Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

dragoongfa wrote:So I get it that there isn't a Loroi equivalent of a Mama's boy?
In terms of being excessively attached to his mother, that would be rare. But in the sense of not being independent or particularly masculine, they're all kind of mama's boys.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

Or perhaps the term mama's boy refers to Loroi men who are interested in the same kinds of activities as their mother, like fighting or at least pretend fighting. Also probably said with derogatory undertones/overtones. :P

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Zorg56 »

Wonder if some loroi (civilian ofcourse) will try to immigrate (probably with help of smugglers) to the TCA (ofcourse if it will survive the war).

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Zorg56 wrote:Wonder if some loroi (civilian ofcourse) will try to immigrate (probably with help of smugglers) to the TCA (ofcourse if it will survive the war).
I'm not sure there would be a clear incentive for civilian Loroi to want to go to an alien territory, especially one they know nothing about, or why human smugglers would be eager to bring them. I guess maybe because "It's Raining Men!", but the objective of sex for Loroi females is to reproduce, and they can't do that with human males. If you're thinking "To Be Free!", well... the chief restrictions on civilians living in Loroi society are that they can't participate in government and they aren't allowed to reproduce, but neither of these situations would be any different for Loroi living in human society. And they would be deprived of the telepathic contact that is so important to Loroi society.

I also don't think there would be any need to "smuggle" them; a Loroi civilian who detests Loroi society enough to want to live as an outcast among non-telepathic aliens could have moved to a non-Loroi world of the Union at any time... the Loroi government has no cause to try to stop them. Assuming she could afford it... but traveling to human space is going to be much more expensive. Unless the "smugglers" are footing the bill, but I don't see any financial incentive for them to do so.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Zorg56 »

Arioch wrote:
Zorg56 wrote:Wonder if some loroi (civilian ofcourse) will try to immigrate (probably with help of smugglers) to the TCA (ofcourse if it will survive the war).
I'm not sure there would be a clear incentive for civilian Loroi to want to go to an alien territory, especially one they know nothing about, or why human smugglers would be eager to bring them. I guess maybe because "It's Raining Men!", but the objective of sex for Loroi females is to reproduce, and they can't do that with human males. If you're thinking "To Be Free!", well... the chief restrictions on civilians living in Loroi society are that they can't participate in government and they aren't allowed to reproduce, but neither of these situations would be any different for Loroi living in human society. And they would be deprived of the telepathic contact that is so important to Loroi society.

I also don't think there would be any need to "smuggle" them; a Loroi civilian who detests Loroi society enough to want to live as an outcast among non-telepathic aliens could have moved to a non-Loroi world of the Union at any time... the Loroi government has no cause to try to stop them. Assuming she could afford it... but traveling to human space is going to be much more expensive. Unless the "smugglers" are footing the bill, but I don't see any financial incentive for them to do so.
Actually i was thinking about freedom of what to do and what you can achieve.
With loroi life span, even if she is not highly trained specialist she can probably live like queen amongst humans.
As for the motive of smugglers- you can get either specialist who can accumulate hundreds of years of expirience over time, or you can get specialist with knowlege way beyond human technologies.
With 2 tech levels ahead even novice civilian engineer will have something usefull.
Land of possibilities, like USA in the beggining.

But raining men is fine too.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Zorg56 wrote:Actually i was thinking about freedom of what to do and what you can achieve.
With loroi life span, even if she is not highly trained specialist she can probably live like queen amongst humans.
As for the motive of smugglers- you can get either specialist who can accumulate hundreds of years of expirience over time, or you can get specialist with knowlege way beyond human technologies.
With 2 tech levels ahead even novice civilian engineer will have something usefull.
Land of possibilities, like USA in the beggining.
Well, Loroi with technical and scientific knowledge would certainly be valuable for knowledge transfer, I'll grant you that.

But in terms of "freedom of what to do and what you can achieve", a Loroi civilian will have no more "freedom" in human society than she did in Loroi society. She will still be a second-class citizen, she still won't be able to run the government, and she still won't be able to have children. Loroi civilians aren't slaves in Loroi society... they have more freedoms, in some sense, than the warriors do.

