Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

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JQBogus
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

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What can humanity offer the Loroi? _______________.

Cards Against Humanity, Outsider edition....

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

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wasp609 wrote:i wonder if the loroi would like bacon.
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

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JQBogus wrote:What can humanity offer the Loroi?
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by dragoongfa »

Had a couple of ideas on this subject:

1st: Psychology, Psychotherapy and a telepathically 'clean' environment.

Loroi are natural telepaths and since they can't shut down their gifts they have to constantly be on their guard about individuals who have some form of mental illness; if someone suffers from a debilitating such disease they have to kill them in order to safeguard the rest of them. A Loroi goes insane? Death. A Loroi has crippling depression? Death. You get the idea.

Now, what is the only medical field that a species that can 'catch the crazy' will have left underdeveloped because it can be lethal to come in contact with patients?

You guessed it, psychology and psychotherapy.

Loroi would have better mental strength because they would be able to prop each other up telepathically but propping up doesn't help and even if they do have the medicine to 'fix' the crazy would they even go near a crazed Loroi?

What's worse with the war there are bound to be a LOT of PTSD sufferers among the ranks, according to this GURPS sheet: http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/image ... eblade.png Fireblade has the symptoms (Berserk rage, post combat shakes, talks in her sleep, uncomfortable near Seren) yes that means that if Fireblade's mental condition deteriorates the Loroi will have to put her down.

Humans have developed ways to treat PTSD, Loroi veterans would appreciate this deeply.

2nd: Superior analysts and unbiased decision making:

The other bad side of not being able to cut off the noise.

Let's take an example from our recent history:

After 9/11 a lot of the defense guys of the presidential defense cabinet were understandably angry. So angry in fact that they wanted to launch immediate missile attacks on the nations that had both the 'motive' to carry on such attacks but also a history of terrorism as a weapon, Libya, North Korea and Iran being on the top of the list. Calmer minds of the intelligence services immediately stepped in and said that they shouldn't attack someone without proof.

The angry defense guys listened to this and although angry about not immediately retaliating agreed that the collection of information as to who carried out such attacks was priority before punitive action was taken.

Now, change everyone into that room into a Loroi. The defense guys would be telepathically screaming and spreading their anger to everyone, the few that would voice their concerns would be swept by that sea of anger, adopting that anger with or without choice, and the calls for immediate retaliation would become the policy.

What's worse the Listels that would be responsible in remembering that meeting would remember that anger till the end of their lives. The anger would be long lived and the lashing out would be as well.

Am I the only one who now has a pretty grim vision on how the Imperial war room functions?

Now remember that the Loroi can immediately and automatically 'read' all other species, even the ones who have difficulty. If any member of an other species was in such a cabinet and voiced concerns the Loroi would immediately 'read' him and discredit that member's opinion based solely on that reading (cowardice, fear, being uncertain and etc.)

Humans don't have that problem and after the Loroi get used to in having someone in the room that they can't read; they will have to fully hear and comprehend the human suggestion as to the course of action.

When someone thinks about it that's what the Historians tried to do with their constructs but since they are machines the Loroi don't pay much attention to them.

Humans on the other hand not only are completely hidden but they also look exactly like the Loroi.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Siber »

Dragoongfa:
Insider wrote:Telepathy is a double-edged sword when it comes to mental illness. On the one hand, telepathy provides superior tools both to diagnose and to treat mental disorders, from developmental problems, to behavioral disorders, psychoses, and dementia due to aging. On the other hand, when such disorders are untreatable, they present a serious problem to Loroi society. The mental illness of a telepathic mind cannot be hidden behind the walls of a sanitarium, and with a subject of sufficient telepathic power, such illness can be extremely dangerous to others. The unfortunate consequence is that for Loroi with severe birth defects, brain damage, untreatable insanity or dementia, the inevitable result is euthanasia.
I don't think that implies that the Loroi have inferior understanding of psychology and psychotherapy, and I don't think it really suggests that you can 'catch the crazy' either, not in the sense of an infectious disease anyway. Psi-deaf mental health workers might have some advantages, but I doubt it'd be night and day for them.

