Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

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novius
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by novius »

Krin wrote:Especially given the recent events that he has been granted / recognized as a diplomat and "captain". He's been kept in isolation even after that (granted it was for his safety). They continue to show little regard for personal space.
Given all the events, if I were him, I would be seriously questioning the intentions of the Loroi.
It could be that Tempo's declaration in front of witnesses was a move to derail Stillstorm. At that moment, she looked like she'd be seconds away from ordering to have him spaced or dissected as soon as it becomes clear that there's no worthwile information to be extracted from him. And as far as interrogation went, they were already running out of options.

So Tempo forced Stillstorm's hand to keep him around for a little longer. Yet the downside is that none of the Loroi have an idea what to actually do with him, so Stillstorm decided to get him off the ship and sent to Seren. At least, publicly. Perhaps she wouldn't have been too disappointed if Alex would have met an accident on the way there...

So, Tempo's declaration might be worth zilch. Remember, she's a Mizol, and they already have a reputation of untrustworthiness.

And now they're stuck in the shuttle, and while Tempo did feed him some tidbits she sort of pawned him off to the Listel. Let the scientists deal with the alien. Since when it comes to diplomacy or intel, he surely has nothing substantial to offer anymore.

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Arioch
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Arioch »

novius wrote:
Werra wrote:I could even take Beryl for her word and believe that Loroi have sex primarily for reproductive purposes.
Primarily being the operative word. Which in turn means that they do know of recreational sex, which is underlined by the "Insider" tidbit that some times Loroi females do fondly remember the times they spent - the big difference is that the longing for a repeat performance is missing.
It's important to keep in mind that most animals do not pair bond; herds often have a single breeding male that presides over a large harem, but for the most part, most animals meet up singly in the wild, do the deed, and then never see each other again. This doesn't mean that the sex act is not pleasurable for them, or that they don't have very strong sex drives.
novius wrote:And, the previous statement still stands. If mating hasn't been tied to the biological reward system they'd surely have done away with sex altogether and resorted to artificial means of getting pregnant. Less hassle, easier to be controlled, quicker, more efficient. Or even done completely away with childbearing and have their kids raised in artificial wombs.
With the Loroi, for whom overpopulation is a potentially dangerous problem, having impregnation be a bit of a hassle is not really a bad thing. Being able to control impregnation rates by controlling access to males is important biological and social mechanism, and also works as a reward system. I think that if simple and effective artificial impregnation methods were widely available, that could be much harder to control.

And I'm not sure artificial wombs will be viable at this level of technology. The human reproductive system is an incredibly complex mechanism that I think would be very difficult and expensive to replicate artificially. Unless you use people parts for it... which gets into murky ethical territory. Seems like a lot of expense and effort when your population has baby-making machines built into them that operate essentially for free.

Also, while human females like to complain about the inconveniences and discomforts of being pregnant, and bemoan the loss of productivity and negative impact on career and social standing (oh, the evil patriarchy!), the biological drives are strong, not just to get pregnant, but to be pregnant. Drawbacks aside, I think that most women, on balance, enjoy the experience of pregnancy, and I think many would still choose to become pregnant even if artificial alternatives were available.

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DevilDalek
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by DevilDalek »

Arioch wrote:
Also, while human females like to complain about the inconveniences and discomforts of being pregnant, and bemoan the loss of productivity and negative impact on career and social standing (oh, the evil patriarchy!), the biological drives are strong, not just to get pregnant, but to be pregnant. Drawbacks aside, I think that most women, on balance, enjoy the experience of pregnancy, and I think many would still choose to become pregnant even if artificial alternatives were available.
Being a father with a 22 month old toddler and another on the launch apron so to speak, according to my wife the drive to be pregnant is a very strong emotional one, yes there is the 'ticking biological clock' effect, but in her words,
"the clock is just an irritating buzz at the back of your head and does not compare to when you feel your with the right person at the right time, which can be like an avalanche when you realise it, and then that morphs seamlessly into mother child bonding when they do come along... Now go get me a sandwich"

Now im not saying its the same for every woman out there, but i dont think you can look at it from a purely cold instinctive point of view.. Yes the Loroi might look on it as an almost purely business like transaction, but i believe theres a few things simmering just below the surface, or have been turned off by their creator race.. However, for a virtually non talking race, Beryl DID involuntarily laugh out loud.

