Intergalactic Summit

As I said in my good friend and colleague's thread, I'm loathe to bring these issues into the public arena. However, the actions of our leaders since they unceremoniously deposed the Midular administration have shown to be counterproductive to the overall strength and stability of the Minmatar nation.

It's time for us to demand answers from the Tribal Council and the Sanmatar as to why they've acted as they have and to learn what their plans are for the future. Should we find those answers not to our satisfaction then we should speak with our Clan and Tribal Elders to demand that those responsible for the debacles over the years be replaced by people who will act in the best interests of our people.

I'm afraid this may have something to do with us. It seems even when you are not enslaved, the Matari seem to have arrested development due to the Amarr.

From what I understand, every call for the Sanmatar and Tribal Council to answer for their poor performance is generally met with a chorus that involves the Empire. I cannot say I have my finger completely on the pulse, mind you, so do correct me if I am wrong. However, I have generally concluded that the Minmatar Republic's domestic issues are directly affected by military spending.

Take, for instance, the Elder Fleet. The money spent to build it could have been spent on infrastructure for your people. Instead, the Elder Fleet freed a few million more mouths to feed. Not necessarily a bad thing, but considering the money was not spent on infrastructure anyway, it puts a large strain on the Republic's ability to provide domestic services.

It's actually why we've seen some repatriation back to the Empire. Imperial infrastructure has always been strong, so some people were simply getting a better deal as slaves. I told most to look into the Gallente and Caldari ways of life before doing so if they came to me, but we did receive a significant amount of those Matari back.

So, to your point, I think the issue is a fixation on us. Perhaps an understandable one, but our name seems to be a good excuse for every bad decision your leadership makes. Or it might be that the fear of us keeps the Minmatar Republic following its leaders.

Even as threatening as the Amarr Empire can be, I think it is only a capsuleer's perspective that might make one think the Empire may only be the second most significant threat to the Republic. When you see it all from the outside, it seems obvious.

Then again, I am an Amarr hearing only complaints here from capsuleers and what I can gather from those Matari I minister to. My perspective is certainly that of an outsider's, and I mean no offense if I got it wrong. I would like to be corrected, if that is the case.

The hope for change through CONCORD was lost when your "Sanmatar," however skewed that word is from it's original meaning, ousted Karin Midular, and when Ambassador Keitan Yun essentially spat in the CONCORD Assembly's face. It seems to me you want to eliminate Amarr which, if that's the case, would confuse me since you also disapprove of Shakor's current policies even though that is essentially what he seems to desire most.

The whole issue with Colelie isn't that he made a poor judgement; the baseline Minmatar of the Republic seem to be perfectly fine with his actions against the Gallente. Though a few I've encountered wish it transpired differently, they mainly see his actions as justified. It's more an issue of misguided hate and anger than poor leadership, I believe. This general attitude among Matari in the Republic, and their willingness to lash out and anyone who doesn't do or speak as they wish is exactly why the "Amarrian Slavery Cultists" find it so impertinent to restructure the Matari race, instead of focusing on, say, the Gallente.

Certainly, as Baracca pointed out, the Amarr have some fault in things being the way they are. However, many seem to wave over the parts of history kept intact from our ancient times before the Amarrian occupation. The Minmatar people have always been a warring race, and it was a tenuous peace at best that kept the seven major tribes together. There were many tribes before that were simply exterminated or enslaved and assimilated before peace was forged on Matar...it was kind of similar to the peace the current four major empires had before the attack on Yulai...

-Eran

The argument can be, and has often been made that Shakor's focus on war is for the sake of defense (best defense is a good offense, etc.) and the pursuit of liberating slaves. However, I'm not going to argue against that. I hate to pose a hypothetical but I'm curious as to your answer, Ms. Rella; what do you think would happen if the Republic was successful in freeing all the slaves? What then? After years of hatred directed towards the Amarr, and a millennium of anguish because of them, would Shakor or the Elders stop short of genocide, or would they continue for the sake of defense and certainty that they'd never have to endure enslavement again? I would like to think a peace could be established but what I like to think isn't always reality.