As for the second, the two halves of your argument seem to be at odds. At first you say a war room would be swept away by emotional responses, and then you say Loroi would dismiss suggestions because they can read the emotions behind them? Loroi don't experience the thoughts sent to them as if they are their own, I'm reasonably certain there's a clear line between their own emotions and the emotions of one sending to them. Maybe the danger of echo chambers is higher for them, or maybe the higher bandwidth makes it easier to tell if someone's suggestions are rooted in reason or raw emotion and weight them accordingly. Hard to say without experiencing it first hand, or word of god.
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by dragoongfa »

Siber wrote:Dragoongfa:
Insider wrote:Telepathy is a double-edged sword when it comes to mental illness. On the one hand, telepathy provides superior tools both to diagnose and to treat mental disorders, from developmental problems, to behavioral disorders, psychoses, and dementia due to aging. On the other hand, when such disorders are untreatable, they present a serious problem to Loroi society. The mental illness of a telepathic mind cannot be hidden behind the walls of a sanitarium, and with a subject of sufficient telepathic power, such illness can be extremely dangerous to others. The unfortunate consequence is that for Loroi with severe birth defects, brain damage, untreatable insanity or dementia, the inevitable result is euthanasia.

I don't think that implies that the Loroi have inferior understanding of psychology and psychotherapy, and I don't think it really suggests that you can 'catch the crazy' either, not in the sense of an infectious disease anyway. Psi-deaf mental health workers might have some advantages, but I doubt it'd be night and day for them.

I believe that I should have put it better and that we need more insight to make any conclusions, I didn't mean to imply that they don't have the respective fields or that they are not trying to cure people. It's also obvious that with such abilities the Loroi would automatically be able to catch and most importantly PREVENT most mental disorders that plague humanity very easily. I wanted to say that due to the nature of their capabilities proper research and development of cures and procedures for full fledged mental illnesses would be severely hindered. I imagine it like not being able to breath around patients who suffer from a particular disease no matter what you do; it's a severely limiting factor.

Then there is the factor of inherent fear that the Loroi populace at large would have towards such patients; think of it like this: Everyone is uncomfortable when they are close to someone who exhibits odd and crazy behavior. Now imagine if you cannot do anything about hearing that person's thoughts. Instant social stigma and no matter of how one would be able to visually hide it everyone else would know.

Having gone through severely debilitating depression I can say that if people actively tried to avoid me due to my thought, my condition would have deteriorated. The first thing that my doctors said to do (with medication) was to begin taking care of my outside appearance and try to talk to people. Socialization helped me and it helps everyone with a treatable mental disease.

But Loroi can't do that amongst themselves, they automatically know.

The solution to the above? Socialization with humans.

In short: I am not arguing for their capability to Prevent the illness from taking place but for their ability to Cure those who have already fallen ill.
As for the second, the two halves of your argument seem to be at odds. At first you say a war room would be swept away by emotional responses, and then you say Loroi would dismiss suggestions because they can read the emotions behind them? Loroi don't experience the thoughts sent to them as if they are their own, I'm reasonably certain there's a clear line between their own emotions and the emotions of one sending to them. Maybe the danger of echo chambers is higher for them, or maybe the higher bandwidth makes it easier to tell if someone's suggestions are rooted in reason or raw emotion and weight them accordingly. Hard to say without experiencing it first hand, or word of god.
I think that I could have put it better and include Loroi chauvinism in the equation:

Think of it like mob mentality but with the ability to read other peoples thoughts; the strongest thoughts not only prevail but they become stronger, reinforced and due to the Listels they are remembered for aeons.

Now who would be able to not fall into the above type of mod mentality?

The ones that cannot read others thoughts, any one who is not a Loroi.

The problem is that the Loroi are a warrior society who believe themselves the descendants of the Soia-Lyron empire and don't waste any opportunity to flaunt it at anyone.

So species supremacist, with a tinge for mob mentality and the capability to read other peoples minds.

Mob mentality focuses on positive reinforcement of the positive view while ignoring or belittling the ones with the opposite view.

What would the Loroi response be to an alien that goes against the Loroi mob mentality? If not outright ignored, the unfortunate alien would have his thoughts read in order to discredit him as a messenger instead of trying to argue the argument; furthermore this approach would breed further positive reinforcement (The ones who disagree are cowards, afraid and etc). That's chauvinism and mob mentality working together in tandem and there are plenty of human examples to draw from.

