Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thread

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Arioch
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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Arioch »

Corvids and parrots are pretty smart compared to any animal.

For opportunistic, omnivorous corvids the benefit of intelligence is pretty obvious, and not that dissimilar from primates. In the case of parrots, I think the brainpower needed for their mimicry leads to them being smarter than is strictly necessary for their eating habits. In a similar that brainpower needed for their color display/camouflage makes octopuses and cuttlefish smarter than is strictly necessary for a mollusc.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

If metacognition is the bar we're using, then our sample size for the discussion is exactly 1. Not a very good number to make generalizations from.

Maybe some day, scientists will find a foolproof way of testing metacognition in animals, but for now, it is still hotly contested. None of the experiments done to date that provide supporting evidence have a high degree of certainty that the results aren't caused by low-level mechanisms.

There are lots of things that can cause pressure towards intelligence, everything from competing for mates and demanding child rearing to simple genetic drift when food is plentiful.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by harlequin2262 »

icekatze wrote:hi hi

If metacognition is the bar we're using, then our sample size for the discussion is exactly 1.
That isn't really true. Or at very least, we have strong indications to doubt it. In any case, Grey African Parrots aren't sapient, and they certainly aren't intelligent compared to humans.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

As far as I know, the only animal that was given the Smith, Shields, and Washburn test with forced and unforced choice discrimination, and didn't show a difference was pigeons. Every other animal that's been tested passed, including rats. Western Scrub-Jays have passed tests that are supposed to suggest metacognitive ability. But a lot has been said about how it is impossible to get a high degree of confidence on metacognition with simple tests, and to date, no one has been able to communicate with any animal via language to ask them.

Metacognition in animals - how do we know that they know, J. Jozefowiez, J. E. R. Staddon, D. T. Cerutti

Metacognition in animals, Jonathon D. Crystal, Allison L. Foote

Hint-Seeking Behaviour of Western Scrub-Jays in a Metacognition Task, A Watanabe et al.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by cacambo43 »

Not that this it isn't necessarily FASCINATING, but can we take the firearms discussion to another thread?

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Arioch »

I split the weapons discussion to this thread: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... f=4&t=2290

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by cacambo43 »

Arioch wrote:I split the weapons discussion to this thread: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... f=4&t=2290
Thanks, Arioch.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by CF2 »

How likely are the Umiak to expand into Human space if they win this war with the Loroi, given the fact previous empires regarded it as not worth colonizing?
Could it be regarded as a refuge for the Loroi, or would the Umiak search all neighboring space in a genocidal hunt for any remnants or secret colonies?
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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Arioch »

CF2 wrote:How likely are the Umiak to expand into Human space if they win this war with the Loroi, given the fact previous empires regarded it as not worth colonizing?
Could it be regarded as a refuge for the Loroi, or would the Umiak search all neighboring space in a genocidal hunt for any remnants or secret colonies?
There are too many hypotheticals there to give a definitive answer, but... if the various parties knew there were inhabited worlds beyond the Great Wasteland, it would change their strategic view of the region.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by D1ff3r3nt »

Arioch wrote:
CF2 wrote:How likely are the Umiak to expand into Human space if they win this war with the Loroi, given the fact previous empires regarded it as not worth colonizing?
Could it be regarded as a refuge for the Loroi, or would the Umiak search all neighboring space in a genocidal hunt for any remnants or secret colonies?
There are too many hypotheticals there to give a definitive answer, but... if the various parties knew there were inhabited worlds beyond the Great Wasteland, it would change their strategic view of the region.
To be honest I am a bit curious about the "Great Wasteland" Do they know that there is nothing of value there or is it more of, "well we looked and did not see much around so there probably is nothing worth going after"? Perhaps Humanity is sitting on a resource gold mine and no one else knows because they have no bothered to look.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by CF2 »

D1ff3r3nt wrote:To be honest I am a bit curious about the "Great Wasteland" Do they know that there is nothing of value there or is it more of, "well we looked and did not see much around so there probably is nothing worth going after"? Perhaps Humanity is sitting on a resource gold mine and no one else knows because they have no bothered to look.
Well, we know that the previous regional empire had located earth and sampled its species (thus the existence of the Loroi), so it seems likely that if there were a treasure trove of valuable resources in the area they likely plundered it and moved on. The only real exception to that appears to be the Earth itself, which is a very habitable world by our standards and those of the Loroi too I'd imagine. Yet a lone habitable world far from galactic trade lanes and the inhabited parts of their empire would have made for a lonely frontier colony at best, and an unprofitable venture at worst.
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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Jayngfet »

I think the biggest indicator of how useful the other groups view earth is probably based on how useful they are to a species that's only a few steps behind. I.E. Humanity.

Remember that there's only two other life bearing worlds in human space, and they aren't overly habitable or advanced, even to a species who's one advantage over most others is they can just throw bodies at a problem due to population. But you can't throw bodies at an issue of a thin to nearly nonexistant gravity well, or an atmosphere that just won't work for you, or the fact that there just aren't a lot of valuable minerals to mine on these planets to begin with, and most of that has no one click fix with the tech the other groups have.

Hell, based on the scale of what's available, half the human colonies wouldn't even be worth it with the level the Historians are at.

