Well of Souls Forums

dragoongfa wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:40 am

The 'Beta' or early build theory coincides with what we know about the Loroi abilities and the vast discrepancies between 'power levers'.

It can also be that the Soy originally intended to have Loroi filling a wide spectrum of functions, and didn't intend strong PK or Farseeing to be universal -
just common enough to fill the spot on the organization chart.

dragoongfa wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:40 am

(extreme longevity, fast early maturation, any issues that the males may have)

Those are somewhat troublesome in an independent lifeform. They are entirely desirable in a bipedal talking tool.

That is not very precise intelligence, your dragooncely.

The Loroi were designed as a species that can function autonomously. That the members vary in ability is what you'd expect. How many individuals do you really need that can sense at interstellar distances or kill with their minds?
The rest of the species can still make use of the benefits of baseline telepathy.

I think that the Loroi are indeed a beta build, but not something to enhance the capabilities, but to explore the possibilities of the template species. Perhaps the Soia were already moving onto the next step, where they would selectively maximize certain capabilities, producing more specialized tools to supplement the general-purpose series. Unfortunately (or not), the Soia empire fell and the Loroi escaped as they were. Also, why would the Soia go through the trouble of blocking mankind with that "Lotai"? Perhaps, our ancestors were too powerful to be left with it, but too valuable to simply get rid of entirely.

Snoofman wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 13, 2021 8:39 am

Then the Historian may not be lying after all. Alex may very well be in grave mortal danger so long as he stays with the Loroi.

Death by snu-snu?
OH NO!!! THE HORROR!!!

Cthulhu wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 14, 2021 3:34 pm

Also, why would the Soia go through the trouble of blocking mankind with that "Lotai"?

But is that really a block?

Maybe it's just a consequence of being the template species. Arioch has described Loroi telepathy as being an emergent property of the mind, just like the mind is an emergent property of the brain. Now Loroi brains, and thus their minds, were patterned after human brains, however adapted to use the Soia-Liron patented biochemistry ingredients. Perhaps the phenomenon of humans not being detectable by Loroi telepathy could be compared to something like waveform cancellation: if you mirror a wave (for example, a soundwave) by inverting its phase, you get pretty much the same sound. However, when you add both the original sound and its antiphase mirror image, they cancel each other and you get silence.

So perhaps, in a similar way, the human mind is too close to being the "antiphase" of the loroi mind, and that makes it all so much harder for the loroi telepathy to work on humans. In the same way that it's hard to hear the sound that your noise-canceling headset is actively canceling.

I think we've seen (with Alex so far) that the baseline capabilities are there, they're just not easily or consciously accessible. At the very least, we can receive a given value of the Loroi's "bandwidth." I don't know if Alex was getting any emotional input from Fireblade's two memories (or if that was his own emotions), but he was getting sensory input.

It would probably aggravate the Mizol to no end if the entire species was 'receive only.'

Dan Wyatt wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:56 pm

Snoofman wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 13, 2021 8:39 am

Then the Historian may not be lying after all. Alex may very well be in grave mortal danger so long as he stays with the Loroi.

Death by snu-snu?
OH NO!!! THE HORROR!!!

it won't be worth it in the end.

gaerzi wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 15, 2021 9:25 am

But is that really a block?

Maybe it's just a consequence of being the template species. Arioch has described Loroi telepathy as being an emergent property of the mind, just like the mind is an emergent property of the brain. Now Loroi brains, and thus their minds, were patterned after human brains, however adapted to use the Soia-Liron patented biochemistry ingredients. Perhaps the phenomenon of humans not being detectable by Loroi telepathy could be compared to something like waveform cancellation: if you mirror a wave (for example, a soundwave) by inverting its phase, you get pretty much the same sound. However, when you add both the original sound and its antiphase mirror image, they cancel each other and you get silence.

So perhaps, in a similar way, the human mind is too close to being the "antiphase" of the loroi mind, and that makes it all so much harder for the loroi telepathy to work on humans. In the same way that it's hard to hear the sound that your noise-canceling headset is actively canceling.

