Couple questions

[fredgiblet]

1. Do the Loroi issue medals to soldiers for notable acts?

2. Does Trade have concepts for "Good" and "Evil" that would map to anything like the concepts for those words in English? Would the statement "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Be translatable in anything close to an accurate form?

[Razor One]

My guess would be "Yes" and "Yes" to both.

Praise for soldiers, even warriors, inspires confidence and high morale. When someone from your platoon, squad, or regiment gets a medal (or similar item of recognition) recognising their valour, courage and heroism in the heat of battle, it vicariously raises the morale of everyone they meet or have met... even if you hate their guts it feels good to know you have a recognised hero fighting alongside you.

Likewise, the old adage "Praise in public, punish in private" would go alongside this.

[CptWinters]

Praise for soldiers, even warriors, inspires confidence and high morale. When someone from your platoon, squad, or regiment gets a medal (or similar item of recognition) recognising their valour, courage and heroism in the heat of battle, it vicariously raises the morale of everyone they meet or have met... even if you hate their guts it feels good to know you have a recognised hero fighting alongside you.

I think the question behind this (if I may put words in fredgiblet's mouth) is not whether awards and medals improve a military, but whether they are seen as useful in the Loroi military--which is another thing entirely. Awards only have meaning if the actions they denote are exceptional. And thus, if "heroic" actions become the rule, rather than the exception, the worth of medals significantly decreases. It would be my guess that if the Loroi do award medals for valor, they would be few and far between, and only for truly remarkable circumstances. More likely, promotion to better units/higher commands take the role of recognition for worth in combat.

[Ktrain]

Since this is an unspoiled question thread, I had my own unrelated query.

Since the Soia-liron species have a biochemestry different than humanity's, what are the biochemestries of the Umiak and other species like? Are they similar and use the same DNA/protein structures or are they unique or is there a mix.

Another question, since biochemestries differ so much between Humans and Loroi, what is Alex going to eat because it is unlikely that both species derive sustenance from the same things (because proteins and enzymes are what break down carbohydrates/Loroi equivalent)?

[GeoModder]

Another question, since biochemestries differ so much between Humans and Loroi, what is Alex going to eat because it is unlikely that both species derive sustenance from the same things (because proteins and enzymes are what break down carbohydrates/Loroi equivalent)?

This is a universe where entirely different species handle the same atmospheric mix. I'm pretty sure something similar is going on for belly sustenance.

... More likely, promotion to better units/higher commands take the role of recognition for worth in combat.

If Stillstorm is an example, that doesn't automatically turn out to be the case. She's a reknown commander, but still stuck at her post since we don't know how long (IIRC, it has something to do with bad political choices/opinions).

[captainsmirk]

... More likely, promotion to better units/higher commands take the role of recognition for worth in combat.

Promotion is not necessarily a good reward for success in combat, there are numerous examples throughout history of men who whilst brilliant (or at least effective) when in charge of a certain size of unit proved unsuited to higher command and rapidly became out of their depth when promoted to higher positions. Success at a given level is not a guarantee of suitability for higher command.

Also many medal awards within human militaries are for acts of bravery or sacrifice (note how many have been posthumous) for which promotion is not a practical reward.

If Stillstorm is an example, that doesn't automatically turn out to be the case. She's a reknown commander, but still stuck at her post since we don't know how long (IIRC, it has something to do with bad political choices/opinions).

She is I believe politically opposed to the current Emperor (or possibly the entire imperial system...)

[Arioch]

1. Do the Loroi issue medals to soldiers for notable acts?

There are personal honors and citations, but they don't usually take the form of physical medals that are worn on uniforms. There are a few special insignia that may be painted onto a ship's hull or a unit's combat armor, but these tend to be unit citations rather than individual honors. They are intended to impress the enemy, rather than one's peers.

2. Does Trade have concepts for "Good" and "Evil" that would map to anything like the concepts for those words in English? Would the statement "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Be translatable in anything close to an accurate form?

Yes, Trade has a variety of words that could be used to translate that passage. If you are asking specifically about Loroi culture however, the passage above is steeped in Judeo-Christian/Muslim beliefs that the Loroi do not share (that evil is a living entity with a will of its own personified by a "Satan," and that mortal man is tainted by "Original Sin" and is therefore inherently corrupt). The Loroi mostly view good and evil in terms of "right and wrong", or rather "correct and incorrect" in terms of societal norms; this is, after all, a society for whom war is considered normal. The Loroi concept that could most closely be identified with our concept of evil is related to the word for "decay" and refers to corruption or descent into madness. "Triumph of evil" might be translated as "triumph of the enemy."