However humans are visually identical to the Loroi and their thoughts cannot be read. They would either have to ignore the human argument or think about it despite the mob mentality kicking in.

I hope that I made myself clearer.

EDIT: Minor additions.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Breandan »

Something I haven't yet seen mentioned- human warrior traditions and capabilities, and our ability to adapt and explode technologically when pressured.

In the first case, humans have been fighting internal wars for over ten thousand years, since the earliest records of history and beyond (based on archaeological finds). We're so hell-bent on avoiding wars in the Western world these days because we are so very, very good at it now. If humanity was let of the chain and told to clear the benches, they would do damage normally reserved for KT-event-level asteroid strikes. Having fought in third world regions in three wars, I can also tell you that the primitive aspect is less of a hindrance than you would think. Humans can be some cunning, creative and deadly creatures with primitive tools, and would likely be hands-down some of the galaxy's most notorious and effective asymmetrical warfare fighters. I know from personal and painful experience. I won't speak for Arioch, it's his universe, but based on what I have seen thus far I'd say the humans would be able to offer the Loroi some seriously nasty guerrilla fighters and tactics.

In the second case, think about this- humanity started the 20th century with horse-and-buggy being the norm, primitive nascent automobile technology, and powered flight still being science fiction. We ended it in space, nuclear-armed, having created sparks of antimatter, developed fusion, directed energy weapons (trust me, if you knew what DARPA had developed by the 90s it'd blow your socks off), advanced medicine, and the internet. Two world wars and half a century of Cold War wang-measuring drove part of that, human innovation and prosperity drove the rest. Imagine what we could do with just a few shreds of Loroi technology in under a decade. And, back to the first case, we would probably weaponize it in ways they would never have imagined.
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by dragoongfa »

Breandan wrote:Something I haven't yet seen mentioned- human warrior traditions and capabilities, and our ability to adapt and explode technologically when pressured.

In the first case, humans have been fighting internal wars for over ten thousand years, since the earliest records of history and beyond (based on archaeological finds). We're so hell-bent on avoiding wars in the Western world these days because we are so very, very good at it now. If humanity was let of the chain and told to clear the benches, they would do damage normally reserved for KT-event-level asteroid strikes. Having fought in third world regions in three wars, I can also tell you that the primitive aspect is less of a hindrance than you would think. Humans can be some cunning, creative and deadly creatures with primitive tools, and would likely be hands-down some of the galaxy's most notorious and effective asymmetrical warfare fighters. I know from personal and painful experience. I won't speak for Arioch, it's his universe, but based on what I have seen thus far I'd say the humans would be able to offer the Loroi some seriously nasty guerrilla fighters and tactics.

In the second case, think about this- humanity started the 20th century with horse-and-buggy being the norm, primitive nascent automobile technology, and powered flight still being science fiction. We ended it in space, nuclear-armed, having created sparks of antimatter, developed fusion, directed energy weapons (trust me, if you knew what DARPA had developed by the 90s it'd blow your socks off), advanced medicine, and the internet. Two world wars and half a century of Cold War wang-measuring drove part of that, human innovation and prosperity drove the rest. Imagine what we could do with just a few shreds of Loroi technology in under a decade. And, back to the first case, we would probably weaponize it in ways they would never have imagined.
As a proponent of Humanity Fuck Yeah and an amateur military historian, I agree completely but this is a double edged sword in sci-fi settings.

The two very common mistakes made with the above approach is that a lot of writers write humans as too GOOD at war or too pacifist.

We will never know the truth about human capabilities in an interstellar setting without actually going out there. For all we know Earth could be considered a death world and we could be the perfect war fighting species. Remember the various big and scary species in various sci-fi settings? we may be them and the only way to find out is to go out there and see for ourselves.

For good storytelling however we would have to find a middle ground; it comes to reason to believe that humanity would abandon Total war because war with nukes is suicidal, however peripheral conflicts still happen and we haven't lost that tinge for violence and we probably never will. Let's analyze this further.

