fredgiblet wrote:Has anyone ever seen a live Historian?
Yes, but they are not seen often. There have been interspecies conferences in which the rules required that delegates attend in person, and in these cases small numbers of live Historians have been seen. But they did not seem to engage much in conversation or debate during these functions; the constructs conducted most of the public business. In particular, the Historians gave the Loroi delegates a wide berth.
Victord_D wrote:And a supplement question: how powerful are they, really? We know their technology is ahead of that of most (if not all) races, but not so superior that it can't be overcome with sheer numbers. Are they an absolute unknown in terms of the size of their territory, population, military strength, etc., or do at least the Loroi have *some* intel on that?
Loroi intelligence estimates that the Historians are somewhere in
Tech Level 12; the Historian drives appear to be completely reactionless (whereas the Loroi/Pipolsid Floater drive just uses inertial damping tricks to reduce the amount of reaction mass required). More than that is not known; the TL11 schematics given to the Loroi were clearly not first-line Historian tech, and the Loroi were able to observe very little of the Historian vessels in direct combat. There are some baseline estimates as to Historian fleet strength based on what was observed during the initial Umiak invasion when Loroi ships were briefly in Historian territory, but the Loroi are aware that these are just guesses. At the time of the Historian counterattacks in late 2140, there were no Loroi vessels present (having been cut off with the loss of Seren). There are no estimates at all on Historian population sizes, as no Alliance people have ever made landfall on a Historian planet (the Umiak, who captured several Historian systems, presumably know more, but they aren't telling what they found).
Where Historian territory begins is well-delineated by treaty; it's right on the other side of the
Seren Corridor. It's not certain exactly how far it extends, but since it abuts the edge of the Pleiades Bubble (a region of increased gas density, massive stars and stellar remnants), it is presumed that the territory does not extend very far beyond what is known.
VictorValor wrote:How do the more conventional combat castes view the Mizol?
Internal Affairs/Military Police/Secret Police are rarely well-liked by the rank and file, but the Mizol do at times participate in direct action alongside other troops, and so their abilities are well-respected.
VictorValor wrote:Among the warrior castes, how well do the combat and support castes get along?
Most of the combat is ship-to-ship, in which all crewmembers share the same risk of death regardless of their function, so there is not much distinction in this regard.
VictorValor wrote:You've said that non-loroi members of the Loroi Union aren't allowed to have independent militaries, only self-defense forces. Does this mean that the Loroi forbid any participation of non-Loroi members in even the Union Military, or does the Loroi Union have "foreign" units like the colonial regiments and foreign legions of the colonial empires of old, or do they have something like the Warsaw Pact in which it is a multinational force that is ultimately dominated and controlled by the Loroi?
There is no prohibition against non-Loroi being part of the Union Military, but the nature of Loroi warrior culture means that they don't collaborate well with non-Loroi, so there are few non-Loroi in combat roles. The other members do not have military fleets beyond police and patrol vessels. Many members (such as the Barsam) have substantial ground armies, but these are considered defensive (and not in much demand in the current stage of the conflict). Barsam, Neridi and Pipolsid vessels involved in the war effort are used in support roles (transport, communication, reconnaissance).
Jericho wrote:Come to think of it. Do we know how Greywind became emperor? I know it was a controversy but is it a secret even among the loroi? And i'm not talking about what written in the insider seems to me that there is something missing there.
After her predecessor was killed in action, Greywind was elected by the Diadem, and then had to put down a coup attempt immediately after. The leaders of the coup alleged that Greywind and her Mizol contacts somehow deliberately planned to get Emperor Eighth Dawn killed by somehow manipulating intelligence data during the battle. If they had any such proof of these allegations, we'll never know (as Greywind's side won), but the telepathic rumor mill considers the story to be without much merit; it is well known that the coup leaders were Greywind's political opponents, old-guard admirals who were offended by the breach of the unwritten rule that the Emperor should be chosen from line admirals and not staff officers, and who were backed by wealthy civilian magnates who stood to lose a lot in under the martial law they knew Greywind would implement. Exactly what sort of deals might have gone on behind closed doors at the highest levels of power is not the sort of information that is readily available to the general populace.