Page 220: Clearing the Path

[QuakeIV]

Legitimately I think the loroi would pretty much let us do our thing in relative peace (probably would require the dissolution of the tiny space fleet) and the bugs would probably enslave all of us.

[wolf329]

The fact the Orgus ran into humans from the opposite side of the Umiak expansion shows Sol may be a path to a flanking movement by the Loroi Union. I think that's the main thing humans offer at this point.

[avatar576]

The fact the Orgus ran into humans from the opposite side of the Umiak expansion shows Sol may be a path to a flanking movement by the Loroi Union. I think that's the main thing humans offer at this point.

Well, by the same token, the Umiak could do the same. So in this regard, each side has a vested interest in keeping humanity from aligning with the other.

On the other hand, it would be a really, really wide flanking movement. It took Bellarmine two months to reach the Naam system from Earth. That means two months for a Loroi fleet to reach Human space, and presumably another two months to reach Umiak space from there. I'm not so sure the Loroi (or the Umiak) could spare the resources for such a massive maneuver that's going to take four months just to reach the edge of enemy territory. In that timeframe, the current Umiak invasion could easily reach, or be very close to reaching the core Loroi worlds.

In the context of current, real-world events, I think that would be akin to Russia or Ukraine trying to outflank the other by marching around the Black Sea.

The other thing to consider is that since FTL comms don't exist in the Outsiderverse, once the attacking fleet leaves, there would be no way to recall them. It's basically a Hail Mary play.

[Ithekro]

Probably a little less time since the Loroi ships are capable of far greater acceleration than Earth ships are capable of at this point in time. A Loroi fleet could transverse a system faster than an Earth any Earth ships currently in service. Even their slower offensive ships can make at least 24 G acceleration compared to the Bellarmine's 6 G acceleration. Sure the Loroi freighters and transports will take longer, but are still quicker on the acceleration than Earth ships.

[wolf329]

It also can't be understated how useful Earth could be as a staging area. The potential resources in the asteroid belt alone make it valuable from an industrial standpoint.

[Ithekro]

Retooling would take time, but that could be a good backup plan if the flanking offensive don't end the war.

[CrimsonFALKE]

Yeah... humanity does not outnumber the Loroi. Earth has a larger population than any of the Loroi worlds, but the Loroi have a lot more worlds.

Beryl appears to be left-handed. I seem to recall that Loroi were more likely to be left-handed (I think there was something about it in the Loroi discussion thread) but I have forgotten whether the percentage was stated. For reference, Humans are 90% right-handed.

I don't have a percentage, but the vast majority of Loroi are left-handed.

I wonder does Fire blade think things like "that was right handed bugger!"

[CrimsonFALKE]

I'm not sure using earth to flank the bugs would be wise as it would kind of go well out of the Lorois way to get their then go at the umaki home worlds.

[Kelvandos]

Question.. How biologically similar are the umaki to regular bugs... would say.. DDT canisters in the airducts drop em?
I mean it would for humans in enough concentration but just curious if RAID would be our strategic gift :p


*edit making a joke but also semi serious. How would our insecticides work on non-armor or pressurized ones?

[Bamax]

Question.. How biologically similar are the umaki to regular bugs... would say.. DDT canisters in the airducts drop em?
I mean it would for humans in enough concentration but just curious if RAID would be our strategic gift :p


*edit making a joke but also semi serious. How would our insecticides work on non-armor or pressurized ones?

Useless unless concentrated enough to hurt a human. Umiak are only superficially similar to bugs... with their exoskeleton.

Inside the breathe with lungs just like we do.

[Kelvandos]

Did i miss the lungs portion of exposition?

[wolf329]

Did i miss the lungs portion of exposition?

https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/forum_umiak.html

[Arioch]

Umiak are not very similar to Earth insects, but it's probably true of almost any species that you could find some chemical or drug that will incapacitate or kill them but not you.

That's not especially helpful, since boarding situations like this are rare, and chemical agents are not very effective battlefield weapons (those Umiak with breathing apparatus which survived the ship depressurization would not have been affected by poison gas). But even if somehow it really was DDT or Raid that would kill Umiak... these chemicals can be synthesized by anyone. Humanity doesn't have a galactic monopoly on Raid.

The "common item only possessed by primitive culture defeats a technologically superior enemy" trope either requires some really outrageous coincidences, or that the superior enemy (and anyone fighting them) are really, really stupid.

