Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[wasp609]

So a race of hermaphrodites that lean toward the masculine.

they are masculine by our social standards but probably not by their own. they were probably just as confused about a multi gender species.

Are they hermaphrodites? I can't find anything on the insider that mentions them as being one sex.[/quote]

ok found it, it is a post in the loroi sexuality continued page made by arioch it is on the first page halfway down. took me a while to find it

[CrimsonFALKE]

So a race of hermaphrodites that lean toward the masculine.

they are masculine by our social standards but probably not by their own. they were probably just as confused about a multi gender species.

Are they hermaphrodites? I can't find anything on the insider that mentions them as being one sex.

ok found it, it is a post in the loroi sexuality continued page it is on the first page halfway down.[/quote]

thanks that makes sense now as to why human males brought up such curiosity.

[Arioch]

Do the Loroi have other regular empire-wide celebrations than "Semoset" and how can we imagine those celebrations, except from (I guess) mating for everyone? As they do not have a religion (or only a minority has one, as far as I remember), would the Loroi be confused by human religious celebrations like Chanukah, Christmas, Eid al-Adha, etc... (if Humanity still celebrates them in the future)?

There are a variety of Loroi cultural celebrations that are observed through ritual ceremonies not unlike many of our holidays; a lot of our holiday ceremonies are really cultural rather than religious in nature (many of the rituals involved in celebrating Christmas or Easter originate with pre-Christian seasonal ceremonies). Even more overtly religious rituals (like the lighting of candles for Hanukkah, or Christian Nativities) follow concrete stories that would not be hard for the Loroi to understand.

I was wondering what the gender ratio of the Barsam or other species in the Union is, since the Loroi seemed so confused by ours. Surely, would they not expect us to be different? We are an alien species after all. Maybe the Barsam or Pipolsid have the same high gender ratios?

Beryl articulates both elements of her surprise on learning of the human gender ratio; first because of the physical similarity of humans to Loroi (and therefore expected similarity of behavior and life processes), and second because of the Loroi prejudice that some kind of aggressive reproductive capability is a prerequisite for a warrior (read: superior) species.

The Barsam are hermaphroditic, and the Umiak reproduce artificially. Most other species have more "normal" gender ratios, but are not considered by the Loroi to be true "warrior" species.

[CrimsonFALKE]

Do the Loroi have other regular empire-wide celebrations than "Semoset" and how can we imagine those celebrations, except from (I guess) mating for everyone? As they do not have a religion (or only a minority has one, as far as I remember), would the Loroi be confused by human religious celebrations like Chanukah, Christmas, Eid al-Adha, etc... (if Humanity still celebrates them in the future)?

There are a variety of Loroi cultural celebrations that are observed through ritual ceremonies not unlike many of our holidays; a lot of our holiday ceremonies are really cultural rather than religious in nature (many of the rituals involved in celebrating Christmas or Easter originate with pre-Christian seasonal ceremonies). Even more overtly religious rituals (like the lighting of candles for Hanukkah, or Christian Nativities) follow concrete stories that would not be hard for the Loroi to understand.

I was wondering what the gender ratio of the Barsam or other species in the Union is, since the Loroi seemed so confused by ours. Surely, would they not expect us to be different? We are an alien species after all. Maybe the Barsam or Pipolsid have the same high gender ratios?

Beryl articulates both elements of her surprise on learning of the human gender ratio; first because of the physical similarity of humans to Loroi (and therefore expected similarity of behavior and life processes), and second because of the Loroi prejudice that some kind of aggressive reproductive capability is a prerequisite for a warrior (read: superior) species.

The Barsam are hermaphroditic, and the Umiak reproduce artificially. Most other species have more "normal" gender ratios, but are not considered by the Loroi to be true "warrior" species.

Loroi superior wasn't it the Historians that bailed them out when the Umiak were on the verge of winning?

[sunphoenix]

Point of view...

The Loroi hardly consider the Umiak a race... as they don't actually have sex to reproduce. I think its more likely the Loroi consider the 'shells' a plague.. not a real race. Certainly not a warrior culture as much as a mindless swarm of destroyers.

