Intergalactic Summit

>>98Q-8O V, Moon 4 - Ishukone Corporation Factory
>>Syndicate

Effective immediately, all assets and operations under the Cal-Matari program have been freezed. Over the coming days, assets and employee contracts will either be merged with I-RED or sold off to bidding corporate entities. All non-State citizens who have received employment under the Cal-Matari Program will be paid a compensation for the sudden dissolution of the program, and be released from their work.

Any contracts or standings created via the Cal-Matari Program with I-RED are hereby considered void. If you are someone with whom standings or business contracts have been created via this program, please contact the appropriate member of I-RED command for any questions regarding the continued validity of such arrangements.



The decision for this action was mine and mine alone. Over the course of the past few years, I have had the dream of seeing a mutually beneficial, cooperative relationship between the Caldari State and the Minmatar Republic. However, recent events have made me realize that such a relationship cannot exist. I was naïve to believe so. I was wrong. The Minmatar are too self-righteous to accept any genuine assistance we have to offer. They wish to strive for self-determination in this big, dangerous cluster, then so be it.

With the program dissolved, I will focus my efforts in continuing to build the economy and infrastructure of the Syndicate constellation I-RED currently resides in. The native Intaki here, at least, seem to gratefully accept the assistance we have to offer.

I think I should also note that, almost necessarily, a relationship which involves one side "assisting" the other is not an equal one. If we are to have a peaceful, mutually beneficial and co-operative relationship with the Minmatar, then the first step is to stop treating them as the poor beleaguered kids around the playground who need a bigger kid to stick up for them.

No nation is without its problems, and we need to start looking past the Republic's flaws to see it for what it really is - a vibrant, strong and resurgent society that is building a new future from bad beginnings.

We, after all, would not accept "assistance". The very word smacks of condescension and would insult our accomplishments. Why should we expect the Matari to react any differently?

They aren't self-rightously rejecting reasonable assistance - they're reasonably rejecting self-righteous assistance.

Any improvement in relations between the Republic and anyone else is going to come about through partnership. The Amarr enslaved them in what they arrogantly thought was "assistance" for their immortal souls. The Gallente have been ploughing money into the Republic for years (and you'll note that the Republic thrived and built all it did despite that money being channeled off to a secret military project) purely so as to spread their own ideals of how a government should behave. And now you want the State to do the exact same thing? Has it not occurred to you that maybe what the Republic wants is for one of the other governments to look at them and see a nation rather than a backwater?

I would - politely - suggest that this attitude may well lie at the root of your project's lack of success.

Pathetic.

This sort of thing was inevitable. The Minmatar are not culturally compatible with us.

Caldari, like Amarr, believe that freedom is a reward for one's deeds, even though the paths our races choose to reach said freedom are different. An Amarr citizen may have started as a slave, attained religious enlightenment, be freed by his master, ascend in society, come to own his own slaves, and in turn free them as they become enlightened. A Caldari citizen starts out as a worker, advances to manager, then company owner; if his company performs, it is bought up and integrated by a larger company; he gains employees to delegate to, greater freedom of business decision. In each step, while his responsibilities grow, so does his freedom.

The other two races active in the cluster are quite different.

The Gallente taught us Caldari what their idea of freedom means: the freedom to be like them. The Minmatar, like the Gallente, believe that freedom is innate, undeserved, un-earned, and available from birth (or should be) - no doubt due to the close relationship Minmatar enjoy with the Gallente and their culture of debauched permissiveness.

You wonder why diplomatic communications and partnered efforts have failed and this is your attitude. If your entire vision wasn't obscured by Amarrian backside you could withdraw your tounge and stop being an Amarrian puppet. (stop licking their ass)

There are long established historical precedents of Slaves being freed in the Empire. The Ni-Kunni, in particular, spent very little time as slaves and my people even less so. I say this not to try and change YOUR mind, which I know is irrevocably fixed on your strange and sad little obsession with denigrating the Amarrian way of life, but just in case any other readers are not aware of your past-history.

Yes. A Slave is free to improve his standing in the Empire. There is a posting from my own Corporate CEO yesterday where she freed Slaves and, as part of their manumission, is prepared to offer them employment with the company, sponsor them into other companies or fund their travel to places outside the Empire, if that is what they choose.




I've visited some of the worse worker's barracks in The State. I wouldn't keep my Slaves that way, I wouldn't kennel my hounds that way, actually. The lash may be absent, but the indentured contracts are present, the stipends paid in company script are there, the company store is there, with it's inflated prices, and the Provists are there, too. And the beatings, Stitcher, the beatings for failing to meet quota also can be found.

Of course, I'm not denigrating your way of life. There are also truly enlightened companies who treat their employees as they should and practice true meritocracy. Just as, I'm sure, there are Lord Holders who treat their slaves abominably and ensure their lives are every bit as harsh as you claim. The difference between you and I is that I can look past Gallente propaganda about The State and see the good as well as the bad.

