Intergalactic Summit

Although, to the Caldari militia, I say only this - you lit this fire, and you are responsible for the people it burns.

That's your opinion, and your inference on my opinions - which, despite the fact that you seem dedicated to dictating them for me, have not changed. Trust me, I still think that the best peaceful resolution to this conflict is for the Caldari to get their planet back, but it is the responsibility of the Federal militia to ensure that if the Caldari believe the only way to get it back is to do violence against our people, they will never get it back, and they will lose a lot more than just their homeworld in the process of trying.

Fortunately, from the looks of things, they seem to be doing a fairly good job of that at the moment. The Provists began this war with an act of unprovoked and barbaric aggression, and in doing so soiled the honour of all Caldari almost irreparably. With every passing day, however, it seems more and more like the Federation will end it. Hopefully they will do so in a manner that creates a lasting peace and an atmosphere of mutual trust and co-operation between our two peoples - which is the goal I am presently working towards - but failing that I would accept a manner that serves the core ideals and the contemporary interests of the Federation.

Maybe you should educate yourself and read the other post I made in this thread. Just because I am sensitive to the grievances of the Caldari State does not in any way mean that I believe the Federation should simply roll over and accept abuse. For all the Caldari talk of indomitable will to succeed and unceasing vigilance, some of you seem to have forgotten that you aren't the only ones possessed of these qualities. The Federation has survived for centuries, and its core ideals for much longer - do you believe that we are not, in our hearts, as dedicated to our beliefs as you?

Go and discuss Amarr-Minmatar affairs in a thread where they're relevant, Katran. Perhaps slather some more of that signature boomerang bigotry you're so famous for in there for good measure.

And do you honestly think this will solve matters?

Then why should we take a course of action that will not assist us in any manner and will make the war worse? Seizing Caldari Prime will only serve to ensure that the Caldari will continue fighting us. The aim of every right-thinking man in the Federation should be to find a way to end the conflict on terms that are agreeable to our nation.

By what right, precisely?

I don't believe I've been dictating your opinions. Indeed, by definition, a question, however incorrectly phrased - if mine was - cannot be a dictation. It's useful to have a better understanding of one's enemies, and also to understand the degree to which another is an enemy. Your explanation is useful to me, although, I think, somewhat inconsistent.



Ah, the inconsistency. I do not understand how you can claim that the Caldari should possess their homeworld, but deny the morality of their attempt at claiming it. It is fairly well known that the State made it's desire for the return of the Homeworld quite clear long before the current war, and also well known that the Federation was utterly unwilling to even consider the subject. Given such, if a right is violated, and other redress is not possible, is it not reasonable for the injured party to pursue the redress anyway?

I find - I think - another inconsistency in your commitment to both a personal goal of mutually beneficial interaction, and Federation ideals. The Federation is an expansionist power, that is to say, it has been and is continuing a policy of incorporating or conquering other cultures and states. This is not inherently an evil process, but a core Federation ideal is that the values of an individualistic lifestyle, democracy, and cosmopolitanism must be extended to all humans, preferably (and to Nationalists, absolutely) under the banner of the Federation. These goals cannot be reconciled with the existence of the Caldari State and the Caldari culture. Therefore, while I might agree with your ideals, I cannot agree with the idea that your ideals can be implemented along with the preservation of classical Federation values without the utter destruction of the Caldari State and people in every respect.



This was the post that interested me. I perfectly understand that you are not willing to see the Federation burn. Indeed, even supposing - hypothetically - that you believed that the State was justified in every respect in its war, I would still understand a desire not to see one's home and culture destroyed. This is one tragedy of war. But there are considerations, too, that may be made. I remember Verin Hakatain advocating that the State should not occupy more than its own territory in the faction war.

As for the will to succeed, I make no judgment about the quality of the will of the Federation. My opinion is that the State must simply do whatever it is necessary to do in order to break it. I am aware of how much devastation the Federation is usually willing to inflict on its enemies, whether they are bombarding cities on Caldari Prime, or burning traitors in front of crowds. And that's why I hold that the State must win this war, because we may be assured that, despite moderates like yourself, the will of the Gallente people is too often homicidal to risk anything else. It is possible, even very likely, that a Federation victory would result in no less devastation and destruction to the Caldari people than the Federation originally sought to visit on them.

Therefore, I will do, and am committed to do, whatever it takes to preserve the Caldari people, nation, and culture. If that means defending Black Rise only, I will defend Black Rise only. If that means occupying Placid to break Federate will, I will fight to occupy Placid. If it meant - and I do not think for a minute that it does - but if preserving my nation, culture, and people required the orbital bombardment of every Federation planet and station until they were radioactive cinders, I would do so, with reluctance, but without regret. Indeed, if the survival of the Caldari people required me to do so to every empire, sleeper, and criminal world, I would attempt the task. Because that is what love and loyalty to ones own means.

