Intergalactic Summit

And if I had to paint every star red with the blood of every man, woman and child with even one drop of Caldari blood in their veins to keep my homeworld safe, I'd do it, without hestitation. I would desperately search high and low for any other possible option first - amicable peace between the State and the Federation being the preferred choice - but if there was quite literally no other option, I'd do it. Don't get me wrong, I'd feel like the universe's worst monster, but I'd feel that after I'd made my homeworld safe.

Glad we understand one another.

Ahhh but how often does that happen? There's a reason why Heth's story captivated so many people. It's a true anomoly. As would the same situation be in the Federation.

And that assisted genocide wouldn't go so well I'm afraid. Heth could of obliterated Gallente Prime but he didn't, for he knew that all bets would be off after that. We could commit any atrocity, no matter how vile and cruel, and get away with it. And we would, unfortunately, do such things as history dictates that the Gallente are very vengeful.

You're talking like it would be the first time you guys have tried to crush Caldari space. It would be exceedingly expensive, I'm sure, but the Caldari Navy was designed from the ground up for the mission of defending Caldari space from the Gallente Navy. Military experts suggest that whilst we couldn't carry out a successful offensive general attack, we're more than capable of a holding action. If we weren't, do you think it wouldn't have happened already?

Anyway, setting that aside, I want to point out that I would also have regarded such an operation as a last resort. The point wasn't to make a threat and rattle a saber that's already ringing like a bell, it was just to point out that the real reason Caldari Prime happened was that it represents a 'red line' for the Caldari that it doesn't for the Gallente.

Again. I'm overjoyed that a peaceful solution was found.

As for Heth, I agree that it's unprecedented for a MTAC driver to become Executor. I was careful to note that social mobility of that sort requires a couple of generations, usually.

How is it an instructor put it to a Gallentean exchange pilot before the war? "When you're good you're very, very good and when you're bad we're watching."

I'm not meaning to be contentious, Fred. I honestly don't see anything contentious in what I said, but I know this is a subject about which it is impossible to talk without ruffling feathers.

I must admit, I'd thought much more of you before reading this. I don't usually like insulting people directly, but you'll have to forgive me this one lapse.

You're a damn fool. The only thing I'm wondering now is if you'd be too busy fighting a war of extinction between two races to actually have the time to victoriously revel in your freshly reclaimed pile of ashes.

You would do your people no favors by trading their lives for dirt.

I suppose that's going to depend on whether either of you end up owning it. We'll all have quite the egg on our faces if it ends up being Blood Raider territory when all is said and done.

The Blood Raiders seem a little occupied elsewhere.

I'm perfectly happy with the new Status Quo. You won't catch me rabble-rousing to lead a fleet back to Luminiare to repudiate the treaty.

"Everything" is a rather nebulous term. And while I can surmise your meaning, I find it odd that you would ask me if I were willing to sacrifice "everything" when I sincerely doubt you would be yourself (should I choose to pursue the concept to the extreme).


Perhaps not, though the optimist in me likes to believe that the difference in thought lies not between nations but between individuals. That, at least, provides hope for some small reconciliations.

I love Intaki, Mr. Tuulinen. All of it. Intaki V most of all. Call me arrogant or condescending if you wish, but I think I carry a love and appreciation of the home-world of my people stronger than almost any Caldari possibly could for Caldari Prime. And that is because I actually know my world. I was born there, raised there. I grew up surrounded by both its fascinating wonders and its more trivial and mundane facets. I could list off the numerous cultures present within the communities spread throughout my home, their quirks and oddities as well as their important contributions to our world and our people as a whole. I am no stranger to the beauty of its mountains, its seas, and its jungles.

But there is one thing I love more than Intaki, my home, and that is the Intaki, my people. And if faced with the choice of losing Intaki forever to outsiders or engaging in an act that would bring ruin and devastation to not only my people but countless others as well, I would let Intaki fall ten thousand times over. Because for my people to do what the Caldari almost did would be to strike a blow not only to our population but to our spirit that would be far more devastating than simply losing a planet.

To lose Intaki would be terrible, no doubt, and would leave a scar on our people that would take a very long time to heal. I imagine you understand this particularly well. But to lose ourselves, body and spirit, to hatred and vengeance would be a fate far worse. It is my belief that the while the former situation would leave my people (or any people for that matter) hurt and homeless, the latter would leave them dead. And while the Intaki people might physically survive, their numbers would be greatly diminished and the culture, the heritage, which had guided them and their ancestors for ages would be buried alive under the weight of the sins they had committed and the corpses of the innocent they had sacrificed.

I realize that was kind of a lot, and I'd honestly not intended to type that much, so I shall leave you with this: no, I would not give "everything" for my home-world. I would fight, certainly, and many of my kin would give their lives to protect their home and their families. But there is a line that I would not cross. I like to believe that most of my people would not either. And while I would mourn the loss of our world, I like to think that I would look forward to future prosperity rather than dwell hopelessly in past glories.


Your self-righteous anger blinds you to the rather obvious answer: that dirt was the foundation upon which normal, innocent people had established livelihoods and families.

Enjoy the reclamation of your "home". A home you never truly knew. But don't you ever forget that you accomplished this by doing to those people the exact same thing the Federation did to you. And it is only thanks to the integrity of one outstanding individual that you did not, inf act, do even worse.

That said, I hope the Caldari make the most of what they have taken. I really do. To do otherwise would be disrespectful to the lives, both Caldari and Gallente, destroyed for it.

I can certainly understand how you might not understand the thought processes that might lead to ordering a large-scale bombardment of an enemy world. I can empathise, because I certainly didn't understand how Heth came to the conclusion that the Oblivion needed to be fired at Home. As you say, Admiral Yanala was a superlative individual and a true Heroine, to be able to accomplish what she did, despite the terrible cost - and the disadvantage it placed us at during the ensuing Fleet Engagement.

Despite Intaki's regular changes of 'ownership' I imagine very little of the War actually touches her surface. The only Intaki who will flee are ones who will spend the duration of the occupation singing patriot songs in certain themed bars, elsewhere in the Federation. It's certain that the State will not ethnically cleanse whole neighbourhoods and move Caldari colonists in, only to use those same colonists to bar your return.

I often hear the argument, from Federation apologists, that simply because it's been two centuries since a true Caldari was born on Home, we couldn't possibly have any connection to it. We haven't even seen it! Except, of course, that all my childhood stories in the creche were based on Home. I lived on an orbital and I knew the difference between Hail, Snow, Sleet, Slush, Free Ice, Pack Ice, Black Ice and so forth. Wisdom whispered to K'vire and Deteass was passed on to me - no less taught to venerate the ancestors who are still imprisoned in the ice of Home just because I have no idea from who my immediate bloodline springs. Can you understand that? It was deemed that the identity of our parents was unimportant to my sibkin and I, but tales of how the Raata split to become the Fuukiuye and Oryioni and then joined again to found the Raata Empire were deemed vital.

Here is something I know, man of the Federation. When you take that first long step out into space and come to know other worlds, if you don't keep your other foot planted firmly in that dirt that you hold so cheap then you lose something important and unique and special. Something that makes you you. Don't be in such a damn hurry to leap into the melting pot.