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The Minmatar's great Debt to the Amarr Empire

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Gwen Ikiryo
Alexylva Paradox
#41 - 2013-02-15 14:45:27 UTC
Brother Ludwigus wrote:
The slaves often get on quite alright when left alone to their work too. Just that, like the corporate employee, his work isn't to advance his own affairs, but his masters, and he is content to feel productive. Just like any other working relationship out there it need not be overbearing but people have a particularly mean holder in their head when they think of the institution of slavery. Galentean holoreels I guess.


I think you missed what I was implying, sir. There are many Achur on the homeworld who are literally not employed by or associated with any of the megacorporations, and who live more or less independently under the Elder Visionaries. There is literally no master expecting or compelling them to do anything, excepting perhaps the faith itself. We are not being "Left alone with our work."

Gwen Ikiryo wrote:
Quite right! That is pretty close to what I'm getting at. Every culture has its beholden and its holders. You need them to attain the level of economic advancement we all have. The difference is in who makes up the underclass, that others look to their own kind for their toilers and we had the happy accident of wars with many prisoners.


...Pilot, I'm not even sure we're even arguing over the same thing. While I understand that your point - That the nature of society tends towards people toiling at the bottom while those at the top benefit inherently - There are many manners, in varying degrees of leniency and malleability, of doing this, and Slavery is a term for one of them specifically.

It is different in some very literal respects to others, dispensing with all notions of approaching the topic philosophically, and to handwave that is to view society in such a vague and abstract light that one loses touch with the reality of the situation.

What you are saying is akin to declaring that we should not, or rather cannot, make a distinction between flies and wasps on the simple basis that they are both insects, and both buzz around loudly whilst bumping into things. While this is true, in the most technical of terms, I would invite you to attempt to squish the latter in the same respect that you would the former and report back the results. If you will forgive my bluntness.

What, if you don't mind me asking, is the point you are trying to make?
Valerie Valate
Church of The Crimson Saviour
#42 - 2013-02-15 14:56:22 UTC
Andreus Ixiris wrote:
Rodj Blake wrote:
What is now Republic territory largely consists of systems first colonised by the Empire.

I don't think that it's unreasonable for me to say that the Republic owes the Empire quite a bit of rent for all that real estate.

The Minmatar are excellent at paying rent!

They just pay it in depeleted uranium. At high speed.


Ah of course, The stereotype of the Angry Minmatar, outraged at everything.

Which is amusing, naturally, because that is entirely a product of Amarr conditioning.

You see, in addition to giving the Minmatar all those planets, the Amarr also gave the Minmatar several other things.

A unity of Purpose, for example.

An inclination towards martial ability, as well.


So, the Amarr turned the Minmatar from a squabbling handful of tribes arguing over which end of the spaceship was which, and turned them into a numerous people with some of the finest warriors that the cluster has ever known.

Another substantial debt, of course.

Doctor V. Valate, Professor of Archaeology at Kaztropolis Imperial University.
Andreus Ixiris
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#43 - 2013-02-15 15:01:14 UTC
Your overt and patronising racism and open genocide apologism is briefly amusing, but entirely invalid. A debt is something you owe after you are given something you ask for. The Minmatar never asked for the Empire to do anything to them (until the Amarr destroyed their civilization, enslaved their people and tried to eradicate their culture, in which case they repeatedly asked the Amarr "stop doing this," which the Amarr consistently refused).

If anything, the planets originally terraformed by the Amarr might go some way to paying the massive debt owed to the Minmatar by the Amarr, but you should probably include The Bleak Lands, Derelik and Devoid too, just to be safe.

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
Lady Katherine Devonshire
Royal Ammatar Engineering Corps
#44 - 2013-02-15 15:58:28 UTC
Takrow Matoris wrote:
But not everyone agrees with that. There will be those who see it the way you do, but not I.


You are more correct than you realize. What many people outside the Empire simply cannot or, more likely, will not come to accept is this one simple & obvious truth: The Amarr have always acted in what we believed to be the best interests of the Matari people. All of our conflicts since then have ultimately been rooted in disagreement on what, exactly, that entails.

