Intergalactic Summit

Ava, in all honesty, do you think this tone or position will actually lead to peace? You have to understand that to want peace is to be calm in the face of anger, for anger goes both ways. At this point, we have enough hate to go around. There are elements of the Empire who have suggested that there will never be peace. The Minmatar Republic was born in violence and can only end in violence.

I've disagreed with that statement, which is to trust in the nature of people to look forward to peace rather than backwards at their own wounds. Have we not caused enough damage to each other? Is there not enough looking backward to go around for us all? Would you invite everyone here to share their stories of what ills we have experienced at the hands of the Minmatar Republic? There is blame to go around.

By continuing the warfare in the face of the Pax Amarria, whatever your reasoning, you perpetuate the conflict. People will die, Amarr and Matari all the same. As the pendulum swings, your people will be enslaved and then unenslaved, murdered and then raised again, there is no end to this conflict to be had through firepower.

What I can certainly guarantee is that if you are looking for peace, you will not find it behind you. Anger and hate are not thirsts that can be quenched. Like a chocolate, it tastes sweet for its fleeting moment, but then is gone. There is no life that can be taken or action that can be had that will make it go away because anger does not exist as a reaction. It is an emotion and a state of mind.

Think objectively about the situation. If you really want peace, ask not what everyone can do to make it happen for you. Ask what you can do to make it happen for everybody. Only when those who do the latter outnumber the former will we make progress.

As much affection as I hold Ava in, what she has promulgated is unworkable and potentially tragic. Your expansions to it have moved it out of the realm of the tragic and into the realms of fantasy.

The Republic already holds FAR more territory than it did pre-slavery. It was given trillions in aid and it spent a lot of it on building an invasion fleet. The Amarrians have started releasing slaves - to no diplomatic effect. Even the limited release that took place stressed Republic infrastructure to the point that many of the released still languish in refugee camps and many call the release 'a calculated and devious attack on the Republic'.

I once despaired of diplomacy but recent experience taught me that much is possible - but only if both parties deal in realities and not ideologies.

That's Nice.

When Exactly?

To be honest, moving every last person of Matari Descent to the Republic is a Pipe Dream at best. Most of these people have never known a life outwith the Empire.

Personally, I'd settle for Slavery to be phased out completely within the Empire. If the Former Slaves wish to stay as Amarrian Commoners, then it's their choice. If their Holders have truly been doing their Jobs properly then they should have no issues with making a life for themselves within Amarrian Society. Likewise, if they choose to come to the Republic to make a new life for themselves and their Families then I, for one, would welcome them with open arms.

I think the difference between myself and the Empress would be that I would prefer there to be a reasonable timetable on the table for the process of phasing out the Legal Institution of Slavery without unquantifiable preconditions such as the Spiritual Health of the People in question.

Again, if the Holders had been doing their jobs properly, the Spiritual Health of their Slaves should not even be in question and they should already have the skills they need to both survive and thrive within Amarrian Society if that is their choice.

I suspect, however, that we'd be seeing just how badly many Holders have failed in their self appointed duty.

Hence why the emancipation went as it did. Notice that three groups of people were released:

Those with training in high-tech fields,

Those with work in ecclesiastical fields,

Those who had been enslaved for nine generations without release.

One of the things that isn't discussed is how many of those people stayed in the Empire. The rush of people from mostly the third category almost overwhelmed the infrastructure of the Minmatar Republic, but quite a few stayed put and moved into the civic sector. It became obvious that those three groups of people probably should not be enslaved for very long. If you're trusting slaves with your medical equipment and Scripture, odds are that they aren't going anywhere.

The last group was more nebulous, but the meaning was clear. In nine generations, if you haven't successfully converted someone to being a successful Amarrian, you're doing something wrong. It's become apparent that centuries of simply allowing Holder families free reign to release slaves only when it pleased them wasn't a good enough system. There needs to be some sort of central control mechanism. Slavery was always meant to be a period of education, not an endemic system of labor.

In essence, those Holders who failed to do their duties lost their slaves to elsewhere. Those who did probably retained them as employees.

In reality, Jamyl is returning us to a Scriptural interpretation, filling the slave class more with prisoners than conquered people. People need correcting. I don't think the system is going anywhere, as it is very effective at doing what it is meant to do. It has become obvious that certain Holders were taking their name a bit too literally. You weren't supposed to simply hold onto your slaves for as long as you could, you were supposed to make them into proper citizens.

I suppose the barometer of success has been passed down. Once that emancipation order was completed, people could see exactly who was and was not performing their job correctly.

