Intergalactic Summit

I've always thought of culture as a sort of double-edged sword, as it were. I think that isn't a majority opinion anywhere, but it tends to be better received by the Empire. The good things about culture deal with identity and unity. There are things that are very good about culture, especially that we move forward with good ideas. Culture also has a dark side though. Calcification. In the end, I think everyone needs to always step back and examine their culture and their methods.

One of the reasons I find the Scriptures so enlightening is that they are constantly undergoing scrutiny. There are similarly examine documents, usually legal texts, but I don't think any single set of documents has ever gone scrutinized so long without losing much of the original message. While many of our legal codes have been changed throughout the years, Scriptural doctrine tends to be very basic and underlines many key points that are necessary for any group of people. Following leadership, trusting the group to examine your decisions, to be charitable and humble. Time and again, these are the skills and codes that have formed the moral basis of our society. To this day, they've essentially born all of our good decisions. Failure to follow them is the cause of almost all of our missteps.

I think that's unique in the universe in that length of time. Strict adherence to a Scriptural doctrine simply produces good people.

However, we shouldn't be vainglorious about that knowledge. Our culture has not been static at all; we've often brought great infusions of new ideas from peoples we have taken into the fold. Sometimes it seems we are very megalithic, but this isn't true. While I think Caldari citizenship is very heavily based on ideas of state and code, ours is mostly based on a method of behavior and religion. There really hasn't been any reason to worry about cross-integration of our cultures because they aren't necessarily antithetical.

Take, for example, our project. We've had excellent success with our slavery education program by following some very theoretical books I returned with from Caldari space. The Scriptures don't mention in detail precisely how much work a person must do to maximize efficiency, but the Caldari have calculated this to a science. They show precisely how much recreation is required to keep a laborer from becoming mental complacent or suffering a breakdown. Best of all, they like to include education in their calculations, and know precisely how much education one can absorb and in what bouts before the information begins to blur.

The effect of implementing this has been remarkable. It produces slaves who have a clear drive towards citizenship and cultural integration. Something I think would be quite useful to anyone working with laborers, but particularly in our case, where our laborers are working towards eventual citizenship within the Empire.

Is introducing Caldari labor practices antithetical to our culture? No, especially since it's worked so well to spread the faith. Early estimates from the domestic program have showed a sharp reduction in recidivism among released slaves. The work, like Scripture, stands on its own. It works, and so I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing to incorporate into our practices.

Everything fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. God has bits of knowledge hidden everywhere that become necessary to find. One of two things will happen. Either we will all accept each others' universally good ideas, cast by the wayside the bad ideas, and begin to grow closer as empires, or an empire might refuse to take any lessons from another culture. I can guarantee, we are one culture that has no qualms about assimilating other peoples and strengthening them with the tenets of our Scriptures. Whether or not you initially take our methods under advisement, even my traditional people are only too happy to use those methods to better the people. I've enjoyed the rocket technology the Khanid brought back immensely.

That Reclaiming isn't something to be afraid of. One of the reasons that I believe the Reclaiming is inevitable if we continue to preach and follow the Word of God is because its system of moral behavior irons out the bottom. Used correctly, we eliminate major problems that other empires face. While our political decisions may not be universally popular, the Scriptures produce unparalleled cohesion and discipline. It trims the fat from human existence, priming the soul for enlightenment.

It tends to catch on, is all I am saying.

Maybe there's also a library instead of a pyre? There's a practical solution for everything, really.

Thank you, I certainly agree! We aren't a violent people by nature, only when we are propelled to those acts by the situation at hand. Trade, in general, brings greater prosperity.

I've tried to read the Scriptures - I was once gifted a 26-volume set of the more seminal works and have tried several times. I just can't seem to follow the language that's used.

I suppose that depends heavily on whether you believe the Scriptures are inimical with Caldari day-to-day life. As my lawyers explained to me, subversion would rely on the direct supposition that the Caldari government must be directly overthrown or altered. As that isn't part of my opening sermons, my religious message has fallen well within the law.

In the end, the Achura are to thank, primarily. They required legal easements for their spiritual growth and establishment, and thus I have registered through them.

Though I am regularly audited by the Caldari state, it is not illegal to disseminate information of a spiritual nature in your territory. As long as I do not directly advocate a political agenda, the Caldari State has no way to arbitrarily differentiate my message. If you'd like more information about our legal status in the Caldari State, you can always contact our attorneys there.

I actually quite enjoy my time in Caldari space. Because of the legal situation, it's probably the one place in space where inhibiting spiritual learning and discourse will spark an internal diplomatic incident. Since, as you've probably, seen, civil disobediance and violent subversion are not part of my ministry, I have every right to spread the Word in your space.

One thing I've learned the value of in this ministry are excellent legal services. They are worth more than any armor we've ever developed. If you'd like to expend some effort testing my legal representation, they have case materials already prepared in every system of every space where CONCORD maintains high security. Believe me, they are very good.

If not, all the better! We both save resources. Perhaps you would like some of our copies of relevent Scriptural material? In the process of combing them for details, you may learn something useful about the nature of fear. How it is a barrier to your personal spiritual health and progress, and the root of all unecessary conflict. I always welcome such scrutiny. To scrutinize, you have to read. Thoroughly.

Either way, I am not particular.

Ah yes. You appear to have been taught in the theological seminary of acting the vapid and empty poseur on the IGS with an intense focus on:

- Delusions of grandeur
- Ignoring facts or evidence
- Living in fantasy
- The creation of unsubstantiated claim-making
- Logical fallacy
- Emotional projection
- Circular logic
- Torpid opinion presented as fact

Congratulations, you've just made the grade of being in the top one percentile of IGS delusional pundits.

