Intergalactic Summit

I would like to point out that om multiple occasions that day the Shiigeru threatened to fire the Oblivion device at Caldari Prime, and as many people on both sides have pointed out, when someone has a cocked and loaded gun pointed at something you value and threatens to pull the trigger, you can't ever afford to assume that they're bluffing. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we now know that because she had decided to actively disobey the traitor Tibus Heth's insane orders to glass the planet, Admiral Yanala was bluffing, but we had no knowledge of any of this at the time. At that point in time, we had to assume she was ready and willing to carry out her threats.

You're right, though. Hatred won't serve any useful purpose at this juncture.

Play at it long enough and war tires everyone, Ms. Falken. Now all I want is for there to be peace between the State and the Federation, and for our people to stop hating each other. The Sotiyo-Urbaata drive, FTL communication, the rediscovery of stargate technology, the early years of Federal prosperity, the fight against the Sansha's Nation, the Crielere Project - every project our two nations have undertaken alongside each other rather than against each other has shown the formidable strength that comes of Federal and State minds working as one. The State can never be part of the Federation again, nor does it want to be, but we would both be stronger as allies. I feel absolutely no shame in admitting that there are many qualities the Caldari possess that all Federal citizens should aspire to.

It may take a long time, and it may not happen within a normal human lifetime, but perhaps the uniquely extended lifetimes we have been granted may yet allow us to see such a day - when Caldari Prime belongs to the State in its entirety, when neither nation threatens each others' border worlds and where the enmity our peoples felt towards one another is a distant, embarassing memory.

What we think of the past is not as important as what we make of the future.

It does make people tired. Very tired, if they have a scrap of themselves left to reflect on after certain milestones are reached in a shooting war. If things simmer down and head towards lasting peace in time, I won't stand in the way of it. I'll be glad to take the worst part of the memories of these times to my grave with me, instead of having to see more and more kids go through the same thing, over and over.

Let the warmongers burn themselves out. Let the true patriots come home. Heth's gone. Home is more or less ours, and we can go from there. Let it end, says I.

I really do not understand why this is still masquerading as a discussion. Caldari Prime remains a bone of contention for good reason, but the request for dual-sovereignty is so far outside our remit as to be comedic. The Federation, and the trade and territorial agreements that came before have dominated the Luminaire system since before the State was a nascent concept.

The evacuation of Caldari Prime was the only sound tactical choice because of this domination of the space lanes. With over a century of awkwardly relative peace between the State and Federation, this bare fact has been acknowledged as a reality of life in the cluster until Tibus Heth's subversion of Tripwire and the subsequent invasion of the Luminaire system - a move with mono-directional momentum which stalled at its objective. Though an inspired strike for a symbol, symbols do not feed families, they do not pay wages and most of all, they have proven expensive in lives and materiel to hold on to.

This request is, at its core, asking nicely for concessions that the previous but now-deposed leader of the State tried to force at the point of a titan. Now I cannot completely stand against that as without such action, Caldari Prime would not have a single district under State control. But it does burn bridges for logistical and political inroads targeted at the Luminaire system. Being completely realistic, the Federation has no reason to trust us, and nor do we have any reason to trust them. We even need Mordus Legion to hold our hands and stop us setting fire to what remains of the planet.

Why risk all we have on spurious, ill-conceived notions of shared sovereignty when our tenuous agreement for the hard-won share of Caldari Prime is already on life support, with the Legion acting as 24 hour child care for our respective diplomats?

What has happened has happened. The Federaton and State are adversaries in almost every realistic theatre of operation except for Caldari Prime at present. Let us consolidate this one point of commonality and build bridges over time. Let's not demand that legally flagged pilots be granted access to the cultural heart of the Federation. The cost is too high and the number of people, roughly 7,000 pilots, too low to consider it as a viable course of action.

Maybe one day there will be enough cooperation to throw together a bridge of tenuous structural integrity, over which we can pass to make Caldari Prime more than a symbol of reconstruction. But that day is not today, and shared sovereignty is a trade too expensive for the Federation to contemplate when proposed by capsuleers from a State with a history of (rightfully) capitalising on the smallest tactical and strategic advantages.

Reconstruction, reinforcement and consolidation should be our priorities. Do not weaken our State for the sake of one world we already have a foothold on. Do not burn the only symbol of cooperation that exists between our two nations for the sake of less than 8,000 pilots being able to look down on a single world from orbit.

Not even remotely. The Federation was holding our Homeworld and you have to admit that, prior to Heth's campaign, it was unthinkable that they would grant the State any kind of foothold on the planet. I ask you again, under what other circumstances do you think the Senate would have come to the table?

