Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Cthulhu]

It wouldn't be significantly different from an Earth battlefield. We don't just leave corpses on the battlefield indefinitely to rot.

Oh, there were enough examples to the contrary. Sometimes, even deliberately so. I just tried imagining what a Loroi battlefield would look like. Especially if one's side dead would be left there, for example because the winner was feeling extra cruel. Anyway, that fanfic is still merely an idea at this point, so let's shelve the matter for now.

Yeah, but there are higher priorities at the moment.

Like an update?

[Urist]

Odd question, here: how 'narrow' are a listel's memories of an event? That is, does her memory (and ability to recall it later) cover only what parts of some event or scene she paid attention to, or is it wider than that?

To use a well-known IRL experiment, say you told a listel to sit and watch a video of several humans passing a basketball back and forth, and she was under instructions to count exactly how many times the ball was passed and between which players. Then, as in the IRL experiment, another human dressed as a gorilla walked through the middle of the court. Assuming that the listel is like most humans and didn't notice the 'gorilla' because she was too focused on counting basketball passes, could she review her memory later and now 'see' the gorilla?

[Arioch]

Odd question, here: how 'narrow' are a listel's memories of an event? That is, does her memory (and ability to recall it later) cover only what parts of some event or scene she paid attention to, or is it wider than that?

To use a well-known IRL experiment, say you told a listel to sit and watch a video of several humans passing a basketball back and forth, and she was under instructions to count exactly how many times the ball was passed and between which players. Then, as in the IRL experiment, another human dressed as a gorilla walked through the middle of the court. Assuming that the listel is like most humans and didn't notice the 'gorilla' because she was too focused on counting basketball passes, could she review her memory later and now 'see' the gorilla?

The short answer is that while a Listel's memory is not quite the same as a video camera that captures a scene in perfect detail, the Listel does remember things she experienced whether she consciously noticed them or not. So yes, she could review a memory and notice things that she did not notice before. Beryl could, for example, recall Alex's speech in English at some future time after she has learned what the words mean, and finally understand it -- which means she remembered the actual sounds that Alex uttered, and not some tokenized list of her conscious understanding of the words, because she didn't understand them at the time.

Since eidetic memory is supposedly a real thing (though as I understand it, there is some controversy around that), I have to make some educated guesses about how it works. The example that immediately comes to mind is music. When I remember a piece of music, it's almost like hearing it playing in my mind, and if I'm listening to music I'm familiar with I can usually tell whether it's from the same recording that I know, or whether it's from a different performance. I may be able to tell that it's different even if I can't consciously say exactly what the difference is. So it would seem that memory is more than just a catalogue of conscious thoughts.

I have seen documentaries about cognitive function in which they were monitoring the brainwaves of rats running through mazes, and they found that the rats seemed to be dreaming about the maze during later sleep, because the brainwaves were nearly identical. They weren't just thinking about it -- the brain activity included the motor sections of the brain -- they were reliving running the maze. A memory seems to be a recording of brain activity, which at the highest level of detail must be very detailed indeed... detailed enough to operate an organism's perceptions and actions.

People who have memories of traumatic events -- the example I am most familiar with is of combat veterans recalling intense moments -- say they can see the moment happening clearly as if it was right in front of them, even many decades later. So it seems that memory has the capability to remember events in great detail, and that our brain processes constantly cull excess information to eliminate that which is deemed not necessary. The chemical state of arousal marks traumatic memories as very important, so they are retained in great detail.

If eidetic memory is a real thing, then I suppose that the way it must work is that all memories are stored as if they are tinged with trauma, and the process of culling short term memory into truncated long-term memory either doesn't work at all or works at a reduced rate.

[Urist]

Neat, thanks for the explanation! I'd remembered the part about Beryl memorizing Alex's speech, but wasn't sure if that was just because she had been paying attention to him at the time.

[Arioch]

Neat, thanks for the explanation! I'd remembered the part about Beryl memorizing Alex's speech, but wasn't sure if that was just because she had been paying attention to him at the time.

Well, she was certainly paying attention, so perhaps that's not the ideal example, but I think you get the picture.

[SaintofM]

On the Listel's memories, are they colored by their own thoughts and options? Trying to figure out how objective the memories are and how close to perfect they are.

[Arioch]

On the Listel's memories, are they colored by their own thoughts and options? Trying to figure out how objective the memories are and how close to perfect they are.

Short answer: Listel memories are not perfect, but the Listel are specifically trained to help make them as accurate as possible. Their procedures for recalling and sharing memories telepathically help to catch possible malformed memories, or to resolve memory reports that are distorted by the individual Listel's bias.