You should be proud.

However, if you think I am in fear of an inconsequential braggart such as yourself whose only claim to fame thus far as I can see is senile pedantry:

I'm not.

An amusing thought though I would admit, that I should be in fear of the Lord Vaari, Seriphyn Inhonores, Diana Kim and now Constantin Baracca's of New Eden.

Well, I must have said something fairly frightening. You don't see most of them lining up in my little corner of the IGS to tell me they are not afraid of me and that I am lucky not to be shot on sight. To understand other people, you need to see what they see and understand why they make the decisions that they do. Everyone can be boiled down to a few very basic points of interest.

Unlike most of the Caldari, you're somewhat more directly offensive, which I have always come to understand as a distinctly defensive way of viewing the world. People who are sure of themselves have no reason to attack anyone, so I understand your defensive nature to be related to your worldview. We extrapolate out from that point to wonder what it is about me that has so unhinged you that you feel I am a threat. As I am not a violent man, nor have I advocated violence against any people, I have to return to the arguments you've made.

You seem to have the assumption that I am lying, which I have also understood to be a complete denial that people of your culture cannot convert to the Word. It seems a rather calcified view of the world, and one that I can't say I have personally witnessed within the State. Certainly, military figures from the State have warned me against political transition, but that is par for the course. However, the idea that no one in the State would ever want to learn the Scriptures is an argument that I can see reflected back from, again, your worldview.

The rest not being very direct, I do assume you have a great fear of cultural diversity and assimilation. Otherwise, why the reaction? Pieter does not have these same reactions because he does not think my ministry would be sufficient to change any minds. Hence he interacts with me as a professional and leaves me be otherwise. Other Caldari you have seen here are not so harsh either. Certainly, they seem afraid of political change, but none seem overtly frightened or argumentative about my methods. Some have even directly contradicted you by showing interest in the Scriptures and their meanings.

What you have to understand, therefore, is that I see your arguments as not about me, but about how you see the world. What you fear, what you want, what you project as a supposition of the universe. You can tell a lot about who someone is by how they see the world and react to it.

All of which is a long way of saying that by your arguments, I simply assume you are afraid of cultural integration and assimilation. If not, why argue with me? If I really was so vapid and unenlightened, you've spent quite a bit of time being vexed about it. It all stands to reason. You wear that fear on your sleeve, but you do not need to be afraid of cultural integration. There are so many wondrous things out there in other cultures for you to see, experience, and even possibly absorb. Scripture is one of them, unique unto itself as a long-studied set of moral tales. Scripture teaches you to be without fear of other cultures because of the universality of our brotherhood. So many of the same problems and fears you experience are experienced around the cluster by various other people, some of whom live in quite different cultures than your own.

We really are all very similar, and there is nothing in any of our cultures that do not have corollaries in others. The great universal truth is that assimilation is inevitable because none of us really have that far to go. Conflict only hangs by a thread in the wider view of universal consciousness. We should not despair when that thread frays.

Something must be malfunctioning with my datapad, because it states that Mr. Heth was a Caldari laborer, I am sure it is wrong and young pilot humblebrag is correct, Caldari laborers are as meek as lambs.

Perhaps if he gave his sermons someplace other then barstools he would discovery the true nature of the Caldari people with sober eyes.

Look, gallentean kid, from all the peoples, who has replied in this topic, this description could be applied only to you.

Remember, Slaver, that we all have bad examples in our past. Everyone has a black spot.

Indeed, assumption and assertion is all that you appear to have and upon which you base your own particular brand of soporific platitudes to expound at length. If you believe in my present discourses with yourself I have been harsh, than that is indeed your own opinion and feeling that my words were injurious. This is not me being harsh, in fact I would say this is me only having escalated matters only very slightly with a minimal expenditure of effort for I have numerous duties to attend to in the prosecution of my present leadership position. This matter at hand is very low on my list of priorities to the point I would classify it as, "Idle amusement."

Now if you desire my kindness I will state a favourite saying of mine: "Ruthlessness is the kindness of the wise." As such I will endeavour to show you the full extent of my kindness when I deem it suitable given my present demands upon my time and energies to extend towards yourself the wish you appear to have that I grant you the pleasure of having the rope you have most graciously placed in my hands tied around your neck, just as you have been equally gracious in having dug a hole of your own accord for me to place you in. All your words thus far presented are now in the public domain, and even if you wished to change them, sufficient logs exist in publicly available databases, that I have the time and leisure to prosecute this matter in the manner I would deem most suitable -- for myself certainly, for yourself perhaps not so much.

However, just as it seems you are oblivious both to the length of rope you have placed in my hand in addition to the hole I see you digging, you are just as blind to the fact that my interest and amusement in this discussion was never to convince you personally (Indeed, an overly large ego might believe it to be so) but rather to engage in some nostalgia of the days I worked as a corporate lawyer. To use an argument you have used yourself, so that you might understand, if you believe my position is incorrect because it has not been endorsed by what you see as my peers (granted, the use of endorsement is better left in the fields of advertizing and propaganda not debate in my mind) then what does it say about your own position and claims when not a single one of your own nominal Amarrian peers has supported it here?

Perhaps you will find an answer of sorts if you come to understand that in the life lead by a capsuleer, ones own reputation is a valuable commodity, and that I am not here, again, to convince you -- indeed it seems you have failed to realize that your own thoughts are of little value to me compared to the potential verdict to be passed by what might be said to be your peers and the public at large.