Interestingly enough, I've had a similar idea for my fanfic, but in the end I decided (by rolling dice) on a different reasoning behind it.

Your approach would, or at least could, have the unfortunate side effect of cancelling out telepathy completely. Instead of being merely blank to Loroi Sanzai, humans would jam or even outright cancel it wherever present. Which is what we do not see, even for Beryl, who was as close as it gets to Alex. Instead, this is too similar to what the Umiak do, thus creating enough rather nasty suspicions among Loroi. It would be beyond funny if the Umiak found some Human splinter colony, settled by the Soia, and then made use of them. I doubt Alex would survive that revelation...

orion1836 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 15, 2021 11:29 am

I think we've seen (with Alex so far) that the baseline capabilities are there, they're just not easily or consciously accessible. At the very least, we can receive a given value of the Loroi's "bandwidth." I don't know if Alex was getting any emotional input from Fireblade's two memories (or if that was his own emotions), but he was getting sensory input.

It would probably aggravate the Mizol to no end if the entire species was 'receive only.'

"Receive only" would not only make no sense, it would be quite weird story-wise. Or maybe I'm too spoiled by the various fanfics. It's a pity that "What to do with Jardin" was abandoned, it was hilarious.

Cthulhu wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 15, 2021 7:03 pm

"Receive only" would not only make no sense, it would be quite weird story-wise. Or maybe I'm too spoiled by the various fanfics. It's a pity that "What to do with Jardin" was abandoned, it was hilarious.

Receive-only fits the data we've seen thus far from my perspective. Alex is definitely receiving, but the Loroi have not yet been able to detect him, pull anything from his mind, or pick up anything he might be unconsciously pushing.

I've been waiting for more "What to do with Jardin" for a long time now.

orion1836 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 15, 2021 9:35 pm

Cthulhu wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 15, 2021 7:03 pm

"Receive only" would not only make no sense, it would be quite weird story-wise. Or maybe I'm too spoiled by the various fanfics. It's a pity that "What to do with Jardin" was abandoned, it was hilarious.

Receive-only fits the data we've seen thus far from my perspective. Alex is definitely receiving, but the Loroi have not yet been able to detect him, pull anything from his mind, or pick up anything he might be unconsciously pushing.

I've been waiting for more "What to do with Jardin" for a long time now.

Heck, not just receive only, the it almost seems like humans have to be forcibly (if inadvertently) tuned to the right frequency range like they have one heck of a bandpass filter built in. Have a feeling that without Fireblade's mental intrusion attempt, Jardin would not be picking up much of anything at all.

Which I'd bet would be extra unnerving to the Loroi if they realize that, since not only are they unable mentally detect or control a human, attempting to do so makes the human able to detect the Loroi doing it and even leech memories from them like some sort of walking anti-psi weapon instead of just being psionically inert.

Jardin definitely may want to consider keeping that info to himself.

Cthulhu wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 15, 2021 7:03 pm

Your approach would, or at least could, have the unfortunate side effect of cancelling out telepathy completely.

No, not completely. To stay with the analogy, active cancellation is never 100% efficient, for many technical reasons; just sufficient enough to do the job. Perhaps the "outside noise" is too strong for your headset to manage to cancel out (hence Jardin "hearing" Fireblade anyway). Perhaps after a while you can learn to pay attention to the barely-audible noise, now that you know you've got to be on alert for subtle whispers instead of full-throated declamations.

Seems Jardin never truly believed the "good elf" was really on his side. Smart man.

gaerzi wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 15, 2021 11:10 pm

No, not completely. To stay with the analogy, active cancellation is never 100% efficient, for many technical reasons; just sufficient enough to do the job. Perhaps the "outside noise" is too strong for your headset to manage to cancel out (hence Jardin "hearing" Fireblade anyway). Perhaps after a while you can learn to pay attention to the barely-audible noise, now that you know you've got to be on alert for subtle whispers instead of full-throated declamations.

Even this would retain a certain level of interference, some sort of dampening or jamming. That's the reason some fanfics theorize that the humans have a "self-containing" field keeping our telepathy in. The effect of Lotai is then just a side effect. Hmm, this gives me an interesting idea for another fanfic.