A Call To Action

Vayle-haan makes a convincing arguement that I think far too many have been willing to discount because they are blinded by the promise of new technology and discovery. Far too many are willing to instantly see the Triglav as a race worthy of receiving the mantle of “sufficiently advanced precursor society to guide and teach New Eden” simply because they’re the first seemingly sentient, communicating race of hominids we’ve encountered since the Drifters started creeping their way across the cluster and they happen to hate the Sansha and Drifters as much as CONCORD does.

This is a pretty egregious mistake to make, even assuming our shaky understanding of Triglav culture is correct. Speaking three at a time to the point if making an unintelligible message as your point of first-contact that could be seen as anything from a declaration of war to a pledge of alliance due to its comically confusing and obtuse nature, creating a writing system based on triangles (because, like, we’re edgy and the number three is our thing dude) with no clear logic behind the phonetic structure, dwelling deadly
and unstable wormholes, using barely controlled singularities and mutaplasmids as your technological cornerstone, and deploying what is effectively an Iapetan titan in sovereign territory with the intention of invasion just to prove a point about your backwards culture of “proving” regardless of the damage and human cost are not indicators of a sufficently advanced or particularly wise society that we should covet.

It speaks to, at best, an immature naive society that has lived in isolation so long it’s incapable of understanding any sort of theory-of-mind outside of their own collective groupthink. At worst, it speaks stubborn society willing to deploy Iapetans (which in all other societies is a declaration of total war in and of itself due to the immense damage they are capable of) to… What? Prove a point rather than focus that material cost towards their war with Sansha or the Drifters?

The Triglav are either relatively uncivilized and barbaric compared to the cultures of New Eden that have been able to successfully develop complex and sane systems of diplomacy or are immensely pig-headed. Either way, I hope all of you consider this before you start waxing poetic about the majesty of their technology and “culture” any further.

Uh … who do you see giving the Triglavian Collective the “mantle of ‘sufficiently advanced precursor society to guide and teach New Eden,’” sir?

We’re preparing to defend against an invasion, here.

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I feel almost insulted by your endorsement, good sir, since I don’t think there’s more than a single fact in your entire statement, your assumptions vary between demonstrably incorrect and absolutely ludicrous, and your beliefs seem to run counter to my own.

Nobody wants to lick the Triglavians’ boots. They seem to have an excellent grasp on their technology. The Xordazh class of ships is not comparable to an Iapetan titan, and frankly, we still can’t really understand the motivations behind their deployment.

And finally, as I said previously, we don’t understand the intent or significance of the Triglavians’ Proving, but we’re fairly certain the difficulty of understanding them is an intentional choice on their part, meant to challenge us as part of the Proving.

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@Aiden_Vayle with respect, you yourself claimed that the Xordazh’s sure size makes it “greater than anything being fielded in open warfare today.” We have seen ships of this scale deployed in the past before however, as Iapetans. Even if the explicate purpose of the Xordazh, however unlikely, isn’t to wage war then its scale alone makes it effectively as dangerous as an Iapetan due to its gravitational displacement and its ability to project power. There is a reason why Iapetans are staged in deep space far away from any sovereign systems or territory even when they aren’t staged for war.

New Eden has already mutually came to the conclusion not to deploy ships of this scale for a reason due to the danger they represent so for the Triglav to field these monstrosities is plainly irresponsible. Their isolationism does not excuse them from failing to understand simple concepts like “escalation” and “maybe there are consequences for our actions if we do this.” Namely, an unacceptable amount of dead baseliner crew and civilians caught in the crossfire for no good reason other than their “proving.”

@Aria_Jenneth If you’re preparing for invasion and recognize the Triglav as a potential threat, and not one of the many who are seemingly apologetic of their “proving” due to its “poorly understood cultural significance” then we’re already in agreement with no reason to be pedantic. The point I was trying to make was recognizing how absurd and unreasonable this is for a society that many will circlejerk over ad nauseam without pointing out its glaring flaws.

To put things as simply as possible; I’m increasingly convinced that the Triglavians don’t really think things through.

I’m increasingly concerned they were just ‘proving’ to themselves that they could kill us.

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Sir, respectfully I don’t think most of the “circlejerking” over the Collective has been worshipful so much as puzzled. We’re struggling to interpret, to work out from the little bits we can see what the rest of the picture might be. Unlike the Drifters, we can’t say they’ve given us nothing to work with; there’s a fair amount here, and a lot more (unfortunately) coming.