Now some may look at this and say that it is obvious, but have you ever stopped to consider that this is often the exact same line of reasoning that the Gallente Federation uses whenever they go invading someone else's worlds? That they are morally obligated to spread freedom & democracy to all of New Eden, whether they like it or not?

Compare this to the stark honesty of the State, which can be condensed to "We just want our damn planet back" and the transparent policies of the Republic, which are simply "Kill everyone in New Eden that is not Matari and even those who are if they do not agree with us."

Naturally the Republic sees everything the Amarr does as some sort of nefarious trick or plot, which is only natural, for while the Amarr have a God but no Devil, the Minmatar have a Devil but no God. To point out the true depth of this paranoia: There are even those who think that our Great Empress' emancipation act was some sort of evil plot against the Republic. Truly the depth of this madness is limitless.

But perhaps there is an evil plot at work here? Nealy a milenium ago we found what we believed to be a primitive, warlike people and began the long process of elevating them into civilized beings. I am not going to argue on the semantics of our methods - they are our methods, and that is that. The emancipation is the test to see whether or not we succeeded; how many left compared to how many chose, of their own free will, to remain with us. We look at the numbers and decide based on that, and considering that the vast majority have chosen to remain with the Empire... well, you can throw your opinions against the facts all you want and it will change exactly nothing.

Meanwhile, there are those who claim that the emancipation was just a plot to seed the Amarrian Faith into the Republic, using their own sense of "freedom" against them. While that is indeed a cunning plan, and it would be wonderful if things really worked out that way, the sad truth is that the Republic's ideals of "freedom" all come crashing to an end the moment one dares to deviate with the ideology of the Republic itself.

The most frequent contrarian argument to our methods has always been that the Minmatar were already an enlightened civilization before we intervened. They usually then go on to spout quips about their technology. Verily, that is wonderful and all, but there is more the enlightenment than just technology (something the Jovians seemed to have forgotten, and God hath thus punished them appropriately). Therein lays the current "evil trap" that Amarr have laid for the Republic; namely this:

They claim to be civilized people? Wonderful! Now prove it... by actually behaving like civilized people.

And this, dear readers, is why they see the Pax Amarria as such a threat. Peace is an anathema to warlords who depend on perpetual conflict to hold the Republic in a permanent state of war-time footing in order to maintain their own positions of power. Without this state of eternal conflict with the Amarr they would have to spend those military budgets on food, clothing, medicine and education for their own people. They would have to learn to accept their own failings as their own doings and not the acts of some distant Amarrian "devil" who can be conveniently blamed for every stubbed toe and hangnail. They would have to focus on making the Republic actually into what, right now, it merely claims to be. Worst of all is that they might have to let people into the power of political office other than themselves who can and will actually do all these things.

In other words, they might actually have to become civilized.

So there you have it: The evil plot of the Amarr to bring civilization to the Minmatar people, whether they like it or not, continues.

Also, I do sincerely hope that this newly formed tribal council government comes to actually replace their current junta. It would definitely be a step in the right direction.

The sound of the Amarrian heart
Anabella Rella
Gradient
Electus Matari
#45 - 2013-02-15 17:14:36 UTC
Rodj Blake wrote:
What is now Republic territory largely consists of systems first colonised by the Empire.

I don't think that it's unreasonable for me to say that the Republic owes the Empire quite a bit of rent for all that real estate.


Valete's poor attempt at provocation aside, why don't you slavers try and come collect that "rent", Blake. I hope they send you personally to be Jamyl's bag man. I need the target practice.

When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around.
Stitcher
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#46 - 2013-02-15 17:16:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Stitcher
Lady Katherine Devonshire wrote:
The evil plot of the Amarr to bring civilization to the Minmatar people, whether they like it or not, continues.


Ah yes. The civilisation that's dependent on the exploitation of a slave population that numbers in the billions is the civilised one.

I keep forgetting.