If we are suddenly thrown out there and we run into an old empire the problems that we will face are best summarized in the two following categories:

1) Technological gap.
2) Experience gap.

1: Technology, self explanatory. We may be thousands of years behind in tech capabilities and our war making could well suffer for it.
2: Experience, self explanatory. War among the stars would be different to what we have fought until now, we will have to learn it from scratch but our past experiences would allow us to catch up quickly if trained.

From what I have seen so far the main problem of humanity in outsider are the above two gaps and humanity cannot fill them before having to fight. (That's what imho makes Outsider's story intriguing BTW).

How to fill the tech gap: Tech trading and capturing of derelict stuff for reverse engineering, in the Outsider universe humanity has reversed engineered the Orgus freighter and is starving for tech, if humans run into anything worthwhile they will certainly stop everything else to get it back to Earth. Now it comes down to the Loroi (or the Umiak, the story is not told yet) if they give us some tech to fill the gap.

How to fill the experience gap: Training and combat experience. Combat experience is out of the question because there would be almost no survivors in any engagement the way the TCA ships are now and it's doubtful that ships that can survive an engagement will be produced before humanity has to fight.

That leaves training and I got a hunch that Stillstorm will provide it.
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Breandan »

I was thinking more ground-based combatants, as naval warfare is generally more about the tech and training. That being said, experience with Afghani tribesmen (both as allies AND enemies) has given me an insight into how one effectively fights a guerrilla war against technologically superior foes. A willingness to take significant casualties, a dose of crazy (seriously, they went fishing with surplus RPG rounds... Ghilji tribesmen are a wee bit off their rocker), cunning use of the enemy's reliance on technology against them, capturing and repurposing such tech, ambush tactics, use of psychological warfare (which may be less effective against the Umiak, granted), and just flat out grinding them down with constant harassment and attrition-based warfare are core to every single insurgency or guerrilla warfare campaign in Human history. We can play at being nice, but back humans into a corner and history has shown we can be savage, brutal, cunning little hairless monkeys. Just ask the Soviet Union who- unlike the Coalition forces- didn't hold back in A-stan and still had to bow out at the end. From what I've seen of the Outsider universe, in space we're pretty much floating targets. On the ground, I'd say humans could well be valuable asymmetrical warfare assets the Loroi could benefit from. Arioch decides in the end, of course, so we will have to wait and see :D
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I'm pretty sure that Alex is going to get the chance to show how clever humans can be, in spite of their being behind the curve in tech level. That being said, the humans and the Loroi are pretty closely comparable, in both physical aspects and a lot of mental ones as well. The Loroi's early warrior training is pretty much guerrilla tactics in the wilderness.

((Also, if I recall correctly from various things said on the forums from days gone by, that Fireblade may actually be a guerrilla warfare expert, having some actual real life experience in that matter. But don't quote me on that.))

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Mr.Tucker »

Finally, a non-WWII discussion !! :D

The Loroi have a long history of conflicts as well. What humanity has, however, is a far greater experience in DIPLOMACY. Whereas all the races of the Union veer to one side radically (high beligerence and, ahem, manifest destiny from the Loroi, extreme pacifism from the Neridi, Barsam, Golim and Historians) humans seem flexible. Probably due to the extremely varied historical political systems and a long and winding history of wars and peace treaties. I'd speculate that since the humans look so similar to the Loroi, the other Union races would be careful around them. And the Loroi themselves seem uncomfortable around a species they cannot predict or cow easily. The Humans' main problem is that they need more time. The Humans' main advantage is that they seem UNIQUELY suited to buying time through clever bantering.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Voitan »

dragoongfa wrote:
If we are suddenly thrown out there and we run into an old empire the problems that we will face are best summarized in the two following categories:

1) Technological gap.
2) Experience gap.

1: Technology, self explanatory. We may be thousands of years behind in tech capabilities and our war making could well suffer for it.
2: Experience, self explanatory. War among the stars would be different to what we have fought until now, we will have to learn it from scratch but our past experiences would allow us to catch up quickly if trained.

From what I have seen so far the main problem of humanity in outsider are the above two gaps and humanity cannot fill them before having to fight. (That's what imho makes Outsider's story intriguing BTW).

