Why Your Empire Sucks

Well, Minmatar have done some truly heinous things in pursuit of either freedom or simple vengeance. For example, the Chronicle “Daughters of the Revolution” mentions an instance in which Minmatar rebels decide to “pollute the enemy” by setting up labor camps for captured Amarrian men and forcing captured Amarrian women into sexual slavery.

Minmatar freedom fighters, radicals and terrorists have committed a number of atrocities as well. The Chronicle “Innocent Faces” records an instance wherein a Minmatar terrorist group kidnaps the daughter of an Amarrian children’s show host and demands that he denounce the religion on his show if he ever wanted to see his daughter again. He doesn’t, and it’s implied that she is murdered.

But since you mentioned “factions”, I was only mentioning major examples that had taken place after the rebellion and the establishment of the Republic, and which were either carried out by, or sanctioned by, the government of the Republic.

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Holy shiiiitt that’s some brutal stuff

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Anyone mentioned the Intaki (Galente) Reborn faction yet & their transfer of memory to newborns or children (not sure which) for clone free immortality?

Assuming it wipes or subsumes the infants mind that ones effectively systemic culturally encouraged infanticide for you right there.

Gotta wonder how far back some of their memories go seeing as they’ve apparently been doing this since long before capsuleers & even before they got off planet again… wonder if any can remember coming through the EVE-gate?

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I haven’t found enough about the Intaki Reborn to know when the process if performed ( /paging @Bataav and the ILF ) but it’s an interesting question. (I’m becoming interested in Intaki lore myself)

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Did I hear my name?

Ida, the Intaki philosphy, has definately allowed for some of the Intaki darker qualities, with its unique approach to life and death… and a little bit more life.

There is the Aenebra death cult, who take a more… proactive approach to the death / rebirth process.

In YC109, the RISE Incident was a series of events that surrounded a dangerous hallucinogenic, peddled by a group linked to Serpentis, that could help Reborn Intaki recover memories of previous lives more vividly.

And then yes, there is Rebirth itself.

When selecting an Intaki character of the Reborn ancestry during character creation, the description says:

The Intaki practice what many foreigners consider a dark art, transferring the personality of a dying person into a newborn baby. Steeped in folklore and perfected with technology, the Rebirth process takes place in perfect accordnace with ancient Intaki tradition. And while not all who have been Reborn adhere to traditional Intaki faith themselves, it is a well-known fact that the Reborn account for a surprisingly high number of capsuleers among the larger Intaki population.

As far as I am aware, the fate of the newborn baby’s own personality/soul has never been established, and probably intentionally so.

IC this has led to targetted abuse by others. During the Placid Summit in YC108, Vremaja Idama said:

Many of the Idamas, and the Reborn have been targetted for threats and insults - we are called child killers, frauds, cult leaders and other things

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You’ve encouraged me to repost an Intaki lore thread of mine from the old forums. Consider it… “Reborn” :smirk:

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Some interesting points brought up about the Intaki(reborn spcifically, of which my character is, though not a direct practitioner of traditions.)

Now, on the topic of why my faction sucks, the Gallente sucks because of the CIA/KGB bastardchild that is the current Black Eagles. Also the mass exile of Intaki who thought the Gallente/Caldari war was unjust, and then denying them the rights to colonize any planets in what would become the Syndicate region(which eventually lead to the Intaki Syndicate forming, incidentally enough, and The Syndicate has its own baggage to deal with too.)

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Haven’t seen one done for the Caldari State yet so I’ll give it a crack. One of the suckiest things about the Caldari State would be the treatment of unemployed people aka the “Non-entity”.

In the description of the Caldari standard of living, it is often described as “the best and the worst” and this can be taken quite literally. Those that work hard and serve their corporations loyally are compensated generously, however, those that ■■■■ up too many times or just can’t fit into the corporate lifestyle soon find themselves at the bottom of the ladder, or worse, as a “non-entity”.

Making up roughly 5% of the State’s population, Non-entities are those who have lost their corporate citizenship and are unemployed. Because of how deeply integrated the megacorporations are with Caldari society, being unemployed is the same as having your Caldari citizenship revoked and being sent into exile, as it’s pretty much impossible to find employment with a megacorp other than the one you were born with.

