Intergalactic Summit

It is always worth connecting with your heritage. My wife and I, at great personal risk, took a trip to spend some time on Caldari Prime. This was months before the handover.

Dodging patrols on the way in was a bit interesting but the risk was well worth being able to stand in the Kalaakiotaa Peaks and feel the true Winds on our faces.

1. I am Achur.

2. I was born on Achura, yes.

3. The Eliini Enclave is Ishukone and its subsidiaries. Nearly everyone living there is a citizen. Unlike some corporate zones, our temples were not destroyed for new buildings. After the changes of Gariushi-haan, the corporation pays for any renovations to them as a public service.

3B. I was content; to be discontent is a tragedy. It was giving me the stars.

We were taught Achur history.

4. Those are only things.

5. I am a Stargazer. If someone wishes to ask, I will share. If someone wishes to share, I will listen. My understanding begins with the Seven Dawns.

6. Yes. SuVee is a good lesson. You will not find your understanding for sale in any store.

Pilot Tuulinen is the only 'product' they have made that I like. It helps to know that he is culturally sensitive to my hot buttons if I am ever arrested by him.

6A. The White Songs still fly.

7. I think we share important ideas. Not everything, of course, but I think we can forgive them for that. Wink, wink.

8. We are cousins to everyone, but we are closer to some than others.

I usually don't use the IGS, so please forgive me if I commit any faux pas. But this issue is dear to me.

> 1. When speaking in terms of your identity, would you foremostly describe yourself as an Achura, or a Caldari?

Achur, but I am Caldari as well.

> 2. Were you born on our homeworld of Achura Prime/Saisio III, or elsewhere?

Yes, on Achura.

> 3. Were you raised in the Achuran client state or one of it's very few outposts, or under a megacorporation?
> 3A. If the former, have you ever felt uncomfortable with your position as a citizen of a tributary protectorate?
> 3B. If the latter, were you content with the necessity to comform to the Caldari cultural norms to be accepted? Did you feel you were provided with satisfactory education about your ethnic history?

3A, and yes, I have felt uncomfortable about it. Especially during my education and capsuleer training. I think that I received a satisfactory education about the 'Achur culture' from my parents, since our heritage is very important for them.

From school, I wouldn't say so, we talked about it, went on some field trips and so on, but most of our education was about the history of the Caldari State. Achura is one of the few places in the state with a long history, so it is a bit sad for it to not be taught about, but I think the government is maybe afraid of secessionist thought if we get taught too much about our own history?

> 4. To whom would you say you hold the most loyalty: The Elder Visionaries - the provisional government of the homeworld, based around the remnants of the old empire - The Chief Executive Panel, or neither?

Unfair comparison, the Elder Visionaries hold very little power, and the Chief Executive Panel a lot of power.

> 5. Do you follow one of the many sects of the Faith of the Achur, the Caldari Wayist Faith, or neither/another religion?

My parents work at a temple, and I grew up in that environment, so the Achur faiths are dear to me. But I studied Science for so long I'm afraid most of my spirituality left me. I still go home to celebrate some holidays and visit the temples though.

> 6. Are you familar with Sukuuvestaa's early actions on our homeworld, where they demolished and replaced many of our major cities, deposed our native leadership, and assumed minority rule over the planet, enforcing Caldari culture in the process?

Yes.

> 6A. Do you believe this was a good and justified action?

It is hard for me to say, I wouldn't be here if they had not. And I don't know if the Achur empire was that much better.

I dislike the way they did it, but if they had not established contact with us, maybe the Amarrians would have made us slaves decades later, who knows?

> 7. Would you consider native Achuran culture to have a great deal in common with native Caldari culture, as is often claimed, or to even be essentially one and the same?

Today, yes. When going through upper education, you are essentially forcibly assimilated to be 'Caldari'.

> 8. How do you personally perceive the Caldari and Achuran relationship in general?

Strained, but a lot of people also like SuVee, it is the largest employer on Saiso III and deeply ingrained in our history after all.

1. When speaking in terms of your identity, would you foremostly describe yourself as an Achura, or a Caldari?[/quote]
Both. Neither. This is like asking is I would call myself the air or the breeze. I'm both. To be Achuran is to be Caldari, as to be Deteis is to be Caldari, or to be Civire is to be Caldari.

2. Achura Prime.

3. My father is a SuVee scientist, my mother is from one of the client zones. I was raised within a corporate enclave adjacent to a client zone.

3B. I find the question prejudicial. I never felt any pressure to conform, aside from pressure to excel. Unless one asserts that Achuran culture has no desire to excel (a slur, to me), I did not feel that there was any attempt to de-emphasize Achuran traditions. But then, I was in Suvee. About one-third of my education focused on Achuran history, the other two thirds on Deteis and Civire history. Roughly.

If anything, I find it embarrassing that other Caldari seem to think of our beliefs as "more special" than their own, at times, as so: Achuran Traditions Prosper in the Corporate World

4. Both, but the CEP and SuVee first. I see the Elder Visionaries as a religious authority mostly.

5. I casually follow some aspects of the Achuran Faith, perhaps more esoterically than some. I believe that by learning the secrets of the universe, we come to understand how everything is related, and interconnected.

6. Don't blame SuVee for everything. The Federation had its claws in us first: Gallente History and I trust that our fathers and mothers understood who would preserve our traditions best. Even so, yes, Suvee did some things clumsily, even objectionably, although in hindsight, with better intentions than some.

6A. In the end yes. SuVee should have been gentler. But we are better with the Elders unopposed by a monarchy, and SuVee has done well by us, even if they are fierce to everyone else. Look at those under the Gallente banner, who have been required to turn over everything they have to Gallente ideals. No, our fathers and mothers were right to leave with the Civire and Deteis - they have only placed as much of themselves on Saisio as is necessary to ensure that we can be on every planet in the State. A more than fair trade. One might almost suspect that Achurans can negotiate well.

