Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

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

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

User avatar
Werra
Posts: 840
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:27 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

What does Loroi war propaganda look like?

Is it personality based like some of ours?

Will we get some examples in the comic?

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

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Onaiom wrote:
SVlad wrote:What is "shamwow"?
Super absorbent towels that holds 21 times its weight in liquid and will not scratch surfaces.
The name derives from "shammy", which is an informal term for "chamois", a piece of soft leather used as a towel.
Werra wrote:What does Loroi war propaganda look like?

Is it personality based like some of ours?

Will we get some examples in the comic?
The Loroi don't really have a media culture, so they don't make things like propaganda movies. There is war news, but I'm not sure it really qualifies as "propaganda." The Loroi don't have to invent or even embellish to make the Umiak look pretty bad. Loroi news tends to be bland and fact-based; it's not watched for entertainment, and the existence of the telepathic rumor mill makes it very difficult to fabricate or even spin news.

Many Loroi are addicted to the cult of personality, and so war heroes are often idolized and information about them is sought after. However, a lot of this information will come through the informal telepathic network, rather than formalized news media.

User avatar
Werra
Posts: 840
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:27 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

That might be something we humans can contribute to the war effort. Some nice, good, old fashioned propaganda.

Follow up question: How popular are the Torrais then? Is Stillstorm well known for example?

User avatar
Mr.Tucker
Posts: 303
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:45 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Mr.Tucker »

Arioch wrote: The Loroi don't really have a media culture, so they don't make things like propaganda movies. There is war news, but I'm not sure it really qualifies as "propaganda." The Loroi don't have to invent or even embellish to make the Umiak look pretty bad. Loroi news tends to be bland and fact-based; it's not watched for entertainment, and the existence of the telepathic rumor mill makes it very difficult to fabricate or even spin news.

Many Loroi are addicted to the cult of personality, and so war heroes are often idolized and information about them is sought after. However, a lot of this information will come through the informal telepathic network, rather than formalized news media.
Does that not mean that information regarding the lives and tribulations of said heroes would remain very accurate over extremely long periods of time? After all, embellishing (the main source of inaccuracies) means lying and that's nearly impossible...

User avatar
SVlad
Posts: 305
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 5:43 pm
Location: Saint-Petersburg, Russia

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by SVlad »

Arioch wrote:However, a lot of this information will come through the informal telepathic network, rather than formalized news media.
Sounds like it can heavy backfire, if some false information start to spread like forest fire, because initial source just make a mistake in good faith.
Outsider in Russian
Image

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

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Werra wrote:Follow up question: How popular are the Torrais then? Is Stillstorm well known for example?
I'm sure there are a wide range of opinions of different officers. Stillstorm has been around for a long time and is about as well known as any officer of her rank, but kind of like a submarine commander, much of what she does is out of sight of the public and not much talked about. She doesn't spend much time in port and when she is, her personality is not exactly that of a media darling.
Mr.Tucker wrote:Does that not mean that information regarding the lives and tribulations of said heroes would remain very accurate over extremely long periods of time? After all, embellishing (the main source of inaccuracies) means lying and that's nearly impossible...
Information can still be subjective; two people can watch the same event and have different interpretations of it. But there is less room for obvious exaggeration or misrepresentation.

Because information is packaged together with context (who said what), it can be easier to fact check and run down mistaken information, rather than being left with persistent anonymous rumors.

User avatar
orion1836
Posts: 399
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:38 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by orion1836 »

That's too bad. A Stillstorm fanclub would have been hilarious. :lol:

User avatar
icekatze
Posts: 1399
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:35 pm
Location: Middle of Nowhere
Contact:

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I'd say it gives extra weight to the goal of many in the warrior caste of having their deeds be remembered, if there's a population who is eager to learn of such deeds.

Sweforce
Posts: 546
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Sweforce »

Arioch wrote:
Mr.Tucker wrote:Does that not mean that information regarding the lives and tribulations of said heroes would remain very accurate over extremely long periods of time? After all, embellishing (the main source of inaccuracies) means lying and that's nearly impossible...
Information can still be subjective; two people can watch the same event and have different interpretations of it. But there is less room for obvious exaggeration or misrepresentation.