[Nemo]

Its a bit like the protagonist in most every isekai becomes the strongest ever because no one in the world ever thought about doing exercise or training and only relied on their "system given skills", or just trying to "imagine!" their way into using magic instead of chanting - which makes them the only person in the world who can use chantless magic! Its an easy way for the reader to go "I can do that" and insert self into fantasy as the power player while the author does the most minimal world building. If it were that easy to acquire power or solve the problem then someone somewhere would have done it.


Though, there is something to be said for bringing in a new race in a sci-fi setting and how that could upset the balance of power. Its less to do with the science of it and more the human aspect. Cultures can have blind spots. A fresh perspective could see something the other might miss, or would pick up on eventually just not as swiftly. But with a multi-ethnic empire even that possibility gets diminished. Why would they all share the same blindness? And why would that blindness rise to the level of a strategic fault, rather than limited to a tactical one?

[Arioch]

I think an example of that working was in El Hazard, wherein the human characters each gained unique abilities as part of their transition to the new world, which gave them outsized impact beyond just being humans from Earth.

Though, there is something to be said for bringing in a new race in a sci-fi setting and how that could upset the balance of power. Its less to do with the science of it and more the human aspect. Cultures can have blind spots. A fresh perspective could see something the other might miss, or would pick up on eventually just not as swiftly. But with a multi-ethnic empire even that possibility gets diminished. Why would they all share the same blindness? And why would that blindness rise to the level of a strategic fault, rather than limited to a tactical one?

That's why I think the more authentic (and interesting) thing to do is the clash of doctrines. The Germans in WWII didn't overengineer their tanks because it didn't occur to them to build cheap tanks... they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. It's a fine line writing-wise, but you can have a group make the wrong choices without requiring them to feel obviously stupid.

[Nemo]

Even there we can only say its wrong with hindsight in that it didn't work. If you are faced with the same limitations most people would make the same choice, though. The Germans were running out of strategic resources even before the war began. It was a ticking time bomb that was accelerated by centralized economic control and Autarkie. Pointedly they lacked oil, but there are also a lot of minor minerals they lacked access to that impaired alloy production. We tend to gamify things and think of resources as "food, metal, oil" but the real world's a slight bit more complicated.

End result, even if they had wanted to build more vehicles it wouldn't be a "400 man hours for a single Tiger 2 or 40 man hours each for 10 stugs" exchange. And the extra vehicles they would build wouldn't have the fuel or lubricants to do anything impactful.



There are cultural things that may have had an impact, on both German and Japanese forces. One is a shift in the mindset of preserving and training pilots. The Bf-109's undercarriage probably killed as many new pilots from accidents as dog fighting. This was a problem known in 1935, but they accepted the losses for the sake a slight bit of performance. The Japanese had terrible training for new pilots, and ran their experienced pilots to death in continual combat sorties. Then they would not merge depleted units, or reassign naval squadrons to new carriers. As they experienced losses they had to wait for new recruits to bring them back up to strength. There were times were they had carriers that could sortie but each had depleted squadrons. Rather than merge them and add one or two more fleet carriers of strength to a fleet they had them sit in reserve and wait for new crew.

Even if it wouldn't change the outcome of the war, small cultural shifts could have made each of them much more dangerous and the war that much more deadly.

[Demarquis]

I think the main thing with Humans is that we resemble them so closely. There is apparently some sort of as yet unexplored side-plot where our mere existence is a threat to something the Loroi have claimed about themselves, so "not attracting attention to ourselves" seems off the table. And pursuant to that, there is some implication that the human ability to be invisible to Loroi senses may be connected somehow to the new Umiak ability to surprise the Loroi Farseers. So it seems that we appear inherently threatening to the Loroi just by existing (Stillstorm certainly seems to agree). Yet there also appears to be a subset of Loroi who find Alex, um, "exotic and interesting", so the potential for hostility between us isn't something truly inherent, but rather a product of the circumstances.

The best outcome right now would be Alex learning how to connect mentally to the Loroi. That has the potential, I think, to transform Humanity from "Inherent Threat" to "Honorary Pink Loroi" pretty quickly, but time and story will tell.

[raistlin34]

The best outcome right now would be Alex learning how to connect mentally to the Loroi. That has the potential, I think, to transform Humanity from "Inherent Threat" to "Honorary Pink Loroi" pretty quickly, but time and story will tell.

Problem is, the one Loroi whom Alex seems to have some resonance with is... Fireblade.

[QuakeIV]

Regarding 'gamification', although the alloying point is obviously true, stugs actually pretty directly traded off against tigers in terms of competing for resources.

[Demarquis]

"Problem is, the one Loroi whom Alex seems to have some resonance with is... Fireblade."

Well, you gotta' have drama, or you don't have a story, amiright?