[Fan Fiction] Notes and discussion for "A sword that wields itself"

[Cthulhu]

I've read up to Intermission A - really enjoyed it. I'm sure the disappearance of everything in that sector is nothing to worry about

This was something I wondered about when Beryl was surprised by the incursion from the Rallis checkpoint - even if the umiak (somehow) surprised the pickets and destroyed them before they jumped to warn anyone, the farseers should have noticed the loss of life (unless the umiak had replacements life forms). Well, the mystery makes it interesting.

I liked the way you portrayed the farseer, her farsight, and her interactions with the mizol.

I doubt that the Loroi did not detect the disappearance at all, but they had probably no ships left to spare for a proper investigation. Or maybe there was something else going on?

Here, however, a particularly experienced Farseer "coincidentally" caught the Shells in the act. Then, also "coincidently", since they were not delayed by the Bellarmine, did the 51st come back just in time to be sent there to investigate.

Finished Chapter 3 and enjoyed it. I wonder how you came up with the engine disaster, but it sounded good to me. It explains some of the anger towards war profiteers. So much for the loroi calculations that the picket force would be enough to send a warning.

Initially, I wanted to include an antimatter cannon, but then Arioch said that it would be improbable. Thus, I repurposed the idea somewhat. Also, it's quite hard for anyone to survive the ship's foundering with tons of taimat fuel instead of hydrogen/oxygen going off. This needed a better explanation in order for a survivor to be plausible.

[inxsi]

Finished chapter four, I'm going to try to provide my thoughts as I go through it. Not sure if this is helpful or not - most of it is me "thinking out loud" on the plot, so feel free to not comment Ended up spoilering for length and since much more of the story is posted.

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I wonder how many characters in outsider fanfiction have eidetic memories - I was thinking of having one for a different story when I noticed Emberwing had one. Just a humorous observation.

Naming the ship Charon seems humorous to me - I wonder if they will ever translate it for the loroi? Especially since they translate everyone else's names (though I guess the comic never explained the meaning of the Bellarmine).

I clearly did not read or remember the brief summary well enough since I was not expecting humanity to have telepathy That was exciting. I assume they treated Emberwing's radiation poisoning - which I would expect to be quite bad if she was actually getting visual distortions from it?

"Most importantly, why were they, by all accounts powerful telepaths, shielding themselves with such impressive lotai?" - I didn't realize the loroi had heard of humanity? I would also expect the humans to have someone capable of telepathy nearby (if not with them), but maybe they do not have very many - which is probably the case with who shows up to have telepathy. Also interested in the two species not being able to connect - I suppose you are going with the different wavelengths idea.

Ellen Jardin - did not see those two getting married, but I'm interested in seeing how that plays out. It will be nice to see the loroi dealing with someone married rather than just have someone who has never been married explain how it should work.

Wow, humans must be pretty advanced to have done all of that with their medical technology.

“Oh, you mean your gender disparity? Since we’re a naturally evolved species, our birth ratio is at about half males and half females.” - how much do humans know about the loroi? And how did they learn it?

"but we did investigate them in secret. The ability to read their minds certainly helps in this regard, because their speech sounds revolting." - ok, humanity definitely has some other capabilities going on. Not sure how they managed to investigate the umiak secretly.

“A long jump would be trying to transit over a system?" - I didn't think anyone even considered such a thing? The deep jumps were considered dangerous enough.

Wow, not even going to reveal capabilities to the loroi. Alex got at least a theoretical explanation of farsensing, though it was probably more essential to the plot? Guess I'll see what happens.

Nitpicky stuff on word usage (feel free to disregard, I'm only going off of your comment on "train my rusted literary and English skills").

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But how long was she knocked out? - I think this would usually be "But how long was she unconscious?" or "But how long had she been knocked out?"

[Cthulhu]

Finished chapter four, I'm going to try to provide my thoughts as I go through it. Not sure if this is helpful or not - most of it is me "thinking out loud" on the plot, so feel free to not comment Ended up spoilering for length and since much more of the story is posted.

