Intergalactic Summit

Since, apparently, contrary to what I said in the original post, I do need to spell out my feelings on this, here goes.

Yes, it is possible to join the Empire Militia for reasons other than the wish to support slavery. Some of these possible motives are entirely honourable: the wish to defend your homeland and your kin from an imminent invasion is hardly something that we can begrudge anyone. The state of war between our nations is as regrettable as it is inevitable, and many good people on both sides are drawn into it against their will and despite the larger picture of politics.

So, I would say that it is entirely possible to not be pro-slavery and be a member of the Amarr Militia.

However, I would not say it is possible to claim you are actually anti-slavery, while your clearest association in space is that to the Empire. What you fight for directly contributes to The Reclaiming and the status quo of the Empire. No matter how much you talk, your actions speak louder than your words. You might certainly wish you could be truly anti-slavery in actions as well as in words, but in the choice of fighting the Empire's war, you put that sentiment aside as secondary to the need to defend your nation, and consider slavery the lesser evil to being invaded by the Republic.

Mind you, if you are a free Amarrian citizen, I am not saying you are in the wrong. You are under attack. We do threaten your home and your kin. Your choice is between a moral evil and a personal threat, and I do not envy you for having to make it, nor pretend that I can advice you on the most honourable course in your particular situation.

But what you need to do, if you want to remain honourable, is to acknowledge that this choice exists and that you face it - not pretend that you are not making it.

Elsebeth Rhiannon
CEO
Gradient, Electus Matari

Last night Nicoletta Mithra picked me up at my place around 6pm planetary time. We went to dinner, some Achuran sushi place near Niarja. At length we discussed the use of reclaimed motor oil in planetary vehicles. Later, she dropped me off at my suite. I wasn't really feeling the whole nose tattoo thing, so i didnt invite her inside despite her innuendo. I told her she needed to learn to be patient and just gave her a gentlemanly kiss goodnight then went in and watched a rerun of New Eden's Next Top Model alone with a big bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

Will I call her again? Maybe, but not likely.

Well, the text reads: [T]o reclaim the Minmatar from the drudge, chaos and inhumanity in which they currently dwell, and into God's light. We are their angels. We must be their saviors. By your power they shall be rescued from the dark.

You (and 1-2 other Amarrian pilots here on IGS) seem to argue that this does not refer to slavery at all. What exactly do you think will happen to the free Minmatar if the 24th Imperial Crusade should be victorious? (I'm sure you understand that we'll have to make sure that this remains a purely theoretical exercise.)

Well, if you do not join any fleets with other 24th Imperial Crusade pilots and do not communicate with them (suggesting tactics, fits, scouting, etc.), you could probably argue that the membership does not at least in part support slavery

But even in that case, resecuring Amarrian systems occupied by the Republic returns many Minmatar into slavery. While it is securing the Empire, it is also supporting slavery.

I've been accused of black-and-white thinking a lot in this thread (and the other), but that's a bit confused. I can see the shades of gray quite well. People want to defend their home, and that is both understandable and commendable. Sadly, you can not defend the Empire as is without defending all of the Empire as is. And slavery is part of the Empire. That some Amarrians would like it to end is commendable, but does not affect the situation right now. That's the greyness: While people would like to be all white - "I only defend the Empire, not slavery!" - that's impossible. You have to accept that greyness in your actions. Just because actions are not all black does not make them all white.

(Also, there seems to be a confusion about language. "You" can be 2nd person singular, but also a general "you", as in "someone"; some people seem to take a lot of my uses of "you" in the second sense as referring to them personally. I'm not sure how to fix that.)

There have been a few millennia of examples that make that equation rather ... prevalent. On the other hand, I am not aware of counterexamples. Do you have some other examples?

Strictly speaking, the equation according to the Scriptures would be "Reclaiming" and "Conquest", not so much slavery. Slavery is just what has happened every single time the Empire conquered anything.

Heh. Season 1 or 2?

You are just upset because I haven't returned your calls.


Season 1. The episode at the grocery store with the watermelon hats and chocolate pudding outfits.

Do the intentions matter to the question at hand?

If you find it likely that the victory of the 24th Imperial Crusade will lead to slavery, supporting them in any way is actively supporting slavery. For this, it does not matter whether you want that to happen. Or whether that's the reason why you joined the Crusade in the first place. If that is what will happen, your actions will have supported it to come to pass.

That's the grey area. You can not be all white simply by not being all black.

What false dichotomy am I forcing on you? All I'm saying is that you are supporting slavery by being in the 24th Imperial Crusade. I'm not claiming that you are a cruel, evil slaving bastard. I even said repeatedly that it's quite possible that you honestly wish for slavery to end. All I'm saying is that, with fighting for the 24th Imperial Crusade, you put the defense of your home above your anti-slavery (and I even said that I understand that prioritization)

Just because you are not entirely black does not mean that you are completely white. Accept some shades of grey.

Neither you nor me can dictate what you can or can not be.

We both can only try to explain why the story that you tell yourself reflects reality or not.


A good man once saw an evil robber beat up a grandmother and take her purse. So the good man took out a gun and shot at the robber, lest he escape with the purse. I'll not tell whether he hit or not - that's irrelevant to the story.

The discussion in this thread is about whether this man can call himself a pacifist.

Some Amarr feel that claiming that he is a pacifist is fully justified: He shot at the man not with the intention to kill, but to return the purse to the grandma. It wasn't even clear if he would hit the man So why wouldn't he be a pacifist?

