Intergalactic Summit

Luminaire, Gallente Prime, child of warmth and light, whispered what it knew to the Gallente.

A soft land, a kind land, a garden world where the worst people had to fear was each other (and that only a little, for abundance gives little reason to fight), it taught them the small truths, the important lies, that would smooth over their conflicts with their fellows.

No need for rigid hierarchy. No need for painful choices, or tight control, or clannishness, or all-consuming faith. Enough that each should live a life apart, individual, untroubled by the beliefs of others, unless that life should seek to dominate and control, for in a world of plenty the greatest threat is the lingering instinct for hierarchy, the longing for power.

The answer: not anarchy, which invites collapse into rigid order, but a structure of systematically limited control, power bestowed on the many, but power limited to inhibit the tyranny of numbers.

These limits, named as "rights," mark the lines that power may not cross. They are-- they have to be-- universal, or else meaningless. A right must be nuanced to avoid becoming, itself, a tyranny, but a right to be breached at will is unsound material to build a house from.

So the small truth is told that rights are inherent to living humans as breath. This is the great merit of the Gallente. The idea of "rights" tempers their passions, limits the majority's might, and dignifies the individual person. It is when "rights" are embraced even in the face of adversity that the Gallente are at their best. It is when passion overrides structure, and power overrides regard for "inherent" rights, that they are at their worst.

So the important lie is told that rights are inherent to living humans as breath. This, not their passion, is the great tragedy of the Gallente. Seeing that others do not hold with rights that are, to them, inherent-- seeing individuals suppressed, devalued, limited, even owned as possessions-- they object, as they must. Rights are said to be inherent and absolute, independent of culture or ruler, and so they must be protected and fought for, no matter who rules and no matter where.

They tell themselves that what limits their power over one another, the rafters of their house of individuality and freedom, should limit all. This will to spread their belief, though necessary to their own stability, makes them conquerors.

Were they alone in this place, there would be no tragedy arising from this: their way stands well on its own merits. Faced with other ways, however, the small truths that limit the power of human to prey on human become predatory, themselves.

Perhaps if the Gallente told themselves that rights are not forged of starlight, but of thought, if they recognized the human fragility of those agreements about What Power Shall Not Do, there would be no more need to fight. But perhaps the admission that rights are forged by humans, and not by the universe (and so are flawed and subject to rethinking), is the very last that they can afford to make.

There is so much wrong about these right, I don't know what to start with. Maybe I'll just start from the end.
The main problem is not gallentes became predators, but that they by their predatorship not just take power or minds of peoples, but prevent their advancement, damage efficiency and lower survivability.
I emphasized the word, because it will become the key in my answer.

The space is a harsh place. It is cold, empty and deadly. I am talking not about Caldari Prime, that made up our ancestors, and that is still affecting our minds. The whole universe outside is harsh. All planets are childs of extreme violence. Huge asteroids impact one into another with so strong force, that it melts them. The bigger the planet becomes, the more asteroids wreck into it, the more they melt, the more temperature grows, turning growing planet into big blob of molten rock. This molten rock is covered by tiny crust, on which life can develop. Should another huge enough asteroid hit this planet, the crust will be broken and the molten rock will be ejected, incinerating any life that developed on the unlucky planet. But, well, unlucky is bad word here, because there is no luck here, this is how planets are born and grow, and, eventually, all planets will meet this situation.

The space is harsh everywhere. Not only on such big scale, but on tiny too. Grab any small asteroid, that you can place on your palm, cut a tiny slice and look at it under electronic microscope, you will see it is covered with numerous hit wounds with melted edges. Small, tiny, huge, micro and nano meteorites bombard anything in space.

The life on a planet in space without atmospheric and electromagnetic shield is not possible. And the threat comes not only from debris, but from the whole source of life: the stars. The stars, that give all material in our universe. And by Maker's will some star matter has gained consciousness that became us. The stars are our ultimate parents, they are our source, and they are our end. The stars give us warmth, they give us light, they give energy to all life forms, and they can kill everything. Star is a place with the most harsh conditions in universe. It is a ball of superheated plasma, with temperature and pressure so high, that it fuses atom nuclei one into another. Stars are hungry flame spitting beasts with enormous gravity, that will tear apart and eat anything that comes too close. You all know what a star can do, just remember what happened with Seyllin.

The space is harsh on all levels, and we must be efficient if we want to survive. The Gallente approach is what will lead humanity to disaster, deaths and extinction. For the sake of survivability gallentes must be stopped. There are no "rights" in space, there are no "tyrants", "slaves" and "freedoms". But there are well defined hierarchies of objects, that born, live, evolve and die, as everything else in universe. It is a great machine, where everything takes its designed place, and if you cannot adapt, you will be crushed. There's no place for love and kindness in space, only death and destruction. Today humanity is able to build its own machines, some of these machines can save lives and protect from harshness of space, and others do the same thing as universe itself: they bring death and destruction. The humanity is one of these machines, but, unlike them, we have a rare gift: we can think. Machines and universe act mindlessly, according to plan that Maker or manufacturers bestowed upon them. They don't care about their parts and about their own survival. But we do. We must be harsh enough to eject some parts, to prevent us from falling apart, and we must be smart enough to predict consequences of our actions towards not just ourselves, but for those, who stand near us, and, eventually, for our whole species.

