Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

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Werra
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

I tried comparing Loroi and human reproductive capabilities. These numbers are broad guesses. Did I miss something big or did I come close?

Let's say 50% of humans are female and of those 33% are of fertile age (20 - 45).
0,5 * 0,33 = 0,165 = 16,5% of humans are able to reproduce.

Of the Loroi, 87,5% (1 in 8 male) are female. Of those, about 50% are warrior caste. Loroi have a longer natural lifespan and mature quicker, so let's say 50% are fertile.
87,5 * 0,5 * 0,5 = 21,875% of Loroi are eligible to reproduce.

That means for 1 human birth, there should be ~1,3 Loroi births. Except...

A human generation is 24 years, a Loroi generation is 12 years.

So for 1 human soldier, there should be 2,6 Loroi soldiers. Except...

50% of those births are female humans and 87,5% are female Loroi.

So for 1 adult human fighter, there should be 4,55 adult Loroi warriors.

This is all at best an educated guess, of course. In a hypothetical war starting from an equal population, industrial and technological baseline, the human military would need to crush the Loroi at a ratio of 1 : 4,5 to reach a tie with these numbers.
However, this ratio requires humanity to draft every single able bodied male born to the war effort, while the Loroi leave out their civilian population completely.

Does this sound about right?
Last edited by Werra on Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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dragoongfa
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by dragoongfa »

Those numbers are about right but in case of a war you are mistaking raw manpower potential with war potential. Taking into account that a war would be primarily a naval one then the key factor in determining a wartime advantage would be stellar geography (location of planets and avenues of approach), technology, doctrine, industrial capacity and industrial potential. Having lots and lots of bodies around is all well and good in a ground war but in a naval war what really matters is raw fleet power and its application.

Raw fleet power is determined solely by the industrial capacity of combatant. It doesn't matter if the combatant has a far smaller population, if their industrial capacity and its expansion surpasses the numbers of their enemy then they can build more ships. Logic dictates that the one with greater manpower has 'more of everything' but that is not an observed rule, as a matter of fact it has been observed numerous times that a smaller nation can overcome significantly larger ones through the weight of superior industry and proper application of war potential. Imperial Japan and Nationalist China in the late 30s springs to mind. The Japanese were for all intents and purposes heavily outnumbered but they were ravaging the Chinese throughout the war.

In short, war is complicated and raw manpower is but one of the parameters.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Werra wrote:Does this sound about right?
It's complicated to make these kinds of comparisons, because there are a lot of variables. Loroi have longer potential lifespans, but in practice a warrior might have only 1 or 2 children in her lifetime during a hypothetical endless war, since she will be busy fighting and may get killed. So the total number of offspring per female is probably not that different between humans and Loroi. The major difference is going to be the percentage of individuals able to give birth (~88% vs. ~50%) and the length of generations (~10 years vs. ~20 years). So in a hypothetical 20 year war, the Loroi can produce two generations of new people to Humanity's one, and each generation can be 56% larger. In 20 years, a group of 100 humans can produce a single generation of 50 children, for a total pop of 150. In the same 20 years, a group of 100 Loroi can produce two new generations, the first of 88 children, and the second of 165 children, for a total pop of 353. So over this span the ratio is 2.35:1 in favor of the Loroi. This ratio will increase exponentially as time increases, but it is unlikely that a war could last that long.

Naturally it's true that population size doesn't directly translate into war-fighting ability, especially in a war dominated by fleet combat rather than infantry combat.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Zorg56 »

Raw fleet power is determined solely by the industrial capacity of combatant.
This.
I dont get why warriors in Loroi culture way more important. I can understand why that was like that in middle ages, but now, when you can replace any warrior or ship without loosing anything if you have industrial capacity and it will take years to replace Industrial complex or engineer (Replacing expirenced engineers is nightmare, Russian space program is crippled because of that, and in one step from complete removal)...

Espically when half of your population sits on their asses on ground bases training in ground warfare (basically, doing almost nothing that helps in galactic war).

P.s. By the way is creating a clone army real option?

