Intergalactic Summit

You have every right to ask and there is no need to apologize.

The Militias are for-profit proxy wars sanctioned by CONCORD. Why people chose to fight in them are many and varied but the king is I.S.K. The Minmatar Militia is the most for-profit out of the four, having a long grey history of being blatantly and secretly manipulated to maximize the profits of all who invest. All Militias do this but to varying degrees and to degrees of visibility. The Republic has capitalized on this and makes quite a lot of money off of it. Because of CONCORD's strict regulations and the for-profit nature of the Militias they are more an extension of economic warfare and privateering than war. That is not to say that people do not die every day in the FW zones but it is vastly safer than public perception might paint a real war zone for the average civilian colonist of mixed descent living in a contested system.

Because of this most people who want to fight for their people go to the Republic Fleet or in Clan or Tribal Militaries. Those who choose the life of the independent capsuleer or have it chosen for them do so often because they want to get away from the Republic for whatever reasons or, more likely have never been there. Inversely, finding a child in the Republic who does not want to grow up to join the fleet is very difficult. Perception would have you think that all the streets of the Empire are paved in gold but the truth is the typical Amarrian lives lower on the development scale than the typical Matari. So too is it with perception of Matari capsuleers, we seem a fractured group of little better than pirates because it is rare for 'loyal' Matari capsuleers to do anything but join the fleet and stay in the Republic.


So people have been saying since before the rebellion. The Republic is made of millions of cultures and religions and ways of thinking and for a thousand years they found a peaceful balance. We can find it again, all Matari were once converts to the Amarrian faith before this republic was ever even a hope and billions of Matari openly practice the Amarrian religion in the Republic. The individual actions of a handful of hateful people are not the will of a people.


This is a very common misconception, there was no mass exodus from the Republic to the Federation, there was a mass exodus of freed slaves from the Empire. Trillions of people who had nothing but a name to unify them. Nothing but the bare shadow of tribal culture that had survived centuries of enslavement, indoctrination, and the organized destruction of all tradition, language, history, art, and even genetic legacy by the largest and most powerful of all the empires. The Day of Darkness fell over Matar and a handful of planets, planets the Empire had exploited just as totally and as uncaringly as they had exploited our people. If Matar and all the colonies had been returned to us pristine they still would not have held our numbers, not if every city on them was as dense as the lower districts of Dam Torsad and as tall as the towers of Caille.

More to the point there was literally no place to go for the freed slaves. The Federation took them in, pirates took them in, ...and some found their way to the ravaged world of Matar. Less than one hundred and fifty years later, The Republic is one of the Empires, The Angel Cartel, omnipresent. And since the one day war there are always more Matari 'returnees' (a misnomer as the vast majority have never been to the Republic or Matar it is still the go-to term in the republic for immigrants) than those who are leaving. However, we are the most populous of all the races in new Eden: If every Matari registered in the Federation and enslaved in the Empire were to enter the Republic it would become the largest Empire by population twice over. The number of Matari returnees would be over twice the population of the State, effectively quadrupling the size of the Republic It is estimated that far more Matari are uncounted, populating the pirate factions and swaths of nullsec. In less than a hundred and fifty years the population of the Republic went from almost nothing to nearly six trillion. As incredible a feat as this is, The enslaved population of the Empire is estimated at over ten trillion. The number of Matari who were freed but are still are living in the Federation is nearly seven trillion.

The craters their weapons left on Matar are nothing to the strip mines they made us carve. Their monstrous and evil destruction of our history, culture, and way of life left only a memory of a memory of a memory. Miss what you have never known.

But trillions of people, your uncle, your parents your great grandfather. No one is blind to that wound.

Nine hundred and ninety eight years ago the self-proclaimed chosen of god found a people who had only known peace.

They were struck by the sight of a people blessed more than they, with a garden that was a beautiful, harmony and peace and equality, free from want and strife and fear. So frightened were they that they may have been wrong, that they would have to pay for the blood they spilled in their own gain that they could not allow the people of peace to live. They burned whole star systems in their fear and greed and lust.

They raped planets and populations, they killed children for singing the songs their parents sang to them. They destroyed every book, every building, destroyed languages, eradicated history. So great was their hunger and depravity and fear that they sought to take everything the people had and destroy it utterly, to make it as if it never was. For centuries they gorge themselves in the blood of the people of peace, convinced of god's desires.

How could they not convince themselves, to think otherwise is to look in the face the monstrous things they had done. A demon, far worse than than the demons they invented to teach the fear of god. Blindness and hubris led the self-proclaimed chosen of god, led them to their defeat by the Jove and on that day the people of peace revolted. Many were freed but not all.

God's blessings were apparent as the people of peace returned to the grave their garden had been and it began to grow beautiful again. When the people of peace found all the old ways the self-proclaimed had declared destroyed by the will of god. When they found all the people they thought lost. God's blessings were apparent as the people of peace again found harmony. No more could the self-proclaimed of god hide the truth of what they had done. Except in their own hearts and minds where they believed their own lies far beyond where God's voice could find them.