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Arioch
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Arioch »

DevilDalek wrote:Being a father with a 22 month old toddler and another on the launch apron so to speak, according to my wife the drive to be pregnant is a very strong emotional one, yes there is the 'ticking biological clock' effect, but in her words,
"the clock is just an irritating buzz at the back of your head and does not compare to when you feel your with the right person at the right time, which can be like an avalanche when you realise it, and then that morphs seamlessly into mother child bonding when they do come along... Now go get me a sandwich"
Heh. Congratulations, by the way.

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DevilDalek
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by DevilDalek »

Arioch wrote: Heh. Congratulations, by the way.
Thanks! Tiring but worth it..

I dont known if its telling or not.. But since I started reading your comic, I have met my wife, bought my own home, married my wife, seen my first son come into the world and heard the heartbeat of my second!

Just sayin' Alex needs to get his finger out with those blue space elves..

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HedAurabesh
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by HedAurabesh »

Arioch wrote:And I'm not sure artificial wombs will be viable at this level of technology. The human reproductive system is an incredibly complex mechanism that I think would be very difficult and expensive to replicate artificially. Unless you use people parts for it... which gets into murky ethical territory. Seems like a lot of expense and effort when your population has baby-making machines built into them that operate essentially for free.
I'm not disputing that last fact, mind you, but even we puny humans are making big strides on creating external incubators. :shock:

Granted, we're not there quite yet, but it seems quite unlikely to take us more than a century to figure out. Goat reproduction is, afterall, not that much less complicated than the human one.

But then again, science rarely moves in straight lines, and what seems to be simple now, can sometimes take decades just to solve a tiny last obstacle. :lol:

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Arioch
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Arioch »

There's a big difference between an incubator that can keep a fairly developed fetus alive for a few months until term (which the Loroi do have), and a true artificial womb that allows you to cut the mother out of the loop entirely. I think the latter is an order of magnitude more complex than the former, and I think would be difficult to replicate mechanically without some bioengineering of living tissue.

The Umiak do have a reproductive process that can be almost entirely artificially duplicated, but they have the advantage of being egg-layers. All they really need is an embryo and an incubator and they're off to the races. Mammaloid live birth gestation is a lot trickier.

I suppose I can imagine a technology timeline where where biotech increases exponentially and its adoption is unhindered by ethical concerns, and you end up with sort of a post-human bioengineered society where most mechanisms become biological rather than mechanical, and personal physicality becomes malleable and trivial. But this is not that sort of story.

Dahak
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Dahak »

Zorg56 wrote:1. Mass Effect is a thing.
Amanda Greyson, Green Orion Dancing girls and Thora of Zoltral want a word. As do the Princesses Dejah Thoris of Helium, Aura of Mongo and Ardalla of Draconia, though they might prefer a more pointed reminder of their existance. Starsha of Iscandar will comment despite being heroically dead.

Meltradi Commander Miriya Parino can't stop giggling long enough to mention her marriage. Possibly she's trying to work out if her slightly poined ears make her a Space Elf.

Auris of Las-Toór would have you shot, then she'd go back in time to prevent Mass Effect ever having been made. How dare you imply that she doesn't need to deny liking Perry that way or that Thora having been mentioned means she's superfluous to the point.

Ablïarsec Néïc Dubleuscr Bœrh Parhynr Lamhirh would think that was a bit much. Her dad used to tease her mother that was a house cat after all.

Etc.

novius
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by novius »

And, we as the readers do know that the Soia preferred to make copies of existing species, improve on what they think has to be improved but for the rest, going with the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

After all, changing something in a working system always has a chance of creating unintended side effects.

So, aside from doing the usual optimization and adapting to the time-proven Soia-Liron biology, they thought about turning around the gender bias to make females the dominating gender. Together with the shortened maturation time it's likely to make Loroi be able to bolster their numbers real quick.

We do know that the modern Loroi have a rather practical view on inter-gender relationships and child raising, but we don't know what the Soia intended them to be.

