Intergalactic Summit

It is a conspiracy, they want us to drink Starsi!

What even is law anymore?

This is a stretch. There were bombs and guns and hostages taken. It was not some peaceful protest.

This is what it sounds like when you sacrifice your public credibility instead of just honestly admitting when you have misspoken. Pilot Tuulinen you are among friends and people who have respect for what you say, I am fairly sure not many expect you to be perfect all the time, just honest when you examine and discuss the facts with us.

If you can not do that, there is nothing nuanced about the damage it will inflict.

Please bear in mind that "Liberal" means something different in the State: it's a term for a specific political faction favoring increased trade and involvement with the rest of New Eden. Caldari tend to be indoctrinated in loyalty from birth, and virtually all have engaged in some kind of armed service to the State. It's a very martial culture, and very trusting of authority, so when something happens that casts people that they'd have thought of as peers of a kind as unambiguous villains, the first thing to pop to mind is, "That doesn't sound like us. What the hell happened?"

That goes for the Liberals as much as anybody.

The word you might be looking for is jaalan, or "dissident." I'm maybe a little bit one of those, or might be, if I were still in the State (I have some pretty strong feelings about Caldari, and Achur, attitudes toward bloodlines). I've taken the course jaalan tend to be encouraged to, and left to find a home elsewhere.

The culture's still really hard to shake, though. I have barely any pleasant memories of the State itself left anymore-- my main recollection is of being a prisoner there, my status as a "person" in doubt after an issue with cloning (the one that caused the memory loss), but the culturally-inculcated "facts" my head is full of still have a lot to say.

That's not to say I think the State necessarily acted wrongly here. There's a lot of strangeness, and I do want to know more clearly what happened. What apparently happened is cartoonishly awful, so....

But I'll admit I might be too close to this, even now, to see clearly. Those of us in, or from, the State might all be. But it doesn't quite mean we're wrong.

Please bear in mind I strongly suspect not many would care to have you define cultural and political terms for them.

You admit to having severe memory loss and being basically a broken person. That doesn't enhance your resume.

Let me share with you the view and perception from outside of your head; you seem to always have a strange very different meaning for every common situation.

I doubt seriously if most pilots here on IGS would consider Pilot Tuulinen a Caldari dissident, and just telling us that word in another language would not change that most likely majority opinion. It simply comes across as just a kinder gentler version of a Kim-esque semantic game where freedom equals chaos, unless you mean freedom from Gallente influence.

IGS communications are conducted in this common language, I do not often muddle it with Matari words because it's counter productive to communicating ideas to the largest possible audience here. Caldari are proud to use their language and there is no problem with their pride, it just makes their message less understandable to the great majority of us on IGS who are not Caldari.

It doesn't. Protest is protest. Open revolt is open revolt.

Criminal revolt becomes lawful revolution at two points:

Point I: In the present tense, it becomes lawful revolution as soon as the speaker is a member of the group involved. "our rebellion" is always good and proper—were it not, the participant wouldn't be a party, or would characterize it as something else. "their rebellion" or "your rebellion" is, in contrast, inherently improper—were it not, the speaker would support the effort.

Point II: As you say: when they win, after the fact, when others are forced to acknowledge their legitimacy.

But it never becomes lawful protest.

Okay, wow.

Mr. Ronin, I'm an induced amnesiac. My personal memories got digitally zilched out while I was in an archive state. It's not like I'm brain damaged.



Some of the words I'm pointing out are political factions with specific names, Mr. Ronin: Liberal, Patriot, Practical. They're terms more for corporations and their policies than for individual Caldari. What I'm saying is that the Ishukone pilots are necessarily "Liberal," because Ishukone is, but not necessarily "liberal."

Pieter's a Patriot. Capital "P." Different State faction (his parent company is Kaalakiota, though I think he's currently on contract to I-RED, which is Liberal, capital "L"). And it's a little hard to describe him as a small "L" liberal, either, although he doesn't seem to look down of half-bloods like me. (I'm grateful for that.) As I think he's noted himself, Caldari capsuleers tend to become more flexible due to exposure to other cultures and perspectives.

I mentioned the word jaalan because it has particular importance to the Caldari, and tends to refer to an individual who, on their own initiative, is overtly critical of State entities, actions, and policies. It's pretty easy for a small-"L" liberal to be jaalan. Jaalan are usually tolerated, grudgingly, but the word does have negative connotations.

Which changes nothing about what I said. Had things gone differently then a lot of people would have died. They used the threat of violence and physical force. I respect greatly their control and precise use of force to get what they wanted, their restraint. But trying to paint it like a peaceful protest is wasting everyone's time. It was not a crowd of people with megaphones and signs outside a civic office because such a thing would not have worked. A very well controlled use of force is something to be respected and there is no need to paint it as anything else.

Shooting innocent convoys delivering something of actual quality and enjoyment to an otherwise dour and depressing corporate wasteland is hardly low for a culture that grows children in tubes.

Take care of your actions, Caldari. Just as they can be kind, the gods can be cruel.