Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Arioch]

A question, how advanced are the various races regarding nanotech? Combat nanites would be too vulnerable to radiation in order to be viable, I guess. But how about nanobots in production or medicine? MoO2 had those technologies, for example.

We use nanotech in industry today, and I expect that to continue in industry and medicine. I'm not sold on self-replicating nanobots, though. I think that molecular machines would be just as dangerous as viruses and bacteria, but less efficient and harder to manufacture. I think that for most medical applications, gene therapy or engineered microorganisms will be much more cost-effective than nanobots, and for military applications, nanobots will have all the same limitations and dangers that bioweapons do.

It's possible that in our future, nanobots will work great at a lower tech level than I would expect, which would totally transform society in essentially every imaginable way. That future of nano-powered superbeings is inappropriate for the story I'm trying to tell.

[Keklas Rekobah]

@Arioch: This is my first post on your website. I hope that it is in the appropriate thread.

Q1: I see you are familiar with the GURPS RPG system. Are you also familiar with the Traveller RPG system?
Q2: Your essay on hyperspace jump principles was well-written. From where did you obtain your source material?
Q3: There is a human sense called proprioception. Is Alex experiencing the 'psionic' version?
Q4: Alex seems to have his 'psionic' experiences only when he is fatigued. Did he have similar experiences before the story began?
Q5: Is the reason why the Loroi are seemingly incapable of sensing Alex's 'psionic' ability is its passive mode of operation?

Thank you.

-KR-

[Arioch]

@Arioch: This is my first post on your website. I hope that it is in the appropriate thread.

Welcome to the forums.

Q1: I see you are familiar with the GURPS RPG system. Are you also familiar with the Traveller RPG system?

I'm familiar with Traveler in the sense that I bought a copy of the rulebook way back when and I was interested in the ship design -- unless I'm mis-remembering, the big ships had the decks laid out perpendicular to the long axis of the ship, making them sort of like flying office towers. But that was a long time ago, and I never played any games.

Q2: Your essay on hyperspace jump principles was well-written. From where did you obtain your source material?

Thanks. I devised the system myself. I was strongly influenced by the FTL drive in C.J. Cherryh's Union/Chanur setting, and Niven & Pournelle's A Mote in God's Eye.

Q3: There is a human sense called proprioception. Is Alex experiencing the 'psionic' version?
Q4: Alex seems to have his 'psionic' experiences only when he is fatigued. Did he have similar experiences before the story began?
Q5: Is the reason why the Loroi are seemingly incapable of sensing Alex's 'psionic' ability is its passive mode of operation?

I can't directly answer these questions for spoiler reasons, except to say that Alex is semi-conscious, and even he doesn't know at this point is real or imagined.

In regard to the last question: the Loroi have not given any sign that they are aware of Alex's perception, so there are two possibilities:

1. They are not aware of Alex's perception.
2. They are aware of Alex's perception, but have chosen not to let him know they are aware.

[kfcroc18]

Have the Loroi ever had any anti-war/peace movements? Or have they always been war hawks?

[Arioch]

Have the Loroi ever had any anti-war/peace movements? Or have they always been war hawks?

The modern Loroi aren't war hawks. Aside from internal conflicts, they've never attacked anyone that didn't attack them first.

Having a warrior culture doesn't necessarily mean you're a warmonger; often it means the opposite. Military cultures are often conservative and isolationist; it wasn't the oligarchical Spartans who were running around ancient Greece starting wars with everyone, rather it was those crazy democratic Athenians. There's a relevant quote from The West Wing; paraphrased ('cause I can't find the exact quote online) it goes something like:

"You know what the foreign policy difference between Democrats and Republicans is? The Republicans want a large military, but they don't want to send it anywhere. The Democrats want a small military... but they want to send it everywhere."

To your question, the Loroi government would take a very dim view of demonstrators protesting a war that the Loroi didn't start, and can't afford to lose if they want to survive as a species.

[Bamax]

Have the Loroi ever had any anti-war/peace movements? Or have they always been war hawks?

The modern Loroi aren't war hawks. Aside from internal conflicts, they've never attacked anyone that didn't attack them first.

Having a warrior culture doesn't necessarily mean you're a warmonger; often it means the opposite. Military cultures are often conservative and isolationist; it wasn't the oligarchical Spartans who were running around ancient Greece starting wars with everyone, rather it was those crazy democratic Athenians. There's a relevant quote from The West Wing; paraphrased ('cause I can't find the exact quote online) it goes something like:

"You know what the foreign policy difference between Democrats and Republicans is? The Republicans want a large military, but they don't want to send it anywhere. The Democrats want a small military... but they want to send it everywhere."