EDIT: I did a bit more reading and it's even less useful. With no less than three precursors who could just make or renovate planets to be far more habitable than ANY of the human colonies, there really doesn't seem to be much use in investing in this region of the galaxy, except maybe academic curiosity.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by GeoModder »

Jayngfet wrote:Remember that there's only two other life bearing worlds in human space, and they aren't overly habitable or advanced, even to a species who's one advantage over most others is they can just throw bodies at a problem due to population. But you can't throw bodies at an issue of a thin to nearly nonexistant gravity well, or an atmosphere that just won't work for you, or the fact that there just aren't a lot of valuable minerals to mine on these planets to begin with, and most of that has no one click fix with the tech the other groups have.

Hell, based on the scale of what's available, half the human colonies wouldn't even be worth it with the level the Historians are at.

EDIT: I did a bit more reading and it's even less useful. With no less than three precursors who could just make or renovate planets to be far more habitable than ANY of the human colonies, there really doesn't seem to be much use in investing in this region of the galaxy, except maybe academic curiosity.
On the other hand, there are 3 habitable worlds within a mere dozen lightyears of eachother (in the current epoch, probably not back in the Soia era).
In that light, I'd say its more surprising scouts haven't found at least another one somewhere on the edge of the explored region of human space.
Unless as stated in the "Humanity in 2160" Insider read, the 82 Eridani passage really is the only feasible route out of Humanity's relatively isolated bubble of space.

Which brings me to a question:
Arioch, is 82 Eridani the only feasible way out of Human space because of Humanity's limited space-faring technology (ship&supply endurance), or is it because there literally aren't other viable jumproutes out of its explored bubble (no other safe 'connections' with stars outside the explored region).
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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Arioch »

There are other routes leading deeper into the Great Wasteland.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Absalom »

That... sounds strategically (super-strategically?) interesting to the Loroi.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Sweforce »

For stuff humanity and others can do and they Soian's and other precursors have done I suggest taking a look at these two futurists work.

Isaac Arthur's channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipe ... Ujx6grh54g

John Michael Godier's channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEszlI ... U8LSAiRbDg

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by GeoModder »

It seems the Umiak force entering Leido from the Rallis jump zone knows the outbound trajectories for further jumps deeper into Loroi territory.

Was the Leido Crossroads system earlier in the war contested territory, Arioch? In other words, they already have a stellar map of the area.
Or is it for the Umiak and Loroi a piece of cake to determine probable jump zones minutes after arrival in an unknown system?
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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Arioch »

GeoModder wrote:It seems the Umiak force entering Leido from the Rallis jump zone knows the outbound trajectories for further jumps deeper into Loroi territory.

Was the Leido Crossroads system earlier in the war contested territory, Arioch? In other words, they already have a stellar map of the area.
Or is it for the Umiak and Loroi a piece of cake to determine probable jump zones minutes after arrival in an unknown system?
Jump vectors are calculated based on the masses and relative locations of the stars; the closer you are to the stars in question, the more accurate your measurements will be, but stars can be observed with significant accuracy from a great distance.

However, the Umiak have been here before. Most of the current Loroi front line (including Leido and Azimol) was in Umiak hands prior to the Semoset offensive in which the Loroi pushed the lines back to more or less where they are today. There was also some limited commerce between the two sides prior to the war, in which both sides had access to navigational data provided by friendly third party traders.

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by entity2636 »

While we are patiently waiting for the next update and activity on the forum has decreased (it appears that the length of Page discussion threads is an indicator to when it's time for the next Page - when it reaches 4+ forum pages, everything has been chewed up and over and it's time for an update), I have a question for Arioch and something the others can theory craft on.

How do the Neridi feel about the current state of the Umiak war and the state of the Union in general? Are they pleased with how the Loroi navy and administration are handling things, or not so much? Can there be Neridi factions who are not pleased with everything and might be pressuring the Loroi to "step it up" or even look for third party solutions to the war? If I understand the map correctly, most of the action now is happening near or in the Neridi part of the Union and their nation have suffered a lot from the war already and as far as the official Union position is concerned, not taking latest developments near Azimol into account, nothing's about to improve anytime soon.

The idea I would like to throw in for discussion is, has anyone considered a possible Neridi involvement into the Leido invasion?

I know the general state of opinion is to blame the Historians for the destruction of the Bellarmine based on two sentences spoken by Tempo and their VI, but that's kind of too obvious. As far as I understand, the bulk of the Umiak fleet came through Neridi operated checkpoints and another fleet is already inside Union (Neridi) space and we haven't seen any Neridi on screen, aside from the Leido traffic controller (may he rest in peace).

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Re: Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thre

Post by Arioch »

entity2636 wrote:How do the Neridi feel about the current state of the Umiak war and the state of the Union in general? Are they pleased with how the Loroi navy and administration are handling things, or not so much? Can there be Neridi factions who are not pleased with everything and might be pressuring the Loroi to "step it up" or even look for third party solutions to the war? If I understand the map correctly, most of the action now is happening near or in the Neridi part of the Union and their nation have suffered a lot from the war already and as far as the official Union position is concerned, not taking latest developments near Azimol into account, nothing's about to improve anytime soon.
There is widespread unease throughout the Union about the current stalemate, but there is also awareness that things could be (and recently were) much worse. Greywind is under significant pressure to go on the offensive, but mainly from internal Loroi groups.

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