AKA Hambone

Author of The Deathworlders
Takrow Matoris
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#47 - 2013-02-15 17:21:47 UTC
Lady Katherine Devonshire, you bring up many points within my own people that is true. Many of my people believe that every act that the Amarr Empire does is in someway a plot against them. But I have learned that isn't the case. When your people decide to do something, they do not hide it's intent.

Putting religious believes out in the open, your empire has done much in the name of your God. Some of your people deeds are great, while others are seen by others as evil. While my people still hold to our tribal ways, some of us praying to our ancestors, while others hold fast to believing in nothing. Some even have multiple gods. Though there isn't a real set way to describe what we all believe in, except it is our people traditions, our tribes traditions. But to say we all worship a devil, is going a bit far. But that is your belief and even though I disagree with it, no matter what I say, it won't change what you believe.

Now when it comes to seeing whether or not, my people are enlighten or not, I will agree the one can not use technology as a way to say we are enlighten. But my people are enlighten, but it is not easily seen like your people. Nor is it as easily described except by saying tribalism. Of course you have to remember there will be extremist in every belief. In ours and yours. Personally, since I value freedom of choice, those who wish to follow the Amarrian Faith in the Republic may do so, for that is their own choice and I do not have the right to tell them not to. But there will be those who will attack them, seeing them as traitors, even though they say they value freedom, we both can see they are hypocrites.

It is nice and refreshing to actually speak to someone who is willing to actually talk, instead of telling everyone what to do. If only more of our people can put the past behind them and move forward, even if it's just a little, it would be better then what we have now. I also do hope that this tribal council will help with what our people need, instead of letting our past rule us.
Anabella Rella
Gradient
Electus Matari
#48 - 2013-02-15 17:37:32 UTC
Lady Katherine Devonshire wrote:

Also, I do sincerely hope that this newly formed tribal council government comes to actually replace their current junta. It would definitely be a step in the right direction.


You're a fine one to talk after the way Jamyl the Usurper stole the throne.

When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around.
Andreus Ixiris
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#49 - 2013-02-15 17:37:34 UTC
Lady Katherine Devonshire wrote:
You are more correct than you realize. What many people outside the Empire simply cannot or, more likely, will not come to accept is this one simple & obvious truth: The Amarr have always acted in what we believed to be the best interests of the Matari people. All of our conflicts since then have ultimately been rooted in disagreement on what, exactly, that entails.

What you fail to understand is that the Minmatar never asked for your help - in fact, they have many, many times requested that whatever your definition of "help" happens to be, you stop giving it. The Minmatar are entirely capable of acting in their own best interests, and don't require the Amarr to tell them what they are or how to achieve them.

Lady Katherine Devonshire wrote:
the transparent policies of the Republic, which are simply "Kill everyone in New Eden that is not Matari and even those who are if they do not agree with us."

An outright lie.

Lady Katherine Devonshire wrote:
But perhaps there is an evil plot at work here? Nealy a milenium ago we found what we believed to be a primitive, warlike people and began the long process of elevating them into civilized beings.

Another outright lie. The Minmatar were a peaceful, spacefaring civilization that had colonised multiple star systems by the time you found them.

Lady Katherine Devonshire wrote:
They claim to be civilized people? Wonderful! Now prove it... by actually behaving like civilized people.

They've built a nation spanning three very, very large interstellar regions and established a functioning society, educational system, transport infrastructure, research and development program and military-industrial complex essentially from whole cloth in just over a century. They're a legal, CONCORD-recognised national entity. They have the naval capability to inflict serious damage to those who threaten their sovereignty. They've achieved in a single century what it took the Amarr millenia to accomplish, and they did it with their own hands, not upon the backs of legions of enslaved and abused servants.

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
Anabella Rella
Gradient
Electus Matari
#50 - 2013-02-15 17:42:57 UTC
Well said Captain Ixiris!

When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around.
Samira Kernher
Cail Avetatu
#51 - 2013-02-15 17:44:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Samira Kernher
Stitcher wrote:
Lady Katherine Devonshire wrote:
The evil plot of the Amarr to bring civilization to the Minmatar people, whether they like it or not, continues.


