Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Mk_C]

Oh G-d he's inventing projectile screens all over again.

[MBehave]

One not very helpful comment is it?
Two what do you mean all over again?

Oh G-d he's inventing projectile screens all over again.

[Arioch]

So if it hit a .1mm steel plate 100km behind the plate the beam would have dissipated due to charged particle interactions?

I think there would be a lot of variables determining how quickly the damage potential would fall off, but it's tactically irrelevant, as there's essentially no chance that two targets 100 km apart would be on exactly the same line from the firing weapon.

[Siber]

Here's a curiosity. Do all pilots have short hair out of practicality, or is the short hair of the pilots we've seen just an artifact of the low life expectancy of the job?

[Mk_C]

I think there would be a lot of variables determining how quickly the damage potential would fall off, but it's tactically irrelevant, as there's essentially no chance that two targets 100 km apart would be on exactly the same line from the firing weapon.

I think MBehave alludes to a hypothesized space combat countermeasure - deploying very thin, very wide, semi-rigid screens of disrupting material and accelerating them towards the potential threat with a laser. Your ship stays completely in the screen's shadow, and the screen is supposedly disruptive enough to counteract the first shot of whatever long-range weapons the setting uses.

Here's a curiosity. Do all pilots have short hair out of practicality, or is the short hair of the pilots we've seen just an artifact of the low life expectancy of the job?

Well, life expectancy or not - Narrat/Arrir are the lowest Tenoin ranks. The older, experienced (and thus longer-haired) Tenoin would not typically be rank-and-file pilots - they'd be either staff and bridge officers or squadron commanders. The rest probably are dying off under the current circumstances. If you are concerned about epic hairdos conflicting with the restrictive pilot headgear - consider Fireblade and Reed's appearance in their supposedly vac-proof combat gear through the majority of chapter two. No, I have no idea how it works either. It just does.

[Arioch]

Here's a curiosity. Do all pilots have short hair out of practicality, or is the short hair of the pilots we've seen just an artifact of the low life expectancy of the job?

It's short because of their youth. Their hair is cut off as part of the graduation ritual.

I think MBehave alludes to a hypothesized space combat countermeasure - deploying very thin, very wide, semi-rigid screens of disrupting material and accelerating them towards the potential threat with a laser. Your ship stays completely in the screen's shadow, and the screen is supposedly disruptive enough to counteract the first shot of whatever long-range weapons the setting uses.

It might disrupt the first shot if it could get far enough away from the targeted vessel, but I would expect that first shot to destroy the barrier. Not sure what use that would be. You'd be blocking your own line of sight to the enemy, reducing your ability to maneuver (or you'll move out of the barrier's shadow), and the enemy vessel can certainly see what you're doing.

[Mk_C]

It might disrupt the first shot if it could get far enough away from the targeted vessel, but I would expect that first shot to destroy the barrier. Not sure what use that would be. You'd be blocking your own line of sight to the enemy, reducing your ability to maneuver (or you'll move out of the barrier's shadow), and the enemy vessel can certainly see what you're doing.

It's meant to be purely defensive, I think. The issues you point out, along with just how plainly uncool it is for spaceships to do combat while essentially spitting film in each-other's general direction, are probably what contributed to the idea's general unpopularity. Among significant works, I can only remember it being used in the later entries of the Revelation Space series in near-lightspeed linear chases, like when Nightshade was chased by Clavain.

[Krulle]

Mostly used as weapons in Revelation Space. (a series without any FTL)
And a t relativistic speeds it'll be very difficult to evade an unrolling solar sail right in front of your path (they threw folded/rolled-up solar sails into the path of the pursuer, which unrolled rather shortly before the expected arrival time of the pursuer, causing detection problems, and forcing them to evade very harshly. There's a scene described of how the ship gets damaged harshly because of such a manoeuvre.


I can imagine, that because the stuff would be converted to plasma when absorbing sufficient energy, that the dust/particles/plasma would also scatter energy beams. (also your own aiming for the enemy)



PS: I liked how they shielded against debris/dust/micrometeorites when flying at relativistic speeds, and what to do with the discarded shields if a ship needs to be repaired and the shield removed.

Good memories... I might have to reread the series soon...

[Siber]

Here's a curiosity. Do all pilots have short hair out of practicality, or is the short hair of the pilots we've seen just an artifact of the low life expectancy of the job?

It's short because of their youth. Their hair is cut off as part of the graduation ritual.

Ah, I see. I thought perhaps the liquid breathing or higher importance of vacuum-safe suits might impose a limit. But there does look like there's a fair amount of room in the back of those helmets; perhaps buns are popular for older pilots.

[Sweforce]

Here's a curiosity. Do all pilots have short hair out of practicality, or is the short hair of the pilots we've seen just an artifact of the low life expectancy of the job?

It's short because of their youth. Their hair is cut off as part of the graduation ritual.

Ah, I see. I thought perhaps the liquid breathing or higher importance of vacuum-safe suits might impose a limit. But there does look like there's a fair amount of room in the back of those helmets; perhaps buns are popular for older pilots.

