Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Bamax]

Who would Loroi get along good/bad with in Star Trek?

Ferengi?

Klingons (TNG and DS9 only)?

Cardassians?

Vulcans?

[Snoofman]

Ferengi: good commerce, but keep at a distance.

Cardassians: invite to dinner then shoot them. Just to be safe.

Vulcans: peace and long life? Yeah right!

Klingons: ...... We lock arms together against those whose fatal greeting is: ‘We come in peace’. Right on!

[Bamax]

Ferengi: good commerce, but keep at a distance.

Cardassians: invite to dinner then shoot them. Just to be safe.

Vulcans: peace and long life? Yeah right!

Klingons: ...... We lock arms together against those whose fatal greeting is: ‘We come in peace’. Right on!

While the only honorable klingona are old guys or woff, I imagine the Loroi would mock the klingons 24/7.... while smiling silently .

Only a Mizol could prevent Loroi bluntness from starting a fight.

Blunt Loroi: "Why does your forehead look like a bunch of our xxxxxxx?"

Klingon:




"You have dishonored me and my house! Prepare for battle!"

[Cthulhu]

Who would Loroi get along good/bad with in Star Trek?

Ferengi?

Klingons (TNG and DS9 only)?

Cardassians?

Vulcans?

The Romulans, obviously. Especially with the Mizol caste and their Emperor.

The absolute patriarchy of the Ferengi would be a massive culture shock, along with their immunity to telepathy. The Cardassians are quite the uncomfortable mirror, reflecting the worst, domineering sides of the Loroi. Vulcans, with their telepathy, traditions of honesty and logic, would be able to form an amiable relationship. The Warrior caste and the Klingons would welcome each other as good sparring partners as both would be blunt, warlike, yet with a code of honor.

Farseers are passive receptors. They're not FTL radios.

Strange, I must've confused it with some fanfic then. Darn. Oh, well, I'll re-write that part of my fanfic a little. But you'll give me some creative freedom with that bit, okay?

[gaerzi]

They'd find them all annoying. Each new "human-except-for-some-cosmetic-details" species would reduce a little bit more the Loroi claim to specialness.

[dragoongfa]

Farseers are passive receptors. They're not FTL radios.

Strange, I must've confused it with some fanfic then. Darn. Oh, well, I'll re-write that part of my fanfic a little. But you'll give me some creative freedom with that bit, okay?

Probably Mea Culpa on that front, although technically it ain't that they can't send messages but it is extremely dangerous for both the sender and the receiver.

I have planned on re-writting certain parts of that particular story, this included, if only for consistency's sake.

[Zorg56]

Farseers are passive receptors. They're not FTL radios.

You still can send messages using them by moving people around.
Like old navy flag signals.

[GeoModder]

Farseers are passive receptors. They're not FTL radios.

You still can send messages using them by moving people around.
Like old navy flag signals.

Not very practical.
On a planet, I recon you'd have to move whole city populations from one side of a nation to the other, creating a sort of paralax effect.
On the interstellar level, its even worse. Moving a planetary population to a handy planet on the other side of the local sun, if not another star.
I think a simple radio message or interstellar courier network transfer will suffice.

[Werra]

Of course you would use an empty system to send these signals. Either you station a ship there that then jumps out or you pick an empty system to jump into to give a signal.
I'm certain that with a couple of interconnected systems that are empty save for courier ships, you could even spell out sentences.

[gaerzi]

They need the umiak lotai tech. Then they could use turn it on and off so as to send messages in binary.

[Ithekro]

The equivalent to smoke signals at interstellar distances.

[Cthulhu]

Probably Mea Culpa on that front, although technically it ain't that they can't send messages but it is extremely dangerous for both the sender and the receiver.
I have planned on re-writting certain parts of that particular story, this included, if only for consistency's sake.

You mean "Looking forward to the mirror"? It's already way too good for a fanfic anyway, and you want to improve it even further? Nope, how about focusing on Beacons instead?
Seriously, though, that bit is actually consistent. I also adjusted my writing a little, now it should be consistent enough, too. Otherwise, if I were to rewrite it completely, my bad habits of overthinking, perfectionism and laziness would ruin that fanfic midway through.

[GeoModder]

Of course you would use an empty system to send these signals. Either you station a ship there that then jumps out or you pick an empty system to jump into to give a signal.
I'm certain that with a couple of interconnected systems that are empty save for courier ships, you could even spell out sentences.