The Barsam concept of evil is as the absence of good, in the way that darkness is the absence of light, so for them evil literally is when good people do nothing. They would assume that "triumph of evil" is a metaphor (as the Barsam religious tales have villains who oppose the believers, but not an actual Satan).

Since the Soia-liron species have a biochemestry different than humanity's, what are the biochemestries of the Umiak and other species like? Are they similar and use the same DNA/protein structures or are they unique or is there a mix. Another question, since biochemestries differ so much between Humans and Loroi, what is Alex going to eat because it is unlikely that both species derive sustenance from the same things (because proteins and enzymes are what break down carbohydrates/Loroi equivalent)?

The question of biochemistry usually comes up around the question of reproductive compatibility, and in that sense alien biochemistries are always going to be incompatible, even if they are very similar. Humans are accustomed to thinking of life in terms of other Earth organisms that evolved from the same primordial ancestors; the basic life processes of almost all Earth organisms are the same, and use the same genetic code base, and if you spliced genetic code from an oak into human, it would do something (though perhaps nothing beneficial). Alien organisms evolve from different primordial ancestors, and may use the same or similar chemical building blocks, but the systems that organize them are almost certainly going to be very different. I'm not a biochemist and so I'm not prepared to invent a working alien system; I don't know whether there are chemical alternatives to DNA, or whether DNA is likely to be in every kind of self-replicating organism. But even if an alien system does use DNA as a code system, the code itself would be different; splicing an alien code segment into a human is unlikely to have meaningful, predictable effects (like splicing LISP code into a C program).

That said, the Soia-Liron system is very similar to Earth's chemically. Most of the intelligent species in the story (including the Soia-Liron) are "carbon-based" life forms that are built of the same basic chemical blocks. The processes that make these systems work will probably have significant differences, especially at higher levels of organization, but basic elements such as amino acids, proteins, sugars and carbohydrates are likely to be common to all such systems. Alien foods that contain these basic elements can be nourishing as long as they don't contain substances that are outright poisonous, though how well such foods are handled by the digestive system will be a matter requiring some experimentation.

Every alien species that evolved on a separate world will have a separate code base. Many will be very similar, having evolved in similar conditions. Some will be notably different, such as the Golim who evolved on a high-gravity, high-pressure "super-earth" where concentrations of even normal elements can become toxic to most organisms. Most of the intelligent species are similar enough to exist in the same Loroi-standard environment with minimal life support (the Golim and Pipolsid being notable Union exceptions), and many are similar enough to be able to sample alien foods. The Nissek ambassador in particular shares stories of exotic eating habits ("the only way to truly understand one's enemy is to taste his flesh.")

The exceptions to the local evolutionary rule are the three biochemical systems left behind by each of the three ancient interstellar empires. The Morat and Delrias share the same ancestor, and so the same world of origin and the same genetic code base, and there are a few other organisms from the same homeworld that were spread around the region during their empire. The Dreiman empire did a lot of large-scale terraforming, and so there are still descendants of the introduced microorganisms that they used on many planets, though it will be many millions or even billions of years before these evolve on their own into more complex forms. And, of course, the Soia-Liron species that are found across the region (both intelligent species and a variety of domestic plants and animals) also share the same system.

[Karst45]

My guess would be "Yes" and "Yes" to both.

Praise for soldiers, even warriors, inspires confidence and high morale. When someone from your platoon, squad, or regiment gets a medal (or similar item of recognition) recognising their valour, courage and heroism in the heat of battle, it vicariously raises the morale of everyone they meet or have met... even if you hate their guts it feels good to know you have a recognised hero fighting alongside you.

Likewise, the old adage "Praise in public, punish in private" would go alongside this.

I think they are more likely to get trophy than medal. wonder if stillstorm have a predator wall in her personal quarter

[CptWinters]

If Stillstorm is an example, that doesn't automatically turn out to be the case. She's a reknown commander, but still stuck at her post since we don't know how long (IIRC, it has something to do with bad political choices/opinions).

So she's not really a good example, is she?

Promotion is not necessarily a good reward for success in combat, there are numerous examples throughout history of men who whilst brilliant (or at least effective) when in charge of a certain size of unit proved unsuited to higher command and rapidly became out of their depth when promoted to higher positions. Success at a given level is not a guarantee of suitability for higher command.

Also many medal awards within human militaries are for acts of bravery or sacrifice (note how many have been posthumous) for which promotion is not a practical reward.

