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

[Snoofman]

Maybe this discussion can include spoilers. Maybe not? In either case, you have been warned. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I understand if Arioch chooses not to comment.

But a thought that's been nagging at me... just how ruthless do you think the loroi are? Both as individuals and as a collective of people(s).

Apart from the apparent long history of endless bloodshed, as Tempo graciously pointed out, would you consider the loroi to be more ruthless than humans? Humanity in general has been capable of unspeakable atrocities throughout its long history. Yet also capable of immeasurable kindness and compassion. And always will be caught in the endless sways of benevolence and malevolence.

Let's take some individual examples: around page 139, Talon leads a barrage of missiles right toward Gora Relay Station in order to save the shuttle. Granted that she had to place the safety of the Highland shuttle and of a first contact ambassador of humanity above all else. But even so, the number of comrades on the Relay Station that Talon indirectly sacrificed...

Then there is the examples of the ship Clearbrook on page 131 abandoning Highland shuttle along with its most important cargo. Just to save itself.

Then there is the matter of Cloud being sent as a decoy presumably. We still don't know if Cloud is still alive. But assuming she isn't, chances are she was deployed as an expendable pawn. And (assuming Cloud has in fact died at this point) while it's unclear who convinced/coerced/ordered Cloud to either a) die with honor... or b) commit suicide to make Highland truly look abandoned to the Umiak, it seems quite clear on Cloud's final sad look that she did not want to do whatever she was compelled to carry out.

Then on page 91, there seems to be an exchange with Rune-Laurel and Stillstorm, as if Rune means to say, "We could just let it stay and watch our next move. Then we have all the justification we need to kill it."

And let's not forget about the millions of loroi civilians simply left behind on Seren, or the other colony worlds. They may be failed warriors... but people are still people... regardless of how lowly the warriors think of them.

The morale of the story (to me at least) so far has imparted that people can and may likely do horrific things in order to survive. While the loroi do not throw their lives away as excessively as the shells and have at least some reverence for life, it seems to me that they might have no problem justifying sacrificing each other. I'm holding out that there will be a superior morale as the story progresses and that there are redeemable qualities among the loroi that we've shared this journey with so far. And perhaps we will be forced to watch further ruthless acts just to show us how far loroi (and perhaps even humans) must go to ensure their dominance. Much less simply to survive.

Well what do you guys think?

[Keklas Rekobah]

Is it safe to assume that you are not a military veteran? If so, then it is my duty to advise you that (in real life) every active-duty military member on deployment knows that he or she is expendable (although some are more expendable than others). Carry this over to a culture in which every citizen is — if only by extension — a military member.

Cloud, the most expendable member of the crew, MAY have been sacrificed to keep Alex alive. It has been speculated that she was sent to a vital, pressurized area of the ship to act as a diversion away from the rest of the crew, and MAY have been taken captive. We do not know yet if this is what happened.

Talon did not lead the barrage of missiles, they were already headed toward the Gora station, and she simply out-maneuvered them and used the station as a missile sponge.

“If you are not prepared to call an air strike on your own position, then you have no desire to win the war.” — Unknown Russian Soldier

In war, such sacrifices are made often. They are no more horrific than doing nothing and allowing the enemy to win.

[Bamax]

What Keklas said.

The situation is kill or be killed. Both sides it seems, and surely the Umiak have been stated as such in official lore; are seeking to exterminate each other to the last person.

It was not always that way... until the Umiak became fed up with Loroi over occupied Seren anyway.

It would seem the Umiak just view the Loroi as,a threat to be put down since good and loyal vassals Loroi will never be.

After the Loroi are finished off the Umiak would likely keep expanding or collapse in civil war like they did in early history.

[Tamri]

Not to mention the fact that the Loroi on Seren was not "abandoned", as well as on the colonies lost by the Union in the first period of the war. They simply didn't have time to evacuate, since the front in both cases moved much faster.

Well, the fact that in the event of an evacuation, more valuable personnel and assets are evacuated first - this is generally an alphabet, especially in the case when the capacity of the transports is limited and time is expensive.

