Intergalactic Summit

Always dehumanize the ones you disagree with, don't you ? Everyone knows what the U-Nats have done best, and especially what they have done horribly wrong. They have become the Federation bogeyman that gets summoned and brandished for every citizen daring to speak against all liberal excesses.

I am afraid, though, that you may assume a lot on where my ideals stand.

Let's just begin with the obvious discrepancies with your reasoning. You call yourself a federal citizen, right ? You might know that ethnicity or descent is more or less irrelevant in the eyes of the Federation. Besides being a point I fully approve like many others, based on the founding ideals of the Federation itself, then why are you referring to the "ethnic Minmatar constituting one third of the Federation's population" ? I couldn't care less if they were Matari, Mannar, Gallente, Intaki, Caldari, or Amarr. They are federal citizens, and that is all that matters to us, like you are one, albeit, yes, capsuleer.

With that in mind, the whole Federation should indeed be grateful for what these men of any descent do everyday for their nation. Whatever their origins, whatever their political ideals, we are all brothers in sweat, labour (and now arms too).

With that in mind, if these federal citizens of "Minmatar descent" feel unhappy about cutting ties with the Republic, then what the hell are they doing here ? If they feel so much about a sovereign entity that already attacked us not once but twice, stole the humanitarians funds that we sent for relief, to build warfleets and start ******* global proxy wars that continue to murder countless of our citizens every day, then to hell with it, I say. They can go join back their fellow barbarians, mutilate their own pariahs, and stop bothering us with their victimhood syndrome. Give one hand and they will grab the whole arm, as they say. Give them help, and be damned. Give them not, and be damned too.

Getting involving with the Minmatar in the first place was at the same time crippling a potential powerful enemy in the past, the Amarr Empire. Handing them weapons and advanced equipment to help them overthrow their masters was certainly noble and all, but it was also the best way to start a war with the Amarr if something went wrong in the process. We got damn lucky they faced an internal crisis. We were aware of this, and it was a gamble we won. Now then, we have inherited of a real curse of a nation. So many Caldari these days seem interested to do business with them. Let them change allies and cause chaos with someone else, for a change.

And if these immigrants truly are federal citizens, then maybe they better start acting like it. They can have valid opinions on why keeping ties with the Republic would be favorable, or good, but the problem here is that their case is so desperate after all the recent events that nobody will ever find any tiny reason on why keeping these as allies. So the only reason they find is "slavery" ! "slavery" !

Slavery exists everywhere. I am not going to play the hypocrite like so many of you and start yelling that the Amarr shall burn at the stake for doing what everyone does in different shapes and colours already. Wage slaves, Voluval slaves, pleasure slaves, and so many others. Maybe the Minmatar apologists should look once in their life in the mirror and start cleaning their own house before spouting nonsense. If we all are true to our ideals, then starting to remove slavery starts in our own demesne. Slavery is just an emotional political strawman aimed at the masses to properly invalidate any proposal that will inevitably be met with "BUT SLAVERY !". And you got it, masses will be outraged, and nothing will happen.

So yes, indeed, the citizens with a personal crusade against the Amarr are gently asked to go look elsewhere for it to happen... I don't know, maybe like, you know, in the TLF and its Minmatar masters.

Eventually no, it's certainly not Gallente for Gallenteans, whatever Gallente means these days anyway. It's Federation for federal citizens. A strong, centralized Federation erasing all the petty interacial feuds remaining inside and focusing on what it was meant to be since the beginning. A Federation based on human principles, recognizing only one damn race, the human race.

And a lot of these immigrants do not seem to be ready for this yet. Which is a shame, really.

"And they stood before Him,
bathed in His light.
Yet their eyes were blind,
Their hearts rebellious,
And their minds refused the Lord.
Darkness descended upon them,
Spreading inside their minds,
And the flames of the Lord died within them.
Yet one flame remained,
And within this flame, the Lord found faith renewed.
Casting the others into obscurity,
The Lord turned to the one"

- The Scriptures, Gheinok the First 1:3

That's a perfectly understandable response considering slavery's taboo nature where you are from, but that's not entirely universal. Most Amarrians enter other space and immediately understand lower class laborers to be fairly similar to slavery. It's not like you have much of a choice to simply stop working whenever you feel like not working and it isn't as if you can just get another job if you don't like yours; all the control of the employment system is in the hands of the employers. They hold all the cards and all the keys.

If you do practice a lot more personal initiative in your labor, your choice will likely get you fired. If you are fired, you will take whatever job you can get. Or you can starve.

Not that I'm saying that's a terrible system; people ought to work to earn their place in society. But the "choice" is fairly similar, do what is expected of you in your society or suffer the punishment. I'd say that such systems in non-slave working classes has a lot more holes that people fall into, where criminal activity suddenly becomes a very viable alternative to whatever job they were working in, but that's more of an issue of amplification. It's not technically much different.

In practice, the only place where lower classes have a significant amount of direct political clout is in the Gallente Federation, and I'm not sure that the labor unions are better or worse for the trades they represent. It seems to be a 50/50 toss whether a worker comes out ahead or falls behind due to his union.

