Intergalactic Summit

Maybe CONCORD idea was to show us how grossly incompetent all those four factions can be. Like a confirmation of the past five years or something.

Note : that is sarcasm.

I've decided it's pointless to argue about this, anyway. Since this mission was both clearly vitally important and a dismal failure, I can only imagine we've got mere days to live -- hours, maybe. In this limited time, we should be with our loved ones. Or get massively drunk. Set things on fire. Whatever floats your boat. Anything but arguing on the Summit, really.

I think, if you choose to call this action irresponsible, we will inevitably have to examine every action any pilot has ever been in to determine how necessary it was. I can say with all certainty that this action was more necessary, more meaningful, and more responsible than any act ever committed in CEWPA warfare. I don't think I can judge such things on that scale, since I know a great many individuals who engaged in it who otherwise think it a noble pursuit. However, it is a war where very real crew members' lives are lost, and not only on a great scale but over a very long time, where it has been legislated that nothing of import can come of it. It is essentially a gladiatorial contest whose only saving grace is that its participants are, largely I would assume, volunteers. That is why it is so important what captains say and to whom.

Were I to judge people on such a basis as whether or not they only ever risked their crew's lives under the most dire circumstances, what action could be condoned? Fighting pirates in our systems carries an inherent risk of danger, so do we give them credit simply because the danger is not so great? At what level of threat do we arbitrarily call a pilot's judgement into question? The moment they fail? Would we say the same things if CONCORD had succeeded? If we are to call responsibility into question, is everyone who could have organized a fleet, but did not help to organize CONCORD's despite knowing that they would be disorganized, at fault?

Fortunately, I think the question of responsibility is personal. Crews sign up for the missions they go on, dying for what they believe to be worthwhile pursuits. Capsuleers are, from what I've seen, generally honest with them about their missions and harbor them no ill-will if they need to be replaced for more dangerous fair. Everyone who flies into war on a gunboat does so knowing that they are being paid exceptional amounts of money due to the hazard of their position. These people knew where they would eventually be flying and how dangerous it would be, and they went regardless because they believed the mission had merit. I think that speaks for them. They didn't die essentially as "heroes of the State", rather than simply dying because they believed that the status quo, with pirate factions sitting comfortably unmolested while we snipe at each other and drain our resources, was not to be tolerated.

Perhaps those who do not spend as much time with baseliners do not understand the rush of mortality anymore. The ability to lose one's life, permanently, gives one a perspective that rises above our more petty finger-wagging. It is not for us to judge worthless that which we have no more currency to participate in. Essentially, we cannot say what is a worthless cause to die for because we can no longer die for those causes, simply facilitate the heroism of others.

We don't have the right to look at baseliners and be paternalistic with their lives, really, nor can we honestly sneer at their foolishness. I suppose perhaps it would be more macabre if I wasn't so aware of how life is for those who can still lose it in a blaze of glory. We can now only see it as outsiders, knowing bravery, foolishness, heroism, and villainy of men and women as mere numbers of crew compliments on reports.

It's understandable, as it's very difficult to give financial advice on a currency we are no longer capable of spending, to buy true glory we are really no longer capable of earning.

Perhaps it was foolish to fly with that fleet, and I will certainly agree with that. We are simply in no position to judge them, as immortal echoes of soldiers flying investments of ISK into conflicts we can only understand as a time and money investment.

The sheer levels of naivety emanating from this thread is almost painful to watch. It's got to be that or people are just lying to my face or maybe they actually believe their own bullshit. Because damn, if people actually chose of their own volition to become freelance contractors under SCC/DED regulations without realizing how the little war economy we live in, and which supports the financial pillars of New Eden, works then I can only pity them their delusions. It doesn't matter these days whether the destruction comes in a CEWPA zone, under some CONCORD corporate wardec, a nullsec bubble, or in the depths of Anoikis -- people must die to keep the gears of capitalism and industry turning.

If one doesn't want to play by the rules of such a game then why even continue playing it? It's too late to change them now, and nothing we say, or do, or believe to the contrary will make a difference because even as I write this another couple thousand of my fellow man have had their lives extinguished in the void in the brief few minutes it took to outlay these thoughts.

I find once you become honest with yourself, and have a healthy dose of cynical nihilism, then you realize the truth of existence and no longer need the old opiates of lies and delusion any longer.

Yes, and as far as tactics go, human wave is a pretty **** one. But you'll never understand, I fear, or you're just too focused on debating for the sake of debating. Doing something that is inherently doomed or results in tremendous amounts of losses does not spell heroism by default.

Please stop this.

If it's at all relevant, I tend to keep the discussions compartmentalized. I really would like your take on that last point I was talking about, if not the entirety of it.

Believe me, as always, my horse might be in the race, but I don't have a stake in the outcome. Do continue, if you would.

It isn't?

I think, if there's one thing everyone here agrees with, it's that CONCORD is absolutely inept at anything outside of maintaining a state of relative peace within high-security space between capsuleers.

I mean, I'm something of a man of peace myself, and I'm very often quick to forgive and understand, and even I am not about to defend their competency. I can only imagine what capsuleers who have dealt with them for longer and in more integral roles than I have think about them.

Really, you would think we would all be united by one great understanding, CONCORD is a **** body for leadership.

Understandable. I think I shall.