Even if it is the Amarrians fault that there is such strong animosity against them, it is the Minmatar who are responsible for their own actions. Violence begets violence more often than not, but it is the victim who decides how they respond. Karin Midular tried to broker deals that brought spite from the majority of the Matari. Shakor brought war, albeit supposedly for a noble cause, at a great price for the Matari people yet he has held their support for the last five years. Yes, it is good that Nefantar and Starkmanir have been brought back from the ashes but this war rages on with no end in sight. Minmatar die every day in the low-sec regions for this goal of emancipation and I would wager there are more lives lost than freed as a result. The Minmatar people are slowly chipping away at themselves and their nation in the pursuit of this dream, destroying families and tiring the economy.

I'm not saying emancipation is an impossible goal, but the current means are not proving successful. Despite this, they garner so much support because of the hatred the Matari people have.

I am assuming in your second paragraph you are referring to people other than myself as I never said that the Matari can "simply 'move on,'" but that efforts should be taken to mend the wounds and find better ways to coexist in this universe with others. Allowing ourselves to brandish hatred as a means of survival isn't going to work. History matters, certainly, and we should learn from it. However, that does not mean we should live in the past. I certainly have marks on my past from Amarr; I did grow up in the Republic and was even enslaved (though I've recently found out during my piloting hiatus that it wasn't the Amarr who were responsible for that...) so I am quite aware of the terror and pain these issues cause.

With all that said, and I could say more but I'd be surprised if any cared to listen, I do agree whole-heartily with your last point that you made.



I will wish you and yours the best in this endeavor.

-Eran

These words are familiar to any Minmatar Titan Ragnarok capsuleer pilot as they are etched indelibly onto a plaque welded into the inner hull of the main crew assembly room. As capsuleers we don't often walk the corridors of our ships and directly interface with our crews and or our passengers, but I do not know of one combat pilot that has not walked the full extent of the interior their Titan once construction was almost complete prior to accepting delivery. As capsuleers we have a unique perspective of being able to relate to both the humbling majesty that a walk around the multiple decks that compose a Titan imbue upon our human senses with their scale and power, and then the unparalleled ability to harness and control that world shattering power and feel that enormity as an extension of our individual physical being when piloting a Ragnarok.

We capsuleers are human beings afforded a perspective few others in the history of humanity have achieved, we can experience first hand the physical intimacy of our loved ones and then with equal physical intensity pilot the most powerful war ships ever built by human hands as if it were our natural body. But it takes years to master the skills to successfully pilot a Titan, years climbing the ladder from frigates to capital ships to super carriers is a long tough assent. To be effective every rung must be mastered on the way up.

Being Sanmatar is like being a Titan pilot, and the Minmatar Republic is his Ragnarok, and the Matari are the crew and passengers. Our Sanmatar is piloting the ship of state like he skipped rungs and never learned the entirety of the requisite skills. The haphazard course he has set us on is indicative of the lack of strategic insight he commands, a solo Titan does not deploy alone into combat. We need the support of another Titan or two as in the ships of state of the Gallente and the Caldari people to deploy with us to eradicate the cancer that is the Amarrian Slavery Cultists.

I have read here in these capsuleer forums the numerous predictable whimpering of the slavery cult apologists as they toss about the word genocide with wide eyed fear hoping to engender support for their morally bankrupt assertion that the slavery cult should not be eradicated from New Eden. To you all I say only simple minded hypocrites would harbor such notions, did not the empires join forces to eradicate the Sansha? Where were your cries of genocide when every world in New Eden was subject to their inhuman slaving predation? I submit your voices joined the chorus that demanded safety and security from their monstrous expansion, and the combined military might of the empires responded with overwhelming force and a uniform commitment to eradicate the infestation of Sansha.

Make no mistake, the expansionist Amarrian Slavery Cultists are no different from the Sansha in the real threat they represent to the freedom loving people of New Eden. One day it could be a sad final chronicle for the civilized people of New Eden if the lament of the last empire to fall is “They came for the Minmatar and we did nothing to help, they came for the Caldari and we did nothing to help, and now they are coming for us and there is no one left to help us.”

The very real threat to all the civilized people of New Eden that is the irrefutable evil of the Amarrian Slavery Cultists must be eradicated.

I do not think we need a new Sanmatar.

I think we need a new Parliament and a new Prime Minister.

May I remind the good readers that Sanmatar Shakor came to power after a lot of government officials and parliament were awfully conveniently murdered and the Yulai incident threw us all off balance, right after the sitting Prime Minister had called for Shakor's removal from government? That he then called for removing the established system of government and its replacement by a vaguely defined "Tribal Council"?

What exactly is "tribal" about accepting without word the murders without trial of officials of the tribes, and then replacing the governing system of the tribes had agreed on by a system devised by one man's vision?

