different early education on Mezan than Talon did on Taben.

I also find it absurd to assume that all the civilian Loroi are disgraced or outcast warrior caste members. Sure, that's one possible outcome of the warrior trials, but even if it's a 50/50 split of warrior to civilian that's a huge washout rate, and I think would make for a rather bitter civilian population, especially if they were universally blocked from breeding. There is some potential evidence in the insider to suggest that the civilians are all washouts, a mention of the military viewing the civs as 'failed warriors' mainly, but I don't find it conclusive. There's considerable evidence there that civilians are allowed to breed, just at a lower priority than the military, and also that the child of a civilian is going to always be civilian themselves, so that seems to indicate there are in fact people born into civilian castes directly.

The trials are primarily a test of basic physical fitness and psychological temperament, and bands pass or fail as a group. The only way to really fail as an individual is if you give up (or to be so unlikable that your band-mates refuse to help you). There are plenty of warrior desk jobs, so there is no problem in sorting the graduates into roles that suit their individual skills. This also means that most of the people who failed didn't really want to be warriors in the first place -- or at least not badly enough to stick it out.

Some Loroi civilians are permitted to reproduce, but they have a priority below those in the warrior class. In times and places of reproductive restriction, this might mean that few civilians would get to reproduce at all, but in the current situation since the expansion of Loroi territory c.1200 CE, this usually just means that civilian mating opportunities are less frequent and they are matched with lower-status males (read: sons of civilian mothers). However, female children of civilian mothers are automatically considered part of the worker class and are not normally eligible for warrior training.

Loroi tradition holds that the members of the worker class are descendants of warriors who failed the trials, but this is probably not 100% true, as there were was already a pool of dedicated workers when the caste system was first instituted. Because males are mostly outside the class system, there is still some intermingling of genes between the worker and warrior classes (a male son of a civilian mother may sometimes be mated with a warrior female, and vice-versa). But there are two ways to spin this perception of the worker class as "failed warriors." The first is that the workers are inherently "less than" the warriors. The second is that both groups are descended from the same population and still share blood kinship, and so are essentially one population despite their differing privileges. Both of these viewpoints are simultaneously existent in Loroi society. The view that civilians are somehow "subhuman" is not common.

And I would hope that it goes without saying that if the Loroi couldn't build anything themselves, they wouldn't even need a worker class.

I would also like to point out that the workers have some advantages over the warriors. They are not required to routinely risk their lives, or live in sometimes harsh frontline conditions. They are allowed to run businesses and amass personal fortunes. They don't have much of a voice in government, but then neither do the vast majority of warriors.

Or to rephrase, to aggressively police speech would require policing thought, and that is impractical and not done. It can be safely inferred then that the Loroi don't have thought police. The nedatan in the bits you quoted sound to me like a psychic public relations department more than anything else.

That's correct. The Nedatan Timadi are essentially domestic versions of Farseers; they passively track the size, location and general condition of the population on a large scale. They do not read individual minds. The Nedatan Tiret are counselors who have individual sessions with clients. They are not thought police, and they don't compel thought in any way. Periodically the Nedatan operations poll the Tiret to learn what the mood of the population is, and a Tiret who encountered an individual who was clearly insane or had committed crimes would probably report it, but so would any other individual who came into contact with such a person. You don't need an inquisition when everyone has to tell the truth all the time.

[Gorbash]

The trials are primarily a test of basic physical fitness and psychological temperament, and bands pass or fail as a group. The only way to really fail as an individual is if you give up (or to be so unlikable that your band-mates refuse to help you). There are plenty of warrior desk jobs, so there is no problem in sorting the graduates into roles that suit their individual skills. This also means that most of the people who failed didn't really want to be warriors in the first place -- or at least not badly enough to stick it out.

So there are kids that drop out of Warrior School in the (possibly hubris-filled) belief they can strike it rich in the Civilian Districts and live like queens?

That probably doesn't happen very often, but its a neat aspect of their culture.

Given that there is an inherent shortfall in the number of Warriors vs the number of Civilians (because Civilians are less likely to die before the end of their reproductive capacity, and 10% or so of the population of would-be Warriors drops out and joins the Civies), is there ever a point where the Loroi military would consider "drafting" a batch of civilians into the military to make up the difference? Or is that population discrepancy handled entirely by providing warriors with more male access?

Is there a "civil defense" program in place for the Loroi civilians, to train them in case of planetary invasion? Or is that considered too much of a risk? I'd imagine civilians end up "taking up arms" during Umiak invasions regardless (because the alternative is extermination), but there's a lot the Loroi can do to beef up resistance within their civilian population.

The Nedatan Timadi are essentially domestic versions of Farseers; they passively track the size, location and general condition of the population on a large scale. They do not read individual minds. The Nedatan Tiret are counselors who have individual sessions with clients. They are not thought police, and they don't compel thought in any way. Periodically the Nedatan operations poll the Tiret to learn what the mood of the population is, and a Tiret who encountered an individual who was clearly insane or had committed crimes would probably report it, but so would any other individual who came into contact with such a person. You don't need an inquisition when everyone has to tell the truth all the time.

So that brings up other questions regarding how Loroi telepathy affects their society. How do the Loroi handle reporting police/fire/emergency situations? The standard way (i.e. with telecoms), or has using their telepathy as a "carrier wave" to relay messages across a populated area ever been a thing? I imagine that runs into the same risks as the telephone game, but on the other hand, given that some members of the population have extreme farsensing range (and possibly extreme telepathic range as a result), having a few Fartalkers on-duty waiting for someone to tele-shout "Help I'm on fire" has some serious practical benefit to it -- or military benefit, if there's someone on-site in a ship battle who can tell the Captain "everyone on Deck Five just got vac'd" or "the flank regiments are getting stabbed and are really upset about it" on a ground battle.