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Werra
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

Arioch wrote:[A] warrior might have only 1 or 2 children in her lifetime during a hypothetical endless war
What's stopping the non frontline warriors from popping out babies every few years? Especially since many warriors don't even seem to serve in combat roles in the fleet.
Naturally it's true that population size doesn't directly translate into war-fighting ability, especially in a war dominated by fleet combat rather than infantry combat.
Definitely, this is just a thought experiment of a hypothetical war if both nations had equal capabilities starting out. However this number should allow us to gauge how quickly a nation can regenerate from war. Imagine what the Second Punic War would have been like if Carthago had this advantage.
Zorg56 wrote: I dont get why warriors in Loroi culture way more important.
From what I understand, Loroi warriors also fulfill roles we think of as typically civilian. So they do produce war material.
Zorg56 wrote:it will take years to replace Industrial complex or engineer
The Loroi should be able to do this more than twice as fast as humans, no? Alternatively, they can increase their output more than twice as fast.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Zorg56 wrote:P.s. By the way is creating a clone army real option?
If you mean real clones, which must still be birthed by a surrogate mother and must still mature and be trained like a normal Loroi, there is no particular advantage here. Having all your soldiers be genetically identical is actually a disadvantage, because they will all have the same vulnerabilities.

If you mean Hollywood "clones" (that is, manufactured replicants that are fully adult at birth and have some kind of pre-programmed personality so that they are able to go into action immediately), that's not really feasible at this tech level.

I can imagine artificial wombs that eliminate the need for a surrogate mother, but frankly the Loroi have reproductive capacity to spare. The bottleneck is in their ability to feed and raise and train people to do useful work; this infrastructure is pretty much saturated.
Werra wrote:
Arioch wrote:[A] warrior might have only 1 or 2 children in her lifetime during a hypothetical endless war
What's stopping the non frontline warriors from popping out babies every few years? Especially since many warriors don't even seem to serve in combat roles in the fleet.
Nothing, but the Loroi creches and schools and universities are all full, so there's not necessarily a benefit to every Loroi warrior having a kid every year in most circumstances. Also, I think being constantly pregnant will affect your job performance to some degree no matter what your job is.

I didn't mean that 1 or 2 children was the average for a typical warrior; a warrior might live 12 years or 400 years, and she might have 20 or 30 children in her lifetime, or she might have 1 or 2 or none. I'm just saying that it's hard to come up with an average, because the potentials vary widely. And the fact that some Loroi warriors might each have another 20 kids 300 years from now doesn't necessarily impact the current situation.

I think the chief advantage of the Loroi reproductive proclivity is, as you suggested, in their ability to quickly recover from devastating losses of population. I think the secondary advantage is in their ability to quickly populate a new colony world.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Hālian »

Arioch wrote:It's a pretty big topic, as it's the history of not just one world, but three. I have a significant amount of notes on the details of Deinar history, and I can fashion an Insider entry out of them if there is interest, but it's a pretty big job, and a subject that's a bit of tangent from the story itself.
+1 interest. :o
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boldilocks
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

I'd rather the focus be on more pages, tbh.
I got spoiled by the 2-3 pages a month summer we just went through.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by cacambo43 »

boldilocks wrote:I'd rather the focus be on more pages, tbh.
I got spoiled by the 2-3 pages a month summer we just went through.
I agree. Sometimes I've worried that world-building could be the death of this comic. But Arioch seems to have gotten most of the important and relevant elements of the backstory done. Let's watch that world unfold.

CJSF

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

cacambo43 wrote:
boldilocks wrote:I'd rather the focus be on more pages, tbh.
I got spoiled by the 2-3 pages a month summer we just went through.
I agree. Sometimes I've worried that world-building could be the death of this comic. But Arioch seems to have gotten most of the important and relevant elements of the backstory done. Let's watch that world unfold.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Luge »

Page 143 (great page by the way!): We see the Loroi in various uniforms. This may have been asked and/or clarified before, but in summary:
  • Beryl and Tempo are both in their Loroi "day uniforms".
    Fireblade is in her fully-armoured suit.
    Talon (and presumably Spiral) are in their vac-hardened flight suits.
What functionality do the standard uniforms have compared to the others? I know they are slightly armoured over the vital body parts, but otherwise are they just comfortable kevlar-type cloth?