To your question, the Loroi government would take a very dim view of demonstrators protesting a war that the Loroi didn't start, and can't afford to lose if they want to survive as a species.

Warrior culture was not always what the Loroi based their culture upon.... was it?

My guess is that they had one too many bad encounters with aliens and decided, forget this! We are going to be the toughest, strongest there is so no one in their right mind will dare attack us!

One thing that is not widely known about the downright scary and brutal Assyrian empire of ancient history is that they suffered multiple invasions before they became the scary empire history came to dread.

Essentially they became that way in response ti constant warfare, they just made a point of excessive cruelty to get what they wanted.

It was not uncommon for cities to surrender outright as. a new vassal to avoid a confrontation with armies that would surely decimate, rape, and torture otherwise.

[Arioch]

The early human agricultural civilizations descended from hunter-gatherers; the hunter part of that equation were males who also doubled as warriors. When an agricultural society became prosperous, they became targets for other cultures who were still hunter-gatherers. Those that didn't adequately defend themselves with warriors of their own were usually raided or even taken over by warrior cultures. The civilized nations had the advantage of technology, but the hunter-gatherers had the advantage of being able to call on basically every male as an experienced warrior, while the civilized nations often could only levy farmers and craftsmen, etc. When conquering warriors stayed to rule (instead of plundering and moving on), they formed a new aristocracy. Pretty much all of modern civilization descends from warrior cultures who ruled over agricultural peasants, and who took that power by force.

The Loroi have racial memory (in the form of their heroic mythology) that goes back into their pre-history, and allegedly back before the fall of the Soia civilizations. That memory is that they were soldiers of a vast empire, and had always been so. When their civilization collapsed, they essentially went back to being hunter-gatherers.

[Cthulhu]

The Loroi have racial memory (in the form of their heroic mythology) that goes back into their pre-history, and allegedly back before the fall of the Soia civilizations. That memory is that they were soldiers of a vast empire, and had always been so. When their civilization collapsed, they essentially went back to being hunter-gatherers.

I think that this is one of the core problems of the Loroi as a species. They were created as soldiers, they see themselves as warriors according to those legends, but the rulers who gave them orders back then were others, namely the Soia. Do they even have any memories of how they looked like or how they presented themselves? Or would the Loroi back then receive their orders remotely, without any direct contact with their masters?

I'll try and address this problem in my fanfic. For that, I'm going to reverse the story and give Humanty the technological advantage. After a couple of chapters, it will deviate from the story anyway, but I'll try and stick to the world-building canon. Therefore, a couple of questions:

1. How do the Loroi generate the energy needed for AM (taimat) production? Do they have solar energy collectors orbiting stars? Arrays of fusion reactors? Or maybe they found some antimatter asteroids and have the subjugated Mannadi mine it with neutronium picks in labor camps?

2. How is energy generated planetside? Fusion reactors? Orbital solar collectors or AM reactors sending it down via lift cables? That one on Seren, or at least its housing, would've big enough for such power lines.

[Gorbash]

it wasn't the oligarchical Spartans who were running around ancient Greece starting wars with everyone, rather it was those crazy democratic Athenians.

It was both. Spartans got their reputation for warmongering both from their various battles before the rise of the Pelepponesian League, and afterwards from the fact that they enforced presence in the league at the swordpoint (though not always at their swordpoint). That's also why Sparta's solution to Athens at the end of the Second Pelopponesian War was "congrats you get to join the league" ("and also no walls for you, and here are some dictators, have fun").

The civilized nations had the advantage of technology, but the hunter-gatherers had the advantage of being able to call on basically every male as an experienced warrior, while the civilized nations often could only levy farmers and craftsmen, etc.

