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Voitan wrote:Just occured to me, what if Jardin unknowingly accepted a social proposal by accepting the necklace?

That's the seii from Her and Talon's diral is it not?

More a gesture of trust than a proposal, if so.

Dahak wrote:

Voitan wrote:Just occured to me, what if Jardin unknowingly accepted a social proposal by accepting the necklace?

That's the seii from Her and Talon's diral is it not?

More a gesture of trust than a proposal, if so.

Do we actually know that Spiral and Talon were in the same basic-training age group?

And wouldn't Talon, as the senior pilot, be more likely to possess that thing?

Of course, death rate being what it is, the odds are good that neither Spiral nor Talon were the ORIGINAL owners of that Seii, and it may have been gradually passed down to them as other members of their age-group were killed...

hi hi

Voitan wrote:Just occured to me, what if Jardin unknowingly accepted a social proposal by accepting the necklace?

Maybe because he exists outside of the Loroi hierarchy, she's handing it off to him because she doesn't expect that he might keep it?

Dahak wrote:That's the seii from Her and Talon's diral is it not?

Yup!

Krennson wrote:Do we actually know that Spiral and Talon were in the same basic-training age group?

And wouldn't Talon, as the senior pilot, be more likely to possess that thing?

Of course, death rate being what it is, the odds are good that neither Spiral nor Talon were the ORIGINAL owners of that Seii, and it may have been gradually passed down to them as other members of their age-group were killed...

It's been confirmed by Arioch that Spiral and Talon were in the same diral, and are the last two surviving members of the group. (oops! my bad!)

Talon may be the senior pilot, but passing the saii is a personal ritual and probably means that Spiral was a closer friend than Talon was to its previous owner, rather than any formal issue of rank and skill. Or possibly that Spiral was the only one present when the transfer was made.

Just to clarify, Talon and Spiral are not the last surviving members of their diral, but they are the last surviving members of the original squadron of 20 that was mostly drawn from the same diral, and which included the original owner of the pendant. (The squadron has since been reinforced with replacements from newer diral classes; the other surviving members of the seii are presumably deployed elsewhere.) The seii gets handed down to the previous owner's closest friend from the same diral and who is at hand; rank doesn't factor into it.

And yes, Talon and Spiral are from the same diral; all the diral members (in this particular case) have the same tattoo.

In the last frame, Spiral's left hand seems to be missing. Also, her head appears (to me) to be at an odd angle to her torso. Anything out of the ordinary going on there? Bionic head removal, like the Borg queen?

Is it just me or did Spiral change a little? In her original appearance she seemed quite "bubbly", young and her speech was off, as if she didn't very well know how to speak that trade language they use.

Now, she seems rather mature and her speech is fine.

ewaggin wrote:In the last frame, Spiral's left hand seems to be missing. Also, her head appears (to me) to be at an odd angle to her torso. Anything out of the ordinary going on there? Bionic head removal, like the Borg queen?

I think her left hand is still inside the sleeve of the pressure suit. It looks like the suit in question comes in two halves, front and back. The front of the suit is being removed and is closer from the perspective of the "camera", which might explain the awkward angles in respect to Spiral's torso. It looks just fine to me, though.

Arent wrote:Is it just me or did Spiral change a little? In her original appearance she seemed quite "bubbly", young and her speech was off, as if she didn't very well know how to speak that trade language they use.

Now, she seems rather mature and her speech is fine.

She's only said four words in this page. In the previous page she only said seven. "Again hello, Enzin!" is pretty backwards and still bubbly-sounding to me.

ewaggin wrote:In the last frame, Spiral's left hand seems to be missing. Also, her head appears (to me) to be at an odd angle to her torso. Anything out of the ordinary going on there? Bionic head removal, like the Borg queen?

Nope. The lighting and coloring makes it a bit difficult to see, but she's just getting out of her semi-rigid outer armor shell. You see her in the same sort of thermal lining Alex wears now.

And, want it or not, she does look like she's making a show out of it....

novius wrote:

ewaggin wrote:In the last frame, Spiral's left hand seems to be missing. Also, her head appears (to me) to be at an odd angle to her torso. Anything out of the ordinary going on there? Bionic head removal, like the Borg queen?