[Demarquis]

I agree with the posts above, with a caveat: the Loroi are fighting a war in which they expect to be exterminated if they don't win, and that of course supports a mindset of "do what we have to do". That said, it doesn't make the Loroi any less ruthless. The question is whether they had to have done what we know they did, or whether there is any "extra" ruthlessness in evidence.

Probably the most extreme thing they have done, and the single factor that the humans have cited as a reason not to ally with them, was their genocide of two different allied societies. These appear to have been exceptional actions for the Loroi, who seem to prefer to treat their allies as junior partners in a military alliance, rather than subjugated cannon fodder. There is some indication that the Loroi believe they were betrayed by these allies. Even if true, it seems unlikely that every single member of either community was an active traitor who deserved death, or that it was really necessary to kill every one to ensure their own safety, or even most of them. So pretty ruthless.

If Cloud turns out to have been deliberately sacrificed, then that would rank up there as well, but we don't know that for sure yet. Even the US military typically doesn't openly order someone to undertake an obvious suicide mission, if for no other reason than it's very bad for morale. It's worth noting that, on the evidence of Talon and Spiral, the Loroi seem to be able to "take" very high attrition rates without experiencing mental breakdown. Human units typically break down long before a majority of personnel are killed in action. So their psychology may simply be different from ours.

I would put the worst human society as still more ruthless than that, as we ourselves have committed or attempted to commit genocide with even less rational. On the other hand, no modern developed nation has attempted genocide, and I would hope that they wouldn't. We typically prosecute individual traitors on a case by case basis, not as collectives. We don't believe in collective guilt or punishment.

Which is to say that if the humans ever caught up in technology, we could be a genuine game breaker politically, since we would presumably appear to be a better protector and partner than either the Umiak or the Loroi. Watch those fusion designs, guys.

[Krulle]

On the other hand, no modern developed nation has attempted genocide, and I would hope that they wouldn't. We typically prosecute individual traitors on a case by case basis, not as collectives. We don't believe in collective guilt or punishment.

I beg to differ.
China is pretty aggressively replacing non-Han populations by Han populations.



And, yes, a war is about "doing what is necessary", and this war requires a lot.
Anyone fighting in this war will be required to sacrifice everything, daughters, sisters, mothers are just other pieces on the line.
The alternative is extermination of the whole race, or subjugation by the Umiak.

And as Alex said:

I'm less concerned with how the Loroi treat their enemies than I am with how the Umiak treat their friends.
For what we've been told, to join the Umiak Hierarchy is to effectively sell ourselves into slavery.

This war requires everything, you'll otherwise be dead or slaves.
And neither is an option for the Loroi and the Humans

[Demarquis]

"This war requires everything, you'll otherwise be dead or slaves."

I beg to differ: it's *Survival* that requires everything, not war. For humanity at least, history of full of people who surrendered, and then outlasted their conquerors. I'm also not sure that China is engaged in mass killing, more forced cultural assimilation.

[Snoofman]

...Which is to say that if the humans ever caught up in technology, we could be a genuine game breaker politically, since we would presumably appear to be a better protector and partner than either the Umiak or the Loroi. Watch those fusion designs, guys.

Quite a real possibility. Now that would make many a loroi ripe with jealous anger; a race that the aliens would love more than the loroi themselves. A parody of the Loroi's perfect selves. Assuming they can overlook the darker sides of human nature and corruption that humanity envoys will prefer to keep off the table when wishing to secure vital alliances.

[Dan Wyatt]

I'm also not sure that China is engaged in mass killing, more forced cultural assimilation.

Dude, around 3000-4000 are killed yearly there, not to mention the Labor camps, concentration camps, etc. They have already killed millions from the 50s.

[Krulle]

"This war requires everything, you'll otherwise be dead or slaves."

I beg to differ: it's *Survival* that requires everything, not war. For humanity at least, history of full of people who surrendered, and then outlasted their conquerors.

You are right, it's indeed "Survival".

And yes, often enough, the conquered survived the conquerors.
But in this specific case you'll need to have the endurance of several generations before you'll be freed, and the question is whether that will ever happen, and how wrung out your territory will be by then.

SpoilerShow

I'm also not sure that China is engaged in mass killing, more forced cultural assimilation.