Heck, depending on the potential range, Bronze-Age Loroi rulers would probably really have wanted a few Loroi in their capital who can talk to a village elder a hundred miles away and find out if anyone's currently raiding them.

[Arioch]

Given that there is an inherent shortfall in the number of Warriors vs the number of Civilians (because Civilians are less likely to die before the end of their reproductive capacity, and 10% or so of the population of would-be Warriors drops out and joins the Civies), is there ever a point where the Loroi military would consider "drafting" a batch of civilians into the military to make up the difference? Or is that population discrepancy handled entirely by providing warriors with more male access?

They adjust access accordingly. It allows a fairly fine control over population sizes and ratios.

Is there a "civil defense" program in place for the Loroi civilians, to train them in case of planetary invasion? Or is that considered too much of a risk? I'd imagine civilians end up "taking up arms" during Umiak invasions regardless (because the alternative is extermination), but there's a lot the Loroi can do to beef up resistance within their civilian population.

In ancient times there were some Loroi cultures that would levy civilians in military emergencies, but in most cases civilians were treated as non-combatants. This was less about worries over keeping the civilians in line, and more about the rules of warfare. For much of Loroi history on Deinar, civilians and infrastructure were not considered legitimate targets (to help the civilization withstand near-constant warfare), and so using them as troops was considered foul play, akin to the use of "human shields" in modern warfare. Not every culture in every time and place observed these rules, but most did.

The higher technology gets, the more specialized training is required in the military, and the less valuable conscript armies become. In particular, drafted starship crews are practically worthless. Since planetary invasions are rare in the current conflict, and most of the fighting and dying is being done in the starfleets, there isn't much of a shortage of infantry. Most Loroi communities have a civil defense organization, but this is mostly a sort of disaster response network that provides support and infrastructure in the event of invasion rather than actual fighting (as was the case with most real-world civil defense services).

Given the genocidal turn of the conflict, it's certainly possible that the Loroi might form civilian militias in response to an invasion (since they have nothing to lose), but this hasn't happened recently. Since the Semoset offensive, any Loroi planet that comes under Umiak attack is bombarded and not invaded.

So that brings up other questions regarding how Loroi telepathy affects their society. How do the Loroi handle reporting police/fire/emergency situations? The standard way (i.e. with telecoms), or has using their telepathy as a "carrier wave" to relay messages across a populated area ever been a thing? I imagine that runs into the same risks as the telephone game, but on the other hand, given that some members of the population have extreme farsensing range (and possibly extreme telepathic range as a result), having a few Fartalkers on-duty waiting for someone to tele-shout "Help I'm on fire" has some serious practical benefit to it -- or military benefit, if there's someone on-site in a ship battle who can tell the Captain "everyone on Deck Five just got vac'd" or "the flank regiments are getting stabbed and are really upset about it" on a ground battle.

Any group of Loroi constitutes a telepathic network which can relay messages quickly across its breadth, as long as elements are within range of each other. This works fairly well within cities (and ships) but breaks down over distances between them. So as in our society, in addition to shouting "fire!", Loroi will also pull alarms and make conventional technological calls for help (and in an ultra-tech environment, smoke detectors and the like will also automatically notify the appropriate systems).

Telepathy has never been well suited to long-range communication. In ancient times before amplifiers, telepathic sensitivity could only increase reception range of normal messages by say an order of magnitude (~1 km), which is not enough to reach between settlements. Therefore a long-range telepathic message must be "shouted" by a powerful telepath, which is potentially injurious to nearby Loroi. It would be like using a loudspeaker that could send an audio message miles away... it would severely damage the hearing of anyone nearby. This is only really usable for brief messages in dire emergency situations.

In the current era, Farseers and their equipment are specialized for detecting the presence, location, and condition of remote minds. They are not specialized for receiving distant telepathic signals, and so do not make for good FTL radios. It is possible to send amplified messages that a Farseer can receive at distance, but this presents the same problem as above; it's dangerous to other Loroi near to the sender (not to mention the sender herself).

[Siber]

Is the minimum safe distance for an interstellar message(detectable to a farseer in the 5-10LY range) like that defined?

[CF2]

How is the Loroi-Trade vocabulary managed? Do the various species that use trade keep a common dictionary, with a local dictionary of slang and culture specific words kept for themselves?

[Arioch]

How is the Loroi-Trade vocabulary managed? Do the various species that use trade keep a common dictionary, with a local dictionary of slang and culture specific words kept for themselves?

I don't think much management is necessary, since Trade is not really a conversational language with a lot of idiom or slang or the like. Trade to the Loroi is kind of like Latin to medieval Europeans: an archaic language used for scientific, diplomatic, and archival purposes. There is almost no one for whom Loroi Trade is a primary language.

Given the time and distance scales of the setting, there are still going to be drifts and dialects of Trade. In particular, there would have had to have been some compromise between the widely varying dialects of the various splinter colonies upon reunification. But for other Union cultures, whatever version of Trade they might have previously been exposed to, the Loroi version is the one everyone had to standardize on.

The Barsam and Neridi are not telepathic, and so each developed its own native spoken languages. The Barsam native languages have some variety, but do not resemble Trade at all, but instead can be linked to the more primitive languages spoken by the Nibiren. Though almost all Barsam are fluent in Trade, they also maintain their own native languages. This might be somewhat analogous to modern Indian speakers who are expected to know both Hindi (or another native language) and English, even though the two are somewhat alien to each other.

Neridi also have a variety of native dialects which are clearly derived from ancient Trade, but which have varied and diversified greatly. However, the Neridi have officially standardized on the Loroi version of Trade. This is roughly analogous to the modern Netherlands, where speakers are expected to know both their local dialect and English, though it's a little bit easier because the two have strong similarities.