Intergalactic Summit

Without delving too much into democracy as it pertains to the cluster and the Amarr (perhaps a discussion for another time?) I did want to touch on the New Reclaiming. It seems a lot of people, especially in our own cluster, are talking about this as if it is time for an invasion. In essence, that would have been a continuation of the old Reclaimings.

Given the wisdom we've seen in the Pax Amarria, we know that all-out invasion is not the answer to our current crisis. That may be exactly why we are in our current crisis. God may be placing us in a position where force simply is not the answer, thus preparing to teach the entirety of the cluster about kindness.

The inviolate commandment still stands, though. God's Word must be spread through the cluster until all people live under his message. So, how do we do that without the "grrr....slaves" thing?

The simple answer is, we don't know yet. The more complicated answer is that we have several ideas that we're kicking around. Some people are looking for financial power and know that our system simply has a higher means of production than others. Given industrialization and the slave labor at our disposal, this idea simply means we can win the economic war and take the cluster that way. Some believe that showing our military might in the current factional warfare would give our Empire a good name. My experiment is to test how well we can recruit from outside the cluster and thus form religious organization outside of the Empire. When more and more convert, so too shall the political system. I'm also involved in testing the moral tenets, seeing if perhaps we can train people in the Amarr Empire and release them, learned, as citizens.

Really, the New Reclaiming is a call for new ideas. The old ones will obviously not work. You can't simply trapse into Gallente territory and shoot everyone. Not only does that make conversion much more difficult, but it leaves a lot fewer people to convert.

Some people do still like lasers, though. I suppose every Empire will have some people who think shooting things will solve their problems, even though our own Empire is a fairly decent example that this isn't the case.

Which relates back to the original subject matter. Shakor is one of those laser people, and its somewhat sad to see considering how much respect many of us had for Midular. Not universal, obviously, but respect nonetheless. She really was trying to better her people in her own way.

Then perhaps it would be better to use a different term in the political sphere. "Reclaiming" has an extremely negative stigma associated with it. Amarrians may interpret it as simply spreading the word of your God, but to us outsiders the imagery of slaves and genocide come into mind when we hear the word "Reclaiming".



Do what we Gallenteans have been doing for hundreds of years, cultural warfare. Give people a reason to come to your faith, not a reason to break away from it. Show the cluster how it's helps people, not how it harms them. Accept people's own unique beliefs and show them how your faith is compatible with them.

It won't be as efficient or effective as simply flying in and taking slaves, but it will make people in the cluster say "Hey! This Amarr thing isn't so bad afterall!" You may want people to convert to you, but the first step will have to be making them accept you. When people who aren't of the faith walk by your cathedrals and churches, they often look uneasy or outright disgusted. Change your ways so that when someone not of the faith walks by one of your holy structures across the cluster, make them want to stop and admire it, and possibly even enter inside.



Your experiment is just and I wish you the best of luck. Despite all my qualms with the Empire, I truly want to see them as a force of good in New Eden, and not the war hungry zealots the majority of outsiders believe you are. I highly doubt one of you will manage to convert me, even with more humane methods, but hey, I've been wrong before.



With Heth out of the way, Shakor is the next biggest threat to the peace and stability of the cluster. I hope the Republic gets rid of him in due time, preferably peacefully, but violently if need be.

Which just goes to show how backwards their ideology can occasionally be. Virtually every other entity in New Eden regards slavery and mass genocide as something abhorrent and unforgivable. If they didn't, then I'm quite certain CONCORD wouldn't mind if the Empire continued what they started during the Unchallenged Era.

The conservative Reclaimer view would be that Peace with the Minmatar Republic would only be achieved by the enslavement of all Republic persons. As history shows, the great and merciful Emperor Heideran VII disagreed with that view.

As for the Empress Jamyl 1. Well, she did say that what people gave to the Empire, she would give to them. The Shakor Republic did not give any peace offer, instead choosing more war.

Well, starting in line, Fred, we really do need to use the word Reclaiming. It's the Scriptural term and, in the end, I think it is somewhat disingenuous to change a policy's name but then continue it. The New Reclaiming is just that, a new way of performing the Reclaiming. Which is cultural warfare, I suppose, but that has been a part of our Empire as well for a long time. We didn't conquer everyone who is part of our Empire, nor are we completely culturally homogenous. Where the Scripture does not necessarily give direction, we are given some space for interpretation. The Khanid are probably the best example, having been a part of the Empire since the earliest part of the Reclaiming, on our home planet. They retain quite a bit of cultural distinction. As I've recently been informed, quite a bit of distinction.

As such, we aren't ones to re-brand and then stick to the same policy, I suppose. To call it the Recongregation or something of that nature feels somehow dirty. It's hard to put into words, but it does seem very slimy and political to just change the name in order to court popular opinion. Perhaps that's another Amarr thing. I'm not entirely sure. Either way, I think that view is fairly common throughout the Empire. You need to confront ignorance, not placate it.

Regardless, the Pax Amarria has served our Empire fairly well. Without focusing completely on conquest, we've been able to invest a considerable portion of our wealth and resources into infrastructure and domestic issues. We are a very large empire, so this has had the effect of raising the standard of living. With factional warfare now reduced to a few now sparsely-populated systems, ones which are relatively easy to reinforce the borders of, we've really only had to hold the Minmatar at bay since the Elder Fleet was destroyed by our Empress and the grace of God. So the wisdom of the idea of peace isn't simply that we've had success converting foreigners, but because our domestic faith has become more stable. It's very hard to quantify average quality of life, but we've certainly not seen bad times domestically.

