Intergalactic Summit

Every culture sees itself in a positive light. Why should we be any different? We Gallente have never been some monolithic engine of forcible assimilation. Perhaps our two cultures could never have truly coexisted in partnership. What the Gallente see as a form of government that fosters cooperation and mutual respect, the Caldari see as stifling interference in their affairs. What the Caldari see as exerting their rightful independence, the Gallente see as greed and refusal to work toward the greater good.

Debating the cause of conflict between our people is a never-ending cycle. Each of us have our grievances. Each of us have a right to our own viewpoints. In my experience in these discussions there are numerous Gallente voices willing to respect the Caldari point of view, even though they may disagree.

Are you willing to do likewise? Or are you too caught up in tearing at old wounds? Those who are concerned about being respected as equals should perhaps cease childishly clinging to the injury their pride has sustained from past slights.

Yes you did once your duplicity was discovered.

But as you said, not the place.

Yes, just like the Minmatar willingly founded the Ammatar Mandate.

Are you normally so blinded by bias, or did you have to work at it?

To my countryment who are arguing this - the Federation was originally something that the Caldari entered into willingly and in the full belief it would be nothing but of benefit to us.

We then turned out to be catastrophically wrong. Let's be clear on what really happened, here.



So perceived disrespect some hundreds of years ago is an excuse for disrespect now? I've always argued such antique anger was petty even when the Caldari were doing it. (The occupation of Home was an ongoing disrespect, before you try to pursue that route).

The point, pilot, is that if the bad blood between the Federation and State is ever to become a history lesson only, the first thing that must be done, here and now, is for the Federation to respect our right to chart our own course, and for us to reciprocate. Forget past injustices - it is remembering them that is giving us this trouble today.

The State preserves our past, and does so because the past is the foundation for today. It's today that matters, and today, (i.e. - in current affairs) a senior member of the Federation's government is demonstrating the most vicious disregard for the sovereignty of my country.

Shoa Tiuul Vekiintokryi - Cold Wind Must Blow.

I believe he is suggesting that that the Caldari helped found the Federation in the same way in which the Minmatar helped found the Mandate; which implies it was more of a circumstantial necessity than a voluntary and jubilant cooperation.

For clarification's sake, that's the point he's making. The Nefantar are ethnically Minmatar, I'll not get into the debate about whether or not they're recognized as such by various other Minmatar. The Mandate was also formed more by necessity than anything, at least as the recollection of many people would suggest.

Vikarion, I'm on your side but for the Winds' sake man could you confine your account to what is historically accurate?

The Federation was supposed to be a good thing for us. We got a boost into the space economy rather than having to bootstrap ourselves up the gravity well, shared resources took the food pressure off Home allowing our population to boom, and we were supposed to be equal and honoured partners in building an interstellar civilisation. It wasn't something we accepted under duress - it was to some degree our idea.

Then it turned out that the Federation disliked certain Caldari business practices, and there was an ethical difference of opinion to overcome and the Caldari demographic found that our lesser population carried less weight in the Democracy than the Gallentean majority and suddenly we went from being equal partners to being a gently annexed territory who were being strangled from living how we wanted to live in a society that was supposedly engineered to be permissive about lifestyles.

Then you have the frustrated megas setting up colonies and holdings outside of Federal oversight, discovery, shouting matches on the Senate floor and a gross overreaction and the rest is mostly battles until the treaty of Tierijev.

The Caldari were NOT strong-armed into co-founding the Federation. claiming that we were undermines your credibility and you should stop.

Now you're the one who's straying outside the bounds of what's historically accurate, AND straying outside the bounds of your experience to boot.

The Caldari... "Zeitgeist"? Good word. ...of the time was informed by broadly the same historical context as our own, minus a certain war. Similar upbringings, the same traditions, the same general attitudes. The State exists to tend to and promote those traditional values, and the corporations were around for a fair bit before the State or even the Federation were.

I can't know for sure, but I very much doubt we were any more or less heterogeneous then than we are now. Heiian is not a recent concept. It goes right back to long before the Raata Empire, in fact. We're a collectivist culture, that's one of the defining things about the Caldari mindset. It's a tradition we're proud to uphold.

Am I saying that we're completely the same as we were back then? No, of course not, there have been massive upheavals in that time. But please don't try to pretend that we are homogeneous now, or that we were more heterogeneous then. You'll turn out to be absurdly wrong on both counts.

One man's group of terrorists is another man's group of government sponsored thugs.
Pilot Coal, I should remind you that senior Federation chappies, Mentas Blaque among them have not exactly acted with equinamity regarding the Caldari issue, and the only thing separating the Templis Dragonaurs from the FIO's hit squads is a governmental edict. Not even that separates them if you believe the rumour going round that the CPD's own hit squads are former Templis Dragonaur men. Both Heth and Blaque have been engaged in mudslinging contests and I don't want to think about where its going to end.

Quite simple really
Your leaders make antagonistic statements to the State whilst the State has quite large numbers of Gallenteans under their armed guard and then you wonder how those people are being treated.
I merely find that rather strange is all, you can't play hardball with one hand and complain about the living conditions of people living in enemy territory with the next.