That's kind of a myth. The problem with it as an argument is that, based on historical evidence, farming nations have access to several times the manpower of hunter-gatherer nations, which honestly still had to rely on the majority of their experienced warriors to actually get them some food. Moreover, thanks to agriculture, it was suddenly possible to have extra people on hand whose sole job was to be a warrior, even if they occasionally borrow some farmers as backup. The ensuing "aristocracies" were usually made up of those extra dudes and their families, who had the experience and time to devote specifically to organized warfare (which beat hunter-gatherer strategies so hard it allowed Rome to conquer all of Europe for *several centuries* before collapsing), and who had all these extra farmers and farmers' sons to co-opt as emergency warriors when needed.
Historically, we don't find a lot of farming communities suddenly being swept up by hunter-gatherers with superior martial skills (with the exception being horse archer groups in Mongolia and Turkey, whom everyone forgets were effectively nomadic sheepherders *as well as* hunters, and who relied on those same sheepherds in wartime as a mobile supply station). What we find is that farming communities get big, get a lot of extra dudes, and shove the hunter-gatherers into the worst land possible. The hunter-gatherers only ever seem to make it back when the agricultural community is getting its butt kicked by someone else.
Of course, this is absolutely great for the Loroi, who are practically built to maximize the effectiveness of the "make more food, make more dudes" system. They reproduce quickly, require less food than most, and have *absolute coordination* capabilities thanks to large numbers of telepaths, and the ability to wordlessly pass on specific skills.

[Keklas Rekobah]

Q6: Have the phhysics of senzai been worked out?  I am wondering if something like the inverse-square law applies.

[Bamax]

The early human agricultural civilizations descended from hunter-gatherers; the hunter part of that equation were males who also doubled as warriors. When an agricultural society became prosperous, they became targets for other cultures who were still hunter-gatherers. Those that didn't adequately defend themselves with warriors of their own were usually raided or even taken over by warrior cultures. The civilized nations had the advantage of technology, but the hunter-gatherers had the advantage of being able to call on basically every male as an experienced warrior, while the civilized nations often could only levy farmers and craftsmen, etc. When conquering warriors stayed to rule (instead of plundering and moving on), they formed a new aristocracy. Pretty much all of modern civilization descends from warrior cultures who ruled over agricultural peasants, and who took that power by force.

The Loroi have racial memory (in the form of their heroic mythology) that goes back into their pre-history, and allegedly back before the fall of the Soia civilizations. That memory is that they were soldiers of a vast empire, and had always been so. When their civilization collapsed, they essentially went back to being hunter-gatherers.

Ah... so the original purpose of the Loroi, at least as far as the Loroi see it, was and still is to be the soldiers of their makers.

With them no where to be found, they are just surviving and warding anyone who dares attack them.

It would seem that the Loroi overall hold the Soia in respect, but it would seem that if any Soia returned and attempted to tell the Loroi what to do I doubt they would willingly submit, anymore than men would in the foretold catastrophic Second Coming.

People value their independence and won't sacrifice it easily nor quickly.


One of the scifi tropes that seems to come apart when viewed under a microscope is interstellar wars.

The causes for war can be reduced to just a few reasons:

Resources: Your civilization needs stuff that you want badly enough to commit to war for it.

Idealogy: This includes religion and nationalism reasons.

Survival: Your civilization fights in order to ensure it's survival against assimilation or utter annihilation by an enemy. Whether this is right or wrong to anyone depends on whether they believe the civilization has a right to exist and propagate to begin with. Obviously the civilization at stake will think so. Yet that swing right back to idealogy so...



Conclusion: Fighting for resources unless some rare unobtanium would seem absurd, since space is full of resources for interstellar civilizations. Idealogy though... people can fight over that all day long. Like people say, don't talk about politics or religion!

Interestingly, in the animal kingdom, most conflict occurs over resources. I suppose the closest it comes to something more is when jealous pets fight each other for the affections of a human.

[Arioch]

I think that this is one of the core problems of the Loroi as a species. They were created as soldiers, they see themselves as warriors according to those legends, but the rulers who gave them orders back then were others, namely the Soia. Do they even have any memories of how they looked like or how they presented themselves? Or would the Loroi back then receive their orders remotely, without any direct contact with their masters?

According to the mythos, the leaders of the empire were Loroi.

1. How do the Loroi generate the energy needed for AM (taimat) production? Do they have solar energy collectors orbiting stars? Arrays of fusion reactors? Or maybe they found some antimatter asteroids and have the subjugated Mannadi mine it with neutronium picks in labor camps?
2. How is energy generated planetside? Fusion reactors? Orbital solar collectors or AM reactors sending it down via lift cables? That one on Seren, or at least its housing, would've big enough for such power lines.

Taimat requires a lot less power to create than antimatter, so they use whatever local power sources are available, which will be mostly solar and fusion reactors, in a variety of different configurations.

