Page 85

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

Voitan
Posts: 214
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:04 am

Re: Page 85

Post by Voitan »

dfacto wrote:Also, anyone get a nagging feeling that humanity is a Historian experiment?
The long held theory thus far, is that the Soia empire based off the Loroi from a human template, as evidenced by other species within the Loroi empire that hold uncanny resemblance to each other, yet have a different biology, with obvious history of Soia meddling with their species.

Thus their interest in Jardin, and most likely humanity as a whole.

User avatar
Trantor
Posts: 780
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:52 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Re: Page 85

Post by Trantor »

CptWinters wrote:I'm sure you're right, but that's no excuse to be uncivil.
Well, i´m not the advocate of the dark ages here... 8-)
sapere aude.

User avatar
Trantor
Posts: 780
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:52 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Re: Page 85

Post by Trantor »

dfacto wrote:Also, anyone get a nagging feeling that humanity is a Historian experiment?
Either that, or they just used us as archetype.
I tend to the latter, because the loroi are more artificial and capable.
The Soia just adopted the general layout, und "filled" it with their biotech.

(Or it´s vice versa, and the Soia just dumped some early - human - prototypes in the last corner of the galaxy... :mrgreen: )
sapere aude.

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Page 85

Post by BattleRaptor »

dfacto wrote:
If we consider the Loroi universe and its races, its highly likely humans will have technogly that is in part superior to the Loroi and Umiak.
I'm having a hard time thinking of any real advantage earth tech could possibly have over a species that has been space faring for hundreds of years and is fighting with tech near the cutting edge (damn stingy Historians).

Most likely humans would be able to offer non-tech services, the chief of which would be diplomacy. We're bound to be better at it than a race that needs specially trained personnel solely to not to tell others that they suck. Additionally humans could probably offer frontline infantry, since human males are still bigger than the average Loroi and probably stronger too.

Also, anyone get a nagging feeling that humanity is a Historian experiment?

Humans are already at a level that it took the Loroi a thousand or so years of space travel to reach, and that is with them also having access to the population of 3 entire worlds from the near start of FTL travel, and ancient artifacts of a advanced civilization on there worlds to help them along.

Meanwhile humans had ftl for 100 or so years population of 1 main world, and no advanced alien artifacts to help them along + its been stated humans advance rapidly compared to the other races in outsiders.

Being more adaptable with technogly would also suggest at any given tech level humans will come up with ways to do things that the Loroi and other races havnt even thought of.


I also beleive its been said that humans ground forces are NOT a match for Umiak or Loroi, and that the Loroi have no lack of ground forces.

User avatar
Trantor
Posts: 780
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:52 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Re: Page 85

Post by Trantor »

BattleRaptor wrote:Humans are already at a level that it took the Loroi a thousand or so years of space travel to reach, and that is with them also having access to the population of 3 entire worlds from the near start of FTL travel, and ancient artifacts of a advanced civilization on there worlds to help them along.

Meanwhile humans had ftl for 100 or so years population of 1 main world, and no advanced alien artifacts to help them along + its been stated humans advance rapidly compared to the other races in outsiders.

Being more adaptable with technogly would also suggest at any given tech level humans will come up with ways to do things that the Loroi and other races havnt even thought of.
Aye, i remember the old discussion about this topic: Humanity is technologically behind at this moment in time, but is evolving faster, which is mainly because of our cultural differences (caste vs. open society). An interesting point!
sapere aude.

dfacto
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:50 am

Re: Page 85

Post by dfacto »

BattleRaptor wrote:Being more adaptable with technogly would also suggest at any given tech level humans will come up with ways to do things that the Loroi and other races havnt even thought of.
That may be possible, since lots of sci-fi takes that route, but I'm just saying that they don't have anything better at the time of contact. If they pull some crazy stuff out of their asses in the decades post-contact then sure, but so far all of their tech is bound to be inferior.
I also beleive its been said that humans ground forces are NOT a match for Umiak or Loroi, and that the Loroi have no lack of ground forces.
I assume they would be quite good if they're packed into some nice combat armor with Loroi tech.