Longer answer: memories are essentially recordings of the brain's activity, so any memory is going to be subjective in some sense. If the Listel is impaired (drugged or hallucinating, delirious, etc.) when the memory was formed, then the memory may deviate substantially from what actually happened. However, this impaired mental state is part of the memory, and so anyone reviewing the memory would be aware that it was formed under unusual circumstances. If the memory was being used as evidence, this impairment would also be part of the legal record.

If a Listel has a strong bias, this might color a recalled memory. However, the telepathic link in which such memories are usually relayed helps the recipient to be able to make a distinction between what the Listel saw and what she thought about it. Telepathy is very specific about the information that is shared and its provenance (is this what you actually saw, or what you assumed?). And Listel are trained in mental discipline to help reduce this bias when sharing memories.

Memory may degrade over time, and/or a Listel may have difficulty in recalling it properly, perhaps because of mental trauma or physical injury. She might even suppress a traumatic memory. Listel training includes disciplines and techniques to help reduce memory degradation and to aid in organizing and recalling memories. There are also specialists who can telepathically aid in organizing or recalling memories, in a similar way that a psychologist might help a patient deal with mental trauma.

Finally, it is possible that memories may be altered either at formation or after the fact by the intervention of a hostile telepath (Mizol Mind Tricks). However, such tampering leaves traces, and the detail and discipline with which Listel can recall their memories makes it very difficult to tamper with a Listel's memories without this tampering being detected.

[Snoofman]

How often or rare are seer or farseer births among the Loroi?

[Arioch]

How often or rare are seer or farseer births among the Loroi?

Loroi are born with varying degrees of telepathic sensitivity. Individuals sensitive enough to be eligible for seer training are uncommon, but not exceeding rare (not as rare as psychokinetics, for example). Individuals meeting the minimum sentivity criteria are eligible to be trained as seers (through which training their effective sensitivity can be increased), but such individuals are not so rare that assignment as a seer is mandatory.

Farseers are a different kettle of fish, which we do not talk about at this point.

[Cthulhu]

Could telekinetic powers be used to "cut" or "cleave"? Perhaps by concentrating a "push", or would that be far too complex, and a good ol' "splatter" is plenty sufficient?

In a battle against hardtroopers, what would be more efficient (given roughly equal skill and output), simple telekinesis, pyrokinesis, or electrokinesis?

[Arioch]

Could telekinetic powers be used to "cut" or "cleave"? Perhaps by concentrating a "push", or would that be far too complex, and a good ol' "splatter" is plenty sufficient?

In a battle against hardtroopers, what would be more efficient (given roughly equal skill and output), simple telekinesis, pyrokinesis, or electrokinesis?

The most efficient attack against an armored target is usually to ignore the armor and directly attack the interior. Fireblade likes to do this by slamming a hardtrooper into a wall hard enough for the deceleration trauma to splatter its organs against their housings.

I think the way to maximize penetrative force against armor is to focus the "push" on as small an area as possible; this would be indistinguishable from a "cut" or a "stab". If the target substance can be weakened through application of heat (as most substances can), then heating the target area first may help. Fireblade can't focus her PK very precisely, so heating and then pushing is how she usually attacks armor or a solid surface.

However, every PK is going to have quirks of what she can do well, and these will be based more around psychology rather than pure physics. So I can image a Teidar who, for example, can concentrate force very tightly but in a line rather than a point, and this would look like a crazy anime samurai slice.

[Cthulhu]

The most efficient attack against an armored target is usually to ignore the armor and directly attack the interior. Fireblade likes to do this by slamming a hardtrooper into a wall hard enough for the deceleration trauma to splatter its organs against their housings.

Could a Mizol or a Teidar attack even more directly, and kill the target through a purely psionic attack? Basically, will them to die? A psionic equivalent of the DnD spell "Power Word: Kill"? Would that be easier than telekinesis, or is that something only a true master might pull off?

However, every PK is going to have quirks of what she can do well, and these will be based more around psychology rather than pure physics. So I can image a Teidar who, for example, can concentrate force very tightly but in a line rather than a point, and this would look like a crazy anime samurai slice.

So what you're saying, is to add anime to the export list? So far, we have only coffee and cats. And ensigns. Hmm, we might need to offer a bit more to be worth protecting.

