Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[dragoongfa]

Weird question which I am unsure of where to post it...

Have the Loroi ever come across a super invasive species like the rat?

If no, how pissed off or amused would they be if rats suddenly infested their worlds?

[Mk_C]

(unless they are just really bad at understanding non-bug psychology, which to be fair kindof seems like its the case).

We do have strong reasons to suspect that they are bad at that, and that's an important point. Umiak are not partial to even trying to understand their adversaries, beyond describing them. As a society, they are far more paranoid than they are rational - they do not try to persuade or manipulate their subjects, preferring instead to act from the safe and certain positions of coercion through overwhelming force. They don't allow their subjects to fight alongside them in strategic operations, with Morat seemingly having the only non-Umiak fleets, that were only used for defending their own territories against Union incursions. From what we saw so far, the whole war was started due to paranoia, largely on part of Hierarchy, and perhaps some bad luck. Hierarchy would not easily trust fleshy-thingies to fight in the Steppes, less so fight a key part of their strategic offensive, further less so with those being new and unpredictable fleshy-thingies that happen be so much like the hated enemy. For every bit of suspicion and mistrust that Loroi cast on humans - I expect that for Umiak the same could be multiplied tenfold. Using something like that for their key war effort just doesn't seem like something they would be capable of. Umiak fight by safest options - not safest in terms of reduced negative effect, but safest in terms of reliable outcomes. They'd rather take an option that they certainly know will cost them N divisions rather than one that could cost them anything between 0 and N+1. In that context, I find it more likely that the Gatecrasher forces of this offensive are crewed by literal Umiak lobotomites, even if it reduces the ships to a fraction of their normal capabilities, rather than humans. That would be just damn risky Before even considering that they had neither time nor opportunity to employ humans in any capacity. Or considering the particularities of how do you persuade 20 divisions worth of ships crewed by humans to obey without question. In a power struggle between the leadership of such an armada and the will of the Hierarchy,' Umiak are left without the argument of overwhelming power. Suppose they have indeed raised their indoctrinated crews. Even with every bit of compassion for their own kind or sexy blue chicks purged out of their instincts, with what exactly could Umiak answer to the fleet admiral of this armada should he ever ask "So... what if I DON'T do as I am ordered?" The whole thing would hinge on nothing but personal loyalty, entirely fabricated and false one in this case.

then they at least probably could figure out that the humans are invisible to them

Individual humans being undetectable to individual regular Loroi is not the same as large groups of humans being undetectable to Farseers. We know that lotai is a spectrum - different species have stronger or weaker signatures and sensitivity. Hierarchy's pet Loroi not being able to detect humans at typical sanzai ranges does not automatically mean Farseers being blind to whole fleets of ships crewed by humans, unless you learn it from them directly. And even if Umiak have Loroi Farseers (which we know to have a slight tendency for burning up even without the pressure of being used as thralls against their own kin imposed upon them), they don't know if capabilities of those Farseers truly match those of willing Loroi Farseers with millennia of amplification technology, training and tradition to reinforce their skill. We know that Tempest's Farseer has completely missed Bellarmine and could not detect Jardin even at point blank only because Tempo literally spelled it out for Alex. Nobody spelled it out for the Hierarchy.

[Werra]

It's impossible that the current Umiak offensive is staffed by humans. At least unless we imagine some sort of scenario in which Umiak had clandestine contact with humanity beforehand. So my post above was meant to explain how Umiak could bring humans to fight the Loroi.

Probably way more. That's before the issue of indoctrinating and educating them to crew completely alien ships and getting them to the Steppes front. Distances and time are kind of important in the Outsider.

You wouldn't need a lot of indoctrination to get humans to crew starships. The Umiak can offer them super advanced technology to sweeten any deal. Not making a deal just means slavery and or orbital bombardment.

It's not just access to Loroi. They needed to confirm specifically that Farseers cannot pick up humans in fleet numbers, raise a substantial population of such humans, trust these thralls to perform the most vital and highly complex operation in the entire war all by themselves, and hope really hard that they did not fuck anything up (like their pet Farseers could be wrong, or straight up lying) - because the entire outcome of the war hinges entirely on this secret little op.

