Intergalactic Summit

I think that is a reasonable point considering your background, however, and in fairness to your argument I will boil my counter-point down to the fundamental difference not between our cultures, but between you and I. I did not make the offer to you. You are a capsuleer, flush with ISK compared to the poor of your society. However, you think that because you do not "need" someone to tell you what to do (which does come off a bit as saying that even if an idea is good, you have no need of someone telling you to do it) certainly does not mean that it is universal throughout your society. Your problem with the poor is obviously not being completely addressed, as you've seen. Instead of creating a program to stop it yourself, you've taken up recognizing the problem but not becoming part of the solution.

Which, let's face it, is probably why I do respect you more than you realize and don't think you would necessarily find this labor education program necessary. You at least recognize the problem and that the fault isn't necessarily anyone else's. It was something I quite respected about Midular and elements of her government. The unification program began back during her reign and was quite different than the one we have moved towards today. We were thinking of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years of ministry to work towards an eventual reunification.

Our current program is a reaction to a changing political situation. The poverty problem has grown worse in the Minmatar Republic and while reception to the war has been good in the more affluent parts of society, the bottom of society are beginning to become increasingly populous and marginalized. It's becoming a more broad, un-addressed problem for which there is no help coming. Instead of a trickle of education over centuries, we may be talking about a flood of refugees over a decade, perhaps a few years.

I don't think we can wait and allow this suffering for Shakor's war machine to spin itself down again. This problem is immediate and people need help.

Hence the voluntary nature of the program. I am not specifically recruiting everyone for this program (in fact, I fairly well hope that the eventual end of the Reclaiming comes the way of the Khanid with voluntary merger by a people already externally educated and converted), but I am certainly working to convert at the bottom. People who really need the education now. People who really know exactly how much help they need and how little they can expect in their current situation. While I can move people to our colonies in your space where they can (at least secretly) be educated and practice the religion, it is not safe to be there for the long term. We need to get them to the safety of the Empire where we can protect them from pirates and the other unkind fates of their local space.

To do so, we need to set up the program's infrastructure so that they are not in the same position. Well protected colonies with systems already in place where they can be supplied. If that had not been a problem, I would have moved them already.

If your concern is personal, I really have no intention of trying to recruit you personally into the program. Space is limited and you aren't dying, so even if it is necessary you would not be the most in need of the program. I have a feeling you will only live long enough to make your conversion inevitable if your Republic takes an almost inconceivable turn for the worse. It is the poor and unfortunate that most concern me. I do not assume any capsuleer truly possesses either of those qualities.

I have a feeling you would only find conversion beneficial once your lower class has all converted. I am willing to wait that long. There are a lot more of them than capsuleers, so we won't work our way that far up the chain for some time.

Pilot Baracca you completely missed the point that I made about the nature of our tribal society. We take care of our own. We will do much more in that regard in the very near future, I assure you. If your rulers and aristocracy would stop threatening our existence it would speed up the process. Based on your words, however, I don't see that happening.

I also wonder why this focus on the Matari? The Federation surely has a much larger population of these theoretical people living at the bottom of society. For that matter there is also likely a good-sized population in the State yet, I hear no mention of any such "program" in those places. I wonder why that is? I think the answer lies in the fact that Amarrian pride demands that we who directly challenged and defeated you be repaid. I suspect there's also a sense within the Empire that we are somehow weaker now and ripe for the picking. I can see no other reason for you to be targeting the Matari people with your "generosity" rather than trialling your program in places where there are many more people whom you could potentially ensnare.

As you have seen fit to mention my background, I'll remind you that I wasn't always a pilot. As a matter of fact I came into this profession later than many. I was an average child from an average working middle class family. We were hardly among the landed gentry of Gallentean society. Before getting my pilot's license I served for 10 years in the Republic's army. In short, I've always been among the working class of society and not among the elite, as you are. I don't enjoy the extravagant lifestyle of some capsuleers and I donate a good portion of my time and resources to helping those recently freed from captivity. I believe in practicing what I preach.

Pilot Baracca I've seen firsthand what happens to our brothers and sisters who've been part of your system. Some of the hardships they've had to endure I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I will, therefore, continue doing everything possible within my limited scope to keep our people free of you and your Empire's reclaiming.

I don't know how Cpt. Baracca sees this, but I have to point out that the idea that any rights must be earned (that is, by action) is quite incompatible with the idea that some men are inherently superior. The idea that some people are born with spores on their heels and others with saddles on their back is something that the Amarr dismiss as heretic - and for good reason. All men have to prove their worth in the eyes of God, equally. By the way, I doubt that you and your society really think that the fundamental rights are not only inalienable, but also unrestrictable if the corresponding duties aren't fulfilled. My experience is that someone who is hurting the inalienable rights of others in the Republic will have his own inalienable rights quickly restricted, e.g. through imprisonment. Thus, practically speaking, it's not much of a difference whether the rights themselves need to be earned or that they remain unrestricted.

