Intergalactic Summit

Sorry about this!

The word Gallente doesn't mean anything. No, you think it does, but it does not - and it especially doesn't mean anything to the people or ideas you're labelling as "Gallente."

Gallente is a language. [1] More than one, actually; Interstellar Gallente, Garouni, Lyacian Gallente, more. [9] Gallente is a collection of peoples; that is the generic word used to describe all peoples who live in the Federation, and that means the Mannar, the Jin-Mei, the Intaki, the Raata Caldari, [5] the Vox, and all those Minmatar, too. [2] That's the generic word for all Federation citizens, used by the Federation, mostly, because no one who lives planetside in the Federation identifies first as being a Federation citizen; loyalty to your member-state is by far the most important influence in a citizen's identity [3] Gallente refers to all systems and territories owned by the Federation, but it also means all of those places and organisations that operate independent of Federation borders that once had Federation origins - Scope, [8] Quafe. [7] It means the foods, the fashions, like the business suits the ethnic Gallente invented, or t-shirts- [6]

But wait, no, you OBVIOUSLY mean the ETHNIC Gallente? Well, that makes things a bit clearer, I suppose, but you must know that the phrase "ethnic Gallente" as the ethnic Gallente define it is an ethnicity and not a race, right? What you understand to be an Amarrian man - in appearance, in bloodline - can come to the Federation, say he is ethnic Gallente, then be treated as such. [4][10][11]

Oh, wait, do you mean the RACE of the ethnic Gallente, not the other "races" who "just claim" to be ethnic Gallente? Funny story, that. That hasn't existed in over a hundred years. We are a "harmoniously mongrelised" peoples; we've interbred so much, so often, that we don't have a distinct bloodline or genetic heritage anymore. Most ethnic Gallente have a respectable chunk of Caldari in them (heh heh) as well as Mannar, Intaki.[10][12] And don't get me started on what happened to our diversity on Gallentia. Don't get me started.

("Harmoniously mongrelised" is the academic term. Leave me alone.)

Hold on, you mean I'm making it too complicated? Ok, let me make it easier... Let's do this by region. When you're talking about ethnic Gallente, do you mean Solitude ethnic Gallente - those second union throwbacks? [13] Do you mean Sinq Liason ethnic Gallenteans with more of a mercantile streak since Dodixie became our major trade hub? [14] Or do you mean the ethnic Gallente trapped in the Khanid Kingdom, who have had their identities submer- [15] ok, yeah, that was a stretch. No one ever means the Khanid Kingdom ethnic Gallente. Yeah, I know, that wasn't very smart of me.

No, you probably think you're talking about the ethnic Gallente of the Luminaire system. But not the colonies there, not really, because that'd be including the Caldari who stayed after the State split off. You think you're talking about Gallentia, which you probably call Gallente Prime.

(As a side note, I think Gallente Prime sounds way less pretty than Gallentia. I know the Race-Prime nomenclature is the norm for homeworlds and I'm just being fussy and shallow, but I wish Gallentia didn't drop out of major usage.)

If you think you're talking about Gallentia, then you think you're talking about "the most Gallente of Gallente," the Garoun Gallente, and the ethnic Gallente of the Kingdom of Central Garoun. Caille. The quintessential ethnic Gallente, yeah?

(Cont. May a higher power forgive me.)

And this ended up being pretty good for all of these new states that answered to the Garoun Empire. They had more than a population boom - we had a bit of a renaissance! Not a real one, but it was a good time for everyone involved. Culturally, economically, technologically, they thrived like that. It was super cool. [22]

Yeah, of course, the Garoun went on to meet the Morthane Empire, and that was a mess. See, we were a bit religious back then - still are - and Morthane had their Lunaries which were totally opposite of the Garoun Lunaries and that was a problem for the Garoun. Then the Garoun Empire found out that Morthane had slavery. [23]

Most Caldari feel some sympathy and allegiance for the long-gone Morthanian ethics and identity of old, but I just want to make note here that the Caldari are the only peoples in the cluster who didn't practice slavery on their homeworld. I think they do themselves a terrible disservice by comparing themselves to the Morthane Empire, even if they feel a kinship with the more authoritarian, (ostensibly) non-interventionist styles of governance.