The best way to view us is the way I've come to view the Gallenteans. You really need to forget the stereotypes you're taught as a child. I know what I've heard about your people being degenerate pushers and addicts of every stripe. Some more conservative members of the town I visited as a child said Gallenteans had more members among the Sani Sabik than we did (unfounded, of course). While there are elements of truth to everything, we are given the worst of minorities as a model for foreign societies. The idea of the zealous, slave-devouring mining company owner who makes even his employees kneel and give official address might exist, but it isn't necessarily the median of our culture. Even if there are elements of it you disagree with, you will really only ever see through a certain lens if you don't view the universe objectively.

My rules of intercultural relations is to first look at yourself and your own culture before you say something. See if you can find a corollary in yours, because that will be the first thing anyone will think. Try to think about not what you've been told about a culture nor even what you see, but what a member of that culture must think like. They've probably been taught certain ways all their lives and never questioned them or held them up objectively to other societies. You have to almost let your mind be free of every prejudice you've ever had and to truly try to understand what would make a person, almost all of whom think they are doing the right thing in the universe, behave the way they do. Very few of us are distinctly trying to do wrong.

After that, things are simpler. People have certain things they value, and certain things they look down on. It changes not just from empire to empire or culture to culture, but even person to person. The greatest joy I've had in my ministry has not been learning about other cultures, but seeing people distinct from them. As individuals who are struggling to do right the way that they were taught to, whether it really is objectively beneficial or not.

You would be amazed how, strikingly, it doesn't seem that we are all different but that we are all very similar. I have more in common with you than in contrast, and with most of the people I meet. In the end, maybe that is the true lesson of the Reclaiming. Here we are, all trying desperately to give value and meaning to our differences in order to somehow obscure that we are already more alike than unalike. Some people will see it and will be able to live with real confidence in their culture, because they know what is right and what needs corrected in it. Some people are going to fight it, kicking and screaming, trying to convince everyone we're the good guys versus all the of universe's bad guys. You simply have to see the good everyone is trying to do first and proceed from there.

Shakor, as a case in point, really does believe we are a threat for precisely the same reasons you do or did. He has taken the stereotypes from centuries ago and made them realities in his mind. He really does think guns will solve his people's problems, because the Republic in his mind suffers due to everyone outside it. However incorrect, he believes in his stereotype so blindly that he can no longer objectively view either us or his own people.

That is why he must be removed from power. He is fighting a ghost to the cost of his own people. We all have common problems to deal with, and we would deal with them better if we could act with unity. I think we will eventually; we're moving in that direction. Then maybe we can deal with these pirate problems once and for all.

Imagine what we could be doing to our local pirate threats if we weren't shipping all of our resources to these factional battlefronts.

Yawn. More Matari bashing and more condescending, paternalistic half-truths made by the slavers and their apologists. Nothing new to see here, move along.

Prove to me that your hands are virginal and clean of blood, Pilot Moore. Maybe then I'll be able to take your "discussion" seriously and not just another in a long string of cheap propaganda attempts.

This is one of the main reasons why the Federation must be destroyed.

Democracy is degenerated form of management, relying on wishes of grey masses. Democratic leaders are clowns, who work for public, making shows to get better places instead of working for the sake of society. Such management system is way inferior to any other and leads to stagnation. By ensuring this stagnation to other societies, gallenteans bring them down to their level, preventing them from successful developing, that otherwise make them way stronger and efficient than their gallentean "masters".

And this is why the Federation must be destroyed.

The Amarrian Empire has and always will offer peace to all the races of New Eden, the peace of devotion to God, the peace of the Glaive-collar, and the peace of the grave.

Our undeniable history both proves and compels each generation to enforce the will of God. It is an elemental force of nature within Amarrian society and as such it will not be long deterred.

Until the Empire admits fault and accepts responsibility for 700 years of murder, ****, torture, and kidnapping, and stops hiding behind that hateful "God" there will be no peace.

You want peace?

Stop pointing fingers and making ******* excuses. "Oh, but we could have been worse! Oh, but you attacked us!"

YES we attacked you. What the hell did you THINK would happen? What people, having endured what we did, and then having learned that an entire Tribe, believed to be lost, was in fact alive, what do you EXPECT us to do? Anything else is a delusion at best, period.

The Empire is a nation of war criminals, people who daily commit crimes against humanity.

You want peace? So do I.

Withdraw from our space. All of it. Immediately cease all hostilities.

Return Arzad to us. It is not yours. It never was.

Prosecute those holders who have used poison and torture for generations under international tribunal, as any war criminal should be tried.

Release ALL people held in generational slavery. Aww, its bad for your economy? Suck it up. Occupation and enslavement was pretty ******* bad for ours.

Not willing to do it, are you?

Then you dont want peace. You want to try and shift blame, to feel better about yourself and your hateful mockery of a faith.

Ava, you have just asked the Empire to hand you a brimming cup of poison. I understand your anger, Winds know I do, and I sympathise with it, but what you have just asked for will destroy the Matari far more surely than it would destroy the Empire.

Even if all those people could be gotten to Minmatar space, you would bury half of them within a year.