Intergalactic Summit

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Believers and non-Believers:

Many of us within the fold of the True Faith have been remiss in our duty to explain, with the pen and not just the sword, our obligation to Reclaim the cluster and its various peoples. This has led (God forbid!) to the slander among those outside our Empire that we are mere slavers. It is time for a clear explanation, in terms that all the children of New Eden may understand. With a trembling heart I undertake this task, at the behest of my teacher, Archbishop Abraxas, under the auspices of the Providence Theological Institute. May God help me set out the plain truth, decorated with such parables and allegories as conduce to understanding. All truth in the following is thanks to God Almighty; all flaws and errors belong entirely to me.

The Prophet Gheinok and the Elect

Our earliest records were bequeathed to us by the Prophet Dano Gheinok, the founder of the Amarr Faith. He gathered unto himself select families and bloodlines whom he knew contained a greater spark of Divine Light than the rest of humanity. These he made the Elect, and they would eventually become the race we know as the True Amarr. This requires them to be set apart in their daily activities from the rest of us and restricted in the kinds of work they can pursue. They cannot perform too much secular work without endangering their own function in the divine plan. In a refinery, each unit operation must dedicate itself to its specific task, or else the entire process will break down. This does not, however, mean that any one operation is inherently more valuable to the process than any other: they are all necessary to achieve the end product.

The rest of us, and I as a Ni-Kunni am included in this category, have our own roles to fulfill. We are responsible for "extracting" and "transporting" the "raw materials" to the final reactor for transmutation. Some of us must work the ground and provide the food and clothes for the cluster. Some of us must handle finances and trade and manage other affairs. And so on.

The Evolution of the Soul and its Final Fate

Some souls are closer to the Light than others. But this is not intended to be a permanent. Indeed, it is the goal to purge not just the material world of Darkness, but each and every soul. Thus, by participating willingly in the process, each participating soul gradually loses Darkness and becomes refined itself, approaching the state of a True Amarr. Such individuals eventually transform sufficiently to become no longer suited for those tasks that are entirely mundane. They must, as a result, be reassigned from such work. But the necessity of performing that work remains, until the entire cosmos has achieved its purpose. There is neither shame nor guilt in this, only pride in participating in the work of redeeming the Divine Light itself. Conversely, by rebellion against the process of salvation, the soul can become progressively dirtied, taking on more Darkness than it had originally, and its indwelling Light diminished.

There are three fates that await the soul upon death of the physical body, depending on how purified it is at the time of departure:

1. Complete redemption into the Realm of Light (i.e, Heaven),
2. Remaining within the cosmos for another incarnation to continue refinement,
3. Complete annihilation (God forbid!) should it become too contaminated with Darkness and the Light within it extinguished.

The Necessity of Reclaiming

The "Reclaiming", thus, is a Reclaiming of the scattered fragments of divinity for the Realm of Light. It is ultimately impersonal in its foundation: we are primarily concerned with restitution of the Divine. However, we also care for each individual soul that contains sparks of divine Light within it. For both reasons, and to prevent the extinguishing of any sparks of Light, which is a grievous loss to all the worlds, we take the ingathering of the Light back to its source very seriously. You have an importance to God greater than your own wordly ambitions and mundane plans. Fate has given you a responsibility to the Light you carry within you. By its very nature, redeeming grants you ultimate peace and serenity, and eternal life. Extinguishing it carries the ultimate penalty. The choice is yours, but we present to you the Reclaiming as the easiest means possible for those of you who wish to nurture and free the Light within the very core essence of your being.

The Drifters: The Consummate Husks

And now we come under attack by the greatest force of Darkness that has yet been seen in the history of the cosmos: these artificially animated and lifeless corpses known as the Drifters. They act as mindless hive creatures, they are to all accounts soulless, their bodies sustained entirely by mechanical means. While we do not yet know what exactly they are, they seem the very opposite of creatures with the Divine Light in them: mute automatons, almost like a very powerful form of rogue drone. They are a threat not just to the Amarr Empire, but to ALL sentient beings in New Eden. It is telling that they have chosen to attack the State that is the professed Guardian and Redeemer of the Light: Amarr. If you are not a citizen of Amarr, know that we are now fighting on your behalf, of the divinity you are and that you carry within you. We fight and die to defend you, personally, no matter who you are, because you as a member of humankind are intrinsically sacred, whether you be True Amarr or no. You all have the divine spark within you, and it is that which the Drifters are seeking to put out. We therefore ask you again, please, join the Reclaiming of your own free will, commit yourself to Redemption, for your own sake, and stand with us against the abominable Drifters! We need each and every one of you, and you all have a place by our side in the grand scheme of salvation.

Behold! More biomass for the Drifters speaks!

It is not enough that you are cutting off your own right arm by burning Providence. You mock for the sake of mocking.

I have an idea for you. Why don't you take that great fleet of yours down to the Khanid Kingdom and use it to help stop the ever-spreading Drifter menace. Are you afraid of a real challenge, Goon, or do you only go for easy kills? Too weak and cowardly for a matched fight?

If you put fancy robes on a barking, wounded dog, it doesn't make the barking any more palatable. Keep barking Amarrian, and we will keep defending our people.

I care not for how palatable my "barking" is to you, primitive. If you prefer dirt and mud to civilization, that is certainly your prerogative. I care only about reaching those who have ears to hear, who may not have had an opportunity to hear before.

You know, an educated person would be able to spot a difference between a Bee and an Otter. I'm no Goon, and your liberal use of ad hominem will not change anything about the torching - or my good mood for that matter.

By the way, so you're essentially saying, "No, please, no more, please stop hitting me"? Because that might be what I'm seeing.

Eventually all excrement, no matter what species it is from, begins to look and smell the same. I am not trying to change your plans; Point Genesis will sooner reopen a path directly to heaven before that happens, and I'm not much for exercises in futility.



No. I will say the same thing to you as I said to Arrendis: Good luck with your goals. See you in Khanid when you're ready.

Where is your evidence? What do you have to put in place of the oldest record of humanity? How do you refute the technological marvels that were predicted in the most ancient scriptures and were found to be accurate and true only millenia later? Your heart is hardened and you do not care for our religion no matter how much evidence might be adduced in its favor. Do not pretend to desire an honest debate about this.



I presume you speak from personal experience. Mine has been quite the opposite. I quite literally live in a golden palace and yet have no responsibility for its preservation. I prefer to be a tenant rather than a home-owner: I simply pay a small monthly rent and the headache of management and maintenance is entirely someone else's responsibility. In the meantime, I get to enjoy all the amenities. I have never lacked in the fulfillment of my wants or needs. Your propaganda describes something so alien to my own experience I can hardly recognize it.

Oh dear.

It took just one reasoned comment to turn this 'teacher' into a snarling beast of contempt and venom.

You might want to turn that mighty contempt onto the reflection that your religion may be freely preached (but not coerced at the end of a whip) in the Federation, and yet has made astonishingly little progress among people free to choose.

Why do you think that is?

Besides...it's wrong to mock the afflicted...

This is why the Amarr can't have nice things...... Like an Emperess.