As to our resident heretic: You are aware that slavocracy is translating to 'rule of the slaves'? And while I certainly did not read every bit of Scripture it's quite easy to check whether all your citations are reputable: And though you changed to quoting Scripture that is, you started out with texts that are not. I'll pray for your poor soul's salvation, Filth.

This conversation reminds me of many I've had with Amarrian associates. I've certainly never begrudged them their right to their own culture and faith as they see it, but I've often had to tell them that there will exist limits to friendship with a jaijii to me. One of those limits will always be the proselytizing of Amarrian religious mandates, which in my view differs little fundamentally from the proselytizing of the manifest destiny of the Federation. I've often had to tell more than one Amarrian friend, that I have no need for God when I already have Kaalakiota and the State.

I think it becomes clear it's better to simply enjoy each others company and conversation once I make it evident that I am Caldari, and care little for their God and faith. Even more so, the measures I would be more than willing to condone and view as acceptable to defend the Caldari Volk against either foreign threats or the promotion of internal dissent within State borders via foreign cultural, political, or religious contamination.

Out of pure and innocent curiosity Ms.Rella, what are your beliefs regarding fellow Matari who willingly accept the Amarr Faith? I'm not speaking about slaves or former slaves, but free Matari who follow Imperial theology because that's what they believe. In essence, Matari who are not being forced into the religion, and/or not being forced to stay.

Mr. Baracca,

As I have already stated, there is very little different to me in either the Federation or the Empire in that you share the belief that your peoples and your peoples alone are the harbingers of historical inevitability. In both the Federation and Empire you make the mistakes of seeking to outline that because you see similarities in the Caldari way of life, tenuous as they may be, that it means the Caldari will be amenable to either one of your ways of thinking. It does not. The fundamental inability for either the Empire or Federation to accept that the Caldari are different, and will always be different, is due to nothing more than the underlying parochialism that underpins both your cultures and societies.

You on the one hand seek to use these similarities in your own mind as the rationale behind why the Caldari should or would assimilate into the Empire, while on the other seeking to tell Caldari what they need to change about themselves. This is ignorance born of your own sense of cultural superiority. However, while you may hold to the view that the cultural assimilation of the Caldari is an inevitability due to the inherent superiority of the Amarr Empire and its faith as you see it, I take an alternative viewpoint:

The cultural assimilation of the Caldari people is an impossibility because its society and culture is superior not only to that of the Empire, but also that of the Federation and Republic.

Your opinions that the Caldari people as a whole will accept willing religious conversion to the Amarrian faith, is just that: your opinion. Just because the State and Empire are at present allied in a relationship of mutual political and military interests does not imply any tacit acceptance on the whole of the tenets of the Amarrian faith or Imperial culture beyond what is necessary to partake in a functional relationship premised upon mutual benefit. This does not, nor will it ever change the fact to me that the Amarr will remain jaijii, outsiders, foreigners and my cultural inferiors in every respect. It is only Amarr such as yourselves who appear to assert and express the view that the relationship between the State and Empire is more than it actually is.

Whilst laughable to me, it at least is not as offensive as the assertion that we, as Caldari, who have shed the blood that we have to secure our own independence and sovereignty as a people and a nation will then subjugate ourselves to the Empire because we, "feel a dearth of spirit inside"; or that the, "Caldari State really lacks is humanism"; or, "Caldari need the Word of God to give themselves true life". However, such offensive thinking is understandable for a jaijii like yourself, Mr. Baracca, for it is offense born of ignorance.

With respect, yours is not the first expansionistic culture to say of the State "They have not strayed far, it will only be a short wait and a little effort to gather them in."

We endure.

Mr. Baracca,

The thoughts and opinions of Amarrian evangelicals such as yourself are already known to me. I have already come to recognize that the basis of their faith is on the supposition that what they believe works for them should work for everyone else, even Caldari. What I take as supposition, the Amarr take as fact. I am a rationalist by nature, upbringing, and education, so entering into religious discussions with Amarr tend to bore me when the tendency is for an Amarrian to construct their thoughts along the following basis as far as I'm concerned:

1. "All my assertions are true, because I/God/The Scriptures said they're true";

alternatively;

2. "Your failure to convince me, because I am ignoring everything you are saying, means I am correct";

As far as I can tell you appear to be doing much the same. Your line of thinking as regards the Caldari appears to follow as:

- I assert I know everything there is to know about the Caldari because I claim to have been studying them and their culture.
- I assert that my depth of knowledge on the Caldari, much more than even a Caldari themselves, means that there are similarities to the Amarr.
- I assert that because there are similarities, due to my assertions they exist due to my previous assertion on having in depth knowledge on the Caldari people, they will gladly accept the Amarr faith with open arms.