To the contrary, I wouldn't say a slave has a choice, but that you've grossly exaggerated the kind of choices that people on the lowest rung of the income ladder have in all societies. Lateral mobility is a curse, and most people at the bottom of that ladder are more afraid of losing their job and all associated benefits than they are hopeful for the future. Once a baseliner marries and has children, social mobility is very abruptly curtailed. Losing your job when you have that many expenses, especially when you're not making that much money to begin with, is as good as a death sentence. This is especially true in Caldari society, where so many of the benefits of citizenship are tied to your employment.

It's easier to call our system barbaric and inhumane because we don't think it's dishonest to call it slavery. But if your corporate head decides to sell your branch of the company to someone else, and that someone else decides to curtail your benefits, your choice is to jump ship if you can afford it. If you're one of the many people who can't afford it, you simply grin and bear it. Your choices are not so easy to make anymore when your livelihood depends on it.

The problem is that, while the system of slavery is a system of last resort that essentially commodifies the unemployed, it largely guarantees that there is always a way you can definitely find "employment", in that it provides a roof over your head, work to do, food to eat, and temples at which to worship. Jobs of last resort elsewhere don't even pay enough money to cover the cost of food these days, much less somewhere to actually live.

It's very easy to look down on someone and tell them how backwards they are without being introspective. It's a sin of pride my people have a long track record of allowing into their lives. It's particularly vehement because it is so simple to live without seeing things from someone else's perspective and viewing systems objectively. Luckily, I've had the opportunity to live outside the Amarrian system to see how others live. That means seeing things that work better elsewhere and hoping the Empire adopts them as good ideas.

Unfortunately, slavery isn't a system that I've seen a better alternative to.

Same nationalist racist twaddle, different thread.

Actually that is not true. Are you familiar with the typical military basic training courses used throughout New Eden, in particular those pertaining to the infantry classes? The first thing that the instructor does is psychologically break down the new recruit/conscript, belittling them into worthlessness so as to eliminate all threats of the ego causing insubordinate behaviors. Once their identity has been molded from being a self-entitled individual into that of a gear in a larger machine, then and only then does the instructor begin the process of reversing the self-esteem loss and instill in them a sense of pride in what they have now become.

The entire point of Reclaiming is to uplift the unwashed heathens to a higher state. The first step in this process is, as in the above mentioned case, removing whatever loyalties & whatnot that the subject had before so that they can be properly molded into a new person. This is why those reclaimed are so often reduced to base slavery: The likelihood of a conquered world's people becoming enslaved was directly proportionate to the amount of resistance encountered. This is also why the Ammatar Mandate hardly saw any enslavement amongst it's population, especially compared to the Minmatar Empire. Simply put, the Ammatars joined up quite willingly and thus skipped that particular part of Amarrian assimilation.

Only after a person has accepted their new identity then their uplifting can begin. At this point they are typically moved away from menial labor tasks and are tested to see what other skills that they can prove talented in. You might be surprised the number of slaves that are also technicians, chefs, doctors, entertainers, and so forth. Such "intermediate" slaves naturally enjoy a far greater degree of comfort and autonomy than before.

This, in turn, navigates the way to the ultimate goal of all Reclaiming: Freedom and Citizenship.

Though the propagandists to our north refuse to accept this, there is no shortage of Minmatar (and other) free citizens within the Empire. Not everyone was so eager to leave when our Great Empress gave her proclamation freeing all of the 9th generation and many of the "intermediates" that I mentioned above. For those who have spent their entire lives growing up in the Empire, educated here, working here, and with friends and families here, the idea of giving all of that up to go start over and live in a yurt tent on a planet they had never even seen over a hundred light years away seemed rather idiotic.

Contrary to outsider belief, status amongst Holders is not gained in quantity of slaves but rather in their "turnover" rate. The more slaves that a holder can uplift into full citizens the more his or her status grows. For this has always been the goal, and our Great Empress knows it. Since the "refusards" are now learning lessons of penance as slaves themselves, I can safely say that most of the corrupt type of Holders (who sought only wealth and cared not for their charges) have been removed from play.

And to finish on your original point, it entirely possible for a slave to someday find a new job or change careers, although we do tend to steer their vocational training towards what we feel they would be best at doing, once they gain their citizenship then they are perfectly free to pursue whatever career path that they like. Furthermore, having been given a free education before being "turned loose" upon society, statistically they are far more likely to succeed in their endeavors than many of those "born free" citizens in other nations whom have to struggle & pay for such things on their own. For such freedoms include the freedom to fail miserably as well, and end up falling into the seedy cracks of the underworld and crime. However, with the freedom to fail removed then success is all but guaranteed. A slave turned citizen enters our society free of debt, free of obligations, educated and properly trained towards good & moral behavior.



You say that like it is a bad thing. See above.

Question: why is the nine generations necessary? Why was it necessary for me to be born into slavery? Did I commit some grievous sin in my mother's womb? Why could I not have been raised by the Church, or by a suitably pious Amarrian family?

Everyone is so serious. Surely you can find a way to party with your enemies on neutral ground. Maybe a planetside festival with candies and rousing games of tag.

Can we try something less lethal? Charades, maybe?

You really know how to take the life out of a party