Intergalactic Summit

Well I rather be dead then turn into a few of the tsf folks, they can be a bit nutty and I assume sansha memebers are even worse. Used to put explosives near my pod in my earlier capsuleer days out of irrational fear. Now they are just a way for people to make money and stain just a region like any other. Much more worried about the drifters at the present moment.

Aaaand realpolitik strikes again.

And yes, the impressive display of solidarity that actually got all four empires bashing the Nation the first time was, well, impressive... but seems unlikely to repeat itself.

Now, we rely solely on capsuleers to repel incursions (if they can even be arsed to do so). Think on that; trillions of baseliners rely entirely on socio- or psychopathic demigods to defend them from a fate worse than death.

And now, the same occurs with the Drifters.

And probably the threat after that.

Is this the future? The empires never bothering to even defend themselves, leaving it to capsuleers? Somehow, despite being one, I can't see things as a good future when capsuleers effectively rule all.

But this begs the question. What do we do about it? With Sansha, the obvious answer is "bash the Nation until it goes away," which might well work. The issue arises in finding sufficient force to do said bashing. You could suggest 'submit to their will', but you'd likely find resistance to that. Similarly, people will almost certainly be split on any other avilable options.

So it seems we're locked in an endless cycle of simply awaiting the next terror/horror/anomaly to show up and threaten us, and hope that somebody in a pod can be bothered to deal with it. Yay.

Respectfully, yes, I'm aware of Vitoc. Just as I'm aware of slaver dogs that drop on escapees out of trees and eat them.

I'm further aware of black market pleasure hubs and similar establishments (and I should stress I'm talking about the pirate factions now) where enslaved women are forced to do all sorts of demeaning things.

I'm also fully aware that a Blood Raider's slave is likely to lead a short and painful life. In one case I've been threatened with a long, humiliating, and painful life involving cryogenic stasis in between rounds of pain and humiliation. That would have been a special sort of awful.

Also, you didn't bring up transcranial microcontrollers, which generate a sort of artificial reality overlay for a slave to live in that's generally more pleasant than the real thing. It's one of the Khanid Kingdom's more controversial practices, and about as close to Kuvakei as the empires have skated.

I wasn't just using rhetoric when I said that slavery would be horrible even with a kind master. Without one....

But, here's the thing, pilot: in each case, including even the TCMC, my mind would remain my own. There are techniques for crushing the spirit and obliterating even hope, yes, some of them ancient and nigh unspeakably cruel.

But none of them compare to this: Kuvekei's implants, as I understand them, do not replace or eliminate parts of the consciousness; they're focused on directly editing behavior. That means having your very mind edited from a square peg down to fit into a round hole-- but the remnants left in place. One may be in anguish, and unable to express it-- be broken, and insane, and unable to so much as grimace, much less scream.

It's not even a moral question. It's a question of consequence. Slavery is an ancient feature of human history, pilot, and humanity's survived it time and time again. It's not at all clear that we'd survive being edited by Sansha Kuvakei. For starters, he's not a god, but more than that, he's not even very good at editing people so that they can function as people.

Back in the days after the first war, there was a time when Kuvakei's surviving people went into hiding in hidden communities. It was a difficult time, no doubt: starvation was widespread, and many communities died out entirely.

This wasn't because food was wholly unavailable. It's because Kuvakei hadn't thought to give his victims sufficient agency to seek their own food sources.

Can you imagine, being trapped in your own head, feeling yourself starving to death by inches, knowing exactly what you need to do to save your own miserable life but not being able to do it because you haven't been given instructions on that subject?

And now he claims he's modified the nature of the Nation so that you just get reborn into the same nightmare?

At least a slave gets to die....

I admit that I don't personally know how the Sansha's implants work or what they do to a person. All I'm saying is Sansha's attacking everyone, been doing that for a while now. And in the case of Minmatar, Caldari, Gallente, as well as Border and Independent Worlds, it's a great tragedy. But in the case of Amarr, seeing Amarrians getting all rattled because "Sansha three jumps from Amarr, must be the End of Days"... Has that smell of poetic justice to it.

I don't remember the Amarrians showing the same courtesy. I'm not defending Sansha, but I'm not going to move an inch to protect the Amarr. Besides, don't they have a gargantuan fleet of their own to save them?

No, really. Why is it that their ships are available for abducting people and getting their asses handed to them by the Jovians and the Federation, but they are suddenly out of reach when they have to defend their own home systems?

Just like with the other great powers, the Empire has the Sansha threat handled for now. No one is saying the sky is falling, only that the persistence of Nation's forces are obviously rather annoying.

Speaking of presistance, why don't you ever invite me to your parties? You guys can't be all stuck up and inflexible.

"The Sansha Threat: You know, the one nobody is talking about."[citation needed]

Interesting concept Evi.
Though, it doesn't seem to mesh with the remarkably individualistic statements made by your 'master' during nation's resurgence.

Good story, but i'll stick with verifiable facts.
Unless of course, you can verify what you have stated without claiming inside knowledge.

-Tertianus Rethelior