EVE Fiction

I chose Sebiestor as my main (and only) character's bloodline due to the personality trait trend, namely, their love for engineering and tinkering in general. Yet at the same time, due to the history of the Minmatar Republic and the Sebiestor people, I believe that the Sebiestor aren't the sort of people who would be spending all his time in a tech lab just crunching numbers and drafting blueprints, but the sort of person who will personally field-test their creations. In the line of fire if they need to.

As for why I picked Minmatar, well, I just like rustic-looking ships. Moreoever, I had an impression that the Minmatar society is anachronistic. Supposedly antiquated tech refined and developed to the point they could match up with the exotic tech everyone else is using? A tribal society that has entered the Space Age without much alteration to their culture or social structure? Shamans existing side-by-side with scientists and engineers? Animism co-existing with tech? The persistence of the very guild-like Circles in a corporatised cluster? All very intriguing to explore.

Also, who were the ones who had developed the so-called antiquated technologies to the point where they could match up with the exotic tech everyone else is using with the application of cutting-edge materials, nanotech and plain ingenuity in engineering? Mostly the Sebiestor. What goes on in these guys' minds? I like to explore that. It also helped that their tattoos were simple lines and patterns, which is much nicer to look at compared to the tattoos of the other bloodlines, in my opinion.

Like for Elmund, this is my one and only character, it's a principle thing.

What appealed to me in the Minmatar was actually a sense of kinship and similarities I saw in their story to my own country - my nation slash people have more or less been a kickball of two other countries for the past thousand years, both tried to "uplift" us according to their religious mandates (and we lost a lot of our original culture in the process)... Basically, I could relate on some level, even if all of this is now a century behind us and I wasn't even born then. I quite distinctly remember choosing Minmatar based on this rationale.
As for the bloodline, it does not have that much thought behind it - it was the newest one at the time and it had the least stupid looking characters, so purely an aesthetic choice at the time, but I haven't come to regret it later on either. Vherokior are along with the Sebiestor IMO the more intriguing bloodlines among the Minmatar, from storyline point of view since Vherokior have the greatest social mobility of all the tribes and are at least in my eyes a bit less tied to their stereotypical prowess (sebiestor, geniuses, brutor, martial artists etc) than other tribes.

Again, like Elmund, back in the day (and still today) I actually liked the rustbucket aesthetic - and I still get unreasonably agitated when anyone not a Minmatar calls our ships rustbuckets.

There will be a different value system in comparison to EVE's Society by the sole virtue of having a Tribal social system.

From what I experienced thus far, it seemed to be more focus on kith and kin, clan and tribe as opposed to bureaucracy. Much of the Minmatar politics revolve around Clan and Tribe: What's good for Clan and what's good for the Tribe. So much attempts to elevate one's family's position, one's clan's position and securing advantages for his or her own tribe.

As for the diversity of clans in the same tribe, I do not believe the clans are *that* diverse. They will follow the same general trend, as I understand it, with the differences being in slight deviation in belief systems, dialects and certain traditions and practices.

What really interested me to this day was the anachronism of an archaic social and belief system and their influence on science and technology and vice versa. I haven't really gotten all the details down but I do believe that the ritual singing and such might evolve into heuristic devices in the context of tech and that the animistic beliefs of spirits might extend to the technologies they had developed and the new biomes (or complete lack of a biome) they might have explored while colonising space.

In the case of the machine spirits, I'm not too sure about the details. If every gear, sprocket, chip, cable and etc has a spirit of their own, does that make the overall machine the mother spirit? Or are they composite spirits? Perhaps they merge into a singular spirit? Haven't really figured that out.

Also, oral traditions incorporating the visual element via the use of holoprojectors, a more archaic education system (e.g. apprenticeships) redesigned to educate on modern subjects such as STEM, the use of nanotattoos for their tattoo culture, etc.

I also have a rather unflattering belief that the Minmatar social development might be more stunted compared to the rest of the cluster when I looked through their history. They had, what? The slavery, the Rebellion which necessitated an accelerated development in military technology, the corrupt Republic government meaning much of the newly gained resources aren't diverted into social development (and being diverted into the creation of the Elder Fleet and the birth of Project Skymother), the dismantlement of the Republic parliamentary system, that constant existential threat (Amarr Empire) right next door, the gearing up for the possible counterattack after the defeat of the Elder Fleet...

This might also possibly influence tech development from researching exotic technologies to improving existing ones instead since the Republic did not have the luxury to simply faff about. The period of their history post-Rebellion where they could afford to faff about with wundertech was marked by misappropriation of resources, so they do not have the chance to really explore on something really new and exciting other than, I reckon, nanotech and material science as an extension of their drive to improve on their existing technologies.

Still, "depends on the clan" is an important guideline for Minmatar RP.

The lore factored much into my decision in which race and clan I chose. Now granted, I made my decision only by what I read of the descriptions when first creating the character (This one is still my main and I still have her).

I chose by looking through the pros and cons of what I liked of each race description. Essentially I chose a race that I would be proud to be a part of myself (easier to RP that way and I knew I would want at least partial RP in my ingame choices) Here's basically how my thought process went through this:
- I liked the individuality and freedom of the Gallente Federation. I was a bit iffy on how it was run though.
- The freedom of the Caldari State from the Federation was cool to me but I disliked the thought of companies deciding governmental things very very much so the Caldari were pretty safely out.
- I liked the Minmatar Republic a lot from the get-go. I liked their sense of community and family and I liked the thought of a space-age tribal culture. Not only that, they were subjugated by the Amarr and are regaining their foothold rapidly. All good. The only con I could see in the description was a higher than average rate of criminals but it also said that the Matari were by far the most numerous of all races and probably at least half of those were the freedom fighters previously described.
- I read the Amarr Empire last and I pretty much knew it would be at the bottom but I read it anyway... and found nothing I liked. Slavery? No remorse? individual rule?Slavery?? Hardly any oversight or control on the governing body? Slavery? Religious focus? Slavery? (did I happen to mention slavery?). Yeah these guys were stricken from my choices pretty handily. In fact my dislike for them ultimately had a hand in my choice.

