WIP Discussion (Part 1!)

[Count Casimir]

Tempo looking sassy as ever.

[icekatze]

hi hi

I like to believe that whatever Tempo is saying, she is thinking, "This is the hand with which I will rip out your still beating heart." Seriously though, although I'm sure she's got ulterior motives, I don't actually expect her to try to dismember Alex. (Yet.)

[dragoongfa]

The third prophet of the Trinity is speaking, be a good boy and she will favor you greatly.

In a more serious manner, is it me or is Tempo somewhat of a seductress?

[Krulle]

Well, the looks of these blue Elves are deceiving anyway. To us Humans very much so.
The body language of the Loroi is very "open". A lot of indicators telling you that they're interesting in you and/or the topic being discussed.
So, yes, she does look very much as if she's tempting.
But it may be her way of catching prey.

Also, we should not forget that we don't know if the way these girls move is a natural thing in their society. We Humans observe it mostly when out ladies invite you to make a move.
But with the Loroi girls...? It might be their way of telling you "Hey you. I've got an eye on you and will crush you if you step out of line!". (Although crossing her legs does put her in a disadvantage when wanting to jump and attack.)

It would be a very big cause of cultural misunderstanding....
And a likely thing to happen if Alex would try to make a move.
The Loroi seem to be very open towards him in this regard anyway.
I mean they did offer to provide "accomodation". Although Beryl was talking about "forced to implement some sort of... accomodation." This "forced to" may refer to using machines, medicine, or whatever against Alex' will, or of requesting a Loroi "volunteer" to test how similar the two species are, thus forcing at least one Loroi to touch Alex, something they are avoiding.

To repeat: the Loroi body-language should not be used to interpret their actions (yet), at least not without asking Beryl about the meaning of certain body movements observed...
And then possibly not trusting the answer fully anyway.

I already have problems interpreting the body language of French women, although culturally I'm a "neighbour" (German). I would not even dare to try to interpret Loroi body language based on what we've seen so far. Especially not when all reference points you have are Female, and no interaction between the Loroi-genders.

Also, I'm asking myself if the diplomatic first-encountercontact training Alex went through covered the slim chances of the Aliens being "bodily compatible and looking very attractive"...?
(Not really interesting into going through the extremely large Q&A threads yet. Their size is... preventing me to start.
I might do so sometime in the future, same with all the Insider information.... But right now I should not start such projects.)

[dragoongfa]

I believe that they are working 'blind' using what they think is best, in this situation Alex looks very much like a Loroi male and as such Tempo has tailored her behavior towards him to be the same or similar to how she would act towards a Loroi male. They can't telepathically read Alex so they are probably throwing things at random towards him trying to see what sticks.

[Krulle]

It would be easy to guess that if the two races are so similar, that we tend to (subconsciously) interpret the Loroi actions similar as Human actions, that the Loroi fall for the same trap.
But they have other Loroi to fall back to, and warn them about falling for such a trap (if the Loroi mind is even susceptible to that).
And what's worse: the Loroi can warn each other WHILE the persons susceptible for falling is communicating with Alex, without Alex ever knowing (telepathy). He might just wonder why the Loroi suddenly changes posture and reactions.

But indeed. One thing I like about this comic, is that all of the Loroi body-language indicates a lot of "fan-service" soon, yet it does not happen.
It is a constant reminder that the Loroi are not Human.

[Grayhome]

Umm... I think you guys are reading too much into this. Tempo is sitting in a casual position with a hand raised. Nothing sexual about it that I can see.

[dragoongfa]

Not a sexual manner per se but a very mature (and controlled) feminine manner, which is a contrast to Beryl's mannerism from chapter 1.

EDIT: Which imho is the epitomy of seductivity, i.e. presenting ones self as the superior female, not the easily available one. The interesting one is Fireblade who for all intents and purposes fills the role of the chundere .

[Grayhome]

Not a sexual manner per se

Which imho is the epitomy of seductivity

... ok.

[sunphoenix]

Not a sexual manner per se

Which imho is the epitomy of seductivity

... ok.

....whatever...

"What a HOTTIE!"

If that's an offer to sit on her lap.. I'm sooo there! lols!

