A question of ruthlessness... spoiler...ish?

[Cthulhu]

@Cthulhu
Ok, but Demarquis has already pointed out how not being able to take ruthles actions does not equal not being ruthless. I have already made the case why the kind of popular resistance you are talking about is extremely difficult against the Loroi. The Loroi would need to be idiots that willingly not make good use of their inherent abilities for that to happen.

I'm not talking about the resistance of a subjugated population, but of political and economic measures taken against the Loroi. If they were to commit yet another xenocide for what would be perceived as a highly selfish, unnecessary and outright paranoid reason, the other Union members would be outraged at this display of senseless cruelty. Then, what will the Loroi do if the various alien firms or even the general populace decides to boycott them? Any measures of "disappearing" the most vocal opposition will merely upset the rest, up to the point of a general strike. I doubt that the Loroi have telepaths powerful enough to mind-control billions of defiant civilians spread out over a hundred systems. On the other hand, even the Emperor had to learn that making an example out of a single planet will not keep the others in line due to fear. The Loroi do not have the necessary mindset, capabilities or infrastructure to turn the Union into an enslaving Empire similar to the Hierarchy, despite their telepathy. Instead, their psionic talents should tell them what the other Union members would think and do, if such actions were to be taken.

Frankly, I have to agree with dragoongfa's excellent analysis that the Loroi resorted to a xenocide because the limitations of their culture, traditions, mindset and capabilities did not allow them to take other paths. This was somewhat mitigated by the formation of the Union that does have additional capabilities, while ensuring that such desperate measures will not be allowed to happen. The Tithric incident was slightly different, but even then, it was only "accepted" for the time being due to the utterly dire war situation.

[Demarquis]

"Arguments have been brought forward on all sides, one side being backed by historical and current facts about current Humans, the other side with fictional facts of backgrounds story of a fictional species in a fictional story."

Ahh, don't put yourself down like that Krulle, I think you are making some excellent points ; )

Seriously, though, for myself at least, this is just a friendly discussion revolving around different moral frameworks and exploring a fictional universe. It's just fun.

[Werra]

I'm not talking about the resistance of a subjugated population, but of political and economic measures taken against the Loroi.

We are talking about the same thing then.

Then, what will the Loroi do if the various alien firms or even the general populace decides to boycott them? Any measures of "disappearing" the most vocal opposition will merely upset the rest, up to the point of a general strike. I doubt that the Loroi have telepaths powerful enough to mind-control billions of defiant civilians spread out over a hundred systems.

This kind of solidarity -with aliens the people have never met, no less- takes a lot of effort and leadership. The Loroi have excellent tools to influence that. Controlling billions is unnecessary when the loyalty of a few thousand is enough.

A general strike for moralities sake? Without the immoral actions directly affecting the quality of life of the strikers? That's not going to happen.

Frankly, I have to agree with dragoongfa's excellent analysis that the Loroi resorted to a xenocide because the limitations of their culture, traditions, mindset and capabilities did not allow them to take other paths.

You are judging Loroi actions, culture and morals as lesser because they do not fit your human morals. Applying your own species morals to aliens is what Mizol are trained not to do.

[Snoofman]

"Arguments have been brought forward on all sides, one side being backed by historical and current facts about current Humans, the other side with fictional facts of backgrounds story of a fictional species in a fictional story."

Ahh, don't put yourself down like that Krulle, I think you are making some excellent points ; )

Seriously, though, for myself at least, this is just a friendly discussion revolving around different moral frameworks and exploring a fictional universe. It's just fun.

Yeah, plus fiction is a great (or enjoyable at the very least) way to impart morales and lessons. As I am sure the Outsider storyline will impart as Arioch draws us closer to the end. Quite literally in point of fact.