The “non- entity” will find themselves homeless, forced out of corporate cities (which are all the cities in the State) as well as not even being able to work or buy anything as all money in the State is corporate script. Imagine being homeless in a country where there is no government welfare and you need electronic ID and a credit card to access anything but you can’t get one without a job. Essentially, you don’t exist, you’re a “Non-entity”.

These people are driven to fringe communities in the slums where the megacorps don’t care about. They live among other non-entities as well as the criminals. If a megacorp suddenly decides that community is sitting ontop of some mineral deposit or they want the land for real estate developement, it’ll get bulldozed as they’re not even considered Caldari. If they’re lucky, they might get hired by a corporation looking for cheap disposable labour in conditions that they don’t want to subject their own workforce to, preying on those that would do anything for a chance to reenter the corporate system.

Source and further reading:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160225235209/https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Caldari_State#Non-entity

http://www.wraithwerks.net/blog/2008/07/the-caldari-dialogues-4-those.html

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Caldari State:

  • Domestic Corporate Surveillance

Caldari Megacorporations all manage an extensive surveillance program on their citizens/employees. Everything is likely on file about a person on practically all aspects of their lives and dissent in any form is difficult both due to the pervasiveness of surveillance and never knowing if that person you’re saying what you really think that deviates from the Company line might inform on you, whether a colleague or even a member of your family.

  • Reprisals against dissent

Caldari Megacorporations don’t take dissent against authority lightly and protest against the corporation will usually be met with swift violence such as with the Brothers of Freedom:

Formerly an extremist labor movement in the State, the Brothers of Freedom led a widespread revolt against corporate security forces on a number of Caldari planets a number of years ago – some time before Tibus Heth’s vastly more successful revolt of a similar nature – after 65,000 protesters were killed by Caldari paramilitary forces while trying to force their way onto a CEP station in the New Caldari system. After months of dogged pursuit by Caldari authorities, the riots were put down and most of the leaders were killed or arrested. (From the Mission Text “Pirate Radio”)

Even with Heth’s Provist movement, the initial response to the events in Piak wasn’t “Let them express their right to free speech,” It was, “Deploy the Home Guard and kill the protesters.”

  • Militarized Society

According to Eve: Source, the Caldari State has a higher ratio of active military to civilian than North Korea and somewhere in the region of ten times that of the US to put it in perspective. That’s discounting that since military service/conscription is mandatory from the age of sixteen the State also has a significant reservist force ready to mobilize.

In terms of domestic policy this seems to blur the lines between civil thinking and military thinking. As seen with instances of civil disobedience or unrest, it’s not seen being framed as an issue to be resolved via civil institutions like courts or other forms of arbitration instead it’s an attack or act of subversion requiring a military response.

The State has built a big hammer with its national and corporate military so every domestic issue tends to be seen as a potential nail.

  • Economic Servitude

The Megacorporations pay all their employees in a scrip issued by their central owning bank. However this corporate scrip does not appear to be able to be exchanged into another corporate scrip – only to and from ISK. The effect this has on average Caldari salary worker is essentially a disincentive to work for another Megacorporation. If they want to, then they risk wiping out their savings in having to convert their scrip to ISK at a terrible exchange rate in order to have currency in the competing Megacorp they might want to work for instead.

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Thank you guys so much for your help in looking around the lore here. As I said, I’m going to be doing the Minmatar one first as there seems to be a lot of material for it, and beyond that they’re generally considered a “good” faction, so getting to dig in a little deeper is idea.

For now, here’s the second revision of my script, in case people would like to note things I’ve missed/misunderstood. Hopefully I’ll be able to start recording this weekend and put something out next week.

"Why the Minmatar Republic Sucks

  • Tattoo culture is a massive part of the Minmatar social and cultural hierarchy, however it is something entirely alien to what we’d know, and not something that one has direct control over. The first tattoo one is given is near-compulsory upon reaching adulthood. It realies on a mix of genetics, luck and mysticism on the part of the “Shamans” who peform the Marking Ritual or Voluval, permanently affixing one’s name and tribal afilliation (another part of Minmatar society we’ll get to soon enough), but also determining one’s status in society and the worth of one’s very soul.