Most species learn to live in some manner of harmony with their environment... but the 'shells' do not they consume everything wastefully then move on to a new world and repeat the process. They apparently make no attempt to control their reproduction.. they have decantation schedules to keep! Seemingly, even to the Umiak, their individual own lives are inconsequential in the press of production, processing and expansion!

Though I don't get the feeling that was how the Umiak started out. The intellectual race of Umiak lost out to the brutish barbaric conqueror race of Umiak... and they NEVER apparently "grew up".

Its obvious to me ...though it is pure conjecture at this point in the story, that the Umiak have been artificially advanced to their current point of development. Someone is manipulating events from behind the scenes... not the historians either... well ok; not only the historians.

Much like Niven's Kzin I think the Umiak did not completely develop naturally. Obviously the Loroi were genegineered. Perhaps, there are two maybe more Babylon 5-type Elder Races vying behind the scenes at work here like the Vorlon and the Shadows?

[CrimsonFALKE]

Point of view...

The Loroi hardly consider the Umiak a race... as they don't actually have sex to reproduce. I think its more likely the Loroi consider the 'shells' a plague.. not a real race. Certainly not a warrior culture as much as a mindless swarm of destroyers.

Most species learn to live in some manner of harmony with their environment... but the 'shells' do not they consume everything wastefully then move on to a new world and repeat the process. They apparently make no attempt to control their reproduction.. they have decantation schedules to keep! Seemingly, even to the Umiak, their individual own lives are inconsequential in the press of production, processing and expansion!

Though I don't get the feeling that was how the Umiak started out. The intellectual race of Umiak lost out to the brutish barbaric conqueror race of Umiak... and they NEVER apparently "grew up".

Its obvious to me ...though it is pure conjecture at this point in the story, that the Umiak have been artificially advanced to their current point of development. Someone is manipulating events from behind the scenes... not the historians either... well ok; not only the historians.

Much like Niven's Kzin I think the Umiak did not completely develop naturally. Obviously the Loroi were genegineered. Perhaps, there are two maybe more Babylon 5-type Elder Races vying behind the scenes at work here like the Vorlon and the Shadows?

The Vorlon were pretty ballsy doing all that they did if you ask me and clever since everyone was so in awe of them. I will say that the shells are zergish but more reliant on technology instead of telepathic powers. If there is a race that say made the Loroi, and made Humans the latter didn't become the favored race or revolted and was considered to dangerous to use as a weapon. Can I ask what those links of yours are is it some type of RPG?

[sunphoenix]

lol. Sure.

Those are links to the three Characters I have personally played, thus far, in the three PbP games here at this particular Forum set within the Outsider Universe that were played and... sort of ended due to lack of interest of the Storytellers running the games.

The second character, Sonnidezzi {Stormrage}... was played in the Tempest Game and is currently being played in the Cydoina Rising Game we are currently playing run by the Storyteller - Suederwind.

It is currently still an active game ... if a bit slow moving.

[CrimsonFALKE]

lol. Sure.

Those are links to the three Characters I have personally played, thus far, in the three PbP games here at this particular Forum set within the Outsider Universe that were played and... sort of ended due to lack of interest of the Storytellers running the games.

Oh well I read them and they were amazing.

[sunphoenix]

{Blush}... thank you! I try my best... sometimes I succeed.

[fredgiblet]

Much like Niven's Kzin I think the Umiak did not completely develop naturally. Obviously the Loroi were genegineered. Perhaps, there are two maybe more Babylon 5-type Elder Races vying behind the scenes at work here like the Vorlon and the Shadows?

I'm still voting for the Historians attacking the 'Bell because the humans aren't supposed to be here yet.

[Absalom]

Point of view...

The Loroi hardly consider the Umiak a race... as they don't actually have sex to reproduce. I think its more likely the Loroi consider the 'shells' a plague.. not a real race. Certainly not a warrior culture as much as a mindless swarm of destroyers.

Yeah, definitely "point of view" territory there. I would be surprised if there weren't a measurable proportion of the Loroi who believed such, a number in highly-placed military positions even, but I would doubt that they would make up even a fifth of either the general staff or the population in general.

