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Former Slaves Enter Matriculation Program

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Eran Mintor
Metropolis Commercial Consortium
#1001 - 2013-09-06 01:58:58 UTC
I commend you on your steadfastness. It is admirable that you, a capsuleer, would use your efforts to help those in need who would otherwise be helpless, and stick with it for almost 2 years.

I have a question though; are these crew you rescue also going through the same process as the slaves you rescue? It would seem to me that you'd just send them back home to their families rather than try to educate them before release.

-Eran
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1002 - 2013-09-10 12:59:07 UTC
Space stations are essentially large cities in orbit. They can be very impersonal cold places and those without resources can find themselves without help and without hope quickly. Given this reality, DSTON offers all those we rescue a place of transition. To answer Mr. Mintor's question, we seldom rescue crews as most manage to either escape in powered escape pods or perish in space. However, we happen upon occasional stranded pilots, freed slaves, and various other passengers. These we assist in finding their way either back home or on to their destination. Some stay. Slavers are interred at our detention center in Yulai. Hounds are retrained as service dogs at our vocational centers.

After a few days out of the pod, I am back on patrols. This group was rescued this morning.

Rescue Report:

115.09.10 12:41 Kate Kvazar 136 former slaves, 10 hounds, 6 slavers

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1003 - 2013-09-11 22:54:57 UTC
Recently freed slaves are very vulnerable to the scams and devices of unscrupulous capsuleer pilots. While fully legal to transport across borders, they are often dumped summarily with illegal cargo. Rather than separate them out, they are just dumped out to die. They have often spent significant amounts on fare to find work outside the Empire. Many hoped to make it into the Republic or Federation or State to find work and new lives. These dreams can come to a disastrous end at the hands of a capsuleer who does not care if they live or die. We are happy give them another go at it.

Rescue Report:

115.09.11 22:41 drraventlwml 10 former Elite Slaves, Cirandor 10 former slaves, 74 freed Slaves

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Veritas Obscurus
The Divine Machine
#1004 - 2013-09-12 03:28:23 UTC
I am appalled. Aghast. Enraged.

Not at your work. No, for the dead will never find God's light.

Rather, I find myself in a state of abhorrence that there are so many who would abuse these people. Abuse them, leave them to die, and in the most horrific cases, those you referred to as 'sex slaves'.

It took this to make me connect to this network directly, and speak. As the Blessed Empress has shown, in her mercy and wisdom (a reminder that should never have had to be given in the first place), it is the duty of our people to educate and enlighten. Slavery truely only exists in order to provide a, pardon the term, 'captive audience' for the education of these unfortunates, a chance to see the blessed truth. And if, after all honest attempts have been made to educate them, they do not see the Light, then do as the Empress did, and set them free. (And perhaps that mercy could even be counted as another attempt to show them the Truth.)

Those who abuse this sacred duty have fallen from grace. Those who manipulate the laws of the Empire to have slaves prop them up, rather than educate them? They are heathen at best. Nay, that is too generous. Apostate, False to God, Heretic, Blasphemer!

One who does not believe may have, over the course of their lives, millions of chances to change their views. Perhaps, even upon their death, God may deem it just to show his face to them, and give them another chance, with certainty rather than faith. I cannot say for certain, and will not claim it so, for that would be to put my words in the Mouth of God.

But those who speak God's words, and invoke his laws, only to use them in the manners you have described...they are no better than the Blood Raiders. Or those abominations who worship their false god, Kuvakei. Or the madmen of the EoM.

Let them burn in the fires of eternal damnation. Perhaps God will show them mercy upon their demise, I certainly will not.

As to the slaves themselves, I will admit that I currently am the caretaker of several hundred of them. I minister to them daily, feed them, clothe them, teach them of the arts and sciences. Those who come to know God are, in accordance with the scriptures, freed, and offered a place to work. Should they refuse, they are given an allotment of money to start their life within the Empire. Not a pittance, for that would be cruel, to send them into poverty. It would be unjust to reward their faith in such a backhanded manner. Especially as we are all His children.

No, I did not accept immortality to become scum. I did so to spread God's eternal Light. To tend to his flocks.

If you find that you have more than you can manage, or that some of your rescuees wish a chance at life in the Empire, feel free to contact me.