Because information is packaged together with context (who said what), it can be easier to fact check and run down mistaken information, rather than being left with persistent anonymous rumors.
I came to think of the unreliability of witness testimonies, how we automatically tend to fill in the blanks with wild guesses that become false memories. I am sure the listel know how to keep this to a minimum when comes their own memories but anything they get second hand could be affected.
you
I myself have a hearing disability, I am not deaf but I have a tendency to mishear people. If what I pick up is garbled somewhat, the brain subconsciously "fill in the blanks" so I may end up clearly hearing someone saying something they didn't actually said. If the context still make sense I may then not understand that I misheard them.

This phenomena also works with eyesight up to the point that I have occupationally "seen" mythical creatures, a pile of clothes on a chair may look like a dragon in the dark but since it obviously cannot be a dragon it never register as anything but a cool coincidence, like seeing shapes in clouds. Seeing a dragon at the backdrop of a forest a mile away get the same effect, dragons do not exists so the only thing that happens is that I look at it for a few seconds until I figured out exactly how that tree over there and the bush next to it together looked like a dragon, something that dispels the illusion. But what happen when you see or hear something that is reasonable? I reject the dragon since it is ridicules but if it looks like a person I could send the police out on a wild goose chase for someone that doesn't exist. Btw, if you want to hide in plain sight, looking ridicules may actually work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TQETLZZmcM

User avatar
Werra
Posts: 840
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:27 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

So...do Loroi play pranks on each other with their psionics? If they do, what does it look like?

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

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Werra wrote:So...do Loroi play pranks on each other with their psionics? If they do, what does it look like?
I expect that the number of pranks you could pull with telekinesis would be virtually unlimited.

User avatar
Werra
Posts: 840
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:27 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

I was actually more thinking along the lines of telepathy. Putting mild suggestions into somebodys mind, making them fart at inopportune moments.
SpoilerShow
Implanting fake memories of a beautiful family they once had and tragically lost
. Pranks, you know.

Next question if you don't mind. What officer on board Tempest would be akin to a staff-sergeant?

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by dragoongfa »

Since the Loroi don't have a distinction between Enlisted and Commissioned officers I guess that the parallel of the Staff-Sergeant would be whoever oversees the various departments. On a warship that would be the first-officer/XO. On the army it would be a mid/high tier rank who would be assigned a similar position in the chain of command of the ground unit.

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

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Werra wrote:I was actually more thinking along the lines of telepathy. Putting mild suggestions into somebodys mind, making them fart at inopportune moments.
SpoilerShow
Implanting fake memories of a beautiful family they once had and tragically lost
. Pranks, you know.
There are very few Loroi who can do these things, and those that can (Mizol, mostly) wouldn't generally do them as pranks. Invading someone's mind is considered an extremely hostile act.
Werra wrote:Next question if you don't mind. What officer on board Tempest would be akin to a staff-sergeant?
Staff-sergeant is not a naval rank, so I'm not sure in what sense you mean. In an infantry unit, squad leaders are Tonzadi, and the Ragan ("Chosen") is roughly equivalent to a company first sergeant (though she is more equivalent in rank to a first lieutenant). For the Tempest's security unit, the Chosen would be Teidar Razorthorn (the purple-haired Unsheathed). But in terms of the ship's command staff, there are no particularly important low-ranking officers equivalent to a chief petty officer who is "chief of the boat". Clerks and staffers are usually junior Paset or Pideir. The important assistants to the commanding officer are the executive officer (Mallas Rune-Laurel) and the operations chief (Seinen Forest).

malletmann
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2015 7:21 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by malletmann »

I don't know if this has been discussed previously, but how to Teidar use their powers in combat? Is telekinesis their primary weapon, or do they use it in support of conventional weapons, similar to biotics in the Mass Effect series?

