Intergalactic Summit

Since the introduction of transneural burning scanners capsuleers have blazed their way across space. Freed from the confines of death and granted with the ability to wield destructive power greater than ever before, they have changed the way the cluster operates. In the past, a navy numbering tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of millions of trained personnel was necessary to be a real power in New Eden. Now, such a force can be fielded by capsuleers with a much smaller number of ships and crew members. In fact, capsuleers fight the empires’ wars for them. Along with military might comes political force. The independent capsuleers of the CFC control an amount of space on par with the Caldari State. The political calculus of New Eden must be rethought to include capsuleers.

The very basic premise of society is the social contract. In the natural state, absent society and the rule of law, everyone has the right to everything. In this natural state, life is nasty, brutish and short. People would live in perpetual fear that others might cause them harm or other sort of other interference in their life. As a result, individuals coalesced to form groups and gave up certain liberties for the security of their society. This society would act as a neutral party to protect their lives, liberty and property. Another idea in the theory of the social contract is that there is a passive consent of the governed. The evidence of this passive consent is the lack of rebellion against the governing force.

In YC37, Sansha Kuvakei made his first attempt at his twisted vision of a utopia. He forcibly implanted people with special implants in order to bend them to his will. Such a gross violation of the sanctity of sovereign human was not tolerated by the established empires at the time, and all five of them attacked and nearly eradicated Sansha’s Nation. These empires had to act in the manner that they did in order to uphold their end of the social contract. The people of their societies demanded action.

In YC112, Nation started to invade secured space. Nation fleets abducted an untold number of persons and spirited them off to Stain. They were then forcibly turned to mindless ‘True Slaves.’ The time, however, the response from the established empires has been nearly nonexistent. Rather than mobilize fleets and combine forces to eliminate the Nation threat, as they did in the past, they have been content to allow capsuleers to handle Nation forces in secure space. If the empires cannot secure their space, there is no reason for an individual to give up their liberties and no reason for the empires to exist.

Since the Jovians gave pod technology to the Caldari, capsuleers have been treated as simply a more abled soldier. Capsuleers have been given difficult tasks and a certain amount of kredits to carry them out. Capsuleers have been recruited to fight the militias that the empires field in their pseudo-wars. Even then, in addition to appealing to capsuleer’s patriotism, they offer a significant amount of kredits to hire mercenaries. Regular military fleets have been regulated to a support role.

Slowly, capsuleers, due to their breadth of experience, have had a change of opinion regarding their place in the cluster. A capsuleer is unbound in the usual sense. They are free to roam the heavens, visiting all corners of the cluster. A Caldari capsuleer can easily visit the Empire, Federation, Republic and any of the outlaw groups they wish in a single week. With this newfound knowledge of the cluster, capsuleers have taken control of their own destinies. They are no longer content to merely be free agents for established powers, instead capsuleers formed their own societies in the barely regulated null security space.

The singular capsuleers that venture into null security-free space-are nearly nonexistent. Today, capsuleers form coalitions of tens of thousands of pilots. They have written a new social contract that has an implied active consent. Pilots agree to this contract by virtue of joining and can leave at any time. They can also be expelled by the governing force, should they break the rules. These coalitions are the way of the future.

The CFC, one of the largest most successful coalitions controls around five hundred systems and has an active working government. Each alliance in the coalition can be described as an independent state in a confederation of states. Ultimate sovereignty is left at the alliance level, at present. Each alliance has a treasury department, a military staff, acclaimed leader, a diplomatic team and other functionaries similar to the established empire governments. Certain functions are left to the coalition level, external diplomacy, espionage, fleet doctrines and other specialized military units. These coalitions are the way of the future.

Capsuleers are effectively immortal. It is possible for one to die, of course, through various ways; the fact remains, however, that the permanent death rate of capsuleers is extremely small. One hundred years, or two or three hundred-it does not matter, in the future, capsuleers no longer cling to the dying societies that birthed them; they trek out amongst the stars and seek their own destinies. They will hire baseliners-bribe them away from high security-to live and work in coalition stations and starbases. They will crew capsuleer ships. Slowly, but surely, the empires will cling to life before crumbling.

The empires will die, not with a bang, but with a whimper. By the time that happens, capsuleers will already be effectively in charge. The idea that capsuleers can be controlled, or contained needs to be reexamined. The Mittani is already the most powerful man in the cluster; it simply has not sunk in to most people yet.

Besides being a wall of text over an unexisting problem...

Completely wrong assumption. Capsuleers actually CAN die, we are merely reusable controlling modules of combat ships, that survive through ship destruction. And the power we can 'wield' is just operating a spaceship that can be used without capsuleer as well.


Correction. The 'independent' capsuleers of CFC control mostly EMPTY space, while Caldari State controls inhabited space. Controlling a void doesn't make you a political force in a line with any major Empire.


Capsuleers are politically inept, and represent insignificant part of New Eden population. Besides, while there are sick individuals among capsuleers, who are interested only in wreaking havoc against others, like removing all CONCORD influence in secure space, they should never be allowed into politics. At least, not before CONCORD will start to revoke their capsuleer licenses.


