EVE Fiction

Because Caldari corporate culture is an extension of Japanese and not American or other westerner.

Read more about here and here.

As a recent discussion on Backstage about Matari tribalism showed (here) the Matari is far from a unified mass and while honor is likely important within the family/closets tribe it most certainly does not extend to a national level.

I guess if Sony and Toyota had a Navy they would claim them to be honorable too... Still honor and ultra-capitalism don't really fit.

Even if its the future, history tells us that human nature doesn't change.

yk

Because they wear Captain Kirk shirts?

Think less "I'm an honorable man." and more "I have my honor to uphold."

Caldari society is based on putting the needs of the many(in this case one's parent corporation and the State itself) before your own. To them that is not only honorable, but expected. In Caldari business with a few exceptions I'm pretty sure anything goes. You can be as underhanded, sneaky, and agressive as you want. BUT if you get caught you dishonor yourself, your family, and your corporation.

Tha Caldari are a very proud race(more specific to the Civire and Deteis than the Achura). Within that pride is a sense of honor or dignity that goes back to the first Cal-Gal war when they basically told the Gallente that they would not be told how to be Caldari.

I don't see why honor and capitalism would be mutually exclusive.

RL or in fiction... why can't an employee of a corporation be honorable? Why can't a corporation itself be honorable?

And why is it that a tribal society should be more or less honorable than any other social group?

I think capitalism (the business world in general) and honor are pretty much mutually exclusive. If one has honor, he will sometimes forsake personal gain, if receiving that gain would be at the cost of compromising his own principles. In the business world, anyone doing that is handicapping himself. He's playing by a self-restricting set of rules that his competitors aren't playing by. Eventually, in an absolutely free market, his competitors should become richer than him, and acquire more capital (and therefore more discretionary power to use) than him. If he's an individual, he might just be poorer than his competitors throughout his career. If it's a perpetual-life corporation, mathematically it's self-restrictions (inefficiencies) should eventually drive it out of the market.

Note that a businessperson or corporation may be absolutely non-honorable, but may still be trustworthy. Honor and trustworthiness are different concepts. A business entity can selectively manage its reputation for trustworthiness as a business strategy. But it's not sacrificing anything to maintain a set of honorable principles. It is just managing reputation as another tool for maximizing gain. Pure pragmatism, nothing honorable about it.

I guess the Caldari would consider themselves 'honorable' for attacking Nouvelle Rouvenor too then? That was basically a terrorist attack on a 500mil innocent civillians so that would put the honorable society that the Caldari claim similar to the honorable society terrorist groups claim (Im sure Al Queda claims a society that claims 'a strong sense of personal and collective honor and dignity' too). That or the proposed lore is all a farce.


yk

I wrote a post but the forums ate it.

In any case, I assume that the Caldari honour is a combination of the "honourable" stereotypes about the Japanese (organization, bushido, etc.) and the Finns (honesty). Then there is the concepts of "them" and "us", where acting honourable towards your own group's goals might require being dishonest to another group (salesmen, for example, might be an example of this). Then there are people who just don't fit in. And finally, EVE is a dystopia. The focus isn't on the hard-working father of three who strives to keep his family fed. The main character is the slimy guy who seduced the worker's wife, stole the family's savings and ran away with the enslaved kids.

Similar stereotypes and their complete opposites exist for every EVE main faction. Amarr couldn't care less about their God, but the Scripture gives a load of good excuses to go enslave people once you twist the words long enough. All Gallentean senators are actually working for some megacorporation, assuming they are working in the first place and not vacationing in a whorehouse in the Syndicate. Minmatar are violent racists who care about slaves just as long as the slave is Minmatar. Not that part of them wouldn't be willing to sell their grannies back to the Amarrians, assuming they have enough time for that for all the drug-running.

You're judging an entire culture and civilization based off the actions of a few extreme radicals and terrorists? Congratulations. You're an idiot.