That's kind of a myth.

The early Mesopotamian city-building cultures were constantly being raided by the surrounding hill tribes, at times being tributaries to them, and at times being outright conquered by them. The history of Sumerian-Akkadian-Assyrian-Babylonian-Hittite-Kassite-Hurrian-etc. rule in Mesopotamia is a long and convoluted story of who conquered whom.

In Eurasian prehistory, the early European farming communities were constantly being raided and conquered by Eurasian horseclans (Yamnaya and later), to the point where the male genetic history of the Europeans stops, replaced by that of Eurasians (while the female European genetic line continued, so you can guess what that means). And we all know what happened to Rome and Han China the moment they became too weak to hold the barbarians at bay.

My point is that all primitive societies are ruled by a warrior elite, regardless of whether they are agricultural or hunter-gatherer, because they are constantly under threat from their neighbors (and also because the earliest farmers descend from hunter-gatherers, who had a warrior culture before they started farming). If a society's ruling elite loses their martial effectiveness, it's only a matter of time until that elite is replaced by an external force.

Q6: Have the phhysics of senzai been worked out?  I am wondering if something like the inverse-square law applies.

The falloff of telepathic power appears to be more linear.

[Gorbash]

The early Mesopotamian city-building cultures were constantly being raided by the surrounding hill tribes, at times being tributaries to them, and at times being outright conquered by them. The history of Sumerian-Akkadian-Assyrian-Babylonian-Hittite-Kassite-Hurrian-etc. rule in Mesopotamia is a long and convoluted story of who conquered whom.

Most of those conquests were less "invading hill tribes" and much more "people of other nearby cities walking over and negotiating new rulership by violence". Moreover, there's a great deal more evidence that Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon all used captured hill tribe members as slave labor throughout their existence, which suggests the city-dwellers were the ones winning engagements with their hunter-gatherer neighbors.

In Eurasian prehistory, the early European farming communities were constantly being raided and conquered by Eurasian horseclans (Yamnaya and later), to the point where the male genetic history of the Europeans stops, replaced by that of Eurasians (while the female European genetic line continued, so you can guess what that means). And we all know what happened to Rome and Han China the moment they became too weak to hold the barbarians at bay.

Rome and China only became that way after centuries of grinding the various hunter gatherers into paste with virtual impunity. And Rome didn't collapse to "barbarians" so much as "the Visigoths, who they'd spent centuries training in Roman warfare and agricultural strategies so they could effectively be added to the Roman war machine." Most of Rome's collapse came more from giving specific generals so much power that they were a threat to whoever was Emperor; if that hadn't been an issue, Rome would have lasted much longer (as the Byzantine Empire did, only to eventually be defeated by another agricultural power).

Both nations are big examples of why "hunter gatherer strong, agricultural society weak" doesn't work. Rome in particular handled dozens if not hundreds of non-agricultural tribes during its existence, without much issue. Most of the threats it faced that were actual challenges (Carthage, the Parthians) were other major agricultural powers.

My point is that all primitive societies are ruled by a warrior elite, regardless of whether they are agricultural or hunter-gatherer, because they are constantly under threat from their neighbors (and also because the earliest farmers descend from hunter-gatherers, who had a warrior culture before they started farming). If a society's ruling elite loses their martial effectiveness, it's only a matter of time until that elite is replaced by an external force.

Oh, certainly. I think calling most hunter-gatherer "trying not to starve to death" cultures warrior cultures is a bit of a stretch, but I'm not going to argue about the presence of a warrior elite as leadership for most agricultural communities.

[Arioch]

Both nations are big examples of why "hunter gatherer strong, agricultural society weak" doesn't work.

I explicitly said that's not my point. I was asked whether the Loroi started as a warrior culture, and my answer is that ALL early cultures are warrior cultures.

[Keklas Rekobah]

The term "telepathy" conjures up a lot of very different notions, many of which are highly mystical in nature (and probably better described as "psychic"). Examples of psychic abilities often associated with telepathy that are NOT a part of Loroi telepathy are: clairvoyance, psychometry, precognition, empathy, or astral projection.

Q7: So if "Clairvoyance" is not part of Loroi telepathy, then is "Far-Seeing" under another classification -- "Extra-Sensory Perception" ("E.S.P."), perhaps?

Q8: If so, then what would be the Trade-Language term for "Esper"?

