Data
File Updated:
Monday, July 30, 2018
(This is
a collection of quotations from the forums compiled by
fredgiblet, provided here in one huge chunk to make it
searchable. For the most part Arioch is answering questions
posted by forum-goers; when the question is included, it is
listed in blue, and Arioch's answer is listed in white. Often
the original question is omitted.)
(There is significant overlap between some
of the quotes in this file and those in
Volume I. I will edit
out the redundancies as time permits.)
Yes. Someone mentioned Yoko Tsuno here (earlier this year, I
think), but I had not heard of the Vineans prior to that. My
inspiration for blue aliens comes in general from watching
various Leiji Matsumoto anime, and more specifically from the
aforementioned Elerians and Syreen.
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Alex is about 5'8" or 5'9". (I have some conflicting notes
entries on the subject.) He's taller than Beryl who is 5'6", and
slightly shorter than Fireblade at 5'9" or 5'10" (again,
conflicting data). I have been told that 5'7" is the average for
a human male (admittedly, by a human male who was himself 5'7"),
but I agree that Alex is not considered tall by North American
standards.
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Aygar is going off of data from the tactical sim that I put
together a while back. Here's what I posted on the subject
before:
The silver doors at the bow of the Tempest open to reveal the
twin muzzles of the weapon. The basic concept of the weapon is
that it uses the same sort of carrier wave as the Pulse Cannon,
but on a much larger scale to (essentially) conduct the full
output of the engines (in the form of exotic, high-energy,
volatile particles) toward the enemy. The "loom" aspect of the
weapon is that it includes a series of accumulators that can be
charged over time, building accumulated energy into some sort of
exotic and sinister "lattice" that can be used in devious and
destructive ways that might be more interesting than a simple
directed drive plasma beam. But I haven't quite got that part
figured out yet. The disadvantage of the weapon is that it takes
all of the ship's power to charge, and the firing saturates the
heat systems of the ship, leaving it unable to maneuver or fire
weapons for a short time after discharge.
The wave loom was developed at about the same time as the pulse
cannon, operates on similar principles, and is also based on
Historian technology, though not on a specific similar Historian
weapon. It's meant to be a long range, area of effect weapon. I
think of it in some ways like the German railroad guns of WWI --
fearsome, but with significant practical limitations that hinder
its effectiveness.
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The wave looms on Cry of the Wind are pretty much the same size
as the one on Tempest except that there are two of them. So I
would expect that the visuals will be similar.
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Loroi are omnivorous. They have various sub-cultures, including
some that live at a very primitive level, so I'm sure they have
all kinds of gross delicacies. There won't be too many
opportunities to go into Loroi eating habits in the comic, but I
may be able to work some things in. Taben would obviously be
known for seafood, and Perrein, which has a vibrant ecosystem
almost untouched by Soia-imported lifeforms (other than the
Loroi themselves), produces a variety of unusual delicacies that
make other Loroi turn up their noses.
Starships at this tech level no doubt have very effective
methods of food preservation, but fresh food is probably still
going to be desirable. Large ships like Tempest can afford space
for a small garden for growing small amounts of fresh food; in
particular, fungi would be an ideal food to grow on board ship,
allowing you to turn waste into food without even requiring
sunlight. I do have a short scene planned in the Tempest grow
room where they have these huge, phosphorescent Perrein fungi
all over the place.
I also have another scene planned where they try to introduce
Alex to the Loroi equivalent of coffee.
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Also -- and maybe this is just my perception -- but from my own
cooking experience, fresh vegetables are more important than
fresh meat. In the sense that the difference between fresh meat
and frozen meat in many dishes is not very significant, whereas
fresh vegetables vs. frozen vegetables is a huge difference.
Despite the energy inefficiency, if you had a species that was
exclusively carnivorous and detested anything but fresh (read:
live) meat, then you might be willing to put up with having to
carry live animals on your ships (like the Kif in the Pride of
Chanur series). I don't imagine the Loroi as quite that
carnivorous.
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Agreed, I think the vast majority of food aboard a starship
would be preserved, and it would probably be pretty decent. But
a little fresh vegetable would always be welcome, and the fungi
seems essentially "free", except for the space allocated and the
water (which is recoverable), it seems like a good use of waste
products.
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I'm not so sure that a 3-month supply of water is out of the
question, but regardless, a spacecraft is a closed system. The
only way you could "lose" water is if you dump it overboard. The
vast majority of consumed water is going to come out with the
waste, and this is all recoverable.
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The Loroi have exposure to alien races that use song (the Barsam
in particular), so Human singing wouldn't be something
completely novel.
Loroi written literature would be pretty much strictly
nonfiction.
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Gloves would help, yes. Though I'd expect any sensible medic to
be using gloves anyway.
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Yes, so two TK's can wrestle over an object, or one can attempt
to cancel out a force applied by the other.
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Or one could simply pick up a pebble and throw it; with
sufficient power this would be like a gunshot. With significant
limitations on range and accuracy, of course.
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The energy comes from "somewhere else," meaning not from the psi
herself. Whether this "somewhere else" is an extradimensional
source, a mystical energy field, or some complicated local
mass-conversion system, the point is still that it's not coming
from the psi herself.
We can speculate on how this is accomplished, and I have some
ideas that tie into the other Loroi psi abilities (in
particular, the ability to sense mind at a distance), but it's
really not that important, in this case, to how the story is
told.
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Force applied is still limited by TK power, but it's true that
the force can be applied more or less continuously. Given that
we aren't using a local energy source, I don't see any practical
problems with this.
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Considering their own bloody history, I doubt the Loroi would
find Hitler remarkable, even in comparison to the rest of the
long line of human warlords and conquerors.
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A small detail: "Ashrain" is the translation of the spoken name
(like "Fireblade"), as in "rain of ash", not the Trade name
itself. Ashrain's spoken name (or, at least what I have written
down) is Bilosin.
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Topaz would be lenei.
It's usually not a good idea for me to comment on the subject
matter of fan fiction (as doing so necessarily involves
spoilers). But if you're looking for writing pointers, my main
suggestion would be to include more specific description,
especially visual description of the surroundings and
characters. I don't get a sense of what the characters look like
(with the exception of Ashrain, of course, since I already know
what she looks like ). A more detailed description of what the
main character sees in his new surroundings (and what he thinks
about it) would also make sense for this kind of story.
I also think it's a good idea to pick one character as the point
of view (instead of showing the thoughts of multiple characters)
as it makes the narrative stronger, but not everyone agrees on
this point.
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"Would submarines make good planetary
defenses?"
Any ground defense station can be pretty well camouflaged, but
it will give away its position the moment it opens fire.
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I don't think mines make a lot of sense in space combat; space
is huge, even in the relatively small confines of the orbital
theatre. The chances that an enemy ship will happen close enough
to a mine to be damaged by even an antimatter explosion is
remote. In order to be effective, a mine will have to have a
drive and seeker in order to move toward a nearby enemy vessel
in order to score a hit; in other words, it has to become a
torpedo.
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I expect that reactors can probably be pushed to 110-120% for
short periods (with appropriate risk), but I don't think that's
going to substantially change the equation in this case.
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"One common space combat weapon in sci-fi
is X-ray lasers. Sometimes the weapon is just "a laser", but
other times they use explosive devices to generate the laser and
empower it. Can anyone explain how they work exactly?"
I think something like this might be a viable alternative as the
"warhead" for a torpedo, exploding and directing as much energy
as possible toward the target as possible (at relatively close
range), sort of like a modern shaped charge warhead. You don't
have worry about heat, since the device is destroyed as it
fires, and while the efficiency of the directed energy may not
be high, it will still almost certainly be an improvement over
an omni-directional explosion.
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An X-ray or gamma-ray laser is just a very, very high energy
(short wavelength) laser. The specific frequency of the laser
may affect how well it can penetrate specific materials, but
otherwise there's nothing magical about it.
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A major factor in the length of the war is simply the speed of
travel -- it can days or weeks to transit a single star system.
Simply moving fleets to and from battle areas can take months,
and a single offensive campaign can stretch across multiple
years. If you look back into human history when travel times
were equally long, it was not unusual for wars to last for
decades -- as an example, the First Punic War between Rome and
Carthage lasted 23 years.
The other major factor is the nature of jump drive, in that it
funnels movement into system choke points that are difficult to
bypass, and the fact that Farseer detection makes it very
difficult for the Umiak to outflank or surprise the Loroi. This
is similar in a way to how the development of the scout airplane
in WWI helped to establish the static nature of trench warfare;
it was very difficult for one infantry force to outflank the
other without being detected by aerial reconnaissance.
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Higher technology doesn't always equate to more movement in
battle. Prior to WWI, you had a three-sided balance between
infantry, cannon and cavalry that was fairly even between
offense and defense. Infantry could dig in and defend, but then
they risked being outflanked by cavalry. WWI added more
effective artillery, machine guns and scout aircraft, and the
balance shifted to defense -- infantry could dig in without much
fear of being outmaneuvered. In this case, better technology
meant less movement. WWII added tanks, ground-attack aircraft
and trucks for quickly transporting infantry, the combination of
which allowed the use of tanks and aircraft to quickly attack
vulnerable spots and then motorized infantry to quickly exploit
the breach; this shifted the balance back toward the offense.
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You've jumped about a dozen tech levels ahead of me there.
Realistically, the process to create Type-A fuel is probably
going to require more energy than you get back when you "burn"
the fuel, so the fuel is not itself an energy source, just an
effective method of storage and release.
Even if this is not the case, and you do have a "Mr. Fusion"
device that will convert any matter into energy, it's a long way
from there to being able to convert a planet-sized mass into
energy (or fuel) on a useful timescale. The expense and physical
limitations of such devices are going to impose logistical
limitations on how much matter you can convert and on what
timescale.
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"to me Historians live up to their name, they don't get involved
they simply watch a record and they simply don't care about the
rest of the galaxy beyond that. heck they don't even leave there
home space, they send out AI's to interact with other races.
they seem to be like the Japanese before 1900.
there isolationist in away, only interested in information about
the outside world not interaction with it."
Except instead of being backward in technology, they're ahead in
technology.
Perhaps a more apt analogy would be the Christian cathedrals and
monasteries of the European middle ages, who had retained much
of the writings and technology of the fallen Roman empire, yet
remained largely content to watch the barbarian states around
them fighting amongst each other.
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Yes, I agree. Even with self-destruction aside, a ship has to be
intact and yet completely crippled to be boardable by an enemy
vessel; any maneuvering capability or even the most basic
operable point-defense weaponry will make boarding very
difficult, even by dedicated specially-designed assault craft.
Most boarding actions will be on space stations or under very
special circumstances.
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The armed Loroi aboard ship are for internal security. There is,
after all, an alien on board.
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I'm aware that our military has a chain of command, and that a
supply Captain probably can't countermand the combat orders of a
platoon leader from a different unit. However, if I'm not
mistaken, a lower-ranking officer is required to defer to a
higher ranking one (specifically, he must salute him),
regardless of their roles. The notion of a combat officer having
to defer to a non-combat officer would be intolerable to the
Loroi.
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Yes, Tempo is ranked on the third and top tier of GURPS
comeliness, as "Very Beautiful."
This is, of course, a scale of physical beauty, which does not
take into account personality or agreeable/disagreeable nature.
It's also worth reiterating that these character sheets are
exercises that I use to try to put characters' abilities on a
point scale in order to limit them... they aren't meant to be a
definitive description of a literary character, especially as
regards the personality advantages and disadvantages. The idea
is to quantify and balance advantages against disadvantages, and
so avoid characters where advantages run amuck -- a good example
being Star Trek's Spock, who seems to be good at everything and
has essentially no disadvantages -- who is smarter, stronger and
faster than everyone else, who knows engineering better than
Scotty and medicine better than McCoy... but who for some reason
is still only a second-in-command.
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Well, that's exactly what I'm talking about, but I don't agree
that two females holding hands constitutes lesbian sexuality.
Certainly I will have a great deal of tapdancing to do as a
storyteller to explain to the reader that this is not what they
think it is... but that is neither here nor there.
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The only present example we have of discardable engines is the
example of rocket stages such as the solid-fuel rocket boosters
used on the Space Shuttle. In this case, a rocket motor is not a
whole lot more than a valve through which escapes the gases from
exploding fuel... the vast majority of the mass and a
significant amount of the cost of a rocket stage is in the fuel
and fuel tanks and the hull of the stage itself. The endurance
of most such stages is measured in seconds, and there's no
possibility of refueling, so once the fuel is expended the motor
itself is useless, so it makes a certain amount of sense to cut
the whole stage loose.
In an aircraft or naval vessel, however, the engine is
mechanically very complicated, and is among the most expensive
components of the craft. Such engines require very complicated
infrastructure that make them difficult to simply "detach" (and
yes, I laugh my ass off every time they eject a warp core in
Star Trek). Further, they have fuel durations measured in hours
or even days (or weeks or months for the reactors of nuclear
vessels). So these do not seem like good candidates for
disposable engines. From what we know about Outsider starships,
they would also fall into this category.
I can see some kind of disposable boosters having certain uses,
for lifting small craft out of gravity wells or giving them a
needed boost -- for letting a shuttle catch up to a fast-passing
starship, say... or giving a pack of torpedoes a nice head
start. Such boosters might be stacked on a larger ship like
today's RATO/JATO packs and used for a makeshift, short-term
acceleration boost, but it's hard to imagine a lot of instances
in which such a boost would be useful enough to justify the cost
and extra weight of carrything such things around -- multiple
small disposable engines are almost certainly going to be less
efficient than designing larger, more powerful conventional
engines in the first place.
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Here's where it helps to think backwards a little bit, because
this is space opera and many design decisions are aesthetic and
not driven by realism -- especially in the case of a subject
like inertial damping, where nearly any answer we come up with
is going to be pure fiction. So if we choose to take what
designs we have and think realistically about how they might
operate, then we really have to start with a key assumption:
that the Loroi and Umiak are not fools. The combatants are
supposed to have significantly higher technology than the humans
and have been in a state of total war for 25 years. We have to
assume that they are doing what they're doing because it works.
If Loroi ships are designed with spacious corridors without
handholds everywhere, and bridges without lots of restraints and
acceleration couches everywhere -- and yes, we know why they
were really designed that way by the author, and that has
nothing to do with realism -- but in story terms we have to
assume that the Loroi are not idiots and designed them that way
for a reason. Inertial damping must be pretty effective and
reliable, and there can't be a major advantage to diverting
power away from inertial damping and using acceleration couches
instead... or surely the Loroi would already be doing exactly
that. So one has to infer that the inertial damping does not
consume a significant proportion of the engine's output.
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And yet, when I look at the interiors of real-world ships and
aircraft -- even transport planes and airliners -- I don't see
any padding.
Again, we don't expect Tempest to survive a lot of kinetic hits
that the dampers can't compensate for. Mass driver rounds are
not used in ship to ship combat at this tech level because they
are too easy to dodge, and a torpedo is usually going to
detonate before it makes physical contact with a ship.
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I'm not exactly sure, but I think that's beside the point. If a
ship the size of the Tempest (which is in the realm of a million
metric tonnes) is hit by a 200 kg mass driver round with enough
velocity (in theory) to throw a Loroi crewmember into a wall
hard enough to seriously injure her, then that mass driver round
almost certainly penetrated screens and armor, ripped all the
way through the ship and out the other side. And chances are
most of the bridge crew are still in their chairs, because a)
the inertial dampers compensated for some of the impact, and b)
most of the kinetic energy of the attack will have blown through
the ship. Now, it's true they're all about to die anyway,
because the ship has been holed and is very likely crippled, but
padding is not going to help that at this point.
No practical amount of armor could stop such a kinetic assault.
Kinetic impacts at the velocities we're talking about are
devastating ship-killing events -- if they can be achieved.
Which is very difficult against 30 G maneuvering targets.
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Shock wave in space? There's nothing at this scale to create a
significant "wave" in. The explosion of a torpedo, which would
be a matter-annihilation reaction (not a thermonuclear one),
does damage by electromagnetic radiation: light and heat, either
an omnidirectional blast or a projected cone (like an insane
version of a shaped-charge warhead). It is not a kinetic attack.
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Pretty much. Mass drivers could only have a chance of achieving
a hit against a 30G maneuvering target at well under 10,000km
(probably much less than 1,000km), which is point-blank range
even for an Umiak. Such a weapon is not completely useless, but
it's not useful enough for most Loroi or Umiak vessels to
justify carrying one. At this tech level, I think the most
useful application for mass drivers will be against ground
targets.
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The Loroi heavy fleet units are going to be much better
protected than the faster raider units, with thick armored
prongs protecting larger defensive screen generators and heavier
compartmentalization and redundancy, but there's a price in
terms of cost and weight (and therefore maximum acceleration) to
be paid for this extra protection. Not every ship in the fleet
can be armored like a battleship.
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As others have hinted at in previous posts, the linear distance
available to accelerate the round becomes a limiting factor,
even if you have terrific amounts of energy to play with. To get
a round to significant fractions of lightspeed, you're going to
need launch rails that are hundreds of meters long. Crest of the
Stars has some nice examples of ships with realistic-looking
railguns. These things don't look like they'd be very easy to
aim, and still have the basic problem that the projectile can
still be dodged (the Abh railguns had to churn out a ton of
rounds to get a hit, if memory serves, and starship combat in
Crest was conducted at relatively close range due to the nature
of their FTL drives), but the bottom line is that this is not
what I wanted Outsider warships to look like.
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Well, Firewing is correct that if you want something badly
enough, there is probably creative hand-waving that can get you
there.
Crest of the Stars does it the most straightforward way: they
have slender kilometer-long ships that could easily house the
rails that you'd need for decent projectile velocities, and they
have an FTL drive mechanism that often forces close-range
battles. FTL ships carry a bubble of real-space through
hyperspace with them, and they can attack other ships still in
hyperspace by "merging" the bubbles. Since these bubbles are
relatively small, this results in some nasty close-quarters
fights.
Another possible way that I considered when I was working on the
"realistic" prose predecessor to Outsider was to make the "coil"
an electromagnetic field that is projected out in front of the
ship. The launching ship had vanes that would open up and
project the field, and the projectile would continue
accelerating for several kilometers after leaving the launcher
-- kind of a backwards version of the Loroi drive system. I also
had projectiles made out of some monofilament supermaterial,
that could draw out into large-scale rings or lattices that
might increase the chance of a hit. But even with these
considerations, it seemed to me even at the time that such a
weapon would probably be very difficult to score a hit with, and
would be useful mainly to force a target to dodge, or to chew
the hell out of a ground target.
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In the case of unarmed combat training, being taught how to deal
with the opponent's telepathic attacks is going to be as
important as dealing with her physical attacks. Politeness and
social taboos are not going to be much of a consideration
here... it's also not very polite to stick a knife in someone's
heart. Hand to hand combat is not meant to be polite.
As for sports, if potential telepathic contact is not itself
part of the contest, then the participants will wear gloves and
covering clothing. But again, if you're talking about a game
where people are bonking each other over the head with sticks, I
doubt the social taboo of touching is really going to be a top
concern. There are plenty of things that go on at the bottom of
an NFL fumble pileup that are not considered proper behavior at
a tea party.
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I've gone back and forth over that. I like the strange spelling,
adding to the notion that this is a meaningless term to them,
but I'm not sure how "humaniti" would be differently pronounced
than "humanity", and even if it was, Beryl and Tempo as
professionals would be last people to mispronounce it after
hearing it more than once or twice. But since Beryl and Tempo
are doing the lion's share of the talking, that's kind of that.
I'll continue to think about it, especially in connection with
other mispronunciations on the way.
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I'll start by cut-and-pasting the relevant section of the
Telepathy essay:
Skin-to-skin physical contact between Loroi automatically
creates a direct telepathic link that is much stronger and more
intimate than normal remote telepathy. Sending between
individuals is faster and carries more bandwidth, nearly
equaling the sharing of thoughts. Large amounts of information
can be transferred quickly in this manner. Attempting to relay
false information or to even conceal information is even more
difficult than in remote sending because of the increased
intimacy of the connection, and physical link is sometimes used
as a means between individuals to verify the truth of a given
issue. However, the direct physical link involves the lowering
of a substantial portion of one’s personal barriers, and is
normally only done between close friends. Casual touching is
taboo in Loroi society, which is one of the reasons why Loroi
clothing exposes very little skin.
