Intergalactic Summit

You forgot to mention the modernised Breachers, Cyclones and Typhoons, which incorporate bits of Gallente and Caldari technologies into their design.

If you think it is Matari to tolerate and ally with slaver scum worse than the Imperials, over a proxy war, things have indeed become dire.

Talent for what, though? This is not some fight for survival where the end justifies the means. It's a bloodsport with no end-game. Nothing to be gained other than killmarks. The only thing you can really do as a capsuleer in the proxy wars is potentially inspire or affect the hearts of the baseliners to stir into action, and setting the example that the faithful of the Empire should happily embrace anyone from Sansha through Sabik is rather an iffy proposition, and it certainly isn't an example I'd like to set for my own people.

Again I pose the question, what justifies this tolerance of vile scum? What is gained from tarnishing oneself such with the association? The opposing capsuleers will never run out of crew, isk and ships. They're all replenishable. The territory gains you nothing we don't already have, as the staircase has been established even before the proxy wars started.

Which end justifies these means?

I'd even argue that there is more to be gained from taking a stand, not tolerating these things, and perhaps even losing as a result. It sends a far stronger message to the cluster that Matari will not sink to the depths of our enemies over mere bloodsport, but retain our principles and ways and still stand strong even if our enemies throw all of theirs to the winds over a fake war with no real prize.

This is well said. I think all one can do is uphold the nobility of your own cause - hopefully in association with a few true comrades of like mind. Almost all wars attract venal scum into both irregular and even regular forces. There is little to be done save take care of one's own conduct and honour.

Because there is no ultimate territorial victory in this CONCORD designed 'war', the only achievement available to warriors is to be true their own beliefs and perhaps uphold the noblest tenets of their society - in whatever small way.

Why do you fight then? If victory is impossible, why not do something else?

This is the dilemma of life, surely? For the baseliner, the question is "why do anything, we are all worm food in the end." Death defines them, and all that matters must be the journey itself rather than the end.

Capsuleers have escaped death (to all intents and purposes) yet the same applies - we shape ourselves by the journey, not the victory. Moments of camaraderie, a noble and skilled opponent, the abstract satisfaction of upholding, even momentarily, the honour of our nation.

For myself, I find great inspiration and comfort from the writings of an ancient Gallente philosopher, who once started an essay on the meaning of life by forcing one to examine the question: "Why do I not commit suicide?" He likens life to the myth, common among all civilisations, of a great and influential man condemned to eternally pointless labour by pushing a stone up a mountain only for it to plummet back to the beginning just as he nears his goal (many variants of the task exist). Removing all question of a god or higher purpose, he challenges us to argue reasons for life in the face of evidential cruelty, wantoness, misery and guaranteed oblivion.

His answer: broadly, it's all absurd. That moment when everything goes so badly wrong, where one's decision making goes madly awry or the circumstances spiral out of control - yet despite defeat and humiliation we find ourselves laughing like a madman with the sheer delight of experience - that's the truth of life. If we laugh at the absurdity of life with a few select friends, either at the moment, or warm and safe later on, life finds meaning in that moment and the cruelty too, can be faced with laughter. Moments in the journey, mist in the wind, a sunset just as the clouds break.

I believe one has to be free to really enjoy laughter, which is why I believe in and fight for Liberty. Control, autocracy, and conformity are, to me, strait-jackets for misery. If there is one marvellous compensation in my poorly skilled pilot career, it is that I have made a couple of Caldari officers laugh.

Of course, if one believes in a god and/or a higher, external purpose that guides the universe, these are inspirations to be greater than oneself. Someone more faithful than I can answer how that might work for them.

And this is why the State must be amused.

Colonel Nieyli!
Gallentean agressors still occupy almost half of our homeworld, and they have started current militia war to try to occupy our Black Rise as well. These hypocrites have no right to apply word "oppressive" towards us.

And if they do - it means talking with them is useless. They are just brainwashed by gallentean propaganda dolts, refusing to use logic and facts. Simply shoot them down to save the world from such inconveniences.

Wisdom comes from experience. So yes.

Didn't you hear? Books are for burning.