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Well, she said more or less the same thing, except with more characteristically Beryl politeness. ☺

Arioch

Also, I liked Beryl's side-eye and comment in an earlier version, but I trust Arioch has reasons for leading her part of the conversation down a slightly different path.

CJSF

I think it's funny (in the current iteration of dialog) that they agree how messed up it is! I wonder if they are working with the same definition of "messed" up though. I suppose there's a term for that in any language!

CJSF

Have you looked about estimated survivability in some real world settings? When the difference between kamikaze and certain death trying to put a torpedo into a target become meaningless, what are you going to do? Try to be a German submariner during the later stages of WWII, the casualty rate was horrific to say the least.

Michael Pettersson

Chances are that they are not brought into combat at all and it's typically left behind in relative safety. At the moment thou they where moving so it wasn't left behind. Besides the diral are all but destroyed now, the need for safe keeping are gone.

Michael Pettersson

Well, this is an extreme example, as SG51 is a raider group that sees an unusual amount of action, and just recently got roughed up pretty bad in a punishing ambush. So the global loss rate isn't anything like that high, but it's still a very high-risk position with a low life expectancy, which is why they're short on pilots and reduced to using teenagers fresh out of training. I think in its worst days, the 8th Air Force was losing 25% of its planes _per sortie_ over Germany without fighter protection.

Arioch

90% annual casualties among interceptor pilots? OUCH. I think a few Air Force commands in WWII took casualties that bad BRIEFLY, but anyone who took casualties that bad for two years running generally stopped having a credible air force...

Ronald Homer

Not sure he would say anything "reflexively" in a foreign language. ;)

Arioch

According to the timeline the Loroi have been a warrior culture since the fall of the Soia Empire over 400,000 years ago. They ended up on three worlds without FTL and developed their own cultures, but remained a warrior race. They regained jump tech 1862 years ago and became reunified, still as a warrior race. The war is straining their culture, but warping their culture? Not so much.

Edward Lott

The interceptor pilots are essentially filled with fatalistic death squads? And they are okay with it. Yes this war has probably changed them. It makes the "join or die" choice they give to other species make more sense. They live this as a life, they cannot see any other way to do it. And there may be a bit of genetic selection in there going on.

Bee

So he gets warned by the Historian's program that the Loroi are not his friends. I think we are starting to see here though just how much of a strain and warping this long war has had on their cultures and society.

Earl Tower

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. 1- It would help control panic and give a sense of control in bad situations- the Bearer would have long since come to terms with their demise and not panic. 1b- if anything, when their ship is partially damaged or a situation called for it tactically, the Bearer would be far more likely to use their afterburners to ram a viable target than try and hit their afterburners to limp home. 2- Speaking of suicidal afterburners, there are tons of tactical situations where it can be very beneficial to have one person do a heroic sacrifice. Outnumbered and need to flee? It's a lot easier to hunt down a formation where 10 ships are all trying to save themselves, than it is to hunt 9 ships fleeing and one peels off to harry you from the flanks with no care for their own survival. Left juicy fuel tankers behind your pickets, secure in the knowledge that no ship could make it through and slow down enough to turn around and come back to their lines safely without getting chewed to pieces while they turned around? (or escape the gravity well of the planet)? Well too bad, one Loroi pilot flew through the line anyway, dodging and soaking up fire all the way, (reducing the amount of fire on her sisters, freeing them up to damage some of the gunboats), unloading all her missiles into one tanker and ramming her ship into the other one, destroying both. 2b- Worst of all, you never know which one is going to do it, but you always have to plan for the possibility because it FEELs like it's always someone. There's no rhyme or reason to it- it's not always the highest ranking one leading from the front, and it's not always the lowest ranking one. Maybe it's no one at all today. But you always have to play it conservatively and worry about over-extending. 3- You don't get the benefit of having ALL your enemies suicidally charge to their deaths and expend themselves with maximum casualties- in fact most of them fight smart and will preserve their numbers, including falling back and retreating when the situation calls for it. 3b- You don't get the morale penalties or high attrition of having everyone being expected to throw their lives away at the first drop of a hat- you have one person designated to do that. 3c- When an "It's Hero Time" situation pops up, there's no hesitation or dithering about "Please don't pick me, please don't pick me" or "Should I? Shouldn't I?". The Hero knows who she is and has been mentally envisioning it- hoping for ways to save as many of her sisters as possible. 3d- It accepts the inevitability of death but also adds meaning to it and gives that sense of control. The Bearer will always be looking for an opportunity to trade her life as dearly as possible, and maybe be sad, but also happy if she manages to find a good death that takes down a lot of shells. It's actually wicked smart, and I'm sure the shells find it super annoying too.

Shane Wegner

I briefly pictured them going out of their way to send some drone to recover the (nearly indestructible?) knife from the vaporized wreckage of a nuked interceptor, but that doesn't make much sense. Maybe they 3d print copies, or even more likely the "bearer" accepts it and then keeps it in their flight locker back on the carrier. When word comes in that they're KIA, it goes to its next home in the new bearer's locker.

Shane Wegner

I'm still looking forward to their reactions to some Earth customs and superstitions. The "handshake" business was great, so what will they do when he reflexively says "Bless you" in response to a sneeze?

Perrin Rynning

yes, seriously alien mindsets ..

markus baur

Great world building in these last two pages!