We don't even know if the Umiak have any idea what farseers are. According to Tempo, the existence of the farsensing device as well as its telepathic nature are common knowledge, but apparently nothing more is. In any case, the Umiak should have little trouble finding out about the human Lotai given time. The war's been going on for 25 years already.
Also, earth is full of humans. The Umiak don't need to raise a population of humans and don't need to indoctrinate them, just educate and train a portion of those that are already there. If they train 10 million humans, they have plenty to crew their ships.

So, we are being held hostage by you and what army now? Maybe you didn't notice, but you have us crewing >20 divisions of your best ships. Why exactly would we use those to fight your gay little war like obedient little slaves instead of applying this very fleet to a much more curious purpose of skullfucking you all to to death with extra irony?

Humanity can't keep the lights of these ships on if left alone. They would also need to receive these ships and oust the Umiak garrison somehow without them glassing earth. If humans were to backstab the Umiak, they'd also miss out on technology a century or more advanced.

Umiak are not partial to even trying to understand their adversaries, beyond describing them.

Alternative scenario: The Umiak understand aliens perfectly well. They just choose certainty over trust.

[Ithekro]

The basic problem is that Humanity would be a newly discovered race. Even if the Umiak have found another of the deep space exploration scout ships like Alex was on, that's not enough time to do much about it other than a few experiments. Earth is a LONG ways away from everyone's space at this point. It take the Umiak a few months to get to Human space and a few months to get back. Not enough time has past for this to have happened between the time Alex's ship split up from the others as they fanned out into the reported war zone looking for the major species to find out who to talk with about establishing relations and keeping humanity safe prior to one of these empires' plowing into Human Space.

On the other hand, Humanity does have some potential benefits for the Loroi war effort. An established species on a possibly under defended Umiak border. Good location to stage an offensive using a new fleet. Retooling Earth's industries to support operations should be easier than building from scratch. It take a lot longer to rebuilt an Earth fleet with Loroi technology, but not as long to setup the ability for Earth bases to resupply Loroi ships. Food stuffs might take longer, depending on of their is nothing suitable on Earth already for the Loroi to eat instead. Parts and energy production can be done while setting up for a modernized Earth defensive fleet to be built to free up Loroi units for offensive actions on the new front. Keeping the slightly lower/slower tech Earth ships for defensive actions. Or building up large scale Earth ships that are slow, but well armed, armored, and shielded. Not suitable for standard Loroi fast strike groups, but good enough for system defense and follow up attacks against strong Umak positions.

Also Earth and its colonies might seem like a nice place for shore leave for the wary Loroi officers and crew. They got lots of males to go around, and all that. A Space sailor is still a sailor after all.

[Mk_C]

So my post above was meant to explain how Umiak could bring humans to fight the Loroi.

For what purpose? They already can bullshit Farseers without trusting the f*lthy b*peds.

You wouldn't need a lot of indoctrination to get humans to crew starships.

You kinda would, to get them to fight and die in a war where the main motivator is "do it and we won't glass your planet honest guvna". Removing Hierarchy's capabilities to glass our dirt ball is objectively a more reliable and desirable option than obeying and staying at their mercy. The only reason to take the latter option at this point when it is known from the Orgus contact what Umiak occupation entails is the former option being completely impossible. If humans end up manning Umiak ships, it means it's no longer impossible.

The Umiak can offer them super advanced technology to sweeten any deal.

Once TCA gets intact Umiak ships to reverse-engineer under it's control, it kinda becomes a weak argument.

Not making a deal just means slavery and or orbital bombardment.

That's not how you get loyal thralls - that's how you get that tech and ships turned against you at the first opportunity. Even a very trusting power would see that, and Hierarchy appears to be the opposite of trusting. They don't allow any of their other subjects to zoom around in the cool shit - and for good reasons. They know that most of those who have agreed to be subjugated regret it dearly by this point - probably suspected it even before the subjects in question started to question their life choices.

just educate and train a portion of those that are already there. If they train 10 million humans, they have plenty to crew their ships.

