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Not to mention that obtaining parts and slices of metal from a meteorite without any tools, feeding 20 large animals 3 hoppers a day each, and Natan participating in a telepathic sceance can be a stretch too. Making steel is impossible to do with a pizza oven so a little application of high tech magic may be required here, lower tech would be a construction with bellows.

Of course I blame myself for the mediocre dialogue in the last bit. I’ll be travelling for a week so gladly leave the canvas to those who can help salvage the story. If needed, I can (at this moment) still remove the last addition

Actually, steel production is done by blowing air, or preferrably oxygen, into the molten iron to burn off the excess carbon in the melt. This could be done with relatively low-tech means as well, once they got a smelter or a blast furnace running.

Another forging method that was far ahead of its time was that one of the Damascus Steel, which was incidentially produced out of high-carbon steel and actually fell out of favor when the smithys turned over to varieties with lesser carbon content. Additionally, the idea of repeatedly folding, reheating and hammering was originally intended to drive out the excess carbon out of the raw steel, too.

I think it's plausible that our initiates, especially Blackrune, have some good groundworks in metallurgy to produce acceptable results even with rather crude means. We need to keep in mind that they came with little in the means of high technology, but the knowledge they possess may save them from going through the trial-and-error phase before they get things right.

So I do think the logistics of keeping the large predators fed might be the more complicated matter of these two, and Nathanial already had his two cents about it.

novius wrote:I think it's plausible that our initiates, especially Blackrune, have some good groundworks in metallurgy to produce acceptable results even with rather crude means. We need to keep in mind that they came with little in the means of high technology, but the knowledge they possess may save them from going through the trial-and-error phase before they get things right.

The knowledge allows them to make educated guesses in which direction to try, to reduce the amount of errors.

Additionally, every girl knows the Diral is coming, so they can prepare by learning possible aids for survival. This might be one of the tasks they subdivided for 2-3 girls to read up about, so that they have some knowledge if need arises.

There's also this to consider:

In some cases the bands will be afforded guidance in the form of older children (or rarely adults), and they will often be given routine tasks to perform (some more dangerous than others) but for the most part, they are expected to manage their own affairs and to survive on their own for up to two years. Usually, the band is equipped with information devices to aid in continuing education and through which to seek answers or call for emergency aid, but in most other ways, modern tools are usually not supplied to the children. Contact with civilized society is intermittently allowed, but strictly controlled through sets of taboos. Tasks are generally tailored to the specialty of the caste, but this is a secondary consideration; the pre-trial bands are a form of basic training, meant to temper the would-be warriors and weed out unsuitable individuals. Children who cannot (or will not) cope are dropped from the military program into civilian life. Death within the bands is not at all unusual. Loss of an entire band is not unheard of, particularly in the case of the seagoing schools, where an entire band can be lost with one sunken ship, though it is rare. Loroi children are hardy, require little nourishment, and can survive well in adverse conditions.

Access to reference materials certainly allows them to know a lot, so a few minor edits could plausibly explain their apparently inexplicable knowledge.

Sounds familiar.

Writting a new part for "Beacons" - a little more fluff about Alex's port visit, and how it went with Brightshield.
EDIT: Welp, that part went for longer than expected, and I just came to the point where Brightshield sort of got in touch with them...

Works well with what I have in mind, don't know how soon I will be able to post it though, borrowed laptop and all that.

Maybe this guy can help:

Primitive Technology: Iron prills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGLE0usN_I

Blast furnaces are known as long as there had been larger-scale use of iron, so the diral having the means to produce iron shouldn't be that much of a problem. If we actually allow then one generator - since they already use one water filtration unit they may have a generator as well for some basic needs - I could imagine them operating an arc furnace as well.

I will be honest, I wanted to write a lot more, establishing a working relationship between Alex and Brightshield, Alex managing to selectively allow her and perhaps Spiral and Sandraker through his Lotai as a first result of his training. Some interpersonal tension, Brightshield admitting of being interested in him and all that.

Then it hit me, a tea house with private baths. A traditional Loroi establishment where friends and collagues went to relax but thrown out of favor in recent years since the young hot blooded warriors don't see the appeal like the older generations did.

I had to put that in and then I had to give someone an opportunity on where they would like to take this.