So I had to choose between The Feds or the Republic. At this point I had basically already decided on the Minmatar. Not only for the things that I loved about what I read from them, but now also for their obvious struggle against the Slaving Amarr. I decided Minmatar to do to improve the status of the Republic. (Later I found Ushra'Khan and that was an obvious mashup :p)

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For Tribe, it was a very similar choice and way of choosing. I chose based on what resonated with me and what I could see myself having grown up in. Vherokior was basically a no brainer for a person who loves going on walks and hikes and going through city exploration days and just in general marvels at things rather than do anything about them (Brutor) or creates things within the world (Sebiestor).

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So yeah, I decided on a Vherokior Minmatar based on lore :)

not sure what came first tho, the like of the ships or the like of the like of the race. Because I'm sure that either will have influenced the other.

@Victoria: The idea that the Minmatar, especially Sebiestor, hold animistic belief is taken from: http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=Sebiestor_spiritual_beliefs , which is itself taken from the now defunct Evelopedia.

The Black Mountain chronicle further supports the idea that the Sebiestor, at the very least, believe in animism. Other roleplayers had built on top of that. Also, I figured, shouldn't animism extend to technology as well? Hence I came up with technological spirits (especially machine spirits), which I reckon is in line with my character's backstory (home in the Skarkon regolith regions, having to rely almost entirely on technology to get their basic necessities and not die due to alveoli scarring caused by superfine dust and etc).

As for social development, I wasn't talking about tech, but about access to necessities, commercial development, access to education and healthcare, housing, etc. I do not believe that these are evenly distributed and readily available everywhere (more likely to be found in core worlds but less available outside said core worlds) and any development tends to be sponsored and worked on by the local communities despite the lack of a proper budget and etc. They have tech, it's just that the advances are more skewed towards things that will help the Republic survive the various threats and to help run the Republic rather than things benefiting civilians and social advancements.

The thing I like about RPing as Minmatar is that they are among the most diverse people in New Eden. The Tribes were already vastly different before leaving Matar and now they are scattered across the universe and split into clans that are split into family. So this gives you a nearly clean canvas to work with to develop your character and the background: Their culture, their religion, their way of thinking, their view on the world etc etc. So as previous mentioned there is no right way to be minmatar. Minmatar spirituality is abit like the Hindu religion imo. There are countless of gods/spirits and some clans/tribes values some of them higher than other. There is no correct answer since it all depends on your background.

I RP Miz as being born in the Federation and she is from a clan that migrated there long ago. So she is vastly different from Minmatars who grew up in the Republic and she haven't been influenced much by the slavery and rebellion. Likewise the culture she grew up in have been to a larger degree been influenced by Gallente culture and her Clan's religion has also developed differently. So if she was to talk IC with some of the other Vherokior characters in this thread she would find that there are many differences between them, but also similarities that can bond them together.

Also as previously mentioned I enjoy the tribal aspect of it. It gives a nice touch you can add to your character. Despite being a Capsuleer and a Doctor, Miz is still very religious and consider it an important part of her life. Likewise she values her family and her clan highly. And she feels it is important to stay in touch with nature and achieve inner balance. Her greatest fear is to lose touch with her humanity and become a heartless killer.

So if you want to carve your own little corner of the universe, but with a tribal twist, the Minmatar would be a excellent choice. Although there have been much focus on the slavery part, it is up to you how much you want to include it for your character. However there are definitely also advantages of picking the other Factions (Like among the Amarr RP community where they have the Amarr God to really connect them), but I am not the right person to talk about that and I hope some other people can fill in on that so you pick something you are satisfied with.

Addressing your last point first, I don't see myself as a purist per se but for the most part a lore adherent, but for references there is a decent thread here.

For the in-game bloodline, it depends on how you want your character to descend. The Nefantar blood would generally color the skin fair and the hair dark, but this could breed out in a 'hybrid'. Plenty of mixed-blood characters out there, some very plausibly sculpted. If you don't want to use a Minmatar model, an Ammatar character descended from slaveholders could use an Amarr model, or perhaps a second-generation freed Nefantar could use a Gallente model, but these are just examples.

I'm pretty sure most players are not going to take issue with how you want your character to appear if you put thought into it.

My feeling is that it would still be up to you.

If I assume a full-blooded Nefantar is a thing, it would be tougher for me to explain it with an Amarr or Gallente appearance. Crossing the bloodlines addresses the appearance being 'hybridized'. If one does that, it just becomes a trick of deciding how far back the mix occurred (generational, as you said). That is just one approach, but probably the one I would choose, personally.

It could be noted that among humans there is definitely the potential for the physical manifestation of certain ethnic characteristics despite a relatively minor genetic profile. Other characteristics might be lost to mixed ethnicity quite readily, depending on the parentage. There's a good deal of freedom there.

Hopefully I'm making sense. This is all just fluff for your background though, so please disregard as needed.

@Hetu Hegirin, Thank you for pointing out the backstage forums. That is a whole repository of lore that I did not know about and must now spend more time than I really should pouring over :D