Page 217: Where is Cloud?

[Krulle]

well, cloud is directly below Tempo, and the mistrust against the Mizol extends to her because of her job.
And being in that job might also mean being submitted to regular mid scans to check loyality and danger of subversion by others.

This also sets her off from the rest, resulting possibly in a strong feeling of being alone.

[Keklas Rekobah]

I would like to draw attention to the caste thing going on in the background. Cloud has been treated as a nonperson for the entire story. . .

[opinion=mine]

I see it more as a "rank thing" than a caste thing.  Soroin pasets are at the bottom of the rank structure no matter which other caste is involved, and they get the distinction of having to perform all of the jobs that no one else wants to do.  In this, they are literally servants to anyone who outranks them -- which is pretty much everyone else on board.  For instance, Cloud was the one selected to step and fetch a pair of shoes for Alex, not Beryl.

Imagine being the only enlisted person on board a Navy ship full of commissioned officers.  Better yet, imagine being an enlisted reservist on the same ship with no other enlisteds on board.  Not only are you subordinate to everyone else, but you are not even considered to be part of the 'real' Navy.  Guess who gets the least amount of respect in such a situation (especially if nothing you do will ever meet the lofty standards of all those who outrank you)?

I think this is more in line with the way Cloud would have been treated -- as the lowest of the low, and not really worth anyone's care or concern.

And that is why she was so easily 'voluntold' to make the ultimate sacrifice for her shipmates.

[/opinion]

[Demarquis]

"well, cloud is directly below Tempo..."

Interesting in that it was probably Tempo who ordered her to die.

[avatar576]

I would like to draw attention to the caste thing going on in the background. Cloud has been treated as a nonperson for the entire story. It's all in the body language cues. Cloud is often pictured looking down. She's also often depicted standing or walking apart from other Loroi (except for handing over items), moreso than any other member of the cast. Even during the introductions in 162, Cloud is distant. Everyone else has a cast-rank-name + meaning in this scene, except [Paset] Cloud who is introduced as 'this one'. The only other Loroi in the exact same green jumpsuit (solid green, black collar, with grey wing design on chest) in 100 exhibits similar mannerisms. I propose that this avoidance and deferral exceeds that expected by military courtesy and may only be explained by caste culture and an expectation of being perfectly invisible.

Further, I suspect that Cloud was slated for death since touching the Historian flowerpot in 65, given Loroi paranoia surrounding alien artifacts (especially those they can't read), although I have no evidence besides my gut feeling. This chapter hit hard, and thank you all so much for drawing attention to the other little details (like Beryl's readied weapon, Jardin possibly in Cloud's suit, and the krack before the boarding began).

She is basically an intern. As a Soroin Paset, she has completed the diral phase of training and would be going through more formal training in the Soroin caste. The equivalent of college-level education or a military service academy. Just as midshipmen today participate in training cruises and college students do summer internships, so, too, do the Soroin Pasets. She would probably not be entrusted with any regular shipboard duties, at least not without direct supervision, and probably not anything that would have serious consequences if she bungled it up. She is there to observe and learn, take on some menial tasks so the commissioned officers can focus on more important stuff, and try to stay out from under foot.

As for why she was chosen to die, from a practical viewpoint, I think it was simply because she would have been the least useful in the imminent fight against the Umiak. Tempo, Fireblade and Beryl are too senior and too valuable to waste. Talon and Spiral were sent on the mission specifically to try and keep them alive long enough to train the next batch of pilots. If Tempo sent one of them to die, she'd have a bit of explaining to do during debrief. Flint and Reed are more expendable, but as fully-trained Soroin with experience in the field, they are still needed, and worth more than a half-trained cadet with little to no field experience.

Note, too, that because Cloud hadn't completed her formal Soroin training as of her posting aboard Tempest, she was not entitled to wear the armor of her caste. That probably includes the heavier gray armor worn by Flint, Reed, and Fireblade. Given the status associated with earning one's armor, and the traditionalist views held by the Loroi, even if they had a spare suit of armor on board, she would probably not have been allowed to wear it, any more than they'd let Alex suit up in a Teidar uniform (ironically, though, he does appear to be wearing Teidar boots -- perhaps belonging to Fireblade). This is only speculation on my part, though.