Is Fireblade's suit suitable for operating in a vacuum with her hair sticking out like that? If so, how long would the air/power last?

The Flight suits are obviously designed to protect the fighter pilots in the event of damage or hull breach. How armoured are they compared to the Fireblade, and how long would their suits last in a vacuum?

Do any of them have magnetic boots?

L.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

I've noticed that much of Tempests crew seems very young. Beryl with 14 is already part of the senior crew apparently. Which is surprising, because Tempest has to have been active since 2154 at least. (6 years) What happened to all the other crewmembers that staffed Tempest when she launched?

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Luge wrote:What functionality do the standard uniforms have compared to the others? I know they are slightly armoured over the vital body parts, but otherwise are they just comfortable kevlar-type cloth?
The Loroi armored duty uniforms are made from a synthetic mesh (sigein) that is strong and resistant to heat and many chemical agents. It's also electrically active, and its properties can be controlled to a certain degree. The typical duty uniform includes sensors and a control system which allows for such things as variable thermal regulation, and the ability to use the armor as a mechanical counterpressure suit for operation in low pressure (with the addition of a helmet/respirator). Movement of the body also helps recharge the power system.
Luge wrote:Is Fireblade's suit suitable for operating in a vacuum with her hair sticking out like that? If so, how long would the air/power last?
Fireblade's helmet is less robust in terms of life support longevity than the larger helmets worn by the other marines, but she is capable of operating in a low-pressure environment with it. There are external units that can be connected to the helmets to extend life support duration, if necessary. The life support endurance of Fireblade's armor in its current configuration is probably less than an hour.
Luge wrote:The Flight suits are obviously designed to protect the fighter pilots in the event of damage or hull breach. How armoured are they compared to the Fireblade, and how long would their suits last in a vacuum?
The armor protection of the Tenoin flight suits is comparable to the standard duty uniforms; the much thicker marine armor offers significantly better protection. The flight suits aren't really designed for EVA, but with the appropriate life support connected, they can operate indefinitely in a vacuum.
Luge wrote:Do any of them have magnetic boots?
I don't think so. I don't think magnetic boots will be very useful in spaceships at this tech level, when most things are probably made of composites, ceramics, and non-ferrous metals.
Werra wrote:I've noticed that much of Tempests crew seems very young. Beryl with 14 is already part of the senior crew apparently. Which is surprising, because Tempest has to have been active since 2154 at least. (6 years) What happened to all the other crewmembers that staffed Tempest when she launched?
Tempest is around 8 years old. Unlike the Umiak, the Loroi do cycle their personnel between on and off-duty units (where possible), especially for high-stress, high-risk duty like the raider units. Considerations include maintaining the individual's well-being, allowing experienced officers to migrate to higher-priority posts, and allowing experienced crewmembers to train less experienced ones. Tempest has probably seen quite a few Listel in Beryl's job, and her immediate predecessor is probably in a desk job somewhere.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by GeoModder »

Arioch wrote:
Werra wrote:I've noticed that much of Tempests crew seems very young. Beryl with 14 is already part of the senior crew apparently. Which is surprising, because Tempest has to have been active since 2154 at least. (6 years) What happened to all the other crewmembers that staffed Tempest when she launched?
Tempest is around 8 years old. Unlike the Umiak, the Loroi do cycle their personnel between on and off-duty units (where possible), especially for high-stress, high-risk duty like the raider units. Considerations include maintaining the individual's well-being, allowing experienced officers to migrate to higher-priority posts, and allowing experienced crewmembers to train less experienced ones. Tempest has probably seen quite a few Listel in Beryl's job, and her immediate predecessor is probably in a desk job somewhere.
Are you talking about a rotation system like the navy's gold -and blue crews for the boomers, or normal routine transfers of personnel?
And how does political pariah Stillstorm fits in this rotation system? Has Tempest been her ship for the last eight years, with no other Torrai Mazeit -or Lashret commanding the ship in that time?
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

GeoModder wrote:Are you talking about a rotation system like the navy's gold -and blue crews for the boomers, or normal routine transfers of personnel?
It's not a systematic rotation system, and it's subject to the whims of leadership and to the needs of the moment -- in wartime, if you're needed at your job and there's no one to replace you, or if nobody else wants you, then you stay where you are.

