Intergalactic Summit

No I'm saying the levelling of towns and villages to rubble is.

Sugar coat it how you like, not all of us have an issue with calling a spade a spade.

What I said was that "there was no organised effort to exterminate the Gallente."

Now, I draw much of my source from the History of the Gallente Federation, a publicly available Galnet article which gives the Gallente view of the conflict. Even so, it is quick to note that the violence against Gallente on the planet was spurred by the blockade, and originated in nationalistic actions by individuals. A portion of the Gallente populace in the Caldari separated, and began operations against the Caldari, which led to retaliation by the Caldari army.

Yes, this is bad, but it isn't a campaign of genocide. It's guerrilla war between opposing political and ethnic factions. And it was caused by the decision of the Gallente to use force - a blockade - against the attempt by the Caldari to secede.

And no, the Caldari leaders, operating from the colonies, did not have direct control of the planet. How could they? It was blockaded, after all. Moreover, both the Caldari and the Gallente were concerned about and condemned the violence on the planet. But only the Gallente had the ability to end the situation without escalating it. They refused, until the situation finally exploded along with Nouvelle Rouvenor.

In retrospect, and if one extrapolates slightly, it seems quite clear that the situation was intentionally exacerbated by the Federation government in order to provide a mandate for direct military action against the Caldari population on the surface. That the situation ran out of their control and ended up in the fall of the current government appears to have been an unintended consequence. This is merely speculation, of course, but there is no other reasonable explanation for a complete refusal to either negotiate with the nascent State or to intervene. The situation on Caldari Prime was engineered and controlled by the Gallente from the start of the blockade to the moment that the Caldari evacuation fleet drove them off...down to the decision to kill or return all refugees to the bombarded surface.

I suggest you read the article that has more details regarding the Luminate Era.



The Caldari army levelling "entire towns and villages" That wasn't retaliation against Guerilla warfare, that was striking against a civilian populace.


Any point when either side took the violence directly to the civilian populace was wrong, and both sides did so with a goal in mind, and that was to exterminate the other.

Well, it is largely the same story the Federation was repeating regarding Heth. Make of that what you will. It goes in a multitude of directions.

Ah, I completely misunderstood. My apologies.

Nonetheless, I must disagree, to a degree at least. Historically, the Gallente Federation has not seen treaties or ceasefires as an end to conflict so much as an opportunity to attack us by other means. The seeds of war will not be truly rendered lifeless until the Gallente conviction that their way of life is the correct one for all is also rendered lifeless.

So much pointless secularism and racism here.

Nice to see nothing's changed in the years I've been retired.

At some point, you silly children will see that the petty squabbles and historic greivances of your old Empires is a fool's errand. Be assured, the Empires themselves, the real power-brokers in each State care not for you, or these issues. In each and every case, they care only how they can control you. What passion they can inflame to guide you to their ends. What conflict they can create or continue that will herd their ungulate-like masses to their behest.

We are Capsuleers. We are immortals. We are above, beyond, the petty squabbles of Empire or State, and they LIKE it that way.

To them, the only good Capsuleer is a gullible nationalist Capsuleer. A force to be controlled.

But you can be beyond control.

You can carve out your own Empire. Your own State.

And your only rivals in doing so will be your fellow immortals.

Be assured, from a man who fought for Empire longer than most.....God did not see, the Empire did not reward, and Faith was, in the end, misplaced. So too the silly ideas of "tribe" or "democracy" of the masses of non-capsuleers on each small little world in each dominion.

You have been given a gift. One might expect you to use it more fruitfully than by simply regurgitating the same tired old hatreds of your planet-bound kin.

I note you ignored the entire point of my reply in the first place. The bombardments were falsly attributed by Tuulinen to the issues of tax evasion, when they were attributed to later events. This entire argument you have yourself created is nothing more than a distraction to a point that you managed to subvert rather than refute.


I couldn't care less for the rest of your one sided (and false more than once) historical view of events where nothing is your fault and everything is to blame on a race you hold in blind contempt to the point it has been impossible for years for you to hold a reasonable view regarding their affairs.

Especially when you use the false posessive of "you" I didn't do a damn thing you have used the "you" and "your" for. Nor do I represent it.

Take your nationalist rhetoric elsewhere Vikarion, preferably to someone it actually is relevant to.

I merely corrected your false comment as to why they did it. You claim the bombardments were a direct consequence of the "tax evasion" as you put it. They were not.

However wrong they were in doing it, they were for reasons far less petty.



Well that's a fantastic accusation, I'm sure you've proof as to why I believe they were justified.

Oh wait no, you're just pulling it out your backside. I've never believed that, and the only surprise is how you stoop low enough to use a strawman argument.