Well, Tempo did say in the webcomic their 'farsensing device' should've been able to detect Bellarmine's crew ahead of their arrival at Naam. So I suppose sensing a Loroi crew over interstellar distances is not out of the question. But that's still a far cry of sensing how many courier crews are in a particular system to give a farseer a clear 'sense' of signal.
As far as I'm aware, your typical farseer senses only minds 'in yonder direction', not exact numbers.

[Werra]

These are the options just three courier ships in three otherwise empty systems give you. The farseers only need to be able to tell whether a system has any life at all. This alone gives you six possible messages you can send with an "all okay" rest state. If you use something like morse code you will be able to send full letters at interstellar distances. The speed of which is limited by how long your couriers need to jump between the systems.

[GeoModder]

There's also the issue if a farseer is able to precisely pinpoint the particular system. If the stars in your example are only 3-5 lightyears from one another, I doubt a farseer could determine where exactly there's a ship from a distance of a couple dozen lightyears.
Not to mention there is sure to be 'disturbance' of populated worlds roughly behind (or ahead) of the couple stars you want to use for this signaling system.

[Arioch]

Movement of friendly and enemy ships can be used as a sort of semaphore, but the time needed for ships to move between systems usually means that it's probably faster to send the message via the courier network. One example of a simpler semaphore might be a case where a scout is send to recon a particular system, and depending what was found there, the scout might take route A or B on the way home.

A simpler and more common example is when the Farseer detects a strike group returning, and sends a supply convoy out to meet it.

Probably Mea Culpa on that front, although technically it ain't that they can't send messages but it is extremely dangerous for both the sender and the receiver.
I have planned on re-writting certain parts of that particular story, this included, if only for consistency's sake.

Farseers can't send interstellar messages. They can only receive. The amplifiers they use don't increase their telepathic power, only its sensitivity.

If you guys have included Farseers in your fics, you're probably going to be dismayed when you find out what Farseers actually are.

[GeoModder]

A brain in an amplifier??!!

[Cthulhu]

Farseers can't send interstellar messages. They can only receive. The amplifiers they use don't increase their telepathic power, only its sensitivity.

Well, can interstellar messages be sent at all? Maybe with a reconfigured amplifier and a Teidar or Mizol inside? Besides, we can always reverse its polarity, it seems to work pretty well against most problems in Star Trek.
I have prepared a few contingencies in my fanfic that may allow me to rewrite parts of the story without breaking its overall consistency. But it's not something that I would want to do. I'd rather concentrate on writing new chapters.

If you guys have included Farseers in your fics, you're probably going to be dismayed when you find out what Farseers actually are.

Dismayed, eh? Not shocked, surprised or even disgusted? I guess them simply being males is not enough. Don't tell me they have round ears and pink skin. Or are they ritually blinded or something?
No, I guess you meant that they are far less impressive than they sound...

[Arioch]

Farseers can't send interstellar messages. They can only receive. The amplifiers they use don't increase their telepathic power, only its sensitivity.

Well, can interstellar messages be sent at all? Maybe with a reconfigured amplifier and a Teidar or Mizol inside? Besides, we can always reverse its polarity, it seems to work pretty well against most problems in Star Trek.
I have prepared a few contingencies in my fanfic that may allow me to rewrite parts of the story without breaking its overall consistency. But it's not something that I would want to do. I'd rather concentrate on writing new chapters.

I had the idea that amplified Mizol might be able to send long distance messages to Farseers, and I think I may have posted something like that in the forums previously (since the shipboard Farseers are part of the Mizol's department, that would be a great way for her to receive orders)... but after thinking about it for a while, I don't think that's a good idea. For one thing, telepathy amplified to that degree would probably deafen or kill any nearby Loroi (including the sender). Then I thought that maybe it might be a sort of emergency channel, and there would be special setups with no one around but the sender, and she would be sacrificing herself to send the message. But I think "no one around" would basically mean no one in the same star system, and that would probably make the system impractical. By the time you got things set up, you could probably have already sent the message the normal way.

Those are my thoughts, but don't feel like you have to change your story to fit canon. I don't have any rules about the fanfiction (except that they comply with the general rules of the forum). I would guess that nearly every fanfiction posted here breaks canon in some way or other.