Should you be uncertain what to do with the slavers you are holding, also, feel free to contact me. Let those who have claimed God's will for their own gain be given a choice. Take the place of those they abused, until true repentance finds them, or be sent to face Judgement.

Too long have these abuses gone on. Too long has this corruption infested the fabric of God's people. It is long past time to rectify the situation. So I reiterate my offering of my services, my lands, my agents, my wealth, and myself, to giving these lost souls another chance at a life with God.
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1005 - 2013-09-12 20:46:56 UTC
I saw Abigail yesterday. Children grow and change so rapidly. In particular, the children we see often come into our centers in poor health. As they regain vigor, that itself is a dramatic transformation. It is a powerful joy to see children transform physically, emotionally and relationally. If there is any gift we can give children that is meaningful, it is the gift of health. Health leads to so many other gifts: emotional well-being, intellectual prowess, physical ability and potential. May Cotton reminded me that she is still on task to find an adoptive family for Abigail. She will let me know when she is ready for that process to begin.

On the rescue front... There have been continued larger scale ship battles in our patrol areas. There seems to be a non-stop flotsam and jetsam of wrecked ships and Concord patrols all about. Now and them, we find people to rescue.

Rescue Report:

115.09.12 20:06 (name withheld) (blue) 30 people

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1006 - 2013-09-14 13:40:05 UTC
People have feelings and a good person is mindful of the feelings of others. Our words and our actions impact others in ways sometimes beyond our understanding. We see people in tears everyday; widows and orphans and broken men coming off our rescue ships into one of our centers. But, I wager that there are people in your life whose tears are shed in private and you never see them. They cleverly hide them. It may even be that they have shed private tears over words you have said and things you have done that you thought nothing of. Never assume that you know. People hide their pain.

Rescue Report:

115.09.13 12:43 Bor'rak 4 people
115.09.13 18:54 Moonstorm Airuta 1 person, Pernod LeLoup 14 people
115.09.13 23:41 Gregor Petersen 17 people
115.09.13 13:11 Patterned Cloud Y 23 people

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1007 - 2013-09-15 18:25:25 UTC
Have you ever noticed that there are times that people in general enter a sort of collective funk? It would be akin to young children on a singular world going sort of bananas when a moon is full or the barometric pressure shifts. Only, in this case, the funk seems to span the stars themselves and impacts great numbers across vast distances. There is probably little to it in the final analysis, but there sure seems as if the whole of humanity needs healing balm. The whole of humanity needs to be re-cradled, as it were, in the lap of a mother's nurture and calm. We seem so bent on the ruin of each other. Can we please come in from the playground, shake the dust of the sandbox on the front step, and take a short timeout? Then maybe we'll be ready to go back out and treat each other better.

Rescue Report:

115.09.14 21:25 Kazumi Kouvo 32 people
115.09.15 18:10 Buny Hops 47 former slaves, 5 slavers, 7 hounds

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1008 - 2013-09-16 21:56:50 UTC
I took a meal with the residents today at one of our Matriculation Centers. We use a combination of nutritional synthesis and good old-fashioned cooking. Whatever was served today was vey tasty and curiously satisfying. I asked one of the cooks what it was that I ate. She said, "potatoes, onions and peppers, seasoned and fried together." Well, it was good and everyone else thought so too. So here is a big "thanks" to the M-center cooks. We all think you are fantastic at what you do. Beside the good meal, I also had an opportunity to speak to some of the new crew trainees. Trainees work in the egress area before going ship-board. There they get an initial orientation to the demands of the job, the inevitable chaos of people in crisis, the sights, sounds and smells not always pleasant. Still, most follow through and serve at least one rotation. After all, they have been there.

Rescue Report:

115.09.16 17:19 Masha Sharvas 42 people, Xara Droodge 36 people
115.09.16 18:42 Harry Bane 47 people

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1009 - 2013-09-17 23:03:28 UTC
Slavers take a risk when they attempt to cross from the Empire into the State where slavery and the slave trade is illegal. They take a risk when they hire capsuleer pilots who care little more for their lives than for the slaves they haul. And when we rescue them along with the slaves they were attempting to illegally trade, there is often surprise on their faces after the relief of being rescued. The surprise comes when there is no wink returned, no looking the other way regarding their activity. There is surprise when the slaves they haul are no longer slaves and that they are now off to a place of detention.

