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[icekatze]

hi hi

I've played enough Eclipse Phase to have wild and fantastical imaginings about cosmic horrors that reside in the Empty Quarter, waiting to be accidentally awoken.

But I notice that Beryl says "not well surveyed," instead of "totally unsurveyed." I'd find it kind of humorous if some old school Loroi explorers did survey Earth and swore to keep it a secret. I'm guessing given the distances, they're maybe going off of old, recovered star charts from earlier ages instead though.

[Hālian]

I'd find it kind of humorous if some old school Loroi explorers did survey Earth and swore to keep it a secret.

*coughRoswellcough*

[deadlypie]

hi hi

I've played enough Eclipse Phase to have wild and fantastical imaginings about cosmic horrors that reside in the Empty Quarter, waiting to be accidentally awoken.

But I notice that Beryl says "not well surveyed," instead of "totally unsurveyed." I'd find it kind of humorous if some old school Loroi explorers did survey Earth and swore to keep it a secret. I'm guessing given the distances, they're maybe going off of old, recovered star charts from earlier ages instead though.

Probably has something to do with humans making farsight(?) not work around them.

[LegioCI]

Anyone else cringe when he showed a still-strange and still-potentially hostile and technologically superior race exactly where Sol should be? Especially since Listel like Beryl were stated to have eidetic memories at some point, if I remember correctly.

Even if they have no plans to wipe us out or enslave us, still seems a bit premature to show them exactly where we live...

[elizibar]

Came out of forum hibernation just to post this face:

[LineNoise]

perhaps he is pointing to one of earth's outpost and saying " that is earth " ... if the space elves invade that planet then earth is informed of the Loroi true disposition.
if they send a negotiating team ... well then Jardin still has plausible deniability, after all the charts where alien to him and the map was incomplete.

[Overkill Engine]

I just love how everyone is focusing on the Blue space elf Genocide and glossing over what was said in the comic..

"Empty Quarter"

NO one goes there..

Also... http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/image ... ropped.jpg and http://well-of-souls.com/outsider/image ... r_map1.jpg Label that as "the great wasteland"


Soooo my curious side wonders what all happened when the Soia Empire fell apart that "no one goes to the wasteland"....

Sol's position reminds me of a DMZ or quarantine buffer.

[Absalom]

That definitely implies no one visited those systems in person "recently" and/or relied on some sort of long range scanning to make that determination, otherwise they should have at least picked up radio signals and other EM emissions that were not part of the normal stellar background noise. Which also begs the question of if their sensors/methodology was in error, or somehow interfered with.

Edit: Or merely went a few systems in, found nothing of note, said "screw it" and headed home I guess.

They might have even detected oxygen in Earth's atmosphere from a few systems away, the hypothetical farseer onboard couldn't sense anything, so they just decided it was all algae and went to find somewhere more interesting.


Considering that the Orgus were supposedly following a Soia-era trade-route though, it is interesting to wonder what exactly the deal was. Maybe the Soia originally came through that route, and the reason the place is barren is because they wanted a buffer-zone, only leaving Earth & Aldea because neither interfered with their own farseers?

[Mackus]

Anyone else cringe when he showed a still-strange and still-potentially hostile and technologically superior race exactly where Sol should be? Especially since Listel like Beryl were stated to have eidetic memories at some point, if I remember correctly

He's on diplomatic mission. The whole point was to say "hello, we're here".

[Mr Bojangles]

hi hi

I've played enough Eclipse Phase to have wild and fantastical imaginings about cosmic horrors that reside in the Empty Quarter, waiting to be accidentally awoken.

But I notice that Beryl says "not well surveyed," instead of "totally unsurveyed." I'd find it kind of humorous if some old school Loroi explorers did survey Earth and swore to keep it a secret. I'm guessing given the distances, they're maybe going off of old, recovered star charts from earlier ages instead though.

Probably has something to do with humans making farsight(?) not work around them.

I don't think humans make farsense not work; humans just can't be detected or read telepathically. The Loroi likely have automated sky surveys, much as we do now. So, the region has been surveyed, star types and planets noted, but they haven't actually explored it. Why that is, well, speculation ahoy!

[GabrielGABFonseca]

From my own personal experience (Steallaris, ahoy!), when you are expanding your empire early on and you have very limited resources to build a colony ship, you can very well happen to have surveyed the regions around your empire and find one side full of perfectly colonisable worlds, rich in minerals and energy and science, and the other side off of your empire to be barely inhabitable rocks without any worth while resource concentrations.

From a simple economic standpoint, it becomes painfuly obvious which area you should pay more attention too.

Of course, in an ideal world where you have infinite resources, the right thing to do would be explore all ze things!!1!, but when you have a real, finite economy and resources, you simply have to prioritize: "What is more cost-effective?"

I don't think it is far-fetched that the Loroi haven't explored that region of space before - there was simply no need to. Why expand into a scarcely inhabitable and rather poor area of space, far away from civilization and estabilished logistic lines (thereby making the colonization or exploitation of two exactly equal planets cost more in the uncharted space) when you have perfectly colonizable and exploitable planets right inside your territory?

TL;DR - When I play Space Emperor, this thing sometimes happens to me.

[boldilocks]

but when you have a real, finite economy and resources, you simply have to prioritize: "What is more cost-effective?

Or you can just focus on building More cities!, More farms!! and More workers!!!

[Razor One]

but when you have a real, finite economy and resources, you simply have to prioritize: "What is more cost-effective?