Though I don't get the feeling that was how the Umiak started out. The intellectual race of Umiak lost out to the brutish barbaric conqueror race of Umiak... and they NEVER apparently "grew up".

Its obvious to me ...though it is pure conjecture at this point in the story, that the Umiak have been artificially advanced to their current point of development. Someone is manipulating events from behind the scenes... not the historians either... well ok; not only the historians.

The advanced branch of the Umiak were apparently a technological society in the time of the Soia, so if there was such manipulation then I would either not bet on "behind the scenes", or on it being someone other than the Umiak (admittedly the second is cheating, since we do in fact already know that the Umiak modify themselves; none the less), or on it being even vaguely recent (not ruling out Historian experiments before the Umiak returned to space).

Still, if the Historians are the Psilons, it's worth speculating on the possibility of a Darlok equivalent. Maybe they would be distinguished by superior jump accuracy in Outsider? Some sort of probability-field-manipulation based stealth coating (not that this would necessarily help with waste heat)? A just plain alternate star drive, ala Sword of the Stars?

Much like Niven's Kzin I think the Umiak did not completely develop naturally. Obviously the Loroi were genegineered. Perhaps, there are two maybe more Babylon 5-type Elder Races vying behind the scenes at work here like the Vorlon and the Shadows?

The Vorlon were pretty ballsy doing all that they did if you ask me and clever since everyone was so in awe of them.

Which made it all the more notable later on. The Omegas were a subtlety-free-zone, but when you have obfuscating-monk Vorlons and obscure-demon Shadows pulling out planet-killers, all of a sudden that changes. If there are any unexpected supernova (and especially several of them in a line) that happen in the dense zone near Historian space at some momentous point in the war, I'd start watching out for some Historian Doom-Stars to show up out of nowhere.

Edited in: Note, not saying that's necessarily where I'd put them. I'd probably put them in the big empty spot that Earth is in, since if you have Doom Stars, you presumably can create your own custom telepathic animals to relay sensor analyses from observation craft in surrounding systems. None the less, if something suspicious like that were to happen, I'd expect someone or another to drop an act that they'd been maintaining.

[Grayhome]

If the Loroi met the predators, what would the Loroi make of them? A society of nothing except warriors (no civilians whatsoever, I believe) that basically never leave the jungle, but hunt through stealth and kill without revealing themselves.

A typical Yautja

[wasp609]

If the Loroi met the predators, what would the Loroi make of them? A society of nothing except warriors (no civilians whatsoever, I believe) that basically never leave the jungle, but hunt through stealth and kill without revealing themselves.

the loroi would probably respect them but in typical loroi fashion they might try to eliminate them. what we should hoping is the the umiak don't get xenomorph egss.

[CrimsonFALKE]

If the Loroi met the predators, what would the Loroi make of them? A society of nothing except warriors (no civilians whatsoever, I believe) that basically never leave the jungle, but hunt through stealth and kill without revealing themselves.

the loroi would probably respect them but in typical loroi fashion they might try to eliminate them. what we should hoping is the the umiak don't get xenomorph egss.

I don't know the Predators have some wicked ship technology.

[Arioch]

I've seen the first two Predator movies and smatterings of several of the later ones, but don't really know what to make of Predator culture. The trophy-hunters we see in the first few movies don't seem to represent an entire culture; the hunting seems to be a form of recreation rather than a way of life (collecting skulls won't fuel your starships). I get the sense in the later movies of an honor-based warrior culture, but this seems slightly at odds with the trophy-hunter behavior in the first few movies, in which the Predator is supposedly hunting "dangerous" quarry, but which are essentially helpless victims with hopelessly inferior technology, dispatched from long range by a cloaked sniper. Doesn't seem particularly challenging or honorable. And, somehow, these prey species with hopelessly inferior technology keep kicking the Predators' asses. I don't get the feeling that the trophy-hunter Predators that we've seen would stand up very well against real opponents with similar technology.

