Not often. Ask someone whose father died in a war what they think of the people who killed him. You’ll find wars are full of deep, personal wounds, marrow-deep and poisoned with festering resentment, even if the leadership likes to act like it’s all just politics.
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That is more or less why I do not expect the Republic to initiate the process to mend old wounds. Our people tend to hold these things very dear to heart. And even if the Empire were to say, “Okay, fine, you can have all these Minmatar back, just stop bombing the lot of us already,” chances are we will always have many somebodies in the Republic continue the bombing to avenge past victims.
In case you wonder, yes, I do prefer the company of machines to people, no matter race or creed. Been that way for a very long time.
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I don’t think Jenneth meant intentional insult here. It’s quite different when she does.
It does seem, though, that the translator is mangling the concept. There’s no sense in saying a feud (between rivals) is worse than a war (between enemies); if the concepts come through right no one in their sane mind would say so.
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Don’t give her too much slack there, Elsebeth. She knows what she’s saying, and she knows how it comes across. It’s a common theme with her, littering her arguments with disenfranchisement, haughty trivializing of matters of importance - because they’re inconvenient for her arguments or chosen side - is pretty much the norm at this point.
It’s been a genuinely sad thing to watch her fall from an observer to a loyalist that doesn’t even understand the sides she’s picked between. It aches to remember how she was warned by so many about what would happen. Repeated warnings when it was happening. Now, all that remains is acknowledging that it has happened, and mourn it.
I wonder if she is as oblivious to that change as she presents herself, or if the path is visible to her?
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No, she’s clearly talking about generational blood-feuds between extended families. That’s not rivalries. It’s far closer to ‘war’ on a sub-national scale.
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… my clan has been involved in many generational feuds. Some internal, some external, none have ever been anywhere near close to ‘war’. It’s nonsense and tosh.
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What she says.
A feud can get bad and too many good people might die, for sure, but that’s still not a war.
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I didn’t say it is a war, I said it’s closer to a war—as in, closer to a war than to a ‘rivalry’. Rivalry carries connotations of its own: competition for the same thing, often with a level of grudging respect and even shrouded affection. The kind of generational bloodshed she appears to be talking about can be over offenses people don’t even bother remembering after the first hundred years, where ‘kill them because it’s them’ is the order of the day and groups organize to go into their neighbors’ lands specifically to do harm to them just because they’re there.
That’s not closer to ‘a rivalry’ than it is to ‘a war’.
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Yea, well, if you look at the standard dictionary definition of “rival” those connotations are there. I think we all know, however, that in real life clan rivalries are quite rarely about competing for only or mainly for a concrete niche or for property. Rather, they tend to be about status, or indeed about past offenses, or just simply tradition. “Those guys”.
However, at least for me, a feud is a contained thing. It has its own conventions and rules - not the same for every feud, of course, but particular to that feud. There are certain lines that cannot be crossed, and the objective is to prove something or dominate the other party or to revenge a thing or hell, simply show off.
When it happens - and it does happen, yes - that the feud spills over to actually trying to destroy the other party, then yes, it does turn into a war, and the rival is no longer a rival but an enemy.
That’s distasteful, of course, to everyone. We all have but one true enemy, and should keep that in mind.
Still, talking about a feud-turned-into-a-war and using that to say that “feuds are worse than wars”, implying that feuds are worse than The war is bogus.
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The ones I have been witness to have all been obsession-level conflicts that respect no boundaries. What you describe is more like a long-standing grudge or, you know, rivalry.
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Well, I point again to my theory that the concepts translate badly…
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I guess maybe they really do translate badly. A “feud,” to me, is not at all a rivalry; it’s more the kind of bitter, long-lasting enmity that gives rise to, well, the idea that the world would be better off without the other side-- that they should all be exterminated, their blood purged from the world, for reasons that seem very valid and important to those who hold that enmity.
On a small scale they produce stuff like duels and opportunistic murders and/or massacres; on a larger scale, they can lead to attempted genocide.
