Intergalactic Summit

It is unsurprising to no one that capsuleer political and philosophical discussions is somewhat of an ivory tower, where theory and ideals are debated while completely forgetting everyday realities. I present to you the following:



Large segments of the Gallentean and Matari civilizations believe in this ideal, and many in both groups are willing to die for that belief, even myself.

The Caldari, along with their Imperial allies, do not believe in such a maxim. They believe that only through submission to the system can contentment prevail. In fact, sometimes individual happiness is not a concern here, and that greater stability is much more important than personal comfort. The Caldari and Amarr are bound to the pressures of tradition, culture, and history, as imposed by the regime. Even if the Minmatar have their historical traditions that they conduct and such, the instability of the Republic government and state is a testament to just how much our allies, like us, do not care for abiding by the system.

I concur with this sentiment. It must surely be true that a man on the job gets more done for humanity than someone who is "free" but listless.

Certainly the Republic is constantly discovering new ways for free men to be miserable.

Like dumping them on god-forsaken planets?

Posting in yet another "Gallente are better then everyone else" thread that Seriphyn has started. If anyone else lost count, this is about the 15th he has made on this topic.

How many times do I need to point out that ours is a society which outlaws slavery too before you take notice?

Let me spell it out for you:



We oppose it so vigorously that when the only available rescue effort to aid a colony of trapped and dying miners two years ago was a Ducia Foundry team which included slaves, the State steadfastly refused to permit the rescue to go ahead because it involved slavery. When one individual acted unilaterally to deploy the slave team anyway, he was subsequently arrested and tried. I wonder if the Federation would have stuck to its ideals at the expense of its citizens in the same way?

In fact, we are possibly unique among the nations of New Eden in having no known history of slavery, ever. Even the Gallente and Minmatar peoples enslaved one another when their civilizations were still young and primitive. I'll freely confess that my fellow citizens tend to view things less through the lens of morality and more through the lens of practicality, but the fact remains that we have a longer history of neither practicing nor allowing slavery than any other culture in the cluster.

I'll also allow that my fellow citizens are content to let the Amarr do their own thing on the grounds that it's none of our business what they do inside their own borders. I respectfully dissent on the grounds that the Empire's stated intent is to one day Reclaim all of New Eden, which means that they are making it our business regardless of whether or not we would otherwise stay out of it. For all that we may wish to remain isolated, the State is not isolated and must keep an eye on the foreign policies of other nations. Especially where they pose a long-term threat.

We believe that the secret of happiness is to find something greater than you are and dedicate your life to it. Do any of the other cultures of New Eden believe differently? How many Gallenteans find fulfillment in military service or public office? How many Minmatar define themselves by their Clan, their Tribe, and by the fight for their people? How many Amarr devote themselves to their faith?

Duty and slavery are not the same thing. Duty does not treat people as property.

Seri, I'm going to ask you again - please understand us before you criticize us. That's what I've devoted these past years of my life to. The reason I have almost as good a standing with the Federation Navy as I do with the Caldari navy is because I spent more than a year in Sinq Laison trying to get my head around the Gallente way of life. Now I'm in Re-Awakened Technologies doing the same thing for the Republic.

There's an old saying about walking for a day in another man's shoes before you judge him. Well, I've tried to do that. I don't think you have. I think you're blinkered by prejudice but determined to judge anyway, with the result that when you do all you accomplish is betraying your own lack of understanding.

Uneducated fops like yourself seem to lack the capability of impartiality to realize I was neither aggrandizing the Federation or putting down the State. Read it again; it should automatically have been translated to a native Caldari language for you.



Putting aside the fact the State has made no serious attempt to combat slavery in its existence, I think you misappropiate the use of the term 'slave' here. If I were to compare your outlook to more unabashed Caldari, such as Diana Kim or Istvaan Shogaatsu here, you seem to approach the matter with a somewhat Gallente-centric viewpoint. I don't think I've heard the "secret of happiness" spoken from the mouth of any Caldari, either a Federation citizen or a capsuleer.

Looking at it with the bias of a Gallentean, everywhere else outside of the Federation is horrendously oppressive. The Caldari State is an authoritarian dictatorship run by corporations who are only interested in pursuing profit...remove the Gallentean bias there, and that statement is suffixed with "for the collective benefit of all". The Amarr Empire is also an authoritarian dictatorship, regardless of its practice of slavery, with institutions such as the Theology Council and Ministry of Internal Order that enforce the regime's line.

