Intergalactic Summit

I notice you are still failing to present a proof that Minmatar development of interstellar colonization was done with taxation within the tribes. Why would the burden of proof be on me?
I see the amarrians have properly formatted your thinking, but this is what they do best.

Our ancestors built everything from a tribal infrastructure. There was no Minmatar emperor, only Elders. There are reasons why the Minmatar technology is so different from others, "in Rust we trust", "ductape" and all that.

The fact that you can't fathom building spacefaring technologies without taxes is, quite frankly, your problem, as well as those that share your views.

Look. The Matari history was deliberately ruined and forgotten. What little was passed on was passed on orally, and it's not like Holders haven't always been trying to destroy Matari culture, so who even knows how much remembered was actually authentic? What kept the tribes together through enslavement was unity, and that unity was found through shared memories. Now, I'm not saying all modern tribal culture is a fiction, but I see no reason to believe that the mythos that the diaspora shares hasn't been purposefully penned at all.

Just look at the tribes themselves--Brutor are strong, Sebbies are smart. How much of that actually existed in Pator pre-Darkness? How much of it was based on bred bloodlines and eugenic slaving programs? How much of it is a message the Elders (or whoever the thoughtleaders really were) came up with to give Matari a sense of identity?

It's foolish to argue about what the Republic should be today, based on the unreliable and distant fragments of memories of a culture annihilated . Stop looking to the past.

((Seriously, the there's a sub-title MINMATAR EMPIRE right in the page I had indicated in Source, indicating that yes, there was a Minmatar Empire, no, it's not like the Amarr Empire in that it's a looser union. Therefore either Tribes or something that succeed the Tribes is put in place at the time. The fact that it's called an Empire and not a Federation shows that there was a central ruling figure. That's what an Empire is! Also mentioned are acceleration gates, which were actually reverse-engineered and further constructed. No warp drives yet. Or space fleets. Just colony ships and off-world colonies. Do not recall any mention of constructed stargates, got to check that again. Taxation was not mentioned in the entirety of the book because it is already understood that there are taxations as par on course. Are you trying to build a no-tax narrative here?

Also considering that you missed the part about the Elder War or Colelie or the other bits that clearly shows the Republic's determination to never kow-tow to anything, I think you have very selective attention.))

Do you have any idea how much money is needed to even build a space station or to start colonising places as far-flung as Starkman Prime (pre-Day of Darkness)? Where did you think all that money comes from? Donations?

Taxation is the only reliable way of raising revenue. No economic goals had ever been accomplished by donations and good-will. Even more so when the community has grown beyond 100 to 250 people. When there are far more people than we can really keep up with, we start losing that personal and emotional stake in said community and we are far less likely to give freely as the result. When we lose that personal and emotional stake in contributing anything, especially considering that we are giving not to the 100-250 people we have stable relationships with, but to total strangers, our voluntary contributions become either small or non-existent. To ensure that we do not do this, taxes had to be imposed.

Aside from the fact that you're make an definitive assertion--'There were no taxes within or between tribes before the Amarr came'--while not providing definitive proof, I personally think that the point is moot.

The Republic has taxes now. The government, tribes, clans, they all have taxes and people are paying an collecting (and avoiding!) taxes as we speak. Some are even eating a Mei-ha steak while enjoying a nice Caille cosmopolitan cocktail at a bar on a station on the Krusal Tribe Bureau station! Matari people are doing all kinds of things that they probably weren't doing before the DoD. Is it good? Is it bad? Judge away if you'd like, but there's no denying that this is where we are now.

You know what else is going on though? Clans and Tribes. Just like it's always been. People care for their kin, find their place in their clans and tribes and keep those connections strong a regular basis. Maybe the color and the tenor have changed, but these are still the lifeblood of our people. We still do the Voluval ceremonies, we still chart our life paths on our skin. Every generation, someone's passing down a tradition so that it can be kept alive by the next generation, strengthening our people with every turn of the wheel. That those traditions have changed isn't surprising and to me is a sign of our strength, not of our weakness.

If history has proven anything, it's that no length of enslavement can change that. No amount of brutality, or dehumanization, or dispersion, or attempts at obliteration can touch that. We had our Rebellion, settled ourselves and got right back to Clan and Tribe. The idea that we have been changed by our experiences--happy and tragic-- is to me, the most Matari thing ever.

As much as we'd all like to sometimes, you can't go back and try to capture something from yesteryear. You can't pretend that the last 1000 years didn't happen or try to wipe the Amarr from memory. Experience is what shapes a people. Our tribes and clans are nothing if not honest expressions of ourselves, so they reflect those experiences. They're living, growing and changing things, not museum pieces that can be held in some theoretical state of purity.

Disagree if you'd like, but people are still going to be paying those taxes tomorrow, and I'm still gonna finish this steak.

