Data File Updated: Monday, August 29, 2011

Origins and Empire

The place of origin of the Loroi species is unknown; the Loroi are one of three known starfaring species collectively referred to as the Soia-Liron, whose biochemistries are very similar, and whose technological civilizations predate the fall of the ancient Soia Empire, which at its height controlled much of the Orion arm of our galaxy. Following the collapse of the empire several hundred thousand years ago, the Loroi, like nearly all the races of the local region at that time, suffered a complete breakdown of their star-faring civilizations, and endured an extended dark age in which their technological sophistication regressed to pre-industrial levels. Scattered across the three Sister Worlds of Deinar, Taben and Perrein (also known as the Splinter Colonies), Loroi enclaves independently rebuilt their civilization over the millennia, slowly regaining lost knowledge with the help of the artifacts that littered the Soia ruins. After the rediscovery of starflight in 850 CE, the Loroi followed in the footsteps of the Soia (from who the Loroi believe they are descended), expanding their sphere of influence through both conquest and alliance.

Today, the Loroi Empire spans several hundred inhabited star systems in the direction of Taurus, and incorporates 11 sentient races. Nominally, the Empire is a Union in which each member nation governs itself, but in practice it is a military protectorate dominated by the Loroi. Supreme executive authority is held by a Loroi Emperor who is commander in chief of the military; she is selected by the Diadem Council (the upper echelons of the Torrai leadership caste which is essentially an Admiralty) and rules for life, or until she is removed from office. Given the long lifespans of Loroi, it is not unusual for an Emperor to be in power for more than a hundred years. In the more than 750 years since the inception of the office, there have been only four Loroi Emperors, and only the first one died of old age.

The Imperial capital is located on the cool, arid world of Deinar in the city of Toridas, situated on the west coast of the major continent. In time of war, the Emperor and much of her government conduct their business from aboard flagships of the Imperial Fleet rather than the traditional palaces of Toridas. Of the other two Sister Words, Perrein is a steamy jungle; Taben is mostly ocean. See main article: Sister Worlds.

Isn't the female ruler of an empire called an Empress, not an Emperor?

In our culture, an Empress is the wife of a ruler of an empire, and rarely a ruler herself. Using a feminine appellation implies that there may be a corresponding male counterpart, which isn't the case for the Loroi. Since we in America do not call our female Senate members "Senatresses," it doesn't seem too far out of line to call a female ruler "Emperor."

Biology

The Loroi are remarkably humanlike in appearance, though with blue skin and pointed ears, and unusual range of hair and eye color. They are slightly smaller and more slender than humans; the average female stands 170 cm (5'7") tall, and males rarely more than 150 cm (5'). Nearly 90% of Loroi births are female. Most Loroi are left-handed. Loroi possess a unique form of telepathic communication known as sanzai ("sending"). A few Loroi also possess limited psychokinetic capabilities.

Despite their outward similarity, Loroi and humans are very different biochemically and genetically. Loroi blood is blue, based on the same transport mechanism (most likely an exotic form of hemocyanin) as the other known Soia-Liron species. Loroi internal body temperature is lower than humans', about 27ºC (80ºF), and Loroi metabolism is highly efficient; Loroi normally eat only once per day. Young Loroi mature rapidly, reaching physical adulthood in 8 years, but age slowly, potentially living for 400 years or more. Loroi do not show significant signs of aging until shortly before they die.

Would the Loroi home world have very low UV? After all, if you can see the color of their veins through their skin (just like people from really far north), then they'd sunburn real easy.

In humans, our white skin is given pinkish color from our blood, and tan or brown color from melanin (the UV protective pigment). In Loroi, their skin is also white, tinted blue by blood. Loroi also have an anti-UV pigment, which gives the skin a slightly grayish-brown tint, which can be seen in the darker-hued Loroi (Fireblade being the notable example). Shipboard Loroi do tend to be pale, as they don't get much sunlight.

A 10-to-1 split between female & male? That's pretty skewed. Don't most higher animals with two sexes pretty much split it right down the middle?

Yes.

Or are the Loroi sort of like bees, with a high percentage of sterile "female" drones in the population?

No, all the females are fertile. This combined with the large percentage of females and rapid maturation of offspring is potentially explosive from a population growth point of view; however, the social structure of the Loroi normally puts tight restrictions on the access of females to the males. The Loroi view this as an important adaptation for a warrior species, as they have the flexibility to rapidly increase their population growth (or stagnate it) as the situation demands through social controls.

Assuming a male Loroi has a "sexual career" somewhat equal to a human (call it 40 years - yes I'm an optimist), then he has the potential to see six generations go by before he "retires." That'd be his great-great-great-great grand daughter.

