Random Person wrote: Before the war, did the Loroi regularly rotate crews between line and staff positions? Not as punishment but as a way to get as many experienced and trained crews (and staff) as they could. For example, in the US military, officers basically do a tour in a line position, then a tour in a staff position, then a tour in a line position, and so on and so forth.
In peacetime fleet units, groups or individuals would compete for available slots during workups, with the best-performing group earning the right to deploy, but then that group would normally have to sit out a tour afterwards before it could be deployed again.
Random Person wrote: Do the Loroi pull successful people off the line to train replacements? You can't really do this at the upper levels (flag officers and such) since the turnover rate is pretty low with them, but at the mid or lower levels this is crucially important. In some areas it seems the Loroi are on the edge of an attritional death spiral, where experienced people are lost, so replacements don't get training and shared wisdom they need and are then lost before they can gain and spread experience.
Ideally, they would rotate people home for time off the line and to better facilitate training, but that can be difficult in some units, particularly the interdiction groups. The main "battle lines" that stay in friendly territory are often near base and have some downtime between attacks, but the interdiction groups frequently go long periods in between visits to base, during which they are resupplied in the field. It's tough to send your best people home with the supply convoy when you have to return immediately to combat and you're already short on experiened crewmembers as it is.
Random Person wrote: How expensive (in terms of percentage of GDP per unit of mass, anything without a boatload of decimal places counts) is it to get things into orbit? If it's expensive as hell you'll only pay to put your best and brightest up there. However, Outsider being rather soft it is probably not that much of an expense for them. How expensive are spaceships to build and maintain in terms of GDP? This is actually rather unimportant compared to the next one.
Getting mass into orbit is relatively cheap at this tech level; what's more significant is the cost of moving it from one star system to another. The chief recurring cost associated with a crewwoman is going to be the cost of keeping her (and the ship carrying her) supplied.
Random Person wrote:How large is the pool of willing applicants compared to the need? If you have dozens or hundreds of people qualified and eager for every slot, then you can afford to pick and choose (example, astronauts and to a lesser extent very competative universities).
In our system, the civilian economy is paramount and individual workers are free agents; the military has a difficult time competing salary-wise with the private sector for educated workers. So a large number of military recruits are poorly educated, and the civilian class division between educated and uneducated workers is mirrored in the military division between officer and enlisted ranks. This has worked reasonably well for us, but there is a (largely artificial) barrier between enlisted personnel and officers; it’s very common that a junior officer has far less experience, training, and skill than the senior NCO who is his subordinate.
In the Loroi system, the military is paramount, and the civilian economy exists almost solely to support the military. The warrior class is the “upper” class, and civilians are considered inferior and have a lower standard of living. Loroi workers are (usually) not free agents; they are educated by the state, but then become part of a caste or guild upon reaching adulthood. Low-ranking Loroi (both warrior and civilian) are a bit like interns; most are not paid a salary, but are trained and housed and fed by their employers. As a Loroi worker rises in position, she gains additional benefits and compensation (sometimes monetary, sometimes not). Guilds are often local monopolies (and the military is also a monopoly), so you can switch jobs, but it’s hard to find higher pay at the same job somewhere else.
Once a Loroi has completed warrior trials, she is part of the society’s elite, and enjoys a comparatively high standard of living, even if she never rises above the lowest rank. Unless she is dishonorably discharged for some reason, she will never "retire" into civilian life. As a warror, she may sometimes have to dig latrines and her life may frequently be in danger, but that is considered part of a warrior’s duty. If she doesn’t like it, she can choose to suffer the ignominy of demotion to the civilian class. Loroi culture is a warrior culture, instilled with warrior values from birth. Every billet on a starship is much coveted by a large number of available candidates.
Loroi warrior education does have different levels; many technical disciplines require a 4-year education similar to a college degree, and some less-technical disciplines (such as infantry) only require 2 years of training. For example, some of the Soroin you’ve seen in the comic who are wearing jumpsuits instead of armor (such as the “shoe-girl”) are 2-year-educated “Novice” Soroin, who perform mostly menial tasks. (When considering the length of Loroi secondary education, keep in mind that it begins at age 8, and so includes elements of what we would consider high school.) I haven’t classified these as “enlisted” ranks because the Loroi don’t share our concept of the class division between enlisted and officer; there is no barrier to promotion for a 2-year-educated Soroin to the same higher rank that a 4-year-educated Soroin would have, provided that she puts in the time and work and shows the appropriate aptitude. But if she does not, then like the midshipmen of the age of sail, she may stay a Novice for a very long time. (There are also specialties that require training equivalent to a postgraduate degree, but this is usually attained on the job.)
Random Person wrote: The example you use of the space program isn't that applicable, since there aren't enough people up there to warrent or even enable that kind of specialisation. If we were to put a base on the moon with hundreds or more people on it, I guarantee you that there will be a few janitors. They would be highly skilled tradesmen or technicions though, rather than licensed engineers and doctors.
The space program is an extreme example, but it’s the same basic principle. If there are a limited number of available spots, and every position is important (especially on a warship, which has large crews for the purpose of redundancy, it’s important to be able to do more than just mop floors) and very expensive to supply, and highly coveted, then it makes sense to fill that spot with the best available people. And for the Loroi, who have to pay for their warriors’ cost of living whether they are sitting at a desk or toiling aboard a starship, the crew’s “salary” is not really a significant concern. As we just discussed, in peacetime the Loroi maintained several extra crews for each starship.
And comparing the education of a midshipman to that of a doctor is a bit of a stretch.