((Absolutely, and I stand by the possible interpretation that the translation to the word "Empire" could have been done mistakenly, using a terminology more familiar to the Amarrians. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Minmatars were ruled by an Emperor figure, and much more suggesting multiple tribal structures and elders rule. Now until a new canon document/chronicle comes up to clarifies, neither of our theories can be proven or disproven in-characters. As for your "obvious understanding", it is only obvious for your mindset and those sharing it, and obviously I don't))


((This has nothing to do with our current discussion, as I am only referring to pre-Day of Darkness traditions, before the Minmatar Republic was even born. It is obvious the Minmatar Republic has adopted different approaches to do things, including taxes and collaboration with the Amarrs while maintaining a link to tribal traditions. Our approach is that we are much more traditionalists than the Republic is, and less compromising, as we believe this is the only path that will lead to the Day of Light))




First and foremost, the very specific nature of Minmatar technology, seemingly put together half-hazardly and yet functioning (and often mocked by the other races), is a sign that things have not been done the way the other races have done it, if anything else.

Incorrect, it's the primary reliable way of raising revenue. Other methods include tariffs, donations, interest on owned debts and equities in corporations and other governments, tribute/indemnities from other governments, foreign aid received (for small countries), aid from another section of government (federal grants to local governments), revenue from state-owned businesses, revenue from investment funds, endowments and other investment revenues, rents and royalties paid for contracting purchasing rights to a private entity, fines and penalties assessed by the government for misdemeanors, licensing fees, and user fees for some government services.

Together this group of revenue sources is relatively consistent and reliable a source of revenue. Without these sources, with only tax revenue, governments likely couldn't function, even if tax revenue is still larger individually than any of these individually, together, these sources are about as significant.

Also, I never claimed good will and charity led to the great economic accomplishments of mankind. Usually, those are attributed to the large sum of activities undertaken by self-interested agents in a marketplace, albeit not usually in an environment devoid of government, it would still be dishonest to claim government created these things. In advanced societies, governments create the framework for us to invent new products and services to market to one another and assists when feasible (ie. when markets don't function properly.)

That impression stems from warships whose design dated to the Rebellion era, where there was no excess in funds or time to construct a well-put-together fleet to fight an ever encroaching Golden Fleet and the Paladins the Fleet constituents carry with them. We never did have any reliable records of warships being constructed during the Pre-Day of Darkness Era. In fact, there was no physical evidence at all that such a thing ever existed, probably because the Minmatar Empire did not expect to run into a hostile foreign civilisation when they started their space and off-world colonisation programs. Also, considering that the loosely united factions of the Minmatar Empire had entirely ceased warfare for an estimated two thousand years, there wasn't a need to build space-worthy warships at all.

Now compare to the ships designed AFTER the Rebellion (Republic era), such as the Rifter, Hurricane, Maelstrom, Hel, Nalfgar, Ragnarok and Firetail (though that was designed by a now-defunct pirate faction). These look far more complete BECAUSE they were designed during a time where there was no shortage of time and there was actually a proper defense budget. The rest, such as the Slasher, Hound, Probe, Stabber, Vagabond and Reaper are also moving away from the ramshackle look AGAIN due to the availability of a more substantial defense budget and a lack of a tight schedule to battle an encroaching invasion or a present oppressive force.

You're completely correct - we do need to do better. Numbers like those are shockingly high, and are symptomatic of the work needed to help people integrate into our society and find their places among us.

As I've said earlier in the thread, the difficulty gets even more acute when dealing with the newly-emancipated. Your own Tribe, and the Nefantar, are still just trying to get their bearings, to figure out who you are now. That's compounding the problem, especially as our government returns to reflecting the Tribes themselves. Each of the Tribes is working to find places and opportunities for those among them who've only recently returned to us, and each of the Tribes will likely come up with their own subtly different means to try to meet those goals. But the Nefantar and Starkmanir... do you even know your Clan, Ms. Vellastraan? That's not an accusation or condescension, by the way, so please don't think it is. It's a sincere question: our society's built upon the Clans, and through them, the Tribes... how do we even begin to rebuild the shattered Tribes if there are no Clans to serve as their foundations?

That, too, is a sincere question, but it's not aimed at you. It's aimed at the rest of us.

So-- sort of a question for everyone, here--

I had an idea that Matari technology was really pragmatic, out of necessity-- that it's stuff that had to be thrown together when a bunch of formerly-enslaved engineers got together with some military leaders and went, "Okay-- we're loose, we've got funding from the Federation, but we need a fleet, like, yesterday. It's going to be really outnumbered and outgunned until we can build a LOT more of it, so-- hit and run as a core doctrine? Right! Let's do this."

... without, maybe, a whole lot of attention to pre-DoD stuff? I mean, the ancient Matari kind of didn't "do" warfare, if ... I'm hearing right?

How badly wrong am I?