Intergalactic Summit

Entry One - Polarized Mandate

I took upon myself to start with Derelik, home of the Ammatar Mandate. Maybe as a way to get back into my own past in the process... Also, it is not a very well known place overall.

The first striking thing for a capsuleer that comes into Ammatar space, in the Derelik region, is of course how empty the space is. It is often the case with remote regions far from hubs or conflicted areas, and the Mandate is no exception to the rule, even with 55% of its solar systems included in high security space lanes.

Of course, the region itself acts as a buffer between the turmoil of the Bleak Lands and Devoid, and the Minmatar Republic. It can even be the place of free skirmishes between both militias since the region is not actively involved in the Proxy War. What can make it interesting that light, is that it is one of those few regions that remained in a pre-war state of affairs, even with all the changes that said war breakout brought to it.

For the more conscious capsuleer traveler, what actually happens and is obvious to any baseliner proper, is the state of change that has happened to the Ammatar Mandate after the devastation brought in the wake of the Third Elder Fleet that assaulted the Mandate at its political heart, Jarizza - Halthurzan.

The Nefantars, past the Minmatar Rebellion, had to flee the Ani constellation, their home, and settle in Derelik to form the Ammatar Mandate, an imperial protectorate governed by an Amarr representative, but left as a full fledged semi-independent nation of freshly converted faithful.

Something in itself some may say that has been made possible and necessary due to the emergency on the Amarr side. All in all, it was probably for the best for the Amarr to keep a shield composed of Matari to face other Matari after the chaos that ensued the Rebellion.

In any case, no matter what circumstances made a newly converted bloodline to be afforded so quickly their own lands to rule, and a full region of space, no less, is peculiar and unique in all Amarrian History. The race traitor Nefantars suddenly were afforded in less than a century more than any converted bloodline has in their entire existence, Khanid included.

For years they dwelt relatively free of foreign intervention, acting in a perpetual state of near war with their newly formed neighbor, the Minmatar Republic, that grew stronger everyday with the help and funding of the Gallente Federation, and soon surpassed anything that the Ammatars, alone, could throw at them in their countless border skirmishes.

The Amarr were forced to intervene and offer indirect support as well, but the main and decisive help have been some of the Caldari megacorporations that were interested in the highly rich and abundant resources found in the region. Investment came, and security with it.

Maybe it is, by the way, one of the less known reasons for the sour grapes between the State and the Republic, for that blood sure have been spilled between those two in that occasion, and that was probably a first either.

While I do not feel worthwhile to speak in depth about the singular state of religious affairs and slavery customs of the Ammatars, it is still worth noting that again, due to external and historical factors that forced the Amarr Holders to withdraw from the region, Nefantar custodial overseers were granted de facto the right to keep their slaves in spite of their scriptural inability to do so. Those few, favored individuals soon formed families based on the Amarr model and now form the elite of the Ammatar, proper, with a status similar of Amarrian Holders, bare in Scripture only. Since it is still not allowed to sell slaves to commoners, it means that these elites were pretty much the only ones to keep access to slave stocks. This is also why slaves are not renewed much, and decline with every year, becoming one of the most valuable commodities.

Until the major changes they saw recently. The Starkmanir remnants were part of those slaves, and everyone knows what happened next when we come again to the Elder attack. Major defections, a planet capital left in ruins and biologically hazardous insorum contaminated areas, a military in shambles that saw Ammatar attacking each other in the wake of the Elder fleet...

The Ardishapur Heir was appointed as a new ruler and advisory to tackle the issue. Whether or not the Ammatars themselves approved, the results are already showing : new schools, civic infrastructure, and reconstruction efforts have brought the whole Mandate back to its former state, or even way above. The reformation of its military with Ardishapur variants, an experienced and grizzled Amarr admiral at its head, and the appointment of a native governor to the whole region, are proof of a stronger and more prosperous region.

After all, the Ardishapur Heir proclamed that Derelik was of utmost importance, and started to channel funds and trade opportunities to make the region valuable again to the whole intergalactic market.

Between grumbling Ammatar elites that slowly see their non official powers diminished, or removed, the Ammatar Church losing his footing in favour of the Amarr Orthodox Church, and the sudden loss of autonomy of the region, the facts remain that most of the Ammatars themselves seem to be happy of the new direction.

This is the current state of the region, a contrast between the old Mandate, and the new. A contrast between a total assimilation process and the loss of cultural identity it faces, and the happiness surrounding it. Eventually, a polarization of extremes where no matter the appearances, the nation itself is still trying to grasp at its identity.

Entry Three - Lost and Forlorn Ventures

One of those things that I keep seeing with a dreadful regularity are lost ventures.

Those ventures, or more exactly the remnants they left behind, are one of the few spots that often do not get any recordings in the Amarr Scriptures, or other various imperial repositories. Failed projects and expeditions, lost to defeat, taken either by pilgrims or Holders, trying to extend God's grace beyond the Empire's reach.

Only these ruins keep a testimony to the memories of those forgotten projects and people. I find them interesting for the very reason that they hint at what imperial doctrines through recordings often fail to address properly: failure.

Well, of course not every little thing has to, or can be recorded - do they ...? - and failures and defeats in themselves are actually a very significant part of Amarrian History.

But the Amarr in general do not seem to be perfectly at ease with the concept of failure, as a culture more than a Faith, actually.

It is no surprise that Vak'Atioth for example, even if naturally part of recordings considering its historical magnitude, still does not properly address the event. Even the Amarr themselves are still to that day struggling to interpret what the Divine intended to show them through that defeat itself.

Another, maybe more striking example, the story of the Mad Emperor, that has been struck out of the Book of Records. An event that rarely happens for most Amarrians, and seldom for people holding the seat of the imperial throne. In itself, he is acknowledged as an impostor rather than an emperor, but it forgets the very traces of History where Zaragram II actually got his throne by perfectly legitimate means at that time. It was such a catalyst that it made the Empire revert most of the edicts he made, and then head over to what we now know as the Moral Reforms. That way, striking his name out of the Book of Records was a way to tell that he was a mistake, an impostor, and certainly not the flesh vessel of the Divine, like any emperor should be. But it also fails to properly address the mistake, to embrace it, and to explain what lesson was learned that day... We can only learn it through what the Moral Reforms brought, and why... Especially why.

In short, failure is often viewed though embarrassment rather than humility.

Perhaps because the lessons of it have yet to be told ? Or perhaps because the Amarr themselves still strive to follow the Path, and can err at times, wandering out of the way, making detours and meeting new trials, before finding the way again...

... In any case, for the handful of successful ventures that turned out for some of them to become the most shining example of capitalistic achievements of the cluster - who did not hear about lady Catiz Tash-Murkon backstory ? - countless others met often unexpected ends to the cold and harsh reality of the cluster: forgotten outposts, mining colonies, ghost sites and habitation modules spewing forlorn, frozen floating corpses, all turned again into graveyards, the graveyards of space colonization.

Some often mistake the Amarr God for a God of Love, or a God of Hate. In reality, and in Scripture, the Divine is merely neutral and unforgiving. To the very image of space itself.

What are love, hate, right and wrong, if not human concepts, striving to come to terms with a reality they seldom want to believe in, but yet have to acknowledge ?