Ah yes. The civilisation that's dependent on the exploitation of a slave population that numbers in the billions is the civilised one.

I keep forgetting.


It is education, not exploitation.

Some Holders may wrongly use it for the latter, just like employers in any empire may exploit their workers, but the purpose is the former.

Takrow Matoris wrote:
I also do hope that this tribal council will help with what our people need, instead of letting our past rule us.


Unfortunately, the very reformation of a tribal council is looking to the past.
Stitcher
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#52 - 2013-02-15 17:50:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Stitcher
I politely submit that any education system in which the "students" are commonly subject to being whipped, fitted with shock collars or explosive collars, worked to death, locked in fenced compounds patrolled by cybernetically augmented carnivores and men with guns, drugged, and deliberately infected with fatal engineered retroviruses, is in rather desperate need of reform.

Especially when the primary subject this supposed "education" concerns is why they are worthless animals who deserve everything they've received and more, because the god of another group of human beings who is apparently fantastically obsessed over arbitrary genetics differences says so and has chosen the aforemention other group to be the bearers of his message...

...of love and comfort and peace...

...which should be ruthlessly beaten into anybody who doesn't accept it...

...and their children...

...and their children...

...for fourteen generations...

...even long after one of the poor souls has caved and been successfully converted indoctrinated...

AKA Hambone

Author of The Deathworlders
Andreus Ixiris
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#53 - 2013-02-15 17:51:25 UTC
You know, while we're on the subject, the funny thing is that Amarrians always call Shakor a tyrant and his government a military junta, but the current government has never done anything particularly draconian (especially compared to, say, the Provists, or the Empire - orbital strikes over a misspelt book cover? Really?) and Shakor was elected in a legal, democratic election.

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
Valerie Valate
Church of The Crimson Saviour
#54 - 2013-02-15 17:55:21 UTC
Andreus Ixiris wrote:
You know, while we're on the subject, the funny thing is that Amarrians always call Shakor a tyrant and his government a military junta, but the current government has never done anything particularly draconian (especially compared to, say, the Provists, or the Empire - orbital strikes over a misspelt book cover? Really?) and Shakor was elected in a legal, democratic election.


Someone claims that Shakor threatened the planet of Skarkon with orbital bombardment, following the debacle regarding the Angel Cartel taking control of the system following a "referendum".

Doctor V. Valate, Professor of Archaeology at Kaztropolis Imperial University.
Stitcher
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#55 - 2013-02-15 17:56:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Stitcher
Threatened, you will note.

Not did.

AKA Hambone

Author of The Deathworlders
Samira Kernher
Cail Avetatu
#56 - 2013-02-15 18:22:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Samira Kernher
Stitcher wrote:
I politely submit that any education system in which the "students" are commonly subject to being whipped, fitted with shock collars or explosive collars, worked to death, locked in fenced compounds patrolled by cybernetically augmented carnivores and men with guns, drugged, and deliberately infected with fatal engineered retroviruses, is in rather desperate need of reform.


Those methods are only necessary when the servant is resistant, as a punishment. They bring it on themselves.

Yes, sometimes they are used when they shouldn't be, but that is only indicative of a poor, arbitrarily cruel Holder, who will surely be punished himself for his misdeeds.

Quote:
Especially when the primary subject this supposed "education" concerns is why they are worthless animals who deserve everything they've received and more, because the god of another group of human beings who is apparently fantastically obsessed over arbitrary genetics differences says so and has chosen the aforemention other group to be the bearers of his message...


It is not about genetics. Amarr who turn from God are enslaved. Minmatar who embrace God achieve freedom.

Quote:
...of love and comfort and peace...

...which should be ruthlessly beaten into anybody who doesn't accept it...

...and their children...

...and their children...

...for fourteen generations...

...even long after one of the poor souls has caved and been successfully converted indoctrinated...


You can't always convert the parents. They're too set in their ways, and it takes time to eliminate that influence. But by enslavement of the family, you ensure that their children, and their children's children, can be brought up in an environment where they can be brought into God's light without the capability or temptation to do evil that arises outside the Empire.

