Intergalactic Summit

No, there isn't. That's why atomic weaponry and nuclear power are two entirely different sciences that use a similar basic principle, as any nuclear physicist will tell you. Contrary to what the holovids might tell you, there's never any chance of a nuclear reactor detonating like a nuclear weapon.



They're called "Doomsday Devices" for a reason. Given that the last use of a doomsday device outside the context of a fleet battle was an act of genocide by the Amarrian Navy against the residents of a Federal colony, I'm pretty convinced that this passive-aggressive, sarcastic little statement of yours was actually correct.



What are you going to create that's beneficial to the human race by creating viruses? By creating devices that release enough energy to wreck the biosphere of a planet?

Only fools and Amarrians would try and justify this sort of research with the idea that "beneficial things might come of it!".

This is always the excuse of Amarrians who wish to distance themselves from the only thing Amarrian science is any good at all - destruction. "Well I don't like it!". Yet this is never an acceptable excuse for Minmatar to use when they talk about bombing civilians - "well I don't like it!". Tough, apparently, some Minmatar bomb civilians, so apparently anyone who defends the Minmatar defends them. Or Gallente - anyone who defends Gallente society defends things like the bombing of Caldari Prime, the Black Eagles and the execution of Admiral Eturer.

You know what? You can't have your cake and eat it.

If you defend and support the Amarr Empire, you defend and support the use of vitoc. I will not have the Amarr use this simplistic line of thinking without suffering the consequences themselves.



Well let's talk about doomsday devices, and the one the Amarr Navy test-fired on Reschard. Having the ability to wipe out an entire planet's population on a whim is certainly not easy. It does not make it laudable or admirable.



Some Amarrians live for hundreds of years. But then again, some Gallenteans live for hundreds of years. Some Caldari live for hundreds of years. Some Minmatar live for hundreds of years.

The technology is ubiquitous, and I daresay the other races, like almost everything, do it better than you.

Admiral Noir.

Equivocation from an Amarrian? Why, that's unheard of.

The average life expectancy of a human being without any form of medical assistance or technology rarely goes above 40 and never above 80. If a man's still sound enough in mind and body at the age of 160 to command a modern-day supercarrier, life extension technology's already worked. Once you push beyond the 100 mark with reliability, there's really no limit to how far you can go.

Most Imperial capsuleers I meet seem to have a sense of morality superior to the Empire's or the Empress. They normally claim to feel the use of vitoc treatment to be somehow wrong despite it's legality and widespread use in the Empire. Unrighteous heresy or hypocrisy?

Kuvakei's experiments with turning people into True Slaves is, from a strictly scientific point of view, extremely interesting.

What does that tell us about True Slaves, or the technology to remove emotions and free will from people? Exactly nothing.

Does that change anything about whether Kuvakei's dystopia is desirable or not? No.

Whether Vitoc is scientifically interesting or not is irrelevant. I'd go as far as to say that whether using Vitoc or not is "righteous" accordng to the scriptures or not is about as irrelevant.

The social and ethical idea behind Vitoxin is the morally bankrupt act of a primitive culture suffering from an inferiority complex. That's all there is to it.

He does like to over word things doesn't he?

I am unsure that any imperial decree has ever claimed that every Holder has to use Vitoc.



This is precisely why I said above that "what you do with that knowledge and ensuing ethical concerns is something totally different". It was definitly not my intention to get into heated ethical debates revolving around the final product. Science is by definition amoral (opposed to immoral). What people do and create with such knowledge is up to them. This is also why technological progress is closely tied to social progress, and more precisely, maturation of said society. Give nuclear power, a technology that is these days "more or less" outdated, to a primitive culture and you will end up with a nuclear winter very soon.

And yes indeed, this is the kind of topics that always get hostile answers coming from ignorants unable to do the difference between science/knowledge and technology.



If this is your reasoning, then antimatter physics are irrelevant simply due to their use in hybrid weapons, Eventually, there are not many pieces of science left that remain "relevant".



When I was a child, I also firstly thought that Minmatar culture was a primitive barbaric culture in which people behave like animals.




Well, as usual Ms Rella, you seem to have omitted to read what was said above. I will try to clarify it again...

Behind Vitoxin, you have the theory : viral genetic engineering, or more specifically, RNA to DNA manipulation. This theory does not only implies viral biological warfare, but also has multiple applications in medicine in particular, like gene therapy, but also in genetic engineering, genomics, and more advanced technologies like synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and eventually... cloning (as you may know, it involves fast growing tehcnologies recreating a copy out of shapeless biomass).

If you want to shun the whole theory just because several of its applications are not ethical enough, then as I said to Mr Sadik, you will be left with only sticks and stones for a living, and even for sticks and stones, I am not sure that they are totally ethical either, depending on the use you make of them.

This is why I added quotation marks. It is still a widespread technology, especially in Minmatar Tech, and you have my apologies because I forgot to be more precise and say that I was specifically refering to nuclear fission (that is unaccurately and commonly referred as nuclear tech, like in low damage projectile ammo).

No need to clarify anything Captain Farel, I understood quite well. I was calling you out, nonetheless, on your continued noble, if rather naive, attempt at divorcing cold and amoral science from the practicalities of human existence. It's certainly true that the knowledge required to transform a simple rock into a lethal weapon is, in and of itself, neither moral or immoral. What I'd like to remind you is that we flawed creatures, if left to our own devices, will always find ways to take the most benign knowledge, the most basic technology or scientific discovery and manipulate it so that it can also be used to kill our fellow man. I'm saying that we can't separate the science from the practical application of said science. A responsible scientist should consider this and so should we as a society.

I appreciate what you're attempting as a mental exercise and in the vacuum of a purely academic setting I'd likely agree with you. We don't live in that vacuum, however. We live in a harsh universe populated by other flawed humans, not angels.

I believe Gottii's final paragraph says it best.