During peacetime, there was a more formal rotation system, in which each unit had multiple crew sections which would be swapped in and out for different deployments, and which in many cases would compete with each other for the right to ship out.
GeoModder wrote:And how does political pariah Stillstorm fits in this rotation system? Has Tempest been her ship for the last eight years, with no other Torrai Mazeit -or Lashret commanding the ship in that time?
Once you get to be a commander of a ship, it's a slightly different situation; especially in wartime, they want to keep successful leaders with their units. Ashrain asked for a transfer, and her whole ship got transferred with her. Stillstorm has been the commander of Tempest for most of its operational history. She's had some downtime during refits, etc., during which someone else was in nominal command, but for the most part it's been her unit. Tempest and SG51 as a whole have been very effective, and so there is the temptation to leave units and commanders in hazardous roles for perhaps longer than is best. And what to do with a problem like Stillstorm? She's been very successful, so they can't demote her by giving her a desk job or a lesser command; if they want to take her off raider duty, they'd have to give her a prominent and prestigious flag command in the regular fleet units, which would be a very politically... problematic... move.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by GeoModder »

Talking about Ashrain, how much say does a Group Commander have over the ship Torret's under her command regarding transfers and promotions?
I can see Ashrain and her ship stuck indefinitely in SG51 even if she thought it time to move on or the highers-up trying to put her in a less perilous position, if Stillstorm found it necessary to keep Black Razor (and her captain) close at hand.
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

Arioch wrote:Ashrain asked for a transfer, and her whole ship got transferred with her.
Did that make her popular or unpopular with her crew?

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

Werra wrote:
Arioch wrote:Ashrain asked for a transfer, and her whole ship got transferred with her.
Did that make her popular or unpopular with her crew?
The ones who were unhappy with the idea presumably put in for and got transferred, at least that's according to the insider.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

GeoModder wrote:Talking about Ashrain, how much say does a Group Commander have over the ship Torret's under her command regarding transfers and promotions?
I can see Ashrain and her ship stuck indefinitely in SG51 even if she thought it time to move on or the highers-up trying to put her in a less perilous position, if Stillstorm found it necessary to keep Black Razor (and her captain) close at hand.
Assignment of units to groups is made at the operational level, so while a group commander may request certain units or officers (or express a preference against certain units or officers), ultimately she ends up with whatever units she's given. Once under her command, the organization of the group and its sub-units are mostly up to the group commander, especially for a raider group which must operate mostly independently of other fleets. Actual formal promotions to higher rank must be approved by a higher administrative level, but functional promotions (such as putting a different ship's captain in charge of a squadron, etc.) can be made on the spot by the group commander. But if Black Razor were reassigned to another group, there's not much Stillstorm would be able to do about it.

Aboard each ship, the captain has ultimate responsibility for personnel decisions. In terms of personnel transfers, there are both practical and administrative factors to deal with (there has to be an arrangement for replacement personnel and means to get the affected parties on and off the ship), so I imagine both the group commander and the higher administrative authorities must get involved to some degree.
boldilocks wrote:
Werra wrote:
Arioch wrote:Ashrain asked for a transfer, and her whole ship got transferred with her.
Did that make her popular or unpopular with her crew?
The ones who were unhappy with the idea presumably put in for and got transferred, at least that's according to the insider.
Black Razor is a relatively new ship with young officers, some of whom followed Ashrain from her previous post; I think most of them were eager to get into action. No doubt there were some who preferred the safer and more prestigious Imperial Guard duty, but they were self-aware enough to realize that openly objecting to frontline duty during wartime would not be a good career move, and so may have found some other pretext to ask for a transfer.

And, as far as prestige in concerned, Black Razor is still technically an Imperial Guard unit. It's like a special unit citation that I don't think can be easily taken away without disbanding the unit.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

Given that Loroi don't age until they fall apart, does that mean their stem cells remain active for their whole lives? Would a pre-industrial Loroi regrow teeth or even a lost finger?

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