{Jus' kidding guys! }

But seriously, indeed many of the Loroi mannerisms are VERY similar to human mannerisms... I'm not entirely surprised at this because of the Extreme physical similarities to the species... considering the actual possibilities of what an alien race completely from a different development path and biosphere could look like!

The similarities between Loroi and Humans are so staggeringly close that CLEARLY there MUST have been some common progenitor of both species.

MY POINT being .. Loroi and Humans are similar enough that likely we have very similar social ques and physical mannerisms. Humans will likely misread some of the more subtle ques.. cause Loroi have another level of communication that humans cannot perceive. All previous examples of eye contact, stance, physical gestures we have previously seen {ie when Still Storm entered the med bay and had a silent but almost readable conversation with Beryl and Fireblade}... we can see the Loroi being mammals, capable of speech, bipedal with redundant sensory organs and bilaterally symmetrical forward-facing skeletal structures almost exactly like humans have VERY similar physical mannerisms and social gestures {eye contact, facial expressions of shock, anger, surprise...even laughing}..that its likely those physical gestures, posture, facial expression mean VERY similar things to us humans.

tl;dr version - So yeah Tempo is certainly being coy and seeing just how appealing she can be to the very 'Physically Compatible' male alien sitting nearby. Trying... subtly to see if she can spark a reaction that might indicate another angle to gaining trust and openness from the ...'Noticably appealing male' of another EXTREMELY similar species.

I hold to 'Noticably appealing male'.. as in Every scene where Alex encounters a Loroi female Even if they do not directly speak to him ..THEY ALL turn heads to get a good look at him.. a Completely unnecessary mannerism.. when likely they have all been telepathically been made aware of his presence and likely have seen electronic images of him already!

[Suederwind]

I hold to 'Noticably appealing male'.. as in Every scene where Alex encounters a Loroi female Even if they do not directly speak to him ..THEY ALL turn heads to get a good look at him..

Dude, he is on a ship that is entirely crewed by females and it is save to assume that none of them had "shore leave" in the recent past. Even if their sexual drive is lower than that of humans and he isn't exactly attractive to Loroi standarts...
There is a reason why sailors in accient times thought that a woman aboard only brings bad luck and that might be the same reason why Stillstorm locked him up in that cell for such a long time.

a Completely unnecessary mannerism.. when likely they have all been telepathically been made aware of his presence and likely have seen electronic images of him already!

I can assume that Fireblade and/or Beryl were sending out somithing like a telepathic warning as they escorted him to the bridge. But I don't think that they would give away pinup pictures of him. Stillstorm wouldn't like that for sure. However, there must be a reason why she kickes of a high ranking Listel of her ship. Beryls explanation on the most recent page was almost too cute: "The commander sometimes gets tired of looking at some of her officers..."

[Sweforce]

The similarities between Loroi and Humans are so staggeringly close that CLEARLY there MUST have been some common progenitor of both species.

Not so much a common progenitor as a blatant copy of the human design using other materials and then modded with things such as longevity and telepathic communications among other things. It just that it so darn difficult to do all the ground work yourself so you just shamelessly steal a design close to what you want and then start playing around with it. Nothing wrong with that, many people (Soia included) like to get creative as times and change things, for the lols if nothing else.

Can we sue the Soia for copyright infringement?

[dragoongfa]

Not a sexual manner per se

Which imho is the epitomy of seductivity

... ok.

You haven't been wrapped around the finger of a MILF haven't you?

EDIT: i.e. The sex plays a part but alone it isn't what makes a man go back every time for more.

[Arioch]

Can we sue the Soia for copyright infringement?

"Genetic rights" law is still in its infancy, but if we use software copyright law as an example, if you were to create a functional copy of a program but you developed it independently and didn't use any of the original source code, then I believe that's not a copyright violation. I don't think you can copyright "look and feel."

Patents are another matter, but they're really screwy when you get into software.

[Siber]

I'd expect everyone to take a look at him even if he held no attraction at all. He's a new alien, and a novelty on a ship that's been deployed for quite a while. Even if pictures of him have circulated, that's still worth a look.

Still, given Tempo's status as spy/diplomat I doubt any allure is accidental. Especially with the reputation of Loroi males as unable to handle dry spells at all, being attractive probably sounds like good enough leverage to not at least try.

