Intergalactic Summit

Meanwhile, independents are all snug and comfy and happy.

You can't have it both ways. In one post you cry about how CONCORD has failed and in the next appeal to us because we're both members of the failed institution.

So which is it? Do you believe in CONCORD and the rule of law or not? If so, go to the Inner Circle in emergency session and ask for help. If not, well good luck, I guess.

I was under the pression thatbyou were more intelligent than this statement portrays. I still belive yiu are, however it seems desperation has begun to cloud your reasoning. You yourself have stated that CONCORD has failed. Many Matari would like nothing more than to see the Empire crumble, and its ruins burned. There is another thread on these forums asking how and when do we interact with our crews, and many of mine have expressed the same, regardless if we burn with you.

"Let them die of their sins" is a statement that has been repeated.

Look, im not saying we have ot be friends and this whole thread is basically a WHAT IF scenario

While theres little evidence to support they would attack another nation besides the amarr we should at least prepare for the possibility that they would attack another nation..

If they do attack someone else besides the amarr then i would say its safe to think they are here to wipe us all out and not just the Amarr

At that point i say we put aside our understandable hatred for one second and work together to remove the drifters

THEN we can break the alliance and go back to whatever we are doing

So you are telling me you fought in the recent incursion and actually cleared out a few sites....Then share us your tactics!

Shouldn't you, Samira? A century of grudging peace doesn't magically make up for the Empire's previous actions. I've always suspect that the Empire's policy of painting itself as diplomatic peace-seekers who always honour their treaties and fulfil their oaths and promises was a charade; a charade forced on a nation that, for the first time in its entire history, was confronted with a situation it could not use overwhelming military force to triumph over.

Examine the Empire's history - every single time it has believed it held uncontested military superiority over an independent nation, it has used it to conquer that nation. Examine the Udorians. Examine the Ealurians. Examine the Ni-Kunni. Examine the Minmatar. Apart from the Udorians, who I suppose you could make the argument of being a cultural threat to the Amarr (because, you know, their society allowed more social mobility and didn't strand you for life in the role assigned to you by those who had the power to do so), no society ever provoked you into attacking them - your first response upon meeting them was to attempt to conquer them. The sole exception to this rule were the Khanid, who were already enemies of people you wished to conquer.

The first time the Amarr Empire was ever forced to seriously consider diplomacy as a long-term strategy was upon meeting the Federation, and that was because the Empire immediately recognised the Federation's military was comparable in strength to its own. The Empire recognised that attempting to fight the Federation bore a significant probability of failure, the results of which would be utterly disastrous. Consider then the Caldari, whom upon first discovering the Amarr briefly proposed to enslave. And consider the Jove, whom the Amarr believed to be weak and ripe for conquest - only withdrawing after a disastrous first battle and the Minmatar Rebellion forced them to reconsider.

The Minmatar Rebellion was a resounding success (for the Minmatar), and the Federation's war with its current enemy, the Caldari, chilled to a glacial pace. Faced with the Republic, a nascent nation that had a vast number of perfectly legitimate reasons to seek its demise and the Federation, a huge, well-established nation of comparable military strength that would almost certainly become involved if they attempted to reconquer it, the Amarr were forced, with gritted teeth, to abandon military conquest as a legitimate tactic for the advancement of its agenda and instead consider diplomacy. To its credit, I will admit that it has become very adept at certain diplomatic tactics - usually playing the reformed victim of prejudice while it still holds trillions of unwilling foreign captives in bondage and psychologically abuses them.

But I do not believe that the Empire has changed. I firmly believe that if a state of affairs came about that meant the Empire was no longer opposed by military forces of comparable strength - or at the very least, if the Empire believed this to be the case - they would almost immediately return to their old ways. This is a conveniently untestable hypothesis, as it hasn't yet happened.

What has happened, however, is almost the exact opposite - somehow, the Empire has become the target of a military force which to all appearences holds the power to threaten not only its supremacy but its very existence. For perhaps the first time in its history the Amarr Empire has been forced to contend with the concept of its own mortality. It is forced to consider that this threat may be beyond the power of the Empire alone to defeat.

But does it ask for help, from this hodge-podge alliance of mutually disdainful nations it joined out of neccessity? Does it deign for even one second to humour the possibility that the universe does not, in fact, revolve around Dam-Torsad? No, from this assembly of nations that it only joined because at that point in time it could not subjugate them through force, it demands help, and furthermore it imperiously blusters that it shouldn't even have to demand it, that such help - help, one feels, that would be incredibly scarce were it the Federation or the Republic that the Drifters were besieging - shouldn't even need to be demanded, that it should be implicit.

No, Samira. No, you most certainly have to ask for help. After all the Empire has done, it most certainly owes us that, at least.

Do you know what, though, Samira? Even in spite of all the things that the Empire has done, if it asked for help, I would give it. Forget Tetua, forget Del'Thul, forget Respirox and Toov and Ushra'Khan, if the Empire honestly, openly asked for help, I'd give it. I'd encourage other Federals to give it - heck, I'd petition Admiral Bauvon and the Federal Senate to acknowledge and accept the request for assistance.

If this were the Federation - if this were my people, my home, my way of life - in jeapordy, I would not hestiate. I would beg on bended knee. I would abase myself, before the IGS, before the members of CONCORD, before the nullsec alliances - I would beg them to help. Do you know why? Because my pride matters less to me than my home. I'm not even asking Amarr to do any of that. I'm just asking that for one moment they at least feign having a sense of perspective and do not act as if they are entitled to help simply because they were gracious enough not to try and conquer us last century.

I'm disappointed in you, Samira. I was coming to respect you, and through you, I was slowly the rest of the Empire. Now you've managed to reignite one of my old, nearly dormant prejudices - that the Empire and its people will immediately resort to threats when they don't get what they want.

This was very well said. The Gallantean reputation for eloquence is not exaggerated.

You know nothing about our culture or our religion, Ixiris. We do not hold to promises and treaties because it's convenient, we hold to them because we are obligated to do so by God. To lie is to sin. The Deceiver is named such for a reason. Our entire society is governed by oaths of fealty and loyalty.

Yes, we are conquerors. Those of us who believe in honesty have never denied that. That doesn't mean we don't know how to talk, or how to be peaceful. You cite all the races we conquered, but we have also integrated people through diplomacy, such as the khanid.

You say 'acting reformed'. Reformed from what? We are who we are. We make no apologies for who we are. Old ways, new ways, there's no such thing. We deal with the situation according to what the situation demands.

And all of this is irrelevant. An external, alien force is attacking a CONCORD signatory. All of those treaties we signed, now is when they get called in. We paid for, we built, trillions of DED ships for precisely this purpose. CONCORD was made to protect our nations, both from each other and from those outside who would harm us. We can hate each other. We can despise each other's cultures. But when any of us are threatened we must respond as one united whole or there is no point in any of this.

I would help them. I would expect my government to help them. We have obligations. It is our responsibility to meet those obligations.

That means a whole lot coming from you, of all people, especially, Dr. Scherezad.

In a sense, I really hope you're mistaken. I'm told I'm cold-hearted, and I can see some truth in that. That's not something it seems like "the best of us" should be.

Thanks, though. A lot.