Intergalactic Summit

Well naturally everyone believes they fight for the right reasons, else they wouldn't fight on that side. Though, it would be beneficial if we all stayed on topic, yes?

Perhaps you should take a closer look.

But listening to people justify themselves to people who already have their minds made up is fun....

To all those of you wishing me well: thank you.


Mr. Kithrus: I don't really have an itinerary as such. Just a lot of questions.

And ... yeah. The similarities to actual, academic anthropology did occur to me.


Mr. Mokk: I ... am afraid I have to echo the Praefecta's puzzlement. SFRIM may have power of a kind, but it's almost all the sort that capsuleers don't normally give much weight to. I came to the Societas at Aldrith Shutaq's suggestion, seeking sanctuary and a chance to meet and interact with the Amarr ... and I found a home.

But not power. Not exactly. ... except, maybe, the gentlest sort.

Aldrith casts me out with a curse on his lips. The Societas ... tells me I'll always have a place there.

On which ... painful note:


Aldrith.

I would have been a sword in your hand. A hawk on your wrist.

Instead, you chose to bind me into my sheath. Keep me hooded and tethered.

It was a good choice in many ways. I've learned a lot I might not have, otherwise.

I admired you. I looked up to you.

But ...

You may truly believe in your cause. You may admire your enemies for truly believing in theirs. I've had ample chance to watch the fires of belief burning bright.

And I don't think the universe cares. The dead are still dead.

You wanted me only to kill for the cause I took seriously. But what if I don't care about grand causes, but do care about the people around me?

What if I wanted to fight for people who mattered to me, instead of for your Empire?

... but that wasn't grand enough for you.

I wasn't going to say this, but ... you've got some nerve, telling me I lack compassion after forbidding me to fight for my FRIENDS!

In the name of ... what? Keeping me pure? Neutral? ... How could I possibly be either?

... I've defended you. All this time, I've been making your excuses for you.

....

Thanks for making this easy.

Not a curse, a simple statement of belief. You are not gone yet, but you will be soon.


But you are not those things. You are a human being who does not deserve be used as a simple weapon. You deserve to be able to live in a community that values you, surrounded by family and friends, all without the expense of having to destroy the lives of others to gain what you need to do so. Killing is an obligation, not an occupation. Only you have the right to decide who and what you destroy. You can only lend the right to be given orders to someone, and I felt that no one deserved that right with you for the moment, least of all me. I have used pilots for the gains of the Empire before and I am done with that. I fight alongside the willing, not the unwitting.


That is where you are wrong. The dead are still dead but the living are still living. And even if the universe does not care, that only means that it falls upon us to care. Humanity would not be where it is now if all thought like you. No human group would grow larger than a hunter-gather band of kin-relations. If the Amarr thought like you my people would have been left to wither away in the deserts of Mishi IV, never to have known the stars. Either that or slaughtered as the Empire eliminated a group of useless strangers.

One could draw comparisons to a capsuleer encountering a neutral pilot in a basic civilian frigate while they were in an advanced cruiser. I wonder... would PYRE crush the unknown or foster it? Who knows really, since they are not bound to any rules on the subject. I suppose it would depend upon the mood of the day.


That would be lovely, so long as they are decent people. As Lt. Kernher aptly pointed out, you might care about people who upset more people than they help. This might obligate you to condone their actions and protect them from retribution. Besides this, people change more quickly and more drastically than the goals of an entire society. I hope you are prepared to watch those changes closely and act accordingly.


It does not take any nerve at all to say this. Friends can be wrong. I wanted you to decide for yourself what was worth fighting for, not fall back on some ridiculous form of reciprocal peer-pressure. You have often been compared to a child Vesper, but this notion, by far, is the most immature one you seem to possess.

You do not fire into a crowd of people because your friends think it right (which, by the way, is exactly what you are doing when you fire on a crewed vessel). You have to evaluate the reasons for yourself, or you are not your own person. All this statement says to me is "I am incapable of making moral judgments so I will leave the hard decisions up to people I happen to like, regardless of their own capacity for moral thought."

Personally, I do not take ignorance as an excuse for poor behavior. If I were your father I'd be terrified you'd take a liking to the friendly neighborhood gangster and end up shooting someone upon their direction. Which, funnily enough, is exactly what is happening. These gangsters just happen to be co-workers of mine. Rather unfortunate, really.

I try to get along with my fellow capsuleers. I tend to save more money on ammo and implants that way....

Don't get too bent out of shape, Shutaq; we are fighting on the same side. Like it or not, our efforts help further your goals. So if you'd get off of your high horse for one moment, maybe you can see the field of war as it is. Mercenary work is ugly work, but war is an ugly thing.

Certainly, but for how long? What would it take for you to work against us? Not much for some within your ranks, I suspect. In fact some might already be doing that on the side.


If I weren't on my high horse I wouldn't be able to see what's going on!


And ugly things should not be profited upon. The only reasons you should be fighting a war would be to stop it, mitigate its damage, or to further a goal that is so important that the cost in lives and material is worth it. Somehow I sense that an end to hostilities would not be in a mercenary's best interests, and since you do not believe in any goals the last option is out.

But yes, in the end, PYRE is tolerable, if only just.

Aldrith, the other side is paying a great deal more than the Empire at the moment so you should just count your blessings we aren't going after a second medal right now, because I gladly would.

Samira, friends are more important than you realize.

Aria, I look forward to possibly working with you.

Claudia, your attitude is commendable, I like it.

Mr. Mokk, who are you and why should I even care?

Pyre, many of you are my close personal friends and you are why I stay.

... it's a ... strange thing.

You see that I could have decided that I was on the wrong side. You understand that I could theoretically have come to see the world differently than I did, and do.

If you recognized the possibility that I could come to see the other side as correct, and wanted to leave that choice to me ... what of you? Fighting, killing ... knowing-- actually, it seems, believing-- that your enemies have a point. Not wanting to draw me to your side because you thought I might regret ever having stood there.

Do you regret fighting, Aldrith?

....

I don't understand.

In principle, the Amarr fight for grand causes: God, humanity, and the Empire, and the uniting of the second and the third under the first.

The Caldari fight for hearth and home. Family (literal or metaphorical), community, corporation, State-- the rest of the world be damned.

... and that goes for the Achura, too.

Supporting those you love and defending what you care for is ... the best, the only necessary reason to fight.

Grand causes are trouble. We're not immune to them, but they don't tend to end well; Tibus Heth and his Provists are a good example.

Are we just children to you? Immature, blind to the idea that our neighbors and loved ones could be wrong? That protecting them could be wrong?

Will other cultures judge me the same way?

... I knew I had ... sort of an Achur mindset. But I hadn't really thought to think of myself as ... basically just a homeless Achur, without temple or community. So much of our culture is tied into our social connections that ...

... with ties severed ... I guess I thought I'd lost it all. And I guess I did, but ...

It seems a rootless, vagabond Achur is Achura, even so.