Some additional things I have in mind, mainly because I am a military history buff:

From what I have gathered through various 'word of god' posts and the Loroi timeline humans are a bit 'unnatural' with how quickly they advanced technologically and how adept they are in using new technologies in war fighting.

To put things into perceptive, World War One and Two happened at the height of the industrial era and at the birth of the atomic era. The World War of Deinar happened soon after the Mezan expedition with technology that surpasses even our modern one. The Loroi never really used new untested technologies in their warfighting, they developed gunpowder in their industrial eras and they were still using sword infantry in tandem with trains and muskets; at the similar tech period humans had begun to introduce repeating firearms and self contained cartridges/bullets were in development/early testing.

Nevermind the stuff humans developed and used in their World Wars without the technology having matured. I can imagine a Tenoin saying something like: "Your first warplanes were death traps of wood and canvas, open to the elements, with unreliable engines and weapons and you didn't even know if tri-planes were better than bi-planes?"

This I believe offers quite some insight in the different aspects of the cultures and showcases the key differences in societal outlooks with humanity having incentivized technological development (A joke I have in my head revolves around humans developing technology for two reasons: For the males to find more creative ways to kill themselves and for the females to look pretty for those males that survive.).

This is the reason I have so heavily set up the two world wars. Global spanning total wars at that tech level, at that magnitude and with that level of destruction have to be eye catching even for the most warlike of races. The buildup of the Cold War is also noteworthy, if only as an example to the Loroi on how to prepare for a war when you know that it is coming.

When Alex rummages through the recovered artifacts in a day or two (of in story time) I want him to find a colleague's electronic library of military history to showcase this.

Very well done, and I'm sure the ensuing discussions will be fun to read.

Remind me - what does Brightshield look like again?

Also... I *seriously* doubt dirals would be given a generator when planetside. Maybe the ones in isolated areas of space stations, but not those camping in the wilderness.

orion1836 wrote:
Also... I *seriously* doubt dirals would be given a generator when planetside. Maybe the ones in isolated areas of space stations, but not those camping in the wilderness.

They have been given firestarters and blasters for their blast furnace. Those could be fairly self contained. After all Loroi are not from the stone age.

When producing steel they need to have some basic tech allowing them to produce a high quality grade material. I think a contraption with bellows doesn’t cut it if they are supposed to set out producing something as good as damascus steel (which originated from India as wootz steel ingots).

The fun part of damascus steel is that it probably had aligned carbon nanotubes that made it such a perfect blade to begin with. I’d readily give credit to Loroi dizoin smiths that they have the knowledge to produce wootz and then damascus type blades, which in turn need heat treatments such as tempering to make them more durable. If they have to create tools first, like anvils (talli) and hammers, then so be it. A big problem in the story is the group currently has precious little time to do all this!

The talli had alread been cast (sand casted method - a large one and a small one), and they would both need to be tempered and get a hardened top. The group doesn’t have a hammer yet. I think they need at least two, and also basic gear to hold a piece of work.

Zarya wrote:I’d readily give credit to Loroi dizoin smiths that they have the knowledge to produce wootz and then damascus type blades, which in turn need heat treatments such as tempering to make them more durable.

Point of information: dizoin means “weaponsmith”, and as such “dizoin smith” is redundant.

New part of "New Frontiers" is up. Enjoy!

New part for "Beacons" is up. Of course our two ladies have their own thoughts about the events unfolding....

An earlier Writing prompt excerpt had Beryl finding and exploring Ellen's tablet and finding pictures of her and Jardin. I don't think she will have any problems with Jardin's tablet.

I remember that one, but it didn't make it into the "Beacons" storyline. And, there was already another suggestion what else she may find amongst Kirkland's stuff...

EDIT: Needed to add a part to clarify whose stuff she is looking around in...

Well since no one wrote anything about Alex and co I will write what i have in mind now that i am home

Finally done with this part, once again I wanted to write some more but it's 4:40AM here and I don't want to hog all of the tea house and bath fun. Who knows, maybe Alex will be turned around if someone is creative

Seriously though, I think that Alex will remain adamant and be able to set up a fully professional relationship, with underlying tension. Perhaps even a quick fling in the middle of a tense moment, like real life. The only certain thing though is that he will be backed up when back on the ship.