Intergalactic Summit

For some time, there has been a mindset, amongst some of my more zealous kin, that a slave is better dead than enslaved, or even better off dead than free, but Vitoc dependent.

I do hope that those who might harbor such ideas will stop and carefully examine their own thoughts.

A dead slave is not free. They are simply dead.

A dead vitoc-dependent person is not free. They are dead.

I have been Vitoc dependent for over 15 years. I was once a slave. At the time, I would have been far too terrified to run away, even if the opportunity had presented itself. I would have been seen, by some of these people, as "better off dead". I was in need of a good deal of psychological help, some medical care, and yes, my daily dose of Vitoc, but I most certainly was not "better off dead".

I'd like to state that I am really really happy I am not dead.

If our fight is truly to free our kin, then what sense does it make to decide who should live, should not? To deny that person of life is the exact same denial of life they have suffered with thus far.

While some of us may say "We would rather die than be enslaved again", that is an individual choice. No one, not me, or you, or that guy over there has any right to make that decision for anyone else.

There is a difference between fighting for freedom and fighting to quench a thirst for revenge.

Shaman Avlynka Surionen

As someone also happy to not be dead, I agree with this post. My own opinions on the Reclaiming aside, death is not a solution. By choosing to kill a slave because you cannot free them, you are acting no different from their owner: you are imposing your will on them, making their life choices for them. And frankly, killing a slave is far worse than any punishment that their owner metes out.

Many slaves do not wish to be dead. Many slaves accept their slavery. Many choose to stay with their masters even after being released. If you truly value freedom then you will permit them to make those choices themselves, even if you do not agree with them.

For my part I think your correct, does the same sentiment flow to questions of faith?

In particular i was referring to those emancipated individuals who return to the... for the lack of a better term, Republic, and are shunned when they choose not to abandon their faith.

There still should be around here a topic in which a good number of Minmatarr say "Never trust a Nefantar" because of their faith. So I wish your words to be true, but I'm not so sure.

But I do agree with your general message, life is undoubtedly one of the pillars of everything worthwhile. And taking life away... not something to do lightly.

It is Written: Where There is Life, There is Hope.

In the past I have associated with such opinions. During my freedom fighting days I would hear such things uttered often and I have to agree it is unsettling. I never liked the sentiment. And yet my hands are stained with such blood as well, sister.

So why dip my hands in such dirt if I did not agree with the reason?

There is no simple way to put it, except I had my own point of view. Necessary evil, maybe? If I feel the need one day to put it in a box that fits all other boxes this might be closest. But this is one reason I found such viewpoints as 'a slave is better dead than a slave' to be irritating is that it, too, is stuffed into a box.

What irritated me most about the sentiment is not so much how morally wrong it is, attempting to justify such an end result to free the slaves in a ship, illegally traversing Minmatar space. It is that such people look at the situation from the wrong point of view.

Blowing up a ship to free who you can, when the zealots refuse to surrender their cargo of misery, will always result in potential dead among the slaves. It is not that they are better off dead that I have, in the past, willed my guns to fire and crack open the slaver convoys. Knowing that those which died are no longer suffering enslavement in the name of a vile religion. I fire, and live with the consequences, because letting them be used as a shield hands victory to the slaves. And while some may die, which I have to live with, I know I can by justifying it to myself that had I not fired there would only be one certain result. They would still be slaves. Just as certain that the dead are just dead.

Personally, I would rather attempt to free as many as I can.

I think you missed the point I was stating, that their deaths are, indeed, a terrible thing. And that I view myself as having blood on my hands. I said that quite clearly. I am aware of this, and the dead are not free, they are dead.

What I mean to say is that they are better off free than enslaved. Free and alive. Sadly some do die. Though not in quite the embellished numbers you describe here from your Amarrian ministry of propaganda and falsehoods. If you really knew what you are talking about, child, then deaths among slave transports are usually smaller, single figure percentages. Hardly in their thousands each time I break open your precious golden hulls.

I don't claim to have the best answer, I simply accept that deaths will happen and they are weighed against the state of my own soul. To do anything else is to let them live in slavery. Pray to your demon-god you never feel the lash held above you, and go back to your gilded palaces of finery and pomp. The rest of us have reality to deal with.

Preach somewhere else, slavers. Take your sanctimony, your arrogance and your glibness and stick it.

We all proceed upon our individual life paths based on what we believe to be morally right. It is an individual decision. You have no right to impose your Amarrian god's morals onto anyone else. You have no right to judge us. That prerogative ended over a century ago. We're not your possessions nor, your wards.

We'll be judged by our kin, our Tribes and our ancestors not, by you.

I'm sure your ancestors, Tribes and kin would still call what Darius defended murder. On a massive scale. If they don't, they are so twisted and wrong they don't deserve your worship, nor do they deserve to judge anyone's act. For the killing of civilians, in any number, is always murder. And doing so once and once again is called mass murder. There is no preaching in that, there is no twist nor subtlety, it's just a fact.