Arioch wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 8:16 am
I think maybe part of it is because (understandably) many people look at Outsider as if it was an RPG or strategy game setting ("Loroi are OP!"), and partly because popular Scifi has spoonfed everyone settings like Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Stargate in which Humanity is not the most technically advanced, yet somehow we're always in charge of everything, our enemies have better technology than we do but are somehow really stupid, and those ultra-tech aliens who occasionally drop by to pat us on the head and humble us never seem to be around when the galaxy is in trouble.
In addition to this problem (i.e. a tendency towards viewing things through a Grand Strategy lens, perhaps due to the persistent popularity of '4X' style sci-fi games) I suspect people aren't fully accounting for the implications of the strategic situation as a whole. If human civilization was relatively small
or at a steep tech disadvantage, it'd be an excellent "underdog" setup for a Grand Strategy style story. But humanity is both small
and hopelessly out-tech'd. In science fiction stories like this, humanity's survival typically hinges on asymmetric advantages derived from unusual origins, such as powerful cultural forces. The "Halo" series is a good example of a thoughtful and effective implementation of this. Just because technology is inherited doesn't mean that those inheriting are stupid or arrogant enough to decline truly mastering the knowledge - indeed, mastery would be
required in any scenario falling short of a full technical database being discovered. (Christopher Columbus couldn't reverse-engineer a nuclear submarine but possession of such would accelerate his entire species's scientific advancement considerably nonetheless, starting with the metallurgy of the deckplates.) Halo's universe attributes it to religion - and not just an arbitrary religious edict, but a fundamental tenet of a religion responsible for unifying a plurality of sapient species into a stable and unified polity. For Halo's "Covenant," pursuing a more fundamental understanding of the theory behind their technology bears
existential risks. (This is also the source of the entire story/series plot's instigating incident.) "Stargate" is another solid example; in which modern-day humanity's ability to resist a much more advanced, galaxy-spanning alien empire owes chiefly to the titular technology itself; built by a precursor race whom intelligently sized their wormhole portals adequately for shipping containers but wholly incapable of transporting military forces en-masse short of infantry walking into an easily-covered killzone (and as the series itself demonstrates, tech disparities are least significant at infantry scale.) These two examples are emblematic of how "hopelessly outclassed humanity" is handled in the science-fiction current generations are familiar with.
Hence the confusion - not only does the personal focus of the story de-emphasize the background strategic situation (as it should) to the point that it doesn't possess "glowing neon clue-bat" obviousness, but sci-fi readers are just accustomed to "crammed cosmos" settings with multiple species preferring a focus on fundamental differences (for reasons ranging from thoughtful exploration of truly alien species to lazy "planet of hats" writing. Proud Warrior Race Guy etc.) The "4X" influenced, ironically, should be more sensitive to your narrative solution but tend to be blinded by the vast asymmetry of starting positions (anathema for games despite being integral to fiction.) Thus you have an unusual number of people missing the blatant strategic "realpolitik" answer -
a species too small and backwards to pose any threat whatsoever is also hardly worth the effort to attack for major polities in a deadlocked existential conflict.
Humanity's situation is dire indeed - not only is the species's entire "fleet" numerically equivalent (and tonnage inferior) to a major combatant's single small frontier squadron, but a single light warship of any major combatant could easily destroy that entire fleet without taking damage in anything approaching an engagement on even terms. By the same token, however, none of the major combatants would have much to gain by attacking humanity - slaves are of little use to people trucking around with antimatter drives, given the level of automation they likely possess; all of humanity's heavy industry is built upon a hopelessly outdated tech base, etc. Indeed, the danger to humanity (as far as their current in-story intel would suggest, if I read it right) lies in someone deciding to conduct such depredations "while they're there" due to the ease of it while pursuing other objectives - as illustrated by humanity being in danger of discovery primarily because of aggressive scouting efforts to find new travel routes to bypass defended front-line systems.
Like the aforementioned examples, your setting has a reason for humanity having a shot at survival that is so strong it is fundamental to the underlying premise - and one visible from reading the story itself, without having to be told the hobbit analogy. To wit; if you have A. a bunch of sapient species that lucked into tons of ancient technology from precursor civilizations to reverse-engineer and B. they have no fundamental cultural or psychological forces preventing them from doing due diligence in mastering said technology, then C. they are almost
certainly going to point their shiny new rayguns at their neighbors, who
also have shiny new reverse-engineered rayguns, and proceed to zap the ever-loving daylights out of each other. That the Space Elves™ were fighting interstellar wars while humanity was still fighting on horseback sounds majestic and awesome until you account for interstellar war posing an existential threat to a species that some guys on big animals with pointy sticks just can't muster. Even at our most fractious and genocidal, the worst long-term consequences of intra-species war tends to be acceleration of technology development (necessity etc.) whereas for inter-species war defeat doesn't simply mean a different faction of your species becomes top dog, but that your entire civilization could be erased from existence with your cratered husk of a home-world as your tombstone. This is a rather steep price to pay for the massive head-start in technological development, enough so that it probably goes a long, long way towards explaining how humans went from armored knights charging each other on horseback during the High Middle Ages to torch-ships and laser cannons in the same timeframe it took the Loroi to go from fusion-torchships to antimatter drives. Even accounting for the sharp climb of the technological difficulty curve, that still suggests growing up in a neighborhood littered with
discarded shotguns of precursor wizards was not fun. When you consider the massive barriers between
alien species as compared to those between factions of the same species, it's clear that cross-pollination/percolation of information in inter-species, inter-stellar war will be greatly reduced compared to intra-species war. The Loroi and everyone else, from their star-faring epoch, have been trapped in a thunder-dome of the precursor species's (inadvertent) making. The other races may be inclined to view
humans as the lucky ones, comparatively. "Your closest brush with existential destruction was a series of wars and standoffs that took you from your first heavier-than-air flight to your first landing on your own moon in less than one lifetime? Wow. Sounds nice. I bet we could have achieved similar leaps if we hadn't been occupied preventing multiple angry alien species from incinerating our entire civilization from the cosmos with ionized pillars of fire from the heavens. But yeah, ICBMs, sounds rough dude."
Undoubtedly some of what I've said isn't completely accurate to the story (told or untold), much less it missing the fundamental point of what
kind of story it is. But
even then, for those concerned with such things, it should be obvious that humanity's inability to contest even a small alien fleet is counter-balanced by the powerful disincentives for aliens to
commit a small fleet to a pointless target when every hull is desperately needed to hold off a powerful and equally-matched enemy. This is the situation of which good stories are made; where desperate ruses, noble sacrifices and ingenious, hasty improvisation can save the day. This is obvious if one appreciates that "getting a Terran cruiser into mass-driver range of a single Umiak scout-ship" could indeed save the day - or at least buy six months for someone else to do it by other means, which is functionally identical. Just because this story is about Benjamin Franklin working his diplomatic magic in Great Powers territory (right down to his popularity with the ladies, ahem,) doesn't mean that Washington's useless or his struggles in vain. Or to borrow the LOTR analogy, just because the armies of Mordor hopelessly outmatched the good guys didn't mean that Gandalf and Aragorn banging on the Black Gate and daring Sauron to come out and tussle if he thought he was hard enough was pointless. A similar setup in this story is neither implied nor necessary, but those presuming it to be
entirely precluded on the basis of what we've seen so far have, in my humble opinion, neglected to factor in the consequences of both sides in the war being very, very busy with
each other.
Apologies for the tl;dr but I found your background setting details to be remarkably thorough, thoughtful and hard sci-fi justifiable, so I just wanted to say that you have clearly done nothing wrong.