You could both be right since short hair is preferable when wearing a helmet. I also suspect that Fireblades helment isn't completely airtight and as such leaks a bit reducing her avalible oxygen a bit but still not enough to motivate her to cut the hair short.

In real life, some militaries habit of shaving off hair I suspect is about hygiene and avoiding lice in an historical context.

I had this idea of for a Star Wars setting that the space suit helmet of a Twi'lek would have a pair of "socks" hanging out on its back for the the lekku (appendiges on the head) to be placed in. A more simple version of this would have a single bag hanging out in the back. In an Outsider setting that would also work for long hair.

[Siber]

Fireblade's helmet came up in a past question, and if I remember correctly it was said that it seals well enough to protect against airborne hazards or partial loss of pressure, but if actually expecting to have to deal with vacuum for any length she'd have to get a closed helmet and stuff the hair inside it.

The hair sock idea is one I briefly considered myself. But the Loroi would have to find a way to make it stylish, of course. And on an EVA if it were flexible it'd stick out relatively rigidly, which would be kinda weird.

[Werra]

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/membe ... vailable-0

And if Arioch really wants hair floating in space -which would ruin it- he can just handwave it and say the Loroi achieve a seal with some type of nano foam/gel glued to the helmet. Or there could be artificial hair for the Loroi to stick to the outside of their helmets.

[Arioch]

Realistically, even floor-length hair doesn't have that much mass or volume, and can be collected into a relatively small bun, which there's ample room in the back of the helmet for -- which, one would suppose, is probably the practical purpose behind the elongated shape of the helmets. The breathing fluid would possibly be a nuisance to wash out of your hair if it's extremely long... though hair that long is a nuisance to wash in any case, and so I think floor-length hair is usually a conceit of the top ranks, who have underlings to help them with that sort of thing. High-ranked pilots tend to get promoted to piloting larger ships, and so the age of command-grade officers piloting fighters into the fray is a distant memory of wars long past.

Fireblade's helmet is a different case, as it's strictly unrealistic and is really just a visual character design choice, so that the character is instantly recognizable even in full armor. We can comfort ourselves with the thought that it's combat armor and not an EVA suit, and that the helmet is sufficiently sophisticated such that it can form a decent seal against a mane of hair.

Even the pilots' suits aren't meant to be EVA suits, which would need to be much more robust. I had in mind that fighter pilots would have special hardsuits, but I kind of wimped out since it would only have appeared in that one panel on page 79, and most of the readers probably wouldn't have known what they were looking at anyway. The whole fluid breathing medium is something that's only mentioned in passing in the comic... it's one of many examples of unnecessary detail.

Sort of a non-sequitur: one of the many things that caught my eye in the original Star Wars was the scene where the Millennium Falcon is being dragged into the Death Star docking bay, and there's a shot where there appears to be a pair of stormtroopers standing outside the bay, in apparent vacuum. I was recently rewatching it (my new phone came with Disney+), and you can clearly see that it's normal stormtrooper armor, but that they have some kind of air tank and hose setup. I think it's curious that this was never revisited later, even during the current-and-ongoing proliferation of "new" trooper types.

falcon_approach_deathstar.jpg (156.44 KiB) Viewed 6538 times

[kfcroc18]

Hi first time posting. You need to check out EC Henry's video about Star Wars being More Scientific than You Realize. https://youtu.be/AEPM-Bqc8fQ

[Siber]

For my part anyway if you said Fireblade's helmet was vacuum capable with the hair out I wouldn't question that decision, unless someone tried to tell me it was actually a realistic idea

As for the breathing fluid, the issue on my mind was if they had an open helmet like Fireblade's, shedding hair into the medium seems like it could have unpleasant results, or at the very least increase how often the plumbing would need maintenance. A moot point with sufficiently contained hair, really.

Even the pilots' suits aren't meant to be EVA suits, which would need to be much more robust.

Personally I would have guessed that the Loroi would be capable mechanical counter-pressure suits not particularly more substantial than what they wear under their armor, discounting the addition of a helmet and life support gear. Of course a sturdier suit would be called for if you were designing around the faint chance of a pilot surviving ejecting or having a fighter shot out from under them, I suppose.

[Arioch]

For my part anyway if you said Fireblade's helmet was vacuum capable with the hair out I wouldn't question that decision, unless someone tried to tell me it was actually a realistic idea

As for the breathing fluid, the issue on my mind was if they had an open helmet like Fireblade's, shedding hair into the medium seems like it could have unpleasant results, or at the very least increase how often the plumbing would need maintenance. A moot point with sufficiently contained hair, really.

No, I definitely wouldn't try to have liquid breathing medium in a helmet like Fireblade's.

Personally I would have guessed that the Loroi would be capable mechanical counter-pressure suits not particularly more substantial than what they wear under their armor, discounting the addition of a helmet and life support gear. Of course a sturdier suit would be called for if you were designing around the faint chance of a pilot surviving ejecting or having a fighter shot out from under them, I suppose.