CptWinters
Posts: 177
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:20 pm

Re: Page 85

Post by CptWinters »

Despite the relative swiftness with which we have advanced, Human technology is still at least three or four generations behind that of the Loroi and Umiak. Human contribution to the Loroi war effort will be confined to support tasks--if there is any contribution at all. Even without the fact that as a warrior culture, the Loroi are averse to having others do their fighting for them, they also have vast numbers of ground troops already, and no intention of occupying any conquered Umiak worlds. Human ship and weapons technology is and will be far behind the Loroi for a long time. Whatever Humanity does to alter the balance in this war, it will be through what they are, and what the other races perceive them to be, not through force of arms.

dfacto
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:50 am

Re: Page 85

Post by dfacto »

Whatever Humanity does to alter the balance in this war, it will be through what they are, and what the other races perceive them to be, not through force of arms.
Pff, you forgot that humanity has bald spess muhreens! Those sonsabitches can win any war! They'll daringly raid the Umiak homeworld in a 50 year old corvette, infiltrate their hive and kill their conspicuously exposed Queen. Then they'll walk away in slow motion as a reactor explodes.

User avatar
Trantor
Posts: 780
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:52 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Re: Page 85

Post by Trantor »

YMMD! :mrgreen:
sapere aude.

CptWinters
Posts: 177
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:20 pm

Re: Page 85

Post by CptWinters »

dfacto wrote:Pff, you forgot that humanity has bald spess muhreens! Those sonsabitches can win any war! They'll daringly raid the Umiak homeworld in a 50 year old corvette, infiltrate their hive and kill their conspicuously exposed Queen. Then they'll walk away in slow motion as a reactor explodes.
Damn right. That'll show those exoskeletal bastards.

Voitan
Posts: 214
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:04 am

Re: Page 85

Post by Voitan »

CptWinters wrote:Despite the relative swiftness with which we have advanced, Human technology is still at least three or four generations behind that of the Loroi and Umiak.
It only takes one peice of stolen or gifted tech, and within the year, crack it, and just two more, chugging them out like crazy, on top of whatever unconventional ideas that had already been mulled over for decades/centuries but had not the technology to implement them.

User avatar
Serkr Team
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:00 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Page 85

Post by Serkr Team »

CptWinters wrote:Despite the relative swiftness with which we have advanced, Human technology is still at least three or four generations behind that of the Loroi and Umiak. Human contribution to the Loroi war effort will be confined to support tasks--if there is any contribution at all. Even without the fact that as a warrior culture, the Loroi are averse to having others do their fighting for them, they also have vast numbers of ground troops already, and no intention of occupying any conquered Umiak worlds. Human ship and weapons technology is and will be far behind the Loroi for a long time. Whatever Humanity does to alter the balance in this war, it will be through what they are, and what the other races perceive them to be, not through force of arms.
^ This, a thousand times this. It wouldn't matter anyway if the Loroi gave humanity access to all their military technology, we only have six colonies, nowhere near enough industrial capacity to build a war machine of any consequence. If anything resources, industrial capability and logistics are the biggest concern for the Loroi atm as the Umiak can churn out ships like Catholics multiply.

User avatar
Mjolnir
Posts: 452
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 1:24 pm

Re: Page 85

Post by Mjolnir »

Voitan wrote:It only takes one peice of stolen or gifted tech, and within the year, crack it, and just two more, chugging them out like crazy, on top of whatever unconventional ideas that had already been mulled over for decades/centuries but had not the technology to implement them.
Even if we can figure out how it works, we can't necessarily build it, and even the ability to construct an item doesn't imply that we can mass produce it. There's limitations in available materials, manufacturing capabilities, etc. It often takes years or decades for a lab to succeed in constructing something that works by already well-understood theory, and years or decades more to get it out of the laboratory, and that's if it's at all comprehensible. Alexander Bell wouldn't be able to do much at all with a passive optical network switch or a modern cell phone.