But not enough for us to judge, accurately, how much they do actually think things through.

Usually I wouldn’t think of using singularities as power sources as something you get to do if you don’t think ahead, but it might be those are for them what shield emitters are for us: something they’ve kind of forgotten the principles behind, but which they can still make work. They might be in a dark age. The design of new ships, like the Leshak, which apparently they shared out the design for specifically to counter the Drifters, might imply that they’re not, though.

My biggest worry is that they might actually be very sophisticated in their own context but interpret their “flow” narrowly and demand conformity from basically everyone and everything they meet, the way they demanded it from the rogue drones. If that’s the case, well … imagine the scariest traits of the Caldari (collective over individual survival-- use the strong; discard the weak) crossed with the scariest traits of pre-Vak’Atioth Amarr (unity through conquest) and you’ve got a recipe for a really brutal invasion.

I’m hoping they’re not going to be quite that aggressive, but, it seems like their earlier invocations of “proving” have fallen off (if someone knows better PLEASE tell me!).

In other words, they’re not playing around. If they invade, it’s probably serious: this isn’t a test; it’s an ideological purge.

We have no idea what their real power level is, so I really hope you’re right and they’re moving based on a misunderstanding of some kind or else just haven’t thought it through. If they understand the situation clearly and they’re moving anyway …

… that would probably be bad.

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Again, you attack the letter of my words, but misinterpret the spirit of them, and add demonstrably untrue arguments of your own.

A Xordazh, as I said, is utterly incomparable to an Iapetan. A Xordazh’s frame could be filled by ten Avatar-class titans, but current scale theories lead me to believe filling an Iapetan frame (the Caldari Iapetan, I believe, was the point of comparison) would require 20, at the barest minimum, if not 50, 100, or even 1000.

A Xordazh is, in many ways, like a mobile Citadel, and we believe the Triglavians will use them as forward operating bases in whatever Invasion may come, so while they do escalate the current conflict, they’re only a fraction of the threat an Iapetan could present. And frankly, if they deign such use, and potential loss, of manpower and resources to be acceptable, they are no more foolish than the pre-Vak’Atioth Amarr, or any other culture in New Eden who has waged open space warfare for ideological reasons.

Wars and invasions often start based on insufficient communication. The Triglavians have all the means to communicate with us, they can even hack our billboards and send messages. So what stops them from just sending their negotiators and learn about our diverse cultures first hand? They could spend months to learn about our cultures and know exactly who to attack for whatever reasons they have.

Instead, they use other means to learn about us, we don’t even know how well they know the cluster, we have never seen their scouts and so on. And now it seems they are going to “invade” our cluster with force. So it is really strange. Do they know enough about us to decide on such a heavy task, the resources, the organization? Or is this just made to combat Drifters and dealing with us is a secondary task?

Maybe they came from the depths of the Abyss, broke through the ship-rending gravity storms, burst forth into the glory of our open vista of a galaxy, stars dotting the sky like so many jewels.

Then had a fit of paranoid claustrophobia and thought ‘Nope, it’ll all have to go.’

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Or maybe one of their scouts saw a New Eden capsuleer in a station, eating pizza with pineapple and Triglavians leadership said: “Burn them all with fire!”

Shouldn’t be so? We wasted time only to test them in that point of view.

Their pocket universes, their rules, Mr. Lafisques. We visit by methods and under conditions they seem to largely control.

And, without exception, what they use those methods and conditions to create is a trial by combat.

If you don’t approve, maybe you can tell them when they arrive. But I wouldn’t expect them to listen unless you’ve fought, and probably even then. It’s not clear that they’re even interested in outside opinions, other than to measure them against their own “flow.”

I keep using this comparison because it seems to fit: it’s like if the Caldari got stuck in a super-hostile section of space for several thousand years. If you think the Caldari are clannish, xenophobic, and stubbornly determined to be and remain themselves to the point of maybe-pathology …

… at worst, well. Sansha’s Nation will hivelink you to force you to conform to their ideals. The Caldari will make you live somewhere else if you don’t. The Amarr might enslave you, though they do that less now than before.

In the worst case scenario, it looks like the Triglavians might just give you a chance to conform, then extirpate you from wherever they happen to be if you don’t conform to their satisfaction. Since “where they happen to be” is likely to soon be “here,” and we don’t have a lot of other places to go. . . .

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This being knows that. That’s why he said that the fight is imminent.

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