[gaerzi]

It could even be human derived, if they captured one of the other scouts, and reverse engineered our ability to block detection.

Problem with that is that this requires them to know that humans escape Loroi far sensing. And I don't see many ways they could have that knowledge. In fact, I can only see two ways for them to have found out humans are shielded from Loroi far sensing, and those are:

1. Either they have their own Loroi far seers, are actively using them to monitor Loroi activities, and were surprised that human scout ships went undetected, and then were able to reverse-engineer the human "lotai" when they couldn't reverse-engineer Loroi powers;
2. Or they don't have their own Loroi far seers but they were told about this human property by some third faction which knew, and for any faction to know about that would require them to have kept knowledge from the Soia-Liron empire as I don't see how anyone could have known otherwise, and that faction also told them how to reverse-engineer it.

In the second scenario it would be simpler to have the mystery faction just tell them directly how to make loroi-proof cloaking technology, since why would humans be even needed?

[Demarquis]

For option 1, they don't need Farseers esp., and Loroi captive who met the new humans could tell them about the blocking effect. From there, it doesn't take a rocket bug to wonder what effect it might have on those damn Farseers.

For option 2, we actually have a race on deck who seems duplicious enough, and has some sort of hidden agenda, and therefore might very well have informed the Umiak. Personally, I also suspect they were the ones who did in the Bellarmine. The only question then is how *they* knew about the humans. But then, we don't really know that much about them...

[icekatze]

hi hi

Cloud was not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed.

Honestly, looking at it another way, she escaped certain death once or twice already during their shuttle ride. When you were already living past expectations, every moment is a bonus. Still tragic as heck though.

Hopefully she'll be remembered when all is said and done.

[Overkill Engine]

As for why she was chosen to die, from a practical viewpoint, I think it was simply because she would have been the least useful in the imminent fight against the Umiak. Tempo, Fireblade and Beryl are too senior and too valuable to waste. Talon and Spiral were sent on the mission specifically to try and keep them alive long enough to train the next batch of pilots. If Tempo sent one of them to die, she'd have a bit of explaining to do during debrief. Flint and Reed are more expendable, but as fully-trained Soroin with experience in the field, they are still needed, and worth more than a half-trained cadet with little to no field experience.

This. She simply had the misfortune of being the most expendable in a situation that demanded that someone be expended.

It's the brutal calculus of war.

[gaerzi]

For option 1, they don't need Farseers esp., and Loroi captive who met the new humans could tell them about the blocking effect. From there, it doesn't take a rocket bug to wonder what effect it might have on those damn Farseers.

But then that means the Umiak SOP when encountering a new kind of aliens involves taking them to their Hierarchy loroi for lotai-testing. Which is not impossible but still seems like a stretch.

Also we know the Union Loroi prefer to kill themselves rather than let the shells capture them, so unless each Umiak warship transports a few Hierarchy-bred Loroi for whatever reasons, performing this test involves bringing the new aliens back home, and that trip would take a while.

Further it's hard to be certain that just because a Loroi can't read the thoughts of an alien, a Loroi farseer with the proper equipment cannot detect the mind. The only real way to test for farseer-proofness is by having your own farseers.

Finally, reverse-engineering the human lotai seems like a very far-fetched proposition. If they couldn't figure out how loroi telepathy works, how would figuring out how human resistance to telepathy works? One would think that a purely passive process is even harder to understand than an active one. Especially considering that it seems to turn out that the human lotai is not truly impenetrable, as exposure to the Loroi is quite steadily melting down Alex's block. So if you were to somehow faithfully replicate the human ability to mask their mind from loroi farsensing, despite having no idea how farsensing works and no idea how the block works, you'd run into the problem that just testing your prototype to see if they actually work would result in the prototypes no longer working.

[DevilDalek]

I would say it's not melting down Alex's resistance, I think it's more him becoming more and more in tune with the one he's formed a psychic bond with.