That's still a cultural genocide.
With the mass sterilisations, China is even performing a full genocide.
China plays it longer than most others did, who "performed" within years, while China will take the time to use a full generation.

A genocide does not require active killing.....
(https://www.wordnik.com/words/genocide , definition from American Heritage Dictionary, and one of the definitions from Wiktionary)

[Demarquis]

@Snoofman: "Quite a real possibility. Now that would make many a loroi ripe with jealous anger; a race that the aliens would love more than the loroi themselves. A parody of the Loroi's perfect selves. Assuming they can overlook the darker sides of human nature and corruption that humanity envoys will prefer to keep off the table when wishing to secure vital alliances."

There's the plot to the the second story arc--"Game of Thrones" Outsider style!

@Dan Wyatt: "Dude, around 3000-4000 are killed yearly there, not to mention the Labor camps, concentration camps, etc. They have already killed millions from the 50s."

also @Krulle, who makes a similar point:

"That's still a cultural genocide.
With the mass sterilisations, China is even performing a full genocide.
China plays it longer than most others did, who "performed" within years, while China will take the time to use a full generation.

A genocide does not require active killing....."

Perhaps so, but what we are discussing here is the ruthlessness of the Loroi compared to humans taken as a baseline. The problem with the Loroi, of course, is that they very much *did* engage in active killing, at a massive scale, twice. So if China is our worst case (and I'm not suggesting that what they do is acceptable by any standard) then I'm still going the rank the Loroi as yet still more ruthless.

And this is in fact what is driving the plot: The whole point of Alex's mission is that humanity can't decide between certain slavery with the Umiak, or "junior partnership" with the Loroi accepting the possibility that they might turn and exterminate us. It's his job to figure out how likely a possibility that is. Which seques right into our discussion: just how ruthless are the Loroi? I think they are ruthless enough to physically and quickly exterminate an ally that they believe betrayed them, which seems more ruthless than anything modern human societies have done (taking "Modern" as "Since the end of the "Cold War", or roughly since the 1980's, approximately the last 50 years). If we then project our current behavior into the future, assuming that our descendants will be at least or more ethical than we are today, then we can conclude the Loroi in the story are more ruthless than the humans.

How that should figure into Humanity's decision of who to join I can't say.

[Krulle]

The last 50 years are a bad time frame when trying to judge human character.
We have weapons that ensure mutual destruction, which is the only reasons some skirmishes (although bloody and a humanitarian catastrophe) have not turned into full-blown wars.
The only winning move is to not play.




Seeing what we Humans have done to the Jews, Armenians, ..., which to large degrees were unprovoked, and the Loroi exterminations having been directly related to the impossibility of controlling a group of aliens which allowed a lethal opponent to intrude into your territories....

Well...


Knowing that there'll always be Humans trying to guerrilla-war the occupying force, sooner or later the Umiak and/or the Loroi will decide it's not worth the bother and use superior force to eliminate any threat to their superiority.
I find it better then, to do this in relative freedom of being a Junior partner than being slaves.

No, I do not think the Loroi are more ruthless than Human are.

But we might need to differ between individuals, and organisations/government/administrations, because Human administrations/governments/army leaderships are usually far more ruthless than individual Humans are. Individual Humans have more qualms than a group of Humans has,...
Individually, it seems like the Loroi are more ruthless than Human individuals would be.
But then, most current Loroi grew up in a society of war, fighting for its survival.
Most current humans grew up in relative safety, and all-out wars merely being exercises of "what if".
Human history shows, that individual Humans can become very ruthless when growing to power/growing up in non-enforced rules, and trying to keep the power.

[gaerzi]

Let's take some individual examples: around page 139, Talon leads a barrage of missiles right toward Gora Relay Station in order to save the shuttle. Granted that she had to place the safety of the Highland shuttle and of a first contact ambassador of humanity above all else. But even so, the number of comrades on the Relay Station that Talon indirectly sacrificed...

Do you think that without Talon's maneuver, the Gora Relay Station would still be happily there? It was doomed any way. And it had already been evacuated, there only remained a skeleton staff that knew they had no chance of surviving.

Then there is the examples of the ship Clearbrook on page 131 abandoning Highland shuttle along with its most important cargo. Just to save itself.