On the other hand, I disagree. By shooting at the escaping thief, he gave up the principles of pacifism. For this, it does not matter whether he had good intentions or not. He might be a pacifist in general, but in this situation, he left his principles of pacifism aside and put other things on a higher priority.

If you join the Tribal Liberation Force, you support the outcome of the war that will happen when the TLF wins. If you believe that that will result in a genocide of the Amarr, then joining the TLF supports a genocide on the Amarr.

I already said so quite early in this thread.

You can not support an organization without supporting what the organization is trying to achieve.

You might not like it, you might prefer otherwise, but your support to that organization is still supporting that goal.

Let me see if I can explain it. Maybe you do then - or you can explain to me why the logic is flawed.

Ok, some premises.

First, we're talking about degrees of support, not "full support/no support at all". You can support something to various degrees.

Second, this presupposes that you (general "you", not "you, Caellach") believe that the 24th Imperial Crusade's victory will result in (at least) some slavery. If you honestly believe that there will be no further slavery then, I would call you naive, but I'd agree that you are not supporting slavery.

Now, my thesis from my first post in this thread:

You can not join the 24th Imperial Crusade and be strictly opposed to enslaving the free Minmatar.

Let's start with the simple (extreme) case.

Standard supporter of the 24IC. Works to occupy Republic systems. Under premise (2), he directly supports the enslaving of these people. Here, it is irrelevant as to whether this occupation happens because it is the smartest thing to do in this war, or whether they occupy these systems merely to establish a buffer zone, also regardless of whether the pilot in question personally likes slavery or not - the people on these planets are going to be enslaved, and that happens due to your support. That is, you support slavery.

Then we have a less clear case: The case of the pilot who only defends Amarrian systems, but does not invade the Republic. I.e. defend the "status quo."

I would agree that this pilot supports slavery less than the pilot example above. But I would disagree with the idea that he does not support slavery at all.

This is likely the clearest in the "resecuring" scenario. If a planet is occupied by the Republic, the slaves on that planet are nominally "free" now (as per Republic laws; in practice, this takes quite a while to enact). If you fight to resecure that system for the Empire, these people are returned to slavery. This happens regardless of the exact motives the pilot had. Let's say the claim that there will be a genocide if the TLF wins is true (I'm not sure we have supporting evidence for that, but I do think that there will at least be some unnecessary deaths). You could argue that you resecured the planet to protect the Amarrian people on them, not to re-enslave the Minmatar. This is noble and understandable, but it does not mean that your actions did also re-enslave the Minmatar.

This is also true to a lesser extent for planets never occupied. By defending them, you prevent the Minmatar on them from being freed. You might want to free them differently (e.g. by reforms, or by waiting for Sarum's aeon to finally end the racing), but regardless of that, your actions mean that these people are not freed right now. And yes, this is even less support to slavery than the other two examples above - but you still do support slavery to some extent.


The status quo of the Empire is an Empire of slavery. Defending the status quo means you defend slavery. You can do it for all sorts of reasons, which all can be quite understandable, but whatever they are, you also defend slavery.

Actions have consequences, and we have to accept all consequences of our actions, not just the ones we like.

Well, Cpt. Sadik,

if you define being (strictly) anti-slavery as never taking any action that might (or might not) lead to the enslavement of people and then tell us, that someone whose actions might (or might not) lead to enslavement of people, such as fighting for the 24th, you're really just stating the obvious.

That said, it is no problem to be anti-slavery but to give it a lower place in a hierachy of interests than, say protection of life or protection of the Amarr Empire and it's subjects. The 'strict' anti-slavery guy - that'd have to be the one putting it at #1 priority - would rather kill people than allow for the possibility of them to get enslaved: Actually, if you're really doing it as strict as possible, only the extermination of humanity could ensure that whatever you do doesn't have a chance of somehow contributing to the enslavement of people. (Imagine that the great-grandchild of that slave you rescued will get into the slave-trading business because he simply needs money to survive... perfectly possible. Or the slave you freed might have 4 children that get again enslaved - oh no, your actions lead to the enslavement of 4 people!)

Thus, one can be anti-slavery and still, do things that somehow - indirectly - contribute to the enslavement of people. Just as a knife-maker can be a pacifist and vegetarian who's against every act of killing animals even though his produced knives can and - given he produces enough - probably will contribute to the taking of life of animals and maybe even humans. And yes, he know this up front or he's mentally challenged. Either way though, he's not responsible for what other people do with his kives and he might very well oppose it. He's not 'supporting' the taking of lives, as to the action of support there's an intentional component, the intent to help someone take a life. And that's not given.
Likewise a 24th member might be opposed to the enslavement of people on planets he helped to re-secure and isn't to be held responsible for the acts of other people like enslaving part of the population. He's no intent to help in the enslavement of people and thus there is no reasonable way to ascribe the action of supporting slavery to him.

So, whether or not you work for the 24th doesn't come down to whether you're anti-slavery or not, but to the place you assign to it in your hierarchy of interests. And every sane person that's anti-slavery will put other interests above the case against slavery - or it gets as silly as in the examples I gave above. People that are anti-slavery and join the 24th just assign to the protective cause they take up a higher priority than to the cause against slavery.

Simple as that.

By the way I, personally, am pro slavery.
I don't see how slavery is a priori a moral evil. It's a method and as it is with tools and methods it's a question of proper usage of it. So, no moral dilemma for me there if it comes to a real war between the Empire and the Republic. As of now, I rather concentrate on other things like the Sansha threat.