So, I think if the Predators were a real species, trying to judge what their total culture is like from what little we've seen of it would be a bit like trying to assess the totality of human culture from watching the activities of a pair of redneck deer hunters.

[CrimsonFALKE]

I've seen the first two Predator movies and smatterings of several of the later ones, but don't really know what to make of Predator culture. The trophy-hunters we see in the first few movies don't seem to represent an entire culture; the hunting seems to be a form of recreation rather than a way of life (collecting skulls won't fuel your starships). I get the sense in the later movies of an honor-based warrior culture, but this seems slightly at odds with the trophy-hunter behavior in the first few movies, in which the Predator is supposedly hunting "dangerous" quarry, but which are essentially helpless victims with hopelessly inferior technology, dispatched from long range by a cloaked sniper. Doesn't seem particularly challenging or honorable. And, somehow, these prey species with hopelessly inferior technology keep kicking the Predators' asses. I don't get the feeling that the trophy-hunter Predators that we've seen would stand up very well against real opponents with similar technology.

So, I think if the Predators were a real species, trying to judge what their total culture is like from what little we've seen of it would be a bit like trying to assess the totality of human culture from watching the activities of a pair of redneck deer hunters.

Actually the perditors hunt mostly as a right of passage, some have become trophy hunters but they are also shunned from society. Largely they are all warriors which is why they hunt the xenomorphs as a way to test their newest warriors.

[Grayhome]

Following is taken from the Predator wiki site, under culturehttp://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Yautja_%28Predator%29: Culture and History
Hunting culture: Predator culture revolves around the stalking and hunting of dangerous life forms. Predators primarily hunt neither for sustenance nor elimination of threats, but purely as a means of entertainment and proof of worth. As such, they will only attack life forms that have the ability, natural or technological, to provide them with a challenge. Indeed, Predators will often travel great distances to find worthy opponents, or seek out ways in which to attract or transport such prey to them. When travelling to other locations, Predators are often drawn by intense heat and armed conflict. Predators have been known to use other non-sentient species as tools to aid them in their hunts, including alien hunting hounds. On occasion, if a particularly worthy member of a sentient species is found on a hunt, Predators will systematically eliminate those who are close to the intended target in an attempt to enrage them and increase the challenge of the final confrontation. After making a kill, a Predator will mutilate the corpse and turn it into a trophy. This can involve skinning or decapitating the carcass, or even removing all of the bones from the body altogether. One typical means of displaying a kill is to hang the flayed body upside down from a great height. Skulls and sometimes spinal cords are routinely removed and collected, and can commonly be found displayed on board Predator vessels or even worn about the Predator's person if size permits this. Despite the ferocity and brutality with which Predators hunt and kill their prey, they adhere to a strict code of honor that forbids them from killing children or unarmed adults. They have also been known to spare pregnant women and those with terminal illnesses, although they will not hesitate to kill such targets if directly attacked by them. A human who has managed to kill a Predator in single combat is often spared and even rewarded with a gift (often a rare or exotic weapon) as a sign of respect. In even rarer cases, a human who has fought valiantly alongside a Predator may be similarly honored, as was the case with Alexa Woods. Failure in a hunt typically results in the Predator committing honorable suicide, usually through the detonation of their Wrist Gauntlet's self-destruct mechanism, which may simultaneously be used as a last-ditch attempt to kill their prey. This explosion is also intended to wipe out all traces of the Predator and prevent their technology from falling into the hands of their prey, an occurrence which is considered a huge affront by Yautja society and typically results in the Predator responsible being banished. Should they be killed, a Predator's ship will return automatically to the home world, taking with it a record of the individual's hunt, recorded through their Bio-Mask.
Society: The Yautja society operates a class system, nominally based on an individual’s hunting experience and prowess. Their castes includes: Young Blood/Unblooded: About 25% of male Yautja are unblooded. This means that the Predator has made no distinguishable kills. Once a Predator kills their first worthy target, usually a Xenomorph, and collects its head as trophy, they become blooded. All unblooded are children too young to safely hunt Xenomorphs, or those who simply have not had the chance to battle a Xenomorph yet.
Blooded: About 45% of male Yautja are blooded. These are warriors who have gained their clan's symbol upon their forehead after their first successful Xenomorph hunt. They are allowed access to more advanced weaponry denied to the unblooded Predators, including the Plasma Caster.
Retirees: About 10% of male Yautja are retirees, Predators who have fought their time and now are too old and honored to hunt. Females commonly come under this section due to their roles as mothers and the driving force behind the home world’s natural wasteland systems.
Elite: Elite Predators are often leaders in their clan, and are only elevated to the caste of Elite Predator once they have acquired the skull of a Xenomorph Queen. About 15% of blooded Yautja are Elite Predators. Elites specialize in a particular weapon, making that weapon their strong suit; for example, a Brawler specializes in Wrist Blades, while a Spearmaster specializes with the Combi-Stick. Elite Predators often become retirees after a few decades.
Clan Leader: Clan Leaders are only made by the Adjudicator's decision. The only way to become a Clan Leader is to clean out an entire Xenomorph Hive larger than 300 members with a maximum of two other Predators. When this has been proven, the three (or fewer) Yautja all become Clan Leaders. They become the forefathers of that clan and will repopulate with females of their choosing. In order to be eligible for the trials of a Hive cleansing, each member of the trio must have at least 3 Queen skull trophies. After this point, any Hive cleansings that the forefathers complete will give the clan greater honor and standing in the caste system. Clan leaders comprise 5% of the Yautja society.
Adjudicators: The adjudicators are the administrators and law enforcers of the Yautja. They are world leaders and the ruling class in Predator society. Less than 1% of Yautja are adjudicators, due to their massive worldly role. At this point, they simply no longer have time to hunt off planet, but often foray into the underground hunting grounds, where younger hunters train in order to lend experience to the young ones. Adjudicators are always the leaders of a clan and no adjudicators have ever risen to that position without first having completed at least five Hive cleansings.
Bad Bloods: These are criminal Yautja who have been sentenced to death and escaped. The Predator justice system shows that crime is very low. About 2% of Yautja are bad bloods. In Predator: Concrete Jungle, the term bad bloods was also applied to Predators captured by humans and brainwashed. They met honorable deaths at the hands of their clan brother Scarface.
Apprentice: These are honorable humans taken by Predators to learn their ways.