Correcting historical inaccuracies for the sake of clarity, and attributing the proper reactions to actions doesn't mean you agree with them.

See, I expect this kind of spin on deplorable actions from people like Vikarion, I had you held in better standards.

It doesn't matter how much worse the other side were, or the scale and magnitude by which they did it. Clever language doesn't cover up or make better what the Caldari did. The Federation was entirely wrong to bombard Caldari Prime, but trying to downplay the reasons as to why it happened is insulting to the countless who died leading up to it, and because of it.

I was right, you are a real piece of work Tuulinen.

I would point out that the reasons as to both why the Gallente and Caldari people remained at peace prior to the formation of the Federation and why the Caldari people decided to leave it twenty years later is due primarily to issues related to colonial and corporate independence in addition to economic factors. It was also a failure to recognize that despite the best attempts of the Gallentean Cultural Deliverance Society to change the nature of the Caldari people, to win their hearts and minds to liberalize and democratize from a culture the Gallente were parochial enough to see as flawed in comparison to their own. The era of Caldari Warlords did not end because the Gallente could point towards some simpering party officials playing democratic politics as proof of their success and the, "Manifest Destiny" of all mankind.

It ended because the Caldari Warlords decided to incorporate and instead of using the title of tirokkutun now became known as Chairman or Chief Executive Officer. The system of ruling through families, the cultural traditions of accountability and mutual obligation, the patriotism and loyalty owed to a nation-state, these all remained essentially unchanged in the entities that were to become Kaalakiota, Wiyrkomi, Sukuuvestaa, CBD, Hyasyoda and Ishukone. The Cultural Deliverance of the Gallente failed because it did not change the fundamental aspects of Caldari society or culture, only the means by which it was to be expressed. In part though, even if it is somewhat ironic, we do have the Gallente to thank for displaying the inherent advantages of corporatism and unrestricted free-market capitalism. For without the Megacorporation we Caldari may very well have destroyed each other in internecine warfare.

It was the corporation and never democracy that tempered the Caldari people. For now it was possible for Caldari to satisfy our aggression and competitiveness not by waging war upon each other and with the spilling of our blood but in the bond markets, the securities exchanges, and in the boardrooms. We beat our swords not into plowshares but into corporate institutions and the instruments of high finance. The free-markets were the new battlefields of choice and the corporations were the nations we served. Peace came to Home not because of democracy or liberalism but because there were now far more efficient and effective solutions to the realization of ones own destiny and ambitions than at the end of the barrel of a rifle because capitalism provided the means by which we no longer had to be a disparate people fighting over limited resources and habitable land but had at hand the unlimited growth and potential it offered.

That aside however, what I believe is central to any discussion regarding the War of Independence is the fundamental difference between a Gallente corporation and Caldari Megacorporation in that a Caldari Megacorporation is not just a legal artifact to distribute shares and pursue profit. A Caldari Megacorporation is a Caldari institution that also incorporates aspects of the Caldari Nation-State in that the notions of service, loyalty, patriotism and shared identity these nation-states fostered are also found in the Megacorporation. Your ignorance of this fact, Mr. Marellus, appears evident in the fact that you called Vikarion-haan a, "Caldari Nationalist" whereas I myself might have said he was a Kaalakiota patriot much like myself or Tuulinen-haan. I would even say the real reason why Tibus Heth was deposed from his position was because he made the grievous -- perhaps even fatal -- decision to think that his power was greater than that of the loyalty a citizen affords to the Megacorporation they serve.

It was the very same, fundamental error in judgement in recognizing just what a Caldari Megacorporation is, and what it represents for a Caldari that was the core issue in the Independence War. It was a failure to recognize that the Caldari Megacorporations founded, funded, and provided employment to the Caldari colonies that joined the Federation, and it was the Caldari Megacorporations they felt loyalty towards and not the political representatives the Caldari Megacorporations appointed and who signed the charter. It was a failure to recognize that the Caldari people, as a whole, cared little for the saccharine words and lofty ideals used to justify the formation of the Federation but in the tangible benefits offered economically through a unified currency system and increased trade and commerce by breaking down the barriers of protectionism and subsidization inimical with true free-market enterprise.

What became increasingly evident was that the supposed benefits the Federation promised to Caldari corporate colonies and Megacorporations never actually transpired. What did become increasingly evident was that Gallentean colonies and corporations were using the Federal system and their political majority to promote their own interests at the expense of the Caldari. Gallente colonies could use their lobbyists to maintain their barriers of protectionism and subsidies for their worlds. Gallente business could use their lobbyists to introduce legislation targeting their Caldari competitors. All the while, the increasing trends towards centralization of power in the Federal government meant a decrease in Caldari colonial autonomy, independence and the self-rule of the Megacorporations.

[Continued]