A general is faced with an enemy fortress, well defended, with entrenchments, artillery, and well equipped and well trained defenders. The general has been ordered to take this fortress.
The first day of the siege, the general sends a whole division of troops across the field in a charge. The division is killed to the man before they even get to the glacis.
The next day, the general sends another division, again, right up the middle across the field in a charge. Again, the division is killed to a man before even reaching the glacis.
The third day, another division is sent right up the middle. They die in the corpse field where the previous two divisions died, still far from the glacis.
The fourth day, the general sends another division charging across the field. The same thing happens.
And so continues the siege onto the fifth day, the sixth, the thirty-third, the eighty-second, the one thousand and eleventh, then one millionth day.
Even the stupidest of armchair generals, the kind that liked to explain to me how desert warfare worked before I deployed to Alkabsi could tell that this was a bad plan. A change in tactics was required before the dawn of the second day.
And yet, this is the same tactic that the Amarr Empire has used to reclaim the Minmatar for almost a thousand years. The Ni-Kunni were mostly reclaimed within a few generations. The Khanid and Udorians certainly managed to be integrated well enough, in a timely fashion.
Still, after centuries, the Amarr Empire has kept with the āfrontal attackā approach to the Minmatar, to beat the Scriptures into them, or something.
On Alkabsi, I saw Minmatar slaves fight to the death. Something clearly isnāt working.
There are more Gallente and Caldari living in the Empire that converted freely than there are free and emancipated Minmatar. Something clearly isnāt working.
Iām not a heretic like Samira Kernher. I understand that religious and cultural reasons have enshrined slavery in the Empire; Iām not arguing for abolition. However, I do think that the Empire should examine its current practices. We have been using the stick for hundreds of years. It might be time to try the carrot?
I converted to the Faith on the inspiration, the truth of the message and the redemption of the Light of God. There are, honestly I think, in the Empire trillions more like me, from barely over a century of trade and relationships with the Federation and State. A hundred years of peace and the Empire got more converts from foreign nations than many hundreds of years of enslaving the Minmatar.
As someone that graduated several statistics courses, I generally donāt gamble. However, I am willing to bet everything I have ISK wise (which is a lot), that if upon the Minmatar rebellion, the Emperor had freed all the remaining Minamtar, there would be more free and faithful Minmatar living in the Empire than there are today, just from a century of peaceful relations, rather than the frothing anger from the Republic. (See: Delāthul) With the āWe Come for Our Peopleā cause removed, justified or not, the course of history would have change, and I say for the better.
God knows that the Minmatar are a far better people than the Gallente, and still they convert like hotcakes.
I am going to close this with a personal observation. I am friends with quite a few Matari or Minmatar. I canāt actually tell the difference. Sometimes, a certain holder makes comments (which I really hope are jokes) about enslaving one of them and giving them to me. I can not thing of a worse fate. Such an action would guarantee that this friend would be consigned to oblivion. They would never, never , never convert as a slave. God bless them, but theyāre stubborn that way. I would rather then stay free, outside the Empire, because as long as that is the case, thereās still a non-zero chance they will see the Light. And no one needs a PhD in statistics to know that a slim chance is better than no chance.
Before we waste another century trying to beat faith into a people and failing, I pray we can change tactics.
, sorry i blame it on the way to early a time. I shall edit to make it fitā¦