Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[icekatze]

hi hi

The implications that humans have for Loroi beliefs are rather profound, and I suspect that a lot of them will not be willing to believe his authenticity because of that alone, to say nothing of the other unusual coincidences. However, there is a certain level of pragmatism that one must display during war. To paraphrase a saying, "2 + 3 can equal 7 when you're dealing with politics, but when you're building a warplane, it has to equal 5 or they'll fall out of the sky." If the Loroi ever reach Earth, a whole planet full of humans would be much harder to dismiss.

This does make me wonder about one thing: Is the aversion to using speech more pronounced in the military caste than the civilian castes? Stillstorm and the information in Insider have used a lot of references to speech in the context of combat, but I could see a lot of practical uses in the civilian sector, especially if the military tends to get dibs on the powerful telepaths. Might those Loroi who do work in the sciences, or those who are involved in record keeping for example, be more used to using speech to convey information?

[fredgiblet]

One of the central problems that will likely come up in the comic is that the Loroi have partially built their empire on the idea that they are favored children of the Soia, and one of the ways they promote that is the idea that THEY were created out of whole cloth (and thus possibly in the Soia's image?) while the rest of the races were made off of templates or evolved. Humans being around will disprove that idea.

This does make me wonder about one thing: Is the aversion to using speech more pronounced in the military caste than the civilian castes? Stillstorm and the information in Insider have used a lot of references to speech in the context of combat, but I could see a lot of practical uses in the civilian sector, especially if the military tends to get dibs on the powerful telepaths. Might those Loroi who do work in the sciences, or those who are involved in record keeping for example, be more used to using speech to convey information?

Pretty sure it's the inverse, if you're in the military you have to know how to speak in case you need to use radios or the like whereas a civvie may never need to need to use speech at all.

[icekatze]

hi hi

I don't know of Loroi civilians participate in ritualized combat that much, where speech is seen as a way of avoiding telepathic attacks. And anyways, there are lots of ways that radios have civilian purposes. Everything from distributing weather reports to keeping traffic moving smoothly. I can only assume that civilians have access to some forms of transportation, and are not simply living their whole lives within walking distance of their house.

[Hālian]

hi hi

I don't know of Loroi civilians participate in ritualized combat that much, where speech is seen as a way of avoiding telepathic attacks. And anyways, there are lots of ways that radios have civilian purposes. Everything from distributing weather reports to keeping traffic moving smoothly. I can only assume that civilians have access to some forms of transportation, and are not simply living their whole lives within walking distance of their house.

(1) Boxing/MMA/some other combat sport has to be a thing in the Loroi Union.
(2) Arioch has said that they have AUTOMOBILES, and presumably PLANES and TRAINS as well.

[Arioch]

Athletic competitions, especially those that involve fighting, are traditionally limited to the warrior class. If you want to keep your subservient worker class in line, it's probably not a good idea to teach them how to fight.

Is the aversion to using speech more pronounced in the military caste than the civilian castes? Stillstorm and the information in Insider have used a lot of references to speech in the context of combat, but I could see a lot of practical uses in the civilian sector, especially if the military tends to get dibs on the powerful telepaths. Might those Loroi who do work in the sciences, or those who are involved in record keeping for example, be more used to using speech to convey information?

Most Loroi use telepathy or written language to communicate whenever possible. They only use speech when the other two forms of communication are inadequate, such as the pilot or commander of a craft that must communicate at long range in real-time, and can't take her eyes off what she's doing to read a text message. Most Loroi not involved in such professions have poor verbal skills; they can understand some spoken language and speak when called upon, but not well. Civilians are not forbidden from developing their language skills, and some civilian professions might require it (there are, for example, civilian pilots), but the majority of civilians have little use for speech. A scientist would write a paper, or give a telepathic presentation.

In urban areas, most Loroi (both military and civilian) do not own private vehicles, and instead use public transportation. Many Loroi (who often aren't paid a salary) have limited financial means, and personal vehicles are strictly regulated (remember -- cars can fly). In rural areas where such vehicles are necessary, civilian pilots must be accredited and need the same radio skills that a military pilot would have. On a civilian train, the engineer probably requires such radio skills, but information is passed to the passengers on video screens and by telepathy (sent from the engineer and relayed through the conductor). Because of the telepathic element, many jobs that humans have relegated to machines are still performed by live Loroi.

