Intergalactic Summit

Well, actually, the ill-fated invasion of Solitude did happen under Sarum's watch.

If people like Shakor really are a blight on this cluster - an assertion which in itself is largely a matter of opinion - then it is a blight that the Amarr have inflicted upon us. As I have said in this thread and a previous one, it was Amarr that sewed the seeds of the vast majority of the hardships they face today. Shakor is the fruit of Amarr's labours, just as much as the rebellion and the rise of the Republic, and before that, the Starkmanir uprising. Ultimately, were it not for the Amarr, there would be no Shakor.

Sometimes, I see people attempt to draw parallels between the slavery of the Minmatar and the cultural subjugation of the Caldari in the early years of the Federation. I'll be the first to admit the Federation made a massive screwup in how we treated the Caldari, but whenever anyone brings this up, it is never without massive disingenuity. There is a fundamental difference which is worth commenting on : no matter what strife lay in their shared future, the first contact the Caldari had with the Gallente was peaceful. The citizens of Caldari Prime were a prosperous industrial age society who were visited by a technologically superior culture who nonetheless contacted them and introduced themselves in peace. The Caldari were not seen as too primitive to understand us. I will not go so far as to say that the Gallente treated them as equals, but the first Gallente who ever came to Caldari Prime came there in peace. Our mistakes - and there were many - were made far later.

The first contact any Minmatar had with the Amarr were monsters coming out of the black to literally steal their children. The Amarr never even attempted peaceful first contact with the Minmatar - their first response was military conquest and subjugation. The Minmatar never had a chance to develop any other opinion of the Amarr than of brutual conquerers, come to force them to toil for the Empire. For seven hundred years, depsite very clear indications the Minmatar made to the Amarr at every possibile opportunity they were given that they wanted nothing to do with Amarrian culture or religion and desired only to be free of the Empire, the Empire ignored their desires, murdered their kin, attempted to erase their culture and even perverted their very genetic lineage.

From the very moment of first contact, the Minmatar were at war with the Empire. Until a century ago, they knew literally nothing else.

A century ago, the Minmatar finally managed to exploit a moment of weakness - much like the Amarr had done seven hundred years previously - to seize back their freedom, but it took a long, bitter war to do so, and even once they were free, all was not well with the Minmatar. They had to deal with the consequences of seven hundred years of abuse, mistreatment and slavery - indellible cultural and psychological scars that cast a shadow on every aspect of the Republic. Their culture was shattered, pieces of it lost to time or the intentional erasure of the Empire. They were forced to build a functioning civilian society, military and economy essentially from scratch, having not been allowed to develop any of these things on their own under the Empire.

All of this would have been hard enough had they had the opportunity to do it in isolation - however, the Empire was still there. The Empire that had come out of the black seven hundred years ago to kill, pillage and enslave was still there, still looking down upon them, still refusing to treat them as equals, still refusing to apologise for the endless array of atrocities it had inflicted upon them. And then, and then, the fledgling Minmatar Republic was subjected to perhaps with perhaps the most horrific insult of all.

They were that they were being the unreasonable ones, and the Amarr were a dignified, harmonious society desiring only peace and tranquility.

For a century, the Minmatar have had to labour not only under the monolithic task of reconstructing their culture and society, but through every step of the process they have been subject to the Empire's level best attempts to hinder and degrade it. The Empire claims moral superiority at every turn while still keeping a third of the Minmatar people in slavery, while still refusing to provide reparations for the seven hundred years of abuse the Minmatar people have suffered, and most importantly, while still failing to adjust their attitude towards the Minmatar.

You see, the thing is, the Minmatar know that the Amarr didn't sue for peace a century ago out of the goodness of their hearts. They did it because the geopolitics of the time dictated that continuing to war with the Minmatar after the disaster at Vak'Atioth and a peace agreement looming between the Gallente and the Caldari would leave the Empire in very serious danger of an attack by the Federation. But this didn't represent a change in the attutide of the Amarr - it took years for the Empire to even concede to allowing the Republic delegation a chair at the negotiating table (not to mention that they briefly considered attempting to enslave the Caldari). Everyone was implicitly aware the Amarr were not negotiating peace for peace's sake, but peace for the sake of waiting for a more tactically advantageous state of affairs.

Perhaps the Amarr might have some small amount of justification to act upset by Shakor's actions, but they have no justification whatsoever to act surprised that men like him hold sway with the Minmatar.

Your understanding of recent history is rather skewed.

The events in question were what led to the rise of Shakor to power. Those "disavowed" fleets, the invasion, and a wave of assassinations were his tools for taking over the Republic.

The sin of the prior government was being too naive in their dealings with the radical warmongers such as Shakor and allowing them to prepare their dastardly surprise attack, and they paid for that sin with their lives as Shakor's people killed them.

They'll never give up the Reclaiming, its too far implanted in their culture to ever be removed. Without that gone the fear is still there, and how can there be peace with that looming over our heads. I've said it once and I'll say it again, History repeats itself...

CONCORD is also fine with slavery.

So, like everyone else, you're willing to take the bits of CONCORD you like and discard the rest? Glad to see yet another example of how Amarrians really aren't better than anyone else.


The idea of the entirety of humanity sharing one culture is pretty damn horrific regardless of how it's achieved. Talk to Stitcher about his opinion on cultural homogenisation sometime.

Anyone who could seriously ask for Amarr to renounce the Reclaiming has no understanding of Amarr or our faith at all. The Reclaiming does not always need to be conducted by war, but the principle itself is never going away. It governs everything we do and everything we are.

The whole point of it is to bring the universe to a state closer to God. To Reclaim those that have fallen, to Reclaim our souls from the sins and temptations that have festered, to Reclaim the knowledge and wisdom that have been lost in dark ages.

It is the quest for improvement, both within and without.

The Reclaiming isn't going away. Argue against war, argue against slavery, argue against vitoc and TCMCs, argue against so many other things, some that we might even agree to, but to argue against the Reclaiming is a battle that you will not win. Amarr has changed enough to suit the demands of foreigners over the last century.


Also, anyone who honestly expects Amarr to make any concessions whatsoever in the face of an illegal invasion in defiance of interstellar treaties has no understanding of diplomacy or politics. To make concessions to such an invasion is to say that breaking treaties is an acceptable way to get what you want. It would only encourage the Republic to do the same at a later date, knowing that they would be able to get further concessions. It encourages the viewing of treaties as disposable. This is an area where it would be absurd on every level for us to offer up anything. For the war to end, the Republic and only the Republic can be the ones to end it. If they are unwilling to own up to their own dishonor, then so be it, the war will continue.

Diplomacy achieved change in Amarr. This war does not and will not.

That we even have to argue this point is unbelievable. The Republic attacked CONCORD, not just the Empire. Every single CONCORD signatory should have been calling for the Republic's immediate dismissal from the organization for their treachery. CONCORD itself has due cause to consider the Republic a rogue state. At the very least we all should have imposed sanctions. Same thing for the State's invasion of the Federation, by the way.

No it hasn't, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Nor do we have any reason to even entertain the idea of peace...

Boy this is going in more circles than an exotic atom in a particle accelerator. Only this circle doesn't end in smashing. It goes forever.