[saint of m]

I've seen the first two Predator movies and smatterings of several of the later ones, but don't really know what to make of Predator culture. The trophy-hunters we see in the first few movies don't seem to represent an entire culture; the hunting seems to be a form of recreation rather than a way of life (collecting skulls won't fuel your starships). I get the sense in the later movies of an honor-based warrior culture, but this seems slightly at odds with the trophy-hunter behavior in the first few movies, in which the Predator is supposedly hunting "dangerous" quarry, but which are essentially helpless victims with hopelessly inferior technology, dispatched from long range by a cloaked sniper. Doesn't seem particularly challenging or honorable. And, somehow, these prey species with hopelessly inferior technology keep kicking the Predators' asses. I don't get the feeling that the trophy-hunter Predators that we've seen would stand up very well against real opponents with similar technology.

So, I think if the Predators were a real species, trying to judge what their total culture is like from what little we've seen of it would be a bit like trying to assess the totality of human culture from watching the activities of a pair of redneck deer hunters.

I've read a couple of the AVP books.

From what I can gather there and the others is this:

THey are a race of hunters, always looking for the best foes, typicly dangerous foes. Humans may be weeker, but in many cases can be smarter, so while we are "soft meat" we are worthy prey. The Aliens, are like an ant coloney. Individuly pretty stupid, largly running on instict, but are basicly designed to be nothing but killers, so perfect to see if you test your metal.

