Intergalactic Summit

Well ... that's natural. If either faith gains majority voting power, your society's likely to change a little. Most Imperial Amarr seem to see the faith and the Empire as kind of one and the same. I wonder whether Amarr outside the Empire see it the same way, though.

Those I've met ... it seems maybe not?

Anyway, I'm still an Achur, Mr. Syagrius. We have several monasteries in your Federation, but ... well ... that means exactly that. Several monasteries; probably a few thousand Achura.

Although! We are of course planning to spread aggressively and bring you all under the righteous rule of the Elder Visionaries! Soon all shall bow before us! Bwahaha!





(That was a joke, if it wasn't obvious. ... though I guess you might have to be an Achur to understand just how funny such an idea is.)

(We're about as aggressive as toast.)

Now if I said anything like that to any capsuleer in public there'd be a huge outcry of "how rude!" and "do you have to always be so negative" and all that.

Which brings me to the point.


This is a fact. In the end, if the humans do not want to stay in line, the only thing that will make them so is force, and sometimes not even force - individual humans can sometimes choose to die rather than submit to force.

However, it is a very simplistic view of the universe, so simplistic that this fact alone tells you almost nothing. It's like saying "in the end, everything must follow gravity". That's a fact, too, but you cannot explain planes based on only that - let alone spaceships.

There are many ways to "make" people do things. They will follow words, they will follow loyalty, they will follow love, they will follow glory, they will follow status. They will follow mana - influence. Some people have it. Some people get other people to accept things, to do things, without the threat of force, without the threat of anything - they get people to do what they feel is necessary because those people will want to do it.

In the end, there is only force. But the trick is not to let it go to that end if you do not have to.

This is especially true among capsuleers. There is only so much force you can put on any of them. You can kick them out of a corporation and you can force them out of a region of space, but that's pretty much the limit of what you can by force.

So you need other ways.

Else

Careful, James - they'll try to steal your shoes!

That is disturbing on many levels.

He's messing with you (and us) a little, Mr. Syagrius. It's customary to remove shoes inside a temple or similar space, and sometimes throughout a whole monastery (depending on where it is, which sect runs it, and how it's designed). Practice, meditation, and prayer is all typically done barefoot, in stocking feet, or (especially in colder places) with special indoor shoes or slippers.