[Cthulhu]

The general strike won't be done for the sake of morals, but due to the apparent threat of a loose cannon. The other races regard the Loroi with suspicion, since their telepathic talents make them somewhat frightening, especially because they are also the dominant power of the Union. For the most part, however, this is not felt by the general populace directly. The Loroi are not particularly expansionist, preferring to keep to themselves, and do not like to deal with aliens. Even their feeling of superiority, while certainly being irksome, does not lead to negative consequences. Therefore, the others accept their dominion, and the arrangement worked pretty well so far.
Now, imagine that the Loroi were to exterminate a race, that is also most certainly their template species. The other Union members would arrive at two conclusions:

1. The resistance to telepathy is an incredibly dire threat to the Loroi, so what are they up to?
2. The mere idea of having a template species is also a massive blow to their plans and something that needs to be erased immediately.

Combining those points should alert all the members that the Loroi are not the benevolent guardians of the Union, but its secret slave masters instead. It would open the door to all kinds of conspiracy theories, unrest, Umiak interference, and riots. The morale damage would be enormous and very hard to pinpoint or counteract. With the terrible strain of the drawn-out war, it could be even fatal. The Union system of government is still too lenient, and the members retain too much independence for the Loroi to simply walk all over them.

P.S. While I understand that the Loroi are not humans, both me and the author certainly are. Or maybe not. Therefore, we only have the Human moral system to adhere to, since the alien ones are merely fantasy. We can try to imagine what they could be, but it is of course far from being as throughout as the Human ones, to which we shall inevitably fall back to. I am not judging the Loroi to be lesser, simply different. Unable to solve a difficult situation, they resorted to a massacre, which is, unfortunately, quite human.

P.P.S. According to the evidence presented here, the user Snoofman shall be tried and sentenced to a terrible PUNishment.

[Snoofman]

...You are judging Loroi actions, culture and morals as lesser because they do not fit your human morals. Applying your own species morals to aliens is what Mizol are trained not to do.

Granted. It would seem unrealistic to hold other sapient/sentient species to the same principles as humans since both have different needs, instincts and behaviors. However, it can be argued that spacefaring intelligent life, however alien and different from humans, must at some point develop a morale code that at the very least is universally acceptable among intelligent races. The most well accepted (and vague hardly enough) being the "Golden Rule". The Union seems to be at the very least the Outsider aliens' and Loroi's attempt to fulfilling that golden rule. The loroi may have created the perfect warrior society that teaches and drills warriors to be selfless and to win. And not just win. Win to survive! But it doesn't matter how perfect the warriors are; it's not enough.

[Snoofman]

... P.P.S. According to the evidence presented here, the user Snoofman shall be tried and sentenced to a terrible PUNishment.

To one hour of YouTube trolling?! Outrage!!!

Under what grounds?

[Cthulhu]

To one hour of YouTube trolling?! Outrage!!!

Under what grounds?

Heavy are the sins of pun! Or was that the sin of pi? No, that's zero. Wait, scratch that too, it should be gluttony, right?
Anyway, you know the rules and so do I...

[gaerzi]

But seriously, if the Loroi looked like the Umiak, none of you would defend their actions.

Would be funny to have an alt-Outsider where the races are reversed. The Umiak are the telepathic overlords on the losing side of a stalemated war; the Loroi are the relentless slavemasters with he numbers for them. Jardin has been rescued from his destroyed ships by a crew of friendly, if ugly, bugs, who want to give him a chance but are still very wary due to his physical resemblance with their hated enemies...

Anyways. Yes, obviously, the fact that the Loroi look just like humans, except for their pigmentation, is important to the story. It's been heavily implied that this is not just a crazy coincidence of evolutionary convergence, or to make things simpler to the artist who obviously has a lot more experience and reference material drawing humans shapes than drawing some fictional made-up alien with no real resemblance to terrestrial lifeforms. (See also: why most sci-fi aliens are still humanoid.) No, it goes beyond that because the Loroi are not just alieny aliens who just happen to look like humans, they're actually the outcome of some Mysterious Hyper-Advanced Race putting humans in their photocopiers. Despite the cultural and biological differences, they're still, from a certain point of view, human.

[Demarquis]

@Cthulhu: "I'm not talking about the resistance of a subjugated population, but of political and economic measures taken against the Loroi. If they were to commit yet another xenocide for what would be perceived as a highly selfish, unnecessary and outright paranoid reason, the other Union members would be outraged at this display of senseless cruelty."

