Or at least until it becomes inconvenient.
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You keep using that word. You even explained why, once, and it sort of made some sense at the time.
I still donāt see myself in it, though.
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I use it, Aria, because itās the word you used, not even a year ago, to describe whyādespite having principled objections to the Empireās policies and cultural normsāyou donāt bother taking any kind of stand. Because it would be āinconvenientā.
But I wouldnāt expect you to admit saying that where your keepers might hear. And this, by the way Aldrith, is part and parcel of the mistrust: a culture where people are, and grow ever more, duplicitous and deceitful by habit, and wrap it up in words like āhonorā that they twist to mean āconvenienceā and ācomfortableā.
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Well, different cultures, different significance. Thereās a significance attached in Amarr culture to things being Written, after all. When something is Written, itās a really important thing.
I guess, with Minmatar culture, the equivalent might be having such an oath tattooed on oneself. That is of profound significance culturally, yes ? And to do such a thing, and later to go back on it, is not something done lightly, yes ?
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Often enough, it only takes oneās given word.
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There, you got it. Well done.
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Sooo-- about a third of my existence-as-a-separate-person ago?
It sounds more like something youād have said, and Iād have shrugged over.
āSure.ā
Especially at the time, I had no reason to make you think well of me. ā¦ I didnāt trust or think particularly well of myself.
Turns out I do have some moral feeling of my own, though.
Today I helped Directrix Daphiti teach Liam to eat solid food. Itās a lot of work, to create a life. Humans start out as little loafs of biology. It seems like we forget, how much is involved in building a grown person.
Doing such things, maybe my clarity diminishes a little. Itās hard to regret it, though.
Dealing with Nauplius was always a risk. What I had at stake was way less than what his victims face, though. I couldnāt save many; I did save some. ā¦ Seeing them, trying to ease their suffering or even just let them survive, made it harder to want to turn around and kill their kin.
Maybe that diminshed my clarity a little, too. Itās hard to regret doing that, either.
Thereās other stuff, too, of course. Falling in love. Breaking someoneās heart, and mine. Killing someone, or several someones. Visiting places, seeing how people live. Hating somebody, even if Iām still really no good at it. ā¦ Having friends. Having a home.
Everything, really. Life makes it harder to keep my perspective, to keep my eyes clear.
Although ā¦ it might also have made me a little harder to manipulate. Back near the start, a single insult sent me to PY-RE, convinced I had to prove my strength. I donāt totally regret that, and I still think fondly of most of my comrades from back then, but, it did set up a lot of destructive dynamics.
I donāt think Iām quite such a windblown leaf, now. All paths arenāt equal to me anymore; I have real preferences about my fate and place in this world: anchors. My judgment might not be worth a lot of weight, but itās there, I donāt mistrust it totally anymore.
So maybe I wouldnāt answer that way anymore, Arrendis. But then, I donāt feel like I need you to understand so much either. It seems a little funny to say so, having said all that, above, but, actually, I guess I donāt really mind if you really understand or not. Itās not like youād probably admit it if you did, anyway.
In the end, we donāt think the same, and wonāt. ā¦ and ā¦ Iām not sure I even like you enough at this point to want your approval.
Okay ā¦ well ā¦ thank you, I think, only right now Iām trying to decide whether my place in this world means I ought to kill as many of you as I can, to help make sure you never have the numbers to really threaten the Empire.
If I want the people I really care about to be safe ā¦ should I work towards peace? Or just to make war impossible?
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So, now that you lot are done demoting someone from āvalid contributorā to ābiased curā for the mere act of working and living alongside your despised enemies, can we get back to trying to think of what peace between our peoples might realistically look like?
Or are you all so emotionally and intellectually wounded that you need to keep kicking her for the crime of teaching Amarr babies how to eat?
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I PROPOSE THE ISSUE OF GENERATIONAL SLAVERY BE RESOLVED THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF INTERPRETIVE DANCE.
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I am still waiting for the first realistic idea to surface, as well.
Not holding my breath.
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Well, I suggested the Empire begin releasing Minmatar slaves in a manner that would eventually free them all. Perhaps we can start with your ideas there.
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I said ārealisticā.
Also, as has been pointed out, just releasing every Minmatar slave is not enough as long as the idea of Reclaiming lives, as I explained above. It might buy a temporary peace, but eventually the guys who think it was a terrible mistake and against Godās will to make all peoples etc-and-so-forth will get back into power.
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This is realistic, done in certain ways. The Empire can be convinced to release Minmatar slaves willingly. I can see several paths forward on this matter from within the Empire. Precedents have already been made, and further work can be done.
Our nations can coexist peacefully even with the Reclaiming as a tenant of our faith. Method, not intent, is your main complaint, no? Missionaries at your door are far less inconvenient than slavers in orbit, I would hope. I mean, unless you believe smiling, zealous teenagers trying to enlighten you about Gheinok the First deserve the same bullets as shock whip-wielding men.
Untrue. Even the most imperialistic of us can be cowed into tolerance under the right circumstances. Even Jamyl I turned back at the Republicās border when the remnants of the Elder Fleet fled into it. Our patience with you has proven to be quite great, despite your near-panicked ogling of the threat we pose.
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I think youāll find she turned back thanks to the Defiants making a last stand a little too tough for her to break through.
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When you cannot even convince Amarrians that this would work, how do you expect convincing the Minmatar? āTrust us! We are all nice now! The Reclaiming is just a metaphor for missionaries!ā
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Metaphor?
Uh, Lord Consort? Is there any, you know, anything in the Scriptures about what the Reclaiming is supposed to be, aside from returning humanity to God?
It seems like the Reclaiming is just the end goal; the methodās left to the Amarrian faithful. Am I wrong about that?
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Donāt know what the Scriptures say (probably five different things, all contradictory) but you just managed to summarize the problem.
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ā¦ well, maybe, but, itās basically a case of someone who thinks they have a really great idea wanting to tell people about it and running into trouble because their first idea for how to go about that involved chaining people into their chairs to make them stay put, but eventually part of their audience escaped that one time and almost everybodyās armed to the teeth and willing to fight maybe to the death to keep from being chained into that chair, and the descendants of that first guy who had the idea are kind of sighing and going, āokay, maybe the auditorium with the chains was a bad idea; just, the original idea was and still is a really really good oneā only nobody wants to hear it because of the chains and now even if they say āhey come over weāll have a cup of tea and talk about ideas,ā everybodyās all, ānoooo, chainsā ā¦
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To use that metaphor, itās more like most of the kin going āomg we need better chainsā and then one person trying to hush them and saying āok maybe we donāt use chains at all but you can come and listen voluntarily! wouldnāt that be great!ā
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Well, or, a few-but-growing number of people trying to say, āletās let people go and let them come listen voluntarily,ā and most people kind of muttering indecisively, and a particular group of cousins saying, āno, better chains!ā which awkwardly is the group of cousins Lord Consort Newelle is bound to, but, as he points out, that wasnāt really his choice.
Anyway, yeah, kind of a mess, and I canāt blame people for being wary.
(The teaās good and nobodyās chained me to my chair yet?)
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