And to clarify: physical contact for a Loroi is essentially a
boost for her normal telepathic abilities; it's like having a
wireless device than you can plug in to a land line for a huge
increase in bandwidth. It's not an "emotional" or empathic link
per se; Loroi telepathy operates on a variety of levels
simultaneously, conscious and unconscious, emotional and
logical. But a better link with more bandwidth does allow for a
more complex interaction... kind of like the difference between
shouting a message across a river and whispering provocatively
in someone's ear.
Loroi telepathic abilities can affect non-telepathic aliens, to
a certain degree depending on that species' relative
susceptibility, ranging from overwhelmingly effective (Golim) to
no effect whatsoever (no comment). Achieving physical contact
with the alien will increase the effectiveness of the telepathic
contact, such as it may be. Even Alex, who has recently surmised
that he must be resistant to telepathy in some way, was able to
recognize Fireblade's telepathic presence when she touched him,
and even to recognize that she was attempting to probe his mind.
Actually, Alex's semi-conscious mind was able to detect
Fireblade's presence even before she touched him... though this
probably says as much about Fireblade's amplified power as it
does about Alex's supposed resistance.
Which is about to be addressed in a few pages, so I'll leave it
at that.
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I believe I have said that the Loroi were a thousand years ahead
of the humans, but by that I meant that the Loroi reached the
human level of technology a thousand years ahead of us. I expect
that, given the right circumstances, humans could catch up very
quickly.
I think that human culture's relatively recent rapid advance in
technology will be unusual, and not just in comparison to the
Loroi.
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I'm skeptical of the view that technology is a regular,
inevitable march toward progress. Earth history does not support
this view, even among humans who, in this story, are supposedly
a rapidly-advancing culture. I'm also skeptical of the view that
war necessarily drives innovation, since some of the most
backwards technological cultures on Earth have been among the
most warlike.
The "stone age" of technology on Earth goes back 2.5 million
years, supposedly predating homo sapiens by a significant margin
(though the more I read about modern archaeology, the more I get
the impression that they are very confused about the specifics
of speciation in primitive humans.) Nevertheless, there is a gap
of roughly 2 million years between the first tool using
proto-humans and the first human civilizations that started
around 4000 BC. And yet, stone age technology persisted right
through to the modern age and the twentieth century, and (in
limited form) persists to the present day.
Since the stone age, contrary to what seems to be the popular
view, technological progress has not been a steadily
upward-sloping curve. Even in the technological West,
technological progress has often been reset by the fall of
empires, most specifically the collapse of the Roman empire
c.450 AD, that set technology back to the most primitive of
iron-age levels, that did not recover until the Renaissance some
thousand years later. In the East, Chinese technology flowered
in the early centuries BC, until the stratification of society
under Legalism essentially froze culture into an unchanging
form, despite repeated conquest by Asiatic warrior tribes, that
stayed unchanged until occupation from much more modern Western
powers woke the East from its slumber after nearly two thousand
years. And as for Africa and South America... most
"civilizations" never progressed past the stone age before
Western intervention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Chinese and Aztec and Mali humans were every bit as intelligent
and creative as Greek and Roman and European humans... yet look
how differently their technological paths diverged, due to
societal, historical, and geological details. Now imagine the
potential divergence between completely different alien species,
on completely alien worlds.
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Only in the respect that in Outsider there are two kinds of
races: the "old" races who have languished for thousands of
years slowly rediscovering old technology lying all around them,
and the "new" races (such as the Umiak and humans) who are
aggressively advancing like wildfire, whether or not the Soia
have been so kind as to provide examples.
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Some technology springs up to fulfill a need, but other
technology springs up on its own and creates a "need" that no
one knew they had. Take the development of the Internet as a key
example. In 1985, there weren't any people walking around
saying, "damn -- if only I had a global computer network and a
mobile device, I could be looking at porn right now while I text
my mother." And yet, twenty years later, the Internet has become
something we can't live without. The development of technology
is sometimes like evolution in that it can seem as sometimes
purposeful, and sometimes random.
"You said earlier the Loroi would be impressed at human
technological advancement. While we know the historians don't
let Loroi enter their databases, I can't see the other members
of the alliance having no networking tech on the Internet level
at the very least. How can a TL9+ society like that exist
otherwise?"
Everyone has computer networking technology; the question is
what you do with it. The Internet is as much a cultural
phenomenon as it is a technological one. You can see in places
like China that authoritarian regimes have a very different idea
of what the networks should be used for than we do in the West.
The telepathic Loroi have little use for the kind of Internet
that we enjoy, but other races may have different uses for their
networks.
The Loroi would be on the slow end of the technological
progression curve (for a variety of reasons that I have
mentioned), but the majority of the local races are also pretty
conservative in terms of rate of progress; nearly all of them
are pretty old races that had civilizations that were blasted
back to the stone age at the fall of the Soia empire, and took a
long time to venture back out into space. Most relied heavily on
Soia-era examples to prop them back up again, and so many treat
technological advancement as much as an archaeological exercise
as an innovative one. Some are more inventive than others: the
Pipolsid are a standout, and lead the Union in drive and some
computing technologies. The Umiak advanced relatively rapidly,
not because of their creativity, but more because of the mania
that drives them to constantly improve, where other races may be
more content with the status quo. Humans are on the high end of
this scale: capable and creative, and with a society that
encourages change and rewards innovation. The Loroi will be
impressed with the rate of human progress more so because of the
fact that we did it without any Soia examples to follow, but I
think they probably don't realize that relying on ancient tech
may be more of a retarding influence in the long run than a
help.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loroi males are wards of the state, and from birth most live
separately from the females, in cloistered communities that
would have some things in common with monasteries (and other
things in common with brothels). Any careers that Loroi males
wish to take part in have to take into account that they are
going to be professionally separated from female society as a
whole. Most of these cloisters are probably going to be like the
civilian Loroi female guilds, in that they're organized around a
particular profession, and often federated into large orders or
fellowships, and some will have many branches and even
sub-specialties. Unlike the females who are usually expected to
stay in the guild or caste of her mother and relatives, males
are less constrained by family ties and would have more freedom
of mobility between orders and cloisters, with the caveat that
there will often be few local cloisters to choose from, and the
professions practiced in these cloisters will be limited to
non-military (and usually non-technical) specialties. Males will
not generally be involved in government or administration, but
there are always exceptions to every rule.
In medieval Japan, the high-class courtesans were often secluded
in a fancy walled/gated section of town that was entered only by
appointment, and with great ceremony --- this would be a fair
description of a typical cloister for Loroi males. That there
was an important social, artistic and intellectual component to
the "geisha" experience (in addition to the sexual one) would
also be an appropriate analogy.
The visual arts, especially as regards historical or mythical
depictions (as with the Tempest tapestry) would be a very
appropriate profession for Loroi males, especially those in the
philosopher orders.
Regarding the relative size of male Loroi sexual apparatus, keep
in mind that while Loroi males are smaller in stature than human
males, Loroi females are the same size as human females, and so
Loroi males will need equipment of the appropriate size to get
the job done. Consider also the frequency with which many males
are going to be using their equipment, and I think that it's
logical to expect that Loroi gear would have to be "professional
grade."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"how long is the gestation period for a
Loroi female?"
8 months. However, given high medical technology and the busy
nature of warrior mothers, it is probably common to induce birth
very early.
I'm thinking more like an advanced high-tech incubator, so the
mother can pop it out a few months early without too much risk,
and avoid some of the worst of the late pregnancy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you might expect of a warrior culture in which peacetime
overpopulation is a potential problem, Loroi concepts of
health/eugenics and of crime and punishment will seem harsh by
our standards.
Most detectable physical defects will result in the artificial
termination of a pregnancy long before the fetus becomes viable.
A warrior child must pass health standards to even begin the
child-band training regime; a child that fails is ether expelled
from the warrior class (and delivered into the civilian system
that is slightly less harsh) or killed outright. Every warrior
child is legally bound to some entity who is responsible for
her, either a parent, relatives, or some form of local
government. Until she completes the warrior trials and becomes a
legal adult citizen (or is expelled from the system altogether),
every warrior child is essentially the property of her legal
guardian, who can have her expelled or put to death at any time,
and for any reason. The legal guardian is also responsible for
the child's actions: crimes committed by the child will result
in legal charges against both the child and the guardian. As you
can imagine, this system allows very little tolerance of chronic
criminal misbehavior. The civilian system will be less draconic
and more tolerant, but the shame of being expelled from the
warrior class leads many of those who are spared outright
execution to commit suicide.
Regarding mental illness, their very high medical technology and
telepathic ability will give them effective tools to deal with
mental illness, but individuals who do not respond to
rehabilitation will probably be euthanized. This may seem unduly
harsh, but in a society where one individual can literally harm
another just by thinking about it, incorrigible criminality or
untreatable mental illness is not something that can be solved
by locking the person up. And remember that this is a culture
that sends its children out into the wilderness to fend for
themselves.
Males are considered civilians and so would fall under the less
harsh version of eugenic hygiene and criminal liability, but a
violent or untreatably insane male would probably still have to
be destroyed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the case of a warrior child, it's completely subjective and
up to whoever is legally responsible for the child. This is
really not very different from the way most human cultures have
been throughout most of history; if a child seriously offended
his head of household, the child could usually be disowned and
kicked out of the house. In most places and times, the survival
prospects for such a child were not good. But this was and is a
last resort.
Most Loroi caregivers are not going to be eager to put children
to death. Most transgressions are going to be punished by more
conventional means, probably heavy on the corporal punishment.
Serious transgressions (including cowardice or weakness) will
result in expulsion from the warrior class. Only the most
violent, incorrigible cases (or the most cruel, sadistic
guardians) will result in the actual execution of a child.
For adults, the behavior limits and punishments for breaking
them will be set in law, the same as in our system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"How do the civilians treat failed
warriors? With deference because even though they failed they
still were given the chance? No different from any other
civilian? With derision for their failure? A mixture depending
on the individual?"
I think this has to be the correct answer. But it's worth
pointing out that a significant percentage of the civilian
population will consist of failed warriors.
To elaborate on my edit above, a pretty significant percentage
of the civilian population will be failed warriors or descended
from failed warriors, so there probably isn't a huge benefit or
stigma either way. I can see both extremes of reactions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, it also provides the warrior class a pretext for not doing
so, in that they can view the civilian class as already having
proven themselves as unworthy, being descended from failed
warrior stock.
Although I suppose it simultaneously provides an out for
allowing civilians of great merit back into the warrior class...
if they were of warrior stock originally.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, it also provides the warrior class a pretext for not doing
so, in that they can view the civilian class as already having
proven themselves as unworthy, being descended from failed
warrior stock.
Although I suppose it simultaneously provides an out for
allowing civilians of great merit back into the warrior class...
if they were of warrior stock originally.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main combatants in Outsider will need to use some sort of
matter-annihilation fuel to power their starships. It could be
antimatter, but that is problematic to store, and from what I
understand, very expensive to produce. I imagine the possibility
of a different, more exotic type of annihilation fuel: one that
is less expensive to produce, perhaps a little less volatile,
but that can still be converted into energy on demand, given the
proper conditions. I have referred to the Loroi version as
"Type-A conversion fuel". It's possible that other races have
their own alternatives. Or it could be that these "alternatives"
are really just exotic forms of antimatter. Torpedoes would use
the same fuel and reactor type.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since I think the biggest problem with antimatter is the massive
energy cost to produce it, I like to imagine Type-A fuel as some
sort of hydrogen or helium nuclei excited by some arcane process
into an exotic, excited quantum state, in which you can
annihilate it just by poking it in the right way. Such fuel
would probably never be "safe", but it couldn't be much worse
than antimatter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to the range limitations, Fireblade's maximum
telekinetic force output is about 6,500 lbs, or around 30,000
Newtons. That can do nightmarish damage to a living target, a
wall or door, or a device you might encounter in small-unit
combat, but it's going to be small potatoes compared to the
terawatt damage potential of ship weaponry... even if you had a
large PK amplifier that increased power by several orders of
magnitude.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most Loroi subcultures cremate their dead... funerary pyres seem
to have been a common aspect of many Earthbound warrior
cultures. In addition to the pragmatic aspects of cremation vs.
burial, it prevents desecration of the bodies of the honored
dead. Details of the ceremonies would differ by subculture. Most
would, I think, dispose of the ashes in some manner so that they
could not be easily found, and if there is any memorial marker
to the deceased, it would be an empty cenotaph.
In the Loroi fleet, pragmatism would dictate that casualties be
jettisoned in most cases, but not before being incinerated, so
that a warrior's body is not subjected to the indignity of
floating in space for eternity.
Of course, the human corpses that Tempest has recovered are far
too valuable to the Loroi to be disposed of.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"do the loroi believe their souls ( or
what ever their equivalent) is released from the bodies ??? or
is/are their any traditions for the loroi for their dead in this
regard ???"
There are probably many different beliefs among the Loroi on the
subject, just as there are among humans. The warrior-oriented
philosopher's orders teach that immortality is achieved in
living an illustrious life that is remembered and retold in
telepathic tales, but it doesn't refer to an actual afterlife.
However, I'm sure various Loroi sub-cultures have come up with
alternative religious beliefs, including some borrowed from
alien cultures.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite their warrior ethos, the Loroi are pragmatic -- they
know a dead warrior can't fight. They also don't believe in an
afterlife, as such. So although they recognize that death is an
unavoidable part of war, they realize that staying alive is
important. Loroi can fight tenaciously in the face of certain
death, but they are aware of their own value and are not eager
to spend their lives cheaply, and so will retreat in the face of
unfavorable odds, when it is reasonable to do so. And, personal
relationships are important to them, so they grieve the loss of
friends as much as we would. That said, there is a superstitious
stigma associated with someone who has survived too many times
when her comrades have died, particularly in the fleet where the
loss of a ship often means the loss of all hands. This has as
much to do with the Loroi concept of luck as it does with a
concern over personal valor -- Loroi regard luck as a zero-sum
affair. Standing next to a lucky person is often seen as a very
dangerous place to be. As much as the Loroi adore their heroes,
they become disturbed when one survives too many scrapes when
her comrades are killed.
In such a long and bloody war, nearly every single Loroi that
Alex comes into contact with will have had personal experience with
death. Casualties have been very heavy over a very long period,
and any Loroi warrior, even one not directly involved in
front-line fighting, will have lost many friends. For the crews
of raider squadrons such as Strike Group 51, who have been very
active at the front in recent years, death has been a constant
companion. Umiak weaponry is deadly; even in a minor skirmish,
entire Loroi ships are lost, and especially on raider duty,
there is rarely time to hunt for survivors.
For the older generation, the war will most likely have claimed
a large majority of their friends. Given the desperate nature of
the Loroi position for a large portion of the war, veterans had
to be left on the front lines more or less until they were
killed. Front-line commanders as old as Stillstorm have become
relatively rare. Most of the pre-war generation who have not
already been killed will have been promoted out of harms way.
Having matured in a time of peaceful Loroi supremacy, the dark
years of the war will have been more than many of the older
Loroi could bear -- many who survive can't bear the loss of so
many friends over such a long period. Stillstorm lost nearly
everyone she knew in the Semoset collapse -- sisters, daughters,
friends -- and was herself critically injured when her own ship
was destroyed at Tasinei. She spent years being pieced back
together (mentally and physically) before she was able to return
to the front lines.
For the younger generation that has known nothing but war, death
is something that touches their lives on a regular basis, but it
is something they have always known. Talon and Spiral have been
pulled off interceptor duty and forced to pilot shuttles because
they are the last survivors of their diral band, and Talon (at
age 13) is nearly the oldest fighter pilot aboard ship. Beryl's
mother was killed at Mosi during the Tasinei battle shortly
after Beryl was born aboard her mother's cruiser. Fireblade lost
her home and everyone she knew when Seren was occupied (and
later purged) by the Umiak, and has survived two lost ships (a
distinction not appreciated by her fellows).
As to how the Loroi react to loss, I don't think it's that
different from how humans would, although the Loroi find
themselves in unusual circumstances. Loroi morale is a very
important issue in the current conflict, and it's an issue that
I intend to explore in some detail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ashrain is the captain of Black Razor, the battlecruiser
featured in the foreground of the second panel of page 59.
Stillstorm is both the commander of Strike Group 51 and the
captain of Tempest; Loroi line admirals don't like to give up
the formal status of captain, although they may have
high-ranking executive officers that perform many of a captain's
tasks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although the existence of the Farseers is common knowledge,
non-Loroi won't know many details about them. They are generally
not seen by outsiders, and the Loroi don't talk about them.
There is a Farseer currently aboard Tempest, but we won't see
her for a while, and so unfortunately most of the details about
her and Farseers in general will have to remain under wraps
until then.
The male philosopher order has a sect that has similar abilities
to the Farseers and performs a similar function, and Rain, the
male character mentioned above, is one such. These philosopher
seers are used for domestic purposes -- things like census and
the telepathic version of public opinion polls. Males would not
normally be used in a "military" Farseer capacity, as this
entails significant hazard.
The "military" female Farseers are technically a civilian caste,
even though their job is dangerous and they are sometime
assigned aboard military vessels. Warrior children are not used
as Farseers; a warrior child with Farseer-quality abilities will
probably be used as a Mizol or some other type of military
telepathic specialist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Under Greywind's martial law, all civilian industry is under
direct military control, so there will be a lot of uniformed
military administrative personnel who sit behind desks, but the
majority of jobs in the industrial sector will be civilian. Any
craft or trade specialty is almost exclusively civilian. The
military must have its own mechanics (and medics), but they're
really just operators... the "doctor" on board Tempest is really
a medical technician: she operates the advanced medical
machinery that actually does most of the doctoring. Shipboard
engineering will be much the same. Ground and orbital bases, on
the other hand, will have much more of a civilian presence,
including an alien civilian presence. When it comes to civilian
jobs, the Loroi will often be just as happy to have aliens
working in their drydocks as Loroi civilians -- if not happier,
as certain aliens are probably better at certain jobs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farseers are not living FTL radios. A Farseer's ability (and her
available instrumentality) is centered around reception, not
transmission. Broadcasting an amplified telepathic transmission
that could be received (even by a Farseer) at interstellar
distance is dangerous to nearby Loroi, and so (except in an
extreme emergency) can only be attempted from specially
prepared, safe locations. This means that FTL messages can be
sent from HQ to Farseers in the field, but generally not the
other way around. Only high-priority messages can afford to be
sent in this way; the vast majority of communication must still
be done with conventional courier starships like Mozin's.
And, as has been mentioned, Farseers are a limited resource and
with a limited useful functional lifespan, and so must be used as
sparingly as possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The number of active Loroi warships would probably be over one
thousand, considering the size of the empire and the number of
ships required on each front. A long time ago I had numbers of
ships for each class listed (as they are in the Terran version
of the fleet list), but I eventually realized that the total
indicated number was far too small, and also that it would be a
good idea to leave myself some wiggle room by not being quite so
specific. High production rates and regular heavy losses will mean that
this number fluctuates significantly over time.
The Loroi fleet comprises six sector fleets, each of which
should be well over a hundred vessels. Each sector fleet will
include a number of system-defense task forces (mostly cruisers
and smaller vessels) that usually stay at a particular system,
at least one major heavy combat unit (with heavy battleships and
usually the sector command ship) that moves to engage incoming
assaults, and a number of fast-raider strike groups that are
constantly harassing the enemy, either interdicting incoming
assaults or raiding enemy systems. The seventh fleet, the Tellai
reserve (which includes the Emperor's personal squadron), is
normally used to plug holes in the line, but it has in recent
years swelled greatly in size. Even though a large number of
ships will move to counter incoming Umiak assaults, the size of
the Loroi empire and the length of travel time will limit how
many Loroi ships can concentrate in one place at one time. So,
usually a large-scale battle will involve the targeted system's
defense fleet, the sector heavy fleet, a small portion of the
reserve, and any neighboring sector fleet ships or raider
squadrons that could be summoned in time. A large system defense
battle will probably include a hundred or so Loroi warships, and
often several times that number on the Umiak side.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred's question is from a different thread, but I think it's
worthwhile to reference here. Although it's true that manpower
shortages must be a fleet-wide problem after so many years of
war, they are most acutely felt in the sector fleets, and
specifically in the raider fleets like Strike Group 51. Greywind
is attempting a strategy analogous to one the Russians used at
Stalingrad; once confident that her sector defensive fleets can
repel the regular Umiak attacks locally, she is committing the
bare minimum to these local fleets to allow them to hold the
line, and then diverting everything else to her reserves in the
hope of using them for an offensive at the moment in which the
enemy shows a vulnerability. The regular Umiak assaults are
suicidal but designed specifically to inflict heavy casualties
on the Loroi, and in this the Umiak are very adept, so the
current Loroi strategy is to commit only minimal reserve forces
to these battles. This is of course very hard on the sector
fleets, but it is especially hard on the interdiction groups
like Tempest's, as these groups are constantly redirected to a
new threat, and are resupplied in the field as much as possible,
so it may be months or even years before they can return to base
for proper repair, refit, and full re-staffing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Granted that telepathy of the kind we're talking about is not
the most realistic of science fiction elements; although were
are going to have to make some less-than solid assumptions to
explain how it works, that doesn't necessarily mean we have to
just throw up our hands and say "oh well, it's space opera,
don't worry about it."
