Well of Souls Forums

Just a curious question, as the Loroi had some considerable time to strip the wreck of anything they deem of interest, what do you think they recovered, and how do you think they would perceive it?

For instance, simple books, like origin of the Species, etc..

We don't know yet. My expectation is that they got a good collection of stuff but that it won't really play a part in the story. I doubt there are any physical books on the Bellarmine.

There could've been some crewmember who decided to bring along a few books to read. Imagine the Loroi reaction to Anne McCaffrey.

"Holy shit, dragons!"

ed_montague wrote:There could've been some crewmember who decided to bring along a few books to read. Imagine the Loroi reaction to Anne McCaffrey.

"Holy shit, dragons!"

An Anne McCaffrey fan!!??!

actually pretty decent writer possessing the one crucial ability of most successful writers, quantity, and differing from some of those a pretty consistently 'good' output....although i have to say i did not like the acorna series, well written mind you just did not like it.

but then there are few authors i actually dislike.
donita k paul is one, writes well enough i suppose but there was something that bothered me when i read the book dragonspell, it took me a few chapters to figure out what it was when it hit me in the face 'prayers to god is the only good way to use magic' paraphrase and changing deity but yup, old school christian and long time 'christian romance' writer, that...mindset of absolute certainty that there is only one way, so typical of.....right not going there.

jeff noon and his vurt story was....disturbing to say the least.

tolkien, because i was stupid enough to read silmarillion in one sitting, had a serious headache for a few days trying to sort out all that data, which in the end of course failed, very good writer even if he can be long winded at times just cant think of him without recollecting that horrible experience.

I think there are lot of things that are taken instead of heavy books. As you can pack millions of pages in size of your thump.

Stuffed toys, funny shaped memory sticks, pictures of idols, family members or places, small gifts or mementos. Something which can keep you relaxed time after time, month after months.

I dunno. I figure that since this is a military contact mission, and that it has a major chance of getting FUBAR, or sliding sideways, I suspect that there is very little or no physical readables that don't pertain to the ship, I figure the star charts that might lead back to earth are easy to trash in case of the ship being disabled/destroyed.

If it were an American classified operation to an unknown and potentially hostile power, it's very likely the crew would be banned from having any culturally significant possessions aboard, such as religious books or books on human culture. that stuff that could be used against all of humanity if the aliens decided to come after us.

The TCA has nearly no knowledge of the alien cultures in question, so i suspect that humans would want to present a very neutral front, and then carefully expose the parts of their culture that would be most advantageous to winning over the alien group the captain decided to woo.

From the flash back, it looked like ol' Hammy had the loroi in mind from early on, as the orgus painted the Umiak as slavers from day one.

I'd bet that no star charts or cultural items where recoverd by the Loroi, as emergency protocol would likely be to trash them, the process could very well be automated, a "code Omega" if you will.

my bet is that all they have is a slagged sample of our tech, and a bunch of bodies to dissect, which honestly, is pretty bad in and of it self.
J

I don't expect that there would be much printed material lying around the Bellarmine. I would guess that society in 2160 is pretty close to paperless, and especially on a deep-space starship, you'd want to keep the amount of required consumable supplies to an absolute minimum; prinouts would be an unnecessary luxury. Printed books still exist, but mostly as antiques, curios or collectibles; I'd think mass-market paperbacks will have been replaced by digital editions.

A crew on a deep-space first contact mission would be allowed to bring only the absolute minimum in terms of physical personal belongings, which would be carefully inspected and vetted prior to boarding. Crewmembers would be allowed a generous amount of personal data (music, images, books, software, etc.), but this would all be stored in encrypted ship systems; crew would have access to portable data appliances, but these would be "company" issued devices and not the crewmembers' personal devices, which would not be allowed on board.

Aw. At least they can have Anne McCaffrey ebooks.

Michael wrote:

ed_montague wrote:There could've been some crewmember who decided to bring along a few books to read. Imagine the Loroi reaction to Anne McCaffrey.