As it is, it could be very much like Loroi had been designed to be highly competitive over their males, to ensure only the best ones to pass on her genes, in a darwinistic sort of way. After all, Beryl was quick to assume that humans would be territorial of their women when the discussion came along that road the first time. After the collapse of the Soia Empire and the rebuilding of their civilization, they might have decided that the 'old ways' would lead to their downfall and enforced rather heavy lockdowns and taboos on that sort of possessive and competitive behavior.

Which would mean that beneath the calm and collected surface, the more primitive part of a Loroi mind could house a veritable storm of emotions, and we already getting some glimpses of it.

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Zorg56
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Zorg56 »

Soia origin is not 100% fact, there is still possibility of convergent evolution (well, it is very low, but still).
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P.s. Noticed only now... How the hell Bellarmine get in there without anyone noticing? This place should be swarming with Umiak patrols and Loroi raid groups. Or this grey lines just old trade routes and there is way more jump possibilities? But even if there is dozens of systems not mapped here, it is still really strange. Espicially with Bellarmine acceleration.

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GeoModder
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by GeoModder »

Well, this storage vestibule is certainly bigger then I expected from what was shown of it in previous pages.
I thought it was large closet sized.
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Werra
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Werra »

novius wrote:And, we as the readers do know that the Soia preferred to make copies of existing species, improve on what they think has to be improved but for the rest, going with the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Quite the opposite in my opinion, as the Soia built their species in essence from scratch. They may have stuck to a pre existing surface design, but biochemistry and genetics is all original. So even a straight up copy is at the very least a translation.
novius wrote:After all, Beryl was quick to assume that humans would be territorial of their women when the discussion came along that road the first time.
Territorial, that's a choice of words one would use for animals. Had a human woman asked that of an alien, the tone would have read a lot less friendly.

In regards to a possible hidden possessive behaviour of Loroi, we have to admit that males are not rare amongst the Loroi. Honestly, they have a lot of them, likely too many. At 1/8, every single Loroi female could easily be pregnant 24/7, male capacity wise. Since Loroi males also have very strong urges to procreate, their mate selection choices shouldn't matter that much. When in doubt, the Loroi can just wait like two days tops before the male says yes.
What limits female reproduction in Loroi is resources and manpower, both of which a polygamous group can better provide than monogamous pair-bonders, thanks to Loroi sexual dimorphism. Honestly, they'd do better with 20/1 female to male ratio in all likelihood.

@Zorg56
That's what I have also been wondering. Either the frontlines must be calm for weeks between assaults, or Bellarmine just got very unlucky.
Another question would be, how that third ship, the one that killed Bellarmine, got to where it was unnoticed through all that.1

novius
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by novius »

Werra wrote:Quite the opposite in my opinion, as the Soia built their species in essence from scratch. They may have stuck to a pre existing surface design, but biochemistry and genetics is all original. So even a straight up copy is at the very least a translation.
Copy as in 'Take the ideas, not the code' is still a copy. Even if you just build something up from scratch and make it resemble the original it would get you into a copyright infringement lawsuit. :) The Soia did have a sophisticated toolbox with the Soia-Liron biology to create highly efficient organisms, but they lacked creativity to make a more efficient warrior/sentinel species. For example, a bony exoskeleton or horns would help in that regard.

And, just because males are not that rare in Loroi society - but still quite rare - doesn't mean that there would be no possessive behavior simply 'because there are enough of them to go around'. We humans come with a female to male ratio of roughly 1.06:1 in favor of males when left unchecked, but still members of both genders focus their interest on just a few members of the appropiate sex, not giving others an inkling of consideration.

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Werra
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Werra »

Nah, even minor differences in hormone levels between humans have a huge impact on character and behaviour. We don't even know whether Loroi have any of our hormones or even just equivalents. Doesn't matter that the Soia copied the outside looks.
novius wrote:We humans come with a female to male ratio of roughly 1.06:1 in favor of males when left unchecked, but still members of both genders focus their interest on just a few members of the appropiate sex, not giving others an inkling of consideration.
You can't be serious. That's a negligible disparity easily absorbed by male mortality rates. The numbers in terms of births for Loroi are also 1/10, female deaths just shift it to 1/8.

novius
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by novius »

Werra wrote:You can't be serious. That's a negligible disparity easily absorbed by male mortality rates. The numbers in terms of births for Loroi are also 1/10, female deaths just shift it to 1/8.
Point in case, we humans have much less reasons for such competitive/territorial behavior, after all, there should be one man for every woman, or vice versa, right? Still, look around, look up 'adultery' and see my point proven.

