Intergalactic Summit

While I agree with your overall analysis of why the relationship between the Amarr and the Minmatar began so badly, it is worth understanding something very, very simple that divides our cultures, and likely always will. What I am about to say is something you will disagree with. I would expect no less. I would ask, however, that you understand that this is something that that has been as true for us as the Word is for you, for no less a span of time.

A slave's only duty to their 'master' is rebellion.

Thus it has been for us. Thus it will always be.

Another point that I want to touch on is that as you say, the Udorian conquest took place over a thousand years. The Udorians and the Amarr understood one another, perhaps not at first, but certainly by the time the last of their strongholds fell. Your cultures shaped one another, even as you say, both in compliment and in opposition.

Our culture has always been a decentralized one. There have always been the Tribes, and within them, there have always been the Clans. Break up a nation or a city of a group who are used to a centralized culture and identity, and they lose one another. They lose contact with their culture, their people, themselves. Break up the Clans... and we form bonds with those who share our struggles—we form new Clans. And that makes us resilient, and resistant. So too, our oral traditions predate the Day of Darkness, but the Amarr actions only made them more necessary, more vital. Stories whispered from generation to the next passed on more than heroes, more than legends... they bound us tight to who we were.



It wasn't the Rebellion, hundreds of years after the fact, that reached back to glass Starkman Prime over one man's crime, and one man's death. That the Starkmanir are only barely clinging to life, and their pre-Amarr identify was forever lost and butchered, lies not on the Rebellion, but on the actions of one man. And therein lies the problem:

The system that allows one man to have the legal authority to kill a world, because the people there aren't 'people', they're 'slaves'... that is wrong. That is madness. As you say, hatred without understanding is foolish. It's one of the reasons I continue to strive to both understand, and not hate, the Amarr people and your ways. But I will point this out to you:





Sometimes, you don't seem all that humble.

I'd like to thank both the Lord-Consort, Samira and Lady Mithra. I've actually learned quite a bit from this discussion.

My mother was a slave in the Empire.

This may be very hard for you to understand, as you seem to be a few cans short of a six pack, but massive star empires are not islands. People immigrate between them and marry people from the other empires.

This may be even harder still to understand, but not everyone of a particular race.... pledges allegiance to the government of that racial majority... crazy, right? Especially when there are literally dozens of other options for them..

I have no idea what you mean Kernher. I'm not asking for anything from you or your imperial masters. I'm a practical realist. I just don't see the point in any type of discussion when neither side can come to any sort of agreement on the fundamentals. I refer you to this part of my post which you've chosen not to quote:

" See, you imperials don't want to even think that you might be wrong. I suppose you can't because that would make you deny your deity, your scriptures, your entire culture and civilization."

I was raised in the Federation where individual freedom and self-determination are considered sacrosanct. Your beliefs are in direct opposition to those ideals. I just don't see how the gap between the two belief systems can be bridged anymore, that's all.

Miss Rella,

I asked because you give the sense that a discussion is only valuable if one side successfully convinces the other; if there's a winner and a loser. I, personally, believe that the purpose of a discussion is to illuminate things, to show different perspectives. I have been in a lot of discussions with people opposed to slavery. And they have made me think about things I had not considered before. In your quote, you say that "Imperials don't want to even think that [they] might be wrong." Well, I have. Very frequently, in recent months, even when I didn't want to. There is a lot of things I think that I might have been wrong about, and I've had to take a new look at the world and discover who I am and what my place in it is.

You see my post as a declaration of the wonders of slavery. I see my post as a concession of the failings of it. The truth is that it was a bit of both. Ultimately, it is just an expression of my opinion based on the experiences I have had and the beliefs I hold. It is an opinion that has changed from what I said a year ago, or two years ago, thanks to the discussions I have had in that time.

Our beliefs are in opposition, yes. And if you believe that makes any discussion pointless, then alright. I thank you for your perspective anyway.

Charity should never come with a stipulation. When the Sisters of EVE came to my planet to help with the sickness, they didn’t attach any strings to their help. Yet, we all knew that the Sisters of EVE were here. By the end, we knew about them. That’s why when I got to the Republic I volunteered to work with them in their hospital as an orderly. They helped me get a nursing degree.

The Empire is supposed to be God’s Chosen. They should reflect His Light. I know the Scriptures call for the faithful to be God’s Angels of Vengeance when it is called for, and I know sometimes it is, but the starving girl in the Republic isn’t the enemy of the Amarr. The sick man in bed isn’t the enemy of the Amarr.

I know the Amarr like to paint with a broad brush. Very broad. I know they are sometimes too quick to use force. In this case, I hope that Empress Catiz can see nuance and end this war. I hope that the Matari can do the same.

There are plenty of other threats in the Cluster: the Drifters, Sansha’s Nation, Blood Raiders, the Angel Cartel, and the Serpentis just to name a few. I promise you, I would happily go back to Amarr and put the collar on myself than be a slave in any one of those places.

A slaver who can't tie knots wouldn't be much of a threat.

Respectfully, My Lady, one should consider the difference between the idea of something and the execution of it.

Have you never heard of buckles, or velcro?

No, they are not. Scripture leaves the specific practices to the Holders. Scripture dictates that Holders, and Amarr as a whole, shall rule over serfs and slaves, and that those who have fallen must toil to purge themselves of their sin and prove themselves worthy of God's love again. But Holders are given broad authority in how they choose to implement their duties. Attempts to dictate rules to them, such as banning the use of TCMCs, has always lead to a large pushback by the nobility. Empress Jamyl I's emancipation is another example of a ruler stepping on the toes of the Holders, which is why it spawned the Refusards.

Now, of course, most foreigners who argue against slavery only have a very one-dimensional view on it, a view that is culturally and even linguistically defined as strictly evil. But we must avoid being one-dimensional about it as well. To support slavery should not mean to support every incarnation of it. Nor should opposing it mean opposing the entire concept of master and servant.