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1. While Emberwing has eidetic memory, she did not undergo the Listel training that fully enables this talent. This may be the reason why she developed that bad habit of locking up on a problem under stress.
2. The ship's name does have a meaning, but it did not come up yet...
3. I'm simply assuming that the Soia made the Loroi more resilient, including improved resistance to radiation.
4. She thinks that the humans must be powerful telepaths because of what appears to be impenetrable Lotai. Very few Loroi are capable of it, yet here, a "mere" doctor exhibits something a Mizol would murder for. As to the wavelengths theory? That's a spoiler.
5. The marriage is merely flavor. Or perhaps not?
6. The Humans are somewhat more advanced than the Loroi, otherwise the role reversal would not work.
7. Whatever the humans learned about the Loroi came from the Orgus, then they got some more info from the Umiak. There's no other source. Definitely. I mean, it's not like they could read the Insider database, right? Anyway, the Loroi gender ratio is common knowledge.
8. The humans simply asked the Shells nicely, and they were happy to oblige. It's described in a different chapter.
9. A long jump is theoretically possible. Captain Jardin even successfully performed such a stunt, albeit in a different fanfic: "What to do with Jardin".
10. Why should they reveal anything to an alien they picked up? Whatever they share serves a purpose that is described in the next chapter.

As to the word usage, I'll correct it.

[inxsi]

Read Intermission B and Chapter 5. Glad they saved her hair

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I enjoyed the nightmare she had - very well-written. I can see no issues coming up whenever they translate Charon for her

The computer insisting it is just a computer was great. I suppose the humans jut want it to be clear that it has limitations.

Minor question: Wouldn't the artifacts just be Soia artifacts (if they came from the Ancestors)? I thought the races that they created were the Soia-liron organisms?

I would have thought the loroi would have some theories on the barsam - most likely that they were either used only for some infantry roles or argue that physical strength is not very important for soldiers at the tech level the Soia were at. I found it a bit humorous that they are pitching the hard sell on humans as the template for the loroi to a non-diplomat while professing that they are worried about how the diplomats will take it. The discussion of the loroi role in the Soia society was interesting.

I look forward to when Emberwing asks more about human males.

Minor typo I noticed

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blazing trough space = blazing through space

[Cthulhu]

Soia-Liron is the name the Loroi came up with, for the humans it's simply precursor.

The Loroi are picky about their definitions. While they accept that the Barsam are good soldiers and that they had a warrior culture (which they largely abandoned due to their strange church), they see them as "cousins", not equals. The Loroi are the "true" Soia and their own purpose as of itself, descended from the ruling warrior class of the ancient empire, while the Barsam were merely a tool, "uplifted" to serve a (unknown) purpose. Mozin was quite agitated as he saw Alex, shouting something about "disproving the millennia of Loroi lies".
The level of how serious the Loroi are taking this ideology/propaganda differs from subculture to subculture. A Maiad Loroi may not care about this old stuff, but Emberwing, born into an ancient clan, was raised to uphold the "proper" values of Loroi superiority. She's also too young to form her own opinion on all that, and besides, it's not like there's much time for a philosophical debate amidst the war. But now, she has to!

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The Humans are using our poor protagonist as a lab rat miros in order to see how the other Loroi may react. Therefore, why not explore the limits?

As to the typo, maybe I meant a blazing trough blazing through space?
No, I'll correct that, thanks for noticing. Even "intelligent" spellcheck cannot pick that up, it seems.

[Bamax]

Quite good... the last most recent chapters.

The intermission reminds me of what COVID-19 was like for many Americans.

Many just subsisted on the internet during lockdown.

I like how you are fully aware of current events ('fire and fury' LOL was a quote from the last President) yet manage to only use it as a mild flavour.

Much better than what passes for star trek nowadays, which is all too often heavyhanded direct allegories of current events (I hate Discovery, grew to like DS9 though and loved Babylon 5).

[Krulle]

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a minor grammatical/spelling error:

Intermission D: The Towers of Complacency
Scrambling for a more permanent solution to this problem, one of the northern powers introduced, or rather, re-invented the old idea of the arcology. With modern technology, even such a huge structure could be built rather quickly and a fusion reactor would provide it with enough electricity. Additionally, it could also power many hydroponic farms or just algae tanks for independent food production. In the following years, a great number of arcologies were build built all over the ravaged lands, bastions that resisted the siege of the elements. Offering little more than a small room and a food ration, they were nevertheless seen as a paradise at first. Many refugees could not even imagine this level of comfort compared with their pre-war slums.

Nice, not the future I would like, but it's not one which I find unbelievable.
Just wait until the machines find out about "Matrix", and work hard to prevent us from ever getting out again...

Mozin was quite agitated as he saw Alex, shouting something about "disproving the millennia of Loroi lies".