I'm not saying there wouldn't be transfer of migrants, but I'm not sure there would be a mass exodus. And I don't think the migrants would need to be "smuggled."

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by White »

Arioch wrote:
When we're talking about powerful Loroi families, strictly speaking, we're mostly talking about the warrior class. Most civilians are not permitted to reproduce; the majority of civilians were born to warrior families, with which they no longer associate, and so actual biological civilian families tend to be rare and small.
Wait, what exactly is the attrition rate on the Deinar trials? What happens if too many Loroi start to pass?
Any kind of game can be fun; whether it's a flight simulator or a fighting game or a shooter or an abstract game like chess or Tetris or Bejeweled. Fun is not the issue. Games like Mortal Kombat and DOOM are different from fighting simulators not because they're fun, but because they are based on a fictional, fantasy narrative. Such things aren't completely alien to the Loroi, but the Loroi are deeply suspicious of them. The more abstract a game is, the less it needs to resemble reality, but the more realistic you make your fantasy game, the more a Loroi is likely to start asking questions about what it is supposed to represent.

It wasn't too long ago here in the United States when parents were deeply concerned about their kids playing Dungeons and Dragons. It's easy to see what concerned them: at best their children seemed to be wasting time and losing touch with the real world, and at worst there were concerns that they were going to hurt each other or become Satan worshippers.
I agree that any kind of game might be fun. My, admittedly unclear, use of "fun" in quotes was an attempt to grasp the aspect of games that delineates between chess, which is fun because of the rules and opponent, as compared to fighting games, which have a focus on art style and depictions of explosive punches.

To make it more clear, I'm not denying that chess isn't fun, it's just that I don't see how it would be much improved with better graphics or attack animations. (Although, I am suddenly curious about the idea.)

I was actually going to make an argument here about how many video games don't have stories, but it seems I was mistaken, as apparently they do. Which makes me wonder, whether Loroi games are similar to our own in any way.

Would the lack of story drastically change the kind of games they can make, or would they actually have their version of kingdom hearts which is nothing other than an artistic expression of a humanoid animal jumping over purple blobs while holding an over-sized key.

On another note, I was wondering what the main bottleneck for ship production is in the Loroi Union? I'm assuming it's not resources, so is it something to do with the limits of their automation? Or is it a limit on the number of workers or mechanics they need to make a ship? Or is it a lack of spaceports to make the ships at? The number of crew available to pilot and service those ships?

Also, I might be wrong, but is fusion the main power source for all parties present?

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

Part of what has fueled the migration of people to places like the US, especially during the industrial revolution, but also ongoing today, is people being pressed out of their previous livelihood, loss of land rights, loss of work, etc. Whether it is automation driving people into the cities, or powerful interests manipulating markets.

That's not quite the case in the Loroi union, especially with the war on. Although their social structure probably does make it more difficult for civilians to make decisive contributions, a lot of civilians entered that caste by dropping out. Sure, there's probably plenty that foster a stronger character over time, but it's also not hard to imagine them taking on a fatalistic outlook on their lives.

All that being said, if a Loroi wants a change of scenery, there's undoubtedly a lot better opportunities in the new colonies than some backwater alien state. (Gotta be honest, with the exception of already crowded Earth, most of the human colonies aren't exactly tourist hotspots.)
Would the lack of story drastically change the kind of games they can make...
I'm reminded of a quote from Banner Saga: "You're familiar with hnefatafl? All the pieces on the board, that's just details. The game is about seeing further ahead than your opponent."
Also, I might be wrong, but is fusion the main power source for all parties present?
I don't know about power sources. I imagine they might have some massive solar arrays too, but the main fuel source for the major powers is tiamat taimat, an artificial substance that annihilates at high enough temperatures.
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