Let's suppose they wait for the shuttle, and then get blown up after picking up the shuttle. The people on the shuttle are still dead, but the rest of the ship as well.

And let's not forget about the millions of loroi civilians simply left behind on Seren, or the other colony worlds. They may be failed warriors... but people are still people... regardless of how lowly the warriors think of them.

Seren was largely evacuated. But not fully. Evacuating an entire planet is hard. Moving millions of people is hard. How many people do you think can fit in a spaceship?
We have a first point of reference here:
https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/fleet_loroi.html
A big military ship like the Typhoon-class assault carrier has a crew of about 3000. A Blaze-class frigate has a crew of about 150. This is the same order of magnitude as real-world seagoing vessels: the America-class LHA has a crew of about 2700, the Constellation-class frigate has a crew of about 200. So let's look at real-world passenger ships. The giant cruise ships we build nowadays have a passenger capacity of about 5000 people. But that's for luxury cruise mode, not desperate evacuation mode. If we cram as many people as possible with no real regard to comfort, we may be able to put perhaps ten times that many. It'll be extremely cramped, and quite unsanitary, but better sick than dead, right? So let's assume the biggest civilian ships they had could be crammed with 50 000 people.
https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/loro ... seren.html

When Loroi forces withdrew from the Seren system, the evacuation of civilian and support personnel was incomplete, and some 50 million Loroi remained on Seren when the Umiak took control of the system.

50 million people, divided by a transport capacity of 50 000, that's one thousand. That's how many additional giant passenger ships they should have had before the Umiak arrive to complete the evacuation in time.

[Werra]

A few years ago I was intimate with a Chinese woman. She told me about her childhood growing up in a farming village in rural China. While the 1-child policy was going strong her mother had seven children until the family finally had a son.

That son got first pick on all food items, especially the tasty, rare ones like chicken eggs and anything else with protein. Within the means of Chinese farmers, that boy was treated very well. Understandable as his mom did go to prison to even have him.

One day the Chinese woman who told me this was given away to another family. She wasn't quite a teenager yet. Given away to a more affluent family. A few weeks later she got very sick and was thus returned to her family as defective. I don't know whether there were any costs to be reimbursed but the woman was taken back in by her mother, who couldn't quite bring herself not to. It was a conscious decision to give this woman the chance to recuperate.

Later that family somehow made its way to Texas. By whatever means, I can't tell.

That's how cheap human life can get while a draconian government does everything in its power to make it scarce.

Life for Loroi is never scarce. Their very biology makes that almost impossible. Maybe you are familiar with the theory of youth bulges of Gunnar Heinsohn. Then you will understand that the taboo China broke by regulating human reproduction via law and police is not a taboo for the Loroi. Such means are simply a central pillar of their society without which they couldn't function for very long as civilized people.
Treating their people as expendable, consciously choosing who gets to breed, dystopian horrors to all but the most callous of human societies, is the baseline for Loroi norms.

Consider the changes to society if whether you get to have children were to be decided -directly, by law- by how well you do in your studies. Can you imagine the competitiveness this would breed after a few generations? The Loroi have lived under such a system for thousands of years.

Of course they are more ruthless than humans. Any human male that is softer on a pretty face -so all of them- will have to unlearn a few tens of thousands of years of evolution.

That the Loroi have enjoyed centuries of unthreatened peace, prosperity and authority is the only reason why the above is not immediately apparent.

[Demarquis]

@Krulle:

"The last 50 years are a bad time frame when trying to judge human character."

Why is that? I picked fifty years because it is recent and I thought it made a good baseline during which social conditions were relatively stable (as stable as they ever get in human history). I will note that the rate of violent death has been declining for about 400 years, while at the same time individual legal rights and overall living conditions have been improving for most of the world population. If those trends continue (I am aware of no reason why they shouldn't) then I think we are justified in assuming that our descendants will be at least as ethical as we are or more so.

"Seeing what we Humans have done to the Jews, Armenians, ..., which to large degrees were unprovoked"

This is a good point, but I wonder if you are comparing the worst human societies in history with the average or typical Loroi one. Genocide is not unknown among human beings, but I wouldn't call it typical. The incidence of deliberate mass killing in developed nations appears to be declining, and if that trend continues, I think we are justified in assuming that the human governments of Alex's time are no more likely to commit genocide than we are. So comparing worst case to standard procedure (if it is the Loroi standard procedure) seems unfair to me.

