Intergalactic Summit

Shovels must be on sale in the Republic if the amount of hole digging its apologists are willing to conduct is any indication.

Call me Akahoshi, Musana. First names are for friends.



Stitcher, this is exactly the sort of thing that I mean. We're not believed to have the simple humanity needed to grieve for the deaths of our friends.

Shintoko, I don't think she's saying what you think she is. I don't think she's denying your humanity... The sentiment appears to be "You grieve for your lost soldiers, but not so much as we grieve for the Ray".

I don't think I can adequately stress just how... intense the emotional response to Midular's shooting was. As a Caldari capsuleer working in Republic space, I'm insulated from the full experience of Matari culture, but it was still simply incredible just how strong the reaction was.

I know grief. Malkalen, my own father's death a few years back, that whole sorry affair with the people I used to call my mother and brother. The outpouring of emotion I saw here was grief after a year of intensive training on a high-G world. This was grief in a hard suit, with quickdraw implants, driving a Gunnlogi.

As a largely secular man who tries to practice a discipline of moderation and calmness, I don't really "grok" the heights of intensity to which spiritual and religious feeling can climb, but make no mistake - a Ray of Matar is an individual of staggering religious significance to the Minmatar. I won't try to describe the specific nature of the Ray's importance - that's for persons who are better educated in their culture than I to attempt to convey.

The closest equivalent I can draw would... from the Ishukone perspective, it'd be like if you rolled Home, Admiral Tovil-Toba and the late Gariushi-haan up into one charismatic individual and then threw in some of the ancient spirits of the Way for good measure. And then shot that person in the face. Worse, becaue from what I understand she was supposed to be a hope for the future as well.

Grief makes people behave irrationally at the best of times. How much more irrational does that kind of a grief overload drive people to be?

As I said: My way is to try and discipline myself. I've done some dumb things in my time, when I've acted on my emotions without pausing to "commune with Cold Wind". I don't condone Colelie, nor do I think it can be condoned. But it can be understood. It was a paroxysm of rage and woe that accomplished nothing.

The reaction coming the other way, from Federals, is much the same sort of thing. It's a reaction to justified grief. You're (and I mean collectively, rather than you personally, Shintoko) angry, and frustrated, and think that there should be justice.

Justice - and please understand, I'm actually advising against my own best interests here - would be to not let the deaths of those people be the first pebble in a landslide. One small stone bouncing off your head may hurt and provoke a whole lot of swearing, but it's got to be better than the whole mountain deciding you need to be flat now.

They have to acknowledge your grief, and you have to acknowledge theirs. I suspect that Pilot Musana is correct when she feels that the Matari grief is deeper and stronger, and really, let them have that. I'm yet to see a Minmatar pilot explicitly claim that Colelie was a good thing and justifiable. I've seen many of them express the precise opposite sentiment, and remorse. It's a sad moment in your shared history. The appropriate response is to bury that black mark under a tower of future positive moments. If you must dwell on it, use it as the excuse for a fresh start. Allow it to inspire a reforging of the good relationship between Federation and Republic.

Using it as the excuse to further isolate and divide New Eden into jingoistic camps is a poor legacy for those naval dead.

Gesakaarin-haani. Our own people have shown similar disregard for interstellar law over the matter of Home. Right or wrong, history has happened and cannot be undone. The important part is the future we craft in response. the tragedy of Kim-guri is that she's eternally stuck in a history of poison and loathing. While the same thing may be true for some Minmatar, I don't think it's true for all of them, any more than it's true of us.

This is not an issue as to interstellar law as regards the Republic, it is the danger they clearly represent in their willingness to invade and murder the territories and people of those that have historically assisted them. This was not over ideology, nor borders, nor sovereign claims. This was done solely out of a misguided notion that Matari whims must always be appeased and if they are not then look how quickly they reach for violence and death without even thinking it through. The Federation did hand over the killer of Midular in the end and the greatest tragedy is that if the Matari actually had the emotional coping skills then tens of thousands would not have had to die because the Republic had to behave the disaffected child.

Say what one likes about the Amarr Empire but as far as the Caldari State is concerned they at least have the sense of honour and dignity to keep their word. I have grave misgivings given Colelie that the Republic has yet matured as a government, society, and people so not to stab their allies in the back and partake in murder simply because they were angry at the time. It is equally difficult to extend any kind of sympathy to a Republic that in recent memory has not been the victim of any invasions by a foreign power but have very much been engaged in continued provocations, acts of terrorism, and outright military aggression against CONCORD, the Empire, the State and now the Federation.

I am more than willing to try and reach understanding with Minmatar if they wish it, but from where I'm looking they seem more than satisfied in isolating themselves further in the dysfunctional failed state called the Minmatar Republic. You may wish to be a Caldari advocate for the Matari, Mr. Stitcher, but I do not see anything of value or worth in a Republic that strikes openly at the hands that feed them because no one else would want to invest in such a internally fractious, violent and corrupt society that somehow manages to be the most populous people in the cluster and yet still manages to be such a third-rate power.

I don't need tatoos to destroy gallentean bootlicking scum like you, Gesakaarin-hnolku.

With radical elements on the top of Federal infrastructure, I don't think that appearing of something more radical will change things to either better or worse. I am afraid that the Federation is way long past the line of saving it, and the best solution would be permanent dismantling of its infrastructure, starting with decapitation of its very government.
They must be put under tribunal for all the war crimes they have committed.


Just kicking Federation won't do any good. We should continue on systematic destruction of federal assets and resources, to weaken it enough in order to finally strike it down. Because, you know, this bear has already awakened in the Luminaire and attacked us. It is our duty now to put this bear to taxidermist shop.


Looking back how far? As far as the Federation bombed Caldari Prime? Well, we could help you, when we will bomb Gallente Prime and Villore.


The Federation must collapse. Even the anarchy and crawling criminal scum from its remains would be better than what we have at the moment. At least, criminal scum will be much more clearer in their intentions and would work only for their puny individualistic needs instead of trying to kill our citizens.

You know what? In the end, for me, the thing that's really been filling me with anger over this whole thing isn't so much the generalized 'grieving for our lost soldiers'. It's grieving for one guy. A friend I've known since college, who I've considered practically family (and if you know anything about how I view family, you know what that means). He had the bad luck to be on one of the Moros dreadnoughts that was destroyed by our good allies the Republic.

I've been pretty public about this - hell, I mentioned it yesterday. From Republicans I've talked to I've gotten a) crowing over the event; b) arguments that he's just one guy, and we've all killed so many, so it shouldn't matter; c) arguments that he was a soldier and thus I shouldn't be upset if he died in battle. Mostly, though, I've gotten silence. It's as if it simply doesn't occur to anyone that this is something to be angry about.

Now you come along and say that Matari grief is deeper and stronger than the rest of ours. You defend the idea that we don't grieve for our dead as much as they grieve for the Ray.

Please tell me why the hell I should give a Fedo's hair over "allies" that treat me like this?

Please tell me why any of the families or friends of those tens of thousands should care about the "allies" that killed them and then rubbed this sort of crap in their faces?

I suspect you'd find it more productive to reach out to Minmatar who aren't citizens of the Republic. There sure are a lot of them.

In the interest of fairness, the Tribal Council did apologize for the first incursion.

And then promptly did it again scant weeks later. If you apologize for something and then do it again deliberately, you might as well not have apologized at all in the first place.

In the interest of fairness that "apology" doesn't even count as a result.