Measuring the 'freedoms' of the Caldari State can only be done against New Eden's benchmark for free societies, and that is the Federation. What else would you compare the State with, for individual liberties? No matter how much certain Gallenteans will say, there is no absolute measure for freedom. Personally, I find there's only a relative one. In all instances, the Caldari State and Amarr Empire do not even come close to the Federation's level of freedoms.

Yet, many non-Federate capsuleers seem to have a Gallente-centric view to such matters. As soon as they see any statement propagating the Federation's freedoms, they immediately try to compare their home societies to those of the Gallenteans. I'm not sure why. I would have thought most foreigners simply do not care about individual freedoms or liberties, since this is something propagated exclusively by the Gallenteans (and to a slightly lesser extent, the Minmatar). I have wondered if it's the influence of the Gallente media that dominates New Eden popular culture.

These folk seem to forget 'freedom' comes at a heavy price. It comes with popular division, ethnic and religious conflict, purposeless and miserable lives, inefficiency and bureaucratic burdens. Meanwhile, the Caldari State is the most efficient per capita sovereignty in the cluster, at the cost of individual freedom. Shogaatsu and Kim seem aware of these problems, and seem more than happy to dismiss 'freedom' for the problems it causes. I would have thought this is the popular consensus amongst the Caldari citizenry.

The point is, is that even though Caldari citizens are not slaves or under totalitarian control, if you used a Gallente form of measurement, they practically are.

In what way? How are you defining "freedom" here? The ability to do whatever the hell you like? You can do whatever the hell you like anywhere in the State, provided you are prepared to accept the consequences, or think you can avoid them. Is that not freedom, by your standards? If people want to drink themselves into a purposeless and miserable bottom-of-the-ladder hole, they can. We don't even bother to try to stop them. We prefer to nurture the successful rather than salvage the failed.



If you're using THEM as your example of Caldari popular consensus, it's no wonder you're so confused.

Anyway -
A) Part of the problem is that you've not yet proven that the Gallente form of measurement is a superior or more appropriate one to be using and
B) even if you had, I disagree.

Regardless of what is being attempted here, lets simplify the series of questions that are being put forth; and so far none have been answered.

1. What is the difference between the Empire states regarding personal autonomy?
2. What, if any, freedom is above any other?
3. Why do the different Empires align themselves to their allies?

This discussion began on the third point, with a naive position based on a single statement. This is flawed. Ultimately, we as capsuleers are not only aloof from the common citizen, but also have great personal autonomy and ability to align ourselves as we see fit. This should not be a question of how the states operate, or why they act as they do, merely how do we as immortals choose to align (or not) to their ideals.

No one Empire state (or otherwise) has a utopia that it can offer, nor perfection in its governance. I am a supporter of the Caldari State as it aligns the most to my ideals. If it does not for you, then we are free to carry out our conflict of interest; and then all that's left is the victor - as is the way.

You have not adequately demonstrated that your extrapolation is valid.

The corporations do, you are quite correct, centralize control over their holdings to a high degree. But it is a feature of Caldari society that we try to have a clear idea of where my business stops and your business starts. Witness our attitude towards the Amarr - we don't practice slavery, it is illegal under our laws and alien to our nature, but we ignore the Amarr doing it because we think it's none of our business. (I personally believe that this is a short-sighted policy which must be tempered by the observation that other cultures - and especially the Amarr - have less respect for such boundaries)

It is only a corporation's business what a citizen gets up to when that citizen's activities involve, take place on, or impact on corporate property.

So no, you can't extrapolate that just because the corporations keep a tight watch on their property, that they treat their citizens the same way. Property and possession are central to State law because they are absolutely critical to the healthy running of an economy. A citizen's home and the things inside that home belong to the citizen and it is none of the corporation's concern what that citizen does with their home and possessions except in the case where the citizen intends to do something illegal with them.

I also note you've not actually answered any of my questions, so allow me to summarize them.

1: What standards for "freedom" are you using here?
2: What liberties do most Caldari citizens lack that most Gallente citizens do not?
3: Do you genuinely think that the conditions a Caldari citizen experiences are equivalent to those experienced by a slave in the Empire?
4: If so, how do you justify and explain that attitude?
5: Why are you judging us by our worst examples?