Intergalactic Summit

We just had a meeting with the analysts, you can follow the progress on "Arataka Communications Router".

Certainly, Lady Newelle. My apologies for the digression.

EDIT FOR EMPHASIS ON THIS SECTION ONLY BY FELISE SELUNIX wrote:

Fascinating conversation. You know, from what I've been able to observe that the concept of oblivion tends to provide a very big incentive for evangelical thinking in a lot of different forms. I think it's a part of our empathetic make up as humans; in general, we want to save people from danger, even when it's something that they choose. It's even present in my clan. Since so many of the menfolk are mystics of some kind and the pressure is heavy to stay in conversation the spiritual. And generally, they don't care whether I want to or not, even as an adult. The browbeating that they do is incredible and I get the feeling that if they could get away with it, they would force the rest of the clan to do what they think we need to do. I think the idea that any of us--or any Matari-- might be disconnected to the spiritual world is beyond choice because the alternative is just that beyond the pale.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that everyone pilots their own ship in this world and that includes the relationship that you have with the spiritual. You can't force anyone into that, which I believe is the great lesson of the Rebellion. In fact, I never believed that it's possible to be disconnected spiritual, you just have a different relationship altogether. But as to the evangelical motivations of the Reclamation, though I vehemently disagree with them, I think those motivations are often powerful because they tap into a human need to safeguard other humans.[/quote]

Reclamation as practiced by the slavery cultists has visibly little to do with the human need to safeguard other humans, and is overwhelmingly evidenced that it is motivated by the basest human desires to ****, pillage, enslave, torture, murder, and maim men, women, and children for selfish wicked advantage.

The barbarians that force others to labor for them are lazy violent people who if they were better or motivated by the needs of other humans would do the work themselves.

To treat other humans so badly for so long is something the human psyche can not readily accept, so to make it work, a facade of otherness, or lessor, or for their own good has to be built over the horror of slavery to make it more palatable.

"Sure I beat him to death, because he dared question my cruelty, but because the almighty creator made me more worthy/better, he'll be rewarding for that suffering in the next life, so I actually was doing it for his benefit, and he should thank me." is the type of twisted psychology required to make people do evil things unblinkingly.

There is no motivation to safeguard other humans from oblivion when you ****, pillage, torture, enslave, and murder their wives, children, husbands, and neighbors. The motivation is for selfish advantage and the sick pleasure from being more powerful and able to inflict your basest instincts upon those who are without the ability to resist successfully.

To attempt to paint it otherwise is as effective as putting lipstick on a Fedo.

The fact that some concepts are way bigger than the box people may have prepared to place them in does not impact on the self evident truth of their reality.

Wait, before we go down this primrose path, wasn't it you who got all bent out of shape after I suggested that your motivation for freedom fighting might be killing Amarrians because you spent most of your time...killing Amarrians? I believe it was!



You seemed to be okay with the idea that heinous and dehumanizing acts could be committed for goals that were deemed just at that point, but not in this instance. What could the difference be? Hmm...


I'll leave that for a moment though, because I think your point is interesting, though I disagree. You said here...



I see where you're going here, but I think you're confusing 'motivation' and 'results.' As far as I've seen, the motivations behind the Reclamation are pretty clearly in the 'saving others' category. It's a misguided, presumptive destructive, and ultimately self-defeating to be sure, but definitely doesn't have the ring of 'basest desires' to it. I can't imagine that you could get 98% of 15+ trillion people to enthusiastically follow a policy based on their 'basest human desires.' As anyone who's ever sold anything will tell you, people are much easier to motivate by appealing to people's sense of goodness and virtue, rather than a desire to violence. What's a better motivator for you and those under your command? The desire to kill Amarrians or the desire to free Matari in bondage? Despite our various differences, people aren't that different at all at the end of the day.

I would agree that a wrapped up in the noble motivations for the Reclamation are also less noble economic and egoistic motivations as well. I would also probably agree that you can get a smaller and more discreet group to act on base desires quite well, particularly for short term gain, pirates do it all the time. But when you have an institutionalized process that exists for as long as the Reclaimation has, a noble motivation has to be found.

In fact, I'd argue that the more heinous the act, the more noble the cause has to be to justify it. During our own struggle for freedom in the Rebellion, Matari revolutionaries committed and supported murder, torture, total war, the formation of the Valklears. The only motivation that would have allowed them to commit such violence over the long haul was the greater good of freedom. It is the desire to be a positive in this world that tends to produce the most commitment to a cause, even when those causes are ultimately futile and destructive in effect. That's what makes it such a potent and dangerous motivator.



Is that right? I'm sure that would be news to anyone under your command, or anyone in the TLF, or anyone in the RSS, The Elder Fleet, or just the Republic Fleet in general. Because as far as I can tell, all of those groups and plenty of others that I can name are just fine committing violence--sometimes heinous acts--in the name of a worthy cause? How many stories have we heard just on this forum of orphaned children, war-torn planets, massive body counts in almost every conflict? Are we to believe that all of those conflicts were merely motivated by bloodlust? And I haven't even gotten to the torture. Yet, I've never questioned their motivation to safeguard the Republic and free the enslaved, and I don't think you would either. In the process though blood has been shed, ships plundered, families torn apart. There's no doubt about that.

Often times, the most well-meaning and well-intentioned causes are used to justify the cruelest of actions. Those are the only motivations that can. I mean, you said it yourself...



So like you said, for people to do heinous things--particularly on a institutionalized scale over a millenia--they have to believe that their cause is so just that such action can be warranted. What I'm saying is that from all accounts, an overwhelming majority of Amarrians believe this is so about the Reclaimation. I am also saying that that motivation works so well because people are almost universally more motivated by causes they believe to be noble. Doesn't change the fact that the Reclamation, slavery, and the generational abuse of our people is abhorrent and unacceptable.

Now that's a substantive and weighty summation if I ever heard one. Do expound upon this false equivalency, good sir. What's that all about? I've got a little bit of time between my next evil venture to get a little education in. Do go on.

Sweet Maker, that's dark. I've never really felt a serious pull to consider conversion, but the idea that I might be abandoning my family and kirjuun to make a journey that I was considered too flawed to participate in, let alone go ahead to break a trail for them...

That's cold.

This sounds ominous.

Are you afraid of slaves? Don't worry, we have proper control over them. Some of them indeed can look quite intimidating if not openly scary, but don't worry, nobody will let them attack you!