Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Keklas Rekobah]

Do not get me wrong; I am not seeking a loophole in the "No Human-Loroi Hybrids" OWOG statement.

I am only curious how far you may have gone in establishing Loroi biology.  Certainly, the corporeal level is well-formed (pun intended).  But the cellular and sub-cellular levels are left vague -- purposely, no doubt.  Too much detail may bog down the story.

As an example of what I am trying to get at, birds, some fishes, reptiles and even some invertebrates undergo sex determination by the ZW method.  Here the males are homogametic (ZZ) and the females carry two different sex chromosomes (ZW).  Occasionally the W chromosome can be completely absent, such as in some species of butterflies, and ZO develop into females.  In others, the presence of a W chromosome isn’t even necessary for the development into females.

There is no need to get that deep into Loroi biology; but I am curious, so if you ever come up with a plausible schema, please post it.

[Arioch]

Due to the large amount of time that has passed since I started working on the story, there are all kinds of details that are not strictly necessary for the story that I have worked out, mainly for my own amusement. Many of them will never make it into the story, but sometimes it can be useful to have such things in your arsenal. I never intended to work out the Trade language to the levels of detail that it currently has, as things like grammar are really unnecessary since we don't really have conversations going on in Trade, but here we are. I've heard that some actors work out very detailed backstories for characters that they're going to play, so that they can be ready for "spontaneous" unscripted moments during a performance. One of the strange things about being a comic artist is that you're not just the writer and director, but also the actor for every character, so actors' techniques can sometimes be useful.

The issue with things like sex determination strategies is that they heavily depend on details at the cellular or even molecular level, and that's getting into insane levels of detail for a fictional exobiology. Soia-Liron biochemistry might not use chromosomes or even DNA for its genetic system, so one would need to build an alien biochemistry from scratch, and since the S-L mechanisms are supposed to be next-level in capability and efficiency, that's a tall order. I follow a number of content creators who build fictional alien biomes, but they usually work with form and function; I've never seen one go that deep into cellular mechanisms.

[Keklas Rekobah]

 
Now ↑THAT↑ I can wrap my head around!

It is enough to say, "They make babies" without explaining how their babies are made.

[Hālian]

OWOG

uwu

Now ↑THAT↑ I can wrap my head around!

It is enough to say, "They make babies" without explaining how their babies are made.

As a fellow worldbuilder, strong agree.

[Bamax]

I presume that even though the largest land animal is a pig, which forced Loroi early on after the Fall no doubt to rely on large manual labor crews (likely slavery) in the total absence of labor animals that could haul anything, sea animals can and do get large.

Talon said as much in her short comment about fishing.

[Keklas Rekobah]

OWOG

uwu

“OWOG” = “Outsider Word Of God” = A direct statement from Arioch explaining something about the Outsider webcomic.

Now ↑THAT↑ I can wrap my head around!

It is enough to say, "They make babies" without explaining how their babies are made.

As a fellow worldbuilder, strong agree.

I prefer the Traveller UWP system over the GURPS system, but that may just be a matter of taste.

[Arioch]

I presume that even though the largest land animal is a pig, which forced Loroi early on after the Fall no doubt to rely on large manual labor crews (likely slavery) in the total absence of labor animals that could haul anything, sea animals can and do get large.

Talon said as much in her short comment about fishing.

I don't know of any human cultures that have successfully used whales or large fish as pack or draft animals.

On Taben, the Loroi hunt the leviathans and other sea creatures for food and resources, but they're not domesticated. And such things didn't exist on Deinar.

[Roeben]

How about a large terrestrial soft shelled crab as a draft animal? Maybe they do something funky to keep the claws from growing too large.

[Bamax]

How about a large terrestrial soft shelled crab as a draft animal? Maybe they do something funky to keep the claws from growing too large.

"Too slow... look like shells, them is good eating though."

-Talon (what she would probably say to this).