Cultures that admire sentiments like, “Never let a slight pass,” where rigid, dearly-held honor is preferred to moderation, tend to be maybe a little prone to them. Stuff like that was somewhat a feature of the old Achur aristocracy, so it’s a common theme for period dramas. The Caldari, Minmatar, and Amarrian Holder cultures all show some hints of that same sort of sentiment.
I worry about it a little anywhere Starsi’s marketing has a lot of appeal. “Tastes Like Revenge,” is most attractive if you think you’re going to like how revenge tastes.
Edit:
A related concept is “vendetta,” though I think that’s usually more between individuals. A feud would be a whole series of interlocking vendettas, the resolution of some giving rise to others; or else a vendetta without a specific target, but against an entire bloodline or nation.
… Usually mutually held-- soon, if not at once.
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This is getting technical and probably uninteresting to anyone without an ear to Seb dialects, but anyhow. See raw file without translation for exacts (I’ll clear it through).
So, where I hail from we’d call it a rivalry when it is still fought on the market or in public spaces or in an isolated duel; a feud when lawyers or undeclared violence or chains of duels to actual injury enter the scene and the conflict is prolonged; and a war when it becomes about annihilating the other party rather than gaining advantage or status. We call the parties in rivalries and feuds both “rivals”, and reserve the term “enemy” for a party in a war. A “feud” implies involvement of clan or wider kin; a “rivalry” can exist between individuals (even of the same clan or working together for the same goals).
Incidentally, the words “war declaration” and “enemy” in standard capsuleer CONCORD-sanctioned wars have no clear cultural matches. The latter could be “opponent”, as in an opponent in a sparring match, in most opportunistic wars (though obviously cases where “enemy” also is appropriate exist, when enough mutual history has passed for a true enemy-relationship to develop).
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Maybe the real difference is in how we’re interpreting “war,” then. The “Great War” between the Gallente and Caldari lasted eight decades, but I don’t think it was really about annihilation for anybody … even if feelings about it got pretty intense, especially on the Caldari side.
If that’s really what you’re planning with the Amarr, a war of extermination … maybe I asked to withdraw from the pendulum war too soon.
I don’t want to, but, if even you see me as an “enemy” in this sense … if this is what you meant when you told me I was one, an “enemy” … maybe I should be helping to bleed your strength away.
Is wanting to protect the Directrix really inconsistent with not wanting to hurt you?
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It’s what they’re planning with everyone else.
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Wars can end without annihilation of the other party. It’s more about the mindset you have towards the enemy: is annihilation an acceptable, even desirable, way to end the conflict?
In most generational feuds, that is not the case, even though it might look like that to the outsider and even though it might escalate to annihilation.
Between the Minmatar Republic and the Amarr Empire, it is very much so.
Cannot comment on the Gallente/Caldari conflict, really, with my knowledge.
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I see. …
Arrendis and Miz are extremists, so I can safely ignore what they say about your intentions. (Or ours, actually.) You seem to be kind of another matter, though. Thank you for being candid with me.
What you say does make a degree of sense, as a description of the situation, but I don’t think things have really escalated so far.
… maybe I’m being naive about that, though. After all I haven’t really seen things from your side; just Miz yelling at me a lot, which doesn’t count at all, and Arrendis being quietly way more genocidal, which also doesn’t count but is considerably scarier.
I guess I’ll have to think about this a little.
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It’s the strangest thing. I don’t really ever raise my voice, yet you insist repeatedly I’m “yelling”. Is calm certainty really so offensive to you? Is your position truly so weak that you must resort to interpreting your opponents in ways that allows you to dismiss their stance by layering it in illusion and falsehoods?
Strong statement or intent does not require volume, nor does justified anger or fury.
I can assure you, little bird… you have never heard me yell. I doubt you ever will.
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Volume level’s secondary to content, especially here, where we mostly just read each other’s words. Yours are about as subtle and tactful as an artillery barrage.
To my ear, you yell almost all the time.
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Then your ear needs calibrating. Subtlety and tact is indeed something I rarely bother with. It almost always veils and hides intent, honesty and meaning for little gain. It is sad that you choose to disregard something because it lacks obfuscation.
Pity.
Ah well, you choose what you choose. It’s not like it isn’t predictable.
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