[Arioch]

Could a Mizol or a Teidar attack even more directly, and kill the target through a purely psionic attack? Basically, will them to die? A psionic equivalent of the DnD spell "Power Word: Kill"? Would that be easier than telekinesis, or is that something only a true master might pull off?

I think that any attack that targets the central nervous system has the possibility of being lethal, but this would normally be an unintended secondary effect, with the target slipping into a coma or suffering respiratory or cardiac failure as a result of shock to the system. Again the analogy is of someone dying from a "non-lethal" attack like a taser.

A telepathic attack can be powerful enough to cause physical damage, but this generally means amplification, and therefore Teidar and not Mizol.

A simple telepathic shout could kill through sheer "volume" if amplified to a high enough degree, though this would usually cause collateral damage, not least of which to the attacker.

So what you're saying, is to add anime to the export list?

I think that hyper-stylized animated fiction full of obscure alien cultural references would be very confusing to the Loroi.

[Cthulhu]

A telepathic attack can be powerful enough to cause physical damage, but this generally means amplification, and therefore Teidar and not Mizol.

I see, so it's rather an issue of power, and not just skill. Okay, I can work with that as well.

I think that hyper-stylized animated fiction full of obscure alien cultural references would be very confusing to the Loroi.

That's the whole point!

On a more serious note, how widespread is the appreciation for any "alien cultural references" among the Loroi? Would that be an odd 1 percent?

[Arioch]

On a more serious note, how widespread is the appreciation for any "alien cultural references" among the Loroi? Would that be an odd 1 percent?

There are individual exceptions, but in general the Loroi are not interested in the culture of outsiders. They are a fairly insular society.

[Snoofman]

How big is Mestirot, compared to some Earth Continents as reference?
How big is Belerid and Amenal on Taben, compared to some Earth landmasses?

[Arioch]

How big is Mestirot, compared to some Earth Continents as reference?
How big is Belerid and Amenal on Taben, compared to some Earth landmasses?

Mestirot is roughly similar in size to the Old World (Europe/Asia/Africa).
Beleri is about the size of Alaska. Amenal is a string of islands separated over a large area... the total land mass is roughly similar to the Hawaiian islands.

[SaintofM]

Just learned about the Rods of God (watching a Isyander and Koda video on 40k Titans, then did a quick google) but would the Loroi and by their extension their friends and enemies use Kinetic Bombardment?

The concept is you take a telephone pole sized rod, probably made of tungsten and shaped to avoid resistance, and hurl it at super high speeds to the planet below. In theory the speed and velocity would cause an explosion equal to a nuclear bomb but without the nuclear fallout. The explosive force would come from the speed in which it is shot out (say like from a rail gun or perhaps some rocket power). Think a meteor impacting the earth; its size, density, speed, and velocity is what causes it to have a literal explosive force. Because the simplest armament would be a simple rod it gets the nickname "Rod of God".


Right now its speculative as the two main issues with it is the coast of getting the armaments into space (on the top of my head its like a thousand bucks for something the size and weight of an orange give or take, so something much larger than a tree's worth of oranges much more expensive) and accuracy ( which I interpret as maybe something more like WW2 carpet bombing and less like the precision bombings of today).

I think the space elves would have solved both these issues as they have to get armaments into space for their own weapons as is. I could even see them gathering the mineral coasts and manufacturing them as a potential terror weapon in that system. The problem of aiming might be even less of an issue as when you plan on bombarding a planet back to the stone age as everything is a target, and a good carpet bombing of a continent, much less a planet would send quite the message to anything that manage to survive.

[Urist]

With regards to orbital bombardment, the Insider weapons page specifically notes that the Union (and presumably the Hierarchy as well) have specialized weapons for orbital bombardment. They just use what are essentially large (antimatter/Taimat) fuel canisters, which would simplify logistics compared to carrying something like a tungsten (or any other) solid-metal projectile. You just keep a few lightweight fuel tanks around, and siphon off some of your ship's main tanks when you want to turn continents into craters.

[Arioch]

There are many, many effective options for orbital bombardment at this tech level. The simplest are taimat bombs and high-velocity kinetic missiles. Standard AMM missiles are very capable at ground bombardment, and there are specialized versions for this purpose which are heavier and less maneuverable than the anti-missile versions.

The cost of getting things into space is not really an issue for this war, as planets you'll be attacking are in other star systems. And if you control the space around a star system, your fleet can more or less destroy any enemy planetside surface system you want at will... you don't need to "terrorize" anyone.

Launching this kind of weapon against a target on your own planet is not very different from using nuclear weapons, with many of the same hurdles and consequences.