We treat slavers humanely, but they are no longer free to go on to their slaving. Those we rescue are kept at our DSTON Detention Center in Yulai. They often protest loudly and threateningly at the first. However they soon realize that we are not particularly moved by their protests. It is painful for many slavers to witness the first breaths of freedom inhaled by the former slaves we rescue as they are warmly greeted and received by our M-Center residents. We use no chains or such restraints on the slavers we rescue, but there is a metaphorical swapping of chains as slaves become free and slavers lose freedom.

Rescue Report:

115.09.17 21:31 GUVD 5 former slaves, 2 slavers

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1010 - 2013-09-19 17:20:13 UTC
"I will find mistakes in the lines of your face when you say my name..."

We live in an every increasing blame-finding environment where what grace there is is being spread thinner and thinner. All the more important it becomes for those aware and secure enough to show grace to others when it is least deserved. Afterall, that is what grace is. What is the hardened heartbreak residing under your skin that prevents you from showing grace in the everyday foibles of those around you? Excise it that you may heal and be more than another negative in our collective culture.

Rescue Report:

115.09.19 17:07 Revan Malachor 7 people, Hild Torquemada 25 people

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Pieter Tuulinen
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#1011 - 2013-09-19 18:45:54 UTC
Ston Momaki wrote:
Slavers take a risk when they attempt to cross from the Empire into the State where slavery and the slave trade is illegal. There is surprise when the slaves they haul are no longer slaves and that they are now off to a place of detention. We treat slavers humanely, but they are no longer free to go on to their slaving. Those we rescue are kept at our DSTON Detention Center in Yulai.


Wait... Are you abducting criminals, renditioning them from State space and then imprisoning them without trial?

For the first time since I started the conversation, he looks me dead in the eye. In his gaze are steel jackhammers, quiet vengeance, a hundred thousand orbital bombs frozen in still life.
Desiderya
Blue Canary
Watch This
#1012 - 2013-09-19 21:29:07 UTC
"I am the Law!"

- Ston Momaki

Ruthlessness is the kindness of the wise.
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1013 - 2013-09-19 23:25:32 UTC
The Disciples of Ston may be judged by some right or wrong as a most arrogant and presumptuous lot for our position and actions regarding slavers. We, in fact, revisit this often in our own thinking as we re-examine our policies. Are we suffocating under our own idealistic hubris? It is very hard to be one’s own judge in such matters, so we carry some dissonance in our own hearts regarding the matter. I’ll do my best to explain why we maintain the policy as we do.

At the beginning our rescue work when we first encountered slavers stranded along with the slaves they were trading, we pondered what we ought to do with these men and women. First, of course, we rescue them. What to do afterwards is the real question. Licensed and permitted by Amarrian law to buy and sell slaves within the Amarrian Empire, these slavers find themselves in serious violation of Amarrian law when trafficking slaves across borders where law and treaty forbid slave trade. We discovered that common penalties for such violations included generational slavery of offenders and their families as well as the death penalty. These two penalties are in direct violation of values deeply held by our organization. To protect even the worst of offenders from the death penalty and our abhorrence of generational slavery continues to inform our practice of rescuing and detaining slavers.

Early on, we made several open communications to Concord and other governmental authorities requesting disposition options for these individuals that might guarantee that they not be executed nor their families or generations to follow enslaved. These requests have consistently fallen on deaf ears. The Empire, State and DED have been silent in the matter and have not helped us resolve the issue. In addition, the slavers themselves have been loath to return to the Empire, knowing well that the penalties exacted upon them would be far less humane than our detention facilities.

For a short period of time, other capsuleers offered to take these persons off our hands, but these offers were mostly tongue and cheek and not serious options that honored our values. So, we detain these persons, hoping that their detention is not permanent but that a solution will be found outside our organization that satisfies justice without the death penalty or slavery or torture and the like. We have set up our center in a DED facility and offered open access to the like in hopes that they may assist us in this matter. Under said values if some other parties such as the SOE were to offer to hold these individuals we would gladly disband our detention operation.

I am not so naïve to think that any explanation I give will satisfy anyone from the PFDC, PFDS or those of like bent, but it is what it is. We will not hand over even a slaver to the death penalty or to generational slavery, torture and like. So judge this as you will, but some values are at this moment inviolable.