Perhaps so, I'm just not sure what this has to do with how ruthless the Loroi are (or aren't). To me, the term "ruthless" is a personality trait, not an outcome of a series of actions. You're ruthless if you think or attempt to act ruthlessly, that is, if in the pursuit of your own interests, you act aggressively or destructively without concern for the costs to the target of your actions. If you suppress your natural tendencies due to the possible consequences of acting on them, that doesn't make you any less ruthless, because you are still pursuing your own interests in as aggressive a manner as you can, given practical constraints. You are still a ruthless person, because your thoughts, impulses and preferences are still aligned toward a single-minded course of action in support of your own needs, and your own needs alone.

This does not appear to describe the human race as a whole. What we are discussing here is the extent to which it describes the Loroi.

[Cthulhu]

Since the Loroi are fictional, we inevitably fall back to compare them with what we (think) know best, namely ourselves.

Ruthlessness in general encompasses a wide assortment of concepts, but most of them deal with compassion. Most governments are ruthless, since they place their own goals and interests above that of others. What does compassion mean for a warrior species, though? The Loroi undergo harsh training, after all, but they are also bound to a code of honor. At least on Deinar, the wars were fought between warriors, sparing the civilians and especially males. For the species in general, they do not appear to be particularly aggressive, expansionist or ruthless. A single Loroi may display a wide range of compassion or ruthlessness, since an entire race of ruthless predators wouldn't work as a system. The biggest problems that the Loroi society faces, and that forced them to adopt the strict caste system, is their aggressive honesty that the telepathic communication enforces.

[gaerzi]

For the species in general, they do not appear to be particularly aggressive, expansionist or ruthless.

They did start the third Mannadi war as a war of conquest. The first two conflicts were started by the Mannadi, sure, but the second ended with the Mannadi being completely trounced and relinquishing a lot of systems the Loroi had taken control of when they sued for peace. After that, the Loroi thought "those weaklings are easy pickings!" and started a third war some time later to complete their takeover. Either that or they thought the Mannadi, left to their own devices, may rebuild their forces and take back the systems they had lost. Or perhaps they have some sort of cultural complex like it's their "manifest destiny" to rule over all those they can defeat.

Regardless of their motives, this was a Loroi war of aggression against a defeated foe, and when the Mannadi insurgent resisted bitterly, the Loroi decided to just start genociding them.

So yes the Loroi are aggressive, expansionist, and ruthless. Maybe they need to be provoked a bit before... but it's clear that their victory in the second war was not found sufficient, they felt the need to have a third war to "finish the job". If you are their enemy, they'll make sure to finish you off sooner or later.

[Cthulhu]

For a warrior species with a 1800 years-long history of spacefaring, the Loroi have only fought in a few wars, and just 2 of those were purely expansionist ones. We were not given a clear reason for the third Mannadi war, so we can only speculate about its goals, although it may seem to be expansionist. The massacre, however, doesn't seem to have been planned:

I'm not absolving the Loroi of guilt in the Mannadi massacre, I'm just pointing out the fact that it was not official policy.

Also, finishing off an opponent that attacked your allies is merely sensible from a strategical point of view, it does not necessarily mean that it was done due to "manifest destiny".

[Demarquis]

"Ruthlessness in general encompasses a wide assortment of concepts, but most of them deal with compassion..."

I agree overall with the points you make, but I have two caveats:

1) All your examples involve how the Loroi treat other Loroi. I might agree that the Loroi are no more ruthless (or perhaps even less) toward their own kind that we are, but the question that concerns us (and Humanity in the story) is how likely they are to commit genocide again against the humans. Given their past history, I am making a claim that they are more likely to do so than we are.

2) "Ruthlessness in general encompasses a wide assortment of concepts, but most of them deal with compassion." OK, but then again, we generally do the same thing, so no indication either way, I think.

3) "For the species in general, they do not appear to be particularly aggressive, expansionist or ruthless." You are conflating a number of different things here, I think. A society can be expansionist without being especially ruthless (I would argue that that reasonably describes the United States), or ruthless without be especially expansionist (China).