Nope. The lighting and coloring makes it a bit difficult to see, but she's just getting out of her semi-rigid outer armor shell. You see her in the same sort of thermal lining Alex wears now.

And, want it or not, she does look like she's making a show out of it....

Possible. Also possible she's stretching because she's just spent hours in a semi-rigid outer armor shell. Though I suppose there's few things that make me chase the ladies like several hours strapped in a chair while wearing a glorified diving suit.

Spiral: *stretches luxuriously* *soft sigh* (in relief)

Jardin: *gulps*

Spiral: "Apologies for not being able to greet Enzin properly earlier. Spiral is ready for Enzin's hands now."

...

Being a straightforward Loroi, she means what she said, literally. OTOH Jardin thinks of something else. Hilarity ensues.

boldilocks wrote:Though I suppose there's few things that make me chase the ladies like several hours strapped in a chair while wearing a glorified diving suit.

Thing is, even scientifically-minded Beryl was quick to simply assume that Alex follows the same biological imperatives as a Loroi male. I wouldn't be too surprised if they all simply expect Alex to get somewhat handsy after giving him a little bit of incentive.

(Addendum) Loroi males could very much be obliged to provide for some relaxation to tired warriors, and a warm massage - and to Loroi Alex's hands would have inbuilt heaters - would work wonders to limber up stiff muscles. So yes, it could be possible that they expect similar services from Alex.

And, seeing pg. 158 and 159, their looks do seem to be somewhat expectant/curious.... And even if Tempo is sending towards Beryl, she casts a somewhat worried glance towards Alex. As if already waiting for a diplomatic incident to happen?

Well, for one, we don't really know how Fireblade views Alex. Sure she was assertive and a little aggressive at the start, but her pride might have been hurt when she could not interrogate him. On the other hand, there have been a few times when she has been, less stand offish, almost genial.

https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/outsider072.html
https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/outsider091.html

if you look at the last one, that is a compassionate, non-aggressive face, unlike Stillstorm, who has an aggressive and contemptuous face.

Now for the rest of the crew, in the Loroi have a somewhat reversed culture when it comes to genders. And you have a bunch of young females, who have spend potentially years on the front line, just out of combat, and who have not been around a member of the opposite gender in... who knows how long. Yes, they might be rather... hopeful, at least some of them.

What is going through Tempo's mind, and what she was telling Beryl, that is what I am curious about.
https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/outsider159.html

asaenvolk wrote:almost genital.

snerk

I'm thinking you mean genial.

asaenvolk wrote:unlike Stillborn

I'd say Stillstorm pretty much looks alive to me....

I blame autocorrect

Hey, you never know, 'genital' might be more accurate in the long run.

While you could be correct, I don't think that is the main thrust of the story.
More Alex is something of a hothead, and may be holding a grudge he shouldn't be.

Alex had been mindraped, with her spearheading the assault, then she plays her part in the 'good elf, bad elf' routine on him, physical assault included, and he was chucked back into the brig for one week and pretty much forgot for the whole time until they tried shipping him off to Seren, with food that made him sick, next to the jumps.

Definitely not an environment conducive to forgive and forget. And given the recent warning, it is understandable if he tries to avoid her as much as possible.

A fair assessment, but other than her displaying force once, and seemingly to make him take her seriously, she has not been overly aggressive with him. That said, of course he could be miffed at her, but Stillstorm seams more likely to have been the one to put him in solitary

This does make me wonder about something that's crossed my mind before. The human brain is in a very different state when it's undergoing REM sleep. We don't know what's going on with it, but the leading theory is that REM is the brain's "cleanup mode" where it undergoes what is effectively messy data parsing and sorting. It's almost as active as when we're awake, but faster and much more "fluid" for lack of a better term.

Every time a Loroi has tried to initiate contact with Alex he's either been in a coma, or awake. They've never been in close contact with him while in what might well be a human's most telepathically-vulnerable state. And if everyone is huddled close under a blanket to make use of the human space heater, something interesting may happen.