Look at memristors. They've been around in theory and as memristive systems of little practical use for decades. HP developed a working solid state thin film memristor device that could feasibly be developed into a commercial product in 2006, achieved 3x3 nm sizes and GHz operating frequencies a year ago, and are hoping to have memristor-based memory (ReRAM) in a couple years more.

Or look at railguns. The theory behind them is rather trivial. Constructing useful ones is not.

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Page 85

Post by BattleRaptor »

yet without fail now that it has been worked out, with in a year or 2 other companies will be releasing there own versions..that work.. and are sufficently diffrent enough that they dont violate patant law.

Not the best Idea to use The Technogly Industry as a example when it has shown consistantly over the last 40 years that no new advancements made by one company no matter how revoloutianry wont in some way be copied by the others, and done so rather rapidly.

Kinda disproves your point.. as it suggests humans are quite capable of reverse engineering things quickly if they are given a working prototype to study rather then just the theory behind it.

User avatar
Trantor
Posts: 780
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:52 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Re: Page 85

Post by Trantor »

BattleRaptor wrote:Not the best Idea to use The Technogly Industry as a example when it has shown consistantly over the last 40 years that no new advancements made by one company no matter how revoloutianry wont in some way be copied by the others, and done so rather rapidly.
That whole thing is a cultural problem, too.

Todays aircraftindustry is a good "bad" example: They invented nothing new in the last 40 years, and today they totally get lost on the wrong way trying to implement those "new" compounds, see Boeings "Nightmareliner". They totally misinterpreted how to apply new materials properly, and so they ended up substituting duralumin with compounds. But that´s totally wrong because they use compounds against their technical nature. They should have made a compound-spaceframe cladded with reinforced duralumin (e.g. GLARE(tm)), but they can´t, because all those universities and the whole expensive and connected industry only teach the old way and simply can´t be changed.
They´re on a one-way-track without return, and only a cataclysm like war or a total industry-wide breakdown can accelerate or even start the change.
We need new pioneers, new Kelly Johnsons or Hugo Junkers.

BattleRaptor wrote:Kinda disproves your point.. as it suggests humans are quite capable of reverse engineering things quickly if they are given a working prototype to study rather then just the theory behind it.
This only works if the tech is not too advanced to understand.
sapere aude.

User avatar
Mjolnir
Posts: 452
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 1:24 pm

Re: Page 85

Post by Mjolnir »

BattleRaptor wrote:yet without fail now that it has been worked out, with in a year or 2 other companies will be releasing there own versions..that work.. and are sufficently diffrent enough that they dont violate patant law.
What's "it", the memristor memory? No, they'll be announcing their intent to develop such things. There's a lot of labs and companies trying various approaches to it already, HP and Hynix are just the furthest along toward a product they can sell.

BattleRaptor wrote:Kinda disproves your point.. as it suggests humans are quite capable of reverse engineering things quickly if they are given a working prototype to study rather then just the theory behind it.
It's been theorized for decades, devices have been being constructed in labs for years, and it's still years away from commercial deployment. It's a clear counterexample to your claim, and thus supports my point just fine. The resurgence in interest is due to a high demand for nonvolatile memory that these devices are well suited for, the huge variety of approaches being tried by other companies clearly shows that it's not because they were shown how to do it by HP.

Nice how you completely ignored the other examples, too...

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Page 85

Post by BattleRaptor »

You are putting up a theory.. then saying because it took X time to develop theory into practice.

that

taking HARDWARE and then copying it requires the same ammount of development, as putting theory into practice.

Strawman argument, they are NOT the same thing.

Every day in the real commerical world patented good are developed in secrect and released then reverse engineered modified to not breech patent law and put into mass production by rival companies.

