Intergalactic Summit

Yeah, that's my family all over. Actually, throughout my Clan, we have a few capsuleers, but they've all been pretty far flung up until now. I've got an older cousin who's in The Wildlands much of the time and a great uncle in the TLF, but since we don't see them often, the whole issue kinda gets swept under the hustle and bustle of everyday business, so I never got a chance to see this firsthand until right now. So believe me my friend, no one in my family is the least bit star-struck in the least. They don't mind asking for favors, though. :)

As for myself, I never really wanted that kind of attention either. That kind of 'bigger than thou' attention grabbing, as you know, is more of a minus than a plus in any Matari household. It's enough just to have a bit of freedom to move outside of family business, you know?

But yeah, doing the political work every once in awhile keeps things on an even keel in general, but like you said, it's inevitable that things were going to change. My mother and my Aunt (both family and Clan Elds) tend to nag me to do a lot of special political work, both inside and outside of the Clan. In my pre-capsuleer days, I was part of our internal Clan financial admin setup, so it's mostly a continuation of that work--ironing out station regulation hangups and doing some 'creative negotiation' with suppliers and bureaucrats on behalf of Clan businesses, that sort of thing. My mother keeps trying to get me to do some long-range hauling for her to save some cash that way, but I pass on that because once you start doing too much for my mother, you eventually end up doing everything for my mother. She can get my brother to do that for her when he graduates the capsuleer program.

It just amazes me that what started to put the distance between us wasn't the industrial scale-killing but the money. But then again, knowing my Clan, it kind of makes sense.

Ha! I'm sure that's happened at some point. In college, I met a Sebeistor guy who got nagged into a Marketing degree when it was clear that they guy was a natural tinkerer. I asked him about it and his response was "Either I come back with a Marketing degree or she'll haunt me from the grave!" We all felt for the guy.

My Aunt's Head of Table and my mother's her Second, so the big push for my older sister and I is all about getting ready for business since my sis is next in line and I'm supposed to be her Second (not gonna happen). Making the right connections around the cluster, getting the right education and such. My older brother, though was basically pushed into his marriage. Luckily they love each other and seem very happy, but there really wasn't much choice since she's the daughter of the Republic's Minister of Offworld Commerce and a powerful Clan in their own right. There was no way my Aunt was going to pass that up.

That's beautifully put and I see you're point. It is weird, to different degrees for relatives to adjust to this 'new you' coming through the door. In my family is was a bit different because Festuvar and I were genetically matched at a pretty young age, so everyone's known what to expect for awhile. My Clan threw a 'going away' party before I took the big drop, complete with condolence cards and the like. Big celebration. When I talked to my mother an hour after getting cloned, her only comment was to make sure I wore something to the graduation ceremony that was 'slimming.'

But are we really entirely new people? Divorced from whoever died to create us? I guess it depends upon the person. If I am someone different, I guess it's fair to say that I made the decision early on to carry on with whatever Felise was before. After all, I've got all of her memories, likes and dislikes, dashing and urbane wit, great fashion sense and business acumen. Who would want to give that up?

It's not 'bout what is truth and what is lie: people fight and die for their believes, no matter is it a truth or not. Anyone can believe in lie just as easy as in truth. It's all 'bout choices we make.

For necris every mind is a data: an aggregate of memories, thougts and believes, what makes us what we are. It can be stored, copied, erased. Every consciousness is nothing but a convention: a segment of Nanoblack's collective mind, segragated to bring the will of Nanoblack. To collect data. To learn. To develop. To expand. Even when our bodies will be destroyed, we will still be present as a part of collective's mind. All our data will be saved and stored for use.

Is it a truth or just a delusion? It's just a choice we made.

I am a full member of my Mother's clan of the Sebiestor, Five Towers, and an associate member of my Father's newly created Brutor Clan Ogunkoya.

Five Towers tend towards a fairly standard set of Matari animistic beliefs about the world so for them I was always the same person, just one whose body had changed more rapidly than most. Also, as Captain Egivand points out, my wealth as a capsuleer didn't impress them much. However the Elders were interested in my first hand accounts of travels outside the Republic. Five Towers is mainly spread through Parliament, Justice & Urban Management. They take a very active interest in how the Tribes relate to the outside universe. As a capsuleer clan policy is I can become an Elder, but never the chief.

Their main demand on me has been to enter into an arranged marriage. Arranged, mainly for diplomatic purposes, to a Starkmanir woman whose clan is looking to improve their connections in the Republic.

My father is part of a different clan because my parents divorced when I was just short of age twelve. This did not cause the upset that it otherwise might have because Five Towers didn't really approve of the match in the first place. My mother was an up and coming Urban Management executive and my father was, at the time, a clanless NCO in the Fleet Marines. As I understand it the pressures of moving from post to post and Mother's career ambitions eventually drove them apart.

But I stayed in touch. And my father's line of work influenced my choice of RMS as a place to train when I tested positive for capsule compatibility. Now he is an officer. And the clan is his reaction to the more traditional Matari direction the Republic is moving in. The new clan's traditions are still forming. But like most we are just people to them. Dangerous people with a very specialist skill set to be sure. But people all the same. I like that. It helps to keep me from veering off into the depths of madness that some other pilots sink into.

Well. My current TLF rank is Venge Captain insofar as that mean anything to anyone. Incidentally, if I ever get to the top of the tree I doubt I'll be calling myself a Vaklear General. That would seem to be very disrespectful to actual Vaklear. I tend to use Captain when addressing other pilots who I'm not personally known to. Others use Pilot. I sometimes do that if the recipient seems to prefer that mode.