Male Loroi can be reproductively active for hundreds of years, and generations can be very short;  Loroi are physically adult at age 8 and complete standard education at 10-12. Other than injury or health problems, Loroi don't age much outwardly until shortly before they die, and are physically and sexually active throughout most of their lifespans. It can be hard to tell a 30 year old Loroi from a 150 year old Loroi, so they don't have the same age-gap sex taboos that we do. So yes, a Loroi male could potentially father many thousands of children in his lifetime.

However, there is a "generation gap" of a different sort. Under peacetime conditions there must clearly be limits on Loroi population growth; the Loroi live a long time. Prior to the start of the war, in much of established Loroi territory, it was only the older, high-status Loroi who were permitted to reproduce (to replace individuals dying of old age). So what you had prior to the start of the war was an older Loroi population and relatively few younger Loroi. When the war started, the population limits were lifted, and so now 25 years later what you have are a group of Loroi who are very young, and a group of Loroi who are much older, and very few in between.  

Are Humans and Loroi sexually compatible? Could they produce hybrid offspring?

While Humans and Loroi are outwardly very similar, their biochemistries are quite different and incompatible. It doesn't take much to be physically sexually compatible (after all, even human men can have sex with other men), and Loroi and Humans could certainly engage in the physical act of sex, but such unions could not possibly produce viable offspring. However, aside from the biochemical incompatibility, Loroi and Humans have essentially the same concept of male and female. The Loroi females carry the zygotes that are fertilized by gametes from the males, and the females carry fetuses to term and deliver them in live birth.  

Do Loroi females have monthly or yearly reproductive cycles? I'd bet yearly, since with the scarcity of males there's likely to be a lot of "lost opportunities" otherwise.

Loroi females don't actually begin their reproductive cycles until after they are fertilized, so they don't have monthly "periods." The Loroi female's body must be able to preserve the male gametes until her reproductive system can get up to speed (which would probably take several weeks). There is ample precedent for this in terrestrial organisms -- for example, an ant queen is fertilized only once, and can preserve the sperm for her entire lifespan of several decades. The reason behind this feature is that for Loroi females, opportunities for copulation with a male are infrequent and often unscheduled; having regular menstruations to stay ready for the possibility of fertilization would be wasteful and debilitating, especially since females are the warrior class. By being able to store the male gametes and begin the reproductive cycle after insemination, Loroi females can be constantly prepared for the possibility of fertilization, without the costly monthly "curse."

Which is a good thing for the galaxy, if you think about it.

Since Alex has no breathing apparatus aboard the Loroi ship, why isn't he a) choking on a poisonous atmosphere, or b) dying of infection from alien microbes? 

Luckily, this is the sort of convenient space opera universe where most of the species breathe the same basic nitrogen-oxygen mixture. As for naughty Loroi microbes, I must assume that the Loroi had sufficient medical technology and concern for Alex's health to have considered these issues before they cracked him out of his suit.

It is very possible that Earth and Deinar were 'seeded' by the same thing; there is evidence that a Mars-rock carried over the original RNA to the earth. Of course, that would just mean that the base-pairs (right usage of term?) are the same (except perhaps 't').

Seeded DNA might account for similar genetic structures or biochemistry, but it wouldn't result in such similarity of external form. Evolution doesn't work that way; all creatures on Earth evolved from the same primordial DNA, but that doesn't make humans and squid look anything alike. The Loroi didn't originally evolve on Deinar anyway; it's not known where the Loroi originated from.

Society

As a warrior culture, Loroi society is heavily stratified, and its institutions and customs can be very rigid. Details of specific traditions and rituals can be diverse, having progressed in parallel on three separate splinter colonies, and having since spread to dozens of additional worlds. There are, for example, many diverging dialects of the Trade Language that the Loroi jointly inherited from their Soia predecessors. Most of the core features of Loroi society are, however, common to most of the sub-cultures, and in almost all cases, society revolves around the warrior class.

Loroi society is sharply partitioned into three segments; the females of the warrior class, the civilian females, and the males. The warrior class, accounting for roughly half of the population, fill nearly all military and governmental functions, and are themselves subdivided into numerous specialized castes that are similar (in division of duty) to our armed services. The civilian population is considered to be inferior in rank and importance to the military, but they are organized by profession in a similar way into castes that resemble trade guilds. Civilian institutions exist almost solely to support the military. The males, roughly one tenth of the population, exist mostly outside the normal structure of class, family and caste. Excluded from many professions and under pressure from the practical demands of reproduction, males nevertheless form an important element of the Loroi social machine.

 

Prior to reunification, many Loroi nations were ruled by matrilineal oligarchies based on clan relations. At the conclusion of the Loroi civil war in 1402, when the new Imperial government replaced provincial feudal authorities, many of the traditional clan names were abolished -- a Loroi warrior's spoken name is now preceded by her caste name in place of the traditional clan name. Many regional institutions that were dominated by single families (including some starships) were forcibly "diversified." Despite these measures to increase central authority, extended family affiliation continues to be a strong social force.