Millenia not ...
Well, maybe Mozin wanted to shout "for a thousand [Solon]" before he got cut off.
We don't know.

[inxsi]

Finished Chapter 6 and enjoyed it very much.

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Poor Emberwing. Zarjow really likes messing with her head. Though it is interesting that humans discovered (think they have discovered) genetic tampering in their past. I got a good laugh at Carmona calling him out for his antics.

Interesting idea on being able to do more with psychokinesis with backlash. I had been fine accepting Emberwing's miraculous survival (since it is necessary for the plot) but I like that you touched on more reasons for it.

Humanity will be disappointed to learn that the loroi know very little about the theory of telepathy, only practical applications. It makes sense, but it is a little funny that humans just assume that the other species of telepaths understand more about it than they do.

Zarjow really loves the ancient myths. Though I find it funny that Carmona mentions "no proof that we possessed any kind of telepathy in the past" - does she really expect there to be evidence of telepathy (a non-physical ability) to still be around after so long? Is it just genetic evidence? I wouldn't think so, since it does not seem like they have much of an idea of the genetics behind psychic abilities? But they seem convinced that the genetic tinkering did not seem to do anything.

If Emberwing ends up with nightmares about vampires, I blame Zarjow (though it would be hilarious).

Wow, the Charon is huge. And advanced. Looking forward to learning more about its capabilities whenever that happens.

[Cthulhu]

Quite good... the last most recent chapters.

The intermission reminds me of what COVID-19 was like for many Americans.

Many just subsisted on the internet during lockdown.

I like how you are fully aware of current events ('fire and fury' LOL was a quote from the last President) yet manage to only use it as a mild flavour.

Much better than what passes for star trek nowadays, which is all too often heavyhanded direct allegories of current events (I hate Discovery, grew to like DS9 though and loved Babylon 5).

Yeah, Discovery is a flimsy, pathetic ST-like wrapper full of "woke" propaganda that was written for and by edgy 12 year-olds. I'm simply pretending that this ridiculous attempt at weaponizing cringe doesn't even exist.
They could've made something new with Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, for example. Or how about Captain Klag for a completely different approach?

For my fanfic, I decided to avoid too many references to current politics. This "retreat" theme is actually quite widespread in modern sci-fi, even before COVID.

Nice, not the future I would like, but it's not one which I find unbelievable.
Just wait until the machines find out about "Matrix", and work hard to prevent us from ever getting out again...

Mozin was quite agitated as he saw Alex, shouting something about "disproving the millennia of Loroi lies".

Millenia not ...
Well, maybe Mozin wanted to shout "for a thousand [Solon]" before he got cut off.
We don't know.

Thanks for the correction, I'll fix it.
There's a short description about how I came up with that vision of the future in the notes. I tried to shape it into a believable form, while keeping it short for the intermission format.
Also, according to the timeline, the Loroi met the Barsam over 1200 years ago, thus it's at least a millennium of "propaganda".

Finished Chapter 6 and enjoyed it very much.

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Poor Emberwing. Zarjow really likes messing with her head. Though it is interesting that humans discovered (think they have discovered) genetic tampering in their past. I got a good laugh at Carmona calling him out for his antics.

Interesting idea on being able to do more with psychokinesis with backlash. I had been fine accepting Emberwing's miraculous survival (since it is necessary for the plot) but I like that you touched on more reasons for it.

Humanity will be disappointed to learn that the loroi know very little about the theory of telepathy, only practical applications. It makes sense, but it is a little funny that humans just assume that the other species of telepaths understand more about it than they do.

Zarjow really loves the ancient myths. Though I find it funny that Carmona mentions "no proof that we possessed any kind of telepathy in the past" - does she really expect there to be evidence of telepathy (a non-physical ability) to still be around after so long? Is it just genetic evidence? I wouldn't think so, since it does not seem like they have much of an idea of the genetics behind psychic abilities? But they seem convinced that the genetic tinkering did not seem to do anything.

If Emberwing ends up with nightmares about vampires, I blame Zarjow (though it would be hilarious).

Wow, the Charon is huge. And advanced. Looking forward to learning more about its capabilities whenever that happens.