Note what military we aren't discussing. I said nothing about the role of medals in the human military. I only offered speculation as to what the Loroi would see as a fitting award for valor in combat. Promotion or transfer to different/more prestigious commands (in general) would seem to reflect the professional respect of one's peers. I think that is a far more likely avenue for the Loroi to reward excellence than a bit of ribbon and a pat on the back.

[GeoModder]

... The Nissek ambassador in particular shares stories of exotic eating habits ("the only way to truly understand one's enemy is to taste his flesh.")

Can't wait to NOT meet them...

So she's not really a good example, is she?

If you know of another example, please point me to it.

[captainsmirk]

Promotion is not necessarily a good reward for success in combat, there are numerous examples throughout history of men who whilst brilliant (or at least effective) when in charge of a certain size of unit proved unsuited to higher command and rapidly became out of their depth when promoted to higher positions. Success at a given level is not a guarantee of suitability for higher command.

Also many medal awards within human militaries are for acts of bravery or sacrifice (note how many have been posthumous) for which promotion is not a practical reward.

Note what military we aren't discussing. I said nothing about the role of medals in the human military. I only offered speculation as to what the Loroi would see as a fitting award for valor in combat. Promotion or transfer to different/more prestigious commands (in general) would seem to reflect the professional respect of one's peers. I think that is a far more likely avenue for the Loroi to reward excellence than a bit of ribbon and a pat on the back.

I see your point, I was just saying that promotion isn't always a logical reward for something, in any effective military you want people who are suited to their position in command. Just because someone is very brave/valourous doesn't make suited to more senior command. Especially as within the Loroi military taking up senior command can mean changing caste.

As it is within Loroi front line units combat attrition seems to mean that people end up in positions of command above their rank anyway (Nova being an obvious example) so they probably don't have the luxury of being enormously picky.

[Mayhem]

That said, the Soia-Liron system is very similar to Earth's chemically. Most of the intelligent species in the story (including the Soia-Liron) are "carbon-based" life forms that are built of the same basic chemical blocks. The processes that make these systems work will probably have significant differences, especially at higher levels of organization, but basic elements such as amino acids, proteins, sugars and carbohydrates are likely to be common to all such systems. Alien foods that contain these basic elements can be nourishing as long as they don't contain substances that are outright poisonous, though how well such foods are handled by the digestive system will be a matter requiring some experimentation.

One possible variation in the basic elements is molecular chirality.

It could be amusing if Soia-Liron biochemistry had the alternate chirality to our biochemistry.
It would mean their natural food stuffs would be relatively harmless but tasteless and mostly non-nutritious but unfiltered vat produced nutrition (that may make up a part of emergency rations) would probably work as chemical processes (without biological processes and enzymes) produce molecules of both chiralities.

So at an Ambassadorial banquet everyone else would be eating fine cuisine and Alexander would be stuck with a bowl of vat gunk.

[Karst45]

I think that is a far more likely avenue for the Loroi to reward excellence than a bit of ribbon and a pat on the back.

i can see why

[Aygar]

If Stillstorm is an example, that doesn't automatically turn out to be the case. She's a reknown commander, but still stuck at her post since we don't know how long (IIRC, it has something to do with bad political choices/opinions).

Wasn't she the primary rival to Greywind for the emperorship?

--Aygar

[Mjolnir]

It could be amusing if Soia-Liron biochemistry had the alternate chirality to our biochemistry.
It would mean their natural food stuffs would be relatively harmless but tasteless and mostly non-nutritious but unfiltered vat produced nutrition (that may make up a part of emergency rations) would probably work as chemical processes (without biological processes and enzymes) produce molecules of both chiralities.

So at an Ambassadorial banquet everyone else would be eating fine cuisine and Alexander would be stuck with a bowl of vat gunk. :)

Unfortunately, chemistry doesn't quite work that way. Substances of the wrong chirality can have the same taste but be biologically unusable (several sugars), others can have dramatically different taste (spearmint vs. caraway, L-carvone and D-carvone) or be poisonous.

Vat-produced food probably would be designed to have the proper chirality for the Loroi biochemistry. At best, otherwise would be very inefficient. There might be better than even chances of the chirality matching ours, if there's some cosmological bias toward one chirality...like ionizing radiation that preferentially affects one chirality.

[icekatze]

hi hi

I always wondered why life on Earth doesn't use both right and left. Seems like there ought to be some explanation.

[Solemn]

I always wondered why life on Earth doesn't use both right and left. Seems like there ought to be some explanation.