INFACT in world Patent law the right to REVERSE ENGINEERING Physical devices is PROTECTED.

I can give someone recurve bow thats perfect example of speed and power, and tell them what materials it is made from.
then
I can tell someone how a recurve works in THEORY.

Then I can ask them both to make a recurve.

Are you are honestly saying the guy with a full working recurve and the knowledge of what is it made from.. will take the same ammount of time as the guy who only knows how they work in theory to develop a working copy?

If so I call bullshit.

Voitan
Posts: 214
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:04 am

Re: Page 85

Post by Voitan »

I'm curious if humanity has gone through a technological singularity yet in Outsider.

Our notions of how fast humanity adapts and improves technology, might be outdated compared to how fast it will be in the future.

Heck, it may not even be human minds picking apart alien tech for adapting, we might be using AI's.

User avatar
Mjolnir
Posts: 452
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 1:24 pm

Re: Page 85

Post by Mjolnir »

BattleRaptor wrote:You are putting up a theory.. then saying because it took X time to develop theory into practice.

that

taking HARDWARE and then copying it requires the same ammount of development, as putting theory into practice.
No, I'm not. We have hardware! We not only know in quite some details how memristors are supposed work, we've built working examples! There's still a huge amount of R&D before we can build them reliably enough and on large enough scales to be useful. There's plenty of things that we can design, but have no good way to manufacture. With high technology, it's almost always the manufacturing that's the sticking point.

BattleRaptor wrote:Strawman argument, they are NOT the same thing.

Every day in the real commerical world patented good are developed in secrect and released then reverse engineered modified to not breech patent law and put into mass production by rival companies.
Now that's a straw man. Nobody's reverse engineering advanced alien technology and rushing into production fast enough to compete. They're reverse engineering stuff built with standard electronic parts, using common technology and put together with industry-standard materials and production techniques. They don't have to figure out how to manufacture it, because it's already in production, just use the people who've demonstrated they have the needed capabilities. In Outsider, contracting engine and weapon work out to Loroi manufacturers isn't going to help things much.

BattleRaptor wrote:I can give someone recurve bow thats perfect example of speed and power, and tell them what materials it is made from.
then
I can tell someone how a recurve works in THEORY.

Then I can ask them both to make a recurve.

Are you are honestly saying the guy with a full working recurve and the knowledge of what is it made from.. will take the same ammount of time as the guy who only knows how they work in theory to develop a working copy?

If so I call bullshit.
Do you honestly believe replicating a type of bow is a reasonable analogy to reverse engineering and going into production of alien starship drives and ship-to-ship weaponry that's multiple generations ahead?

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Page 85

Post by BattleRaptor »

Mjolnir
One point I will agree on
production is a problem.



However you stated from Theory to practice.. and theory to practice is a HELL of alot diffrent from working version and copying it.

ANY bronze age Civilization could create a electric motor if given current day working permamanget version.
Infact they could even mass produce it for the standards of the time.

Would it be far less efficent due to uneven copper wire, the copper being less impure and having higher resistance.
The Rare Earth Magnets being poorly formed.
Yes yes yes and yes...


Given a working Umiak or Loroi ship, Terran ships would in short order start incorporating technogly from the alien ship in a relative short time a couple of years at most.

Could they create it at a quality equal to the orginal.
HIGHLY UNLIKELY.

Could they mass produce it on a level to match the Umiak or Loroi..
NO

Could they copy everything...
NO, some things would require further advances.

You have effectively made the claim that Humans cant copy it untill we are at a equal level of advancement.

Well After the use of Japans mini subs during ww2, other countries tried to copy them... with little success.

Is this because of Japans skill at production?
no.. japan was ACTUALLY at a ww1 tech level.
Infact if japan had provided templates USA/Germany could have started mass producing them instantly.

THE problem wasnt the Tech level, it was actually designing it.

Post Reply