You may notice that I answered your question about "will" with a reference to my own. This is because I cannot truly know the will of the Federation as it actually exists, or that of the Caldari people. I can only use my own, and my observations, as a guide

Your command of history is worryingly inaccurate. For a start, the Treaty of Tierijev the Caldari signed at the end of the first Gallente-Caldari war rescinded their claim to the planet, and left if under Federal jurisdiction. Now, I've heard a lot of Caldari talk about how unfair this clause of the treaty was, and we can run a debate literally forever on that particular subject but the simple fact remains is that unlike the treaty that was signed a century later when the Federation ceded control of the planet back to the State, the State did not sign that treaty under coercion - a member homeworld of theirs was not under threat of annihilation. In fact, if you were to read any history book in the State printed prior to major revisions ordered by the Heth administration, you'd know the final decision to leave the planet in the hands of the Federation was actually made by the CEP, who believed there was little sense in trying to hold the world.

Now, again, we can debate literally forever as to whether that clause was fair or just, and still not reach an agreement. What we do not need to debate on is that the State signed the Treaty of Tierijev and agreed to its terms. Now, I'm by no means an expert in Heiian culture, but I do believe one of the most dishonourable acts a Caldari can commit in his culture is breaking a formal agreement he's made with someone else. Now, the fact that the State did break this agreement would imply one of two equally unpleasant things:

1. The peace agreement was not made in good faith, and the State negotiators signed it in the spirit of deception.
2. The peace agreement was made in good faith by those who signed it, but that confidence was duly spat upon by those who invaded Luminaire in YC110.

I for one prefer the second explanation, as it doesn't bring the honour of the entire State into question - only those who undertook an unprovoked invasion of what was at the time, by the State's own admission, sovereign Federal territory. This is for largely the same reason I ask people not to judge the entire Federation by the acts of Luc Duvailer and the Ultranationalists.

One of the reasons the Federation has never been able to accept any subsequent Caldari solution to the Caldari Prime problem is that the Caldari have never offered any reasonable solution as to what precisely we're supposed to do with the hundreds of millions of Federal citizens living on it. Apparently, the State still hasn't come up with one yet, as the communications blackout on the planet's surface attests - clearly, whatever's happening to the civlians, Heth doesn't want us to know about it. Another reason it was loathe to do so is most solutions would posit a bubble of Caldari military influence deep inside Federal territory. Federation officials were deeply concerned that the State would use the first chance after obtaining this it got to inflict some form of retributive damage upon us for past sins - and I don't think the events of the past few years, nor attitudes like yours, have helped particularly in convincing them this isn't the case.

Next, your characterisation of the Federation as "conquering" other cultures and states is willfully deceptive, and we have only "incorporated" in as much as we've offered them the option of joining us. Unlike the Empire, there has not, in the history of the Federation, been a situation in which we have forcibly integrated an unwilling culture into the Federation - indeed, on some worlds within Federation borders, you can go to various temperate worlds and find examples of cultures who rejected integration or even contact with the rest of the Federation. Admittedly, they're not particularly well-developed in terms of technology or culture, but since they don't want anything to do with us, that really isn't our problem. I will also remind you that the Caldari assisted in the founding of the Federation by choice.

The Federation couldn't really even be described as a Gallentean cultural hegemony because member states by and large retain their own cultures. In fact, the Jin-Mei caste system violates a lot of the basic, fundamental requirements of a Federal member state, but we let them keep in literally everything but name (and even then the names remain) because, honestly, it seems to work for them and they aren't trying to make anyone else live by it. It's really not our problem. Justifying a continued opposition of the Federation's core values based on a faulty understanding of them doesn't stand as a valid argument. Likewise, bringing up two pretty damn isolated examples of extremism - the bombing of Caldari Prime (executed under an unelected, illegitimate far-right government) and the execution of Eturer (occuring during a period of intense political and economic strife) - and painting them as indicative of a "homicidal" nature within the Federation's people is deeply disingenuous - not to mention deeply hypocritical, especially for a man who vowed that the "skies of Placid will burn."

Lastly, occupying Placid didn't break our will the last time. In fact, if you look at the map right now, it did precisely the opposite, not to mention it put Roden in power, who, despite his corporate background, has proven even less ameanable to the Caldari than his precedecessors. When one considers broken wills, in fact, one must observe that this is the first time in the history of the conflict in which the Caldari militia has not held numerical supremacy over the FDU. Clearly, some of your pilots have lost the will to fight.

A very brief communique of congratulations to those who fought with great merit and tenacity for the Federation. A Federation who have always extended a hand of friendship to the diverse peoples of the Ani Constellation in Metropolis, yesterday and today.

And, yes, do shut up, Katran.

Baseless and utterly unsupported personal attacks? And here I thought WHG represented a new paradigm in a STPRO that's been craven and honourless for almost two years. How disappointing.



No - in fact, I fairly aptly demonstrated that it was not. The State was under no form of coercion, and it was by no means a neccessity that the Caldari stopped the war - Kaalakiota, in fact, was making a mint off of it. However, both sides wisely saw that the war was benefiting no-one other than the weapons manufacturers and the gravediggers. Besides, even if the Caldari had signed the treaty out of neccessity, that doesn't make the fact that they broke it any less dishonourable, especially since it was over a matter which the CEP had largely been responsible for deciding the handling of in the first place.



Disingenuous in the extreme. Show me a news article, a diplomatic transcript, a minutes of these reasonable offers you claim the Federation has rejected out of hand.



Then why can't we talk to them? In fact, since your leadership is so desperate to expunge people who've been living there for their entire lives, why won't you the people who want to leave go? What's happening on Caldari Prime that's so important that you simply don't have enough time to let refugees leave?