Again - I have absolutely no interest in dual-sov in Luminaire, don't expect the Federation to give up any other system to create a State-held corridor through to Luminaire or any of the other positions that Federation patriots rightly take umbrage to. But anyone claiming that 'at the barrel of a gun' was the wrong way to open negotiations I will always reply that it was the only way.

I'm sorry that it took the death of a heroine, the destruction of the Shiigeru with all hands and the death of almost a million Federal Navy crewmen to achieve it, but it's a price we'd pay again.

I'm rather curious: I've personally never investigated in-depth the efforts made by the State to re-secure Caldari Prime before the invasion of Luminaire. For how long had the State been trying to negotiate for the planet, and what offers did they make to the Federation in exchange for it? What specific deals did they try to bring to the table that the Federation rejected?

On a side-note, reflecting on this discussion has made me realize that the Federation seems to be establishing a trend of giving things to Empires because they shoot at us. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

Unfortunately, shooting at the Federation is the only way of delivering them the idea, that they should stay away from Caldari.

You're losing your edge, eh?

I have heard it said that the more words it takes to convince you of the rightness of a thing, the less likely that thing is to be right.

You are a person of many words Ms. Kim and I thank you for your service to the Federation.

And like certain Provists, you're putting words into our mouths and intentionally misrepresenting our statements.

I'm usually more respectful when I talk to State loyalists, because I hold a great deal of respect for the Caldari people, but let's be crystal clear about something:

The Caldari do not need Caldari Prime.

Yes, the Caldari want Caldari Prime. The Caldari deserve Caldari Prime, should have Caldari Prime, have an entirely just claim to Caldari Prime, but you do not need Caldari Prime to be Caldari, any more than the Gallente need Gallente Prime to be Gallente or I need Intaki Prime to be Intaki. The Caldari survived two hundred years without Caldari Prime, and all the Caldari born since then who've never even seen Caldari Prime in person are no less Caldari than the first of the Raata. I want Caldari Prime to be back in the hands of the State just as much as any Civire, Deteis or Achuran, but I am also aware that your people do not need Caldari Prime to survive.

You did not need Caldari Prime to remain Caldari, and you did not need to start this war, almost single-handedly ruining every effort that has been made in the last hundred years to bridge the yawning divide of enmity and distrust between our two nations to get it back. You did not need to act like the fact that returning Caldari Prime to Caldari control isn't simply a matter of changing a few signposts and CONCORD registry files is a grievous personal insult to every single Caldari. You did not need to occupy my homeworld. You did not need to end the lives of thousands of Federal Navymen. You most certainly did not need to continue that war past the point at which Caldari Prime was returned to you.

You didn't need to do any of this. You wanted to. You let the traitor Heth, obsessed only with his own self-aggrandisement, tell you that war with the Federation - a war that would kill just as many of your people as it would mine - was the only option. You let the Provists tell you that war and death was preferable to peace because a relic of your people's past - no matter how important it is to your culture - didn't belong to you. You let them goad you into killing tens of thousands of our people in an unprovoked surprise attack for which you must have known we would eventually retaliate. Heth didn't give you back Caldari Prime - he merely stole it from the people who stole it from you, knowing that he couldn't possibly hold it forever. For five years he slowly rotted the State from the inside out, and for what? For a homeworld most of the people fighting his war for him could never even get to in person.

Katrina definitely hit the nail on the head when she said that the Federation has very serious trust issues with the State even after Heth was denounced by the Caldari people and condemned by the CEP - we find it unsettling to know that he was ever able to rise to power in the first place.

But you know what the worst part about this is for me, Pieter?

It's not that I'm angry at the Provists. I'm not. They're pitiful. They don't deserve the investment of my emotional energy that anger would require. What little lingering support for them there is among baseliners dwindles steadily and the few IGS posters that still cling to them become more and more desperate, delusional and pathetic with every passing day. In many cases it's not even worth talking to them, because all you'll get is the same demonstrably untrue aphorisms on infinite loop.

You know who I'm angry at, Pieter? I'm angry at the rest of you.

We always knew the Provists were no good. But you, Pieter? You and your kin are honourable, you're steadfast and you're fiercely loyal to the people you hold dear. In my mind, the Caldari should be a constant reminder to the Federation of their greatest failure - we could have been better. We should have been better, to you and to ourselves. We lost the love of people who should have been our brothers, and we lost the strength you could have given us. The Caldari State should be an example for the Federation to aspire to, and our sordid shared history a warning to our nation not to repeat its past mistakes. By letting Heth dupe you for five years, you've given more credence to all the people who call the State untrustworthy, backstabbing corporate scumbags more credence than any U-Nat propagandist could ever hope for.

So in summary, Pieter - your desire to return to your Homeworld? Completely justifiable. What you did to us and to yourselves to fulfil that desire? Blind and unreasonable.