But we might need to differ between individuals, and organizations/government/administrations, because Human administrations/governments/army leaderships are usually far more ruthless than individual Humans are.

Another good point. I think that this is true, even in cases where the government is an individual (ie, the Loroi Emperor) but here we are attempting to compare the behavior of different governments, not individuals. When the Loroi exterminated their traitorous allies, this was presumably the action of their government, not an individual (except insofar as the Emperor (Empress?) decreed it).

Whether or not humans would become as ruthless as the Loroi in similar circumstances (ie, a war of national survival) is a difficult question to answer. But as I said above, I don't think we would have acted in the same way as the Loroi did, because we generally prosecute treason on an individual basis, because we do not believe in collective guilt, and because we typically do not turn on our allies that way. I just find it almost impossible to believe that had we discovered, say, Australia was as a national policy feeding information to the Japanese in WWII, we would have exterminated everyone living in Australia. It just doesn't seem credible. So I'm still falling on the side of the Loroi government being more ruthless than ours are.

@Werra: That is a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing it. It definately provides an insight into conditions in modern China that one just couldn't get otherwise. One wonders of the conditions she described could possibly be sustainable.

Maybe you are familiar with the theory of youth bulges of Gunnar Heinsohn.

I am not. Could you provide a link, please?

Are you suggesting that Loroi society does not value individual life as much as human society does because their rate of reproduction is higher than ours? If so, that's an interesting hypothesis regarding why they are more ruthless than us.

Of course they are more ruthless than humans. Any human male that is softer on a pretty face -so all of them- will have to unlearn a few tens of thousands of years of evolution.

I have this mental image of an entire generation of single young human males emigrating into space so they can get it on with the blue skinned space babes, only to find out just how unimpressed most of them are with us. I get a chuckle out of that.

[Krulle]

@Krulle:

"The last 50 years are a bad time frame when trying to judge human character."

Why is that? I picked fifty years because it is recent and I thought it made a good baseline during which social conditions were relatively stable (as stable as they ever get in human history). I will note that the rate of violent death has been declining for about 400 years, while at the same time individual legal rights and overall living conditions have been improving for most of the world population. If those trends continue (I am aware of no reason why they shouldn't) then I think we are justified in assuming that our descendants will be at least as ethical as we are or more so.

Of course I can repeat my elaboration.

The last 50 years are a bad time frame when trying to judge human character.
We have weapons that ensure mutual destruction, which is the only reasons some skirmishes (although bloody and a humanitarian catastrophe) have not turned into full-blown wars.
The only winning move is to not play.

Bcause we have weapons of mass destruction.
The Russians knew, that if they continued their expansion, the US would use their arsenal, as well as the French and the English.
Vice versa, the "West" knew the Russians and Chinese would unload their arsenal if we had tried to export our democracy to their territories using weapons and armed forces.

That is a main driving factor behind the slowing of war fare.
The wars itself are now so quick and lethal, that there can be no winner.

Until about the 2nd world war, even a long war may have allowed for winners.
The 100 years war.... Imagine modern warfare on such a timescale and what would be left.


And living conditions have improved for some, for some they have deteriorated...
And are deteriorating as we speak, all in the name of advancing our economic society.

That it seems like an improvement is also a cultural viewpoint and industrial-society centric.

[Werra]

@Werra: That is a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing it. It definately provides an insight into conditions in modern China that one just couldn't get otherwise. One wonders of the conditions she described could possibly be sustainable.

Maybe you are familiar with the theory of youth bulges of Gunnar Heinsohn.

I am not. Could you provide a link, please?

Are you suggesting that Loroi society does not value individual life as much as human society does because their rate of reproduction is higher than ours? If so, that's an interesting hypothesis regarding why they are more ruthless than us.

Of course they are more ruthless than humans. Any human male that is softer on a pretty face -so all of them- will have to unlearn a few tens of thousands of years of evolution.

I have this mental image of an entire generation of single young human males emigrating into space so they can get it on with the blue skinned space babes, only to find out just how unimpressed most of them are with us. I get a chuckle out of that.