It's been a few years and a lot of drinks since I paid money to learn about biology, and I haven't really paid much attention to it since then except when NASA decided to embarrass itself, but from what I remember:

--RNA does everything and is wonderful.
--RNA only makes things of the same chirality as the nucleotide it codes from. Whether the thing it's making is a bit of DNA, a huge protein complex, another bit of RNA or whatever, it won't change the chirality.
--A nucleotide of the opposite chirality as the rest of the RNA chain will act as a terminator; it won't code, it will just stop the RNA from doing anything, and thus will not get copied into the DNA or protein or whatnot. So if you start coding with one chirality, and then hit a spot with an opposite chirality, the result isn't a product of mixed chirality, it's a shortened monochiral product.

Since DNA is sorta kinda mostly a long-term RNA storage bin, and all your polypeptides and proteins are the product of various RNA processes, and RNA can't store opposite-chirality bits as DNA or use them to make proteins or whatever, a living creature that works on the same sort of RNA basis as Earth-life is pretty much going to be monochiral unless it was genetically engineered, and even then, it's still questionable whether that could really work out because you'd have to build the damn thing so as to read both levo- and dextro- bits independently and also make sure that there are none of the weird sorts of interactions you can sometimes get--sometimes opposite-chiral proteins are actually toxic because they get one sort of protein interaction but not another and blah blah blah--and I think it really wouldn't be worth it for a huge variety of reasons.

Though if your question is why there are not life forms on Earth that use the opposite chirality for all of their systems rather than some of them, I think the answer is the Founder Effect and a shared origin and ancestry for all Earth life. There are many who disagree, and some who claim that there are probably RNA-based life-forms without ribosomes or DNA which live on Earth with opposite-chirality chemistries, because most of our ways of looking for life forms involve looking for ribosomes or DNA and most of the rest involve microscopy, so we could've missed something without DNA. So the argument there is that all DNA-based life forms on Earth have a common heritage, but that there could be different chiralities within RNA-based life forms within this very world and we wouldn't know.

That's how I remember it, at least. I've been wrong before and will be wrong again.


I have a question, too, but I'm not really sure how to word it properly.
We've seen Loroi written words featured fairly prominently so far. It's been in the tapestry of Tempest, on signs in the Tempest's hallways, and, of course, on computer stations.
My question is, about how lettered is Loroi society? Is writing important to them? Do they have a sense of literary aestheticism, or any sort of tradition of written language as art? Would the common Loroi enjoy reading a book? Or is writing pretty much solely functional to them?
I'd think their telepathy would really damage the perceived artfulness of non-telepathic language, but, if writing isn't an art form to them, why is it integrated into an actual work of art in the form of the tapestry?

[fredgiblet]

Wasn't she the primary rival to Greywind for the emperorship?

I don't remember ever seeing anything like that. She doesn't agree with Greywind's politics and her status makes her opinion carry weight, but I don't think she was a candidate. I don't know for sure though.

I have a question, too, but I'm not really sure how to word it properly.
We've seen Loroi written words featured fairly prominently so far. It's been in the tapestry of Tempest, on signs in the Tempest's hallways, and, of course, on computer stations.
My question is, about how lettered is Loroi society? Is writing important to them? Do they have a sense of literary aestheticism, or any sort of tradition of written language as art? Would the common Loroi enjoy reading a book? Or is writing pretty much solely functional to them?
I'd think their telepathy would really damage the perceived artfulness of non-telepathic language, but, if writing isn't an art form to them, why is it integrated into an actual work of art in the form of the tapestry?

Started writing a bunch, then I found this:

Loroi written literature would be pretty much strictly nonfiction.

[NOMAD]

Oh solum, you beat me too it

Well I did some research and got this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness.

it has some theory bu the basis is that their are many hypotheses and theories as to the cause, but not definitive answers. But that won;t stop this forum member now will it

[Solemn]

@fred

That sorta doesn't answer the question, though.
Ulysses S. Grant's autobiography was a best-seller and Will Durant's The Life of Greece was a great read, but I wouldn't inflict the average VCR manual on my worst enemy.
All three are different forms of written nonfiction. The last of those three is in pretty much every modern Westerner's home, the other two are actually worth looking at, and one is a narrative art form.
But I'd think Grant's autobiography would, to the Loroi, fall squarely within the realm of telepathic tales, rather than the sort of thing that you'd write down, because a thing like an autobiography relies a lot on relaying the savor and feeling of events, for which telepathy would be vastly superior to writing.
The Life of Greece would be the sort of thing that I'd think would be supplemented with telepathy, if not reliant on it, but instruction in history and such would still go a lot better if the written portion was reserved for the things most in danger of being forgotten rather than the things that make a history book the most interesting.

That leaves the VCR manual.