Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Keklas Rekobah]

Come to think of it ... what would be considered paranormal in an interstellar civilization in which everyone has some form of "Mind-Majick"?

[Cthulhu]

Come to think of it ... what would be considered paranormal in an interstellar civilization in which everyone has some form of "Mind-Majick"?

Well, since most magic, be it levitation, detection or the conjuring of fire and lightning, is already possible with psi-powers, how about the undead? Do such stories even exist? I guess humans with their telepathic silence come uncomfortably close to that, if it does.

[Keklas Rekobah]

Come to think of it ... what would be considered paranormal in an interstellar civilization in which everyone has some form of "Mind-Majick"?

Well, since most magic, be it levitation, detection or the conjuring of fire and lightning, is already possible with psi-powers, how about the undead? Do such stories even exist? I guess humans with their telepathic silence come uncomfortably close to that, if it does.

It may be safe to assume that the Loroi equivalent of a "Zombie" might apply to the senzai-driven takeover of another being's thoughts and actions ... like a certain Mizol did recently ...

[Cthulhu]

It may be safe to assume that the Loroi equivalent of a "Zombie" might apply to the senzai-driven takeover of another being's thoughts and actions ... like a certain Mizol did recently ...

Good point, this also might explain why the swamp-witches have such a bad image among the other Loroi. Although I doubt that those techniques are exclusive to the Mizol.

[Werra]

If the Loroi keep growing their entire lifes, how big do they get? Fireblade now is just a bit taller than Alex, but how much more will she grow during the rest of her four century lifespan?

What if a high ranking Loroi decides to stick around for 800+ years?

[Arioch]

Loroi typically grow a few centimeters over their first 100 years, but genetics and environment are as much of a factor as age. Fireblade is 5'10" (178 cm), but she's only 25... this is more genes than age. Over each of her subsequent 100 years, a Loroi may grow a few centimeters more, but so will her cartilage, resulting in longer nose and larger ears. Once she gets past about 350, she may start to lose bone mass, and so she may start to shrink a little. Past about 400, the telomeres are exhausted and they body's systems start to break down; a Loroi can be kept alive past this point with increasingly invasive ultra-tech medicine, but she certainly won't grow any further.

I have a concept for a Listel grand-master character who is something like 800 years old (to show what that might look like), but at present there's nothing in the script that calls for her.

[Dan Wyatt]

Loroi typically grow a few centimeters over their first 100 years, but genetics and environment are as much of a factor as age. Fireblade is 5'10" (178 cm), but she's only 25... this is more genes than age. Over each of her subsequent 100 years, a Loroi may grow a few centimeters more, but so will her cartilage, resulting in longer nose and larger ears. Once she gets past about 350, she may start to lose bone mass, and so she may start to shrink a little. Past about 400, the telomeres are exhausted and they body's systems start to break down; a Loroi can be kept alive past this point with increasingly invasive ultra-tech medicine, but she certainly won't grow any further.

I have a concept for a Listel grand-master character who is something like 800 years old (to show what that might look like), but at present there's nothing in the script that calls for her.

A Blue Yoda????

[Arioch]

A Blue Yoda????

Not exactly... more gruesome.

[Dan Wyatt]

A Blue Yoda????

Not exactly... more gruesome.

A Blue Smeagol???

[Bamax]

So after pondering the dynamics of rocket space travel, it dawned on me just how useful massive fuel tanker ships could be.

Limited fuel? No problem! We have your fuel right here! Go where you want! Have a small fuel tank! No problem!

Pros: Refuel far from any nearby base. Stick a jump drive on it and you have a mobile fuel base.

Cons: It will be slower than other ships if it is trying to save fuel. Making it a target.

Do both the Loroi and the Umiak rely on tankers a lot, or just the Umiak?

Like I know the Loroi are playing defense a lot, but I think tankers would up their game if they could keep them alive.

[gaerzi]

A Blue Yoda????

Not exactly... more gruesome.

A Blue Smeagol???

The gruesomeness is probably more from the "invasive ultra-tech medecine" than just from being all wrinkly and long-eared.

[Werra]

Past about 400, the telomeres are exhausted and they body's systems start to break down; a Loroi can be kept alive past this point with increasingly invasive ultra-tech medicine, but she certainly won't grow any further.