Telepathy of the kind that we have in Outsider is dependent on
the idea that there must be some real physical quality to
consciousness. A telepath in this case is not attempting to
decode brainwaves, but rather somehow to connect with another
mind... and by "mind" I'm not referring to a physical brain, but
this concrete quality of consciousness. This is the shaky
assumption that we have to start with, but it does allow for the
possibilities we need: that telepathy cannot (easily) be
reproduced by artificial means, that alien minds might possibly
be compatible, and that information can be exchanged more or
less instantaneously at great distance.
At the same time, there must be some connection to the physical
world, as there are touch and range limitations, and the
possibility of amplification or dampening. Also, the ability of
minds to connect varies from species to species, so it's
possible for an alien mind's thought processes to be so
inscrutable as to limit or prevent such connections.
In the case of a Loroi telepath trying to explain to a
colorblind Golim what "red" is, there are two possibilities I
can think of: one, the Golim fails to understand the reference.
Two: the Golim understands what the Loroi perceives as red,
regardless of whether it can see the color itself. In the case
of the Golim, the compatibility between minds is so good that
the Golim is probably able to comprehend the concept of colors
it can't see, and experience something of the world in the way
that a Loroi sees it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's true that forms of sign language almost certainly played an
important role in communication between foreign tribes in early
pre-literate human pre-history, but it's hard to imagine that it
will be important in starship-era interactions, where meetings
will mostly be planned affairs where interpreters are available,
and even the most impromptu interactions in the absence of
diplomats will be aided by software translation tools. Even the
Umiak, who lack the physical apparatus to form the sounds of the
Trade language, can communicate clearly with the aid of
mechanical translators.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's essentially what I meant by option two: the Golim uses
the Loroi's perception to experience "red." The Golim may not
know what to make of this sensation, and will be at a loss to
explain it to other Golim, but will probably be able to retain
the memory of it after contact is broken. You can see why many
Golim will view enthrallment by nearby Loroi as a
near-transcendental experience, and far from resenting it or
avoiding such contact, may actually seek it out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The vast majority of melee-era Earth warrior cultures had long
hair, so I don't think it's an accurate statement to say that
long hair is a significant drawback in hand-to-hand fighting.
Modern soldiers cut their hair very close for issues of hygiene,
and of soldierly social tradition (losing one's individuality
and becoming one of the rank and file).
And the last item is surely why you don't see as many
shaven-headed soldiers in fiction; it's harder to tell them
apart.
And it's also the rationale behind the Loroi hair rituals. The
Loroi children are raised as warriors with long hair in the
child bands, then they are homogenized as soldiers with the
passage into adulthood and the ritual shaving of heads; then as
they age they grow their hair back in their own distinctive
styles, regaining their individuality as warriors.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was other people, not me, who were saying you couldn't fly
with PK. The lack of a counterforce is not an issue... if you
can apply an arbitrary force to a physical object, there's no
reason that object can't be your own body.
A psychokinetic who can generate enough force to lift her own
body (and who has enough fine control to avoid slamming into
walls) will be able to fly. Mothwing can do this, but I don't
know that we'll get an opportunity to see her do it. Fireblade
lacks the control to perform delicate flying maneuvers, but it's
easy to imagine that this ability helped her to survive the loss
of her ship on more than one occasion.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acceleration of a fighter (like a larger ship) is going to be
limited by engine output vs. ship mass, and not by the amount of
G force the pilot can take. If we accept that the fluid medium
can allow the pilot to withstand 40G, then I don't think another
few Gees more or less is going to make or break the deal.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vulcans are described as telepathic, but I haven't seen any
mention or evidence of psychokinetic Vulcan abilities. The
Vulcan ability to enter a deep healing coma/trance seems more
biological than anything telepathic or psychokinetic related.
But yes, if you had telekinesis and excellent control, and
especially if you had a way to sense the location and status of
a person's internals, I can definitely see PK being used in a
medicinal way. In Wendy Pini's Elfquest the elf "magic" was
really psionics, and though their abilities
were handled in a way that was more magic than science, there
are some parallels. PK was specialized to a medium -- wood
shapers, rock shapers, or flesh shapers (healers). Skilled
healers could do more than heal -- the villainess Winnowill
could use her healing abilities to injure or cause pain, and she
could "shape" the flesh of a living target, as she did to her
henchman Tyldak, transforming him into a bat-like winged form.
Such healing applications of PK would be possible for Loroi, but
I think the efficacy of technological medicine at this tech
level would largely replace them, except for more subtle or more
archaic uses. I can easily see an archaic, empathic PK healer
being male.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since Tempo explicitly states that the title is in recognition
of Alex's command of a vessel, I thought it should be clear that
this is the naval version of a captain.
A Commodore is a captain who at some point commanded a squadron
of ships, but it is often an honorary title (similar to the
honorary title of "captain" for the commander of a small ship
who does not have the rank of Captain). At one point in the US
Navy it was a 1-star (O-7) rank equivalent to Brigadier General
(a Rear Admiral being equivalent to Major General), but it has
since been dropped except for honorary titles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Alex is addressed as "Captain" or "Ambassador", these are
going to be Trade words referring to the generic positions of
commander of a vessel and diplomatic envoy, respectively. Alex
is not being given a specific Loroi caste rank (such as Torret
or Parat), but rather his foreign status is being recognized.
This version of "Captain" will be the same word used to refer to
the Barsam courier captain, Mozin. Loroi, on hearing this title,
will be expected to show him adequate respect due to one of his
station (as captaincy is a big deal among the Loroi), but Alex
has no official Loroi military standing.
Yet.
As far as the Terran military is concerned, Alex is indeed the
de-facto captain of Bellarmine and, more importantly, commander
of the mission (such as it is) -- but his rank has not
increased, he's still just an Ensign Second-class. If any member
of the Bellarmine crew of a rank higher than that was to
suddenly appear, that officer would take over command.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That would depend on the situation and what Alex and the new
officer agreed upon -- they might agree that it would be
simplest to keep things as they are, or they might agree to
explain to the Loroi that the new officer is in charge. Assuming
that the Loroi agreed to this -- assuming that they didn't take
an instant dislike to the new officer, for example -- in the
case of diplomatic titles, this would mean that the new officer
would be designated as "head of the mission", and Alex would be
relegated to a "member of the mission", but both would be
addressed with the title of "Ambassador." Alex might keep the
title of attaché, but that would be an arbitrary decision. In
the case of military titles, if they explained that the new
officer was technically captain, then the new officer would
probably be accorded that title, and they would go back to
addressing Alex as "Ensign" (the Loroi having no idea what rank
this title means).
However, I don't think it will surprise you if I say this is not
going to happen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main division in the modern military between an officer and
an enlisted man (correct me if I'm mistaken) is that the officer
is expected to have a college education or equivalent, and the
enlisted man is not. So in a highly technical environment, like
say the reactor room of a submarine, it would seem to me that
the only reason to have a job performed by an enlisted man
instead of an officer, other than tradition, is that the
enlisted man costs less.
Spaceflight is very expensive. Today there are millions of
people competing for just a handful of astronaut positions, so
NASA will not even consider you without a degree (and more
likely multiple advanced degrees). If you watch NASA tv, you'll
see that the vast majority of what the astronauts do on the
shuttle and the space station is some incredibly menial stuff --
you've got Ph.D's fixing air conditioning and cleaning toilets.
And that's plain pragmatism... when there are ten million
applicants for 100 jobs, and it costs $5,000 per pound to lift
someone into orbit, it doesn't make sense not to hire very
well-educated, well-qualified people for every single available
slot. And in space, you really need the best people you can get,
as the most trivial problem can become deadly very quickly.
Starflight is also going to be very expensive, and the Scout
Corps jobs in particular are going to be very sought after. So I
just don't see the logic in non-commissioned ranks for the Scout
Corps, though they may still exist in the more traditionally
military Colonial Marines or Colonial Fleet. This means that
some very highly trained people are going to sometimes be
mopping floors or slinging hash (or doing damage control), but
this makes perfect sense to me.
I'd also like to think that "higher" education will become the
norm rather than the exception in the future, but that may just
be excessively optimistic of me.
As an aside, in my opinion the arbitrary division between
officer and enlisted ranks has more to do with the tradition of
European social class divisions than it has to do with military
practicality, particularly as the military gets more and more
technically advanced. I listen to stories of the grizzled
ex-Marine gunnery sergeant and his dealings with the lieutenants
and captains, twenty years his junior, who he reported to, and
he makes no effort to hide his open contempt for them. He told
me once that he literally dressed down a new lieutenant who
tried to do some work himself (and give direct instructions to
the men). Ostensibly the sergeant's objection was that because
he's an officer, the soldiers shouldn't see him getting his
hands dirty, but really it was because the officer was stepping
on his authority with the men, and because he assumed the
officer by definition was an inexperienced dolt and didn't know
what he was doing. I can't even count the number of ways this
situation is unhealthy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just being a member of the Scout Corps is special; there's
nothing "extra special" about being a Scout Corps officer,
because all Scout Corps members are officers. This is like
saying, what's so special about a NASA Astronaut officer?
Nothing -- they're all "officers." However, we're still dealing
with a rank system... being a Commander or a Captain or an
Admiral is still more prestigious than being an Ensign Second
Class.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don’t have an exhaustive list of all the Umiak client states.
The Umiak empire is much more closed than the Loroi Union;
outsiders generally aren’t allowed past the frontier systems,
and the client states in the interior are not much seen or heard
from, and so the don't have much information on many of them.
The client states on the frontier sometimes retain a certain
degree of nominal autonomy, as the Umiak have to worry about the
possibility of them switching sides if they are regulated too
harshly. So, the only Umiak client states that we are likely to
hear from before the war is over are those on the periphery: the
Tenuki, Morat, Lurs and Tithric along the Seren/Tinza front, the
Jilaad on the Maiad front, and now the Orgus on the far side of
the northern reach of the Umiak sphere of influence.
There probably isn’t enough there to warrant an Umiak version of
the Loroi Union page, so I’ll probably at some point convert the
Union page into a full listing of all the aliens.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The surviving Tithric are either in refugee habitats provided
for them in Umiak territory, or subsisting amongst the ruins of
the Tithric worlds. In either case, they are not of any
substantial aid to the Umiak war effort.
Here are the entries I have on the Umiak client states so far:
Race: Morat
Affiliation: Dependent Ally
Biology: Separated by less than a million years from the
pre-Soia common ancestor with their Delrias cousins, the Morat
are smaller and sleeker, and with a more varied diet and a less
martial culture. Considered "degenerate scavengers" by the
purely carnivorous Delrias, the Morat are nonetheless quite
dangerous in personal combat.
Notes: Not unlike the Delrias, the Morat exhibit a nationalist
pride, born of their ancestral history of pre-Soia galactic
empire, that belies their current status as a client state.
Prior to the war, the Morat had been Umiak trading partners in
the Seren region, but were independent-minded and had strongly
resisted Umiak pressure for more binding ties. The Morat had
helped facilitate early contact between Loroi and Umiak, but
Morat reaction to the Loroi was suspicious: while very
interested to learn of the existence of their ancient Delrias
kin, the Morat were not not pleased to find them under Loroi
occupation. Expansion of both the Loroi and Umiak into the Seren
sector hemmed in and squeezed out any ambitions of Morat
expansion. The Morat finally acceded to Umiak influence at the
start of the war when the Loroi forced the issue by using Morat
space for their failed 2136 counterattack. The Morat are still
technically a sovereign power, and Morat fleets continue to
fight alongside their Umiak allies, but Loroi raids have ravaged
much of Morat territory, and the Morat are now almost wholly
dependent on the Umiak for their survival.
Race: Lurs
Affiliation: Subjugated Population
Biology: 6 m tall lanky giants, bipedal, use long arms for
secondary locomotion.
Notes: The Lurs were already firmly under the Umiak thrall when
the Loroi first contacted them in the early 2100's. They were
seen occasionally in Morat ports, but kept to their own affairs
and did not engage in much contact with the Loroi. Forming a
wedge between Morat and Tithric territory, Lurs space is
believed by Loroi intelligence to be a major forward industrial
region, but it has been out of the reach of Loroi raiders and so
is relatively untouched.
Race: Tenuki
Affiliation: Partially Amalgamated Population
Biology: Small (1m), round, bipedal, bushy tails
Notes: The Umiak had already expanded just past Tenuki territory
when they met the Loroi, and had begun the process of absorbing
the feisty Tenuki. Tenacious but pragmatic, the Tenuki valued
their freedom but recognized that their only way of retaining
some self-determination would be to aid the Umiak as vigorously
as they could. It was from the Tenuki border that the Umiak
launched the first strikes of the war against the Loroi, and the
Tenuki have been beyond Loroi contact ever since.
Race: Tithric
Affiliation: Dependent Ally
Biology: Sluglike gastropods
Notes: Situated in a precarious location on the coreward end of
the Steppes front, the Tithric desired to remain neutral in the
war, but did not have the political unity to make neutrality
work. Local systems seeking to profit from the overtures offered
by both sides made independent deals, most notably permitting
Umiak forces to pass through their territory to raid Loroi
systems. The Loroi pressed the Tithric to stop this, but the
central government was too weak and corrupt to control its own
systems, leaving the Loroi little option but to conduct
interdiction raids into Tithric space. These attacks unified the
Tithric and prompted the formation of a stronger central
government (and a formal alliance with the Umiak), but it was
too late: the Loroi laid waste to the region. Though destroyed
as a functioning nation, the Tithric are not extinct; some
refugees escaped into Umiak territory, and survivors on several
of the devastated Tithric worlds continue to eke out an
existence, mostly cut off from the interstellar community.
Race: Jilaad
Affiliation: Subjugated Population
Biology: Three-lobed coral-polyp head/body, long spindly legs
Notes: Prior to the war, the Jilaad in the southern reaches of
the Maiad sector were more concerned with resisting the
encroaching Loroi sphere of influence than they were about the
still-distant Umiak. But by 2139, the Umiak had expanded into
contact with Jilaad territory, and the Umiak, desperate to open
a new front against the Loroi, ran over the Jilaad like a
freight train. Overrun, and further isolated by the new no-man's
land created in the Maiad sector in 2151, it is not known how
the Jilaad are faring under Umiak control.
Race: Orgus
Affiliation: Subjugated Population
Biology: Squat, three-limbed
Notes: The Orgus specialized in up-arm trade, on the far side of
the Umiak sphere of influence from the Loroi point of view. They
refused Umiak requests to join in the far-away war against the
Loroi, and also attempted to maintain the exclusivity of their
trading contacts by barring the passage of Umiak exploratory
vessels. As the Umiak expanded ever closer, the tension grew
until, somewhat unexpectedly, the Umiak invaded in 2158 and
swiftly took control. A few long-range traders were able to use
their knowledge of the periphery to escape the invasion. Some
went up-arm, but one was forced to flee in the direction of
Human territory, and is now under Human protection.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the Milky Way maps I've seen have galaxy spinning clockwise
relative to "up" (galactic North), so that's left-hand-rule. You
have coreward, rimward, spinward, antispinward, and galactic
north and south (up and down out of the plane of the galaxy,
respectively). Loroi space is rimward and south of human space.
From the Steppes border depicted in the map on page 59, Umiak
territory is spinward (toward the top of the map) and Loroi
territory is antispinward (toward the bottom of the map).
Bellarmine will have come "down" into Naam from the right and
from the plane "above" the map.
I have maps that are incomplete and inaccurate, and obviously I
need to make some that are fit for public consumption, but
that's a bigger job than it sounds like.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"is that why the loroi/umiak space is at
about 200 LY?"
The mechanics of the story require it: human space has to be far
enough away so that the aliens have not already stumbled across
it, yet near enough so as to be reachable by the Orgus and human
scouts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The gravitational episode in 1436 would not have been the
initial collapse of the black hole, but rather a "burp" related
to some other activity. The Well of Souls is at least several
million years old. But in answer to your question, there is no
known black hole candidate to use for the Well of Souls. For
one, there are no known black hole candidates (that I'm aware
of) closer than 2,700 light years. For another, the vast
majority of the black hole candidates that we know of are only
visible because they are in binary systems and are eating the
companion, and this is inappropriate for the Well of Souls,
which is an isolated body. If the Well of Souls were real, I
don't think our astronomers would know about it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I got a good chuckle out of the first part, and I agree with the
second -- you can debate about whether the Terran fleet could
defeat a small number of ships, but I don't think there's any
way (at this point) they could withstand a determined assault by
one of the combatants unless they had significant aid from the
other. And I don't think they would even try, unless they knew
help was imminent and sought only to delay the enemy for a few
days.
However, you can be sure that humanity is doing everything they
can right now to arm themselves, including crash programs to
complete unfinished ships. The problem, as many have mentioned,
is time.
Regarding the Terran Colonial Authority: the TCA is responsible
for chartering colonies, regulating all aspects of interstellar
trade, and acting as the interstellar police/military force for
humanity. All forms of spacecraft and especially starships will
have to be under rigorous control; individual nations cannot be
allowed to have their own military starships. Any starship, even
a civilian transport, is going to be a very dangerous weapon.
It's also going to be incredibly expensive, meaning that only
powerful nation-states and multinational megacorporations will
be able to afford them, at least early on.
The early colonization period is going to be a wild and wooly
time; you'll have Earth nations seeking to expand their power
offworld, corporations and other private organizations seeking
to formalize themselves as new nation-states in the colonies,
and a large émigré population working under a variety of unusual
frontier conditions under questionable legal jurisdiction and
questionable rule of law. The problems will be less about
outright piracy and more about the kinds of problems seen in
America's frontier period: conflicting claims, competing
jurisdictions, feuding colonists, local colonial powerbrokers
using strongarm tactics to oppress their people and terrorize
anyone who tries to bring them in line... and labor and populist
organizations that may be tempted to resort to violence in the
absence of legal protections. It's going to be hard for
Earthbound authorities to attempt to bring sanctions against the
Ares International Corporation for anticompetitive business
practices and their mistreatment of workers on Mars when Ares
has spaceships that can drop asteroids on Washington and Brussels
and Beijing. So somebody is going to have to take control early
or it will get out of hand fast.
Humanity probably got an early taste of the potential problems
to come with the pre-FTL colonization of Mars, so I think that
the TCA would have been formed very early in the interstellar
colonization process. It was probably formed as a consolidation
of several competing colonial treaty organizations, created
mainly by Earth nation-states, partly out of concern for the
rights of colonial citizens, but probably more urgently out of
concern for the growing power of private and corporate colonial
entities and the potential threat they could pose to Earth
nations. Different agencies for chartering colonies, providing
for supply, security and rule of law were consolidated under one
roof as the TCA. Such agencies don't normally give up power or
sovereignty readily, so it's reasonable to assume that this
event was spurred on by some impending crisis or conflict. The
threat of an imminent human civil war would also explain why the
TCA bothered to build heavy warships in the absence of an alien
enemy.
Whether or not you think it likely that the fractious humans
could unify themselves without first enduring a major
interstellar war, the existence of some kind of central human
authority is really a prerequisite for the events of the story.
If the human colonies were still in wild and wooly frontier
mode, I don't think Alex's mission could have been executed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The United Nations has no real legal authority and no means to
enforce its resolutions; it depends on the whims of senior
member nations (read: the United States) to fund it and actually
do anything that needs to be done. It's not a very good model to
follow. I think by 2160 there will almost certainly be a newer,
more effective Earth meta-government to help regulate planetside
international affairs, but this would not be the TCA.
