Intergalactic Summit

But is it?

Consider: is it the potential longevity that causes the disassociation with mortality, or the serial replacement of the deceased with another being who self-identifies as the same being?

Full disclosure on this, I disagree with the majority of 'accepted' capsuleer thought in that I don't consider myself immortal. I consider myself just under 37d old, with a life expectancy of approximately 28-32d. Pushing that envelope now, though. Go me! Eventually, there will be another Arrendis Culome, just as there have been more of us so far than I really feel comfortable counting, given that average life expectancy. When that next 'me' shows up, she won't be me. I'll have died. She'll just have all my memories. There will not be a true continuity of experience, only a record of the experiences of myself and my predecessors.

I bring up the difference because we've seen the slow disassociative tendencies recorded in the behavior of extremely long-lived Amarr nobility, who, after all, can stretch their lives out to well over three or four centuries. Is that a similar condition? Is it related? It is the same condition, only developing slower because of the different nature and time-scales on which the individual faces the idea that everyone around them dies, but they stay just the same?

It doesn't happen to all of them, but then, it doesn't happen to all of us, either. So while understanding the cause of a condition is certainly necessary in order to understand the condition (but not, as I already mentioned, necessary to understand the impact that condition has), it's a bit premature to try to definitively claim that anything is the 'only one that makes it possible'.

Note: 'if you remove the mechanics' in your example would less be a case of removing the mechanics, and more one of 'if you remove the condition', given you've based the statement on the premise that cloning is the only possible way to engender 'practical immortality'. Thus, given your premise, you'd be altering or completely removiong the condition.

The CEWPA treaty does not limit military action to the established capsuleer influenced warzone to the degree that you seem to think it does. Unlike the Gallente and Caldari, who have signed ceasefires further limiting their state of war in the aftermath of the battles for the planet Caldari, such ceasefires have not happened between the Matari and Amarr.

That said, the vast majority of these reported slave raiding incursions have always been by illegal slavers masquerading as navy to cover their trail. So you are talking about criminals who are more like Sinjin than not.

Faithful Amarrians value the souls of all people brought under Amarrian protection and we view them as humans who are in need of our guidance. On the other hand, those enslaved by the Angels are treated as things rather than people (see Sinjin's use of TCMCs) and are sold with no regard to the morality of the transaction.

A slave in the Amarrian system will never be sacrificed on a perverse whim to a false God or sold to a non-believer just to make some fast cash.

You can hate our system all you want, but not acknowledging that difference is just an exercise in willful ignorance.

It isn't weak at all, if you look at evidence. The two points are separate and stand on their own.

First, the raids are not ours.

Facts of note:
1. The number of capsuleer reported "Amarrian Slave Raids" is quite high.
2. These reports predate the war.
3. These raids would have been considered acts of war before the Shakorite invasion.
4. There are few to no reported incidents of such raids in the news.
5. Much smaller incidents than those reported by capsuleers have regularly made the news.

If these raids were really Amarrian Imperial attacks and the Republic could have proven it, we would have known that for a fact because they would have trumpeted this fact to the universe while we were at peace. This means that they did not in fact believe that these raids were being caused by the real Amarrian navy before the war, or at the very least could not prove it.

As these reported raids continued at effectively the same rate before and after the declaration of war, it is most reasonable to assume that they are not related to the war. Given that the military would have changed its deployments thanks to the war, the obvious assumption is that these were not military in the first place.

The second point is that Amarr taking direct action against the Republic would be legitimate thanks to the war that they started. Your point that Amarr is not allowed by treaty to attack the republic is inaccurate. However, you can rest assured that if we had taken such action you would know about it and it would take a somewhat more impressive form than some slave raids.



You are just being silly now. Or do you really think that the end result of enslavement by a Holder and being ritually murdered by a blood raider is the same?

I've seen what the Empire considered 'impressive'. Watched it die, too. Sorry, Ali. It was fitted like crap and would've vaporized under the loving attention of FCON, let alone a competent entity.



I think slavery is slavery, and it is abuse, and it is a crime against the essential humanity of those enslaved. What happened next is its own issue.

It was monstrous before that stage comes along. I know it's difficult to reach below the bottom of the barrel or sink lower than bedrock, but someone finding a way doesn't lift the rest out of the murky depths.

The ruling says nothing either way about the possibility of souls for synthetic beings.

Do we really need to repeat this argument again, Del'thul? It feels like we just had it yesterday.

If you believe in Amarrian Salvation, then Amarrian slavery performed properly is a great and priceless gift to the enslaved.

If you do not believe in Amarrian Salvation, but consider other values more important, then of course it must seem monstrous.

We are not going to ever come to an agreement on this without one of us having a fundamental shift in our understanding of the entire universe.

However, despite this impasse, surely we can both find common ground in agreeing that what Sinjin and Nauplius do is monstrous?

I'd give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the 'great and priceless gift' if I suspected for even a minute you were unaware of how the reality of slavery in the Empire tends to work out. As for Sinjin and Nauplius, sure. As far as individuals go it's a pretty monstrous notion, but when it doesn't even register compared to the crimes of the Empire (and State, Federation and Republic. Don't worry, everyone's got their own failures) I'd rather not let myself get distracted from the real enemies.

The simple fact of the matter is that individuals like the Clown and his erstwhile suppliers could ramp up their efforts by several hundred thousand percent and still not amount to even a candle next to the supernova of the Empire's crimes against my people. Even if we ignored the initial crime of the Day of Darkness and all the years up until this modern era, I can still document a ridiculous amount of horrific atrocities without even bringing a single other person into it. Breeding facilities. All manner of abuse. Slave raids damn near rivaling invasion sized fleets. Even just my own personal experiences up until the point I was rescued from the clutches of the Empire alone indicates a cancer too vile to ignore.

And where does the Clown, Sinjin and so on get their stock? From your Empire's trade in human flesh, that have even been pushed onto the capsuleer markets for some unfathomable reason. I'm sure that is for their Salvation too, hmm?

The Clown, Sinjin and others... they're just symptoms. Ugly and disfiguring ones that tend to get the attention sure, but the real disease? That's the one that needs to be removed, or these clowns just pop up again and again. Monstrous? Compared to the staggering vastness of suffering caused by Imperial slavery, no. Distractions, at worst.

The Phrase "As the flesh of their birth would speak to us." could be interpreted as damning to synthetic beings and those who have modified their bodies to be unrecognizable from human. That is how I understood it though, like you, I am not a Theologian.

You've got the names backwards. Otherwise, you are correct.