The highest social rank is afforded by the “Ray of the Matar”, which is a ‘sign that one is destined for great things’, and typically brings with it a level of guaranteed success. In fact, a great many of the higher ranking politicians happen to have extremely rare and auspicious variations of markings, irrespective of how effective they are at their jobs. Far worse than this seeming random privellege however, is the most negative marking, which goes by many names between different tribes, “The Pale Eye”, “The Broken Shield”, “Face of Helina” being the most common terms.

Those who are - through no fault of their own - given this mark during their marking ceremony are immediately shunned and made outcasts from society, and social traditions in fact force a vow of silence upon these poor souls, with the punishment for breaking this being the complete physical removal of ones tongue.

I’d like you to a moment put yourself in the place of a Minmatar teenager on the cusp of adulthood, 16 to 18, and imagine how utterly terrifying it must be to know that you are going to a ceremony where there’s a chance (no matter how small) you may be exiled from your familly and have the threat of having your tongue removed hanging over you for the rest of your life, based completely on random chance. Even the more ‘minor’ negative marks, such as the “Slaver’s Fang” are likely to lead you to a live of poverty and desperation in a society and culture that is almost entirely dominated by tattoos as their one remaining post-enslavement touchstone.

  • Given this, it’s no wonder a great many with negative marks don’t take their exile, they run to a place where laws simply aren’t used. And this isn’t for any lack of police force, the Minmatar simply decided to have a place where laws as we would understand them don’t exist in the heartland of their empire, Vo’shun.

Part socio-cultural gulag, part warzone and all shithole, Vo’shun only has one overiding principle, “No-one is turned away.” Within it, the only laws are those of ancient legend, attempting to create a fascimilie of what the Minmatar lived in before they reached for the stars, before the Amarr darkened their skies.

Murder is an everyday occurence, suicide is just as rampant, but as the Minmatar Republic slowly repopulates, enough exiles run screaming from their adulthood and their extended famillies into the arms of it, so that they might know freedom from all else. That stream of the dissaffected and desperated and discarded is the only thing keeping it populated. It is so dangerous that despite being within spitting distance of the Amarr empire, they have a law against millitary action and especially enslavement raids on the planet, due to fears of the myriad of untreated or untreatable communicable diseases rife in the colony would damage their existing stocks.

And this is all before we get into the location on the planet itself this supposed shelter is placed. It is the closest thing EVE has to a literal hellscape, being inside a miles deep scar on the landscape of the homeplanet of the now extinct Starkmanir tribe, a grand orbital strike having shattered the tectonic plate. Floating in this gap, between the sulphur volcanoes a tiny fraction of the continent remains. It is hot, barren, and the air is nearly deadly, with supplies only provided by piracy efforts or the Sisters of EVE, life is beyond hard, it is nigh impossible.

Oh, and in the greatest irony, the name translates as “Hidden Hope”, just to lure in more new blood from all over the Repbulic to dry on this burning rock, spilled by equally desperate souls as they fight to live. And all of this is considered to be the Minmatar ideal of freedom, a grand social experiment as utterly abhorrent and unethical as the Amarr Human Endurance Program, just in the name of recreating Minmatar folklore instead of bastardised science.

I can’t help but speculate that perhaps this is an idea that the Amarr implanted within the Minmatar culture during their generations of slavery, to paint a picture of the Minmatar culture as barbaric and backwards so that more would embrace the ‘love’ of God. If so, it’s a terrible irony that the Minmatar, after gaining their freedom decided that they should simply embrace their barbarism as the epitome of their culture, proving that all the Amarr had said was true.

