Intergalactic Summit

With the recent reorganisation of the Tribal Assembly and Republic Parliament bringing change to politics across Minmatar space, many people are enthusiastic about the prospect of a new age for the Minmatar people.

However, some are not as pleased about the changes.

The Republic Parliament being reduced to 35 members, 5 from each Tribe, is causing concern for some of the smaller clans spread over Republic space.

"It's all right for the Matar clans, for sure, but what are we doing out here in Eystur? Sitting on our thumbs?" said one Sebiestor woman, from one of the Eystur clans.

"See, now what's good for Mirkamurka on Matar, isn't the same as what's good for Hadaugago, now is it?" said another Sebiestor from the outer worlds.

Other outer worlds clans have different opinions.

"See, those Sveipar clans don't get it. Complaining to the Republic Parliament. They're too used to it, being that close to Pator. Whereas, out here in Stadakorn, we're far from the Parliament. We've had to be self-reliant. And that's a good thing. More Minmatar have to be self reliant, stop sucking on the Gallente teat. The metaphorical one. I have no problem with pleasure hubs, what am I, an Amarrian?" said one travelling Sebiestor starship engineer.

The future will tell how this works out for the Minmatar people.



In other news, Amarrian operatives from the Noble Appliances corporation, are rumoured to be behind a wave of breaking and entering into Minmatar pilot's quarters, leaving behind suspicious clothing items, including t-shirts, dresses, and shoes. The Republic Security Services have declined to comment at this time.

Trust me.

Those of us on Mikramurka do not intend to forget our brothers and sisters in Hadaugago or Eystur or anywhere else, for that matter.

To do so would be to weaken ourselves, if nothing else. A united Tribe is a strong Tribe.

How rude!

*grins*

It would be "instructive" if a precious little Matari pumpkinhead actually tried to lay out what the word "tribe" meant to it. You idiots have never understood your own cultural heritage, and odds are you never will.

There aren't really any clans unaffiliated with Tribes. By dint of birth, all clans will be connected at some stage through a Tribe.

There are, however, many clanless Minmatar -- those who have for various reasons been born outside of a clan house, or who have been expelled from it. My father was a clanless Brutor, but my mother was a Vherokior of Clan Sickle Moon. Though my father had no clan, he was nonetheless a proud Brutor, and could claim affiliation to that Tribe.

All Minmatar are part of a Tribe. Discovering the ins and outs of family heritage may be tricky, depending on where you were born -- this is especially true for newly repatriated slaves -- but there are remote few who, when tested genetically, cannot find a willing home in a Tribe.

There have definitely been other Tribes at many stages of our Culture's development. How one claims position within a Tribe is rarely a straight line. Amarrian intervention and a large residency in the Federation has obscured past and present histories, but there are always ways to assert heritage. Let me give you some illustration, through my own experience, and my Tribe's.

I claim status as a Vherokior through my mother: my mother's clan bestows names and heritage matrilineally, so I took her family name (Vikus), and have been welcomed into the Vherokior fold by dint of that name. I might well have been raised Brutor if my father had belonged to a clan, or if he had asserted his right to name me in accordance with his traditions. He deferred, and so I am Vherokior.

The Vherokior is among the more diverse Tribes of the Minmatar, probably the most diverse when it comes to genetic heritage. Despite the relatively placid reputation of my Tribe in the present, it was in the past perhaps the most warlike of the Tribes. The deserts of Matar saw much conflict in the early days after the Gate's collapse, and the origins of the Vherokior came amidst the absorption and incorporation of many smaller communities.

There is of course the belief that the current Vherokior Tribe is an offshoot of the Starkmanir Tribe. Records do dispute this, but it is illustrative of the intermingling and change that did affect all tribes at various points. To be a "Starkmanir" did not mean you were of that blood, in a sense of "purity" -- but, rather, that you were of a people who had been absorbed in the "name" of the Starkmanir, with according affiliation.

Today's Vherokior might well show Starkmanir bloodlines buried deep in their DNA -- but as in my case, so too will they find Brutor blood. But a Vherokior slave on Amarr Prime might have a substantially different makeup than mine. It makes her no less Vherokior than me, but how she arrived there might be utterly alien to my own affiliation.

One's personal affiliation with a Tribe is an absolute -- one doesn't "choose" one's Tribe. But what that Tribe means is mercurial, and has changed over time.

Oh look, actual news from Gutter Press.

Certainly, all clans (I don't know what a "subtribe" is) have some kind of nominal affiliation to a Tribe. Those affiliations may be stronger for some than others.

Don't assume that proximity to the Centres of Power have anything to do with a Clan's relationship with a Tribe. One might assume that some Clans have looser bonds with their Tribe when they are further out from Matar. That is far from the case. Even when you don't consider the Thukkers, whose home systems are in nullsec, other Tribes have more or less "pull" depending on the proclivities of their various clans. The Vherokior's official "home" is in Teonusude, which is a barely civilized frontier system bordering the notorious pirate havens of Molden Heath. But the worlds of Molden Heath, despite being quite far from the Centres of Power, remain quite vibrantly Minmatar, and particularly Vherokior. And far from the research towers of Eram's home engineering worlds, Sebiestors ply their trade on the border zone with the Federation -- firmly Sebiestor, but quite different in form than the "core" worlds of the Republic.

The Tribe is what you make of it, wherever that might be. It doesn't matter where the Tribe calls "home". Most Minmatar don't consider the Tribe to be restrictive in the way you are describing. Clans have an extraordinary degree of freedom when it comes to how they express their Tribal heritage.

These new reforms will actually give MORE freedom to Tribal autonomy, which will allow various Clans a greater degree of expression of Tribal Law. The main concern is how that will translate to legislative authority within the Tribal Council itself -- something that, to date, remains relatively obscure.

Tribes have split in the past, this is true. However, bear in mind that in the living memory of every Minmatar alive today the entire society has been under threat by the Empire. Either overtly by way of conquest and raiding, or covertly by way of indoctrination.

This sort of thing would not encourage division amongst it's opponents, unless it is on the question of exactly how to oppose it.

You muddy the waters and mix poison in the wine. None of this was a power play against Shakor, who is still an independent voice at the Tribal Council, and whose authority has only been recapitulated by this recent reorganization. And it certainly wasn't done in the name of interstellar diplomacy, let alone appeasement of a slaver government. Regardless of a local government's ability to organize itself in the management of its own affairs, it will have no effect on the current policy of the Republic as regards the Empire.