Second, I think I collected more evidence lining the column "they are mostly similar, with only a few marked differences" rather than "they're completely alien, with only a few similarities". And, looking inside the story, Beryl seems to think the same from the very start. :)

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Werra
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Werra »

novius wrote:Point in case, we humans have much less reasons for such competitive/territorial behavior, after all, there should be one man for every woman, or vice versa, right?
No, you are taking raw numbers of births and ignore everything else. You completely gloss over mortality rates for example. The reproductive situation for humans is completely different from the Lorois. So that there are valid strategies of cuckolding possible in humans tells us nothing. In fact it should be yet another point on which both species diverge massively.
A Loroi female has no incentive to go behind the back of a male for example, since the females are the ones providing resources. A Loroi male has no incentive to go behind a females back, as...how would that even work?..and the males investment is very little anyway.

I don't actually understand why you bring up adultery in humans as if that shows a human/Loroi similarity. We're dealing with a different species here anyway.
novius wrote:I think I collected more evidence lining the column "they are mostly similar, with only a few marked differences" rather than "they're completely alien, with only a few similarities".
Must have skimmed those paragraphs. That the Soia didn't give them horns is at most evidence of absence of one difference, not evidence of similarity.
Loroi are products of a completely alien biology and we know of several key differences. Those are reproduction, ratio of male and females, roles of females for the species, telepathy. All I'm saying is that we should not expect Loroi to react or behave the same way human females would do.
novius wrote:And, looking inside the story, Beryl seems to think the same from the very start.
We don't know that. That's my point. We interpret her behaviour and signals by our experiences with human women. Or more likely heresay, you nerds. But Loroi are not human.
Look up the halo effect and then ask yourself if you would interpret Beryls behaviour the same way if she was say...Mr Beryl.

novius
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by novius »

I see we will not agree on this point anytime soon. Like, ever, I think. For something different.

Despite their previous treatment, the Loroi do show him a lot of trust by leaving him completely alone with a number of crates filled with unrecognizable alien artifacts. Beryl even said so - even if she might not trust his character, she trusts his sense of self-preservation to not to activate a gadget that would place all of them in jeopardy.

But her logic has a slight flaw.

Assume Alex is a shell trick, then
  • He could have been indoctrinated by the Umiak or bioengineered to have no sense of self-preservation at all, in accordance to Umiak valuing the Hierarchy above everything.
  • A hypothetical gadget could serve as a beacon, together with an IFF code telling everyone to leave the shuttle alone and let the operative on it do his work
  • Or any device could serve to spy or sabotage the shuttle and everyone on board

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dragoongfa
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by dragoongfa »

You forgot Mizol deviousness and Loroi's sense of duty to the cause.

Not enough time has passed for all Loroi presence within the system to have fled, a last ditch broadcast by the shuttle after the 'infiltrator' blows his cover would be enough warning as to the nature of the foe and would be of greater importance when compared to the survival of everyone else aboard the shuttle.

In short, the fact that Alex is 'alone' doesn't mean that he isn't constantly watched for any hints of betrayal, especially now that there is still time to warn the Empire about said betrayal.

volrath77
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by volrath77 »

Lol @ the ladies. As for Talon, I'm not sure whether she's making her 'I am disappoint' or 'Y U no fun' face.
Werra wrote:Beryl could be a red hering. Alex could possibly sense Fireblade on his own because of her strength and incontinence.
:shock:

I'm sorry, could you please repeat that again?

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Zorg56
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Re: Page 151 Discussion: "We will wait, Outsider"

Post by Zorg56 »

I think Fireblade just burned in his brain, like when you look at the sun and close eyes, but mark is still there...

But if that the case, what is that light in the distance?
It is on the second frame as well, so it is not just random dot.
It cant be star neither since he cant see space around him.
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