  • This barbarism doesn’t just extend to their own people however, their hatred of the Amarr runs so terrifyingly deep that they are effectively not considered human by the Minmatar in general. To start with, the Republic has concentration camps for Amarr prisoners of war - or people who associated with them, or expressed beliefs they felt were a bit too Amarr to accept. These camps are designed to not simply kill the occupants however, but to completely destroy them spiratualy and mentally, to break down the rules of cause and effect that allow people to stay sane. Pointless tasks, incompletable orders, random punishments, complete forced subservience to the guards will - including everything from forced corophagia to forced rapes, with one guard noted to gather a section of inmates, and force them to have sex with each other as he watched. And the worst part? There is no end to it. The Guards keep people alive for as long as possible, to extend their torment, only executing prisoners if absolutely necessary. You could be captured as a young Amarrian adult, or perhaps a Minmatar citizen who wished to convert to the Amarr religion, and be kept there until your death of neglect at 70 or so, after living 50 years in this hell.

Camps like this were invented and refined during the great Minmatar rebellion, with mentions of the “Daughters of the Revolution” being abound, whom are the Amarr women who were sold into sexual slavery within the Minmatar Republic as spoils of war. The men were primarily worked to death in horrifying forced labour camps, and shot when they outlived their usefulness.

  • And that’s before we get into the state sponsored terrorism that the Minmatar seem to greatly enjoy participating in. You can look at a great many chronicles here, but my personal favourite has to be “Innocent Faces”, which details the horror faced by a children’s show host in the Amarr empire, who’s young daughter is kidnapped by a Minmatar group, with the instructions to denounce his religion on TV if he wanted to see his child again. Fearing both the aparatus of the Amarr state coming down on him, and also the eternal damnation of apostasy, he does not, and it is heavily implied that his daughter is murdered.

  • Still, those are just the people who aren’t quite “real minmatar” enough, being Amarr and all that. Let’s imagine you manage to get out of the marking ceremony with a normal mark, and don’t have any dangerous ideas like trying some of that religion stuff. You’re still far from what our perspective would see as ‘free’.

  • For a start, you are almost completely beholden to your extended family, with that being a core identifier added during the Voluval along with your name and ethnic tribe. You will be culturally expected to help every cousin, no matter how distant as a part of one’s honour. Not a particularly awful system, except in how that cultural system is regularly enforced with exile or violence should one’s duty to help their extended family be shirked. This structure then builds up with other extended famillies, creating the vast ethnic based collectives that form the tribalistic foundation of the fractuous state of the Republic.

This, in and of itself is less inherently terrifying, until one considers that this means that the police force for ones tribe are likely to be - in some way - related to you. And any percieved crime you commit is either against another state (and therefore likely to have your police cover it up when they can), or an unforgivable sin against one’s familly. As such, police brutality in the Minmatar is not just common, it is the default response. One famous tale from the Frigates of EVE is that during the repurposing of the Shamrock into the RFF, the plans were sold to the Amarr by engineers, who were then welded to the wings of the ship and flown into the void. The survivor of this adventure was then beaten to death after landing.

Even if you avoid being simply beaten to death, I wouldn’t exactly expect a thorough investigation. For example, the accused killer of Karin Midular (previous PM of the Minmatar Republic), was taken from the Gallente Federation in a bout of gunboat diplomacy, and despite the intense scrutiny placed on the Republic as a result of this, gave him what could be barely even be called a sham trial, with the judge sentencing him rather quickly to execution despite a complete lack of defense counsel, simply being paraded in front of those he supposedly hurt and brutally executed.

No wonder a huge amount of the Matari immigrate to the Gallente, although that’s a subject we’ll cover in the Gallente episode.

  • Still, let’s imagine you get a nice shiny tattoo that marks you out for great things though, and you end up getting a nice cushy political position. Things are looking up right, plenty of guards to let you avoid the whole getting beaten to death over an accusation thing, enough clout to probably get an actual trial. Even this isn’t enough to protect you, as was seen in the incredibly public political purges the Republic underwent prior to the kicking off of what we now know as Faction Warfare, which would have made Stalin proud - Every Minmatar politician with ties to the Amarr was, without trial, summarily executed within their equivelant to a senate meeting by the Tribal Elders and those loyal to them.