This is an outrageous lack of awareness leading to erroneous conclusions.
Empires navies are bound to repel nation forces on planets and low orbits. Fights are going to save peoples from being abducted, and due to sensitive matter, capsuleers are not allowed to join. However, capsuleers are allowed to engage nation forces in safe deadspace pockets, and other uninhabited parts of affected systems, like asteroid belts.
As for mobilizing all empire fleets to pile on Sansha, you forgot one thing: we are at war. And maybe only because of this war Sansha is not defeated. He is simply not a priority. But if you insist on CFC's capability, you could, for example, gather a fleet, lead it into Stain and deal with Sansha once and forever. Than, maybe, you will add some value to your words. Otherwise, they are just shaking of the air.


We are still soldiers. And those of us, who deny their destiny and duty to their Empires, who join to the program just to be another pseudo-immortal entity, roaming the space, they are still soldiers, they just don't realize it yet. Capsuleers are heavily funded by CONCORD. Majority of wealth as monetary value is given to capsuleers by CONCORD, while remaining part is given by respective empires and other baseline organizations. But with acceptable error margin I can assert that money, that capsuleers operate with, are CONCORD money. Moreover, while giving money with one hand, CONCORD takes our money with another, because every capsuleer must pay for the license. Thus CONCORD ensures that capsuleer society as a whole is working for CONCORD.

Surprisingly i have to agree with Mrs Kim, your coalition like other is still dependant from the Emipres. You may be strong, but not as that strong to challenge the existing establishment.

First, very interesting post. Now to say CNC own as much space as Caldari, it might own as many systems but as stated before not the same population or other things. But that could also change in time. Capsuleers arent what they were before, they are much more organization, much more able, and with the new ground immortals and how they are able to move their minds to their clones, id say capsuleers will change to that also if they havent already. As a capsuleer though they will still need to be plugged into their ships so to speak. But if they do use the new way to move your mind from one body to another what is to stop them from also being able to engage planet side, and their immortal brothers on the ground who do you think theyd side with? The empires might be a thing of the past someday and immortal the next step in evolution but before that I do see a war coming between the empires and immortals and as there are a milion or less immortals and trillions of Caldari alone I think it will be a long and bloody war unlike any before it. And remember some immortals will side with the empires as will some mortals side with the immortals. Capsuleers can defeat many many none capsuleer vessels, but can they defeat the numbers all 4 empires can bring and maybe the Jovians too? Also rememeber Jovians gave Caldari the pod, so they surely are all capuleers or something more advanced, as would their vessels be more advanced and their weaponry. So even if their population isnt what the empires are from their disease it still is more then the number of Capsuleers probably and with their vast superior technologies they would be the end of Capsuleers. Also if I mispelled anything or something seems off sorry im doing this by cell and I suck at it haha

I was going to write a long post but Kim-haani said everything that needs saying, save for a few words to indicate my support of her view.

If you can't see the difference between holding sovreignty of a collection of unsettled systems in which the law of the gun rules and rulling a centuries (in some cases millenia) old system of settled worlds then what can be said?

I'm not quite sure there are enough desperate or thrill-seeking people to make this happen. Most people are well aware that the alliances of the "gods of destruction" are, for the most part, not a suitable place to raise a family.
The bulk of the nullsec alliances consist of psychopaths so alienated from their humanity, that they no longer fit into normal society. They see the universe as a playground, with their ships as toys, and have little regard for human life. They commit atrocities for fun. I think it's more likely that the empires will unite to exterminate these demented capsuleers.

And even if they did not, The Mittani is king among the psychopaths, and will likely break down his coalition long before it has few targets remaining but the empires. The pilots of the nullsec coalitions live mostly for the violence, not the conquest, and if things out there become "boring" (also known as stable), they'll tear everything down again.

"Most Powerful Individual in the Cluster" probably goes to The Mittani... at least on the surface, anyways.

However, individuals that don't seek the spotlight nearly as much can wield enormous power, like Istvaan Shogaatsu or a certain anonymous starship blueprint mogul I know. So much goes on behind the scenes, out of sight, that we'd be foolish to take it at face value.

Anyways, the rest of the posting? Pretty much spot on. The universe is what we make of it, baseliners are by-and-large obsolete, and given enough time we'll dominate the empires with our power. It's only a question of "when", if the trends hold steady.

You appear to be using an inductive, indirect form for this post. I like it! However, it does still need to have a clear concluding statement to be effective, and I can't really find one. This is more than likely due to my own issues. Can you clarify your intention? Is Ms Marquette's analysis correct, or are you making some other general statement?

Thank you, and I apologize for the intrusion.

I happen to think differently. Wasn't that you that said that capsuleers are a Jove experiment ?

An experiment either goes out of control (which is unlikely as explained by the other various answers), or eventually steps aside for the complete product to take off.

Capsuleers are the experiment, the first flawed prototypes of a series, not the final stage. Someday they will become obsolete.

Indeed I did, thus my qualifier of "if the trend holds steady". Who knows, if we are an experiment, maybe they'll flick the "off switch" tomorrow, and we'll all be done for. But as far as we can tell, from the information we have, that doesn't look like it's the case.

One thing I've learned in life? The things we are all sure of aren't always true.