Intergalactic Summit

See also bullshit Drones, Command Links, Overshipping, Outnumbering and Kiting.

Actually, your public executions are not according to law. You are not a ranked officer in member of any national military, nor are you (to the best of my knowledge) in any way empowered by civil laws to pass judgment or perform executions. What you are taking advantage of is extremely limited oversight and a lack of morality.

My assertion that there exists no such thing as a civilian in war is that in my view warfare and its successful conduct and conclusion remains unchanged since the rise of the old industrialized nation-state. A State at war against another State must by necessity mobilize the full weight of its citizenry to fight that war. We still live in an era of both mass industry and mass conscription, as such a State that desires victory over another must recognize that any war is one fought not only by its armed forces but by the totality of the State and its people militarily, economically, and industrially.

To say that there exists non-combatants in a scenario in which a State is engaged in a total and absolute war against another is a misnomer to me. It breeds a flawed belief that one should only target armed forces in the field, that what one terms, "Civilian," is somehow sacrosanct because there exists something such as innocence in War.

This is not the case.

When I was in active service as a Naval Marine it was estimated that just to deploy me in the field, a single soldier, it required between one hundred to one hundred and fifty people responsible to support me directly or indirectly. From the manufacture of my equipment and munitions to the supply of my daily rations. The armed forces of a State at war represents only a small fraction of those who do the actual fighting, but the real strength lies in the greater proportion the rest of the population that keeps them equipped and supplied.

The error in such a way of thinking can be seen already in the conduct of the CEWMPA conflict. The nature of its regulations prohibit the actual targeting and destruction of the actual echelons of strength and power of the opponent -- their industry and economy. Such a, "war" if it can even be called that, which is fought only on a tactical level will lead only to never-ending attrition because the truly decisive strikes are not delivered upon the enemy. The kill:death ratios inflicted by one side or another are rendered inconsequential because there exists no ability to pursue the necessary strategies to bring a modern industrialized interstellar society to defeat nor even any real or actual political objectives made clear to pursue that makes any territory gained, people killed, or assets destroyed meaningful.

To me, not targeting civilian infrastructure and populations as part of strategy would have a similar parallel on a tactical level if a Field Marshall was told he should not conduct a double envelopment of enemy lines targeting their lines of supply and communication because it would not be, "Honourable," to target, "Non-combatants," such as truck drivers and logistics clerks. Such lack of decisiveness to strike at vulnerable echelons of the enemy leads only to the dynamics of attrition conflict.

It is not a question of morale and morality to me. I am willing to kill enemy civilians by any number necessary in war not out of any motivations of breaking their will, nor emotive reasons of prejudice, hatred or desire towards punitive actions but because it is a reasonable, rational and necessary action to break the actual capability and efficacy of their State to wage war against my own.

My derision of capsuleer conceptions of honour and fairness in the field is due to the fact that my conception of war and conflict is not one where I see myself as some feudal warrior fighting my opposing number in single combat for the acclamations of glory. My conception of war is one where as a soldier I am the end-user deploying the implements of violence created by the science, technology and industry of the State. There is no requirement in my mind for the pretensions and affectations of honour or nobility but rather the ruthlessness and callousness required to seize victory by any means necessary.

I leave matters of morality to the historical, public relations and propaganda departments.

Lyn:

Hm. I suppose for me an engagement in space is between the capsuleers; the crew are just sort of part of the hostile ship.

Of course, what Veiki is suggesting (at great length) is that in a war between civilizations, civilians perform the same role on the scale of the whole war effort. I'm guessing she also doesn't see any clear distinction between people growing crops that will feed the fighters and people supplying them with ammunition.

It's an understandable point of view, maybe, but....


Veiki:

You've clearly thought about this a lot. But, as you noted yourself, that's not the kind of war we're fighting.

About honor: just because a culture had a warrior caste with some sort of code of honor doesn't imply that this caste functioned as you describe. Frankly, it sounds like your notion of historical honor is more something out of a work of fiction than something that appeared very often in history.