[Zakharra]

One of the central problems that will likely come up in the comic is that the Loroi have partially built their empire on the idea that they are favored children of the Soia, and one of the ways they promote that is the idea that THEY were created out of whole cloth (and thus possibly in the Soia's image?) while the rest of the races were made off of templates or evolved. Humans being around will disprove that idea.

That's a very good point. There's also the fact the mental shield humans have seems to be the only effective block against the Loroi's telepathic powers. Almost like it was specifically designed to prevent a human from being mentally probed..
/queues conspiracy music

[Mr Bojangles]

To paraphrase a saying, "2 + 3 can equal 7 when you're dealing with politics, but when you're building a warplane, it has to equal 5 or they'll fall out of the sky."

This is an awesome saying.

(remember -- cars can fly)

Do humans have finally have flying cars? It's not really the future without them.

More on topic, but I imagine that Loroi cities must be comparatively quiet versus human cities. Besides typical machine noise, there wouldn't be any of the vocal background we'd expect. I think that would be something I'd like to experience.

Even more on topic, I imagine the question of humanity would be a very concerning one to the Loroi. As has already been pointed out, we kind of fly in the face of Loroi supremacy as a "chosen and special" species. And with a Barsam and a Historian ready to spread the knowledge of Alex, I predict that he'll have an - interesting - future.

[Zakharra]

What sort of music do the Loroi listen to? Just instrumental? Strings, percussion, horns? Any singers? Do they enjoy other races music?

[GeoModder]

I was curious as to the ways the Loroi use to train their aspiring psychokinetic warriors. Can anyone think of any ways that you would train psychokinetic abilities to increase skill?

Use a lotai'd human?
The human presumedly can't be sensed beforehand if hidden, so the aspiring warrior needs to learn to 'tune' a proper response quickly on sight, not telepathic sense.

[Arioch]

I was curious as to the ways the Loroi use to train their aspiring psychokinetic warriors. Can anyone think of any ways that you would train psychokinetic abilities to increase skill?

I think they would probably do the same sorts of things that children do to increase their manual dexterity -- stack blocks, toss balls, etc.

What sort of music do the Loroi listen to? Just instrumental? Strings, percussion, horns? Any singers? Do they enjoy other races music?

The Loroi have a wide variety of musical styles and instruments that vary depending on the local sub-culture, but what most of them have in common is that there is not a vocal element. The few that do have a vocal element don't use actual words, and the vocals are "shouts" more than singing. And yes, they do sometimes listen to alien music, so the idea of music with words would not be a complete shock to them.

[Zakharra]

I been trying to imagine the larger battles and was wondering, when the fleets do meet, is the antimissile/fighter defense of the heavies and superheavies something like what you see in this vid? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwkYaxk ... x8-8qALLOw The close in point defenses the Galactica and Pegasus put out is phenomenal. Is that an accurate depiction of what a space battle of the Outsider universe would be if it was done by cgi? How maneuverable are the space ships/fighters? Can they turn fast?

[Arioch]

I been trying to imagine the larger battles and was wondering, when the fleets do meet, is the antimissile/fighter defense of the heavies and superheavies something like what you see in this vid? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwkYaxk ... x8-8qALLOw The close in point defenses the Galactica and Pegasus put out is phenomenal. Is that an accurate depiction of what a space battle of the Outsider universe would be if it was done by cgi?

Not really. BSG is a milieu that's focused on fighters; a very small number of very large carrier ships batter each other with comparatively weak projectile and missile weapons at extremely close range and at very low relative velocities, and fighters play a major role in the outcome. Outsider is a milieu that's focused on capital ships, in which a very large number of large ships sling comparatively powerful beam weapons and torpedoes at each other from very long range and at fairly high relative velocities, and fighters do not play a major role in the outcome.

That said, thousand-on-thousand-ship battles will get pretty busy.

How maneuverable are the space ships/fighters? Can they turn fast?

They're very maneuverable, but in space combat, no matter how high or low your acceleration is, if you accelerate toward the enemy at maximum for 15 minutes, it will take another 15 minutes to cancel that acceleration out. There are going to be a lot of situations in which the combatants zip past each other at very high speed.