White wrote:
Arioch wrote: When we're talking about powerful Loroi families, strictly speaking, we're mostly talking about the warrior class. Most civilians are not permitted to reproduce; the majority of civilians were born to warrior families, with which they no longer associate, and so actual biological civilian families tend to be rare and small.
Wait, what exactly is the attrition rate on the Deinar trials? What happens if too many Loroi start to pass?
I gather that dropout rates in the American armed services training are somewhere around 15 percent, and that sounds like a reasonable ballpark figure, but civilians have something like four times the life expectancy of warriors. Civilian births make up the rest. There are places (like Maia and a number of new colonies) where civilian pregnancies are more common, but even there it's unusual to get "large" civilian families.

If there is a shortfall of civilian workers, they can allow more civilian pregnancies, export jobs to alien firms, or have surplus warriors do the jobs. There are some ultra-conservatives who would argue that there's no such thing as "too many warriors", and who would be perfectly happy if the warrior graduation rates were 100% and warriors took all civilian jobs, and civilians ceased to exist. But that's not the sort of thing people talk about during wartime.
I agree that any kind of game might be fun. My, admittedly unclear, use of "fun" in quotes was an attempt to grasp the aspect of games that delineates between chess, which is fun because of the rules and opponent, as compared to fighting games, which have a focus on art style and depictions of explosive punches.

To make it more clear, I'm not denying that chess isn't fun, it's just that I don't see how it would be much improved with better graphics or attack animations. (Although, I am suddenly curious about the idea.)

I was actually going to make an argument here about how many video games don't have stories, but it seems I was mistaken, as apparently they do. Which makes me wonder, whether Loroi games are similar to our own in any way.

Would the lack of story drastically change the kind of games they can make, or would they actually have their version of kingdom hearts which is nothing other than an artistic expression of a humanoid animal jumping over purple blobs while holding an over-sized key.
I'm not really talking about presentation. Battle Chess doesn't become a narrative game just because the chess pieces graphically kill each other. The Loroi would probably love Battle Chess.

I think you can divide most games into two broad categories: in the first, the mechanic is the game. These are the most basic games, like chess or Pong or Tetris or a simulator. The presentation might be detailed or artful, but there is no inherent narrative except the one you build yourself in gameplay. The second category, which I think is the largest category of games today, is one in which the mechanics of the game are really secondary to the story being told. This includes almost all RPG's, but these days also most shooters and platformers and strategy games and nearly everything that isn't like Bejeweled -- though even those types of games now include some kind of fantasy story element, like Hearthstone.

The latter type just doesn't make sense to most Loroi.
On another note, I was wondering what the main bottleneck for ship production is in the Loroi Union? I'm assuming it's not resources, so is it something to do with the limits of their automation? Or is it a limit on the number of workers or mechanics they need to make a ship? Or is it a lack of spaceports to make the ships at? The number of crew available to pilot and service those ships?
I think the main bottleneck is probably in the components pipeline. A ship is more than just a hull you assemble in a shipyard; it's build of components, weapons and engines which tend to be the most complex and expensive bits to produce. Bottlenecks might be different for different components: lack of particular resources, limited expertise or infrastructure for producing that component, unusually long build times for certain components, or too much demand for shared components... etc. But it's probably not basic like not enough workers or not enough construction slips. Any economy can only produce so much in a given time, even if it is operating at 100% efficiency.
Also, I might be wrong, but is fusion the main power source for all parties present?
Fusion is probably used for many planetside needs, but it's not used by the main combatants in their warships, if that's what you are asking. They use taimat, which is an exotic alternative to antimatter.

And that's "taimat", not "tiamat". :D

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

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icekatze wrote: All that being said, if a Loroi wants a change of scenery, there's undoubtedly a lot better opportunities in the new colonies than some backwater alien state. (Gotta be honest, with the exception of already crowded Earth, most of the human colonies aren't exactly tourist hotspots.)
Stillstorm, and the Belerid Loroi in extension, might disagree regarding Aldea's magnificent sailing conditions. ;)
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

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How often Tempest cells were used?