How to fill the tech gap: Tech trading and capturing of derelict stuff for reverse engineering, in the Outsider universe humanity has reversed engineered the Orgus freighter and is starving for tech, if humans run into anything worthwhile they will certainly stop everything else to get it back to Earth. Now it comes down to the Loroi (or the Umiak, the story is not told yet) if they give us some tech to fill the gap.
Just how much of a gap is there between jump technologies amongst the various intergalactic species?

I'd wager not much to be of any significant consequence, or the gap there is the most narrow amongst all of them.

I say humanity should skip the conventional real-space/time warfare, and go for FTL-Jump weaponry.

Make FTL-jump torpedoes that instantly drop into vulnerable enemy territory and obliterate them upon entering real space.

And the positive side effect to the story is that no doubt we'd awaken/free something from ex-infernis.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

While both of the major powers have technology that can handily obliterate planets, successfully jumping into an enemy system and hitting a target is going to be really tricky.

Doing some quick back of a napkin calculations, if the Loroi were to ram a Scimitar Mk3 Heavy Cruiser (350 kt deadweight) into a planet at 10% the speed of light, the resulting explosion would be just shy of 750 gigatons.

Naturally, I suspect that any such attempt by an enemy would get blown up long before it reached its target, unless the system was uncontested.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Mr.Tucker »

icekatze wrote:hi hi

While both of the major powers have technology that can handily obliterate planets, successfully jumping into an enemy system and hitting a target is going to be really tricky.

Doing some quick back of a napkin calculations, if the Loroi were to ram a Scimitar Mk3 Heavy Cruiser (350 kt deadweight) into a planet at 10% the speed of light, the resulting explosion would be just shy of 750 gigatons.

Naturally, I suspect that any such attempt by an enemy would get blown up long before it reached its target, unless the system was uncontested.
Agreed. I'm also under the impression that most of the ship-building facilities are either in space (orbital hangars/shipyards) or on airless moons. Lack of atmosphere makes even a 750 gigaton impact less effective (just an earthquake unless directly hit; no blast; maybe falling debris depending on distance from impact site). That's IF said projectile manages to get through the barrage of defensive fire (and they'd be seen and anticipated the moment they jumped into the system. No stealth in space ). Orbital facilities can move, making them hard to hit with kinetic weapons that have to accelerate from half a system away.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

Lack of an atmosphere certainly helps, but 750 gigatons is not going to be just an earthquake. For reference, the 9.5 on the Richter scale, Valdivia earthquake (1960) was about 2.7 gigatons. But it is certainly less energy than the Chicxulub crater event.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Twinkee »

I like the diplomacy angle... a human with blue makeup and idiom training could pass as loroi no?

Shakespearean Caste yay

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by Mr.Tucker »

Twinkee wrote:I like the diplomacy angle... a human with blue makeup and idiom training could pass as loroi no?

Shakespearean Caste yay
Except our ''Loroi'' would be awfully mentally quiet...

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by RedDwarfIV »

Mr.Tucker wrote:
Twinkee wrote:I like the diplomacy angle... a human with blue makeup and idiom training could pass as loroi no?

Shakespearean Caste yay
Except our ''Loroi'' would be awfully mentally quiet...
And other races would know this?

I'm assuming they're not posing as a Loroi to talk to the Loroi, but to provide diplomatic services between the Loroi and other races without those races knowing they're actually talking to humans.


Though I must say, I'm not sure what the point of such a misdirection would be. Then again, other races might take a 'Loroi' more seriously than those backwards humans that stumbled into a warzone and got themselves blown up.
If every cloud had a silver lining, there would be a lot more plane crashes.

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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by GeoModder »

RedDwarfIV wrote:
Mr.Tucker wrote:
Twinkee wrote:I like the diplomacy angle... a human with blue makeup and idiom training could pass as loroi no?

Shakespearean Caste yay
Except our ''Loroi'' would be awfully mentally quiet...
And other races would know this?
Well, the first Barsam Jardin met could tell in an instance.
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Re: Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

Post by RedDwarfIV »

GeoModder wrote:
RedDwarfIV wrote:And other races would know this?
Well, the first Barsam Jardin met could tell in an instance.
Touche.
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