I think a flight suit can be minimal, as it needs to be sealed against vacuum, and sometimes for extended periods, but the pilot is usually going to be working in the cockpit (where excessive bulk is not desirable) and probably not so much out on the exterior of a ship or station and doing work that might breach it. Space marine combat armor needs to be able to operate in vacuum and to seal against chemical or biological agents, and to be able to take some punishment, but there's probably a small upper limit on how long one would expect a marine to have to operate in a sealed state.

A proper EVA suit, I think, would need to be designed for extended use, with a user possibly in it for days at a time, which means extensive life support capacity including built-in waste facilities, and to have adequate protection against suit puncture from everyday work. So it would be pretty bulky and not as desirable to fly in.

Similar to how the flight suits used on the Space Shuttle and the Dragon are quite different from the very bulky suits used for EVA.

[Mr.Tucker]

A proper EVA suit, I think, would need to be designed for extended use, with a user possibly in it for days at a time, which means extensive life support capacity including built-in waste facilities

Hmm... by that standard, what we have today aren't proper EVA suits.

[Krulle]

They are proper for a society that has just reached the moon, and shows little earnest effort in advancing their steps to the stars.


And likely the Loroi and other space faring societies have multiple types of EVA suits.

For most cases, EVA suits like ours today will be sufficient for the Loroi as well, as in normal circumstances it'll be unlikely that a chance higher than 1% is foreseen that the cosmonaut would have to stay in the EVA suit for more than 12 hours, until it got the job done and can unsuit again.

Then you'd have stronger EVA suits, which with each higher class will be more and more like a mini-space ship, where the room for the passengers will just be that: a room without further space.

Military emergency repair teams will likely have EVA suits than can take a big bruise and stay in hard vacuum for days (until the ship can be repressurised and fly back home, or if necessary fly home unpressurised).


Anyway, I've always been thinking hard-battle space ships to consist of (egg-like) cocoons for each ship member (on duty), which double as emergency evacuation devices, and have electronic connectors to control the ship/station.
Visually not as nice as a big and open bridge, but just as functional. And if the bridge gets breached, these cocoons continue working.

But this idea is not suitable for visual media, no visible interaction between crew members.

[Mk_C]

Even the pilots' suits aren't meant to be EVA suits, which would need to be much more robust. I had in mind that fighter pilots would have special hardsuits, but I kind of wimped out since it would only have appeared in that one panel on page 79, and most of the readers probably wouldn't have known what they were looking at anyway. The whole fluid breathing medium is something that's only mentioned in passing in the comic... it's one of many examples of unnecessary detail.

That makes me wonder - did Talon or Spiral go out on a spacewalk in an EVA suit to pick up Alex and drag him aboard? Or did they just catch him with the shuttle's cargo hold in a slow drift?

Anyway, I've always been thinking hard-battle space ships to consist of (egg-like) cocoons for each ship member (on duty), which double as emergency evacuation devices, and have electronic connectors to control the ship/station.
Visually not as nice as a big and open bridge, but just as functional. And if the bridge gets breached, these cocoons continue working.

Ain't that just a vac-suit/cockpit with extra steps? I mean, you could get all the meaningful advantages of the solution by just making everyone wear vac-suits on duty, at the cost of maybe some comfort.

But this idea is not suitable for visual media, no visible interaction between crew members.

Well, literally all the space combat chatter that we've seen so far in the Outsider happens over the waves, so it doesn't really matter if there's a cocoon around every participant of the conversation or a cockpit or whatever. Same with literal tons of other examples that do feature any significant amount of space combat. Open bridge space is more vital for social scenes - when bridge crew is expected to have extended arguments and disputes with each other and third parties there, a la Star Trek.

[MBehave]

I thank you for trying to point out what I was asking but I was obtuse for a reason.
Since every time I bring things up 3 people go aggro make dumb ass comments, one constantly makes comments unrelated to the topic except to insult me and Arioch allows it I was trying to avoid actually going into detail and have the predictable comments/arguments come along.
Of course one of them couldn't help themselves even then

Just wanted to know for my own battle sim between Terran Ships and Umiak fleet I am working on with modeled ships.
I was going to ask how exactly armour/shields work in relation to points of damage next but thats juts gonna be an argument so meh.

It might disrupt the first shot if it could get far enough away from the targeted vessel, but I would expect that first shot to destroy the barrier. Not sure what use that would be. You'd be blocking your own line of sight to the enemy, reducing your ability to maneuver (or you'll move out of the barrier's shadow), and the enemy vessel can certainly see what you're doing.

It's meant to be purely defensive, I think. The issues you point out, along with just how plainly uncool it is for spaceships to do combat while essentially spitting film in each-other's general direction, are probably what contributed to the idea's general unpopularity. Among significant works, I can only remember it being used in the later entries of the Revelation Space series in near-lightspeed linear chases, like when Nightshade was chased by Clavain.