"Holy shit, dragons!"

An Anne McCaffrey fan!!??!

Born and raised on those books. Amen.

Captain Jardin speaks highly of a fictional Englishman named Harry Potter. He sounds like perfect company for Fireblade.

Would be awesome if they came upon somebody's porn stash.

discord wrote:actually pretty decent writer possessing the one crucial ability of most successful writers, quantity, and differing from some of those a pretty consistently 'good' output....although i have to say i did not like the acorna series, well written mind you just did not like it.

but then there are few authors i actually dislike.
donita k paul is one, writes well enough i suppose but there was something that bothered me when i read the book dragonspell, it took me a few chapters to figure out what it was when it hit me in the face 'prayers to god is the only good way to use magic' paraphrase and changing deity but yup, old school christian and long time 'christian romance' writer, that...mindset of absolute certainty that there is only one way, so typical of.....right not going there.

jeff noon and his vurt story was....disturbing to say the least.

tolkien, because i was stupid enough to read silmarillion in one sitting, had a serious headache for a few days trying to sort out all that data, which in the end of course failed, very good writer even if he can be long winded at times just cant think of him without recollecting that horrible experience.

*facepalm* I tried reading the silmarillion once too, being dyslexic, I know exactly where you're coming from. It doesn't help that it was printed after his death and was never actually finished, at least not be by him.
Having never actually read the whole of the lord of the rings (I get about half way and find I've forgotten what happened 3-4 pages ago) I put it down very quickly after only the first few pages, and this is someone who at the time had already read The Hobbit at age twelve, along with about half of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and a few years later most of David Webber's Honour Harrington novels, In other words, its not an easy book to wrap you're head around but I suggest you do try and read The Lord of the Rings (just not the "all in one" book) as they are a great collection and great read, if you can in fact get into them

ed_montague wrote:Aw. At least they can have Anne McCaffrey ebooks.

Michael wrote:

ed_montague wrote:There could've been some crewmember who decided to bring along a few books to read. Imagine the Loroi reaction to Anne McCaffrey.

"Holy shit, dragons!"

An Anne McCaffrey fan!!??!

Born and raised on those books. Amen.

fredgiblet wrote:We don't know yet. My expectation is that they got a good collection of stuff but that it won't really play a part in the story. I doubt there are any physical books on the Bellarmine.

Sure no physical books. But I'd say that something lke a kindle could be easily on board.

Of course it might take a while to decypher the contents.

First you need to recover the device, then you need to understand the filesystem, after that you need to anylise the files and udnerstand how they work and then you have to actually be able to translate the language.

Since I doubt anyone would have books written in common trade.

Michael wrote:Having never actually read the whole of the lord of the rings (I get about half way and find I've forgotten what happened 3-4 pages ago) I put it down very quickly after only the first few pages, and this is someone who at the time had already read The Hobbit at age twelve

IMO The Hobbit is significantly better than LoTR. Strangely enough I'm expecting to reverse that for the movies.

junk wrote:Of course it might take a while to decypher the contents.

It'll probably take a long time, months or possibly years, then once they's accessed it they'll have to figure out which ones are relevant, which means knowing English (or possibly Chinese).

Partial inventory:

• 400 undershirts, 400 underpants, 80 dress uniforms, 400 pairs of pants, and exactly 799 socks. Considered self-explanatory.
  
  One trombone, slightly bent. Considered a curiosity.
  
  One chess board and set of ornate playing pieces, almost 80% complete. Captain Jardin substitutes seemingly random items for the missing pieces when playing against Loroi. Considered fully understood.
  
  Four Terran-model space toilets. Considered curiosities.
  
  Ninety large boxes full of strange, organic substance, labeled "CHOCOLATE RATIONS." Chemical analysis incomplete. Considered potentially hazardous, handle with care.
  
  Twenty Terran-manufactured space mattresses. Considered similar to sleeping on a cloud.
  