They are very indipended and individual in their choice of armorments. Nothing really standardize unless they go to war and even then its usualy bigger guns and more armor. THis can be seen perfectly in the second film where we see all the different predators. The first pred had the sholder cannon and the claws, the self desctruct, and probably other tools we didn't see; the second main pred still had the claws, but the shoulder cannon had projectiles that could go through anything, the net gun that reduce its preay to gooy chunks by constricting and crunching its way through, a weaker wrist mounted plasma weapon, the spear and spear gun, and my personal favorite: The smart Disk. Go AVP films and we have the acid proof knives; glaives; the blasters that could be duel shoulder mounted or converted into a pistol; the glaive or the humongous boomerang esk throwing star; the whip made of Xenomorph teeth; a variety of wrist blades including two swords. Go Predators, and we have shoulder mounted machine gun esk blasters; the sword length wrist blade; hunting dogs; a device that once it hits a foe spears start shooting their way out; booby traps Each one with an unique look, a unique hunting style, a unique culture. Their leader is eaven holding a sword, probably a captured trophies, and gives Danny Glover an old black powder pistol as a reward for defeating one of his warriors.

Thats another thing: They are a very honor base culture (The Super Predators aside from Predators, they don't care who they kill). They only look at dangerous foes, or foes they preceive as dangerous. An unarmed individual usually doesn't have much of a reaction unless that individual has proven them selves to be quite woethy, and even then will try and even things out for a mono e mono fight.

Sick and impregnate foes, despite how armed and skilled they are they will let go (the one predator probably killed Wayland after he realized how much of a worthy foe he was despite his condition or was really pissed to be caught on fire). They also don't target kids as seen in P2. Although going on TV tropes there was a story in the comics where one pred comes back with a child's skull and the leader kills him for such a disgrace (they might defend themselves against a child soldier, but as a child they are not good prey). Another instance comes from a Pred comic I read called Race war where one has the oportunity to kill a thug with an uzi on the street, but seeing it as a protective father to be with a hand on his lover's pregnat belly, leaves him the area as it didn't feel right (however hearing how there are alot of bad ass killers in the penal system, he has fun collecting skulls there).

While not immune to pain such as seen with the first two predator movies) or fear or suprise (such as in the second movie where the predator has a who shit look on his face as his arm gets cut in half, and in AVP movie where the other sees a queen for the first time. However they must endure it, doing their own feild surgery, and in the book (either hunters planet or the one before it) a leader recalls having his dreadlocks put in, which is incredibly painful but the pred must not show a hint of discomfort or they take em out and do them all over again. This was shown in the first AVP book, Prey, where the leader of this Pred Hunting Party teams up with a human woman and eventually has to treat her wounds.

This leads to a funny moment as he found out the hard way she was a she. Predator females are bigger, meaner, and stonger. While they might not take to the hunt themselves, they are a powerful. One chapter this Predator leader named Half Tooth reminesed about a recent mating encounter with an experienced female who ended up throwing him across the room on accident (yeah, they mate like Klingons).

I can see the Lorolii wanting to exploit their stealth capabilities to kill and destroy high ranking enemy individuals or to destroy facilities deemed too dangerous to be left around. That said it would be convincing the warriors race to be soldiers, and while they can play nice with others chances are other tribes will have taken our Amazon race as trophies before which will go badly for negotiations.

[CrimsonFALKE]

How would rather have a ruthless ally, and an oppressive foe, instead of the alternative? Give me a ruthless ally any day.

[saint of m]

If you are refering to the Umiak, from what I can see it, it is not unlike the Phenician wars between Mighty Carthage and Mighty Rome, ,or the Cold War with the USSR and the USA. In both cases neither super power was willing to let the other have complete control of the known world, while desireing it greedily for themselves.

In the former, the Romans won despite Cathage having a much better general leading the Carthagenians until he met his match, and Cathage was utterly destroyed.

The latter conflict both sides had war had world destroying tech and were threatening to use it in a direct conflict while scared the other would push the button.

Now everyone has planet killing tech and don't seem scared to use it.


If you are referring to the preds, it depends. A few clans might agree to this, but I think just as many would see the Loroi as potential trophies, and I doubt the blue space babes will take kindly to a species that has that kind of wild abandon towards their allies.



Another question: Would interspecies romances be a norm, even if no viable offspring were possible, or would other races find that odd.

Also how much of humanity will be the Kirk (so many females of the universe, so little time) and how many will be like Picard (his first thoughts are not can I get her in my bed).