There are ways around telomere exhaustion or alternatively, lifeforms that don't seem to suffer from it naturally. The question is, why wouldn't the Soia implement any of those?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

[Cthulhu]

There are ways around telomere exhaustion or alternatively, lifeforms that don't seem to suffer from it naturally. The question is, why wouldn't the Soia implement any of those?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

1. Were the Loroi, or at least their Soia-era ancestors, truly part of the ruling class as they claim? If they were merely tools, why would their masters give them the power of immortality?
2. The modern Loroi may be an unfinished product, or tampering too much may have interfered with their desirable trait, telepathy.
3. Since the Soia produced or adapted biological lifeforms instead of making super-cyborgs with their advanced technology, they may have planned for their creations to adapt and evolve.

The gruesomeness is probably more from the "invasive ultra-tech medecine" than just from being all wrinkly and long-eared.

*heavy breathing*

[Zorg56]

I have a concept for a Listel grand-master character who is something like 800 years old (to show what that might look like), but at present there's nothing in the script that calls for her.

And then she starts "I want to see this "Terra" myself" and starts annoying everyone around her to get there.
Old people sometimes do those kind of things.

[Cthulhu]

And then she starts "I want to see this "Terra" myself" and starts annoying everyone around her to get there.
Old people sometimes do those kind of things.

Well, Arioch mentioned that he planned to create one or two spin-offs after the main story is finished. Why not make it about an 800 old Beryl as she wishes to visit Earth in the far-off future?

[Mk_C]

A Blue Smeagol???

Probably a blue God-Emperor of Mankind on the Golden Throne, withered limbs, empty eye-sockets, and a few gorillion tubes sticking out of every part of a half-decayed body and everything.

SpoilerShow

It certainly is my fetish

[Mk_C]

There are ways around telomere exhaustion or alternatively, lifeforms that don't seem to suffer from it naturally. The question is, why wouldn't the Soia implement any of those?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

Aging is about way more than telomeres, and making something that continuously and indefinitely lives with a normal mammalian metabolic function without decaying at all is not just biologically unlikely - it fucks a lot with the laws of thermodynamics and information theory as we know them.

It's also worth nothing that the organism you linked is a bit of a cheating in the fashion of Theseus' ship - it's not a single extremely old organism, it's a colony of interlinked clones, in which old individual organisms continuoisly keep dying off and being replaced by younger clones.

[Cthulhu]

It's also worth nothing that the organism you linked is a bit of a cheating in the fashion of Theseus' ship - it's not a single extremely old organism, it's a colony of interlinked clones, in which old individual organisms continuoisly keep dying off and being replaced by younger clones.

Yes, it's highly unlikely that something similar can be done with a central nervous system. Or at least if you wish to preserve memories. However, if telepathy is not an "emergent property of the mind", but its reversal, a limited link to an extradimensional "soul", then the personalty may be stored there, if the link is upgraded. The body is then merely a vessel, an avatar meant to act in this dimension.

But that's a level of super-science the Soia would've reserved for themselves. Or maybe they did, and instead of destroying themselves, they merely "ascended". But before that, they tried to get rid of their toys for whatever reason or maybe a faction disagreed with this transcendence, started a civil war and lost.

[Werra]

Aging is about way more than telomeres, and making something that continuously and indefinitely lives with a normal mammalian metabolic function without decaying at all is not just biologically unlikely - it fucks a lot with the laws of thermodynamics and information theory as we know them.

The laws of thermodynamics are totally unaffected by an organism maintaining homeostasis indefinitely as the organism has to take in calories to do so. Likewise, information theory says nothing against an organism having functional eternal youth. Just because an organism doesn't age, doesn't mean the individual parts that store information can't be replaced by normal, bodily functions. No individual part has to be eternal.

The only question is whether an organism can indefinitely maintain itself and replenish lost or damaged cells. That life possesses the ability to reset a running organism to a youthful state is demonstrated by...people being born youthful. The possibility therefore exists. It is very unlikely that a species evolves this way naturally, but a designer species that was made from scratch?

SpoilerShow

Theseus ship doesn't apply to living beings, as the continuous process of replacement is part of what they are.

[Werra]

It's also worth nothing that the organism you linked is a bit of a cheating in the fashion of Theseus' ship - it's not a single extremely old organism, it's a colony of interlinked clones, in which old individual organisms continuoisly keep dying off and being replaced by younger clones.

Yes, it's highly unlikely that something similar can be done with a central nervous system. Or at least if you wish to preserve memories.

But that's exactly what our species has been doing since forever. We do retain information across the lifespan of our nervous cells by passing the knowledge on to the next generation. That we can cup our hands to drink comfortably from a stream is likely an extremely old example of such knowledge.
The body just needs to restore brain cells as they fail due to age. Perfect memory is not a requirement for eternal youth.