Or you can just focus on building More cities!, More farms!! and More workers!!!

Two Words.

Supply Crawlers.

[CrimsonFALKE]

Is anyone else a bit concerned we just gave away our position?

[dex drako]

Is anyone else a bit concerned we just gave away our position?

no that was the whole point of this little exercise anyway and more to the point time is not on Alex's side. there were 5 other scout ships and if one of them went with the bugs things could bet bad quick so Alex has to get the loroi and humans on the same side before another ship gets back (if they get back which i fine unlikely. honestly)

outside of that just from a story telling prospective no that isn't what the story is about.

[novius]

Is anyone else a bit concerned we just gave away our position?

no that was the whole point of this little exercise anyway and more to the point time is not on Alex's side. there were 5 other scout ships and if one of them went with the bugs things could bet bad quick so Alex has to get the loroi and humans on the same side before another ship gets back (if they get back which i fine unlikely. honestly)

outside of that just from a story telling prospective no that isn't what the story is about.

It started out as the point of the whole exercise, but Alex would (or should) have seen major concerns against this course of action. They tried to mindrape him - it took Beryl to actually talk to him until they tried with diplomacy - he got thrown into a brig, met with suspicion and derision, and Tempo may look to be rather forthcoming, he knows that she's in the spook trade and must have seen that she carefully controls the flow of information, like cutting off the Barsam ambassador before he might have said too much.

So yes, the Loroi did not much to warrant his trust - but enough to actually lose the little trust he might have had in them - and only Beryl seems to be rather chagrined about it (but that could be a ploy in itself, like the 'good elf, bad elf' trope Alex himself was alluding to) and only those of roughly the same rank and position - Talon and Spiral - seem to meet him eye to eye. From his perspective, sweet, bubbly, upbeat Beryl could even be a bigger manipulator playing him than Tempo, for all he knows - it's always the ones you don't expect it from.

He could have at least waited to see what kind of reception awaits for him on his destination before spilling too much valuable intel.

[icekatze]

hi hi

I think a lot of people in the audience would have taken a different approach. I know I lean more on the "take things step by step," side of the fence, and there's been plenty of comments about this particular strategy. At the very least given all that's been said, it doesn't look like it is a cut and dry, objectively right or wrong strategy.

Alex is taking a gamble, but as he said in his nightmare flashback, he believes the potential reward is worth the gamble.

[Arioch]

Alex is now in charge of the diplomatic mission to the Loroi, but he's also without a ship or any way to contact home, and totally dependent on the goodwill of his captors. If he were to conclude that Loroi could not be trusted with the location of Earth, then the diplomatic mission has failed and his only recourse would be to commit suicide as quickly as possible. The higher he went up the diplomatic food chain, the more insulted the Loroi would be when he refused to answer the most basic questions about the nation he claimed to represent.

Enough people have mentioned this that I think it's clear that the narrator ideally should have said something about his decision to reveal this information, but I have been trying to avoid conspicuous walls of text.

[orion1836]

Alex is now in charge of the diplomatic mission to the Loroi, but he's also without a ship or any way to contact home, and totally dependent on the goodwill of his captors. If he were to conclude that Loroi could not be trusted with the location of Earth, then the diplomatic mission has failed and his only recourse would be to commit suicide as quickly as possible. The higher he went up the diplomatic food chain, the more insulted the Loroi would be when he refused to answer the most basic questions about the nation he claimed to represent.

Enough people have mentioned this that I think it's clear that the narrator ideally should have said something about his decision to reveal this information, but I have been trying to avoid conspicuous walls of text.

Apparently this is your 2222nd post. Nice.

Frankly, I don't understand the big deal about Earth's location. With the power differential as wide as it is, the only way Humanity gains any sort of advantage is by using diplomacy. To do that, you need trust, and trust can only be built on open exchange of information. Not volunteering your location practically screams "we're up to no good."

Now, if the gap in tech levels was a little closer, and Humanity had some way of detecting ships at extremely long-ranges, maybe there would be some kind of long-term advantage to delaying contact and staying hidden. Perhaps the strategy would be to make time for a frantic research push to close the tech divide. Even then, though, you would still want to control the circumstances of first contact if at all possible. It's better to reach out than to have potential enemies stumble across you.

[novius]

Now, if the gap in tech levels was a little closer, and Humanity had some way of detecting ships at extremely long-ranges, maybe there would be some kind of long-term advantage to delaying contact and staying hidden. Perhaps the strategy would be to make time for a frantic research push to close the tech divide. Even then, though, you would still want to control the circumstances of first contact if at all possible. It's better to reach out than to have potential enemies stumble across you.

Following that thought it would even be more prudent to stay out of sight for as long as possible, or at least a little while longer. But I see the point... Earth has little to offer, and at that point rather little to lose. The Orgus painted a dark picture of the Loroi, but an even darker picture of the Umiak. Doing nothing or failing the mission would mean humanity is doomed.

So yes, Alex has to take calculated risks. But on the other hand, Earth does have very little to offer. As fighters, the Umiak may be more interested in having undetectable shock troops rather than the Loroi, the sector Earth resides in is sparse in resources, sparse enough that neither of them spared that region a closer look, and Earth industrial base is pretty much obsolete by the two superpower's standard. The only thing Earth could substantially offer would be safe havens for refuelling and repair outposts and intel about the region. But, what could stop the Loroi of simply getting rid of an inconvenient species only a handful of people ever laid eyes upon once they got all of this? Right, nothing.