And what for Gallentes themselves, is there a chance to save them? Of course, there is. But nobody can help them except themselves. They have to grow up from their soft and warm cradle, and embrace the world as it is: cold and harsh place. If they start to understand, that all their merits, that they have developed so far, won't help them to survive, but counterwise, they might be saved.

Came in expecting the old Gallente are bogeymen and the Federation is the ancient evil of the universe rhetoric and was not surprised.

It never ceases to amaze me how you people are frightened of the smallest details about our society, how alien like it must be for you that each individual in the end in her/his own temple and at the same time in frequency with a massive spectrum that takes form as a super state, the Gallente Federation.

It is human nature to fear and hate what they don't understand however.

I found it quite interesting. Could you do it with the Caldari State too ?

You look at space and see "the Black". I look at space and see "Home". The lessons we choose to learn from it - and we do choose them - are not the same.

I do respect your opinions, Aria, but if you really think the lessons you choose to take away from a given environment are the same lessons "living things" in general will learn from it, I think you would do well to search yourself for some of the same cultural imperialism you seem so wary of in others.

There has never been any real armed conflict between the Amarr Empire and the Gallente Federation to my knowledge, except the recent rogue attack of Kador forces on Solitude, if a rogue vassal of the throne acting illegaly can be considered as the "Amarr Empire" of course, which is highly discutable.

I am not sure of what you are refering to, actually ? The diplomatic cold war that happened shortly after the Federation and the Empire met, just before Atioth when the Empire annexed an isolated and untouched minmatar colony ?

I accept - and am glad to hear - that you're not trying to paint astropolitan populations in the color of your Black. And you are right that we agree, to a large extent, on the existence of and dangers posed by capsuleer dementia.

I also accept your comparison between space and planetary oceans. Where I don't agree with you is when you step beyond that analogy to seemingly argue that space is so much harsher and more hostile than an ocean that it becomes downright sinister in itself.

Oh, I'll readily agree with the saying bandied around by many veteran crewpeople, that "space is a harsh mistress". There's no doubt about it. A relatively simple mistake or malfunction could potentially cause the deaths of thousands, and if you find yourself stranded with no hope of help arriving, you're effectively dead. But if a comparable situation happens in a planetary ocean, aren't your chances of survival comparable, too?

Maybe in some situations, an ocean is more forgiving of misfortune than space is. But in others, I suspect it is actually less forgiving. I have never been in a planetary ocean, but I do remember reading about Nouvelle Rouvenor in school, and what it looked like - in vivid, disturbing detail, complete with pictures - after somebody let the ocean in. That always seemed far more horrible and destructive to me than a comparable hull breach in a space station would be. And yet you find no shortage of people willing to romanticize the sea. It's the same with space.

I wonder, given the same political realities, only on a planetary scale, and given the same license to roam and kill (and the same luxury of infomorph resurrectability), would we capsuleers be any less demented if, instead of piloting ships through space, we were prowling the deep ocean in combat submarines? I somehow doubt it.

I refer to ancient history..... First contact between the larger, agressive Amarr empire, and a younger Gallente race that wondered what had just fallen on it from the skies.

http://eve-history.net/wiki/index.php/File:Timeline_amarr.jpg

23180 was the first contact between a race that pursued aggressive enslavery of all it encountered, and a smaller determined race of people that looked up at the sky and hoped that this new entity came in friendship.
Guess which team I'm rooting for in that Holovid?

Not much is written about those times - but it's pretty plain that the Amarr didn't just look at the Gallente and think "Hmm - no point enslaving them, they are so liberated and joyous we should leave them to their happy dance!"

We reacted. We became. We are. Gallente.

But everybody knows the Caldari left the federation because they wanted to print their own money? Or something?
We simply didn't want corporations telling us how to go about our business, as I try and understand it. That's a tyranny as well.
It must be! How can a corporation put my needs above its own?

I'm still reading. I hope to learn more about this.

But I have no real ill will towards Caldari, despite the conflict. I love some Caldari. I hate some others (But no more than I hate my sisters for example).

I just think there was a miscommunication along the way.

I can't say for sure for everyone else, but I believe the real struggle is against tyranny.
And the Federation is not a Tyrant, it is simply as big as the tyrants out there, so it can match them.

Your capacity to reject an individualistic culture is apart of one's own individualism. The Caldari are only against individualism because other Caldari tell them that they are. Besides, collectivism instigated from one's own free will is far more commendable than collectivism forced by a corporate dictatorship. The Caldari are socially conditioned to be collectivist; as I've said before, no one is born anything.

While individualistic cultures may create or even encourage undesirable societies, the ability to discern between good or bad is retained. Telling everyone what to do, the basis of a control state like Caldari, may produce results, but it removes the ability to think for oneself.

Anyway, what you call "tradition" is just dead people's baggage. This is how humanity maintains its cycle of revenge. We learn from the mistakes of history, but we don't let it control us, something the Provists and Patriots have a hard time understanding.