EVE Fiction

Dominance of space does not guarantee a Gallente victory... and lets face it, the 7 km long wreck that's dropping on the only named city on Caldari Prime that's not a ruin is plenty of cost.

This is an area where CCP can actually learn something from WoW. It used to be the case in WoW that The Horde was noble and skillful (basically the United Mary Sues of Azeroth) and the Alliance (especially humans) racist and incompetent. This was all to balance out the original 90s Warcraft RTS Storyline of the Alliance being clean cut good and the Horde being outright Evil. Of course Blizzard eventually realized they had overdone it and had Thrall lose power to the crazy warmongering Hellscream and the Alliance became the good guys but stayed incompetent and the Horde became evil but effective.

Gallente/Minmatar should be golden hearted clods and the Amarr/Caldari should be the sexy devils. It fits much better into the EvE universe that the cuthroats get ahead.

This is an area where CCP can actually learn something from WoW. It used to be the case in WoW that The Horde was noble and skillful (basically the United Mary Sues of Azeroth) and the Alliance (especially humans) racist and incompetent. This was all to balance out the original 90s Warcraft RTS Storyline of the Alliance being clean cut good and the Horde being outright Evil. Of course Blizzard eventually realized they had overdone it and had Thrall lose power to the crazy warmongering Hellscream and the Alliance became the good guys but stayed incompetent and the Horde became evil but effective.

Gallente/Minmatar should be golden hearted clods and the Amarr/Caldari should be the sexy devils who kick ass and take names. It fits much better into the EvE universe that the cuthroats get ahead.

I don't know if I'd call the Caldari Communist as there is no from your abilities to your needs going on... In truth, the system is a combination oligarchy and old fashioned fascism. Think of how Porsche, Henshel, Heinkel, Mitsubishi, Yokohama, and so forth operated under a fascist rule during World War II and you'll come closer.

The Amarr are an imperial power, yes... and they very much have got the whole 'civilizing the savage' thing for dealing with the Minmatar, but there's also the religious bend hidden beneath them. I'd almost think of them as what a strong version of the old Holy Roman Empire would be like.

Now... the Federation and Minmatar Republic both have problems, their parliamentary governments and those have a habit of being unstable and corrupt. There is also a background of ethnic violence and tribal issues to the Minmatar that causes problems and the Federation has serious problems with drugs.

So, there's problems to be sure in every nation... but compared to the ideology of some of the pirate factions, they're pretty tame overall.

It used to be that way, then we got TonyG doing story, and he was bound and determined to paint any faction that didn't look like a Western European Democracy as the epitome of evil. So the Caldari went from being an efficient and capable (but ruthless) hyper-capitalist corporate shadowrun-ish society to being fascist space na-zis who can't do anything right. And the Amarr Empire went from a system of strong morality with the largest military to being an Empire run by a secret Blood Raider who was also run by a child molester, whose citizens were almost universally evil bastards who drugged their slaves, and who had to be rescued from the Minmatar by an insane psychic zombie princess. And yes, the Caldari got Caldari Prime, which promptly turned into a pile of ****, but only because the Broker, TonyG's explanation FOR EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE, did everything for them.

Meanwhile, the Minmatar only need to be more like the Gallente, but without the "weak women" in charge (TonyG has misogyny issues), and the Gallente are perfect in every way, except that the Broker managed to corrupt one of their admirals. The book even calls them a "utopia". Makes you wonder why the Caldari ever left, right? Oh, right, that's because CCP has decided that the Caldari are Always Chaotic Evil. The Gallente do everything better: trade, economic growth, military strength, capitalism, you name it, while 95% of Caldari (drew that figure straight from the book) live like slaves.

As you might imagine, the book also resulted in roughly 90% of Caldari and Amarr RPers either throwing tantrums, quitting their involvement with RP, or quitting the game. So, naturally, CCP has used TEA as the foundation of everything they've done since.

It's been notable, too, that no matter what Caldari supporters do, they lose. Take FW, for instance:

Caldari lose some systems in the early part of the war -> Lore is written that the Gallente conducted a scorched earth policy through Black Rise, destroying virtually all corporate assets there.

Caldari retake Black Rise -> Nothing.

Caldari take all Gallente systems, hold them all for 6-8 months -> Lore is written that the Megacorporations invest in all the captured systems, then lose it all. Except Ishukone, they lose it all later. Incidentally, it takes CCP about 3-5 months to even acknowledge that this happened.

Caldari lose some systems, finally -> instant news article. Gallente get a new and more capable president.

Caldari lose most Gallente systems - Caldari State is said to have slid into a deep recession.