It is about saving the immortal soul. Yes, it can be harsh. But it would crueler to allow them to languish in sin and not lift a finger to try and save them, damning their soul to an eternity away from God.

Now yes, fourteen generations is too long. That indicates exploitation. Which is surely why Her Imperial Majesty ordered the release of all slaves of 9th generation or higher. Almost any family that has been in servitude that long has surely been converted, and their Holders are simply keeping them for exploitation. That is wrong, and so we were released.
Stitcher
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#57 - 2013-02-15 18:51:23 UTC
I would also submit that if the religion really was that important, wonderful, true and accurate, then slavery wouldn't be necessary at all, and there would be no need to round up people against their will and use overwhelmingly brutal punishment methods when they get understandably upset at this treatment.

AKA Hambone

Author of The Deathworlders
Brother Ludwigus
#58 - 2013-02-15 19:26:09 UTC
Stitcher wrote:
I would also submit that if the religion really was that important, wonderful, true and accurate, then slavery wouldn't be necessary at all, and there would be no need to round up people against their will and use overwhelmingly brutal punishment methods when they get understandably upset at this treatment.


You can bring a horse to water. Some people need encouragment to see the light. And brutality occurs but not always.

Soli Deo gloria.
Andreus Ixiris
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#59 - 2013-02-15 20:03:19 UTC
Brother Ludwigus wrote:
You can bring a horse to water. Some people need encouragment to see the light. And brutality occurs but not always.

You cannot force someone to believe.

There are a lot of things that a person can be coerced into doing. You can make a person eat, drink, sleep, memorise and recite a phrase, write a letter, sing a song, move a burden, make a certain facial expression. With enough physical brutality or psychological duress you can even make a person hurt or kill another person. You can condition certain responses and, with enough time and effort, you can most likely insituate certain patterns of thought that lead to these responses feeling fairly "natural."

But you can't make someone believe something.

Oh, they'll claim they believe it. They'll go through the motions of belief with such accuracy that you might be utterly convinced, but the reason they're doing this is so that you cease being coercive. Whether through perception, natural charisma or sheer bloody-minded trial and error, they'll discover what responses you want to receive and they'll give them. They may, indeed, actually believe, since constant physical and emotional abuse (and it's always one, the other or both - by the very nature of slavery, there is not a single slave/holder relationship that is not abusive) can cause enough psychological damage to cause defects in perception and reasoning. But you can't actually make that choice for them, even if your abuse leads them to question their beliefs, and you can't truly ever know what a person is actually thinking, so you can never know whether or not their professed belief is sincere.

The Amarr evidently do not grasp this fact, as the Minmatar Rebellion clearly came as a complete shock to them - one that they're still reeling from more than a century into the future.

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
Samira Kernher
Cail Avetatu
#60 - 2013-02-15 20:30:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Samira Kernher
Andreus Ixiris wrote:
Oh, they'll claim they believe it. They'll go through the motions of belief with such accuracy that you might be utterly convinced, but the reason they're doing this is so that you cease being coercive. Whether through perception, natural charisma or sheer bloody-minded trial and error, they'll discover what responses you want to receive and they'll give them. They may, indeed, actually believe, since constant physical and emotional abuse (and it's always one, the other or both - by the very nature of slavery, there is not a single slave/holder relationship that is not abusive) can cause enough psychological damage to cause defects in perception and reasoning. But you can't actually make that choice for them, even if your abuse leads them to question their beliefs, and you can't truly ever know what a person is actually thinking, so you can never know whether or not their professed belief is sincere.


Just as you claim they don't believe it? You can't know what they are thinking either, mister Ixiris.

I believe. As do many others who have chosen to remain in the Empire or have held on to their beliefs even after moving to the Republic (despite the fact that Republic Minmatar are attempting to coerce them to give up their faith). It's rather insulting for you to say that the only reason we might still believe is due to "psychological damage causing defects in perception and reasoning."