I see some damage on the walls in chapter one? Or they are just rusty?

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

Zorg56 wrote:How often Tempest cells were used?

I see some damage on the walls in chapter one? Or they are just rusty?
Could cells possibly function as both storage and cells, seems like onboard cells in an age of space combat would be rather useless.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Zorg56 »

boldilocks wrote:
Zorg56 wrote:How often Tempest cells were used?

I see some damage on the walls in chapter one? Or they are just rusty?
Could cells possibly function as both storage and cells, seems like onboard cells in an age of space combat would be rather useless.
Cell needs extra protection and containment equipment, especially if we take into account psyhokynesis and potential exotic aliens on board.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

Zorg56 wrote:
boldilocks wrote:
Zorg56 wrote:How often Tempest cells were used?

I see some damage on the walls in chapter one? Or they are just rusty?
Could cells possibly function as both storage and cells, seems like onboard cells in an age of space combat would be rather useless.
Cell needs extra protection and containment equipment, especially if we take into account psychokyinesis and potential exotic aliens on board.
I'm not certain that psychokinesis-able warriors would be viable for containment without active suppression by another psychokinetic, and it seems unlikely that warships would be used to house such prisoners even in the short term.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by SVlad »

Arioch wrote: I gather that dropout rates in the American armed services training are somewhere around 15 percent, and that sounds like a reasonable ballpark figure
IIRC US army service is strictly voluntary. So one who has low chances to pass most likely wouldn't enlist at all, and so stay unaccounted.

This paper states that in Israel army (that uses mandatory draft) dropout is 16% but additionally up to 35% of draftable population never drafted at all for various reasons.
So full dropout rate (if we just draft everybody) could be up to 45%.

Then again in ultrahightech space warfare the tooth to tail ratio should be very low. Even now US have 1:10 ratio. And this ration doesn't include industry and production needed for army, just logistics.
In case of Loroi "tail" could rise up thousands. And, according that half of Loroi population considered "military" all industry and production lines had to be military too. So they had to have a lot of "military" professions like military machinist, military steelmaker, military harbor crane operator, military tax collector etc, etc.
Maybe they even have military farmers and military fishermen fisherwomen.
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Zorg56 wrote:How often Tempest cells were used?

I see some damage on the walls in chapter one? Or they are just rusty?
The cells aren't used frequently, but Tempest is around 13 years old, so even infrequent use adds up. They keep the cells clean, but there's not much incentive to make them pretty.
SVlad wrote:IIRC US army service is strictly voluntary. So one who has low chances to pass most likely wouldn't enlist at all, and so stay unaccounted.

This paper states that in Israel army (that uses mandatory draft) dropout is 16% but additionally up to 35% of draftable population never drafted at all for various reasons.
So full dropout rate (if we just draft everybody) could be up to 45%.
The Loroi dropout rates could easily be higher, but military service is considered very important in Loroi society, and dropping out of military training means being kicked out of your family. There's a pretty strong motivation to try to pass the trials.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Onaiom »

Arioch wrote: The cells aren't used frequently, but Tempest is around 13 years old, so even infrequent use adds up. They keep the cells clean, but there's not much incentive to make them pretty..
How and when they were used ? I mean, Loroi are fighting war for survival, that is as cooperative as they can get.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Onaiom wrote:How and when they were used ? I mean, Loroi are fighting war for survival, that is as cooperative as they can get.
They're most often used to incarcerate crewmembers. Tempest has a standard complement of about 800; people occasionally misbehave. Being at war only increases the pressure on the crew, particularly when they're assigned to especially hazardous duty for extended periods as Tempest has been. Considering also that most of the crew are extremely young, and Loroi society feels that being polite is cowardly.

There have probably also been a few alien captives, including some Umiak.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

Do Loroi make use of personifications of nature? Like "Godfather Death" or the rhine as an old man.

If they do, anything you can tell us about it?

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I figure that some of the brig is explained by Beryl. "The commander sometimes gets... tired of looking at some of her officers." ;)

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