The TCA will be somewhere in between NATO and the US Federal
Government in the scope of its powers, run by a delegation of
member states and a federal bureaucracy. No doubt the large
Earth nations will require some special concessions to sit down
at the same table with tiny colonial nations, perhaps in the
form of veto power or something like the bicameral system of the
US Senate and Congress, but the details aren't terribly
important in story terms. Member nations, in particular the
chartered colonies, will be required to adhere to a sort of bill
of rights, but otherwise TCA members remain independent,
sovereign nation-states, and may maintain their own planetside
militaries – only space-based forces, especially those with FTL
capability, are regulated by the TCA. Although the TCA does have
a Colonial Marines service, their main instrument of enforcement
is the threat of denying access to interstellar shipping, which
is critical to all of the colonies.
An important thing to consider when thinking about the colonies
is that each colony world is not going to be a monolithic
entity; each world may have dozens of independent colonies, set
up under different charters. Some will be on friendly terms and
may cooperate to form a planetwide meta-government, and some may
be on unfriendly or even hostile terms with each other. At the
current time, there are no major hostilities between the various
nation-states, and those that are unfriendly have temporarily
set aside their disagreements in view of the greater mutual
threat.
When a colony is first chartered, it is probably not yet
recognized as an independent nation, and will probably need a
sponsor, which will be an existing (usually Earth) nation-state,
a corporation, or occasionally the TCA itself. The goals that
the colony needs to reach will be explicitly specified in the
charter. A colony that has not yet earned statehood will
probably have a TCA governor, who might be appointed or elected,
but who probably has to be approved by the TCA.
Overpopulation may provide motivation for people to move
offworld to escape it, but this movement won’t significantly
reduce overpopulation on Earth, so it's not any kind of solution
for overpopulation. If Earth nations choose to subsidize the
movement of population to the colonies, it will be for other
reasons.
In our Age of Sail colonial period, it was common for colonists
to pay for transportation to the New World by agreeing to enter
into limited terms of indentured servitude. While indentures
will probably not be legal in this future, many colonists will
probably still agree to contracts that require a certain number
of years of employment in return for transport costs, which will
come due if the worker decides to quit early. So there is the
strong possibility of worker/employer conflict on that issue
alone, as frontier conditions are likely to be harsh, and
workers may be inclined to feel mistreated due to the fact that
they can't really quit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's also worth pointing out that torpedoes would be one of the
easiest alien technologies to retrofit into Terran vessels. If
the Terran fleet did get into combat, it's very likely that
they'd be loaded with alien torpedoes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, both sides have a variety of defense satellites that could
be transported and set up in relatively little time. I think,
however, that any transport convoy sent to deliver supplies to
Humanity is likely to be accompanied by at least a small
squadron of warships. Not just to protect the convoy, but to
make sure that the arms headed for your new ally don't end up in
the hands of your enemy's newer ally.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is certainly a biased comment, as it reflects the Loroi view
that their hyper-specialized society is "normal" and more
generalized societies are backward and possibly inferior.
However, her comment is in reference to other examples of what
the Loroi consider to be "warrior" races -- the Umiak,
Delrias and Barsam -- that also have biological strategies for
very aggressive population growth. But
it is true that without their high reproductive rate, the Loroi
probably would not have been able to keep up with the Umiak in
the current war.
As to the question of why the Loroi use females as warriors: the
biggest advantage to using females as your warrior gender is
that it allows you to have a large proportion of your population
as warriors without crippling your reproductive capacity. In the
era of starflight, ship crews don't need to be big and brawny,
so carrying around reproductive systems is not a real handicap.
You are putting your child-bearers in harm's way, but since
nearly your whole population can bear children, that's not
really a penalty.
Now there's an important element to consider here, and it's that
the Loroi (and Barsam, and to a lesser extent Umiak) came into
their current form in the era of starflight. When Beryl refers
to "adaptation," she's not talking about natural selection; when
a species exists for thousands of years at such a high level of
technology, it is reasonable to assume that artificial tailoring
(either intentional or unintentional) is going to be a factor.
The Loroi females -- all of them -- are meant to be
starflight-era warriors. The fact that their interstellar
civilization collapsed and they had to progress through a
primitive phase for which they were not specifically adapted,
and that there was no "worker" species available and so failed
warriors had to learn how to be craftsmen, was entirely
accidental... from the Loroi point of view.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assuming that your species is naturally evolved and not
engineered, having only 20% of your population available as
hunters/warriors may be a serious limitation during the
primitive phase of the species' development. In human
hunter-gatherer societies, typically all of the males (half the
population) are hunter/warriors, and the females are
gatherer/homemakers. The nice thing about hunting is that the
same skills and physical adaptations translate well to warfare.
50% of the population are skilled warriors available to fight
when needed, and during peacetime they add significantly to the
food collection capabilities of your tribe. Having a small
percentage of your people as hunter/warriors in this kind of
society is risky -- a defeat in battle could wipe out a
significant portion of your warrior population, leaving you
almost completely without protection against rival tribes. This
must be balanced against the higher reproductive capacity of the
tribe with more females, but I think in hunter-gatherer
societies the maximum population size is determined more by the
availability of food rather than the speed of reproduction, so a
neighboring tribe with a higher percentage of males could have a
significant advantage over you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As little as possible. Today, human babies are considered viable
at 24 weeks, or 2/3 of the full gestation period, though of
course with a reduced survival rate. Considering advanced Loroi
medical technology, and the hardy nature of Loroi babies, I
think survival at 2/3 full gestation could be made pretty
reliable, and possibly even pushed shorter than that. So I
wouldn't be surprised if many Loroi warriors during wartime cut
their pregnancies perhaps as short as 4 months.
However, I don't think that shorter gestation is the real key to
fast population growth, especially if the females are going to
be away fighting much of the time. Loroi give birth early so
that their fighting ability is less impacted by the pregnancy,
not so they can get pregnant again sooner. The availability of
90% of the population to give birth and the shorter maturation
times are going to have a much bigger impact.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My notion is that it's really our culture that makes us advance
rapidly. Human technology advanced very slowly throughout most
of human history, sometimes going forward and sometimes
backsliding with the fall of civilizations, until there arose a
culture in the West (around the time of the Renaissance) that
really valued innovation and rewarded change. Since then,
technology has really progressed on a steep curve for us,
progressing from medieval technology to starflight in not much
more than 500 years -- ten times faster than the Loroi.
What I think would be more impressive to the local aliens,
though, is that we did it mostly on our own, without the benefit
of historical knowledge of the Soia civilization, or examples of
artifacts to follow. The Umiak also progressed from a primitive
nomadic culture to starflight very rapidly, but they had a more
advanced local race to emulate and later steal from, something
they became very good at.
If you're asking how quickly Humanity can catch up, that depends
heavily on how much assistance they can get. But even just
seeing examples of what's possible can be a huge benefit to
technological progress -- it's a lot easier to find something if
you know what you're looking for.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
40 years ago, Earth population was around 3.5 billion, and there
was a lot of research stating that humanity had reached its
physical limits of food production, and shortages of every kind,
food riots and mass anarchy were imminent. (Also, pollution was
destroying the environment, and the ozone layer was
disappearing... and there was of course the looming nuclear war
that everyone was certain would happen.) Movies like Soylent
Green reflected the contemporary outlook of doom.
In the 40 years since then, Earth's population has doubled, from
3.5 to 7 billion. We are still nowhere near our food production
limits; the most agriculturally productive areas of the world
are today still some of the least populated. The world has not
descended into poverty or anarchy -- on the contrary, the world
is more prosperous and more peaceful than it was 40 years ago.
We have not resorted to living in domed megalopolises, or
underground, nor have we resorted to eating algae (or each
other). And yet the population continues to grow.
It's true that birth rates have started to tail off in developed
nations, and I think this trend will continue as Asia and Africa
develop further, but what I think the official estimates of
world population growth are missing is that I believe they
grossly underestimate the degree to which medical advances are
extending lifespans. The current average life expectancy today
is 65 years, but note: that's for a person who is 65 years old
today. Today's 65 year old was born into a world without
antibiotics, in which nearly everyone smoked and drank heavily
without a second thought. I wouldn't be surprised if average
life expectancy doubled in the next 50-100 years, and continued
to extend much farther than that. I don't think social planners
have really got their heads around the idea of a society in
which people are still having children but don't conveniently
drop dead when they're supposed to. I think it's very likely
that there are people alive today who will still be here in
2160.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The longest recorded human lifespan is 122 years, so we know
humans can already live twice as long as the average human does
today, even without advanced medical technology. It's just a
question of moving that average marker up toward the maximum.
It's already happening in developed countries: Japan's average
life expectancy leads at 81 years and rising (the US is at about
78). And this is just with improved living and medical care. But
the unlocking of the genome and advanced information and medical
technology has some much more fundamental changes in store for
us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a separate issue. What is good for the individual and
what is good for the whole are rarely compatible. Individuals
will certainly wish to extend their own lives, regardless of
what impact on the world this will have, and a government that
seeks to set a cap on how long people may live probably won't be
a government for very long (especially since the old people are generally
the ones in charge). Similarly, decisions about whether or not
to have children are made at the individual level, not at the
government level. Today reproduction is considered by most
societies to be a basic human right, and attempts to control
population growth have failed even in totalitarian countries. It
will be very difficult, if not impossible, to encourage (or
force) people to die early or forgo having children if they do
not want to, and the ecological impacts are just something we
are going to have to learn to deal with. I don't think humans
will bow to that kind of fundamental restriction until there is
no other option -- and that really can't happen until we're
already well past the point of overpopulation.
It's quite possible that a major disaster (most notably, a
worldwide pandemic) will significantly reduce worldwide
population, but that only delays the issue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Loroi Music: Do they have it? If so, I
assume it's purely instrumental?"
Yes, and yes. Well, let me clarify that a little. There is a
form of Loroi ritual music/performance art that is based on
ancient battle communications, which along with flags, drums,
horns and bells does include some shouted vocalizations. It was
sometimes possible to jam telepathic communication at close
range, so more primitive forms of command relay were often in
use during the ancient period.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes. Loroi telepathy works simultaneously on multiple levels:
one level is mostly subconscious and emotional, another level is
sort of like a data channel, and yet another level is symbolic
and structured, something like a language, to allow the use of
high-level tokens to speed the transfer of information. This
structured component requires conscious effort and skill to
organize, and a message can be composed artfully or it can be
composed clumsily. However, even at its most artful, sanzai is
still very direct... there is not much room for euphemism or
prevarication.
The closest thing to telepathic poetry would be in telepathic
storytelling, especially the ancient tales that are retold often
enough as to have a structure or a repetitive nature so as to
aid in memorization. Such storytelling can be simple or
elaborately artful, even to the extent of accompanying a
physical performance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Certainly the Loroi dress to impress, so we can expect that any
Loroi swimsuit is likely to be highly decorated, but showing off
a lot of skin probably won't be the main way to achieve being
noticed, except perhaps in very warm climes. Especially since
the people that one is showing off for are mainly other females.
Climate as well as local dress codes will vary considerably
among the different Loroi subcultures, so a "proper" swimsuit
might be a full-body wetsuit in Northern Taben or Deinar; or a
modest one-piece swimsuit in warmer, more liberal Maia; or a
topless bikini in the balmy Amenal islands of Equatorial Taben.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, the glowing rank tabs has been a design element since the
very early versions of the uniform designs. I always imagined
the bridge environment as very dark, and the lit rank tabs are
part practicality to prevent people walking into each other,
part formality to show which officer ranks are on duty, and part
cool.
Glowing stuff is cool.
If you take a closer look at the third panel of page 52 (or the
enlarged version thereof), hopefully you can see that the rank
tabs of all the officers except Tempo are lit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"how much time has actually taken place
between page 1 and page 55?"
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 72 hours.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, children are not born directly into the Torrai caste. But I
can certainly imagine children of influential Torrai being
fast-tracked through other castes and being passed through into
the Torrai at a comparatively young age.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tempest has only a few interceptors that are used almost
exclusively for point defense, so this is probably not a
high-profile enough subject to have its own seat on the
innermost bridge "ring". My notion was that hangar and small
craft operations would be handled from the subsystem section
(which reports to the SYS station on the inner ring), and that
coordination of deployed fighters would probably be handled by
the fire control staff.
No doubt a dedicated carrier would have more specialized
squadron command personnel on the bridge, or perhaps a separate
flight control room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although there won't be any scenes of Alex at a Loroi dinner
table, we will get a look at some examples of Loroi food items.
In chapter 2 there is some prepackaged food that gets passed
around, in addition to the tea/coffee alternative, and a
discussion of milk. Later, there is a scene with Alex and Tempo
in the Tempest arboretum where they are growing exotic Perrein
fungi for consumption, and there is a brief discussion of
strange Perrein delicacies.
In regards to the Rapier design, it is a formation defense light
cruiser, in the mold of WWII-era Atlanta cruisers, or the modern
Aegis cruisers. Rather than heavy anti-ship weaponry, it has a
lot of lighter weaponry designed to deal with torpedoes and
gunboats: six twin medium turrets, a pair of VLS-style AMM
launchers, and a bunch of point-defense lasers.
This ship went through a lot of design variations over a long
time, but I'm pretty happy with where it finally ended up.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most ships do not have a wave-loom device. The signature forward
prongs of Loroi warships house the generators and accumulators
for the primary (forward) defensive screens, so all warships
have them. The wave-loom tasks these same components as part of
the weapon, but currently they are only installed on a few
flagship-class vessels that have the power and space to spare
for the system.
And yes, the "stern" is the rear of the ship.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Additionally I'm curious as to why the
Loroi wouldn't use mine layers. Slowing down an army notorious
for swarm-tactics seems pretty smart, if for nothing else than
firing with impunity through them at attackers."
3D space being very large, mines will be of limited use, and
will have to be able to move in order to have any chance of
engaging a target; essentially, they'll be torpedoes. In any
case, you don't need any special apparatus to lay mines in
space; you just kick them out the airlock. Any ship should be
able to lay mines.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bridge is in the center of the ship, inside an armored ring.
The oblong silver dome on the top is meant to be an observation
gallery.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Where is the medical bay when Alex first
woke up?"
It's in the main "crew section" block, not far from the bridge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Usually your powerplant is going to have to be near the surface
of the vessel, if for no other reason than to facilitate heat
management. For the Loroi, the main powerplants are out in the
engine nacelles, and are part of the main engines.
In general, I think you want to put your command center in the
best protected part of the ship; if the enemy can penetrate a
shot into the thickest, best-protected part of your ship, then
it really doesn't matter where you put it. If you have a thickly
protected forward section that you can be sure will always be
presented toward the enemy, then placing the bridge aft might
make sense. I don't think that's the case for the Loroi.
Although the Loroi ships are designed with a doctrine oriented
toward keeping the enemy in front, that's an optimal situation,
and they need to be able to handle a less-optimal situation in
which a more-numerous enemy can swarm from any direction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex will certainly have had combat training as part of his
Academy curriculum -- the Scout Corps officers come from the
same pool of cadets as those of the Colonial Fleet -- but he's
no kung fu master. Most Loroi he might be put up against would
probably be more skilled at hand to hand fighting than Alex, but
he will probably significantly outweigh most of them. However,
trying to pick a fistfight with a male (albeit an alien one) is
probably not high on the list of things the Loroi would like to
do with Alex.
Fireblade's unarmed skill isn't higher because a) she doesn't
need it, and b) her uncontrolled PK makes sparring with a live
partner dangerous.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the subject of body language...
The starting point of the Outsider story concept is the humanoid
Loroi, and everything flows from there. Comics are a visual
medium, and so there are some tradeoffs to make, in contrast to
prose, in terms of the amount of expository detail that you can
cram in... being a webcomic is a further limitation on this, as
for web you have to use larger font sizes to maintain
readability, and this means less text per page than a print
comic. The alien culture of the Loroi is an important focus of
the story, but I also wanted to do a lot in terms of adventure
and battle and political chicanery and character development, so
in order to keep up the pacing I found I had to pick and choose
how alien the Loroi should be. A lot of the difficulties in
communication in the first-contact scenario got glossed over --
I had anticipated a lot more misunderstanding and untranslated
words in the first interchange between Alex and Beryl, but I
found in practice that it just didn't work very well. I had also
considered the question of whether the telepathic Loroi should be
expressionless or emotive, and the answer seemed clear: the
Loroi characters are important and need to be compelling, but
since many speak very little (or not at all), using the fact of
their humanoid similarity to allow them to use facial
expressions and body language that we recognize is crucial to
moving the story forward. They can still be alien, but they are
less alien in their appearance and in the mechanisms of
communication, and more alien in the structure of society and
their world view. The misunderstandings are at a higher level.
Imagine how differently we would feel about Beryl if she had
never smiled. Or Tempo if she was not doing... whatever it is
you would call what she's doing right now.
If Outsider were a more gritty hard-science story that was more
focused on the details of the first contact, I think I would
have chosen a much more alien race, both physically and
behaviorally. Prose is a better medium for that kind of story,
because there is room to go into a lot of fine detail about
what's going on. It could be done in comic form, but it would be
difficult... there would have to be tons more narration, and
trying to convey truly alien gestures to the reader in
non-moving panels would be a challenge. The details of learning
how to realistically communicate with aliens would be so
involved that they would have to be the story. Without the
familiar tools of human expression and language, it would be
hard to flesh out more than one or two alien characters. A story
like that could be very interesting, but that's not what I'm
going for in this case.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's possible that personal armor may get very heavy (if the
application warrants it), and it's possible that powered joints
or harnesses may develop to help the wearer handle the weight of
the armor and the weight of heavier equipment. But the Starship
Troopers style power armor exoskeleton that essentially turns
the infantryman into a superhero doesn't seem, realistically,
like a practical weapons system.
First, I think the hard-hitting, mobile armor/cavalry role is
better and more cheaply fulfilled by more conventional armored
vehicles or close support aircraft. Super strength is not a huge
advantage in a shooting fight (aside from the ability to carry
heavier weapons) and the humanoid form is not much of an
advantage in most situations that require speed and armor and
heavy firepower. It's hard to imagine something a powered
exoskeleton could do that a combination of conventional
infantry, armor, air and artillery forces couldn't do just as
well and more cheaply.
Second, even if you do decide you do have an application where
you want a heavy armored superstrong humanoid heavy-weapons
platform, it's much easier and cheaper to engineer it without
the human inside. And at the level of technology such a thing
would be possible, there's no reason to put a human inside.
Whether the unit is autonomous or remotely piloted, an unmanned
combat robot is going to have a significant advantage over a
manned exoskeleton, in terms of cost, effectiveness, and safety
for the operator (if any). Hybrid systems like cyborgs could
also be practical, but you start to run into ethical
considerations (at least, in a society like ours), and the
biological component is still often going to be the weakest link
in the system.
As you get into the levels of technology required for super-tech
Crysis style suits, then that's a different equation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defense is very important to the Umiak, because since they lack
Farseers, effective defense for them means stacking every border
system with substantial fleets and very aggressively patrolling
the outlying routes. For those client states that have
first-line ships of their own and are near the Loroi border --
as in the case of the Morat (formerly Skarbe) -- these forces
will generally find use defending their own systems. The client
ships will form their own fleets, but these will be under pretty
tight Umiak control, and almost always deployed along with
substantial Umiak fleets. A little bit like German forces
deployed alongside Italian defenders in WWII: there to help with
the defense, but also to keep an eye on their allies. Those
client states whose forces were hopelessly outdated or whose
territory was not strategic might be cannibalized for parts or
put to some kind of specialty use. The Umiak like to utilize
everything they can, but they also like keeping a very tight lid
on.
Non-Umiak shipping is kept under very tight restriction, and for
the most part, the populations of client states are required to
remain in their own systems. When client uprisings occur,
information about them rarely leaves the system. It is unlikely
that the Umiak would use a client ship as a scout or put in a
position where they could compromise security (or flee), unless
it was absolutely necessary. For this reason and others, for the
most part, client ships would not be used as part of an Umiak
assault force.
The Umiak do not treat all their client races the same; some are
loyal and trusted and others suspect and distrusted, some are
weak and can be bullied, and some are powerful and must be
handled with care. The Morat are a recent ally of convenience
with capable fleets of their own in a very strategic position;
the Umiak are pragmatic enough to know not to oppress the Morat
so hard that they might wish to defect. At the same time the
Umiak know they have to be especially watchful of what the Morat
choose to do with their extra privileges.
