The Golim

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ColdRain
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The Golim

Post by ColdRain »

Insider's Races of the Loroi Alliance includes the Golim, a species both well-adapted to industrial work on inhospitable worlds, and telepathically defenceless to the point that Loroi can control them without even meaning to do so (I imagine first contact between their species went pretty smoothly). The combination of a race capable of acting as a work-force on high-gravity, high-mineral worlds and their telepathic receptiveness makes me suspect the Golim may be another Soia bio-engineering project.

Initially, I thought they were simply intended to provide the industrial might to provide the Loroi warriors with equipment, letting each race focus on it's specialty, but then I began to wonder if perhaps the Golim might have been built not to assist the Loroi, but perhaps the Soia themselves. Is this possibly an indication that the Soia were telepaths?

With that possibility in mind, perhaps Alex's contribution in the long term might be due not to immunity to Loroi telepathy, but to Soia telepathy?

On another note, look at the Golim portrait on the Insider page... I bet they can do an amazing 'Puppy-Dog Eyes'. :)

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Grayhome
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Re: The Golim

Post by Grayhome »

I've been musing ever since I first read their entry that sometime waaaaay far back someone noticed the Golim's survivability on hostile worlds and made them (via tech or psi) vulnerable to telepathy for enslavement. Fast forward to the present day the Loroi exploit them without knowledge of the fact as all of their pre-cataclysm history has been lost. I'm sure the truth of the matter will be revealed later on. The odds of such a race not only making perfect slaves but also being highly susceptibility to even the slightest of telepathic is quite the coincidence, and I don't believe in coincidence where drama is concerned!

I read somewhere that Golim serve on Loroi warships, if so I wonder if Golim casualties are honored amongst the Loroi for their noble sacrifice.

osmium
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Re: The Golim

Post by osmium »

Isn't that more akin to history than the tiny slice you usually get in fantasy/sci-fi/etc stories? Not like it'll all be relevant, but people like to have theories and it is nice that there is a lot going on... (like OMG those secretive sea creatures in historian space *ARE* the historians dun Dun DUN!)

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Luge
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Re: The Golim

Post by Luge »

In the Insider archives there's a line about telepathy and inanimate objects:

"They're touch-operated controls. Some key switches may require the telepathically "hot" touch of a Loroi to activate, however."

How are such objects made? Can the Lorai manufacture psi-sensitive objects?

L.

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Gudo
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Re: The Golim

Post by Gudo »

More than likely, such controls have some sort of organic component. Imagine a button that has half of the circuit completed by pressing a button, and the other half completed by a muscle contracting (perhaps bringing two pieces of wire into contact with each other.) Any ol person could press the button, but in order to completely close the circuit, a Loroi would have to telepathically command the muscle to contract as well. The muscle serves to stop non-Loroi from completing the circuit, and the button serves to stop Loroi from accidentally completing the circuit with telepathic commands only.

Perhaps it's something else, like a microbial mat that would, when commanded, produce a certain chemical...

Regardless, I'd be really surprised if there was a way to make a purely mechanical device that was sensitive to psy. The Loroi (to say nothing of their predecessors, the Soia) would have to be proficient in genetic engineering by now and capable of creating purpose build organisms that are sensitive to psy. The Soia have done so before, notably with the Golim. I think the answer to this particular riddle lies in genetic engineering.

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bunnyboy
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Re: The Golim

Post by bunnyboy »

Maybe there is just a small cockpit and golim sitting inside it.
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TheUnforsaken
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Re: The Golim

Post by TheUnforsaken »

you could always just stick the button under a chunk of metal ;)
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NOMAD
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Re: The Golim

Post by NOMAD »

bunnyboy wrote:Maybe there is just a small cockpit and golim sitting inside it.
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N! The Mark 1 smart gunpod

where do you find these bunny? ( or do you creat them ?)
I am a wander, going from place to place without a home I am a NOMAD

Luge
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Re: The Golim

Post by Luge »

Gudo wrote:More than likely, such controls have some sort of organic component. Imagine a button that has half of the circuit completed by pressing a button, and the other half completed by a muscle contracting (perhaps bringing two pieces of wire into contact with each other.) Any ol person could press the button, but in order to completely close the circuit, a Loroi would have to telepathically command the muscle to contract as well. The muscle serves to stop non-Loroi from completing the circuit, and the button serves to stop Loroi from accidentally completing the circuit with telepathic commands only.

Perhaps it's something else, like a microbial mat that would, when commanded, produce a certain chemical...

Regardless, I'd be really surprised if there was a way to make a purely mechanical device that was sensitive to psy. The Loroi (to say nothing of their predecessors, the Soia) would have to be proficient in genetic engineering by now and capable of creating purpose build organisms that are sensitive to psy. The Soia have done so before, notably with the Golim. I think the answer to this particular riddle lies in genetic engineering.
I was thinking that, but then you get on to questions about how far can this technology go?

If you can make a button that's psi-sensitive, you could make a lot of buttons that are psi-sensitive. Enough buttons hooked up to some hydraulics and circuitry and you could control a gun turret or a tank with just your mind.

There's a lot to be said for having small fighter craft that can be controlled by the pilot's own thoughts, and isn't restricted by muscular reaction time.

L.

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bunnyboy
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Re: The Golim

Post by bunnyboy »

NOMAD wrote:where do you find these bunny? ( or do you creat them ?)
I just googled "orc tech", because I remembered the picture.
Some of drawings are mine, but I'm not happy about them, because I made better in elementary school.
But back then I used only pencils and did nothing else than draw. Now I'm rusted.
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Gudo
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Re: The Golim

Post by Gudo »

Luge wrote: I was thinking that, but then you get on to questions about how far can this technology go?