  Four hundred seventy eight kilograms of bottled water.
  
  One half of a central computer harddrive. Significant plasma damage. Considered a lost cause.
  
  Sixty three large black packages labeled "SPACE COFFEE." Considered hazardous if ingested, handle with care.
  
  Eight hundred and forty three ship's computer circuitboards, fused together in parts and torn apart in others, pitted, sheared, and partially melted as results of battle damage. Considered curiosities.
  
  One four cubit by three cubit by eight cubit rectangular solid that looks like it might once have housed computer components. Fused solid by heat from plasma weaponry. Considered worthless.
  
  Eighteen door control panel interfaces. Considered worthless.
  
  Three working waffle irons. Considered curiosities.
  
  Five coffee makers. Lined with coffee residue. Considered potentially hazardous. Handle with care.
  
  One indestructible black box, labeled with text which, when relayed to Captain Jardin, he translated as "Atari 2600," connected to two joypads, one portable viewscreen, and a strange cartridge labeled "Polybius." Captain Jardin became increasingly distressed after its mention, and denies its existence. Currently unable to activate. May hold the secret to decoding all human technology. Considered an extremely high priority research subject.
  
  Fifteen ornamental figures Captain Jardin identified as garden gnomes. Captain Jardin claimed that his ship had not stocked any garden gnomes. None of the salvage teams had reported gathering any garden gnomes. Considered haunted.

Its kind of grisly, but i am sure they recovered a number of bodies and have them in storage for later detailed study.

Heck, with more time, better facilities, more medical expertise than is depolyed to a combat vessel, etc, they may even be able to revive someone else. What Tempo told him on page 60 could easily be a bit of Mizol partial truth. Alex was the only one the Loroi were able to revive right now and the rest were beyond the help of Loroi medicine available here..

This could even be worked into Tempo and Stillstorm's interactions on the bridge. Stillstorm, who is very direct and truthful, is there watching Tempo mislead Alex. Stillstorm may even be upset because the keeping of the bodies for possible later revivication is costing some resources that she (Stillstorm) thinks might be better used some other way. Perhaps Tempest has a limited number of 'cryostassis' chambers for the preservation of the severely injured and Tempo requisitioned several for possibly revivifiable Humans. It might have even gone so far that Stillstorm had to have some of those chambers vacated to accomodate Tempo's request. Fine Loroi officers/crew condemned to death in favor of Humans that even base facilities may not be able to revive. Tempo makes the request as the ranking Intelligence/Diplomatic Officer present, but Stillstorm, as captain, has to decide which chambers to vacate. Plenty of fodder to feed the stress in the Tempo/Stillstorm relationship there, I'd say.

Other than that, I suspect they would take :
Computer equipment & memory storage they could identify as such and get their hands on.
Weapons (ship, or personal) to assess the state of Humanti's military capability.
Core engineering equipment, which should have been plentiful in the aft section of the ship. If it is too large, detailed scans.
Material samples from all systems. A bit of armor plate. Insulation. Ship's structual members. A bit of most anything could tell the Lorio something.

Well, I bet that the Loroi would take as much out of the remains of the Bellarmine as they could.
Some things would be easy to understand (form always follows function): a mug, door handle, a pen, a knife, basic tools, etc...
Other things could be too destroyed to be fully understood, but could offer some insights in human capabilities and needs: Molten armor plates, weapons, food, medicine, electronics, etc...
And finally there are things they can not understand without Alex: Pictures, books or a at least partly working kindle like device, religious symbols (maybe), audio and video records, different types of food and drinks, some installations (a toilet?), games, etc...

@JQBogus:
Even more grisly is for me that Alex didn´t even ask to give these bodies a proper burial, even if its just throwing them out of an airlock or have them handed over to Terran authorities on a later date. Now his comrades remains are used for Loroi lab tests. Thats just great...
I, how ever, don´t think that the Loroi could freeze and later revive a horrible injured human. They never encountered a human before (or at least Arioch whats us to believe that). So they could not have the medical knowledge to do so.