7. I think it is very close in many aspects, if not all. I will state some differences. Civire are more aggressive, and Deteis more calculating. Both are more militaristic and materialistic - perhaps why our beliefs can be appealing. We are more insular, too much so, I think. But that insularity gives us insight and wisdom, although sometimes you need a Civire to just kick the door in.

8. Unitary. I don't think you can separate Deteis, Civire, and Achuran at this point. I remember once eating a three-berry pie - it was round, composed of three wedges. At the core of each wedge, one berry was predominant, but the edges of each wedge were mixed, with the center a delicious combination of all three. That is what we are like. We each have our strengths, but we are one entity - to rip one out would be to destroy the whole.

Having watched for a while to see what sort of responses this would garner, I will out myself. Sarice-Haan has the right of this. You consitently attempt to paint the State and specifically SuVee in a bad light with greatly exagerated tales of wrongdoing. Even the questions in the sruvey are bent to this purpose.

The more you post the thinner the veil over your agenda becomes.

My choice words were greatly exagerated. Repeated use of over emotive language as seen in the below quotes distract from any valid point you may have and instead paint you into the corner of a seditionist; a position you are well entitled to hold, from your distant home in Origin and one I very much dislike.






Demolished, Deposed, Invasion, Subjugated, Forced, Smothered, Brutish. Words that I, personally, do not associate with the act of uplifting. I am even-handed enough to acknowledge that even the Caldari's own uplifting was none of these things. The Achura have been part of the State for centuries, fought and bled with us and you do a great disservice to those who came before you by suggesting they were essentially strong-armed into it.

There may be no direct falsehoods in what you say, but nor is it honest.

I speak for myself and myself alone. You may take it as you will. I speak solely of uplfting, not any events you may be hoping to apply this to that occured after the fact.

Do you extend the same courtesy when the subject of the uplifting of the Caldari by the Gallente arises? There is a reason they've integrated the Jin-Me so well, in my opinion. The absolute frak-up they made with us.

That was sort of my point. But as I said, I don't wish to derail Ms. Ikiryo's thread.

After reviewing your response, and considering your other statements, I do have to say that you remind me, a bit, of some Intaki separatists. Make of that what you will, but if the only answers other than your own that you will accept are those that condemn the State, then what answer can you have save an eventual determination of victimhood.

That is a bit harsh towards you, I know. Still, it is what I see.

To your point: the State as a conquering entity. I do not feel it to be as such.

I feel that it is as so: the Caldari were also subjected to such as we were. I do not believe that the Caldari complain too much about the "Cultural Deliverance Society" of the Gallente, or the forcible technological reorganization of their society. It is what happened after that which is the great offence. Why so?

Some things are inevitable. Very well, weep for the Monarchy, weep for our past traditions, as a Deteis might weep for the old Raata Empire. Neither were eternal. But if you weep overmuch for what was before, you lose sight of the fact that nothing is eternal - all of being is in ever-changing progression and flux. The question is not "why it ended" - it must end. The question is, "is the change to our benefit and liking". And for most Achura, it is so. To try to look back to what was, may be instructive, but I think that to live there is to be avoided. That change would come was inevitable. If SuVee had not come bearing it, we would eventually have borne it to others. But the Caldari did not do to us the evil that the Gallente did to them, or the Amarr to the Minmatar. We are blessed.

I do not think that we would have fared better with the Gallente. I do not believe that the Intaki did, I believe that the Jin-Mei only have such freedom insofar as they are beneficiaries of our own rebellion, of the example we gave of the cost of Gallente imperialism. And we did rebel with the rest of the Caldari. I think it should hurt you, as it hurts me, to think that our fathers and mothers fought alongside Deteis and Civire because they were dupes or coerced, especially when evidence is to the contrary.


What I believe, then, is that the fundamental "lifestyle in totality" as you put it, of the Homeworld, is no such thing. Even as itself, if we, Achura, were all that was, we and it would be an ever-changing, ever-morphing thing, as mutable as the tectonics and environment of the planet itself. You seek a moment in time, a frozen crystal of Achura, when in reality it is a stream, a river whose nature is in its flow. You are, it seems, afraid that by union with these others we fancy we become not ourselves.

It is an element of my particular belief that all are components of the great whole, so perhaps I am less sympathetic. But I neither fear that we will be lost in the greater Caldari whole - we have not yet, not even after two hundred years - nor desire to freeze ourselves into an image of past glories. The latter would make us caricature. Imagine trying to enforce such a thing. It would be to take the mild Caldari imperatives of material efficiency and industrial discipline and replace them with harsher bonds upon the soul. That is not for me.

Well, I don't want to be strident. I grew up relatively well. From my perspective, Achurans were respected and valued. I suppose my saying such means that I am invisible to your criteria as a true Achuran voice. Given your statements, it seems likely that your eventual goal is more independence for Saisio, or possibly incorporation into the Federation - I cannot tell. For my part, whether our fathers and mothers had "functional choice" - whatever that means - in regards to leaving the Federation, I think that we Achurans ended up in the best possible nation for us to exist in.

Of course, if your desire is for a more prominent Achuran influence in the State, by all means, do as you will. Ironically, I think that in doing so you might have more Deteis and Civire followers than Achurans, for in being of the State, they seem to feel that our beliefs are neither alien nor undesirable. It might also be interesting to see our insularity shattered by a desire to spread our culture - a culture which presumably includes that insularity. This is not to mock you - I am not being facetious, merely noting the context. That said, as I think that Civire and Deteis had much which was inevitably placed in our hands, we have much to offer them.