Intergalactic Summit

I will need to answer this with a full post later. I hope you can have patience, it is a series of very good questions.

Additionally mr. Thessalonia, stating definitive conclusion without providing argumentations, especially concerning sensitive issues like this subject, is diplomatically and politically unwise.

An institute supposedly intending to further the spread of knowledge should avoid this especially.

Ms. Sterna, I have explained you this before. Somewhere in the past of your ancestors over the past 700 years, no doubt someone has done something you think of as unjustified or unrighteous that still has an effect today. In fact, your whole line might be the result of some Matari tribal warrior taking another Matari tribal female against her will. It is lunacy to still fight to 'right wrongs' from 7+ centuries ago. It is even more idiotic to hold an entire people indiscriminately responsible for what their ancestors might or might not have done so long ago.

Can you also explain how you wielding a gun makes someone accept responsibility. If you were given a number of irresponsible Matari (adult, children, youths, whatever) how would you teach them to act responsibly.

Of course, any answer different from your methods employed on Empire loyalist would make you a racists and bigot.

Wielding a gun, Merdaneth, seems to be the only way we have left that makes any difference to your people.

We've tried political requests -- the Empire has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. We've tried protests -- yes, the Rebellion was a mild success -- but that only made you come down that much harder on the Matari under your 'care'.

Finally, after words have been exhausted, when the diplomatic overtures we make are rejected, and when the Empire refuses to make any but the smallest gestures -- which, I have repeatedly said here, are a starting point for lasting peace -- we choose open warfare.

Because your Empire pushed us to this point. And because we can see no other way.

If I was given the care of an irresponsible Matari, by the way, I would take them out onto the tundra, among the ice creatures and the cold, to show them the simple truth: that when you steal from or hurt another for long enough, eventually that other will rise up to fight back.

I am delighted that you accept that your ancestors were wrong. When and where can we meet for you to right that wrong and return all our people in your personal care?

Well, I'm not sure how likely it is for the Empire to accept responsibility at all. Now, as for effectiveness, looking at the facts:

- The Rebellion, "wielding a gun", freed quite a large proportion of Minmatar in under 20 years.
- A hundred years of peace and trying to coexist resulted in the kind gesture of 50,000 slaves being emancipated. Once.
- Attacking the Empire, "wielding a gun", directly freed tens of millions of people, and caused the dearest Empress to release hundreds of millions of our people in a single day.

So it seems to me that "wielding guns" is the only thing the Amarr accept. A little fact that annoys me to no end, as I was one of the proponents of this century of peace and attempts to coexist with the Amarr. I had the firm belief that the Amarr would, if just given some time, release our people. And I hate being wrong.

I keep an eye on them until their relatives come over and then return them. Why do you ask?

That is mostly true. But not quite. Protests and acknowledgements were done by the Empire over time. They were subtle, but the tendancy was here. Heideran and Doriam worked on the betterment of slave labor condition, and also on slavery regulation outside the Empire. Maybe it is not properly enforced, or hardly efficient. Maybe one can consider it hypocritical, at best. Naturally, and I may say that this one is probably right to say so. Much like the Republic is as much as hypocritical than the Caldari State or the Gallente Federation. This is about politics before ideals.

But the liberal trend was here. With the introduction of Tash-Murkon in the Five Families, the liberal side has not been more active than it was in the past decades.

But you can not continuously promise little gestures if the opposing side is not doing anything in the same vein (this is called negociation, and you need to be two of you to make it bear its fruit). You can not promise little gestures again and again without eventually doing something more relevant or radical about the crux of the problem (slavery of Minmatar people).

As good as your reasons can be to spit on the hands that have been offered to you, the result remain the same : you spit on charity and gestures of good will, and this is politically unwise. Wise, Midular was, but the majority of the Minmatar people was too blind to see it. Geopolitically, more good has even come from her in a day than from Shakor in his entire life.

What the Republic is currently doing is only proving to Amarrian hardliners that they are right (and they are actually not). What has always been tested for the Republic was its patience and insight. For a time, I would have said they succeeded the task, but for the last years, they have failed miserably, thanks to the Elders.

Eventually, the Republic perfectly knows that they will never win a war, and the Empire probably neither. They chosed the most illogical solution ever, which is highly disappointing. And then the Empire followed as it offered them the perfect casus belli. And yet, they are stuck in a meaningless proxy war with absolutely no result other than a direct threat to prosperity and civilisation in the contested areas.