Rescue Report:

115.09.19 23:10 (name withheld) (blue) 10 people

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Pieter Tuulinen
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#1014 - 2013-09-19 23:47:22 UTC
The State does not punish smuggling or slavery with the death penalty.

I'm forced to consider you a criminal, I'm afraid.

For the first time since I started the conversation, he looks me dead in the eye. In his gaze are steel jackhammers, quiet vengeance, a hundred thousand orbital bombs frozen in still life.
Makkal Hanaya
Revenent Defence Corperation
#1015 - 2013-09-20 04:00:49 UTC
Ston has long been a criminal.

However, if my understanding of his explanation was correct, his fear was the punishment for slavers in the Imperial legal system. If you offered to take them to make sure they were tried under State law, he might agree.

As I understand it, the State does not typically extradite criminals of foreign citizenship, and I doubt any Imperial organization would ask for them as - how to put it? - their actions shame the Empire.

Render unto Khanid the things which are Khanid's; and unto God the things that are God's.
Pieter Tuulinen
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#1016 - 2013-09-20 04:09:26 UTC
Whilst the intention may be to prevent them facing the death penalty under Republic Law or sleazing their way out of hack under Empire law, the man has been capturing criminals and renditioning them outside the State where he then holds them indefinitely without trial.

I would certainly be glad to act as a middleman to whichever local authorities are concerned, of course, but Mr Ston should have sought out contacts in that community LONG ago.

For the first time since I started the conversation, he looks me dead in the eye. In his gaze are steel jackhammers, quiet vengeance, a hundred thousand orbital bombs frozen in still life.
Makkal Hanaya
Revenent Defence Corperation
#1017 - 2013-09-20 04:23:40 UTC
Pieter Tuulinen wrote:
Whilst the intention may be to prevent them facing the death penalty under Republic Law or sleazing their way out of hack under Empire law, the man has been capturing criminals and renditioning them outside the State where he then holds them indefinitely without trial.


As noted, the penalty for such actions in the Empire is generational slavery or execution. One does not 'sleaze' out of Imperial law.

You're confusing them for the Kingdom. It's a nice change, actually.

Render unto Khanid the things which are Khanid's; and unto God the things that are God's.
Pieter Tuulinen
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#1018 - 2013-09-20 14:06:55 UTC
Ah well... I wasn't sure which jurisdiction Ston was referring to.

For the first time since I started the conversation, he looks me dead in the eye. In his gaze are steel jackhammers, quiet vengeance, a hundred thousand orbital bombs frozen in still life.
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1019 - 2013-09-20 14:50:43 UTC
Today, 43 slavers were transferred from a temporary holding facility in Kaaputenen to our Detention Center in the DED Logistic Support Station in Yulai. Our detainee population there now includes 954 slavers, 34 other "prisoners," 464 militants, and 2 self-proclaimed Freedom Fighters all of whom were rescued from death cans. We have once again contacted the DED to inform them of our situation and to ask for their assistance within the guide of our values. Specifically Arve Vesren of the DED has been contacted. As to the suggestion that intermediaries should have been sought a long time ago, that was indeed done from the start.

For now, those detained by DSTON will not be executed, tortured or subject to generational slavery for their crimes. We will continue to offer humane detention until another acceptable solution is found. We will not stop rescuing these persons just because their disposition is a sticky issue.

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace
Ston Momaki
Disciples of Ston
#1020 - 2013-09-21 20:10:17 UTC
The first of the rescue reports below is an example of the kind of situation that is very distressing. One can academically understand the sort of adrenaline based decision to jettison illegal passenger cargo but the kind of cool and collect required to jettison two death cans separating passengers is another matter. The homeless and Marines were in one and the slaves, slavers and hounds were in another. The homeless were on their way to Jita looking for work. The Marines were on leave from joint Amarrian/Caldari military exercises and were heading to their homes in State Territory. Interbus will see to their transport from here. We will offer the homeless good jobs or take them to Jita as they originally planned. They can weigh the choice themselves.

Rescue Report:

115.09.21 12:48 Sehnjor Aakiwa 10 homeless, 10 Marines, 20 former slaves, 3 slavers, 5 hounds
115.09.21 18:44 Ethereal Necron 67 former slaves, 13 slavers, Argent Rayel 91 people
115.09.21 19:55 Zar Delega 24 former slaves, 4 slavers

The Disciples of Ston bid you peace