[Zakharra]

I been trying to imagine the larger battles and was wondering, when the fleets do meet, is the antimissile/fighter defense of the heavies and superheavies something like what you see in this vid? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwkYaxk ... x8-8qALLOw The close in point defenses the Galactica and Pegasus put out is phenomenal. Is that an accurate depiction of what a space battle of the Outsider universe would be if it was done by cgi?

Not really. BSG is a milieu that's focused on fighters; a very small number of very large carrier ships batter each other with comparatively weak projectile and missile weapons at extremely close range and at very low relative velocities, and fighters play a major role in the outcome. Outsider is a milieu that's focused on capital ships, in which a very large number of large ships sling comparatively powerful beam weapons and torpedoes at each other from very long range and at fairly high relative velocities, and fighters do not play a major role in the outcome.

That said, thousand-on-thousand-ship battles will get pretty busy.

*nods* I can see that. Hot and heavy at range and real brutal when it gets into knife distance like the Umiak seem to like doing.

How maneuverable are the space ships/fighters? Can they turn fast?

They're very maneuverable, but in space combat, no matter how high or low your acceleration is, if you accelerate toward the enemy at maximum for 15 minutes, it will take another 15 minutes to cancel that acceleration out. There are going to be a lot of situations in which the combatants zip past each other at very high speed.

So no real maneuverable fighters or warships like what is commonly seen on TV shows and movies. Outsider takes things like physics, mass , velocity and such into account That's a realistic view to take for Outsider. I like it. It means battles are slugfests, but everything isn't just run up and start firing at point blank range with shotguns loaded with double aught buckshot.

[wasp609]

are the loroi's shields oscillating or just linear. as in do the slap away force or just stop it dead.

[TechnoHooligan]

Do Loroi use DNA or something similar as their genetic material?

Apologies if this has already been answered.

[Arioch]

are the loroi's shields oscillating or just linear. as in do the slap away force or just stop it dead.

Ideally the defensive screens will deflect an incoming attack. If the attack penetrates the screens, they will absorb some of the energy of the attack, though this often overloads the screen generators.

Do Loroi use DNA or something similar as their genetic material?

The Loroi either have DNA or something similar; however, even if it is DNA, Loroi genes are not compatible with human genes.

[UnoriginalUsername]

Athletic competitions, especially those that involve fighting, are traditionally limited to the warrior class. If you want to keep your subservient worker class in line, it's probably not a good idea to teach them how to fight.

You know, this raises an interesting question for me. We know the Loroi are not allowed to imbibe mind altering substances and there are a slew of other limitations placed on Loroi activity. Just how authoritarian is Loroi society? How much of Loroi activities does the state regulate and control, and how do they enforce such restrictions? Could we possibly make a comparison between Loroi society and one from Earth?

I mean, they are quite literally capable of fielding thought police...

[Arioch]

You know, this raises an interesting question for me. We know the Loroi are not allowed to imbibe mind altering substances and there are a slew of other limitations placed on Loroi activity. Just how authoritarian is Loroi society? How much of Loroi activities does the state regulate and control, and how do they enforce such restrictions? Could we possibly make a comparison between Loroi society and one from Earth?

I mean, they are quite literally capable of fielding thought police...

Resist the urge to compare the Loroi to everyone's favorite German police state. Loroi society is sharply divided into a military ruling class and a civilian underclass; closer analogies in Earth history would be medieval Japan, or classical Sparta, or the castes of Vedic India. Within the military class of course there are a lot regulations, as there must be in any military (being drunk on duty is also a crime in our own armed services, for obvious reasons). Regulation of civilians is much less strict. There are high-level rules that keep the civilians within a social box, but beyond that, the Loroi government has very little interest in policing the everyday behavior of individual civilian Loroi. Civilian institutions exert control over civilians through means other than direct force: social pressure (enhanced through telepathy), employment pressure (if you engage in destructive or antisocial behavior, you probably won't keep your job), and "religious" pressure (the Nedatan order offers counseling that is part spiritual and part psychological, and provides the Powers That Be with feedback on the mindset of the populace). Those Loroi civilians who fall through the cracks of this system into the (military-run) criminal justice system are often dealt with harshly, but they are comparatively few in number.

[Hālian]

How prevalent are slang and cursing in Trade? and what are some common examples of each?

[wasp609]

what would a curse sound like in trade anyway.