What the Republic eventually achieved was only to stop the progress of good relations. Blind ignorants.



Apply the same principle to the Amarr citizens that the Republic steals from or hurt regularily. I have witnessed myself, especially on the Ammatar Mandate border zone. If you can understand why you feel that way and find excuse for your behavior, then you will surely understand why they react the exact same way in the opposed side.




What is that kind of logic ? A joke ? She could also have answered that for every Amarrian killed, the Empire would execute a hostage (a slave), an eye for an eye. Would you bet on that possibility the next time your Elders plan to attack the Empire on its core worlds ?



I am pretty sure that Amarrian warmongers accept it gladly, indeed. They might even celebrate it every time a gun is pulled.

I promised myself I wouldn't get drawn back into this.....

It's not the 'conditions' of our people's servitude, and it's not (entirely) about regulation, though that is part of the issue. Nor is it that the regulations are not properly enforced or efficient.

It's that the only steps we've seen the Empire take have been woefully lacking.

Improving the conditions of slavery? Our people are still slaves, Ms. Farel, and that is what we object to. I've continually maintained, and still do, that the Empire's small efforts are a good place to start, but they must be followed by steadily larger and larger efforts, or the smaller ones will be rendered meaningless.

We can sit here and talk about this Holder releasing her slaves, or that Holder working toward reform 'behind the scenes' all day -- what matters is actions. That's what we're not seeing, or not seeing enough of. If the Empire wants to reform, they should start there.

You still seem to think I am talking about my own preferences, my own goals and what I want to do.

I am not.

My own goals, my own preferences and my own ideas are irrelevant here. They do not matter. I did not want this war, but I was not asked, and so it is here. My nation calls, so I will defend it. Regardless of whether I think this war should have started or not.

Here on IGS, I try to have some constructive debates, analyzing why things happen as they do. For example, we have a war. This is not what I wanted, but that's irrelevant - it is what we have. Why do we have it? What do we think would be the sensible options to get out of it? I posted about this a while ago - my suggestions there were not what I want, either. They were what I believe would make the Republic and the Tribes think again about this war, and maybe seek a different path. My personal opinions don't matter there.

In the post you refer to, I was talking about effectiveness. You see, I face this discussion "over here" as well, not just on IGS. Someone comes to me and tells me: "Look, Commander, we have done what you suggested - kept peace, tried to coexist, tried to tolerate. What did it achieve? It made the Empire talk a lot and free 50,000 slaves as an act of goodwill. The moment we did what I suggested all along, the moment we took up arms, we were able to free tens of millions of our people, and the Empire freed hundreds of millions of our people as well."

What exactly do you want me to respond to that? "But it could have happened all differently"? That's nice, it could have - but it did not. I am afraid that I am out of arguments in that debate. So I concede that apparently, the Empire is not interested in returning our people unless they are forced to.

Now, what we - the people I discuss this with and myself - actually do depends on what the Sanmatar, the Tribal Council, the Parliament and the Fleet decide. My own personal opinions matter little there, as do my little debates with fellow soldiers. The latter only really matter to my personal pride. As I mentioned, I hate being wrong.

If my tribe and my nation tells me to stand down and keep peace again - that is what I will do. If they tell me to go forth and purge every single Amarr from this galaxy - that is, again, what I will do. My "good conscience", as you put it, is very low on my list of priorities.

Outside of agreeing to a peace after the rather successful rebellion, the banning of displaying the Khumaak from diplomatic talks with the Amarr (much to the upset of a number of Minmatar), very successful attempts to negotiate peace with the Mandate, granting of special development charters within the Republic to Empire corporations, hunting down of outlaw groups such as the Defiants who targeted Amarrian starbases and were, to use a quote I have seen used on Amarrian splinter groups within the Republic, "not our problem" (hunting down of who was, again, much to the upset of a number of Minmatar), up to actually not joining our fleet with the Elder Fleets that invaded the Empire, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that the Republic ever did for the Empire.

Now, the only thing we ever asked for from the Empire was the release of our people. In the last one hundred and thirty years since the Rebellion, what steps were taken by the Empire itself towards this?

I do not belief in arguments from authority, I'm afraid.