War isn't a sport. Maybe in some places it became stylized to the point where it sort of became one, but ... that seems like the rare exception, not the rule.

I do have a sense of honor, Veiki. It's important to me, but it doesn't demand that I go around challenging opponents to duels. It has more to do with ensuring that I'm a trustworthy ally, someone whose word is relied on. It's more about who's beside me than whom we're hunting, or how.

And you are not the one who knows our laws and not the one to judge me, loud gallentean. Don't bother me with your delusions.

I've always found this sentiment to be somewhat vexing, really.

Why is God unforgivable because of the state of His creation? Why do we foist upon God the consequences of our own actions or blame Him for the cluster being the way we've made it to be?

If God made you and you commit evil and He made me and I commit evil, is that fault of God or the fault of us? Alas, we can fault God for not smiting us from His throne and forcing His creation to behave but then we must ask ourselves, would we rather He do the opposite? Would we rather live in constant fear that God will strike us down for our misbehavior? Would we prefer He meddle in our every affair like a tyrant holding a tight leash?

Who is to say that God created this universe to be cold, insouciant and merciless? Who is to say that God did not create a utopia and then, in His sovereignty, simply allow us to sleep in the bed we make of it?

It is easy to blame God for our own sins but I do not think we gain anything by it.

Humans are an exception to that pattern, Jenneth. The thing is, it is our choice to be that exception, because we were blessed with free will.

God created Chaos, but His Will for us is Order. The pervasive violence of the universe is not something that is supposed to be passively accepted, but instead to be conquered and mastered. To be Reclaimed in His name.

You believe it is cruel to make a violent universe, but you don't see that it is only through its existence that we can grow and learn wisdom.

Only through many hardships
Is a man stripped to his very foundations
And in such a state
Devoid of distractions
Is his soul free to soar
And in this
He is closest to God
- Missions 42:5

Haha-- ah ... you'd make a good Caldari, Mr. Antolliere.

The Caldari Wayists believe that the Maker created the world as a crucible, where the strong would thrive and the weak falter, fail, and die. Being a small person, I've kind of reflexively thought that was pretty unkind to the weak. It's not like anybody back in the old days made a choice to be born with a bad leg onto a tree-studded snowball.

But that's the world they lived in, and believe they live in still. Necessity required them to abandon those who became a burden, and they salved their consciences by saying that the Winds and even the universe itself demanded it. That it was the right thing to do, however hard it might be. However bitterly unfair it might seem.

Me ... I'm pretty fortunate. I'm little, and maybe kind of fragile in more ways than one, but I'm a ridiculously wealthy quasi-immortal who can fly building-sized weapons of mass destruction around with my brain.

Maybe the one who came before me would think she earned all of this somehow. I don't believe any such thing, though.

I'm lucky, that's all. And as long as that's all it is, that's okay.

That verse reminds me of Achura.

If the Caldari got a homeworld that likes freezing people to death, the Achura got one that likes breaking stuff. The planet's tectonically, uh, enthusiastic, and sees more than its share of storms. In our own formative centuries, what couldn't blow or wash away would instead fall over and crush you to death, so you just kind of got used to losing everything once in a while.

We did end up valuing wisdom a whole lot.

Free will might strike me as more of a "thing" if everyone got to make their own choices. You, for example-- as a slave, did you really have any option but to believe? I sort of suspect that the salvation of your soul was given priority over your autonomy as one of God's creatures.

... For your own good, of course, so that you wouldn't use your free will to make the wrong decisions.

Wouldn't that, therefore, have denied you the chance to develop wisdom, though?

If a student fails, is it the fault of the student, or the teacher ? Who bears responsibility ?

That is the kind of unsolvable dilemma that often trail in the wake of moral absolutism of right and wrong.

The flaw lies elsewhere : maybe failure only exist in the eye of the student.