If you guys have included Farseers in your fics, you're probably going to be dismayed when you find out what Farseers actually are.

Dismayed, eh? Not shocked, surprised or even disgusted? I guess them simply being males is not enough. Don't tell me they have round ears and pink skin. Or are they ritually blinded or something?
No, I guess you meant that they are far less impressive than they sound...

No, I meant that if you're worried about non-canon elements in your fanfic, you may be dismayed to find out that Farseers aren't what you think they are. But that's entirely up to you...

[Cthulhu]

I had the idea that amplified Mizol might be able to send long distance messages to Farseers, and I think I may have posted something like that in the forums previously (since the shipboard Farseers are part of the Mizol's department, that would be a great way for her to receive orders)... but after thinking about it for a while, I don't think that's a good idea. For one thing, telepathy amplified to that degree would probably deafen or kill any nearby Loroi (including the sender). Then I thought that maybe it might be a sort of emergency channel, and there would be special setups with no one around but the sender, and she would be sacrificing herself to send the message. But I think "no one around" would basically mean no one in the same star system, and that would probably make the system impractical. By the time you got things set up, you could probably have already sent the message the normal way.

Yes, I've found this description, it was in the forum quotations part of the Insider.

Word of God:Show

The Loroi do not usually communicate ship-to-ship via telepathy, but via conventional voice and digital communications. Ship-to-ship telepathy would have to be amplified; you'd either have to have Farseer-level telepaths on both ships (who could send messages directly to each other), or the message would have to be broadcast loud enough for everyone on the target ship to hear, which would be disruptive (especially to those on the sending ship).

Given enough power and instrumentality, it is possible to mechanically amplify an ordinary Loroi individual's telepathic transmission so that it may be readable at interstellar distances, but this is not usually done. Keep in mind that during the pre-starflight Loroi period of internecine warfare, amplified telepathic transmissions were used by the Loroi for the purpose of attacking the minds of their fellow Loroi, and the telepathic amplifiers worn by Mizol and Teidar are for the purpose of attack, not communication. If you imagine trying to amplify an audio signal generated from Chicago so that it could be heard in New York, and consider what that might do to the hearing of people in the surrounding areas, you get an idea of why this is potentially dangerous to unintended recipients. A telepathic signal can be focused in terms of "frequency" to attempt to limit the contact to an individual Loroi, but there are limits to how effective this focusing can be. Using telepathy at interstellar FTL communication is possible, but limited to unusual situations in which the target is a known amplified Farseer who can detect a transmission at a specific "frequency" and low enough power that it will not potentially lobotomize nearby ordinary Loroi, or where transmitter and receiver are in a "safe" location free of nearby vulnerable listeners, or else in such a desperate situation that the sender is willing to accept such a risk to telepathic bystanders. Warning an outpost of an incoming Umiak strike may not be worthwhile if you destroy the minds of the majority of the people you are trying to warn.

Farseers can sometimes transcend this limitation, but they are limited in number and, not to give too much away, in lifespan. Farseers are a limited resource that must be allocated very carefully.

This means that sending between Farseers is actually doable, and that's what the first version of my fanfic was based on. Then, after your clarification, I've changed it to be the "highly disruptive sending". Still, that changed very little in the story, and I'm keeping that version now. The situation is certainly desperate enough.

Those are my thoughts, but don't feel like you have to change your story to fit canon. I don't have any rules about the fanfiction (except that they comply with the general rules of the forum). I would guess that nearly every fanfiction posted here breaks canon in some way or other.

Well, this particular story is supposed to be "hard-ish" sci-fi and thus needs to adhere to previously established lore. But I guess since it's a fanfic, it can be given a certain amount of leeway. I'm not going to fine-tune every little detail, the story just needs to avoid glaring contradictions to canon. The next one I'm planning will be less serious.

No, I meant that if you're worried about non-canon elements in your fanfic, you may be dismayed to find out that Farseers aren't what you think they are. But that's entirely up to you...

That's not a problem, if the original story is not finished yet, then it will certainly overtake fanfics sooner or later. There's nothing to be dismayed about. It's highly unlikely to anticipate yet unpublished stuff, and writing ambiguously enough to avoid contradictions would not make for a good story.

A question, how advanced are the various races regarding nanotech? Combat nanites would be too vulnerable to radiation in order to be viable, I guess. But how about nanobots in production or medicine? MoO2 had those technologies, for example.