In the case of the Loroi Alliance, only the Loroi, Historians
and Nissek maintain separate military fleets, and the other
Union members operate only civilian vessels (including system
police/defense, transports and some armed scouts and couriers
like Mozin's Prophet's Reason). The Loroi sent some forces into
Historian territory during the initial Umiak invasion in 2139,
but since then they have been two very separate commands
operating in mostly isolated theatres. The Nissek are far
removed from the primary fronts and most of their forces are
deployed elsewhere.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The typical mode of failure for a Farseer is that her health
deteriorates past a baseline level, and she has to be taken
offline. The Mizol who is responsible for monitoring of and
communication with the Farseer would know if the Farseer became
unconscious or unresponsive.
And as someone else mentioned earlier, each of the other two
strike groups that were ambushed also had their own Farseers (as
any interdiction group must, to be able to function) and were
also not able to detect the ambushers. If Farseers were normally
that unreliable, I would not expect the Loroi to be so surprised
or concerned about this particular failure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Historian constructs have no telepathic signature that the
Loroi can detect. Although in theory an artificial consciousness
might qualify as having whatever physical properties of "mind"
that Loroi telepathy requires to connect with, to date the Loroi
have never been able to telepathically connect with any
computers or artificial beings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunfury is a character in Outsider (daughter of Sunfall).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farseers generally work solo, so they must be able to determine
distance as well as direction on their own.
Farseer range is not unlimited, and signatures presumably become
more faint with distance, so one way a Farseer might be able to
judge distance would be to correlate how strong or faint the
signature is.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't recall saying this, specifically. The issue of the
Semoset spearhead being outflanked by Umiak reinforcements
moving in Umiak-inhabited territory was due to difficulties for
the Farseers in distinguishing the Umiak aboard ships from the
planetside Umiak populations; the planetside populations masked
movement of Umiak fleets along the border. Umiak minds and Loroi
minds appear distinctly different to a Farseer, so the proximity
of many Loroi (while perhaps not ideal) is not a severe
limitation. Operating in a defensive mode in the vicinity of
Seren, with heavy concentrations of Loroi fleets and millions of
Loroi civilians planetside, did not pose a problem to the
effectiveness of the Farseers.
I think what I may have said was something about the limitations
of using Farseers as FTL radio. Telepathic activity from nearby
Loroi would constitute interference for a Farseer trying to
detect a distant amplified signal from someone transmitting a
telepathic message, but this is not primarily what Farseers are
used for. Telepathic messaging and signature detection are
related, but they are separate functions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ability of an individual ship to "zigzag" to deter enemy
fire is the same whether the formation is amorphous or
geometric. The requirement that an escort needs to stay within a
reasonable distance of its squadron leader adds only an
infinitesimal reduction in the uncertainty of which way the ship
is going to jink in the next second. The spacing between ships
is in the tens to hundreds of kilometers; there's a lot of room
to maneuver.
The Umiak are highly organized, but decentralized, which is
important because they know they are going to take casualties
before they can even get into weapons range. Elaborate
centralized fire control or maneuver schemes generally don't
survive the first volley of Loroi fire, so small-scale
organization, adaptable formations, and detailed and flexible
command structure that allows for seamless transfers in chain of
command are critical. Showing the Loroi some of their internal
organization by starting the battle in their quincunx squadron
formations doesn't really provide the Loroi any advantage,
because one Umiak captain is as capable at squadron command as
the next, so it really doesn't matter which ship you choose to
shoot at.
Aside from ship size, of course. Which is why the Umiak don't
field that many superheavy vessels (see Umiak Rule of
Acquisition #325: "Don't put your admiral in the largest ship in
the fleet.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I feel you may be overthinking this. Movement doesn't have to be
100% random to make targeting more difficult. In order to
maintain formation you're going to want to stay in a certain
box, but that box is very large in relation to the volume of the
ship. If the pilot allows the ship to get near the edge of that
box, then increasingly it would seem more likely that the next
turn will be toward the center of that box, but in terms of
predicting what this ship will do in the next second, I doubt
that's even a 1% increase in certainty.
I also think you're overestimating the effectiveness of evasive
maneuvers against beam weapons. Even assuming perfect
unpredictability in movement, for a 300m target at 1 LS you're
still talking about a roughly 50% probability of a hit. Given
the number of weapons firing, that's a lot of damage the Umiak
will be taking as they close to optimal weapons range (inside
200,000km), at which point target lock becomes more or less
automatic (for targets larger than 100m), unless they have
something else to occupy the Loroi weapons -- which is where
torpedoes and gunboats come in.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not meant to be obvious; Alex is a bit perplexed by the
Loroi at this point and the reader can't be expected to be much
father along. But for the insiders here: aside from necessity
(like the volume of radio communication that we will see during
the battle), the traditional use of spoken communication is
between Loroi who don't trust each other. If you are going to
challenge an enemy to combat (and you don't want her attacking
your mind while you do it), or if you are going to make a
diplomatic overture (and you want to take liberties with the
truth while you do it), you use spoken words instead of
telepathy. For Alex to speak of truth and honor using spoken
words is what Stillstorm finds hypocritical. Though I think what
she's really doing is showing us why Mizol exist in the first
place.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bellarmine is not exactly in working order at the moment, so
Alex's position as captain of a floating hulk is academic at
best. The more relevant point is that it's the mission, and not
really the ship itself, that's important, and as the only
breathing member of the Human military currently in contact with
the Loroi, he's in charge of that mission, whether or not the
remnants of the Bell end up vaporized.
The fact that the Loroi are addressing Alex as "Captain" rather
than "Ambassador" is a technical courtesy. A Loroi captain who
was the sole survivor of a diplomatic mission would feel
slighted to be addressed by what is essentially a civilian
title. People don't stop addressing you as "Captain" just
because your ship sank.
The status of Alex's "field promotion" as regards the Terran
military is really not relevant, because it's only important if
he comes back into contact with other humans, and his de-facto
command expires the moment he encounters someone with a rank
higher than ensign second-class.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's somewhere between the two. The high accelerations and
built-up inertia allow for very high relative movement that may
resemble jet combat more than the relatively slow relative
movement of naval vessels, and a direct hit by a torpedo is
generally going to be a game-ender; however, there are lots of
countermeasures against torpedoes. Defensive screens provide
significant defense against the various beam weapons, but in
fleet battles both sides are going to be using focused fire from
multiple ships that can overwhelm the defenses of almost any
single target, so ships are going to be blowing up left and
right. Ships also have armor, but much like current infantry
combat armor, ship armor in Outsider is designed primarily to
mitigate the effects of a minor hit, and not intended to resist
a direct hit from a capital weapon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is why the Umiak must be very aggressive and try to keep
the Loroi on the defensive, and why the Loroi interdiction raids
can be very successful. The Umiak counter to this is in their
superior numbers and superior firepower at close range. They can
use their numbers to attempt to restrict Loroi movement, and
they are of course more loss-tolerant; the Umiak commander can
only lose so many ships to a pass from Loroi raiders, but a
Loroi commander who makes an error and allows a close pass with
part of the Umiak fleet risks the loss of her entire squadron in
a single pass.
The upcoming engagement should give you a pretty decent idea as
to how an Umiak assault plays out (at least, in the first
stage), even though it is slightly atypical in the sense that
the Loroi will be attempting to defend a fixed point.
The OSD sim is still available to look at, but keep in mind that
it's very much out of date, and had significant flaws even when
it was new. The main problem is with the damage resolution
system, which undervalues the effectiveness of defensive
screens. Screens need to have in addition to damage resistance,
what the GURPS system calls a "passive defense", or the
possibility to deflect a shot entirely. How this is worked into
simulation mechanics and balanced properly is something I don't
have time to do at present. The sim still has some interesting
information in it, in terms of movement rates and relative
weapon effectiveness at various ranges. Just keep in mind that
it's very rough and the offense/defense numbers don't match up,
so don't try to use it for any kind of statistical analysis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The solon is a little bit longer than one second.
The Loroi classify any Umiak vessel larger than a light cruiser
as a "heavy." It's a heavy cruiser, battlecruiser or pocket
battleship. A ship as large as a Loroi battleship would be
classified as a "superheavy."
"Medium" being smaller than a "heavy": a light cruiser or
destroyer in the ~200-300m range.
Light, medium and heavy are size classes. Most Umiak vessels are
hybrids of some sort, and even those that are specialized are
difficult to identify at first glance because they often don't
conform to predictable silhouettes. So the Loroi mainly
categorize them by size class.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isn't the length your foot an excellent example of approximately
how long a foot is? Especially when you're talking to someone
with whom you share very few common reference points. How would
you describe the length of a second to an alien?
Solon literally means "heartbeat," and I think that's pretty
descriptive on its own. Beryl could describe it more precisely
in terms of the number of fluctuations of the ground state of a
cesium-133 atom, but I think that would asking a lot of Alex
(and the reader) in terms of converting that into useable
information. She could tap out a rhythm demonstrating the time,
but in a comic that requires far more effort and panel space
than the importance of this minor detail warrants.
Alex isn't trying to build a bridge, he just needs to know what
order of magnitude is being talked about.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think they were referring to a human's complete lack of
telepathic signature.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't imagine that Alex would ask to fly an interceptor. He's
an ambassador and military attaché with a command-grade rank,
and interceptor pilot is a rank-and-file (and highly dangerous)
role. It would be kind of like the ambassador from France asking
if he can run a hot dog stand in the most dangerous part of
Oakland.
The Loroi would never let him do it; regardless of whether they
trust him or care about his safety, he's just not qualified.
Remember that fighters are too small to have inertial dampers,
so to survive 40+g they have to use elaborate fluid-breathing
systems. These are not something you can just jump into without
extensive specialized training, which is exclusive to the Tenoin
caste.
Loroi fighters and smaller vessels suffer disproportionate
losses mainly due to Umiak gunboat tactics. The Umiak try to
time their attacks so that the torpedoes and gunboats hit the
Loroi formation at pretty much the same time, so escorts and
fighters trying to pick off torpedoes also have gunboats to deal
with. Loroi heavy vessels can roll away to try to maintain
optimal heavy-weapons range, but for the escorts, optimal
point-defense weapons range is also optimal plasma focus range.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, the Loroi mythology/philosophy (of which there are a number
of different cultural flavors) performs some of the same roles
for the Loroi that religion does in our culture. I suppose you
could say it is a spiritual outlet for a Loroi society that is
otherwise primarily atheist.
And yes, the Loroi fascination with weather-oriented names is a
link to this mythology, as is their fascination with names
related to archaic weapons. The Loroi mythic heroes, like
Tempest, are often associated with weather phenomena.
There will definitely be more visual references to the mythology
similar to the Tempest tapestry. There will also be
opportunities for Alex to have some of the actual stories told
to him, though this may not come until later in the story. I'd
like to work a little bit of that into the second chapter, but
there may not be room for it. Both the Loroi mythology and the
Barsam religion contain links to their Soia-era past, and so are
significant to explore (a bit) in the story.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the subject of advantages: both the Loroi and Umiak each
dominate a stable of about a dozen alien civilizations. Each of
these alien civilizations is more technically advanced than
humans, at the current time in the story. To expect that the
Loroi or Umiak could achieve this domination without having some
very significant advantages (as compared to humanity) wouldn't
make much sense.
Regarding the rate of technological advancement: as I've
mentioned before, I think technology progress has as much (or
more) to do with culture as with the intelligence of
individuals. The rapid progress of today's Western technological
culture is unprecedented even in our own history. But this
doesn't mean that humans today are any smarter than humans from
a hundred (or a thousand, or ten thousand) years ago. We have
better tools, certainly, but we also live in a culture that
encourages and rewards innovation. We tend to think today of
that being natural and inevitable, but it hasn't been that way
for the vast majority of human history.
And regarding the fall of the Roman Empire, I don't think the
influence of Christianity even makes it into the top 10. I would
point out that the Eastern (Byzantine) empire, which was its
religious center, outlasted the Western empire by some 500
years.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just as a point of detail, the Historians gave the Loroi plans
for a reduced-capability plasma focus, not their plasma array.
The Historians wouldn't give the Loroi their best tech, not just
because they don't trust them, but because it is too far beyond
their capability to reproduce.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even if you understand the principle of how something works, you
must still have the technical expertise and materials technology
to actually make it work. The Historians deliberately
dumbed-down the designs that they gave the Loroi, but they were
still at the extreme limit of Loroi technology. Similarly, if
the Loroi handed Alex the plans for the Pulse Cannon or the
Floater Drive, it's very unlikely that human technology would be
able to easily reproduce one. At least, not for some time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm referring to all manner of advantages, but in this case
specifically biological and cultural advantages. When the Loroi
took their first steps back into space and started picking
fights with their neighbors, they did not have advantages in
terms of territory, numbers or technology (sometimes quite the
reverse), and yet they ended up dominating all their neighbors.
I think you have to expect that this wasn't just luck.
Similarly, the Umiak started out as a barbarian sub-species
under the thumb of a much more advanced "parent" civilization.
In this case, the parent species was not just more advanced and
more cultured than the Umiak; they were literally more
intelligent. That the Umiak rose to galactic empire from such
beginning certainly suggests, I think, that they have
biological, cultural and behavioral traits that are very
effective when it comes to kicking people's butts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm being facetious; the Loroi of the early period usually
didn't deliberately start wars, but it's fair to say their
diplomacy at the time left something to be desired.
Biological advantages are not always about ground combat. Rapid
reproduction, reduced life support, increased acceleration
tolerance, telepathy and farsensing -- these are all biological
factors that can give an advantage in space combat. Especially
in the first war with the Delrias (in which the Delrias had
larger ships with better beam weapons), manned fighters played
an important role, and the superiority of Loroi fighters had a
lot to do with the biological qualities of their pilots.
And again, culture has as much to do with this as biology. The
desire and drive to win (despite the cost) and the societal
tools to accomplish your goals is very powerful. The Romans were
the same species as the people they conquered; a Roman soldier
was no more powerful than a Gallic or Greek or Carthaginian
soldier. But the Romans clearly had a system that was very
effective.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shaye asked for some information about Taben. The response was
too long to fit in a private message, so I'm posting it here.
This is the essay on Taben from my notes.
Taben was the last of the three sister worlds to be reached by
Deinarid ships, 45 years after Deinar and Perrein had made
contact. In addition, Taben had the smallest population of the
three, and also have the lowest occurrence of psychokinetic
abilities. As a result, the Tabenids have often perceived
themselves to be treated as the junior partner in the alliance.
However, Taben is home to the Tenoin headquarters and academy,
the Listel headquarters, and important Pipolsid colonies. Taben
exports large quantities of marine products, and is an important
shipbuilding center.
Taben is an ocean-covered world with very little dry land. There
is only a small continent in the northern hemisphere (called
Beleri), and the large archipelago of Amenal south of the
equator. Beleri is cold and rocky, heavily forested with native
evergreens, often covered deep in snow during the truly epic
winter storms. Active geothermal regions provide pockets of
ice-free land year round, and rocky fjords shelter excellent
deep-water ports. The Amenal islands are sub-tropical and much
less harsh, but also much smaller in land area. The seas around
Amenal are comparatively shallow and calm, but elsewhere on the
planet the oceans can be very deep, with massive global currents
and sometimes fierce weather. Taben is moonless and has a
significant axial tilt that causes seasonal variation in
climate. Taben oceans are filled with a variety of marine life,
from shallow-water Amenal reef organisms to monstrous deep water
whale-like creatures. Volcanism is still active, and rich
mineral veins are common, though you have to go underwater to
get to most of them.
There was evidently a major Soia-era colony here, as Soia
artifacts litter the ocean floor, and the impact craters from
the orbital bombardment that ended the era are still quite
visible. Many of the marine organisms are introduced Soia-Liron
species.
There are two major Loroi ethnic groups: the fair-skinned
northern sailors of Beleri, and the darker southern islanders of
Amenal. The Belerid Loroi tend to be tall and thin, with long
noses to warm the cold northern air. These bold sailors on the
treacherous northern seas enjoyed a long tradition of heroic
seamanship, from fishing and “whaling” to global exploration and
trading, and even some raiding and piracy. In the warmer, calmer
seas of the southern islands, the southern Amenal lived a more
sedentary existence, becoming expert divers in the reefs, for
food and marine products but also for Soia artifacts and
treasure. Eventually, the Amenal archipelago became a center of
trade and learning, but also a target of plunder for Northern
raiders. Despite these regular raids, Taben had by far the most
peaceful pre-contact history of the three Loroi sister worlds in
terms of conflict between Loroi nation-states; the settlements
were widely dispersed, but traded frequently, and the elements
themselves posed a strong challenge to survival.
By the time of contact with the other Loroi sister words in 895
CE, the Amenal island-states were living in fairly high-tech
cities and aquatic habitats, while many Belerid tribes still
sailed wooden ships. Because of the limited amount of arable
land, population in pre-contact Taben never got much above 50
million, and was sometimes as small as 30 million. Today the
population has grown substantially, but Taben still has the
smallest Loroi population of the three sister worlds, though
today it is also home to a significant Pipolsid population,
living mostly in aquatic enclaves in the Amenal region, and
includes some of their most important research academies.
Taben is perhaps most famous as the home of the Tenoin warrior
caste. The caste headquarters and training academy are housed in
the massive Anchorage Citadel, the largest of Taben’s many
orbital facilities. The main headquarters of the Listel caste is
also located on Taben on the “big island” of Soladra in Amenal
(though there is also a major Listel academy on Mezan in the
Deinar system).
Taben today still does not have a single global government.
Beleri is united as a single nation with its capital at the port
of Sezabi, but the island-states of Amenal are still technically
independent nations, aggregated into a loose economic
federation. Due to their long tradition of isolationism and
self-rule, Taben has often been a seat of dissent against the
imperial system. During the Splinter Wars, the Loroi civil
conflict between imperialist and republican factions, most of
Taben was firmly in the republican camp. Even today the Loroi
Axis, the republican anti-imperial opposition party, finds some
of its strongest support on Taben.
(In the comic, Stillstorm and Talon are from Beleri; Forest is
from Amenal.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mizol academy is located on Perrein.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even in the shallows, there is ample seafloor space to
accommodate the Pipolsid. Expansionist Loroi are usually
better-served to migrate offworld, where there is available dry
land and less restrictive reproductive rules.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among humans, sex performs an important and continuing role in
the pair-bonding between male and female, that helps keep them
together for the difficult task of raising a child. Accordingly,
sex for us is especially pleasurable and varied and intimate,
and it fulfills an important psychological need for intimacy.
Loroi mating partners are temporary, and the male has almost no
role in child-rearing, so the need for pair-bonding is not
there. Females have a strong sex drive in the sense that they
eagerly seek sexual contact with a male, and find it very
enjoyable and desirable, and they must be willing to compete
with other females, if necessary, for access to a limited number
of males. However, lack of access to males is a societal norm
for most Loroi, and they must be able to deal with extended
periods without sex. This is not a problem for Loroi females,
because since ovulation occurs after insemination, there is no
need to "heat up" the system prior to sex, so a female is always
ready for impregnation without having to walk around in a
hormonal haze looking for sexual release (as a male might).
Loroi still have a psychological need for intimacy, but being
telepathic means they have very effective tools for satisfying
this need that don't require sweaty fumblings in the dark or
exchanges of bodily fluids. Close telepathic contact occurs
during sex with a male, but it can also occur between close
female friends in non-sexual contacts. Because such contact
involves physical touching, there is a physically intimate
aspect to it, but it is not overtly sexual. Close friendships
with other females are much more psychologically and emotionally
important to a Loroi than her fleeting encounters with a male.
So, do Loroi females have sexual encounters with other females?
I'm sure some do, but not as many as you might think, as the
physical and psychological impetus is simply not there, and such
would be considered aberrant (though not particularly offensive)
behavior by most Loroi.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I think "special service" here include
smuggling of various good. (referring to Mozin's bio on the Cast
page)"
That's more along the lines of what I had in mind. You naughty
monkeys.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The word "active" was removed from Alex's dialogue to save
space, and because I thought it was superfluous. The ships
indicated in parentheses in the list are inactive (and the
reasons are included in the notes of each section). In addition
to the inactive ships mentioned above, Bennet is also inactive
while refitting. However, even taking into account these and the
loss of Bellarmine, the total active number comes to
(4+3+9+3+3+1+4)= 27, so Alex's statement is still factually
inaccurate. Hopefully we can forgive him this emotional
embellishment, considering that the 3 Bennet-class scouts are
not really warships.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aside from the fact that starships are proportionally much, much
more expensive to build than naval vessels, I think you could
just as well ask why the fleet is so large, considering that it
was built before there was any knowledge of an alien threat. As
an internal patrol/enforcement/deterrent force with the side
benefit of being a defense force against possible alien contact,
I think it would be hard to justify many more ships. Indeed, I
think that (before the Orgus contact) the TCA had a hard time
justifying the ships it already has, which is the idea behind
the cancellations of some of the heavy cruisers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The irony is, Alex apparently also can't count, as there are 28
Loroi vessels on the display not 27. I noticed this when
GeoModder mentioned he couldn't find the 27th vessel, and I
recounted them. One of the destroyers in the left wing is
obscured by a cruiser in the center squadron in the third panel
view of page 74. It's a little easier to see in this view.