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1. Since they cannot read her, Zarjow must resort to old-fashioned mind games in order to extract more information. They do not want to turn a first contact scenario into a catastrophe. There's a war going on, and some Loroi could be jumpy or trigger-happy for all they know.
2. The humans have found genetic changes that couldn't have occurred naturally and estimated the rough timescale. It's too much of a coincidence.
3. Fireblade can more than double her telekinetic strength if enraged and rip cyberbugs to shreds. Also, if I hang a gun on the wall...
4. The Humans look forward to a race with over 200,000 years of experience with telepathy. Perhaps it's part wishful thinking.
5. Carmona is a scientist and she wants evidence. It's not that farfetched actually, since they could compare legends with actual capabilities in order to find similarities. If you could find something resembling the description of a telepathic ability from multiple, independent sources, then it may serve as some sort of proof. Sadly, there's little to no correlation. I wonder why...
6. They do not know what the genetic tinkering does. On the other hand, they also do not know how telepathy works, thus it's merely speculation.
7. Those stories about "undead" are native to Perrein, Emberwing doesn't know them in detail, and she has no idea how a vampire looks like.
8. The Charon is big, because the ship was built to explore the limits of the new jump generator. It also received a recent overhaul.

[Krulle]

Mozin was quite agitated as he saw Alex, shouting something about "disproving the millennia of Loroi lies".

Millenia not ...
Well, maybe Mozin wanted to shout "for a thousand [Solon]" before he got cut off.
We don't know.

Thanks for the correction, I'll fix it.
There's a short description about how I came up with that vision of the future in the notes. I tried to shape it into a believable form, while keeping it short for the intermission format.
Also, according to the timeline, the Loroi met the Barsam over 1200 years ago, thus it's at least a millennium of "propaganda".

According to the insider timeline https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/loroi_timeline.html, the Loroi met the Barsam in 1311 (human year, CE), and the Bellarmine incident happened in 2160 CE.
That's about 849 human years....
(I saw that Loroi/Union years are different, indeed.)


But yeah, what I wanted to get at, is that "Millenia" is a Human timescale.
And when the "translation" in the comic uses Solon, I would expect the author to not use such a Human term.
Especially if the number of years is not converted.

[Cthulhu]

But yeah, what I wanted to get at, is that "Millenia" is a Human timescale.
And when the "translation" in the comic uses Solon, I would expect the author to not use such a Human term.
Especially if the number of years is not converted.

Well, to be honest, I have no idea what Arioch meant.
We don't even have any knowledge about those Trade terms (or if there's a counterpart at all), maybe a "millennia" translates to 800 years, since it's a base-8 system. But let's assume that Arioch meant over 1000 Loroi (standard) years because he simply didn't put too much thought into such small details apart from this. We could ask him, but he seems super busy, it's the third week without a new chapter.

[inxsi]

Clearly Mozin meant the lies that they had been told for the past thousand bimas where Stillstorm denied that they found anything interesting in the wreckage (since Alex is obviously an umiak trick)

Also - what the heck is the construct doing with its eyes in the previous panel?

I read Intermission C - well, that was depressing. A good, believable, depressing scenario.

[Cthulhu]

Clearly Mozin meant the lies that they had been told for the past thousand bimas where Stillstorm denied that they found anything interesting in the wreckage (since Alex is obviously an umiak trick)

But here, the Historian speaks about the last survivor. Well, maybe I should ask Arioch about those terms.

Also - what the heck is the construct doing with its eyes in the previous panel?

It's an advanced persuasion technique called flirting. Only the best constructs are able to mimic this to such an excellent degree.

I read Intermission C - well, that was depressing. A good, believable, depressing scenario.

Well, there were a couple of near-misses during the Cold War where we narrowly escaped thermonuclear doom. But this kinetic impactor was considered a "clean" weapon and conjured the convenient illusion of "not crossing the line" to true WMDs.

[inxsi]

Well, there were a couple of near-misses during the Cold War where we narrowly escaped thermonuclear doom. But this kinetic impactor was considered a "clean" weapon and conjured the convenient illusion of "not crossing the line" to true WMDs.

I agree - a believable (and depressing) scenario.

Finished chapter 7. I didn't realize the intermission before was part of her history lesson

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Emberwing getting fixated is fun. Yes, you really should have gotten the training from Amber (though I wonder if it is actually related to that). I liked the touch about the Zaral upstarts - she must be from a very old, traditional clan.

I wonder how the umiak are deep jumping so effectively - shouldn't there be an outpost on the other side of the system as well? Are they jumping past the star? Don't answer, just wondering out loud.