 

Males are considered to be technically outside the caste system, but their role in Loroi society can be influential. In addition to the direct influence of the male philosopher caste, the indirect influence of males in connecting the bloodlines of otherwise disparate clan groups can be significant. However, mating encounters between males and females are usually brief, lasting no more than a few days, and there is no formal institution of marriage. Thus, the Loroi concept of family is a broad one encompassing a female Loroi's sisters, cousins, aunts and other close relatives.

 

So, how does the caste system work? Can the Loroi choose what they want to do for a living, or are they assigned to their castes at birth?

As the name implies, the castes are mostly hereditary -- the daughter of a member of a warrior caste is normally expected to follow in her mother's footsteps. For the military castes, some movement is allowed, but it is very limited. A female child is formally assigned by her family to a caste at about age six; normally this is the same caste as her mother (see the article on Warrior Rites). Some of the warrior castes have very specific genetic or psionic traits as requirements, so often being qualified means being the child of a caste member, but it sometimes means that a qualified individual in a sought-after specialty might be admitted regardless of her heritage. In time of war, the government may preempt family choice to fill needed roles. Assignment to a warrior caste is considered a sought-after privilege; those who refuse or are unable to complete warrior training are "demoted" to civilian life. A warrior may have the option to switch specialties after completing the warrior training of a different caste, subject to the approval of the caste bureaucracy.

The rules for civilian guilds are less restrictive, as they do not depend on passing warrior trials at a young age, and there is more movement between specialties. However, civilians are not normally eligible to join the warrior castes, even in time of war.

Do female Loroi believe/think that Loroi males are inferior/lower class?

Not really. Even though their roles are limited by society and biology, Loroi males enjoy a relatively high social status. Most Loroi females don't really compare themselves to the males; they have very different roles, and males are rare and must be protected. There usually isn't a value judgment attached to this, it's just a biological imperative. Males are smaller and physically weaker than females, but since physical strength is not a Loroi strongpoint, this is not especially relevant -- in terms of valued telepathic and psychokinetic powers, a male is as likely to be powerful as a female. It's similar in some ways to how human adults treat children; we're heavily protective of them, and often treat them in a patronizing manner. I suppose one could make the argument that children are inferior to adults (since they need the guidance and protection of adults to survive)... but I don't think most people really consider children to be inferior, just different from adults. We don't expect adult behavior from children, and aren't offended or disappointed when they act goofy or need help. Children are just children, and we're biologically programmed to fiercely protect them. Another analogue is to consider the situation of a European gentlewoman of the 18th century; women had rigidly defined roles and relatively little personal freedom, but courtly manners required men to defer to women, at least socially, to a large degree. Men had a patronizing attitude toward women, perhaps, but not necessarily a negative one.

Economy

The Loroi economy has some free market elements, but it is heavily managed by the military government. Business is considered a civilian pursuit (warriors are prohibited from engaging in commerce or owning businesses), and so profiteering is viewed with suspicion by the ruling warrior class. After the formation of the Union, the Loroi economy opened up somewhat, following more capitalistic models (provided by the Neridi and Barsam) that allowed for faster growth. But many businesses were nationalized under the martial law instituted by Greywind in 2140, so there are still a lot of restrictions on the economy.

How is war production handled for the Loroi? Are ships and such made by civilians or are they in-house projects by the state?

Manufacturing firms are civilian (or alien) companies, though many are heavily managed or outright owned by the state, especially those that are key to the war effort. Defense industries are still civilian, though with military officers heavily involved in design and specifications (as they are with our own civilian military-industrial complex).

Though the Loroi have an official currency (called the talent, worth several thousand dollars; it originated in ancient times on Deinar as a representation of the value of one year of unskilled labor), it is used mainly for high-level transactions between businesses and government entities. Most individual Loroi are members of a caste (either a warrior caste or a civilian guild), which often provides housing and other services as part of the compensation for "employment." Most caste and guild members are not paid a salary; rather, they are allocated a sort of "allowance" that is usually in a local currency or company/military scrip. Most of these currencies have some sort of tradable token that represents cash, but most transactions are virtual (as you would expect).

The various alien members of the Union also have their own currencies (or multiple currencies). Alien companies and individuals are treated as civilians under Loroi law, and so are able to engage in commerce. In some ways, alien businesses are viewed by Loroi society with more favor than Loroi civilian businesses, because they do not have the social "taint" of being failed warriors that goes along with the Loroi civilian class. As such, much of the banking and financial business in Loroi territory is handled by Neridi and Barsam firms.