I imagine this is only the start of the domestic reformation of the program. I think you will see quite a bit more regulation of who can be enslaved, the length of their servitude, and the manner in which their education is conducted. However, I doubt the system will ever be phased out completely. At the very least, it is far better as a civic re-education system than a prison. I see it becoming far more tied to its Scriptural doctrine, though, and being used as a means for reintroducing the disenfranchised and criminal back into proper society with a better understanding of civic duty and hopefully with some employable skills.

One of our domestic priorities, though, is evaluating the localized effects of the emancipation so that we know who probably should not be operating as a Holder anymore. Or it may simply be that conquest produces too many slaves for proper education. The Matari might certainly have been more than the Empire could effectively digest. Hence why so many were worked and went undereducated. A Holder who understands and carries out his responsibilities efficiently and thoroughly is a bit of a rarer breed than perhaps had previously been thought.

Then again, perhaps my perspective is skewed to the emancipation. House Baracca broke even on the slaves leaving. One left permanently, one married and came back. It isn't as if our ecclesiastical servitude or ability to follow an educational doctrine are difficult when you are headed by a family of priests.

Because a Rhea doesn't turn on a kredit?

Could someone perhaps enlighten me on exactly how long, as in how many years are counted in an Amarrian generation?

For most people it means the time between the birth of the parents and the birth of their children. So if slavery has existed for several hundred years whom would not be well beyond their ninth generation?

The Day of Darkness happened in 22480 AD, anyway you do the math if the Empire truly followed their Empress almost all but the most recently enslaved should have been set free.

Well, slavery continued until only fairly recently, and prisoners are continually moved into penal education. It isn't a set term of years, but generations from the first direct lineal ancestor's enslavement. So if a slave's grandfather was enslaved, he would be the second generation (his father would be a first generation slave, his grandfather the original slave). It's difficult to speculate how long ago the longest current slave would still be enslaved, but let's estimate, for example, that a slave was sired regularly every thirty years. Nine generations forward from the original would be two-hundred and seventy years, give or take.

One of the problems the emancipation has run into is that, although they were required to keep very strict logs of lineage and background, many Holders did not see fit to upkeep their records. As such, a portion of the Privy Council and Theology Council's resources are now being spent on filling in the gaps and making sure there are no longer-lined slaves kicking around in the system. I would almost say nine generations is far and away more than enough time to have re-educated someone, but I would almost rather say that if you can't raise a child in the slave system to become a citizen, you have an education problem.

Nine generations in? The only people who would have known anything other than the Amarr Empire would have been a distant relative. Far more than enough time.

Primarily, though, the reason for the generational, instead of annual, doctrine on the emancipation was to strike at the institutes most likely to be offending the Scriptural decrees. Things like hard mining colonies that literally formed breeding programs with their slaves in their teens. Some of their hideous failings defies imagination. Quite a few Holders found themselves facing inquiries when it was discovered that some tenth generation slaves in their system were from lineages barely over a century old. Believe it or not, there's a rule about that very clearly defined in the Scriptures themselves.

While it proved some industries are more prone to abuses, the emancipation proved nothing more fervently than the Holder was the best barometer of a slave's successful transition into civilian life. Some families became very distinguished in the emancipation, as it was found that their lineages were almost untainted (slaves did not remain that way so far into their lineages). Better, we found that recidivism was low in these families. Their methods are being studied so that we can begin cleaning out these custodial stewardship problems.

If anything, it has truly been a wonder to see the heights and depths of Amarrian society through the emancipation and subsequent investigation into it. It has proven that the system works wonders, better than any other rehabilitative or doctrinal education in the cluster. However, it has just as certainly shown its vulnerability to abuse. The question now is how to reform the former so that the latter is eliminated.

Better, how to make sure that new citizens entering our society are fully prepared enough to avoid slavery altogether. That relies on a lot more foreign education before immigration. It makes the transition much easier as well.

Truly, the Empress's wisdom shines brightly in this measure. It is truly peeling back the wallpaper to see what is beneath.

So then you misspoke.

Anyways, don't expect any ISK given to the Republic. I'm quite certain the Amarr would never agree to that. There is a possibility that donations could be given to Sister of EVE or fees fronted for transportation, but direct aid to the Republic is not a possibility. It's not because they don't want peace but there are many reasons why a request like that would be considered ridiculous by the majority of the Empire.

Let's think about this - if the slaves were freed today, with the current state of the Republic, it would be doing more of a damage to your people than you seem to realize. Get your economy and society working again so you don't have to submit billions to poverty and malnutrition.

-Eran