All their power and hate and lies and uncountable atrocities and sins,were nothing before the will of God. A thousand years of torment and enslavement, had not dimmed the fire they had seen in the people of peace. It had done nothing to hide the blessings god piled upon them as they rose in strength to rival even that of the self-proclaimed.

One hundred and thirty seven years since the people of peace escaped the control of the self-proclaimed who cry and lament for peace in the cities of gold their slaves built them. The self-proclaimed chosen of God, doing all the evil mankind can conceive in promise of heaven only to see it below them on Matar. How such a sight must have shattered their minds and made men into demons who gave in to their fear and hate and lust and greed.

How they must fear the will of the people of Matar, the will they could not extinguish even with all their strength when the people knew only peace. How they must fear the will of the people who now know only war and the pain the self-proclaimed visited upon them.

How hollow their prayers to God must sound as their fear of the people they wronged grows and grows.

"God, please do not let the people of peace grow strong. Please do not give the people of peace power over us for surely they will remember when we had power over them."

The Amarr actually fought against Matari tattoos, until last tatto disappeared - which never came to fruition...



Technically, the Voluval does...

Far be it from me to speak in lieu of the Matari but as this was in response to my statement, allow me to respond.

The Voluval, from my outside understanding, is a ritual which reveals the "path" an individual Matari is destined to travel by the spirits which govern the Matari.

It doesn't suppress the individual will of the Matari undergoing the ritual, even those who bear the mark that makes them an outcast. What it does is reveal something similar to a "spiritual destiny" a particular individual is meant to walk.

Yes, the Voluval can be seen as a way for the clan to exert its will over an individual based on their mark but how an individual responds to their own mark, what they choose to do with the revelation of their spiritual path is entirely left to them. Even through self-imposed vows of silence or exile, an individual Matari bearing a "negative" mark can bring honor to themselves and their tribe by the way in which they walk the path laid out before them.

If it were not so, I doubt the Matari would cling so closely to the ritual or hold it in such esteem.

If I am in error, I trust someone with more intimate knowledge of the ritual will correct me.

In slavery, however, an individual's will is completely suppressed. The only choice they have is how obedient or disobedient they choose to be. They are completely conformed to the image of their masters or destroyed attempting to resist it.

In the Voluval, a path is revealed but the choice to walk or not and, more importantly, how to walk it is left to the individual.
In slavery, blinders are put on the slave and they are directed down whatever path their master wills for them, and they are expected to walk it however their master instructs them to.

This is inaccurate. Those who receive marks with consequences which outsiders perceive as negative, receive those marks for a reason. If someone has a hereditary disease which will cripple their offspring, they will likely receive a mark which forbids them from having children. The mark does not sterilize them. It doesn't remove their free will. If they don't wish to live by their voluval, they can always leave our society (either through emigration or exile).

The tribes are not what they once were. Meeting the Amarr changed us, meeting the Gallente changed us, meeting the Jove changed us even more.

However we are still men & women of the tribes. The Republic is still, as far as I am concerned, the place where we can best be ourselves. I think that it is worth protecting and nurturing.

I grieve for kin that have been forcibly parted from us and then warped into another's ideal. I despise kin that have grown in freedom, and then have gone on to serve the slaver. That is to say any slaver, be they Imperial, Cartel, Nation, Covenant or otherwise. To me they are dead and only a heavy sacrifice by them can hope to bring them to life again.

Every Matari is supposed to take up their Voluval, unless my sources are completely wrong on the matter... It is part of their coming up to age, no ?

As if the Voluval was only a genetic way of detecting defects... I am afraid that it does not simply points and tells that someone is afflicted by a lung problem, or whatever. I understand that it is predominantly a tattoo that seeks to guide the individual and point at their fate, and their strengths (or weaknesses for some marks). What they could be destined to, while remaining rather vague on it.

The Ray of Matar, has never stated more than "destined to great things" as far as I know. And I really doubt that this is anything else than simple belief and faith.

Especially considering what happened to the last Ray of Matar, and what she accomplished. Well, I thought she was about to really accomplish something until her own... kin, chose otherwise and deposed her.

The curious thing is that some will claim that she got into her prime minister position because she was destined to do it. Some others claim (mostly outsiders) that she came into power actually thanks to her mark...



I do not mind you calling me dead - even if I seem to still be alive, but granted, taken metaphorically....

But being called your kin... It is rather clueless as a statement. I am not your kin. Dead or not dead.

Unless you speak, as a human being, then yes.

Not every Matari has a Voluvul mark, though there are usually reasons for it. I'm sure some are by choice. In that, how is that some forced issue? They have a choice to do so. What mark they get is destined to them, much like piety in the Amarr faith and how it plays out after death.

Judging from the general message I'm getting from this thread, would something like that really be feasible? No doubt it would be a step in the right direction, but is something like that really in our reach?

My tattoos are on my own body, your slaves are our people (or were I suppose) and I guess from what your saying, yourself. Your free to be a slave as you wish due to your faith, why were our ancestors not free to do so as they choose, to take up the yoke of your religion or not? Its not so much attacking you for your way of life, as its more attacking to protect ours.