[Arioch]

There aren't any large arthropods on Taben, but even if there were, you can't just grab a random animal out of the wild and expect that it will do work for you.

Animals have very specific requirements for domestication: they must have some kind herd/pack/social behavior that you can exploit to control them, and they have to have an appropriate temperament to be handled and to breed in captivity. An example that's often brought up is the question of why zebras were never domesticated in Africa, even though they're very closely related to horses; there are probably multiple reasons, but the most obvious one is that they're extremely skittish, ornery animals. Elephants are intelligent enough to be trainable, but they don't breed in captivity and have to be captured from the wild as juveniles, which limits the scale on which they can be used, and the degree to which they can be domesticated. You can't use selective breeding to improve a trait if the animal won't breed in captivity or doesn't have the trait you want in the first place.

[Werra]

Hm, do American zoos not have a breeding program for elephants? Since the 2000s German zoos seem to have stopped taking elephants from the wilds. One of these cows had 17 calves.

[Arioch]

Hm, do American zoos not have a breeding program for elephants? Since the 2000s German zoos seem to have stopped taking elephants from the wilds. One of these cows had 17 calves.

I believe they use artificial insemination. That's probably not a technique available to cultures at a technological level that would benefit from animal labor.

[Demetrious]

Due to the large amount of time that has passed since I started working on the story, there are all kinds of details that are not strictly necessary for the story that I have worked out, mainly for my own amusement. Many of them will never make it into the story, but sometimes it can be useful to have such things in your arsenal.

I have a 2,000 word appendix on economies of scale inherent to aneutronic fusion reactors hidden away somewhere just in case someone asks "how can you justify 1,000 ton supertanks in the far-flung future?"

Strictly speaking, not necessary for the story, but essential to shut up my own personal brain gremlins.

[gaerzi]

Animals have very specific requirements for domestication: they must have some kind herd/pack/social behavior that you can exploit to control them, and they have to have an appropriate temperament to be handled and to breed in captivity.

Yeah but when you're a fantasy species with telepathic powers, you can probably waive some of these requirements with a few Jedi mind tricks.

Like I could easily imagine that during their more primitive stages, the loroi could have had a "beast tamer" caste dedicated to exploiting wild animals as beasts of burden, mounts, or whatever. Perhaps without the animal husbandry side, though -- after all if you rely on psionic powers to control the animal, you're not really taming it and teaching it tricks. You can release it when you're done and catch another one the next time you need one.

An example that's often brought up is the question of why zebras were never domesticated in Africa, even though they're very closely related to horses; there are probably multiple reasons, but the most obvious one is that they're extremely skittish, ornery animals.

So are horses. The main reason zebras weren't domesticated is that we had domesticated the horse first. Some people have actually tamed zebras, but by and large since they did not have had the thousands of generations of selective breeding with humans empirically attempting to create a race more useful to them, the only reason one could have to want to ride a zebra instead of a horse is eccentricity or a love of challenge.

Also nowadays it's generally frowned upon to attempt to domesticate wild animals. I heard plenty of stories of people getting fined because they had tamed a fawn or a boar or whatever. (Shooting these animals for meat is perfectly fine, domesticating them is not. Go figure.)

[Bamax]

Animals have very specific requirements for domestication: they must have some kind herd/pack/social behavior that you can exploit to control them, and they have to have an appropriate temperament to be handled and to breed in captivity.

Yeah but when you're a fantasy species with telepathic powers, you can probably waive some of these requirements with a few Jedi mind tricks.

Like I could easily imagine that during their more primitive stages, the loroi could have had a "beast tamer" caste dedicated to exploiting wild animals as beasts of burden, mounts, or whatever. Perhaps without the animal husbandry side, though -- after all if you rely on psionic powers to control the animal, you're not really taming it and teaching it tricks. You can release it when you're done and catch another one the next time you need one.

An example that's often brought up is the question of why zebras were never domesticated in Africa, even though they're very closely related to horses; there are probably multiple reasons, but the most obvious one is that they're extremely skittish, ornery animals.