4) "The biggest problems that the Loroi society faces, and that forced them to adopt the strict caste system, is their aggressive honesty that the telepathic communication enforces." You may very well be right about that. To what extent that excuses their ruthless behavior I suppose is a matter of personal interpretation.

"Since the Loroi are fictional, we inevitably fall back to compare them with what we (think) know best, namely ourselves." Clearly so. We are comparing a fictional race to our own actual history: one of these comes with a lot more detail than the other. That makes direct comparisons difficult!

[Cthulhu]

The Loroi are first and foremost a warrior species, with a clear distinction between the ruling warrior class and the subordinate civilians. Therefore, they have developed a distinct culture and rules of conduct regarding the relationship between those, even in war. Perhaps, for them, "compassionate" or rather merciful, would be demoting the losing side's warriors to civilians or even integrating them, instead of simply killing them, which could be actually "honorful" in the old ways.

Any group will think about themselves first, it will compare and even measure others by their own, familiar standards. It is simply a natural response, and you'd need to take it into account. There may be additional rules regarding outsiders, but they are usually far less elaborate and in the case there's a blank spot, those in charge will often fall back to their own ones.

All other Union members are civilians under Loroi law, either voluntary, or as the result of subjugation, like the Delrias. The Mannadi, however, violated those rules, which led to an extraordinary reaction. Since Arioch stated that the massacre was not actually planned, it may have been the case of ever escalating "wrong measures". This could shift the reason from outright ruthlessness to inflexibility and frustration.

All warriors or soldiers need to have a fairly high level of ruthlessness, otherwise, how could they make killing into a profession? They need to place their own survival, as well as the goals of the faction/state they serve, above the life and wellbeing of others. The political leadership also needs to be ruthless enough to enforce their state's interests against competitors. Society as a whole is often neither, because the people are too preoccupied with their own lives, barring the exceptions where something draws their attention, and I think that the Loroi are also similar in this regard.

While we do not have enough information, I'd still hazard a guess that the Loroi would not go out of their way to massacre the Humans, unless "we" ally with the Umiak and therefore, give the Hierarchy some significant advantage.

P.S. This is not a political forum, therefore it would be for the best to leave contemporary politics out of it. Otherwise, this discussion may quickly turn into a very dark one, especially if we were to leave the propaganda bubble of (western) mainstream media.

[inxsi]

All other Union members are civilians under Loroi law, either voluntary, or as the result of subjugation, like the Delrias. The Mannadi, however, violated those rules, which led to an extraordinary reaction. Since Arioch stated that the massacre was not actually planned, it may have been the case of ever escalating "wrong measures". This could shift the reason from outright ruthlessness to inflexibility and frustration.

Enjoying the discussion. As much as I like the idea, I think there are some challenges to the notion that all non-Loroi are treated as civilians under Loroi law. As a counterexample there are Barsam mercenaries working for the Union, but Loroi cannot be mercenaries:

SpoilerShow

Sure, the Agumo Conference is under contract to the Union, and Mozin's Prophet's Reason is an example. The Agumo ships are armed, but they are mostly employed as couriers, scouts, and special operations forces. Sometimes it's useful to have Barsam-sized troops in close-quarters operations.

...

Loroi civilians are not allowed to bear arms, and warriors are not allowed to earn profit, so Loroi can't be conventional mercenaries under the Loroi system. Back in the days of separate warring nations, there were the equivalent of ronin; masterless warriors whose clan had fallen, or who had been punished for a crime with exile. They wandered around doing tasks for room and board, and hoping to impress another clan and be allowed to join. But ever since the unification of Loroi nations, all warriors are considered to serve the central government, and exile is no longer a common punishment (as exile now means leaving Loroi-controlled territory).

[Cthulhu]

Enjoying the discussion. As much as I like the idea, I think there are some challenges to the notion that all non-Loroi are treated as civilians under Loroi law. As a counterexample there are Barsam mercenaries working for the Union, but Loroi cannot be mercenaries:

SpoilerShow

Sure, the Agumo Conference is under contract to the Union, and Mozin's Prophet's Reason is an example. The Agumo ships are armed, but they are mostly employed as couriers, scouts, and special operations forces. Sometimes it's useful to have Barsam-sized troops in close-quarters operations.