That's quite a lot of assertion, supposition and unsubstantiated claim-making. If you did in fact know anything about the Caldari, you might have at least considered that to varying degrees a citizen is trained to recognize propaganda, advertizing, and media techniques in order to cut through some of the inherent corporate bias we all deploy against each other on a daily basis -- to cut through the bullshit, as it were. The only thing I see in the thoughts you have presented thus far is your own belief and opinion that Caldari cultural assimilation is inevitable solely on the grounds that you think the, "Word of God", is incontrovertible. I don't think it is. The only way the Amarr Empire has ever made the word of its own God incontrovertible is through the use of force and violence just the same as any Empire has made their own laws and beliefs incontrovertible to the people they conquer and subjugate all through history and with different names attached -- whether it's Garoun, Raata, or indeed today, Amarr.

I'm sure the Kings and Emperors of the Garoun and Raata thought much the same that their Kingdoms and Empires were eternal, that everything was a matter of time before all would be theirs. Being a big fish in a small pond can always inculcate such delusions of grandeur and superiority -- it's only natural after all. Just as the Amarr Empire no doubt believes it's a big fish because it managed to subjugate the Udorians, Khanid, Ni-Kunni and the Minmatar. The pond is much bigger these days, and if you think the Caldari State, let alone the Federation or Republic are just going to cede not only their territory but their very culture and identity without a fight then all I can say is that you're remarkably delusional. Which in itself I find unremarkable because the requirements of faith and doctrinal religion probably needs a little bit of delusion, in my mind.

However, I'll leave with an analogy:

The proselytizing in the Caldari State by Amarrian evangelicals and missionaries such as yourself, Mr. Baracca, is akin to having some uninvited guest in your house you never asked for trying to tell you how you should arrange your furniture, cook your food, and live your life. I would personally find it intolerable, just as many Caldari would, to be told by a jaijii -- Amarr or otherwise -- how we should live our own lives and experience our own culture. If you operate under the delusion that such acts are to be tolerated by an evangelical guest in the State, or that it would not be seen as the very height of disrespect, then do not be surprised if some Caldari might take the view that such an uninvited guest might need to be disabused of their delusions.

If I may interject;

I must dissent, sir. It is not so that the Amarrian culture will inevitably integrate all others, nor even the Caldari. Nor is it so that this era of universal communication will herald the end of all borders.

All cultures can be said to exert an internal cohesive force which presses for conformity. This force increases internal communication channels, decreases external communication channels, and creates speciffic in-group/out-group behaviours which can be found in language (ref: heiian, 'jaiiji', 'haan'.)

Some cultures have specific memeplexes driving an integration force. This force presses outwards as the memeplex attempts to propagate through lines of comunication. "Democracy" or "The word of God" are larger examples of these memeplexes, each of which having its own virulence, propagation speed and vectors, comorbidity, and other factors from which can be derived the total efficacy of the memeplex in integrating new individuals and, eventually, cultures.

Thus, the eventual subsumption of one culture into another can be determined by a comparison of the cohesive, excluding memeplexes and the adhesive, including memeplexes. The integration you refer to can be said to be an evenuality only if the vector is sufficiently strong, its comorbidity sufficiently low, and only if the cohesive forces remain low enough that they can be overcome. Otherwise a homeostatic point will be reached where conversion between cultures are equivalent.

In our specific case presented, the Caldari culture maintains deep cohesive memeplexes in the structures of heiian, conformity with family and corporation, distrust of outsiders, and a willingness to defend itself and its territory. It is poorly integrating. The Amarrian culture is not quite as deeply cohering to my limited understanding, but there appears to be strong structures in place relating to familial obligations as well. These combine with a very powerful externally-acting memeplex found in a divine mandate.

I gently suggest that the Amarrian Reclaiming will find better purchase amongst several cultures of the Federation, where many structures exist that are non-coherent, leaving them more open to the integrating forces you wish to employ.

As a caveat - I am not a social engineer. I work with memeplexes on an individual level for the most part, as a component of decision networking. So please take my statements under close scrutiny only! Thank you for forgiving my interruption.

The true nature of this Sansha Missionary is at last revealed.

Even the Theology Council has little tolerance for the type of "New Religion" claptrap being espoused by young pilot Baracca. This pawn of the Sansha dances on the edge of calamity and he'll pull down those who support him into a tale of woe like "The Artifice Maker"

A clergyman that sees no difference between the written work rules of what could be Caldari Cognac makers and the "Scriptures" of the Amarr Faith is a deceiver. This brotherhood and equality you seek with the lesser of God's creation is the antithesis of God's will, the revealed word of God in the Scriptures you hesitate to quote.

"Chosen, you are first before God.
You are the True and the Faithful.
But in such a state must you hold yourselves high above all.
And constantly prove yourself worthy of Gods Love.
How can such a gift be repaid,
Other than to toil all our days,
In his glorious service,
According to his will,
Serving him always,
Bearing him first in our thoughts,
Always must we strive to show him our worth,
For we are the Chosen, Blessed above all."
- The Scriptures, Anoyia's Exhortation to the Faithful