Caldari lose all systems for 18 hours, notably after CCP changes the rules of FW in fastest patch ever while Gallente are in the current cycle up -> Instant news article, medal, Heth starts a civil war in the State.

Caldari retake most of Black Rise and move into Placid -> Heth starts arresting CEOs, wipes out more corporate assets, and the Caldari lose Caldari Prime. Incidentally, it might be noted that Caldari Prime was the only, single thing that any Caldari supporter got out of TEA and the start of FW.

Eve used to be billed as a more realistic universe, a universe in which the good guys don't always win, everyone has their dark side, etc. You know the type. That's what most of us on the Caldari and Amarr sides signed on for. Heck, that's what the intros to each race still act like. Thet's not the truth, though, is it? The Caldari and Amarr are only here for CCP and the Gal/Minnie players to circle around and kick, while remarking to each other how tough and heroic they are.

At this point, the Caldari faction has been so mangled that it's virtually irreparable. We continue to get new articles that mangle the previous PF. Take Caldari Demographics: the Caldari live in dormitories, spend all their spare money on gambling, have a caste system, violently attack minorities, and react violently to interracial marriage (WTF!?!) Oh, and they hate gays. Since when did the Caldari become trailer park citizens of the deep south in the 1960s?!? Oh, right, since CCP Falcon got involved, who is desperately trying to out-TonyG TonyG. And then we have the new articles for Federation history, which reads as only slightly more rosily colored than a history of the United States written by The Conservative Christian Grandmothers Association For Patriotic Education. But hey, I wouldn't mind the Federation being portrayed well, except that they get to be good both at all the things they used to be good at, and now all the things everyone else is good at too. Oh, and CCP spawns them infinite Moro's in events to take down Caldari Titans, no matter what the players are trying for...that's a little irritating as well. But not too irritating, because I predicted they would do that. Here's another prediction: no matter what happens with the DUST soldiers, the stuff on the ground will somehow turn out to be bad for the Caldari as well.

What CCP should do at this point, because the Caldari lore and faction is destroyed as a coherent fictional entity, is offer anyone who rolled Caldari the chance to transfer their entire skillpoint load to a new character, and biomass the old ones. That way we can all re-enroll as glorious freedom fighters on the side of all that is good and holy and beautiful and fluffy and all that ****.

Why anyone would want to keep being a punching bag for this is beyond me.

Also for god's sake, you're deliberately spinning the PF wrong. When the Caldari took all the systems back in 2009, that PROVOKED a crisis in the Federation that saw Foiritan go and Roden get in.

Make me. In any case, by the way my "likes" are suddenly shooting up, apparently some people agree with me. Or maybe it's just my handsome avatar.



So list them. And then we can argue them. And yes, I know that the Gallente felt shafted about some things in TEA. Well, one thing, really, which was that the Caldari got Caldari Prime back. Aside from that, the Gallente have lost, uh, let me see here, oh, right: nothing that any other faction hasn't also lost. But the Caldari have certainly lost a lot more than the Gallente.

But that doesn't matter, because, despite how you want to see it as an us vs. them model, it isn't actually that. The problem is that the original lore and character of the Caldari State has been utterly wrecked by CCP. FW is just the easiest and clearest way of demonstrating how that has worked. For example, no one has a problem with the fact that Gals got a medal when they took every system. The problem is that CCP made sure that the Caldari taking every system turned out to be a horrible loss, just like when the Caldari lost every system. In other words, whatever happens, the Caldari lose.

And yes, I'm aware of foreign cultures. Apparently, the Caldari culture is "southen Klan space na-zis of evil". In other words, it might well be said that, rather than being too alien, current Caldari culture is all too familiar, sort of a hybridization of the worst of western culture. But I think my listed complaint has more to do with how they've been utterly altered from what they were originally described as. Back before TonyG and Falcon got their sticky little hands on the PF, the Caldari were NOT a caste culture, were meritocratic, were utterly ruthless in dealing with xenophobic tendencies (as in, orbital bombardment of their own citizens when they attacked a minority), and didn't give a **** about race - they wanted to make money. There were elements of Japanese and Finnish culture, but the biggest influence was definitely the eight megacorporation setting of Shadowrun.

Well, we certainly don't have THAT anymore.

That would take a serious, serious retcon of years of fiction.

I'm not so quick to buy into the whole 'CCP screwed the Caldari over' and I've never actually seen anyone in good faith retort VIkarion's accusations. I'm actually pretty interested in seeing what the other side has to say in regards to them. Then again I'm still relativly new to the whole situation. Previously I played an Amarr character and didn't really dive into the lore/RP scene.

Should I just look through the old Scope stories?