Solemn wrote: One trombone, slightly bent. Considered a curiosity.

One chess board and set of ornate playing pieces, almost 80% complete. Captain Jardin substitutes seemingly random items for the missing pieces when playing against Loroi. Considered fully understood.

Four Terran-model space toilets. Considered curiosities.

Ninety large boxes full of strange, organic substance, labeled "CHOCOLATE RATIONS." Chemical analysis incomplete. Considered potentially hazardous, handle with care.

Sixty three large black packages labeled "SPACE COFFEE." Considered hazardous if ingested, handle with care.

Three working waffle irons. Considered curiosities.

Five coffee makers. Lined with coffee residue. Considered potentially hazardous. Handle with care.

One indestructible black box, labeled with text which, when relayed to Captain Jardin, he translated as "Atari 2600," connected to two joypads, one portable viewscreen, and a strange cartridge labeled "Polybius." Captain Jardin became increasingly distressed after its mention, and denies its existence. Currently unable to activate. May hold the secret to decoding all human technology. Considered an extremely high priority research subject.

Fifteen ornamental figures Captain Jardin identified as garden gnomes. Captain Jardin claimed that his ship had not stocked any garden gnomes. None of the salvage teams had reported gathering any garden gnomes. Considered haunted.[/list]

brb dying

(Thought: if Alex can safely consume certain Loroi foodstuffs, what's to say Loroi can't consume human foodstuffs? There will certainly be items that Loroi will find inedible, but there's got to be some overlap somewhere.

Another thought: I wonder how humans would do against Loroi at some strategic game like chess. Arioch has mentioned in the past some Loroi board game where a key concept of play involves attempting to penetrate your opponent's thoughts and read their moves. Against a human, who is naturally impervious to such a tactic, who knows how Loroi will fare? To them, humans have the ultimate poker face.

Last thought: they've been keeping the chocolate from him?! And the space coffee?!)

JQBogus wrote:Perhaps Tempest has a limited number of 'cryostassis' chambers for the preservation of the severely injured and Tempo requisitioned several for possibly revivifiable Humans. It might have even gone so far that Stillstorm had to have some of those chambers vacated to accomodate Tempo's request. Fine Loroi officers/crew condemned to death in favor of Humans that even base facilities may not be able to revive. Tempo makes the request as the ranking Intelligence/Diplomatic Officer present, but Stillstorm, as captain, has to decide which chambers to vacate. Plenty of fodder to feed the stress in the Tempo/Stillstorm relationship there, I'd say.

Suederwind wrote:Well, I bed that the Loroi would take as much out of the remains of the Bellarmine as they could.
Some things would be easy to understand (form always follows function): a mug, door handle, a pen, a knife, basic tools, etc...
Other things could be too destroyed to be fully understood, but could offer some insights in human capabilities and needs: Molten armor plates, weapons, food, medicine, electronics, etc...
And finally there are things they can not understand without Alex: Pictures, books or a at least partly working kindle like device, religious symbols (maybe), audio and video records, different types of food and drinks, some installations (a toilet?), games, etc...

@JQBogus:
Even more grisly is for me that Alex didn´t even ask to give these bodies a proper burial, even if its just throwing them out of an airlock or have them handed over to Terran authorities on a later date. Now his comrades remains are used for Loroi lab tests. Thats just great...
I, how ever, don´t think that the Loroi could freeze and later revive a horrible injured human. They never encountered a human before (or at least Arioch whats us to believe that). So they could not have the medical knowledge to do so.

I'm sorry, I sopped reading after "Well, I bed" and only started again when I saw "Loroi", dirty minded I know but.....SCIENCE!!

Solemn wrote:...
Sixty three large black packages labeled "SPACE COFFEE."
...

*snicker* so this is how it´s called then...