King Rouvenor didn't want that war. His people did. It happened. And neither side won. [23] It was only after two generations beyond that war that some version of this freedom-buzzword-loving satirical meta-libertarian culture emerged. The one you're probably thinking about when you say the rather inaccurate word Gallente. The hostilities with the Morthane Empire preceded the First Renaissance, so in a way, you could argue that a "love of freedom and individuality" was made to be contrary, reactionary, to the Morthane Empire - in the same way you could argue that the only true unifying ethnic Gallente pathology is spite. You could also argue that these new philosophies about rights and freedoms and governance were heavily influenced by the newly established international trading powerhouse that was - is - Hueromont. Take THAT, Caille! [24]

Anyway, the Garoun got mad at kings and emperors and whatever because that's not very freedom-loving. And Morthane used that as an opportunity to invade and destroy the Empire. What was left of a unified Garoun kept Morthane from dominating the region, but it sacrificed its unity in doing so. [25]

So that's a bit different from that idea that the Garoun Empire bullied Morthane into submission. In so many ways, the Morthane Empire was far more powerful than the Garoun continent, and it's possible that only thing that stopped it from dominating the region was the wide distance between the two. [26]

"But what about the proxy wars of the three bloc era!" Ok, look here you little **** - wait, sorry, I'm not talking to Charlie. No, I get that the telecommunications network had a homogenising effect, I don't dispute that, but that went both ways. Just as the populations of network users on the Garoun continent spread these ideas of democracy, Morthane spread back their ideas of authoritarianism, might-makes-right, domination. When Gallentia mish-mashed together during the years it was just the Caldari and ethnic Gallente against the empty stars, Morthane didn't disappear and become subsumed. Not really. It mixed together with Garoun and Hueromont... all the good parts, and all the bad. If you look at U-Nat ideology and rhetoric and compare it to the documents and recordings of Morthane long gone, you'll find too many chilling parallels. The Garoun successor states didn't just "destroy" the coherence of the Morthane. They destroyed their own. And Hueromont's, too! Like mutually assured destruction, except with an early precursor to the Galnet instead of weapons. Unless you consider Galnet a weapon. [27]

Informative!

To be fair to them, though, it's stupid complicated and it doesn't make much sense when you try to talk about it. Even living inside the Federation and identifying as ethnic Gallente doesn't guarantee a fluent understanding of it. "What do you mean, you're ethnic Gallente just because you say so? You're clearly Khanid! Look at your skin!" - "Oh, I see you're a racist." It's all a touch comical.

The important question, though, is whether you still get pinged by your equipment whenever someone says Gallente, Triss...

Gallente Gallente Gallente...

... and this is why the Federation must be destroyed.

(Come ON, people, it took until the 10th reply? None of you jumped on this first so she can't do it? Disappointing.)

hell **** yes on an open face **** sandwich, you even got the ****** bathhouses in there. Someday.

and cause somebody has to: CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIILLE FOR LIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE

First, thanks for responding, Aria. You're forever a gem.

Second, no, because these supposed Federation "entities," "policies," and singular "metaculture" doesn't exist as foreigners understand them, and there ain't no point in being racist against something that don't exist. Really, this term "the Gallente" is far more useful in showing that the speaker in question don't got no clue about what he's talking about or is an expert satirical producer. There's a fine, if debatable line.

When I'm not delirious in bed with sleep deprivation I'll drop another text tank about how those things don't exist with full citations. I think I can manage that in a single post without hitting the text limit.

Saccade, I love you and also you suck.

Pieter, sometimes I have private thoughts and then make mental citations for them in the CLA format. We have a spiritual connection.

Only, Triss? If these things don't exist, how come the Caldari (mostly) experience of them is so, well, vivid? It's not just State propaganda, I don't think? For decades, the Federation has exported a certain vision of itself, and a certain moral sensibility, through its media, which gets exported basically everywhere. The stereotypes the rest of us have about the Federation mostly come from such things, I think, and it's not like Federal policy is an incoherent thing, or very out of tune with those images.

If these things are illusions, where are they coming from, and why do they seem so real?

Personally, I kind of try not to make too many assumptions about people just based on what they look like. I'm half Civire, myself, not that this inoculates me particularly. But, virtually all New Eden's cultures other than yours seem to be at least a little "racist." The Caldari, with their obsession with pure bloodlines, and the orthodox True Amarr supremacists are obvious, but also a lot of Matari can hardly stop carrying on about how clever the Sebiestor are.

Myself, I'm not completely sure: how much is ancestry, and how much is culture? Is my tendency toward introspection because my mother was an Achur, or because I was raised Achura? Is my reckless streak because I'm half Civire, or is it just me? Or is it maybe that I know my father was Civire, and Civire are expected to be aggressive?

So I hope you won't feel like I'm just looking to nail down something to call "Gallente" so that I can point to it and say, "Gallente are like thus-and-such." Even if such a group existed, it's something I'd be pretty ambivalent about.

Only ... hiking in the highlands, I found a rock high up on a peak. It wasn't anything particularly unusual for its surroundings, "just a chunk of granite," you might say, but patterned, cracked, and weathered in ways that probably made it unique in all the world, maybe in the whole universe. I left it there, and traveled on a ways. An hour or two later, when I looked back, all I could see was the mountain.

The "original", written by you, seven months after my article.


Quite.