Knowing what little I know of your lifestyle, Captain Shogaatsu, I'm surprised to hear you use the word "debauched" as a pejorative.

Be that as it may, I fundamentally agree with your views of the differences between our cultures, though with a few subtle but important differences and caveats.

Anyone who thinks that a corporation resembles a Tribe or Clan does not understand either. A communal identity does not necessarily equate to a tribal one.

NO. No they are not. Nor will they ever be. the absolute and most fundamental definition of a slave is that they are NOT free to improve their standing. They are a slave and will remain a slave until they die, escape, or are freed at the whim of their master. There is NO circumstance in which a slave rose to become a respected citizen of the Empire without somebody else, earlier in their life, first making the decision to free them

This is an extremely basic point: Citizens advance through their own initiative, skill and effort.

Slaves CANNOT advance until they are freed on the initiative of others

Dire circumstances exist all over New Eden. Whether it's worker barracks in the State, those prefab immigrant villages in the Republic, meat-grinder slaving operations in the Empire or gang-ruled, addict-haunted slums in the Federation, rock bottom doesn't look all that different anywhere in the cluster. they all wear the same expression and I daresay the day-to-day experience is little different either.

It's the principle that makes the difference. If you wind up in the barracks in Caldari society, it's because you failed and failed hard. Ours is not a forgiving system. Ours is not even a forgiving morality - I don't know if it's purely cultural or if there's a genetic component, but what you have to realise is that we are not prepared to let the failures of a few diminish the accomplishments of the majority.

Next time you visit a barracks, take the opportunity to watch how many of the people living there show signs of alcohol or drug dependency, and/or are smokers. The figure is upwards of ninety per cent.

Those "inflated prices" you mentioned? Tobacco and booze are where most of those people's meager wages go, and the prices are steep indeed.

All it would take for them to leave that forsaken place would be to stop smoking, stop drinking, clean up, save up, work hard and start climbing the ladder again. The opportunity is there, beatings or no beatings. Their ascension is as far away as their own willingness to reach out and take it. This is true in even the worst of the worst.

A slave? No matter how hard they work, no matter how diligent they are, no matter what they may aspire to, they simply do not have that luxury. They. Are. Not. Free. Their freedom and rise through the ranks of Amarr society happens purely at the sufferance of the people who own them. No matter what they do, their ascension is forever outside of their own grasp. This is true even in the best of the best.

And I can hear your rebuttal to that coming a parsec away: "it is within their power to embrace God." If you wish for me to accept that, you must first demonstrate that your god exists, in a way that would satisfy even the most basic burden of proof. Until such time, you may as well be saying "it is within their power to agree to be brainwashed".

Slavery at its best is still inferior to freedom at its most brutally uncompromising. The former may be more comfortable, but the latter is empowered.



I'm open to being educated on the technical difference. For myself, I would assert that anyone who thinks that a Corporation doesn't resemble a Tribe or Clan does not understand either. We'll get nowhere by just asserting things at each other though - how about we start using reasoned arguments instead?

Here's the difference.

Caldari corporations, Caldari loyalty, Caldari family, are based on performance and profit. If a corporate member fails in his job, he loses his employment, his home, even his family. They all turn their back on him. He has two choices, exile or suicide.

This is not a Matari clan. This is not a Tribe. Yes, yes, you can speak of outcast Voluval marks and Vo'shun and some staunchly conservative clans traditions regarding such. But such marks and conservative traditions are noteworthy that theyre the rare exception, not the rule.

But the basics are this. Caldari corporations, even ideas of family, are based on nothing save performance and efficiency and ability to function as the megacorp would have you. If you fail in this, you are no longer "family".

The Caldari concept of the megacorp as a "community" is simply an effective means of team building to improve profits and efficiency for the corp. Once those profits and efficiency are gone, then so is the illusion of family or "clan". Without profit, conformity, or performance, its tea or exile.

For the Matari, for a clan or Tribe, we do not give up on our own. Perhaps, even when we should. Our bonds are based upon traditions and blood, not profit margins and managers reports.

A Matari will gladly give his life for a kinsmen in a Holder's slave pen, perhaps even a distant kinsmen he never even met. Caldari parents will ask their son to disappear or kill himself if he fails to live up to their Megacorp's demands. That is the difference.

That's how you see things, Gottii? I think you're painting us Caldari as more cold and performance-driven than we actually are.

I personally come from a loving and close family, members of whom have been... less than the State had hoped of them in the past. we stuck together. So, please don't assume that we're just about what's profitable and dutiful. If we were, the homeworld would still be in Gallente hands, after all.

but I most concede that you're right about the difference between Clan and Corporation. I hadn't looked at it that way before.