You say it as if it's something trivial.

Humanity can't keep the lights of these ships on if left alone.

They wouldn't need to launch a massive campaign - just kick out the occupation fleet (which is bound to be weaker - what's the point of sticking X ships with watchdog duty in order to get Y<X ships out of it?) and make a punitive expedition too costly to consider amidst the whole "war with Loroi" business.

If humans were to backstab the Umiak, they'd also miss out on technology a century or more advanced.

Unless they get to keep those ships. And whatever the Hierarchy offers to it's thralls, the Union can offer as much or even more to it's double agents. In any case - handing advanced tech and fleet power over to humans serves only to put them in a better position, which makes sense if the sharing party is interested in partnership and willing cooperation, not exploitation.

Alternative scenario: The Umiak understand aliens perfectly well. They just choose certainty over trust.

An uneasy armistice is hella more certain than a war of extermination with the outcome still hanging in the air. Seeing how their little blitzkrieg worked out for them so far, they either understood exactly jack shit and acted largely on ugly assumptions, or messed up those certainty calculations real, REAL bad. And we are told that they are great at math, so...

[Werra]

You kinda would, to get them to fight and die in a war where the main motivator is "do it and we won't glass your planet honest guvna".

Well, all the Umiak really need is the ability to recruit human mercenaries. There are bound to be a lot of people on earth willing to sign up in a war if it means having a chance at vastly improved living standards. Right now the human public was already told that war is unavoidable. But even without that, it's not hard to recruit millions of volunteers amongst one or two dozen billion people. Just the opportunity to see alien worlds might be enough of an incentive.
Training them in sufficient number shouldn't be a problem either for the Umiak. They certainly have personel to spare with how suicidal their normal warfighting is.

If humans end up manning Umiak ships, it means it's no longer impossible.

Not at all. Having the ships is not enough to defeat the Umiak. Humanity would still lack any kind of infrastructure to support a fleet that size. Currently they can't even manufacture the fuel.
Why would the Umiak even acknowledge the threat they pose? They wouldn't need to force humans into their ships at gunpoint. If they can't find enough volunteers, they can offer a tiny sliver of their production to immeasurably improve the lives of all of humanity.

Once TCA gets intact Umiak ships to reverse-engineer under it's control, it kinda becomes a weak argument.

Just because humans have working warships doesn't mean they can build them or understand how the ultra advanced medicine they have on board is made.
Don't get me wrong. It would be an incredible boon, just not something that can compare to the benefits,of partnership.

[Ithekro]

The old PC game, Star Control, had a race known as he Ur-Quan, who would go around and, "for their own safety", enslave other races. They would give these races a choice. Fight for us as Battle Thralls, or have your species be encased on a shielded homeworld with the only means of contact with anyone on the outside is via a Ur-Quan controlled station. Your planet would be...more or less fine, and your species relatively safe, but bound to one planet only. If you picked Battle Thralls, the Ur-Quan would allow you to use your own ships and such, as long as you followed some rules, you were given at least some amount of control over your own territory. But you would be made to fight the Ur-Quan's wars for them against species that resisted the Ur-Quan and kept fighting. The Ur-Quan were perfectly capable of glassing anyone's homeworld, and that remained as a threat to their Battle Thralls, since punishment for breaking ranks wasn't shield enslavement, it was extermination.

The Umiak remind me of the Ur-Quan a bit. But also elements of species from Master of Orion.

[QuakeIV]

I think the umiak lobotomites might have a stronger case than a human-only fleet, in terms of explaining how the umiaks bypassed the farseers.

I could see using human thralls in some numbers, but I do agree with others that probably a human-only fleet would just wind up going rogue at some point. Especially if they were expected to fight and die against some enemy they didn't have strong feelings about either way.

I have serious doubts about humanities abilities to steal said fleet and then (successfully) resist the umiak. Given what has been said about logistics in this universe (that is to say, it actually matters at all), its questionable that they would even make it all the way back to earth, let alone keep enough ships running to resist an invasion once they got there.