...

Loroi civilians are not allowed to bear arms, and warriors are not allowed to earn profit, so Loroi can't be conventional mercenaries under the Loroi system. Back in the days of separate warring nations, there were the equivalent of ronin; masterless warriors whose clan had fallen, or who had been punished for a crime with exile. They wandered around doing tasks for room and board, and hoping to impress another clan and be allowed to join. But ever since the unification of Loroi nations, all warriors are considered to serve the central government, and exile is no longer a common punishment (as exile now means leaving Loroi-controlled territory).

The other races still have some system patrol and defense fleets, as well as garrisons and space stations. Therefore, exceptions were of course introduced into the system, because otherwise, the Loroi would need to provide all that as well. Since this would lower the status of the other members even further, a compromise was the most likely solution. This should place the Loroi civilians even lower on the social ladder, and it was perhaps this discrepancy that gave dragoongfa the idea of writing Reforged.

[Tamri]

This, and the fact that according to the Insider, Loroi prefer to rely not on their own military-industrial complex and R&D, but on the military-industrial complex and R&D of partners in the Union, which even more drives civilians under the parquet.

Those do not even have an ephemeral ability to somehow show themselves, because they are initially perceived as "worse" than even non-Loroi neighbors.

[Arioch]

There's a distinction between the Union government, in which the Loroi have a special executive position, and the government of worlds under Loroi jurisdiction. Loroi rules regarding their own civilians only have effect within Loroi territory and regarding Loroi citizens. The militaries of the other Union members are limited by the Union treaty in a similar manner to the way that the various Earth nations agreed to limit their naval power according to the Washington (etc.) treaties, but Loroi law has little or no effect on non-Loroi worlds. The manner in which aliens in Loroi territory are treated similar to civilians is that there is no restriction again them owning and running businesses. And they are probably not allowed to bear arms unless they have some kind of special permit.

Also, a Loroi who has legally emigrated to a non-Loroi nation is no longer subject to Loroi law, and so it is possible for expatriate Loroi to serve in foreign mercenary companies. Though these are few and far between as the Loroi themselves are the major customers for such companies.

It's not really true to say that the Loroi prefer to rely on alien industry rather than their own; as an inherently mercantile economy that values self-sufficiency, the opposite is true. The Loroi are pragmatic enough to adopt alien technologies when these are superior to their own, and being in the Union for so long with the free-market Barsam and Neridi, the Loroi have learned to appreciate that it is more efficient to buy components from entities that can produce them better or more cheaply than Loroi manufacturers, but the majority of military hardware is still produced in Loroi factories by Loroi workers.

The Loroi reprisals following the Enok incident didn't have anything to do with breaking Loroi rules regarding civilians; the Mannadi were a newly surrendered occupied population whose only treaty agreement with the Loroi was the instrument of surrender (the Union at this point did not yet exist). The Mannadi did violate these terms of surrender by allowing or supporting continued armed resistance, which culminated in a successful attack that killed a lot of Loroi and destroyed several ships. And the Loroi response was the action of a local commander, and not officially sanctioned by Loroi law or the Loroi administration.

[Krulle]

@Krulle
I am sorry man, but your interpretation of the Punic wars is not a historical fact. Rome paid a high price for her victories in both wars. The first punic war saw the biggest naval battles in history until the...uh, Korea Japan war?

Every war is expensive.

But someone started with Delenda Carthago Est, and this sentence was not used until after the second punic war, and led to the third punic war.
Carthago was destroyed when it was NO danger to Rome.

Be careful when alleging that I don't know history.
Also, there were three punic wars, not just two like you allege. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Punic_War

A society can be expansionist without being especially ruthless (I would argue that that reasonably describes the United States), or ruthless without be especially expansionist (China).

Sorry, one word popped to my mind: Taiwan.

And economy wise, China is aggressively expansionist. They influence neighbouring policies through economics.