Intergalactic Summit

Oh, it depends on the jurisdiction. In the Empire, it's referred to as Acting as a Willful Accomplice to a Crime and is generally punishable by one quarter up to the full jail sentence of the felon you helped. It means that, say, you help someone commit a murder, you can be charged as an accomplice and sentenced to the precise same punishment. If, for instance, you help someone committing a rather minor crime, such as defacing public property, and you helped by acting as a lookout, you would probably receive a week (defacing public property is a month-long jail term in most cases). It depends, and it's generally at the judge's discretion.

We're also assuming this is a citizen of the Minmatar Republic who is permitted to be in the Amarr Empire legally. If you engage in factional warfare or something similar, you could be in the Empire illegally. That's another good reason to avoid factional warfare. If I'd been destroying Matari vessels or capturing them illegally for the slave trade, there's a very good possibility that I'd never be able to move freely through the Republic again.

The Pax Amarria, though, recognized the Minmatar Republic as a sovereign empire and thus Republican citizens are Republican citizens according to law, not renegade slaves. Contrary to popular belief, you may be looked at strangely in the Empire if you're fresh out of Pator tech school, but you won't be molested by local authorities in most cases.

Tell that to Abel Jarek.

It is usually rather difficult to get to see a martyr.

It really isn't that difficult, when you think about it. It's just not the sort of trip that has a return ticket.



You have to remember we see everything in the long term. My baseline family will still probably see their four-hundredth birthdays. To whit, I have heard Amarrians before saying that Republic would cave in without Gallente support, but that's not backed up in the Pax Amarria, which says it will probably survive for a long time and that we simply have to minister effectively in the meantime.

I think the more prevalent idea is that a civil war will erupt and reunification is going to mean re-intensifying the war with the Empire. It's the usual fare, and not just among the Republic, that times of internal dispute can be readily solved with an external threat. If you don't have one, you can make one.

Those Amarrians who actually thought the Republic would somehow crumble weren't really using a broad perspective. Even without the Gallente, those Matari who left to form the Republic are the sort who didn't precisely have Holders that gave them what they needed. There's a reason that the Republicans seem to be able to subsist on scraps and thrive with machines held together with spit and wire; sometimes they were scrounging for food to eat in their conditions. Slaves with more decent Holders simply didn't leave the Empire. There wasn't a reason to go and live in those conditions if you were eating well and receiving proper education.

So those that formed the Republic had two things in common, they were survivalists of some nature or another and they had every logical reason to hate the Amarr Empire. Coupled with the support they received from the Gallente, they did just fine.

I think the future, especially in the long term, is what concerns most Amarrians. With the war limited, so is the damage, but the Elder Fleet really didn't help matters in terms of inspiring our confidence in the continuation of the Pax Amarria, even if it was turned back. Most Amarrians see the Elder Fleet and Shakor being elected as intrinsically linked. Most Amarrians also therefore figure that any power struggles are going to end up in Amarrian space. Like weather, they just build the defenses and wait for rain, because as far as they're concerned, it's coming. It's a matter of when and how bad it will be.

I'm a bit of a glass-half-full man, and I see the upside that Pieter mentioned. It's entirely possible to sign peace treaties with several of the tribes and, if they are honored, we can reduce the eventual damage. Having several individual leaders may make the government less inherently stable, but it's better than having to try to negotiate with a prime minister that has already made his mind up. I think that it's even possible to make enough Matari friends that we'll avoid Amarrian involvement altogether.

My parents both disagree, but it's worth trying. Things may work out better in the end because of the shift in government.

Then, I trust you can see why I find your protestations that we can all get along to be a little on the hollow side, given the events that occurred four and a half years ago?

Pick up a weapon and defend Amarr and use this cursed immortality as a weapon for God. Or failing that, start building ships to help defend Amarr and help improve Amarr's economy. Do something to actually make peace rather than just an endless line of new threats.