If you can make a button that's psi-sensitive, you could make a lot of buttons that are psi-sensitive. Enough buttons hooked up to some hydraulics and circuitry and you could control a gun turret or a tank with just your mind.

There's a lot to be said for having small fighter craft that can be controlled by the pilot's own thoughts, and isn't restricted by muscular reaction time.

L.
Well, seeing as the Loroi haven't won the war yet, we know they "reasonable limits" (whatever they may be) on their tech. I don't really think they'd have a problem building psy sensitive controls small enough to fit in a fighter, but we run into the problem of sensitivity.

Fighters require very precise control. Sure, we can fit psy controls in there, but are they sensitive enough? Also, are the pilots sensitive enough to send precise orders? We know we can, say, rotate a fighter anywhere from 0.001 degrees to 365.00 degrees with analog/digital controls. Can we get this kind of precision from psy controls, or are we limited to say, increments of 5 degrees? If this is a problem, is it technological (we can't build sensitive enough controls) or is it a problem with Loroi telepathy? I believe it to be the former, based on reading the Insider information on Telepathy, specifically the part about "Translation and Archives"

Also, like the Insider says, the only psy sensitive controls we know about are touch operated. Why is that? Surely, this would remove the speed advantage we'd gain by using psy-only controls. Probably, it would actually add time to command execution (as now, we not only have too touch, but also command the controls.) I suspect this solves an aspect of the sensitivity problem, spill-over. As in "All these controls are very similar, or very close together. By commanding one, I command them all. I specify which control I want by touching it."

On a related note, I wonder how amplifiers work? Like the one on Fireblade's GRUPS sheet? The Insider says it's mechanical, but that seems to present problems.

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bunnyboy
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Re: The Golim

Post by bunnyboy »

Gudo wrote:On a related note, I wonder how amplifiers work? Like the one on Fireblade's GRUPS sheet? The Insider says it's mechanical, but that seems to present problems.
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junk
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Re: The Golim

Post by junk »

Gudo wrote:
Luge wrote: I was thinking that, but then you get on to questions about how far can this technology go?

If you can make a button that's psi-sensitive, you could make a lot of buttons that are psi-sensitive. Enough buttons hooked up to some hydraulics and circuitry and you could control a gun turret or a tank with just your mind.

There's a lot to be said for having small fighter craft that can be controlled by the pilot's own thoughts, and isn't restricted by muscular reaction time.

L.
Well, seeing as the Loroi haven't won the war yet, we know they "reasonable limits" (whatever they may be) on their tech. I don't really think they'd have a problem building psy sensitive controls small enough to fit in a fighter, but we run into the problem of sensitivity.

Fighters require very precise control. Sure, we can fit psy controls in there, but are they sensitive enough? Also, are the pilots sensitive enough to send precise orders? We know we can, say, rotate a fighter anywhere from 0.001 degrees to 365.00 degrees with analog/digital controls. Can we get this kind of precision from psy controls, or are we limited to say, increments of 5 degrees? If this is a problem, is it technological (we can't build sensitive enough controls) or is it a problem with Loroi telepathy? I believe it to be the former, based on reading the Insider information on Telepathy, specifically the part about "Translation and Archives"

Also, like the Insider says, the only psy sensitive controls we know about are touch operated. Why is that? Surely, this would remove the speed advantage we'd gain by using psy-only controls. Probably, it would actually add time to command execution (as now, we not only have too touch, but also command the controls.) I suspect this solves an aspect of the sensitivity problem, spill-over. As in "All these controls are very similar, or very close together. By commanding one, I command them all. I specify which control I want by touching it."

On a related note, I wonder how amplifiers work? Like the one on Fireblade's GRUPS sheet? The Insider says it's mechanical, but that seems to present problems.
Well that could be indicative of sheley capabilities as well. Fighters notwithstanding as they tend to kinda melt in any more hard sci fi setting, direct neural telepathic connections can easily have standard technological parallels.

We do know that they shelleys tend to work on a lot of cybernetic projects, I'd put a pretty big bet that least one of the more standard cyber sets will be direct neural interfaces (or whatever the shells have as a parallel).

The loroi on the other hand don't seem to be very implant happy from what we can see so far. Admittedly they could easily be using more refined ones than the shelly's but I somehow doubt that.

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Grayhome
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Re: The Golim

Post by Grayhome »

Junk brings up a good point, how do the Loroi feel about artificial enhancements to their warriors? Implants and augmentations and the like?

NOMAD
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Re: The Golim

Post by NOMAD »

Grayhome wrote:Junk brings up a good point, how do the Loroi feel about artificial enhancements to their warriors? Implants and augmentations and the like?
Grayhome bring up a good point thus ( after an hour of looking) I found this in Fredgeblits Forum doc ( VOL 2)
"With the Lori's tech level, regrowing damaged/destroyed organs/body parts is probably just as viable as cybernetic replacement"
also found
The Loroi rely heavily on robots for mechanical and medical assistance. Any critical menial or technical task considered unfit for warriors is gladly delegated to machines where possible, to keep unfit civilians out of the loop. These robots are not at all humanoid in appearance, but more likely radial with many arms, kind of like a floating FX-7 from Empire Strikes Back. Medical robots are appliances usually part of an infirmary's equipment -- there was meant to be such a robot in the ceiling of Alex's infirmary scene, but I did not take the time to design or model it. Mechanical tech robots are ubiquitous in the engineering spaces -- Alex was meant to pass by one on the machine deck (right after he passed Talon and Spiral), but again I chickened out. At that time I was not confident enough to draw mechanical entities by hand, and there wasn't time to model it in 3D. There will be opportunities to show such robots in future chapters, but they do not play a crucial role in the story.
@ bunnyboy: thanks for the answer, not sure which one I like better; yours or the ones you find, both are very funny.
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