Intergalactic Summit

Spare me the life lessons, Mr. Baracca.

If you have not seen what I have seen; done what I have done; shed the blood that I have shed then do not presume to pronounce judgement upon me.

As for your belief that I hold nothing of value, while that is your opinion, I might say the fact that I hold my family, my comrades and Kaalakiota dear enough to sacrifice everything I once was, so that indeed I may be the killer I must be might be a concept you fail to understand.

I kill so that others may not have to, and because it's my profession. I just feel no need to pretend that it is somehow glorious, noble, or honourable, it's just that it's simply necessary at times to perform the efficient execution of violence. Nothing more, nothing less.

One thing you're going to find is that we'll all be judged, as you will undoubtedly judge me and everyone else, they will have already judged you. That's not something you can avoid or ask to present new evidence over. We have seen you do what we have seen you do, seen the blood you've shed, and then heard your reasons. You cannot then tell us what we are to think about it because we somehow do not have the precise context you wish those actions to be seen from.

The concept that you are beyond understanding is usually fundamentally flawed. People are often quite capable of understanding what someone is talking about, they may just not buy what you're selling. One of those things we're taught early on in evangelical studies is that you don't get to start preaching at the point of zero very often. You're starting from negative connotations early on and have to prove your value and goodness.

It's very, very easy to give up and say that other people's misunderstandings and disagreements are invalid. You always need to be prepared to be wrong or to explain better. Probably not something you associate with my faith, but it is pounded into a cleric's head from an early age. Judgement isn't just a divine mandate you'll face at the end of days, judgement is something you will deal with all of your life and over every single action you'll ever take. Everyone will judge you, you'll judge everyone, and we'll all inwardly judge ourselves.

Given that your self-reference to make sure no one else needs to go through what you've gone through isn't exactly positive, I already have an idea of how you really judge yourself. There is a difference between feeling unjudgable and turning away to not confront it. You'll judge yourself everyday.

Oddly, you judge yourself more harshly than I would. I wouldn't call you a cheat or a thief. I've never heard of you flying into a civilian transport and randomly killing him to steal his goods. I've never heard of you flaying the skin of your enemy open and hanging him from the rigging on the roof of your captain's quarters, hooked up to life support so that you know he can hang with his entrails like a dangling chandelier for a week. Trust me, as bad as you think you've seen things, I've seen worse. Much worse.

I suppose your assumption that I've not seen or dealt with bloodshed on the level you're involved in is something of a complement. I'm not sure that it's necessarily true, I can't claim to be any manner of pacifist saint, but it's nice to know that even you think I haven't. Than, in and of itself, is a judgement of my character, and I suppose something that means I haven't lost that humanity yet.

Simply put, you aren't a pirate even in your description of yourself and couldn't even be thought to be one. You seem to involve yourself in combat. I wouldn't call preying on the weak and innocent, such as civilian shipping captains trying to make enough to feed their families, combat. I just assumed you weren't involved in the sort of random theft of non-military assets that constitutes one.

The Angel Cartel is, and Stillwater is the facade of their house. Hence, pirates. I'm not sure what sliding scale we can judge people to be pirates by, but I'm fairly sure that smuggling illegal goods and killing any law enforcement or civilian personnel that get in the way counts. I don't feel any sense of moral confusion thinking that the Angels are most definitely a criminal organization and I don't think it's a merely political gesture that I don't think they should be permitted to prey on the weak and unsuspecting in the cluster. I most certainly wouldn't work for them and I'd certainly assume anyone affiliated with them was operating on behalf of those criminal enterprises.

If that makes me overly judgmental, I suppose I'll live with that.

If that's how you feel about it. If it's any consolation, the current CEWPA war isn't your baby. It was started by politicians, it can only be ended by politicians, and right now they see fit to keep a mandatory pipeline of resources and manpower to waste in that war. It isn't even a waste you or the Gallente can avoid. The CEWPA is a forced war, because no one side can stop without losing all of that territory and perhaps losing even more. So capsuleers are essentially being forced to ferry men and supplies to that war to lose.

What would any capsuleer do? Even if all the fighting stopped tomorrow, the war would STILL be going on because it isn't in place due to necessity, but by legislation. You could all stop fighting, and one stray patriot could essentially turn the place into a graveyard. You really HAVE to be out there, as do the Gallente. There's nothing to be done for it until the actual CEWPA warzone is declared high-security.

Piracy, in my definition, would be someone who goes into otherwise peaceful space and kills non-combatants to steal their things. Unless you've got some more interesting sidelines outside of the warzone that I'm not aware of, you don't really fit the bill. For the most part, your targets are at least armed vessels in a place that's literally been declared a no-go zone unless you're braving gunfire. There's a reason I don't go anywhere near the warzones, after all. They've got a nice legislated sign that says those areas are the places where men and equipment goes to die.

If you're worried about hypocrisy, then perhaps your apprehension is understandable. While at one point I might have been more judgmental, one of your compatriots made the good point that the CEWPA is a place where good men are dying to keep a bad situation from becoming worse. Even if the combatants think the warzone is a worthless forever war that has no upside for anyone involved, it's unfortunately not in their hands to stop. All they can do is to try and limit the damage and follow the rules until a few people in a position of authority give them something more constructive to do.

So even if you and the common pirate are both in the rather general business of shooting at other ships, I wouldn't say you fit the definition of a pirate. May it remain so, though I suppose it's easy to lose that sense of duty after shooting at the skilled for so long. Eventually, maybe a pirate is just a former soldier who decided to stop shooting at things the provide resistance for nebulous concepts like honor and duty, instead deciding to shoot at easy targets to make the more corporeal ISK.

Winds, would you stop trying to be clever?

You're mistaking cleverness for honesty.

There's a saying about how if you must tell the truth, make sure it's in the form of a joke lest your audience try to kill you for telling it. I suppose I'm just not a comedian enough to provide the typical rationalization-justification complexes to alleviate potential guilt associated with taking human life. Or it may be I've just lived an entire life in the past year of combat, that in order to survive and remain functional, I've had to deaden my normal senses.

I don't think it matters much in the end. I'm not a soldier, and I wouldn't ever wish to besmirch the profession by calling what I do, soldiering.

I just do what I feel is necessary for my company and my people while recognizing that the life I lead is a complex one full of difficult questions that don't deserve simple answers such as calling one side or another as pirates.