Pretending that we can live in peace through negotiations after the last half decade just makes you look like a fool. The Pax Amarr will not be achieved by weakness and positive sentiment, it will be only be achieved by a strong Amarr that cannot be attacked.

And while you are at it, you might want to tone down the stories of successful conversion. Whether or not they are true, they are not helpful. You do realize that your track record of the last months has been to create more enemies for Amarr, no?

That is what has already happened if only you would read the writing.

The Sanmatar is a position of no power, outside the tribes to mediate should there be disagreements amongst the Tribes. Such it was and such it always will be.

Have they been? I think most of the people who've enjoined you through protestations are already shooting at you in the warzone. Firing salvos on them in that warzone haven't taught any Matari not to attack us, it's simply given us an out-of-the-way forum to do it in. I may not be completely dismissive of your efforts out there, but mostly along the same lines that the legislated warfare in the Caldari and Gallente territories is necessary. It would be better if there was a political solution.

We can live together peacefully. For God's sakes, we did just fine during Karin Midular's reign and, if anything, I think the fact that every Matari on the forum isn't trying to crucify me should justify their ability to reason. Even those who don't like me aren't actively calling for my head or expulsion from tribal lands. As much as we've sometimes been taught otherwise, most Matari are good people who are truly (and sometimes legitimately) afraid that some element of the Empire will come and re-enslave them. I think it's been good that we've had so many Amarr come out to respect the Pax Amarria, despite the few setbacks during Shakor's administration.

If there is one thing I would posit, though, I would say I've enjoined less enemies against us, and softened hard hearts against us, by honest and peaceful dialogue than by shooting them. Yes, I don't make any bones about what I do; I'm a bishop and a cleric whose job it is to help existing believers in Matari space and to preach the wisdom of God to non-believers. Yes, it does sometimes meet with success. What you don't hear is how I send them back to the Empire in chains once they are converted, because I don't. It makes a difference, especially out here in tribal lands. While there are conservative elements that might actively persecute believers in Matari space, that's become a lot less of an issue over the years. What they're concerned about are loyalists who are calling for the Republic to submit to the Empire, which, barring whether or not it should happen, simply isn't going to. Neither the Empire nor the Republic are going anywhere or losing anything.

The tribes can now manage their own affairs, and the position of Shakor is much weaker than those of the tribal chiefs. We have a chance to stop this, finally, so that we can concentrate on the more virulent (if less numerous) Sansha and Sabik problems. Imagine what we could do if we worked together, for once. We could make Stain a high-security bastion of peace if we could focus our military on the problem. We could finally begin to piece together the research we have on Sleeper and Jove technology.

I've absolutely no intention of taking up arms against the Republic, especially right now. The situation doesn't require any more guns right now, least of not from priests like myself. It would be a complete slap to the face of Abel Jarek, and all that he stood for and died for, if I decided his cause was a waste.

We need some sort of force out there in the warzone; we don't have a choice but to be there. But that doesn't mean we will find any end to the violence by engaging the Matari there. There is an end to be had, though. Give me a chance in that regard, or at the very least have a bit of faith.

If I did die tomorrow at the hands of some Republican assassin, I still wouldn't want my work to die with me. I wouldn't want this dialogue to disappear and for people to point at my name as a warning that the only teaching we should do should be with our lasers.

I know you've very little reason to believe that God will provide us the instruments of peace when you are surrounded by war, but give the Matari a chance. At the very least, if I really have made enemies in the Republic this way prepared to strike me down, let them come for me. If I died for this cause, I think it would have been worth dying for.

Not much more than enlisting in the 24th Crusade... no ?

The Matari cannot be allowed the luxury of being able to build another secret invasion fleet.

This war is not ideal, we should be mobilizing on a much larger scale, but so long as we do our part it does provide a roughly equal drain on both Empires resources.

Equal favors us far more than the Matari.

Only if we are actively participating in military build up, rather than letting the Matari steal a march on us while talking of peace.

In the world Constantin seems to wish for, we would be blindsided yet again.