My notes list the number at 27, but apparently I changed my mind
when I built the tactical display model a few years ago. I added
a third destroyer to the center squadron and evidently forgot to
write it down. Shame on Alex for reading the script instead of
actually counting ships.
I have corrected the error in the dialogue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you can expect, there has been much furor among humanity over
what to do. They know that impeding contact with one side or the
other will possibly make whatever steps they take a complete
waste of time, but since they have nothing else to do but wait,
they are going ahead very aggressively with any projects they
can.
First and foremost would be to put a rush on those warships
which are under construction and not yet completed, and
reactivation of some building projects that had been previously
cancelled but not yet scrapped. Second would be short-term
upgrades that can be applied to their existing fleet, such as
the modular heavy beam cannon upgrade for the America-class
cruisers. Third, there will be a lot of planning for new
warships, but it is unlikely that they will start construction
on anything new until they have established contact and know
more about what will be required of them, and what assistance
(if any) they can expect.
There will certainly be a lot of civil planning to attempt to
prepare the populace for various doomsday scenarios, and there
will be numerous different strategies to try to ensure the
survival of the species should the worst come to pass. However,
these deep-bunkers and space-arks will be small-scale projects.
The focus of world governments will be on preventing such
doomsday scenarios from happening in the first place.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strike Group 51 entered the system with 35 ships, and lost
essentially a full squadron repelling the ambush. Not all the
missing ships were destroyed; some withdrew due to damage after
the fight was over.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That humanity could afford a peacetime fleet of 27 vessels
(without any hint of an external opponent) suggests a very
prosperous and productive species. Earth's and Mars' populations
and potential industrial output exceed any comparable single
Loroi system, and given time, humanity could pump out hundreds
of their current design of heavy cruisers. Unfortunately, these
ships are hopelessly outdated by the "modern" standards of the
current combatants, and it may take decades of research,
retooling and retraining of labor for humans to catch up to
where the major combatants are now, and Sol is really the only
system with an impactful industrial output that the humans
currently have; the colonies are still barely self-sufficient.
It's difficult to say how many "modern" ships humanity could
produce, given that no one has yet agreed to help them
modernize.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Loroi are their allies are doing a very good job of pumping
out warships. Greywind's reforms have transformed Union
infrastructure into the very picture of an engine of total
war... the problem is that the Umiak are doing it even better.
The Loroi are producing warriors and ships at a pace that they
would not have believed possible before the war, and although
their losses are heavy, they are inflicting proportionally
higher losses on the enemy at a rate which seems like it must be
unsustainable for the Umiak. However, except for a brief lapse
during the Semoset offensive, the Umiak despite this horrendous
loss rate have shown almost no sign of faltering. The Umiak are
known to be production experts and total fanatics who are
willing to give up almost anything in the name of victory and
survival, but Loroi and Union planners are unable to account for
how the Umiak are maintaining these levels of industrial output
(though it's fair to say that very little is known about the
deep interior of the Umiak domain or how far it extends). This
situation is the deepest cause of failing Loroi morale and hope
-- that if they cannot somehow inflict a catastrophic defeat on
the Umiak in a large set-piece battle, they feel they have
little hope of victory in a continuing war of attrition.
Rather than blaming the Loroi and their allies for not being
able to keep up with Umiak production, it is more appropriate in
this case to be intimidated by the seemingly supernatural Umiak
ability to maintain production at a pace deemed impossible by
their opponents.
And again, starships are incredibly expensive items to produce.
We're talking about vessels with power generation capabilities
that potentially exceed the total output of all the powerplants
on modern-day Earth. The Loroi produce hundreds of such vessels
each year, and the Umiak of course even more than that.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the repeated suggestion that humans might serve as
ground troops for the Loroi comes from a desire to see any
advantage in humanity's very poor starting position in this
story.
The Barsam are indeed physically formidable individuals with a
martial tradition, and for any non-Loroi organization within the
Union that wants intimidating troops or guards or security
personnel, Barsam are always the first choice. However, as a
warrior culture the Loroi are not really interested in having
someone else do their fighting for them, and in large-scale
ultra-tech ground warfare, physical size and strength is really
a secondary asset. The Loroi will not refuse any offered aid,
and would not mind having access to millions of human or Barsam
auxiliary troops. At this point in the war, however, one of the
few things that the Loroi are not short of is ground troops.
There have been few major ground operations since the retaking
of lost Loroi territory in the Semoset campaign 14 years ago.
There are extensive reserves of Loroi infantry divisions with
little to do but polish their nails and style each others' hair.
But no, I would certainly not want to insult the Prophet in a
Barsam bar, or somehow get the attention of an enraged Barsam
with a heavy weapon. Neither would most Loroi, for that matter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Loroi are superb occupation troops, and have kept five races
(Delrias, Golim, Mannadi, Arekka, Nibiren) under successful
occupation for as long as 865 years (in the case of the
Delrias). Revolts against Loroi rule have risen many times, but
have all been swiftly and brutally crushed. Consider: first, the
basic Loroi infantry are telepathic, and can tell whether an
individual is a civilian or insurgent if she can get close
enough, and will not hesitate to kill an insurgent. Second,
there is no better tool for
counter-insurgency operations than the Mizol. Third, there is no
more formidable tool for eliminating opposition than the Teidar.
Umiak hardtroops are extremely formidable, but even they are
little match for Loroi Teidar. In contrast to Loroi success in
occupation, the Umiak totally failed to pacify the Loroi
populations of the systems they occupied.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aside from the fact that I really detest and reject the
stereotyped oversimplifications that are embodied in the rote "tvtropes"
classifications of everything under the sun, this is a
reasonable criticism. But consider that this is a story about
galactic empires. It's kind of hard to support the idea that a
single race/culture could so thoroughly dominate many others
unless it had very significant advantages. Again, the Romans
didn't conquer by accident.
Still, Loroi advantages are largely racial, and not individual.
None of the Loroi around him are significantly stronger or
smarter than Alex. He is largely immune to Loroi telepathy, so
that advantage is nullified. Long lifespan is irrelevant in the
context of the interpersonal relationships in the story; Alex is
older than many of the Loroi. Fireblade's telekinesis is unlike
anything humans have, but Fireblade is an unusual individual,
and physical prowess means very little in the context of Alex's
interactions with the Loroi: he is one human among thousands of
Loroi; it wouldn't matter if he were the strongest being in the
galaxy. His job is not to beat up Loroi, but to convince them to
accept humans as allies.
Maybe it's the slow-unfolding nature of the updates that causes
people to forget that a protagonist who is inherently superior
to his opponents doesn't usually make for a very interesting
story.
I could go on about how the Vulcans from Star Trek are smarter
and stronger and better in every way than humans, and yet we are
expected to believe that Spock (who can do every job on the ship
better than the human specialists assigned to it) and the
Vulcans are naturally content to let the humans be in charge...
but I've certainly beaten that horse enough.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keep in mind that the Loroi have, at present, absolutely no
intention of using troops to occupy Umiak worlds.
"What about worlds populated mainly by
other species that are under Umiak control?"
That is the inherent peril associated with choosing the wrong
side. After such a long and costly war, both the Loroi and Umiak
are seriously pissed off at the races who dared to ally with their
mortal
enemy.
In a purely hypothetical scenario in which the Loroi were
suddenly to overrun Umiak territory, I suspect those former
Umiak client states with the sense to beg for immediate clemency
would probably be spared. Let's not forget though that it's hard
to turn an interstellar society's war footing and public opinion on
a dime, and that the Loroi require very little justification at
this point to resort to genocide.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Except the Loroi aren't perfect, and they didn't have a head
start. The Delrias, whom the Loroi first conquered, were
descendants of a galactic empire that predated the Soia. And the
Loroi beat them. The story requires this; it doesn't make sense
to somehow infer that the Loroi are weak, stupid, fragile
creatures who through accident conquered the galaxy but can be
easily brushed aside by neophyte humans.
I really don't know what point you're trying to make. I can
offer you dozens of historical examples in which the "bigger
gun" did NOT win a conflict, but I would like to point out to
you that this is fiction. This is not a war that will be decided
by a spreadsheet, but by the actions of heroes. And it's not a
game environment where all the factions are meant to be balanced
against each other.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loroi castes are mainly hereditary - a daughter usually joins
her mother's caste. Some of the specialist castes like the
Teidar, Mizol or Listel require specific abilities that are
linked to genetic traits (psychokinesis for Teidar & Mizol,
eidetic memory for Listel). Usually this means having a mother
from the desired caste, but because these traits can be passed
through males as well, and males are casteless, it is possible
for these traits to cross caste barriers, and that's the main
reason why children are allowed to join a different caste from
her mother. For example, a Soroin daughter might inherit eidetic
memory from the male line, and if so she would probably be
raised as Listel rather than Soroin, but not necessarily. The
daughter of a Mizol might have no PK at all (in which she would
be switched to a conventional caste), or she might have much
stronger PK than her mother, in which case she might be switched
to the Teidar.
Switching of castes is also possible after adulthood, but is
much more rare. Ashrain, for example, was born with
psychokinetic abilities and was therefore enrolled as Teidar,
even though her mother was a high-ranking Torrai. Ashrain went
through her trials as a Teidar and was fitted with a psi
amplifier. As an adult, Ashrain displayed strong aptitude for
tactical ability and leadership, and in the meantime her great
aunt Greywind had become Emperor. There was substantial
political pressure to put Ashrain in a less expendable position,
so she was allowed to switch castes to Soroin, and eventually assigned to
the Imperial Guard.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's correct. You can't start as Torrai; you have to take your
trials as one of the standard castes. The idea is that you
progress (hopefully through merit) through the hierarchy of your
caste, and if you reach the top, you may become eligible for
Torrai induction. However, the Torrai bureaucracy (the Diadem or
admiralty staff) does have administrative positions (Sorimi or
adjutant) that don't require command expertise, and these are
often filled by daughters of high-ranking or influential
officers; in this case, the individuals may begin Torrai
induction at a fairly young age, shortly after completion of
trials and formal education. Having your daughter inducted early
as an adjutant keeps her off the front lines and gives her a
high-status position, but also makes her mostly ineligible for
future field command.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As armored vehicles transition to ground-effect vehicles and hovertanks, and as close-air support aircraft become more
heavily armored and transition to hover-capable propulsion
mechanisms that are less vulnerable than helicopter blades, it
seems obvious to me that eventually they meet in the middle at a
general-purpose flying armored vehicle. There will no doubt
continue to be dedicated ground or air vehicles at either
extreme, but I suspect the middle ground will be increasingly
dominated by these hybrid vehicles, because they're very
flexible. Eventually they will probably advance to the point
where they can operate in or out of atmosphere similar to the
Aliens dropship.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem with torpedoes is point defense. Consider torpedoes
in World War II. Torpedoes were expensive, but one or two could
sink a cargo ship. The infamous German Type-VII U-boat carried
only 14 torpedoes; the formidable American Gato-class carried
24. Now imagine if even basic cargo vessels had point defense
capability, such that it required 10 or 20 or 30 torpedoes to
overwhelm the target's defenses. That significantly changes the
economics of weapon effectiveness.
The Loroi do use torpedoes, but they save them for specific
situations (mostly close-in) where they can be used to best
effect. The large-scale Umiak use of thousands of torpedoes as a
diversionary/screening tactic doesn't make sense for anyone but
the Umiak. Not just because the insane Umiak industrial machine
can produce enough torpedoes, but also because constantly
outnumbering the Loroi means a lot more available point defense
guns in Umiak formations in most circumstances.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A point-defense missile most likely has a chemical rocket motor
with a extremely high thrust (probably in the 100 g realm) but a
very short burn, measured in seconds. This means its effective
range is very short, in the thousands of kilometers. It's also
most likely a kinetic kill weapon, so if it misses the target,
it doesn't have fuel reserve for another attempt or a secondary
target.
As a kinetic weapon, it can be used offensively against enemy
ships if the crossing velocity is high enough, but only at
point-blank range, like a mass driver. Fighters and "scatter
pack" torpedoes can be used to deliver them to this range, with
the caveat of course that such delivery methods need to be able
to survive to reach such range. Which is very difficult in the
context of the current conflict.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Loroi Emperor is elected by the Torrai Diadem, which is a
council of the highest ranking officers, in a similar way that
the College of Cardinals elects a Pope. Like a Pope, the Loroi
Emperor holds office for life, but it is not a hereditary
position.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Diadem is not a civilian entity, it is a council of the most
powerful warlords in the empire. The vote of the Diadem is
usually to confirm someone who has already proven herself to
have the support necessary to be Emperor. The transition of
Imperial power has only happened four times. Only the first
Emperor Loremark died of old age and gave over her power
peacefully to her picked successor (Swiftsure), but Loremark
herself siezed power as a result of the first Loroi civil war,
and Swiftsure was a weak leader who was later deposed by Eighth
Dawn in the second civil war.
The nature of Loroi telepathic honesty makes political
opposition problematic. Diplomacy is considered a foreign
concept, an appeasement for inferior aliens who are not familiar
with a warrior's decorum. Compromise is recognized as an
important tool of coexistence, but there is little provision in
Loroi society for failing to tell an opponent exactly what you
think of her. Personal disagreements that cannot be resolved
through consensus tend to end in bloodshed. Personal duels are
rare, but inter-faction combat is not. The Loroi warrior castes
view this form of conflict resolution and healthy and virtuous.
Greywind had been trained as a Mizol before advancing to the
admiralty. As a loyal member of the opposition, Greywind had
been very vocal of her criticism of Emperor Eighth Dawn's
hesitance to nationalize industry in response to the Umiak
invasion. When Eighth Dawn was killed, Greywind was the clear
successor in terms of military support, but her status as an
opposition leader and a former Mizol was problematic for both
loyalists and conservatives, many of whom considered Mizol
untrustworthy as a basic tenet. However, Greywind's strong ties
to the Mizol community helped her to quickly eliminate her
opposition.
Greywind's power is by agency, though like most Mizol she has
some telekinetic abilities and is a formidable telepath. Power
in telepathy is a common factor in rise throughout most of the
warrior castes; it's difficult to achieve command grade without
it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like any military organization, Loroi government has to have a
well-delineated chain of command that runs from top to bottom.
Authority would pass to the chief of staff (who is kind of like
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) and then through various
members of the admiralty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It certainly wouldn't be gas pressure. I'm not sure exactly how
a real drive trail would interact with a ship's hull that
disturbed it, keeping in mind that gas in the drive trail
probably has a net electrical charge... but many of the
real-world images I've seen of jets in space show turbulent
atmosphere-like effects. There is also the presence of the
ship's defensive screens to consider, and the ship's drive.
But, as you allude to, the drive trails are there to give the
impression of motion. I doubt real torpedoes would leave such a
bright, long trail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*regarding Talon*
Yep, the scenes with her in the shuttle in chapter 2 are a lot
more charming with her not dead.
This is true. It's tough to be expendable, and maybe even
tougher when they decide you're no longer expendable... but that
your comrades still are.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An Outsider torpedo uses its fuel as a warhead, so it's
definitely true that the longer it has to burn the engine, the
less powerful the explosion will be. Fuel, endurance and
explosion yield are all part of the same equation. But
considering that the fuel is (essentially) antimatter, it
doesn't take much fuel to make a pretty big bang. A torpedo that
gets close enough can seriously damage a ship even if the
torpedo is running on vapor, but the larger the fuel reserve,
the farther away a torpedo can detonate and still damage the
target. A larger torpedo can carry more fuel, has a longer
endurance (assuming similar burn rates) and a potentially larger
explosion. A smaller torpedo will have less endurance, but
potentially higher acceleration (with the same engine). When
ships cluster in a small area (as the Umiak often try to do), a
large torpedo has a chance to damage more than one target, and
that's a situation in which torpedo use starts to look
especially attractive to the Loroi.
In addition to the Umiak industrial advantage, differing drive
technology is a factor in differing Loroi and Umiak torpedo
design and tactics. The Loroi are good at building large,
high-output engines. A typical Loroi cruiser has two engines.
For the Loroi, larger (more expensive) torpedoes can take full
advantage of their drive design and provide a big bang in select
moments when the fight gets close. However, larger torpedoes are
more expensive and have to be used sparingly.
The Umiak are good at building smaller, more efficient engines.
A typical Umiak cruiser might have as many as six engines. The
Umiak are better at building smaller long-endurance craft, and
so torpedoes are a natural niche for them. For the Umiak,
massive numbers of smaller torpedoes take advantage of their
tactical doctrines as well as their industrial advantage and
disposable philosophy.
The Loroi have three basic flavors of torpedo: small, medium and
large (SR, MR, LR). The LR has the best endurance and
acceleration (~60 g), but is too expensive for general Loroi
use. The SR has good acceleration (50 g) and is cheap, but has
very short endurance, and is useful mainly for delivery by small
craft. The MR is a compromise, with 40 g acceleration but decent
fuel/range/yield, and the is one most often carried by fleet
ships.
The Umiak have a much wider range of torpedo types. Along all
the variables of size, maximum thrust, range, maneuverability,
and protection, the Umiak have a full suite of available
choices. Still, most often the Umiak will favor medium-sized
short-range torpedoes, as they are used primarily to draw
defensive fire away from manned Umiak vessels, and the efficient
Umiak designs have ample endurance and yield (should the odd hit
occur) more than sufficient for a typical engagement.
As ordnance, Umiak torpedoes have to conform to the launching
standards of whatever platform must carry them, so they have to
have some standards. Just a lot of them.
The markings on Umiak vessels and munitions are a contradictory
combination of camouflage (attempting to confuse unit
recognition, not detection) and Sioux horse war paint (arising
from tradition, creativity, and martial passions of the moment).
So sometimes they mean something, but it's hard to tell when.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I eventually plan to post an Insider essay on this subject,
possibly from the point of view of the Barsam. The different
cultures draw very different conclusions about the Soia from the
limited available physical evidence. But here are some short
points:
Because of the limitations of jump drive travel and the lack of
FTL communication, very little is known about the galaxy outside
of the Local Bubble. There have been some expeditions up and
down the Orion arm, but almost nothing is generally known about
the rest of the galaxy. It is therefore not known whether the
ancient empires were restricted to the Orion arm or were
galaxy-wide. Also, there are few historical records from these
ancient periods. Examples of writing exist, but they are more
along the lines of signs saying "space port" than Egyptian
inscriptions that tell of kings and battles.
The available evidence suggests that there was not just one
precursor empire in the Local Bubble, but a long series of
different civilizations over great spans of time that displaced
each other, and in some cases coexisted in different areas. At
least three distinct phases of empire have been generally agreed
upon:
* Fenrias: these were the ancestors of the modern Delrias and
Morat. It is generally agreed that this species was native to
the Local Bubble, and there are known ruins of planetary
settlements. At the time that the Fenrias had achieved stardrive,
the other native races of the region were still very primitive,
and so the Fenrias expanded unopposed. There is some evidence
that the empire fragmented into multiple Fenrias nations, and
that these fought amongst each other over long periods of time.
* Dreiman: the Fenrias were eventually displaced by a new
empire, which evidence suggests invaded from up-arm. The Dreiman
were physically very small lapdog-sized creatures, but whose
technology greatly outclassed that of the Fenrias. There is
little evidence of Dreiman planetary settlements, but there are
remains of large orbital facilities. The Dreiman undertook great
works of planetary engineering -- Maia is a strong candidate for
having been a Dreiman terraforming project -- and it seems very
likely that they actively engaged in uplifting several of the
local species. Scattered remnants of the Fenrias empire did
persist into this era, holding on at the periphery of Dreiman
territory; two such groups are believed to have eventually
become the modern Delrias and Morat.
* Soia: the Dreiman and Fenrias remnants were displaced by the
Soia, though this time the displacement was complete and appears
to have happened very abruptly. There is no direct evidence to
suggest where the Soia came from or exactly who the they were.
