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It is unwise to assume that the speed of learning in humans has to change with age: there are indications that it's not due to fundamental biological workings but instead due to additional channels interfering with the process. Further, there are indications that a significant part of the situation is caused by not learning new things.

Excepting of course that that study has many problems, some of which are pointed out even within the article itself. I'm currently on mobile and I'll provide links when I can but that information is in fact directly contradicted by other studies that handle language and the brain.

EDIT: Harvard has a whole site devoted to it, but here's a link to the relevant bit:

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/scie ... hitecture/

There's a bunch of other articles but you kind of get the gist of it. It's not that the brain can or can't handle information or develop in new ways, it's that it takes more effort along later developmental milestones. Not only that, but other studies relating to language, the brain, and age show that that information isn't retained or executed perfectly either. People who learn languages or literacy at a later age will routinely fail to grasp several sections of the linguistic system in question.

I've given a fair chunk of thought to the concept of brain development in a science fiction setting. If I ever get around to writing the novel that's in the back of my head (unlikely), one of the key parts of the setting is direct knowledge transfer that allows individuals to upload/erase skillsets like one would move around data on a computer. It would kind of be like the knowledge transfer from the Matrix ("I know Kung-Fu") except the amount and quality of skills you could learn would be limited.

One of the things I had to consider when building the world with such a technology was the limitations. Could you have 5 year-olds with the skills of a master craftsman? To my mind, no, not even if you were able to transfer all that knowledge into a brain that was still developing. I'm no doctor, but a system that made sense to me based on my own learning and development over the years featured a separation of "book learning" and "experiential learning." You could transfer the former in a matter of seconds, but the latter had to be done the old fashioned way. You could transfer information, but not memory, to include "muscle memory."

For instance, if say one of my characters wanted to learn the piano, he could sit in the device and have the knowledge uploaded. He could then sit at a piano and play perfectly, but it would sound like a machine was producing the sound. The soft touch on certain keys, slight pauses, and all the other things which convey an individual's signature style and emotion on the piano would have to come with time and "old school" experience.

In this manner, individuals could be trained very quickly, but still require time to develop and master their skills. I envisioned a system where teenagers would get information downloaded as soon as their brains could handle it (12-14 in my estimation) and then spend the rest of their teenage years practicing the skills. "School" would be no longer a learning environment, but a practical one. An engineer, for example, would spend 6-8 years of "school" building or designing in his field, kind of like an apprenticeship, then hit the workforce with the equivalent of that much work experience at 18-20.

I imagine the end result of the Loroi's system of development is very similar. Knowledge can be transferred almost instantaneously, but an individual Loroi still needs to gain experience. A 13 year-old Loroi can pilot a fighter just fine, but still requires decades of experience to command a ship or a group.

I think you're again misunderstanding. Once you get past whatever physical limitations the body has, a 13 year old can pilot a fighter. The actual act of learning to fly isn't really the time consuming part of training a modern fighter pilot compared to needing a four year degree and going through months of basic training that has nothing to do with flying.

The question isn't if an individual Loroi can have a specific skillset, which is evident. Or if they can learn a language past a certain point, since that's also evident just from dialogue. The question centers around how the actual brain itself develops.

Hello on the Loroi meets UNSC thread something hit me that brought me here on the Umiak that the dead planets are ignored are in fact quiet build ups of uncontested resources for the Umiak. It got me thinking on the buggers and than a hive and tunnels and orbital bombardment not enough to crack the crusts while all surface installations and layers destroyed deep underground could survive. Thinking Umiak like a anti hill or a underground colony we wipe out the surface and bomb the upper layers but likely safe underground. If this is true this could explain where they getting there vast resources and slipping fleets from as these worlds are FOBs scatter ships confuse as raiders and extra ships join up and than fleets the war of attrition I fear Loroi left themselves expose to a new offensive and since Farseers not looking likely missed over.

The Loroi farseers do see life signatures of sapient minds.
When scanning a system which is light-years away, their focus ain't good enough to pin down on which planet/orbit the signature is, so it is unlikely they are missing something. And since they keep constant watch on the Steppes,it is unlikely someone is able to get to a planet long enough to start digging deep enough to actually become self-sufficient before being noticed by the Loroi.
The mass of a planet might act as Lotai, once deep enough. But I find it still too unlikely that this is happening in the current situation.
Behind the lines this may be going on, especially in otherwise depleted systems.
But living on a planet with a biosphere is soo much cheaper and more efficient than living with artificial air systems, that the Umiak likely won't be doing it more than necessary. Like specific ressource-rich mining planets.

Krulle wrote:The Loroi farseers do see life signatures of sapient minds.
When scanning a system which is light-years away, their focus ain't good enough to pin down on which planet/orbit the signature is, so it is unlikely they are missing something. And since they keep constant watch on the Steppes,it is unlikely someone is able to get to a planet long enough to start digging deep enough to actually become self-sufficient before being noticed by the Loroi.
The mass of a planet might act as Lotai, once deep enough. But I find it still too unlikely that this is happening in the current situation.
Behind the lines this may be going on, especially in otherwise depleted systems.
But living on a planet with a biosphere is soo much cheaper and more efficient than living with artificial air systems, that the Umiak likely won't be doing it more than necessary. Like specific ressource-rich mining planets.