And the umiak they questioned apparently did not know about the umiak lotai? I guess they would not need to know about it, especially as they were not involved in the assault. I wonder if the assault group was also kept in the dark about it? Not sure how the umiak feel about information security.

I guess there is a lot more reason to be worried about the humans motivations in this story, especially given what they've learned from the umiak.

Interesting dream - I liked the imagery. And cool to see the food technology in action and Emberwing's response.

Clever idea to just look for a signature that looks like an amplifier. I'll have to think about why they had one on a scout vessel - they must have either been testing it (was there any concern over it being lost?) or have plenty of them (which could be the case given their control of their reproduction if they have engineered it into the umiak).

Minor corrections I noticed:

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Ambers offer = Amber's offer
Sifting trough that = Sifting through that

[Cthulhu]

I think that among the common Umiak, traits like curiosity would be pretty rare. They are utterly obsessive over their tasks, but I'd hazard a guess that they are not particularly interested in unrelated stuff. The commanders wouldn't tell them anything they do not need to know, anyway.
On the other hand, I could imagine Umiaks working to improve their ship's systems in their spare time (if they have any), competing with each other about how they increased the efficiency of something utterly insignificant by a whooping 0.00274% over their rival's best attempt. Security should be pretty tight, then.

P.S. I'll correct the mistakes, thanks!

[inxsi]

That makes sense. Most of the umiak are content with continuing on into the loroi lines until their ship is destroyed they probably would not have an issue thinking the assault is just another normal assault into the teeth of the loroi defense. I suppose they might not know enough about how these offensives go to realize things are different this time - no reason to suppose a generic umiak knows the specifics about the war.

Thanks for doing such a good job of delving into the psychology of the species involved and for the interesting story.

[inxsi]

Finished Chapter 8. And just realized I am almost caught up.

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Glad to see Emberwing pull the "we need an actual agreement" card finally. It seems to me that one of the few things the loroi have to offer is what they have deduced on telepathy (I think I'm rooting for the loroi more than the humans in this story). The other thing (mental contact with a different species) seems out of reach for now.

I did have a thought that the psionic amplifier could have been something the umiak grabbed from somewhere, though it seems almost certain they have examples of amplifiers already.

The humans definitely take pleasure in challenging Emberwing with the explanation of bugs as food Her suspicion that it was just a distraction is a nice touch.

Interesting about the differences in the farsight... doesn't it imply humans are scarily powerful though? And asking about the sensation of detecting the umiak was interesting.

After the joking with Alex, I think the human's guide for first contact is just to throw as much stuff as possible at the aliens and see if anything offends them. It was humorous

[Cthulhu]

1. The Umiaks have captured plenty of Loroi planets and therefore have enough hardware to study or captives to dissect.
2. The Humans, but also the protagonist, are trying to squeeze as much information out of each other as quickly as possible.
3. Both Empires have plenty to offer for each other...

In order to cheer up Arioch, the next chapter will feature California!

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Emberwing lost her sister, friends, crew, and ship. While she's quite tough, as all Loroi warriors are, she's still not up to full specs again. The next chapter will feature her facing the suppressed stress. I might even post it a bit earlier, maybe tomorrow.

[inxsi]

Just finished Intermission D. Enjoyed it and looking forward to the next section. I was wondering about the chapter name (I thought it would be related to the Tower of Babel myth - Zarjow's head games are probably getting to me ) but it made sense by the end.

Nicely written chapter on everything going horribly wrong. I will admit, I am now afraid of what you are going to do with California in the next bit.

I liked the arcologies and most people finding them way better than their previous conditions even if the people would have thought they were terrible if they were put right into the developed world.

Makes sense to give everyone entertainment to keep them occupied in the small rooms they have. Interesting also having the arcologies be adopted elsewhere and overcome the stigma of them. Definitely wonder what Emberwing will think of all of this and what got humanity out of this state of complacency.

Minor correction?

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brute force, and quarreled into gigantic camps. Quarreled should be corralled? I assume you meant "gather together and confine" and not "have a heated argument or disagreement"

[Cthulhu]

I'm going to rebuild California in order to cheer up Arioch! Well, at least the agricultural sector, the high-tech industry completed their exodus to Austin by the mid-2040

Yeah, corralled is the right word, sorry for the brain fart. The next Intermission will be about something else, but there will be bits and pieces about the history of Humanity in the normal chapters.