I'm not surprised you haven't heard of Clan Ogunkoya yet. It's only been in existence for a little over a year. Most of the members are, previously clanless, baseliners from my father's regiment & warrior circle. Incidentally. father asks me to mention that some members who have finished their terms within Fleet will be available as security contractors. Initially within the Republic.

Shop ‘Til You Drop

I would never have guessed that a pirate hunting expedition would end in a glorified shopping trip, but I guess life is full of surprises. That’s the only reason that I can find for why I was standing in some far away station that I had never visited with someone that I had just met dropping hundreds of thousands of ISK on a bunch of weapons I’ve never used.

“These will be good for you,” said the small, white-haired woman beside me in a voice so self-satisfied that it made me nervous. Her name was Clowryn, at least that’s what I made out underneath the heavy accent of indeterminant origin. She was recommended to me by one of Sister Alitura’s contacts as someone who had taken down the pirate Dagan in the past and knew his tendencies. She seemed confident, but she also didn’t seem to know what she was talking about. It’s a combination that makes one happy when in a position to take money from such a person, but has the opposite effect when relying on them for expertise. The guns were 150mm Light ‘Scout’ Autocannons and my companion assured me that seven of them and an energy nos would make quick work of him.

“He have no chance,” she reassured me, bearing proudly. “No chance.”

This was not the first time I had heard this. Sister Alitura sent me to many strangers over the two week period between reporting to the Minmatar commander overseeing Dagan’s capture and his expected departure from a secret (not so secret!) base in Ayvuh. Each one has their little quirks. One guy that we met in Sheroo was insistent that Dagan could only be defeated by drones. “He’s a fox, that one,” said the older, paunchy man as we stood in his stuffy office. I remember that he looked out into the distance as he spoke, as if he was a character in some space opera. The man was decked out in the type of clothing one might wear under Amarrian infantry armor, though he was clearly just a mid-level manager at a SOE facility.

Another contact, a Sebiestor mechanic on a Gallentean Fleet in lowsec, seemed to think that more guns were the solution. Apparently, Dagan had a shield and armor tank that was pretty powerful. “If he’s riding like he usually is, you’re going to have to bring a squadron along just to have enough guns to take him down.” He said. A quick look around this young man’s workspace revealed a number of holoposters and pictures of famous battles—or more accurately, heavily stylized depictions of famous battles. As soon as he saw that I was looking at them, he got excited and started pointing them all out to me. “I’m really into the big battles, but I’m not like some of those freaks that make little models of the battles and everything. Those people need to get a life.” People like that have been my life lately.

At each one of these stops, I was required to buy something, ‘just to keep the relationships fresh’ according to Sister Alitura. It made good business sense, but it was also annoying. I didn’t have to buy anything that broke the bank; a couple of turrets here, some proton ammo there, energy neutralizers and whatnot. It just seems like a waste at the end of the day. Between buying trips, Sister Alitura has a training area set up near her station in Arnon and we have to get all of the equipment, bring it back to the station, go to the area, and then practice to get an idea of what the DPS looks like. I know what you’re about to say and I, too tried to bring up the fact that this was a stupid way of going about this, but it really wasn’t worth the energy, trust me. ‘Better to do this and get it over with since it seems like it’s my only way out of this thing with Dagan.’ I thought. Plus, I heard that there’s a million isk at the bottom of all of this, so it was worth holding out for.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but to notice that everyone around me was having the time of their lives. The contacts couldn’t wait to tell me their old, boring war stories or watch my isk fly into their tills as I bought their junk. Even the Sister seems to be having fun, in as much as that is possible for her to do. I was still angry at her, and rightfully so for everything she’d put me through. I had to admit though; she looked more vibrant and vital since beginning that turd hunt, as if she was turning the clock back 20 years. She had known most of these people forever and if I had to guess, I would say that she was see a version of herself reflected in them that she couldn’t seem to find dealing with capsuleers like me. It was like a ritual, one so well-worn that I was pretty sure that they had all done it before, even before Keita and people confirmed that this was so later on.

I find that the thought has crossed my mind more and more lately. The idea that Sister Alitura, Dagan, and some of the others would be using capsuleers to reclaim their lost youth was mind-blowing giving everything we had been through, but it wouldn’t be the craziest story I’ve heard, but it was kinda sweet. The thought made it much easier for me to stomach watching another dollop of ISK leave my electronic wallet, never to be seen again.

Yeah, I took my Thrasher out of cobwebs, hired a quick crew and took him out with I think 7 150's? At this point, it's all been awhile back and it bored me to tears.

They made a big show of trying to scare the crap out of me when I handed him over though. A lot of 'just put him on the ship and don't look back' spy stuff, but the bloom had been off of that rose for quite sometime. Got a nice standings boost out of it with the RSS and Fleet on top of the ISK, so overall it wasn't too much of a time waste. And honestly, I was alright with Sister Alitura's Magic Toad Ride since I got paid in the end and it did seem to bring some brightness to what seems to me to be a dreary life she's living. Plus, as Keita pointed out, it's not a bad con overall and no one really gets hurt...except the people who die I guess.

I've mostly moved on to bigger and brighter things, but the Sister's been in my ear about doing some exploring, which I hate. But then, I have to admit that underneath her complete lack of social skills and common decency, she does have a lot of experience to impart, as long as you can turn her off when you need some sanity, or at least have stiff drink lying around while you listen (my preferred method).