Keitan Yun and Malaetu Shakor would have you believe they know what the Minmatar nation was like before the Long Night. They would have you believe that what they are instituting is the "true Matari" way. This is nonsense. Not only can they not know any better than anyone else - that knowledge has been lost to us, stolen and starved and butchered and tortured to death by the Enemy - but even if what they state was true, we are not that nation anymore. The Long Night came, and it changed us, and the Matari we are now is not the Matari we were then. Living tradition matters more than secret knowledge of dead ways.

This foray into despotism and warmongering, under the guise of "tribal pride" and false claims into more traditional traditions than the established ways of living clans, has gone on long enough. I am a Sebiestor. My clan follows the Ways handed down to us by the previous generations, not the word of some Outsider about how we supposedly were some thousands of years ago. My leader was, and the Chief of my spirit still is, Prime Minister Karin Midular. I have no patience and no need for self-titled Sanmatars.

Elsebeth Rhiannon
Sebiestor Tribe
Warrior for the Republic

and, Drink!

My heart fills with hope at reading this. May your Tribe survive this long winter, and in its springtime return to the fields it once tended.

I respect the determination of the Matari but, whether or not they ask for help, you should not shrug off outside assistance so easily in my opinion. You may not like outsiders opinions or offers, but outsiders are often the only ones keeping our dreams afloat. See the Gallente and other organizations as an example...we could pose examples and questions as to how the Minmatar would be without such help but, rather than diving into hypotheticals, I feel the obvious presence of reality will remind you of the worst. The Rebellion would not have happened without them.

You know, things could be much worse.

You can disregard all the help and offers that have been made-your pride may warrant this; but if it wasn't for any so-called "help," we, as a people, wouldn't be able to present our opinions at all.

Moving on though, I haven't seen any Amarr claim they'd move onto the Caldari next. If anything, they'd move onto the Gallente next because that is the second greatest threat to their safety. Put as many words into the mouths of those you hate but, until you have proof, I'd be very doubtful of the connections you make.

The Caldari State has much more reason for being aligned with the Amarr Empire than "money," but if you must simplify it to serve your own means and dehumanize the enemy then there is nothing I can do to stop your ignorance.

-Eran

Speaking purely in a hypothetical scenario, if the State and Republic were to pursue a strategic political and military alliance I would say it would create a new status quo where the State and Republic together are able to maintain parity or above parity against either the Empire or Federation alone. Since it's extremely unlikely the Federation or Empire will ally together due to the deep divergence in their ideological foundations it would mean an inability by either alone to launch continued offensive action against a united State-Republic front.

The reasons I think such an alliance is impossible is because of Matari like yourself whom make it impossible. You denigrate the State and its citizens, attributing everything that it does is out of what might be said to be base motives -- to make money as you put it -- without taking into account the historical or political factors that guide CEP decision making. The State alliance with the Empire was made at a time when the Caldari State had been in a century of conflict with the Federation. It was signed in compact with Emperor Heideran who espoused the promotion of peace and the status quo, to the point he was instrumental in the formation of the CONCORD Assembly to promote those values.

If the State and the Caldari people had to choose at the time between a Federation that had displayed its own willingness to seek their subjugation through force and violence for over a century, or an Empire that espoused peace and accord then it's unsurprising the State chose alliance with the Empire at the time. Does this mean it will always remain so? It would be dependent on what the Empire decides upon as its foreign policies. If the Empire decides to embark upon a more belligerent or bellicose foreign policy in general, and towards the Minmatar Republic specifically, then certainly that might require a re-assessment of the current State-Empire accord. I do not believe the State has either the desire or the ability to assist the Empire in a military Reclaiming against the Republic.

However the measure of State intervention, if at all in the matter, will always be dependent on the governments of the Empire and Republic themselves. Whilst I'm personally ambivalent in having Caldari blood shed in the name of the Empire, I'm just as ambivalent in having Caldari blood shed in the defense of a Matari people who have continued to show outright hostility against the Caldari people and who, much like yourself, display a willingness to engage in continued demonizing and insults towards it.

If the Matari want the assistance of the State then at least be willing to show a modicum of respect towards it -- as the Empire at least have done -- and seek to understand the position its people and leaders feel they are in. For if all that is displayed is overt hostility and insulting attitudes don't be upset if all that is received is ambivalence in kind.