What form of attack to they favor? Lightning bolts out of their hands, a more boring tossing of their opponents around, or do they have some more interesting tricks to dispatch the cy-bug menace?

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by dragoongfa »

My guess is this:

Find the brain/heart and crush it to a pulp.

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

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

malletmann wrote:I don't know if this has been discussed previously, but how to Teidar use their powers in combat? Is telekinesis their primary weapon, or do they use it in support of conventional weapons, similar to biotics in the Mass Effect series?

What form of attack to they favor? Lightning bolts out of their hands, a more boring tossing of their opponents around, or do they have some more interesting tricks to dispatch the cy-bug menace?
It depends on the situation and the abilities of the individual, but in most cases psychokinesis is used as a supplement to a conventional weapon.

The most common modes of telekinetic attack are to throw an object at the target, to throw the target into an object, or to apply a force directly to a vulnerable point on a target (as mentioned above). For those with the proper skills, heat can be applied to an area of the target that is either combustible or explosive, or that is too strong to be defeated by direct force (such as an armored bulkhead or the skin of an armored vehicle) until it loses structural integrity to the point where the user's telekinetic force (or the object's internal pressure) will cause it to fail.

Some psychokinetics can manipulate electricity, causing shorts or overloads, but they do not generate it from their hands.

User avatar
Mr.Tucker
Posts: 303
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:45 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Mr.Tucker »

Found this little tidbit:
"The evidence remaining at these ancient Soia-era sites is very sketchy, as these sites suffered the worst of the catastrophes that marked the end of the period and the fall of the Soia dominion; most useful evidence comes not from these sites of Soia-Liron habitation, but rather from the ancient settlements of the native subject races of the Soia."
Which races? All the non-Soia-Liron species of today were cavemen at the time (if they even existed in sentient form). This includes the Mannadi, Golim, and Pipolsid. The only ones with any advancement would have been the ancestors of the Fenrias and Historians. And the Historians would not give away such info....
Just how many civilisations existed at the time of the Fall?...

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

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Mr.Tucker wrote:Found this little tidbit:
"The evidence remaining at these ancient Soia-era sites is very sketchy, as these sites suffered the worst of the catastrophes that marked the end of the period and the fall of the Soia dominion; most useful evidence comes not from these sites of Soia-Liron habitation, but rather from the ancient settlements of the native subject races of the Soia."
Which races? All the non-Soia-Liron species of today were cavemen at the time (if they even existed in sentient form). This includes the Mannadi, Golim, and Pipolsid. The only ones with any advancement would have been the ancestors of the Fenrias and Historians. And the Historians would not give away such info....
Just how many civilisations existed at the time of the Fall?...
Many of the natively-evolved intelligent races had starflight-level technology at some point during the Dreiman-Soia epochs; the Fenrias were the only ones who started this period with it, but by the end, most had it, including the Tizik-tik Umiak, Mannadi, Lurs, Tithric, Jilaad, and a number of species that are now extinct. It seems clear that either the Dreiman or Soia (or both) actively worked to uplift these civilizations, even though under the Soia regime, such species were effectively quarantined on their homeworlds. During the cataclysm that ended the era, every world that had such technology was bombarded to the destruction of that technological culture, and sometimes to the extinction of the species (and sometimes of all life on the planet).

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

Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Victor_D »

Arioch wrote:Many of the natively-evolved intelligent races had starflight-level technology at some point during the Dreiman-Soia epochs; the Fenrias were the only ones who started this period with it, but by the end, most had it, including the Tizik-tik Umiak, Mannadi, Lurs, Tithric, Jilaad, and a number of species that are now extinct. It seems clear that either the Dreiman or Soia (or both) actively worked to uplift these civilizations, even though under the Soia regime, such species were effectively quarantined on their homeworlds. During the cataclysm that ended the era, every world that had such technology was bombarded to the destruction of that technological culture, and sometimes to the extinction of the species (and sometimes of all life on the planet).
Poor Tithric :( Well, third time's the charm, guys, don't lose hope...

Post Reply