Soia technology was more advanced even than that of the Dreiman,
and though Soia-era tools and artifacts are common, these are
found in settlements of the local races; no known planetary
ruins can be definitively identified as belonging to the Soia
themselves. Common tradition among several modern cultures holds
that the Soia existed in Laputa-like artificial moons that
traveled from one system to another, and that these "doom stars"
patrolled and enforced a very strict limit on the interstellar
travel of subject species. The most ubiquitous remnant of the
Soia era is in the many Soia-Liron organisms that were
introduced to planets all over the Local Bubble. These organisms
range from domestic crops and livestock (misesa is a Soia
supergrain, found on most planets with any history of Soia
contact, and the pig-like miros is also common in many forms) to
several intelligent species (notably the Loroi, Barsam and
Neridi). It is not clear what the purpose behind the
introduction of these organisms is, but it does seem that the
local native civilizations flourished during this period,
despite Soia-imposed restrictions and possible competition from
the introduced species.
A few hundred thousand years ago, the Soia era abruptly came to
an end. All advanced civilizations everywhere in the Local
Bubble were bombed literally back to the stone age in intense
orbital bombardments, the scars of which are still visible on
many planets. It seems likely there was some kind of war, but
between whom and for what reason is unknown. Some species went
extinct, and those that survived had to rebuild their
civilizations almost from scratch.
Today, the different cultures have reached different conclusions
about who and what the Soia were. The Loroi believe that the
Soia were their direct ancestors, and that the Soia presence in
the Local Bubble was just one province of a greater galactic
empire, and the destruction in the local systems was the result
of a regional conflict. The Loroi point to the fact of their
telepathy being unique among known races, as also the fact that
Loroi do not appear in planetary archaeological records until
after the fall. The Barsam church teaches that the Soia were
angelic beings from an alternate plane of existence, who came to
this universe to bring peace and brotherhood to sentient
species. The Soia-Liron species are explained as having been
"enlightened" by the Soia. The Barsam explanation for the fall
is along the lines of the biblical expulsion from Eden: the
"mortal" species did something to displease the Soia, and were
punished accordingly before the Soia returned to their plane of
origin in a huff. A famous Neridi joke is that the Soia were
plants, and it's the misesa supergrain plants that are their
true (and most prolific) descendants. Delrias humorists have
noted that since most of the Soia-Liron plant and animal species
seem to be intended as food items, perhaps the Loroi, Barsam and
Neridi were also created to be eaten. Needless to say, neither
the Loroi nor the Barsam are amused by these suggestions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Telepathy can work on any species (subject to individual
compatibility/susceptibility) with a mind. There is no clear
distinction between "people" and "animals," but the more complex
the mind, the stronger the mental signature. There is also no
clear dividing line as to when very primitive organisms qualify
as having a mind, but once you get down to the level of an
insect, you're well below the detection threshold of a typical
unamplified Loroi.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A fetus' mind is very primitive throughout much of gestation,
and it's hard to say at what point it becomes complex and active
enough that the mother become aware of it. I have read that
there is evidence that human babies' minds can be measurably
affected by music or the sound of the parents' voices while
still in the womb -- probably only unconsciously -- so it seems
very likely that telepathic contact with the developing fetus
could be an important developmental stimulus for the baby, as
well as a strong bond between mother and daughter. Which seems
like a contradiction, considering that Loroi mothers often do
not carry pregnancies to full term, and Loroi daughters are
usually raised in crèche and have only minor relationships with
their birth mothers.
I can think of a few reasons for this seeming contradiction. The
first is the need of mothers to be active during wartime. A
mother's telepathic connection to her unborn baby is going to be
primitive but intense -- it's hard to imagine a closer "physical
link" than a fetus that is practically a part of one's own body.
An unborn baby's thoughts might be unconscious or on the level
of emotions, but those might be occasionally intense, as when a
baby squirms or kicks in the womb. Such constant telepathic
feedback might be very distracting or unbalancing to a working
military person, and I can easily see pregnant Loroi becoming
increasingly irrational as they near term. This combined with
the physical limitations of pregnancy could be a strong
incentive to remove the baby to an incubator as soon as it is
viable.
The other factor is the cultural emphasis on group care versus
care by the birth mother. Part of this is a practical matter,
since mothers called away to battle have limited ability to
parent, but part is the ethos of a warrior culture that looks
down on a nurturing connection to the mother. In warrior
cultures such as the Spartans or Maasai, the male child's
relationship to his mother is often ritually limited or outright
severed at a certain age, as part of the rigors of becoming a
warrior. For the Loroi, having practices that limit the bond
between mother and daughter may serve to produce more
independent daughters, as well as to reinforce the importance of
community over individuals. On the mother's side, the idea may
be that disassociation from her daughter may help to preserve
the mother's harsh warrior's detachment, limit maternal
"softness", sentimentality or overprotection her own child at
the expense of the other warriors under her command.
If telepathic contact is important for the development of the
fetus (and baby after birth), we must expect that the crèche
staff have a way to provide this contact to the infants under
their care.
Since these restrictions stem mainly from the rigors of wartime,
I can see them being relaxed during peacetime, when an officer
(especially a high-ranking one) may be able to take a leave of
absence for a full-term pregnancy and perhaps even some time of
child-rearing. Whether this practice would be encouraged or
discouraged is open to debate. In such a case, though, one could
expect much stronger bonds between mothers and daughters, and I
think this could account for some of the established behavior of
the older Loroi toward their offspring -- the examples of
nepotism, placement into less hazardous areas of duty, or
disproportionate sense of bereavement (for a Loroi) at the loss
of a daughter. This could be yet another layer of distance in
experience between the older Loroi and the new war generations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the physical touch and telepathic link of an adult would
be more along the lines of what I'm thinking. I doubt that two
Loroi infants have any idea how to initiate telepathic contact
with each other, and even if they were touching, I'm not sure
they'd have much to say to each other that would be comforting
or instructive.
I imagine an incubator of the kind we have, where there's a
sterile glove so the caregiver can slip her hand into so she can
touch the baby.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In ancient times, I think that child-rearing was mostly done by
members of the warrior class that had grown too enfeebled (by
age or injuries) to be useful on the battlefield. In the modern
era when medicine can remove most such physical impediments to
active service, the birthing and early care of warrior children
is under the auspices of the Doranzer caste. The Doranzer are
doctors, medics and medical technicians, and are few in number,
so much of their care is provided by machines and civilian
caregivers. By tradition, Doranzer crèche units often have
access to an assigned older warrior veteran, who may provide
ethical or practical guidance depending on the situation. Such
veteran guidance can help a largely civilian staff to instill
the proper warrior virtues in a batch of children destined for
the warrior trials.
The conditions under which such veterans become crucial are
those in which a fetus/infant may have extraordinary telepathic
or psychokinetic abilities that are recognized before or shortly
after birth. Veteran guidance can both help the development of
such prodigies, as well as minimize damage to care facilities
and staff -- though considering the rarity and potential of such
infants, potential damage to civilian staff or facilities is
considered entirely secondary by the military authorities.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The medics aboard ship are equipped with basic facilities to
handle pregnancies and births, as it's not an uncommon
situation. However, the idea is that the baby hopefully doesn't
have to spend long aboard ship before it can be dropped off at
or ferried to the nearest planetary facility. Ships in the
field, even raider groups, must be regularly resupplied, and
infants (as well as severely injured crewmembers) can hitch a
ride on supply ships back to friendly lines.
The possibility of a fetus demonstrating active psychokinesis
while still in the womb would be a once-in-a-generation event,
so that is not a case that is practical to plan for.
Multiple births can be caused by more than one egg being
fertilized (polyzygotic or fraternal twins), or by an error in
cell division (monozygotic or identical twins). Such errors are
also possible in Loroi (or pretty much any organism, I would
imagine), so multiple births are also possible in Loroi. In
humans, about 2% of births are multiple, and of these more than
90% are polyzygotic. I would guess that the number of
polyzygotic births are probably fewer in Loroi, due to the more
controlled circumstances under which fertilization takes place,
but that monozygotic multiple births are probably about the same
rate as in humans. So, perhaps 1% of total births, with 20% of
the multiple births being monozygotic (identical).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I like the flavor of untranslated words, but I have learned that
I need to carefully choose where I use them. The page-at-a-time
nature of updates makes it more problematic to introduce
something that is ambiguous or confusing, because rather than
just shrugging and continuing to the next page, the reader has
little to do other than stew about whether he/she really
understood what that reference was supposed to mean.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't use the "seems" construction with Tempo because I
wanted her to sound very professional, and very savvy with
language. One issue with this is that there just aren't that
many Loroi speakers; Tempo has the vast majority of the dialog
in this scene... Stillstorm has a few lines, but she's not
trying real hard to be polite. Even going forward, nearly all
the talking is done by Beryl or Tempo (or as translated by Beryl
or Tempo). Other Loroi characters get a few lines, but few other
than Beryl or Tempo are very interested in being polite.
Beryl hasn't used the "seems" form in a while, because Alex
pointed it out to her and she made a conscious effort not to use
it, but it will probably creep back into her speech patterns.
It's true though that the comm. chatter from the other captains
is a lot more straightforward and less ritualized and cryptic
than I would have liked. But since even relatively
straightforward metaphors such as "keep the handle on the blade"
seem to spark confusion, that's probably for the best. I
generally feel that if something requires separate offline
explanation, it probably wasn't presented adequately in the
first place. There's so much going on in the scene that I think
it would probably be an unwelcome distraction.
I think Talon is probably the only other Loroi character in the
first half of the story with a lot of lines, and she should
present an opportunity to play a little bit with language,
because in that case Alex's difficulty in understanding her is
more to the point of the scene, rather than a distraction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yellow is the standard warning color for the Loroi.
Yellow, red and orange (especially when contrasted with black)
are ubiquitous warning colors in nature, presumably because they
stand out very strongly against green, brown and blue (the
colors of the environment). Black and white is also sometimes
used as a high-contrast attention-getting combination. The
significance of red for higher animals is probably enhanced by
its association with blood, but red is also used as an
attention-getting color by plants and insects that don't have
red blood. Assuming that Loroi planetary environments are
similar to ours (brown dirt, blue sky and water, green
chlorophyll plants), yellow, red and orange still make sense as
warning colors.
The texture in question was used more than six years ago.
Currently all such signage is custom-created from scratch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Loroi rely heavily on robots for mechanical and medical
assistance. Any critical menial or technical task considered
unfit for warriors is gladly delegated to machines where
possible, to keep unfit civilians out of the loop. These robots
are not at all humanoid in appearance, but more likely radial
with many arms, kind of like a floating FX-7 from Empire Strikes
Back. Medical robots are appliances usually part of an
infirmary's equipment -- there was meant to be such a robot in
the ceiling of Alex's infirmary scene, but I did not take the
time to design or model it. Mechanical tech robots are
ubiquitous in the engineering spaces -- Alex was meant to pass
by one on the machine deck (right after he passed Talon and
Spiral), but again I chickened out. At that time I was not
confident enough to draw mechanical entities by hand, and there
wasn't time to model it in 3D. There will be opportunities to
show such robots in future chapters, but they do not play a
crucial role in the story.
The Loroi are not fond of delegating combat roles to autonomous
machines, but there is no ground combat in the current script
(aside from flashbacks), so I don't plan to consider the
possibility of infantry robots in any great detail.
Whatever robot assistants the humans may have are also
irrelevant to the story.
The Umiak make extensive use of machine-enhanced cyborgs, and
are not squeamish about putting "living" Umiak at risk, so the
concept of pure robots sounds insane to them.
The Historian Emissary is software, and perhaps not technically
a machine, but it has an important, continuing role in the
story.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"With the Loroi's tech level, regrowing damaged/destroyed
organs/body parts is probably just as viable as cybernetic
replacement."
This is my view.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would be spelled "Omiag", but the Loroi don't use this word.
They refer to them as "the Enemy", or to the name of their
government ("the Hierarchy" for short), or by one of various
racial epithets.
The Umiak don't use the word "Umiak" either, as it's not an
Umiak word and they don't have the ability to make the "oo" or
"m" sounds. "Umiak" is an archaic Trade word that probably
refers to a location or region. Most words used in the
international community to refer to all things Umiak are foreign
in origin or severely mangled, because of the incompatibility of
the clicking language to a mostly fleshy community. There's a
running joke among the Loroi that every Umiak word sounds like
"kikitik", so all Umiak individuals are named "kikitik" and all
Umiak objects are called "kikitik."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I saw this question when it was originally posted, but because
of the way it's phrased I couldn't think of a way to answer it
properly without a two-page essay. I'll try again.
The Umiak have a relatively egalitarian, merit-based hierarchy,
and able individuals rise quickly in the ranks. The difficulty
comes in keeping them alive long enough to be useful on the
larger scale.
Without FTL communication, operational commanders have to lead
from the front, so keeping experienced officers alive in the
current environment of extreme attrition is a problem for the
Loroi as well as the Umiak. There is no "safe" duty in fleet
actions, and the Loroi even lost an Emperor in combat earlier in
the war. So, if you want to preserve a promising commander, you
either have to kick her upstairs or transfer her to the reserves
to save her for a rainy day, but either way it means she's not
directly contributing to the (sometimes critical) battle on the
front lines.
In the early-war assaults on Seren, when victory seemed within
grasp, the Umiak were not careful about preserving their best
ships or commanders. This oversight came back to bite them
during the Loroi Semoset offensive when the strategic equation
changed overnight, and the "remnant" Umiak command structure was
slow to respond. New, able Umiak commanders rose quickly to
positions of authority, and they were eventually able to regain
the upper hand and thwart the Loroi drive. The Umiak learned
from this episode, and they also realized that they now faced a
long war which would not be won by headlong assault. Suicidal
attrition attacks continue, intended to deter another Loroi
offensive rather than fulfill any hope of breakthrough, but are
made with second-tier forces (mostly new ships with green crews,
or outdated ships with bored crews), while the majority of Umiak
forces, including their most elite ships, crews and commanders,
are kept in reserve, waiting for a decisive battle.
Do the Umiak have renowned commanders? Yes. Some that rose
during Semoset and since are still alive and active in the
reserves and behind the scenes, and there are still some
(especially at higher levels) who have been around since before
the start of the war.
Do the Umiak have a "Stillstorm?" That is a separate question.
In a war in which it sometimes seems like it's raining every
day, it's hard to save for a rainy day. There are times in which
top combat commanders seem too valuable to promote or reserve,
especially when they are not well suited to administrative duty
or inaction, and they are for one expediency or another left on
the front lines indefinitely, until they are killed or crack
from the pressure. Stillstorm's legendary status is not so much
for her tactical excellence (which is undeniable) but rather her
seemingly unnatural ability to survive years on end in high-risk
interdiction duty for which the survival expectation is measured
in months. As the last of her class, Tempest has a distinctive
silhouette, and Umiak fleets that encounter her know by now who
they are dealing with. Willingness to die does not make the
Umiak immune to fear.
An Umiak "Stillstorm" would be an Umiak commander who has been
around since before Semoset, but who has continually been
assigned to front-line duty, including attrition assaults, and
yet somehow Just Refuses To Die. Such an Umiak commander would
be a pretty scary prospect for the increasingly demoralized
Loroi.
Do the Umiak have a "Stillstorm?" Yes. It calls itself
Kikitik-27-tikhak-tikkukit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farseers are not FTL radios. There are limited situations in
which Farseers in the field can be used to receive emergency
messages, but this is not sufficient for regular command and
control. That must be done through courier networks, which are
problematic outside one's own territory.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some do. The job of an attrition assault is to go out and cause
as many casualties as possible. To do this, one or more groups
will usually try to cross the Steppes and hit the Loroi lines.
However, if a fleet sees a lot of combat while crossing, if they
lose a lot of ships or expend most of their fuel and/or ordnance
fighting Loroi interdictions, the assault fleet may reach a
point where there is no point in pressing forward. In such a
case, the assault commander will just withdraw. Especially if
the Umiak were able to cause significant casualties to the Loroi
raiders, such a mission could still be considered quite
successful. These aren't kamikaze attacks or martyr attacks; you
don't get any points for offing yourself unless you actually
accomplished your objective, and if you can do that and still
make it back alive, so much the better.
If an assault fleet does reach the Loroi lines, chances of
successful return are greatly reduced, as most Umiak commanders
will go balls to the wall at that point, and even if the two
sides fight each other to a standstill, the prospect of crossing
all the way back under fire from raiders is not a good one. But
it does happen. Such assault fleets rarely attack alone, and if
there are successive waves coming in behind you, you may be able
to hold on until reinforcements arrive, giving the chance for
ships that are depleted and not much more offensive use to slip
back home. But the odds are not good.
Another type of attrition attack is one that's not meant to hit
the Loroi lines at all, but rather is made up of fast ships with
longer range weapons, intended specifically to draw out Loroi
interdiction fleets and try to chew them up. Such missions are
still very dangerous, as a clever strike group commander can
turn the tables on such ambush attempts, but it's a much more
survivable class of mission.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Umiak, as I recall, often, if not
usually, send fleets in without enough fuel to get back even if
they *do* win."
I don't recall saying this. I think I may have said something to
the effect that an assault fleet commander wouldn't worry much
about saving fuel or ammo for the return trip, since chances are
they wouldn't be coming back. However, all such assault forces
are sent out fully fueled and armed, even if they aren't
expected to survive.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Loroi were a little bit busy (being ambushed by Umiak) at
the time that Bellarmine made her transmissions. When Alex woke
several hours later and activated his beacon, the battle was
over and the surviving Loroi had more free data analysis
resources to spare.
There are a lot of heat and radio noise sources in any system,
especially a planet-forming system. Information processing
resources are not infinite.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gunboats are mostly towed on external linkages (not carried
internally), and so can be serviced by relatively small mother
vessels. Gunboat linkages are common on regular combat vessels,
and dedicated tenders can service multiple craft. The gunboat
tender on page 71 is a cruiser-sized "medium" vessel, about 300
meters long, and can service six craft. The gunboats are of a
small variety (~75m) that don't have a long endurance and so are
often kicked loose just before combat, while others have better
endurance and only dock to refuel or transit. Many of the light
vessels in the Umiak squadron were already undocked (seen in
lines flanking the formation above and below) when first spotted
by the Loroi on page 68.
If we estimate that the 8 heavies average two linkages and the
64 medium vessels average 1 linkage per 2 vessels, 8x2 + 64/2 =
48.
An Umiak "heavy" vessel is generally between 350-500 meters.
These are equivalent in size to Loroi heavy cruisers and
battlecruisers, though the Umiak heavies tend to be much more
heavily armored and not as fast as their Loroi counterparts. As
such they can sometimes be thought of as "pocket battleships."
Many heavies will have two or more gunboat linkages as standard
equipment.
A "medium" vessel is generally between 200-350 meters. These are
light cruisers and destroyers, and specialty vessels such as the
light gunboat tender (as seen on page 71) and the missile
destroyer (seen on page 75). Perhaps a third of medium vessels
will have up to 2 linkages, and specialized tenders may have 4,
6 or more.
Vessels smaller than 200 meters are classed as "light vessels,"
and include frigates (<=200m), corvettes (~150m), and gunboats
(<=100m). Gunboats are usually defined as vessels that don't
have their own jump drives, but they range from 120m
corvette-sized vessels that are mostly autonomous, down to 60
meter attack craft with very limited duration, and it's not
always easy to tell whether a light craft is a gunboat or a
corvette just by looking at it, so the Loroi often lump all the
smaller vessels together as "gunboats."
"Superheavies" are 500+ meter vessels that are the Umiak
battleships and dreadnoughts, but these are rare to see in
attrition raids, as they are expensive, and draw undue Loroi
attention when they are seen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And if you look, that far ship does
indeed have a black stripe. Some sort of honors mark, like
Corellian Blood (or whatever) Stripes?"
It's Imperial Guard insignia.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Imperial Guard is part of the reserve, and they aren't
seeing a lot of action at this point. The Loroi are trying to
build their reserves for another offensive, and they know that
most of the Umiak attacks on the Steppes front are specifically
for the purpose of causing Loroi casualties, so they are
reluctant to commit reserves to those fights, as they know that
most attacks won't break through, and they don't want to expose
the reserve forces to casualties (the Umiak attrition fleets
have devious skill at managing to take Loroi ships out with
them), and they don't want to show the enemy how many ships
they're accumulating.
