Intergalactic Summit

Ah yes. My threat to defend the State - it is offensive in your eyes? Of course it is.

There are many avenues open to you, if raising my opinion of you is truly what you wish to do. I wonder which one of them you will pick. I wonder how many of them are even apparent to you?

Place yourself in our shoes, Pilot Chagangan. Suppose the Empire had held on to Pator and a few surrounding systems, and Pator was recognised by CONCORD as Imperial sovereign territory.

Would you then suggest that there should be "a government of Matar, put in place by the populace of Matar, and able to see to the needs and desires of the people of Matar, no matter their genetic heritage? Yes, the government would have to swear fealty to the Empress, it is in an Imperial system."

Now it's a little unfair to the Gallente to compare them to the Empire - for all their flaws, the Federation are at least not a theocratic monarchy founded on a slave economy - but if you can truly say "yes that sounds reasonable to me" then we have nothing further to say on this subject to one another because I can't.

You have inadvertently hit the nail on the head, however. The problem really is that Luminaire is a Federation system that happens tragically to also be home to a (now) non-Federal culture.

The system of declaring sovereignty by star system is a convenient one that makes strategic sense - interplanetary travel takes seconds, or minutes at most. Interstellar travel that doesn't take half a day at the very least is only possible via stargate or jump drive. Declaring sovereignty by star system makes sense. But it has produced this quite serious anomaly in Luminaire.

If that anomaly is to be resolved, then either one side has to "drop it" as is being suggested or, I think the more workable solution would be to renegotiate the sovereign status of that system, either to designate Home as an official embassy of the Caldari people with the Federation waiving their right to refuse embassy, or I think the most workable solution would be to put the entire system under the wardship of the CONCORD assembly and declare Gallente Prime and Caldari Prime as embassies of their respective governments.

Designating an entire system as neutral territory isn't without precedent - just look at Yulai. I very much doubt the Federation would be willing to accept that solution, despite the Federation's capital and government system actually being Villore, meaning that such a move would have no serious impact on the working of the Federal government.

It would be political suicide for the senators who proposed and ratified the move, after all. And one of the aforementioned flaws with the Federation is that its leaders are more concerned with farming votes than with actually taking the sensible and practical solution.

Through the ice-cold exterior and beneath the rough surface lies the gem of truth I was searching for.

We agree on this.

At the moment I think I would be happy just to hear that some sort of formal negotiation was underway.

With all do respect (and I do respect you) I think you might seek guidance in the Caldari way before thinking we idealize robber barons Ms. Vero. As a whole, we do what we do for the betterment of the entire Caldari collective. I highly doubt in the end Roden will be sharing corporate profits his company earns with the rest of the Federation.

His business practices and colorful history certainly have earned him the "robber baron" reputation he has in the Federation, but I am not aware of anything in that history other than his Gallente heritage that would be seen as out of place in the boardrooms of the State. I suppose it would be one thing if Roden Shipyards was known to be a corporate pariah, alienated from the rest of the Gallente business community by its practices. Instead, however, Roden has demonstrated close relationships throughout that community as evidenced by their unity with Roden during the previous administration's executive overreach. This is not the behavior of a company that "refuses to share" or neglects the collective Gallente society.

As for guidance on the Caldari Way, I can only assure you that my father did his best while he was still alive to impart some measure of his heritage to a typically wild and independent daughter who in the end was too much her Gallente mother's child. I loved them both, and although my lifestyle hardly reflects it I have always respected my father and his Way. If you managed to catch a look at my Naval Academy disciplinary records you'd find a fair few demerits stemming from my... robust efforts to enlighten fellow students concerning their misconceptions about Caldari culture, generally; and my heritage, particularly.

So, my amusement with the presumptions of certain Caldari has fairly deep roots in how I remember my father, and how I expect he would see things these days. He spent his life in international corporate relations between businesses in all four Empires, and spoke often about the many similarities he encountered. In his day those who disparaged or underestimated their competition simply because of their nationality, or traded in double standards, had a simple label within the Caldari business community: fools.

So, when I read on the IGS that the Caldari aren't able to make peace because Jacus Roden's company is a profitable armaments manufacturer...

Perhaps it does make a certain type of sense that Eight major arms dealers would have trouble making peace with a Ninth.

While I can understand the irony and amusement of this, allow me a quick moment to clarify.

The "Gallentean" idea is individuality and liberty to choose one's path. President Roden may embody the Caldari ideals of business efficiency and practices, but his freedom to practice them in tandem with similar or opposing ideologies and practices is very much a Gallentean ideal.

Oh come on, Verin, surely you can see the humour and the sense in Rinai's point? She just waded in to a group of very grumpy Caldari and reminded us that we do still have something in common with the Federation that our two people's helped found.

See, I was under the impression that to a degree Roden was “known to be a corporate pariah, alienated from the rest of the Gallente business community by its practices.”, otherwise I find it odd he would be branded with such a negative stamp as a ‘robber baron’. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to why that is, as I admitably know little about the man? As for him being out of place (or not) in any Boardroom in the State, well I believe that depends on who’s Board he’s on.

As for his ability to rally other industrialists under a common cause when faced with the nationalization of their business interests; I find it hardly telling of his sense of community Ms. Vero. More like it shows his ability to adapt and skill at inspiring others to work with together in the face of a common enemy in order to save their own skins.

I’d liken it to two wolves being threatened by a bear. Your more likely to find the wolves working together to take down the bear, even if they aren’t of the same pack, rather than squabble amongst themselves and let the bear kill them. It doesn’t however make them a pack or their kill greater than an act of mutual self preservation. Now don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt about Roden’s ability as a leader, he certainly proved that when he successfully rallied even his competitors around him to fend off, as you put it, an executive over reach. It doesn’t however speak in any regard in his case for his good will towards the Federation or desire for peace given his chosen industry.

He may have stepped down as CEO of Roden Shipyards but the sheer number of Roden ships now in direct employee of the Federation Navy doesn’t really help his case much in regards to being impartial as to the conflict. No doubt he still retains stock and other ties.



I’m sure you father did an excellent job of teaching you about his culture and heritage, that however, was not the topic I was addressing. I was directly referring to Caldari politics and responsibility of the CEO in comparison to that of Roden and corporations in the Federattion.



In the Federation a businessman can become a politician but in the State a businessman is already a politician. The affairs of the State and the Corporation are one in the same, and thus they usually benefit one another in equal measure (not always of course, bad apples exist in every system). The same cannot be said in earnest for the Federation where business and politics are supposedly two separate entities and the power ideally belongs to the people. Jacus Roden runs an arms industry with its responsibility solely to the investors and its board while someone like Mens Roppa runs an arms industry that just so happens to be but a single entity in what is a corporate nation-state.

Our two nations operate on a very different set of ideals. Business and Politics are the same in the State, as mentioned, and our CEO’s are expected to do what's best for the corporation which sequentially means its employee-citizens. In the Federation a business is a means to an end with no greater responsibility to anyone other than the man who owns it and his own machinations.

War will always be profitable to an arms dealer who only has to provide the weapons and not the bodies. The same cannot be said when the arms dealer is also putting his employees on the front lines, supplying them, feeding their families, relying on their tax money and their continued support in order to remain a viable business and political entity.

I hope this clarifies what I was attempting to say.