And then, a few years later, they just gave up on democracy as a whole, making the Sanmatar (Tribal Chief) a lifetime position, and abolishing the Prime Minister altogether, regressing to a Chieftan based sytem of government. To be more Minmatar.

  • And, even after all this in the name of the ‘Greater Good’ of a Tribal Republic, the Minmatar still desperately struggle to support those slaves willingly freed by the Amarr Empire, with Empress Jamyl’s (may she rest in peace) proclamation of freedom in particular leading to a huge strain being put on the social safety net of the fledgling empire. Many of these freed slaves ended up in shanty towns, their quality of life barely better than that whilst under the chains of the Amarr, without taking into account the religious violence that took place between pro & anti Amarr factions in these empancipated slaves, which the Republic was almost powerless to intervene in.

[Outro]

Fly Smart, and remember, We Come For Our People."

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As far as I’ve understood Voluval has nothing to do with these. Voluval supposedly reveals the persons “soul and destiny” for all to see.

Name and tribal markings are entirely different things, and can be and are changed, as while I’m not sure how commonplace it is, people can change obviously their names and on rarer cases, their tribes. A huge part of the tattoo culture is also that you need approval to get or remove or alter tattoos, and in one of the chronicles I think it was said that a heavily tattooed Minmatar is often highly respected because of this. And the Voluval is treated very reverently, as you are not allowed to cover or obscure it with another tattoo, or remove it, if it even can be removed.

Ray of Matar, no need for the “the”. To my understanding it is one in a century or perhaps even millennia kind of thing, extremely rare and auspicius and indeed affords the owner a lot more forgiveness and open doors than would be generally given.

I’ve understood these are all separate markings, all of negative connotations. To my knowledge there is no specific “worst possible” mark explicitly mentioned in lore, but several are bad enough to warrant exile like you said.

I don’t remember Minmatar ever being depicted like this. I mean, sure, Tribe matters and it is very important to the Minmatar, but I’ve understood Minmatar are kind of cutthroat that they don’t help those who don’t help themselves. You can’t just loaf around your cousins cousins’ home banking on the goodwill of “family”, if they perceive you not even trying to better yourself they don’t hesitate to throw you out on the street - maybe with a few pennies to tide you over a couple of days, but not much more.

This is being kind of unfair, and generally a bad example, since the Gallente did all the judicial work and declared him guilty. Minmatar just judged him according to their own laws and killing the Ray of Matar would be nothing short of assasinating the Empress or CEO or President of the other empires, so, a capital offence.

Also, Broteau wasn’t extradited during the Colelie incident, like this paragraph coul lead people to believe. He was given to the Minmatar once the Gallenteans had concluded their investigation and judgement, IIRC.

And while I can believe that due process is often ignored in cases that seem clear cut, I don’t personally hold as dim view of blatant disregard of justice in the Republic as many other people seem to.

This also kind of rings badly in my eyes - a bit too much reverence for our favoured type of government, democracy. There have recently been quite a few threads in IGS where people have laid out IMO very good reasoning how the Tribal system can be very effective, at least for the Minmatar.

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“After the Voluval ceremony the young Minmatar will receive her permanent naming mark which will reside forever on her face. This mark will identify the name, clan and tribe of that Minmatar, plain for all other Minmatar to see.” - EVE Universe

I didn’t see any evidence for it being possible to change one’s naming mark in my (admittedly brief) research - though I did conflate the Voluval and the naming mark in the script, which I should definitely adjust.

“The highest social rank is afforded by “Ray of the Matar”” doesn’t sound quite right when I try and say it, but yes, it is certainly a rare thing.

"Karin had only witnessed it once, when she was six years old. A teenage boy got the worst mark there was: the pale eye. " - EVE Universe

It does seem I rolled all these different markings together however, with each having different impacts. The Slaver’s Fang seems to be the only one which carries with it the penalty of silence, whereas the others appear to be simple banishment orders.

From what I’ve discussed with Minmatar players, the Republic does have a very strong Tribal based social safety net, with the expectation being that one looks after their family. This is - for me - most poignantly mentioned in how poorly the Starkmanir/Nefantar emancipated slaves were left off by the Republic, effectively having nothing to fall back on, as their tribe is practically non-existent.