So are horses. The main reason zebras weren't domesticated is that we had domesticated the horse first. Some people have actually tamed zebras, but by and large since they did not have had the thousands of generations of selective breeding with humans empirically attempting to create a race more useful to them, the only reason one could have to want to ride a zebra instead of a horse is eccentricity or a love of challenge.

Also nowadays it's generally frowned upon to attempt to domesticate wild animals. I heard plenty of stories of people getting fined because they had tamed a fawn or a boar or whatever. (Shooting these animals for meat is perfectly fine, domesticating them is not. Go figure.)

Wild animals are NOT domesticated even when you try to.

Some animals are more suited for domestication whereas others are more... wild and unpredictable.

Look no further than chimpanzees that go berserk even after living with humans for years.

That is why laws are against even trying to domesticate.

Wild animals cannot be fully trusted.

[Arioch]

Yeah but when you're a fantasy species with telepathic powers, you can probably waive some of these requirements with a few Jedi mind tricks.

Like I could easily imagine that during their more primitive stages, the loroi could have had a "beast tamer" caste dedicated to exploiting wild animals as beasts of burden, mounts, or whatever. Perhaps without the animal husbandry side, though -- after all if you rely on psionic powers to control the animal, you're not really taming it and teaching it tricks. You can release it when you're done and catch another one the next time you need one.

Fair point -- and that's essentially what the Perrein wormhandlers are. However, sori aren't large enough to ride or pull drafts. They were used for various utility purposes, like bloodhounds or truffle hogs.

In the "present," with access to dozens of worlds with native life, there's now a wide variety of potentially domesticate-able animals, but by the time you develop starflight, you don't have a lot of need for pack animals.

An example that's often brought up is the question of why zebras were never domesticated in Africa, even though they're very closely related to horses; there are probably multiple reasons, but the most obvious one is that they're extremely skittish, ornery animals.

So are horses. The main reason zebras weren't domesticated is that we had domesticated the horse first. Some people have actually tamed zebras, but by and large since they did not have had the thousands of generations of selective breeding with humans empirically attempting to create a race more useful to them, the only reason one could have to want to ride a zebra instead of a horse is eccentricity or a love of challenge.

Sub-Saharan Africa didn't have horses until the industrial age. One of the most compelling explanations for why places like southern Africa lagged so far behind Europe and Asia is that they didn't have access to the same animal and plant resources, horses being an important one.

From what I understand, Neolithic Eurasian nomads herded horses primarily for food alongside cattle and sheep for a long time before they learned to ride them, and I think it's quite likely that selective breeding over that time helped make that possible. But as far as I'm aware, no African tribes were able to do the same with zebras, and you can't selectively breed animals if they won't breed for you, so you have to be able to get to the first stage before you can move farther down the road to domestication. There's a big difference between having a pet zebra and having a captive breeding population of zebras.

[Demarquis]

Also, be careful not to confuse "trainable" with "domesticated." The first is a psychological trait, the second is a form of economic utility. Tigers are trainable, but not domesticated. Chickens are domesticated, but not very trainable.

'Course, there are some animals that are both.

[Hālian]

Now ↑THAT↑ I can wrap my head around!

It is enough to say, "They make babies" without explaining how their babies are made.

As a fellow worldbuilder, strong agree.

I prefer the Traveller UWP system over the GURPS system, but that may just be a matter of taste.

I'm not familiar with GURPS' system for making planets, but Traveller's UWP is nice and elegant. I generally worldbuild for its own sake, though.

[Arioch]

I'm not familiar with GURPS' system for making planets, but Traveller's UWP is nice and elegant. I generally worldbuild for its own sake, though.

GURPS doesn't really have one, to my knowledge.

[Keklas Rekobah]

GURPS (3e) Space, chapter 10 “Stars & Worlds”, pp146-164, is a decent guide for world-building, and chapter 11 is a useful guide for constructing civilizations.