Because I mean, sure, they could work on reverse engineering the stolen tech, and probably learn quite a lot. I think an umiak reprisal fleet could show up and massacre everything way before that would wind up mattering. They would need to steal stuff in secret.

[Arioch]

Have the Loroi ever come across a super invasive species like the rat?

If no, how pissed off or amused would they be if rats suddenly infested their worlds?

Well, the Soia-Liron species themselves could be considered super invasive, as they have displaced some native species where such already existed in the same niches. Fortunately, they were mostly deployed on planets without advanced ecosystems. But cross-contamination of species between the various Union planets will be a very serious issue, against which considerable safeguards will need to be in place. So no, the Loroi would not be amused by a rat infestation.

Nor would humanity be amused by a retaliatory infestation of certain Perrein-native organisms.

[Onaiom]

Nor would humanity be amused by a retaliatory infestation of certain Perrein-native organisms.

Mizol High Command: Unleash the Dogos !

[dragoongfa]

Have the Loroi ever come across a super invasive species like the rat?

If no, how pissed off or amused would they be if rats suddenly infested their worlds?

Well, the Soia-Liron species themselves could be considered super invasive, as they have displaced some native species where such already existed in the same niches. Fortunately, they were mostly deployed on planets without advanced ecosystems. But cross-contamination of species between the various Union planets will be a very serious issue, against which considerable safeguards will need to be in place. So no, the Loroi would not be amused by a rat infestation.

Nor would humanity be amused by a retaliatory infestation of certain Perrein-native organisms.

What about Cats though? We could sell them as an anti-rat solution and the felines will take over the Union in less than an year; not that the cats would appreciate it.

Nor would humanity be amused by a retaliatory infestation of certain Perrein-native organisms.

Mizol High Command: Unleash the Dogos !

Those are mushrooms...
Not that mushrooms aren't dangerous or invasive.

[silentstormpt]

Wouldnt Loroi read a cats mind and see all the masterplans they have for them

[Mk_C]

You kinda would, to get them to fight and die in a war where the main motivator is "do it and we won't glass your planet honest guvna".

Well, all the Umiak really need is the ability to recruit human mercenaries.

That would require human authorities being willing to allow this to happen.

Training them in sufficient number shouldn't be a problem either for the Umiak. They certainly have personel to spare with how suicidal their normal warfighting is.

Their warfighting is specifically why they don't have shit to spare. They are bleeding their worlds dry in every way to maintain industrial superiority, and thus they can ill afford frivolous spending of resources.

If it's enough for even a single metaphorical knee to whatever passes for balls among shells - it's enough, and thus a huge risk. This entire war can hang on a single timely act of treachery. Tithric would confirm as much, if someone bothered to find and question any.

Why would the Umiak even acknowledge the threat they pose?

Because humanity with a significant fleet IS a threat to any power that coerces it's cooperation with violence.

They wouldn't need to force humans into their ships at gunpoint.

It would take quite a while for this to become true.

they can offer a tiny sliver of their production to immeasurably improve the lives of all of humanity.

Firstly - Hierarchy already runs a total war economy that is possibly stretched to the breaking point already. They can ill afford new costs. The whole point of occupying Earth is supposed to be net gain, rather than long-time investment. They are squeezing every drop out of their other subjects already - probably for a reason.
Secondly - Earth seems to have a strong claim for being somewhere in the top 5 of the most populous worlds in the Bubble. And as far as we know, humans seem to be the only civilization around with a strong tendency for unrepentant consumerism, with a possible exception of Neridi. Improving the lives of all of humanity would be a pretty significant investment for whatever patron it gets. Patron that already has to carry the weight of war of attrition.

Just because humans have working warships doesn't mean they can build them or understand how the ultra advanced medicine they have on board is made.

Umiak ships don't normally have crew. They have living equipment. It doesn't get healed - it's maintained and replaced. I don't doubt that Hierarchy capabilities for such maintenance are extensive, but they unlikely to fall into the area of what we might consider "medicine".