What about if they already there to begin with and survive haha under the bombardment and play dead than wait and poke out and get to work. That assumes we wipe out all life and no secret factories preparing to swarm out fresh fleet of light ships or gunships to swarm the Loroi still this is war. What's the worse case. Likely a one time use but they could amass a armada of surface to spacecraft. Also could the Farseers detect a Interstellar Missiles or unmanned craft

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Also could the Farseers detect a Interstellar Missiles or unmanned craft

No. They detect the signature of a mind.
Shielded minds not, but they don't understand telepathy yet, so don't know how it works. It just works for them.

Therefore, they cannot detect missiles, or unmanned craft.

I don't know about a sentient AI.

Aye Aye

The war has been fought mostly in Loroi territory or former Loroi territory. The Loroi raided some new Umiak colonies in the Maia theater, but in the Steppes theater, with the exception of Loroi attacks against Morat territory, the only Umiak-held systems that the Loroi have attacked were Umiak-occupied former Loroi colonies. Umiak home territory has been largely untouched by the war, and this is where the vast majority of Umiak production comes from. There are hundreds of inhabited systems in the Umiak empire, as opposed to the dozen or so razed systems in the Charred Steppes.

The Umiak are not subterranean by nature; on the contrary, their ancestors were nomads on the open plains. They can build underground installations same as we can, and such installations could house mines and perhaps factories, but at this tech level most starships require orbital facilities to assemble; they can't take off from a planet. And if there were streams of supplies or new ships coming from the Steppes, the Loroi would have observed this even without Farseers.

Hmmm what kinda races are under the Buggers Dominion as Loroi anti neutrally and Umiak taking advantage getting the other neutrals on there side.

So how deep are underground installations as the deepest we dug is what 7 miles and be safe under thick surface and bunker busters and kinetic rods and point lasers smite anyone above whats the most powerful bunker killer both sides have. Plus best bunker to survive.

Just a Crazy-Man wrote:Hmmm what kinda races are under the Buggers Dominion as Loroi anti neutrally and Umiak taking advantage getting the other neutrals on there side.

So how deep are underground installations as the deepest we dug is what 7 miles and be safe under thick surface and bunker busters and kinetic rods and point lasers smite anyone above whats the most powerful bunker killer both sides have. Plus best bunker to survive.

A list of known Umiak client races is here.

The only limit to how deep you can dig is the point at which the ground becomes unavoidably hot; if you go deep enough, it ceases to be solid. Anyone could dig a deep enough hole to hide in and survive a bombardment, but to what end? Any resources or goods produced must be transported off the planet in order to be useful, and that transport would come under Loroi attack the moment they appeared. It seems to me that workers and capital required to set up such bases would be much better invested somewhere else that was not in contested territory.

Are there any base-rank Teidar in the comic or etc.? There used to be one on page 55 panel 4, but she appears to have been sneakily promoted to Teidar Ragan.

Also, are you and Julia Francis related?

Hālian wrote:Are there any base-rank Teidar in the comic or etc.? There used to be one on page 55 panel 4, but she appears to have been sneakily promoted to Teidar Ragan.

Yeah, Mothwing (the green-haired Teidar in the infirmary scene).

Hālian wrote:Also, are you and Julia Francis related?

No relation.

I mean, presuming the mantle is hot enough and you can tap into enough power effectively, you could probably power a ground to base military installation off geothermal, or at least partly power it. But anything that chunky to do it effectively would be a big and obvious target to hit first.

A mantle based bunker isn't really a long term solution or a viable one. You're alive through the initial bombardment and however long your supplies last if everything goes well. The entrance likely won't be clear so forget flying out in any kind of ship, even provided whoever bombarded you doesn't just stick around to blow you off or occupy the planet. If you can build a bunker like that you have the resources and technology available to have a defensive fleet, and probably something in orbit like a space station with mounted weapons.

The only real plan of action is to sit there and something else blows up the enemy fleet. Which works for civilians, but doesn't give the military a course of action.

This question may be unrelated, but what sort of voices would you attribute to the Loroi? Speech may be rather unimportant in their culture, even the tone of voice can carry quite a message, so I think this question is not completely unwarranted.

I'm speaking about Loroi in general, and perhaps on specific terms, as in, what kind of voice would you attribute to individual characters?

Please don't just refer to specific actors, since I rarely know how they do sound like and thus have no comparison.

My ideas would be like:

• Tempo - rich, cultured alto voice. She surely has training in speech and rhethorics. She maybe sometimes speak in a rather stilted manner, but she is very mindful of pronounciation and intonation to get her point across. The voice of a politician... or seductress, if the case warrants it.
• Beryl - young (as she is quite young) soprano voice. Bordering on hyperactive, fast-talking if it's a topic she's particular fond of.
• Talon - calm, collected mezzosoprano voice. She chooses her words carefully and is usually rather soft-spoken.
• Fireblade - may be a conplete enigma. But the best possible guess is that her voice might be rather hoarse from disuse.

novius wrote:...what sort of voices would you attribute to the Loroi?...

unsure why, but I imagine Tempo and Spiral to have Russian/Slavic accents

thicket wrote:

novius wrote:...what sort of voices would you attribute to the Loroi?...

unsure why, but I imagine Tempo and Spiral to have Russian/Slavic accents

Really? for some reason I think British would fit Tempo better.
For Russian, Stillstorm. No contest.

I imagine that most Loroi accents would sound vaguely Eastern European.

I wasn't talking about accents or such - what I meant was the general pitch and tome of voice. Even that alone conveys much about the speaker's personality. Add to that, their voices can have some sort of 'alien' quality (like a double-voice, or some sort of timbre not found with humans).