As a relative of the Emperor, Ashrain's superiors are reluctant
to put her in harm's way for political reasons. Ashrain
requested a transfer because she wanted to prove her abilities,
and she doesn't feel that sitting behind the lines guarding the
Emperor's flagship is really doing her duty for her nation. She
requested interdiction duty because the raider groups are always
short-handed, they see the most action, and it is nearly
impossible to hide or protect someone in these groups. She
expects that she will not receive any special treatment from
Stillstorm in particular, who is a political opponent of the
Emperor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ashrain brought her ship with her and most of its crew. Any
among the crew who complained about moving to the front would
have been gladly granted transfers elsewhere; those are not the
people you want with you at the front anyway.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By "political opponent" I mean someone who disagrees with the
policies and actions of the government, not someone who intends
to personally replace her. Stillstorm is a member of the Loroi
Axis, the largest loyal opposition party, which advocates a
republican form of government. The manner in which Greywind took
power, and the degree to which she has implemented martial law
and suspended civil rights of private parties in the name of
Total War has not endeared her to the traditional opponents of
the Imperial dictatorship. Stillstorm's political disfavor is
one of several reasons why she is still on the line and has not
been promoted "upstairs."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Loroi crews are warriors, born and bred in a warrior
culture; they're not converted civilians hoping to ride out the
war and go back to their civilian jobs. Loroi are supposed to
want to fight; morale suffers when they have to sit on their
hands at home while their sisters are out fighting and dying.
Now, I'm sure not everyone on Black Razor was thrilled when
informed they were heading to what's essentially the most
hazardous duty in the theater, but I would be surprised if
anyone dared asked for a transfer. If you're a warrior and you
consider yourself a member of an elite unit (which the Black
Razor crew certainly do), it would be pretty shameful if you
balked when they asked you to actually fight.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nissek signed a treaty with the newly-formed Loroi Union
that essentially amounted to a defensive pact: that each would
agree to aid the other if attacked. There is no shared command
in a NATO sense. The main problem that prevents Nissek forces
from having a meaningful role in the conflict against the Umiak
is one of distance and logistics; Nissek territory is on the
extreme opposite end of Union space from the border with the
Umiak. It can take months for ships to reach the Steppes from
Nissek territory, and there are significant logistical issues
with supporting a non-Loroi fleet (which may have unique supply
and maintenance requirements) so far from native bases. It's
also a command and control problem, because of the lack of FTL
communication. The second problem is one of the lukewarm
relationship between the Loroi and Nissek. The Nissek Hegemony
itself is an aggressive nation that has vassal states of its
own, and the Nissek have their own local tensions to concern
themselves with, so they are not eager to send large portions of
their own military abroad (and be unable to recall them for many
months). The Loroi are not particularly trusting of the Nissek,
and so are not eager to ask for Nissek forces. So, for the most
part, the Nissek have had very little part in the Umiak
conflict. There have been a few times when the Loroi contacted
the Nissek for support in a tight spot, but usually the crisis
had passed by the time any help was due to arrive.
The Historians have a different agreement with the Loroi, which
was hastily concluded following the Umiak invasion of Historian
territory. It is also lacks a shared command structure, and one
supposes that the language of the agreement must be pretty
loose, as the Loroi and Historians have very different ideas
about what the agreement requires and whether it has been lived
up to up to this point. The Loroi and Historian forces are under
different command and mostly defend their own sectors. The
Historians allowed Loroi fleets into Historian space at the
start of the Umiak invasion, but once things were under control,
they were promptly shooed out; the Historians don't like having
Farseers poking around their territory. Historian fleets rarely
venture outside their own territory; during the Semoset
Offensive, the Historian offensive operations stopped promptly
as soon as they had recovered their own systems that they had
lost.
The Loroi dissatisfaction with the Historians as allies (and the
Historians' point of view on the subject) will be covered in
some detail in the story, and relatively soon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The warhead launchers are tubes covered by doors built into the
prong(s) of most Loroi ships. Like torpedo tubes on submarines,
they're not visible in most cases. The Scimitar class has a
bolt-on accelerator for the tube that's visible on the topside
starboard prong in page 78.
The correct number of laser turrets for the Scimitar is 7; the
Insider listing is in error. I think I fixed it once but the
change was reverted.
Rapier has a sixth medium turret underside aft, and four more
laser turrets under the prongs. Katana has a sixth laser turret
underside aft.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ships are depicted as looking a lot closer together than
they should be. Realistically, they should be thousands of
kilometers apart. There won't be any Starship Troopers style
issues with ships running into each other as they try to avoid
fire.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The issues of heat saturation and power overloads regarding
operation of the wave loom refer mainly to its use aboard
Tempest, which is a derivative of an outdated Semoset-era fast
command class (the Vortex). The wave loom is an area-of-effect
weapon with enhanced penetration capabilities, which is limited
by accuracy and power issues. There are not many circumstances
in interdiction duty (for which Vortex was not designed) that
permit time and tactical space for the wave loom to be deployed.
Vortex was considered by the Loroi to be a failed experiment,
which is why Tempest is the only remaining example.
Larger, more powerful, and more modern vessels such as Cry of
the Wind still must deal with the formidable power and linear
space requirements of the weapon, and its accuracy issues, but
they are generally not plagued by the overload problems of the
smaller and older command ships. Cry of the Wind has two wave
looms; even the Imperial Flagship's great power can only charge
one of them at a time, but it can achieve more continuous fire
through allowing one to cool while the other is charged.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's correct, and I thought of this when I was drawing the
panel, but I felt it was most important that it be clear what
was happening (that is, the missile intercepted the torpedo). A
more realistic rendering would have required more panels to get
the point across.
Regarding Talon's status: in chapter 2, Talon and Spiral
reappear as pilots of a shuttle, having been transferred from
interceptor duty in an attempt to extend their life
expectancies. My original idea was that this transfer would have
already happened by chapter 1, and they could have been the
pilots who plucked Alex out of space, but it eventually became
clear to me that this was an irrelevant detail that didn't add
anything to Talon's interaction with Alex; if anything, it
worked out better that the chance meeting in the corridor on
page 41 was their first meeting. So when I was working on the
page 79-80 battle mosaic and thought it would be a good idea to
include an image of a fighter pilot, I decided to use Talon,
because it didn't make any sense to introduce a new character
just for one panel.
I did wimp out a bit on the pilot hardsuit, which I had
originally intended to be much more robust. But since I had
already established Talon in the lighter suit, and since
spending time on a hardsuit design that will probably never be
used again didn't make sense, I just beefed up the lighter
flight suit with some extra pieces.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Why are Loroi ships named after human
weapons?"
They're named after Loroi weapons, but names like nezatin, eides
and nazali are not meaningful to most readers, so English
translations of similar human weapons such as scimitar, katana
and warhammer are provided. Like spoken names, I try to provide
both the Loroi names and the translations where possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So the Loroi have mermaids?"
Keeping in mind that the sailors are female? No.
They're sea furies, a sort of storm spirit. Different depiction
of the same things that are in the Tempest tapestry.
They're two different depictions of more or less the same thing:
a sea fury or storm spirit. Since they're mythical, depictions
and attributes can vary substantially. There's a shrieking,
storm-calling siren/banshee element to them, and also an element
of the Greek Erinyes (Roman Furies), that is, as spirits of
vengeance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's a manta-like Taben analogue to the flying fish, that is
associated with the storm spirits. Kind of like seeing an
albatross, if you saw these things jumping in the wake of your
sailing vessel, it was a sign you were in for trouble.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Capital ships are going to have much more powerful ECM suites
than fighters, so you'd only need ECM on the fighters if they
are operating far from the motherships.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of the caste uniforms have more than one variant, and the
rank tabs sometimes take different shapes for different titles,
especially as you get up into the command ranks and nearly all
the tabs are yellow/gold/orange. The Soroin armor has a lot of
variants, as Soroin can vary in rank and role from footsoldier
to shoe-girl to ship captain.
Ashrain is a Torret (Captain), Moonglow is a Mazeit (Senior
Captain / Commodore), and Stillstorm is a Lashret (Commander /
Rear Admiral). The differing styles of their rank tabs and
shoulder pauldrons indicate their differing titles. Normally all
squadrons would be commanded by a Mazeit, but the Loroi are
short of flag officers in the raider squadrons at the moment.
Nova is a Soroin Torret (junior Captain). It's common for new
captains, especially on smaller ships, to serve for some time as
a Soroin Torret before they are given leave to complete Torrai
training. In this case Nova is actually the acting squadron
commander, because the normal commander of the Van squadron took
her ship home after the first Naam battle due to damage. There
will be more details about these kinds of factoids in the
forthcoming Insider page on Strike Group 51 at Naam.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So does Greywind generally wear the red
Torrai armor, or does she have her own special suit?"
Both. She has a conventional Torrai uniform, and a more
elaborate ceremonial white and silver armor (of which there is a
concept in the gallery) for more formal occasions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whether it's antimatter or some other exotic material, it's
still a matter-annihilation reaction, so it's always going to be
E = mc², minus some percentage for inefficiency. Assuming
perfect efficiency, 1 kg of matter annihilated yields 89,875
terajoules, or about 21.5 megatons. (Edward Muller's calculator
is a little bit misleading, as it produces 43 MT per kg of
antimatter, because he's assuming that there is an equal amount
of matter that is also annihilated, doubling the yield per kg.)
A hypothetical 40 g 20-ton torpedo that wanted to burn for a
full displacement of one light-second would need to have at
least 20 minutes worth of fuel. Mass equivalent of the energy
needed for this acceleration (assuming perfect efficiency) is
only .026 kg. Even if we assume order-of-magnitude inefficiency
in the conversion and drive mechanism, the amount of
matter-annihilation fuel needed for this 20 minute burn is still
probably less than 1 kg.
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Some ships do have a linear accelerator launch tube to give the
torpedoes some extra starting velocity, but I think that sort of
thing would work best in a configuration where you have a small
number of launchers and a magazine feeding them. In the case of
this particular Umiak ship, if every one of those ports was a
linear accelerator, that would be an awful lot of linear
accelerators -- 120 at least. I doubt that the firing of these
torpedoes is exerting a very significant force on the ship, but
if it was, I'm sure the pilots wouldn't have any trouble
compensating for it.
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Note that the line is "estimated time to intercept," which is
conveniently ambiguous. Cobalt and Redrill are preparing to
operate the main batteries.
If your goal as an Umiak commander is maximum protection of your
ships, it might seem to make sense to launch gunboats and
torpedoes early and time them so that they hit the Loroi line
just as your ships are entering pulse cannon range, so that the
Loroi ships are dodging attacks instead of shooting at you. The
drawback of this strategy is that you give the Loroi a lot of
time to take "free shots" at the torpedoes and small craft with
all available weapons. Gunboats can dodge to some degree while
closing, but most torpedoes are designed for straight-ahead
acceleration rather than evasive maneuvers, so they can be often
be hit even with the Loroi heavy weapons. If the Loroi can
destroy most of the small craft before the Umiak heavies come
into range then it is a wasted effort, so this requires an
extreme number of torpedoes and gunboats to be effective.
A more aggressive Umiak commander that wants to balance ship
safety with maximizing the threat of torpedoes and gunboats to
get in close and do serious damage can use his heavy ships to
bait Loroi fire, forcing the Loroi to make tough choices about
which to shoot at, and try to time arrival of the small craft on
target at the same time that the Umiak heavies are entering
effective plasma focus range, so as to apply maximum pressure at
the moment that the Loroi themselves come under fire. In this
case the tactic would be to launch the bulk of your torpedoes
right before you enter Loroi pulse cannon range and then press
in behind them. An Umiak heavy vessel does have a chance to
withstand a pulse cannon hit, especially at longer range,
whereas torpedoes do not. Any Umiak heavy that is destroyed is
already empty of torpedoes, and draws fire off the small craft.
The drawback in this tactic is that the Loroi have multiple
tiers of weapons systems that can engage different targets at
different ranges simultaneously, so a well-coordinated Loroi
fleet may be able to inflict heavy ship losses on the Umiak
while still managing the incoming torpedoes. As with all Umiak
strategies, numbers are an important key to success.
Which tactic is mathematically optimal will depend on the
situation, but given that the objective of most Umiak attacks is
to cause maximum Loroi casualties (almost without regard to
their own losses), the latter of the two tactics is usually
Umiak standard operating procedure.
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The Nozotel has a slightly different style of uniform, like
Nova's (page 73, top right) except with a triangular glowy on
the breastplate.
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You don't have to "dodge" to avoid a ballistic projectile, you
just have to change course very slightly every now and then. You
could use a mass driver as a last-ditch close-in point defense
system (somewhat like the CIWS), but I'm not sure the effective
range of such a system would be much greater than the blast
radius of a torpedo. Would it be superior to the Loroi
rapid-fire laser point defenses? No. If it was, the Loroi would
be using it.
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That's correct, Tsunami is a Vanguard-class battlecruiser. Also
the #19 escort cruiser is part of the center squadron, though of
course that's not relevant to the calculation at hand.
Falling back ahead of the torpedoes would normally be a very
effective tactic to buy extra time to shoot at them, but there
is a limitation on how much ground you can give when one is
defending a fixed point.
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Arclight's Torrent is a Scimitar-class heavy cruiser.
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Ashrain's ship Black Razor is the Katana-class war cruiser. It's
distinctive by the black stripe across the prongs. Arclight is
the spiky-haired captain in charge of the Tempest's escorts
(center squadron), and Ashrain is the white-haired captain in
charge of the right wing. Don't worry, there isn't going to be a
test later. I'm not burdening the reader with the names of all
the ships and captains at this point, because it's a ton of
exposition that's not particularly relevant at this point; I
think Ashrain's name is the only one that gets mentioned. I'll
post all this information (for those interested in trivia) in an
Insider page after the battle is completed.
The current strength of Strike Group 51 is: 1xGCS, 1xBC, 1xCW,
8xCA, 4xCLE, 13xDD. Aside from Tempest, the three main actors in
the forthcoming sequence each command a conveniently different
class of ship: Ashrain of Black Razor (CW), Moonglow of Tsunami
(BC), and Nova of Winter Tide (CLE). (The CLE isn't unique, but
when you see a CLE, it's Winter Tide.)
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Yes, the blue doors are hangar bays. Tempest has a normal
complement of 8 interceptors, but the light interceptors can
also be carried in place of shuttles on the smaller vessels, and
so SG51 interceptor squadron is a collection of individual craft
carried on board the various heavy cruisers and battlecruisers.
The Loroi squadron is at the edge of the proplyd disc; most of
the material is in front of them. It's unlikely that an enemy
squadron would be able to leave the disc and flank them without
being detected by conventional sensors.
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SG51 currently has 19 interceptors in action, which is 9 for
Tempest, 2 for each of the battlecruisers, and roughly 1 for
each of the heavy cruisers. The original complement was probably
25, but the fleet also originally had seven more warships that
were destroyed or damaged in the first day's fighting (the
damaged vessels having withdrawn).
And, as discord mentions, you can see the specs for the
dedicated carriers on the ship classes page.
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It all depends on the situation. If your ship suffers a
catastrophic failure while under enemy fire, you're not going to
see many survivors; maybe a few people who happened to be in
pressure suits and were near the extremities of the ship. If
there is time for an orderly evacuation, one might expect a
significant portion of the crew to survive to be rescued.
However, any possibility of rescue requires that your side "held
the field" and are at hand to rescue you.
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I suppose a realistic hard-science spaceship crew would probably
be decked out in flight gear and visibly strapped into their
stations, but that's not the feel I'm going for. The command
deck is deep in the center of the ship, so there may be an
argument to be made that any hit that suddenly exposes them to
space is probably going to be pretty fatal regardless of what
gear they have on, but I guess that largely depends on your
point of view. For a while before the Challenger accident the
space shuttle crews were doing liftoffs in shirtsleeves; now
they won't even launch unless there's a backup to come rescue
them. The risk level hasn't changed, but the mindset certainly
has.
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The Loroi like to decorate things, but often such decoration is
reserved for official citations: for example, a unit is allowed
to display a custom emblem if it has earned a unit citation.
However, to a certain degree this is left to local command, and
there have been a few Loroi commanders who have allowed a wide
variety of personal embellishments of their craft (reminiscent
of Baron von Richthofen's Flying Circus). Stillstorm is not such
a commander.
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The Kikkut had it rougher than their Hal-tik cousins, as they
were smaller and even less sophisticated. As the other
sub-species advanced and challenged each other, the Kikkut were
displaced into ever-less-desirable habitats. When the Hal-tik
first began the long conflict against the Trik-tik, the Kikkut
were still valued as slaves and conquerable peasant communities,
but by the time the modern Umiak finally achieved dominance, the
natural ecosystems of Empire were in ruins, and the Kikkut had
been reduced to the status of sewer rats -- primitive scavengers
off the technological societies that had left them in the dust.
Yes, life on the ancient Umiak homeworld was fun times.
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On the contrary, larger animals require larger brains, and large
brains seem to be a good path to sentience: there is more
processing power available for diversion to other pursuits.
Aside from our closest kin (primates), the most intelligent
mammals you'll find on Earth are among the largest: elephants,
dolphins, orcas and other whales.
Again, we're talking about a low-gravity ecosystem here... a
Lurs is tall but lanky... a 6m specimen might weigh 5,000 kg (as
much as an elephant), but assuming that the Lurs homeworld is
one-half Earth gravity, such a creature could move pretty well.
You've got an elephant's mass of muscle moving only half as much
weight. I imagine the proto-Lurs filling a niche across between
a gorilla and a tree sloth. Imagine the kind of monstrous trees
that could grow in one-half gravity. Such animals would require
a lot of food, but not near as much as an elephant on Earth.
It's true that giant populations will be smaller than
human-sized ones, but I haven't seen any evidence that smaller
populations equates to lesser technical advancement. If
population size was the ultimate meter of technological
advancement, then Asian cultures should have dominated the West
on Earth... and that's not what happened.
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Torpedoes vary in maximum thrust potential from 40-60 G, and
they accelerate at full thrust pretty much the whole time. The
only way to "sprint" at the end would be to include a secondary
motor or booster, and I don't see the benefit that would justify
the added cost or weight. Real-world torpedoes and cruise
missiles don't have anything like this kind of "sprint" mode.
The real-world Sprint missile was a point-defense weapon, not a
torpedo or cruise missile. It could do 100G, but required two
stages and burned all its fuel in just a few seconds.
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I don't think parallax is going to be an effective way to
determine distance... if a target is 10 light years away, I
don't think a Loroi mind is going to be able to accurately
measure the displacement of the contact over the distance that a
ship could travel in a few hours; Farseers aren't computers. The
only way they will be able to judge distance is if a more
distant contact has a fainter signature. Faintness with distance
doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the speed of the
detection medium; a distant star would still appear fainter than
a near one even if the light was transmitted instantaneously.
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Well, the Mannadi are still there, and it's kind of a Forbidden
Zone of unregulated activity. The Loroi patrol the area looking
for ships and orbital installations and other high-value
targets, but they mostly leave the planetside Mannadi remnants
alone to their own devices. The Mannadi would not be able to
build ships of their own, unless they had outside help, but they
certainly have motive to attack the Loroi, even against
desperate odds. If what you want is ground combat against a
guerrilla enemy, having an outpost in that region fighting
resurgent Mannadi locals is as plausible an option as any.
Mannadi space is not near to human territory, so it's not clear
why humans might be there, though the proximity to the Historian
border is one possibility.
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Loroi males are outside the caste system and do not use titles.
Some males do not even speak Trade, as they are never in contact
with non-Loroi, and therefore do not need spoken names. But many
do have spoken names, which are similar to the feminine versions
(though less martial), and he usually is addressed with his name
and a reference to his most important female relation, such as:
"Welcome Rain, third great-nephew of Emperor Greywind."
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I would expect support robots to be a lot like modern UAV's in
that they're semi-autonomous and capable of performing missions
on their own, but human operators assist when it comes to
engaging targets. It could probably operate in a variety of
modes, ranging from full remote control (by an operator in a
remote location), to fire-support mode (where a nearby soldier
designates targets with his own weapon/targeting system), to a
verbal-command mode (where a nearby soldier says "shoot that
bitch!"), to a fully autonomous mode. It could be as
sophisticated as a full-functioned AI trooper, or as simple as a
walking tripod that's programmed to follow you around. But in
any case, it provides the solution of mobility for your heavy
weapon much more effectively and MUCH more cheaply than a human
exoskeleton. |