[icekatze]

hi hi

I suspect that at least half of the Loroi turn their heads because they don't want to turn their back to what is obviously an Umiak plant, and they want to be ready for when he makes his inevitable move to destroy them.

[sunphoenix]

Cute well you all see what you want to see.. lol. But from the many facial expressions it is not anger or loathing ...as Loroi are clearly capable of such expressions - see Still Storm and Fire Blade's many expression; that all those Loroi females are giving Alex.

As for the Soia genegineering science {shrug} who knows.. but I would find it Very odd they saw no use in the human genome considering how similar to humans they crafted the Loroi... why not just use humans? Why would THEY care if they had to kill more humans than Loroi in their wars... though the extent to which they improved on the human genetic 'pattern' makes one wonder.. what the hell kind of enemy or wars did the Soia fight that needed such genetic upgrades in an entire species to fight? And if such was needed why not go with the Umiak genetic model instead? Practically no independent thought, very durable with even cheaper cybernetic upgrades, very little genegineering needed and mass producable EVEN faster than the Loroi!

Plus, Arioch has said himself.. if you control planetary near space orbit with space fleets armed with mass destruction weapons... you don't really need a army of super-soldiers as any ground forces can be wiped out with orbital bombardment without resorting to messy ground fighting. Why put all this effort into a lovely elf-like killing package in the first place? Surly there are easier ways to have an army of killing machines? Why bother making them pretty?

I think there was something else going on in the Soia mentality when they crafted the Loroi...

All you folks just want to look negatively at the Loroi ...which I don't see them anymore horrible or destructive than humans have proven to be {shrug} NOR any less deserving of respect and wonder at their achivements in building {or salvaging... whatever spin you want to put on it} their respective civilizations! Loroi are different .. but I think humans and Loroi have a lot more in common than different.

As a species, a meeting of minds and cultures~ different points of view... I think they could be good for each other... {heh}.. and kick much alien Ass in a unified Alliance of warrior cultures!

[Krulle]

Can we sue the Soia for copyright infringement?

"Genetic rights" law is still in its infancy, but if we use software copyright law as an example, if you were to create a functional copy of a program but you developed it independently and didn't use any of the original source code, then I believe that's not a copyright violation. I don't think you can copyright "look and feel."

Patents are another matter, but they're really screwy when you get into software.

But then copyright AND patent terms are limited in their running time.
Since the Umiak and the Loroi are at war since more than a century, and developed their respective societies in at least thousands of years on their planets beforehand, copyright (<= 70 years) and patent (20 years) protection surely cannot be invoked anymore.

you need to catch them while your protection still runs, else it becomes difficult.
On top of that, you can't sue the Loroi for violation of whatever, as they are the product, not the producer.
The producer, the Soia, are not around anymore if I understood the background correctly.

And that's not even touching the subject of which court to go to...

The Soia remind me a bit of the Consu of the "Old Man's War" series (a series I can recommend!), in that they play around with genetics. (In the series the Consu "uplift" a race, but deny them consciousness as an individual. The race as a whole is conscious, and knows they lack individual consciousness.)

[discord]

sun: two reasons for the massive changes.
#1 logistics, both food and medicine is simplified if all the beings on your side have the same basic biology.
#2 if you easily can, why not improve the basic design while you are at it.
#3 blue is just prettier?

the big question though is towards what goal? the improvements are just generically 'good', if you were making a 'super soldier' things would probably be more extreme, but what the Loroi have got is a uniform 'good' and to me that suggests a generic multipurpose goal, not a shock trooper.

think about it, 10:1 female to male ratio, fast and cheap breeding.
efficient metabolism, cheaper to run.
longevity and health, quality merchandize.
fast maturation, again cheaper to produce....
telepathy?....dunno.

bottom line, my guess is generic servant race, or these guys just like to tinker with new races.

[sunphoenix]

Yes, Discord.. I agree.. if you wanted a super-soldier... more extreme changes specifically suited to combat would have been made. The Loroi.. are a work of art... so yeah.. the Soia must have had something else in mind {shrug}.. a sexy adaptable servitor race is as good a guess as any other!