The youth bulge theory is on wikipedia even. Apparently it is from Gary Fuller, but Heinsohn discussed it extensively in his book "Söhne und Weltmacht" (sons and global power). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populatio ... outh_bulge

The idea is that a society can only provide for so many sons for so long. More than two sons per father is dangerous, as every son strifes for a prestigious position that would allow him to have his own family. Doubling these positions within one generation is a challenge. So any sons above two per father destabilise their country of origin or whichever one they invade.

One Loroi mother can easily have 20 daughters, all of which want a position that allows them to have daughters... So the Loroi need to enact laws that humanity would consider barbaric, just to function. Chinas one child policy caused quite the consternation with its consequences for human reproductive rights and China didn't even (officially) favour the high achievers. The Loroi have to actively select who gets to breed.

[Demarquis]

@Krulle: Ok, I get it now (forgive me, at my age I'm sometimes a little slow). The obvious objection is that the threat of nuclear retaliation would naturally disincentivize the US from attempting to commit genocide on other nuclear powers, and perhaps their formal allies. But that only includes a minority of human nations. What prevents the rest of them? And why has no one committed genocide against their *own* allies, which would not be risking a war, and is exactly what the Loroi did?

Also, a nit pick not directly related to the current discussion, but regional wars very much do have winners and losers, as our experience in Afghanistan (in the negative sense) and the Russian experience in Ukraine and Syria (in the positive sense) demonstrates.

@Werra: Ah, got it. The main objection here is that the Umiak, not the Loroi, were the aggressors (although their reproductive strategy appears to be even more extreme). But overall it seems plausible: I remember reading somewhere that pre-agricultural societies used ritual warfare as a means of population control.

[Krulle]

@Krulle: Ok, I get it now (forgive me, at my age I'm sometimes a little slow). The obvious objection is that the threat of nuclear retaliation would naturally disincentivize the US from attempting to commit genocide on other nuclear powers, and perhaps their formal allies. But that only includes a minority of human nations. What prevents the rest of them? And why has no one committed genocide against their *own* allies, which would not be risking a war, and is exactly what the Loroi did?

Also, a nit pick not directly related to the current discussion, but regional wars very much do have winners and losers, as our experience in Afghanistan (in the negative sense) and the Russian experience in Ukraine and Syria (in the positive sense) demonstrates.

Re. genocide: well, how long do you think the UK would remain an ally when the US turns against the Scottish minority?
No scottish grouping has betrayed the US.
Imagine, a Scottish group would not only do it once. But directly afterwards another Scottish group would do it again. And again.

No, the UK government would have to step in, and if they don't, well, two things will happen:
- the US will do it for them. Collateral damage be damned.
- at the same time, the UK would cease being an ally. Either because they are not the real government anymore (local warlords having the factual control), or because they're implicitly agreeing to the actions.

This is what happened and led to the current Afghanistan situation.

Regarding Syria and Russia: well, that story isn't over yet, is it?

Afghanistan has many losers.
Syria has only losers so far.

And both already led to indications of genocide.


We Humans are terrible beings.


The Loroi have actively been betrayed, and the local governments could/would not intervene.
I may not like the result, but the patience we Humans have is also very short.

[Cthulhu]

This is not a board for political discussions, especially since the mainstream media perception of the matters that you refer to is mostly propaganda.

That "youth bulge" theory is interesting at first glance, but the wikipedia-level of explanation is a terrible oversimplification that will lead to errors in judgement. Its analysis depends on additional factors like the level of education, religion, economic situation, wealth distribution, foreign interference and a dozen more.

The Loroi are not more ruthless than we are. However, the question is not how many Loroi were massacred by other Loroi in their history, or how that ratio can be compared to what we, Humans, did. No matter what horrible atrocities we committed, there were still Humans left after that. The point is how likely are the Loroi to commit a third xenocide? Less likely than the Humans, actually, since the Loroi are not the absolute power. The Union was nearly shattered after the Tithric debacle, and I doubt that the other members would support the Loroi for something that was not even provoked. Alex, however, does not know how the Union works on the inside and has to prepare for the worst. That is the main problem that is shown in the comic.