Don't get me wrong. It would be an incredible boon, just not something that can compare to the benefits,of partnership.

Occupation and the whole "ships with a ton of mass drivers in Earth's orbit"thing kinda fly in the face of partnership.

Nor would humanity be amused by a retaliatory infestation of certain Perrein-native organisms.

One would expect that most Perrein lifeforms would be overspecialized to a crippling degree to fit into terrestrial ecosystems. The best place to seek non-infectious biological weapons against Earth would be another Earth - a similar world with similar niches, some of which happened to be taken by organisms that would feel themselves at home on Earth, while possessing accidental advantages over the local lifeforms from the effects of their alternative evolutionary pathways. All bets are off for artificial Soya ecosystems, though. Those can be as haxx as it is imaginable.

What about Cats though? We could sell them as an anti-rat solution and the felines will take over the Union in less than an year; not that the cats would appreciate it.

Cats will be the cornerstone of Earth-Union trade, pest control utility or no. I guarantee that.

[Krulle]

And ponies. Horses. Disney films.

[Mr.Tucker]

Have the Loroi ever come across a super invasive species like the rat?

If no, how pissed off or amused would they be if rats suddenly infested their worlds?

Well, the Soia-Liron species themselves could be considered super invasive, as they have displaced some native species where such already existed in the same niches. Fortunately, they were mostly deployed on planets without advanced ecosystems. But cross-contamination of species between the various Union planets will be a very serious issue, against which considerable safeguards will need to be in place. So no, the Loroi would not be amused by a rat infestation.

Nor would humanity be amused by a retaliatory infestation of certain Perrein-native organisms.

The Union has already existed for a few centuries,why has such cross-contamination not already happened (I mean... Perrein's right there, and trade has prob been happening for some time...)? And... why would it happen now?
Besides the Soian-introduced species, there are also Dreiman era ones, correct?

[Ithekro]

Space ships with airlocks are marginally easier to control what gets in and out of the ship that a ship tied to a pier with ropes.

[Arioch]

Have the Loroi ever come across a super invasive species like the rat?

If no, how pissed off or amused would they be if rats suddenly infested their worlds?

Well, the Soia-Liron species themselves could be considered super invasive, as they have displaced some native species where such already existed in the same niches. Fortunately, they were mostly deployed on planets without advanced ecosystems. But cross-contamination of species between the various Union planets will be a very serious issue, against which considerable safeguards will need to be in place. So no, the Loroi would not be amused by a rat infestation.

Nor would humanity be amused by a retaliatory infestation of certain Perrein-native organisms.

The Union has already existed for a few centuries,why has such cross-contamination not already happened (I mean... Perrein's right there, and trade has prob been happening for some time...)? And... why would it happen now?
Besides the Soian-introduced species, there are also Dreiman era ones, correct?

There's no reason it would happen now... but I was asked whether the Loroi would be amused if it did. They wouldn't.

Ships and cargoes will be carefully inspected before being allowed to go planetside. I'm sure there have been a number of cases of small-scale infestations, but there's a lot you can do at TL10-11 to deal with such.

[caldazar]

Those postulating that Umiak invasion fleets are crewed by humans all seem to be assuming that those humans would come from Earth. If the Soia designed the Loroi using a human template, it's at least possible that they relocated some humans somewhere more convenient to them. Perhaps the Umiak located those humans some time ago.

I don't necessarily think that is what's going on, because I don't see how it fits into the story we see shaping up in the comic. But good stories do surprise you.

[jterlecki]

Assuming that humanity and the loroi ally and manage to survive their war, what kind of impact would contact with humanity have on Loroi society in the long run? I am considering that as they look a lot more like Loroi than the other species, they might be easier to relate to? Would close/intimate relationships with humans be frowned upon, tolerated or accepted? What about the adoption of certain human customs, traditions, art or music making their way into Loroi life?

[gaerzi]

Have the Loroi ever come across a super invasive species like the rat?

If no, how pissed off or amused would they be if rats suddenly infested their worlds?

Well, the least one can say is that they're not having much luck getting rid of a severe infestation by space cockroaches...