This is just one of the more notable examples - I struggled to find more specific case examples that more accurately represented the justice system of the Minmatar, despite it being rather often mentioned in a bad light.

Also, I was under the assumption that the Coleile incident had led to the Gallente handing him over to the Republic, with it taking place after their investigation, am I getting my timelines mixed up here?

Eh, you’re probably not wrong, but I have to ground this in western values as it’s our only realistic point of view onto the topic - If I presented this from the Minmatar PoV, almost everything here doesn’t seem nearly as screwed up.

Thank you for taking a look over this and pointing out some of the things I got wrong however, it’s greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

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Granted I’m not certain of this either and have no clue if this has been explored in other sources, but I’ve gotten the impression that these things are not entirely rigid, that one can become a member of another clan or tribe - through marriage if in no other way - and that their marks would be changed to reflect their current status; since the tattoos are revered so much in their culture, altering your tattoo would be final rite to cement their transitioning as a member of a new social group.

I’ve read that chronicle like I don’t know how many times but have somehow managed to always miss that bit. :+1:

Yeah in a basic way I’m not going to dispute that, but I’ve come to see it that Minmatar don’t have a high tolerance for “layabouts”, to receive help you need to do your part, depending on goodwill that might be just help around the house to full on worked to the bone on menial tasks like washing dishes on your hosts establishment. Tying back on the Starkmanir / Nefantar issue, yeah, it certainly is a problem for them and theoretically any Minmatar is family so they should receive help from the other Tribes - but I assume this “grit your teeth and work through it” attitude is expected of them as well, to some extent.

Like I’ve exhanged thoughts earlier in the thread, there are scarce few examples of the judicial system in action that doesn’t concern cases of treason or other similar, grave and highly emotionally charged crimes. And in which cases Republic justice is often swift, brutal and decisive.

After the Colelie incident the Gallente still refused to give Midular’s killer to the Minmatar, and only after sentencing him as guilty decided to extradite him to the Sebiestor to be judged for the murder of their Tribal Chief. According to these dates there was over a month between the Colelie Incident and Broteaus transfer:

Well, yeah, I get that, I just thought calling tribalism as regressing sounded a bit harsly worded.

No problem, and like I said I’m not some ultimate authority, and like for many others my memory likely prefers to retain the stuff I find awesome, not the bad things, so cross checking with a lot of people is always a good idea.

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At the end of the day, you have sources for almost everything here that I did get wrong, so I absolutely cannot complain! Working with people who know the lore in vastly more detail than I is going to be a key part of making a video that gets more people interested in the nuances of the lore - which is my end goal.

Also, I managed to grab a copy of Source to add an extra little fact that’s rather fun to this whole discussion on the Republic - “Thanks to all of this heavy handed justice, the murder rate in the Republic is only a whopping 5 times higher than that of the United States and around 80% of that of the city of Chicago.” - Which I think puts everything in context for us.

Anyway, I’ll likely finish editing the script and record/produce on Sunday to see what kind of a reception this content gets, I really can’t wait to see what kind of discussion it creates :slight_smile:

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Well, there’s a lot more people to murder :grin:

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Per Capita, my dude!

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Alright, thank you all so much for your help, here’s the video in question! I’m not overly happy with the video backing for it, but I’m hoping it’ll make a nice listen-whilst for people like me who happen to listen to lore videos as we play games/excersise/etc. Hope you enjoy!

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Just watched your video there and boi, i want more here.O_O

Hope u will move to Amarr part soon as i am huge part of the Empire and if possible, also explain on how the Empire seems to be changing into no slave in the Empire and what the difficulties they are going to face.

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Amarr is next on my list - will likely throw my skeleton of a script up soon for people to add too. The Minmatar were just the one I managed to get the most material for on my first call for ■■■■■■ up things! :slight_smile:

Glad you liked it though, seems to have had a better response than I was even hoping for! 3k views and climbing :smiley:

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Watched it this morning. Very informative, good pacing, good op-ed (but only very little). Well done.