[Arioch]

The term "telepathy" conjures up a lot of very different notions, many of which are highly mystical in nature (and probably better described as "psychic"). Examples of psychic abilities often associated with telepathy that are NOT a part of Loroi telepathy are: clairvoyance, psychometry, precognition, empathy, or astral projection.

Q7: So if "Clairvoyance" is not part of Loroi telepathy, then is "Far-Seeing" under another classification -- "Extra-Sensory Perception" ("E.S.P."), perhaps?

My concept divides psionics into two categories: abilities that deal with the interaction of minds falls under telepathy, and abilities that interact with the physical world fall under psychokinesis. The other psi powers defined in GURPS (Antipsi, Astral Projection, Electrokinesis, ESP, Healing, Psychic Vampirism, Teleportation), if they exist, would be classified as either Telepathy or Psychokinesis.

Telepathy includes the ability to sense other minds. Farsensing takes this ability to extremes, but it's still a component of telepathy.

Clairvoyance and Psychometry (dealing with objects rather than minds) would be components of psychokinesis. I don't think Precognition is possible in the Outsider universe (I mean, there's breaking the laws of physics, and then there's really breaking the laws of physics ).

Q8: If so, then what would be the Trade-Language term for "Esper"?

"Esper" is a cool-sounding word that is sometimes used as a good substitute for "psi", but since Loroi psionics doesn't have a distinction for "ESP", they wouldn't have a term for that specifically. They don't really have a general term for "psi" (including both telepathy and psychokinesis) either, since all Loroi have telepathy, and that's just considered normal.

sanzai: telepathy
sanzer or sanzadi: telepath (though more often just "Loroi" when contrasting telepaths vs. non-telepaths, since all Loroi are telepaths and no known aliens are)
binzer: "mute"; not having telepathy
dennen: psychokinesis (PK)
denisadi: psi (a Loroi with psychokinetic power)
linoro: telekinesis; moving an object with PK
pipit: "feat"; a generic use of PK
noibes mibel: "deep mind"; the theoretical metaphysical underpinnings of psionics

[dragoongfa]

I don't think Precognition is possible in the Outsider universe (I mean, there's breaking the laws of physics, and then there's really breaking the laws of physics ).

There are two kinds of 'psionic' precognition that I have run into various works. One is the cheat ability to peak into the future and the other is the banal form of being able to quickly collect and parse data sufficient enough to make accurate predictions about the future.

The later type should be possible within the confines of telepathy as has been laid down in Outsider, perhaps not in the tech level of the Loroi but at a higher tech level where telepathic/psychokinetic machines are a reality someone could create an interstellar telepathic precognition network by using real time FTL communications to deliver accurate predictions about a plethora of subjects.

[Arioch]

[...] and the other is the banal form of being able to quickly collect and parse data sufficient enough to make accurate predictions about the future.

Isn't that simply "wisdom?" Or, if it's an actual science, wouldn't that be more like Hari Seldon's "psychohistory" rather than some paranormal ability?

Given what we know about the random nature of the universe at the quantum level, even if it were somehow possible to know everything about the universe at a given moment, I still don't think it would be possible to predict the future accurately.

[Bamax]

Human guns versus Loroi laser pistols.

I am going to assume that las-pistols can cut through metal, either by a continous beam within seconds or by a single mighty pulse beam blast.

IRL any power pack with energy that high is also a potential bomb... more so than batteries which are also combustible.


So I presume las-pistols are armor cutting weapons that also can be used as makeshift thrown bombs if set to explode all at once.

Superior to human guns at cutting through armor and an optional bomb. No detectable recoil that effects aim.

The only downside is the beam IRL would blind or damage the eyes if anyone seeing it or it's reflection without protective visors.

Another downsifde is how messy lasers are to fleshy targets. Waaay more messy than a bullet wound, far more gore.

With the shells (Umiak) this won't be so obvious because they are covered by shells.

[dragoongfa]

[...] and the other is the banal form of being able to quickly collect and parse data sufficient enough to make accurate predictions about the future.

Isn't that simply "wisdom?" Or, if it's an actual science, wouldn't that be more like Hari Seldon's "psychohistory" rather than some paranormal ability?

Given what we know about the random nature of the universe at the quantum level, even if it were somehow possible to know everything about the universe at a given moment, I still don't think it would be possible to predict the future accurately.

The way I understand the basic theory such a precognition tech would be akin to getting percentages of certainty for outcomes and as all X-Com players can attest, those help but are never set in stone.