I bear no personal animosity towards Lord Consort Shutaq. He seems like a person of principal and, likely, of good intent. I also recognise the Empire is not a monolith and has it’s factions.
However, good intentions can lead to much suffering. Sansha stands as a prime example of this.
All I would say is, the Empire needs to evolve enough to understand that it’s philosophy, theology and customs are in need of a radical overhaul. Until that happens there can be no lasting peace, merely pauses between conflicts.
For our part, we need to understand that many of the people in the Empire who are genetically Minmatar are no longer Matari. They have had their heritage stolen from them. Criminal though this is it needs to be accepted. Those who wish to be free however, must be freed. To this end organisations like the Staircase will continue to operate.
He is not bound to do so at all. What agreements my Lord Consort may have with the general views of the House are likely due to experience in dealing with heathens over the years.
They could, if there was a framework where that were possible. I’d love to see one emerge, Aldrith. You’ve dealt with me enough, person-to-person, that you should recognize that. I just don’t think it’s likely. The Empire won’t abandon slavery, and it won’t abandon the idea that God has charged the Amarr with converting everyone.
That means even if you stop actively trying to kill my people, your missionaries and culture will always be dedicated to trying to bring us into submission to your god, and obedience to your orthodoxy. That means you’ll be actively trying to kill off our culture, our beliefs, and our way of life. That’s not peace. That’s war, on a subtler battlefield. And eventually, you’ll get to where you can’t convert anyone else… which means we’ll be back to bloodshed.
If I thought for a moment that the Empire could be persuaded to give up slavery on its own, for its own reasons, and to commit to never going back to spreading the faith by fire and sword… but even you acknowledge, that’s not going to happen. You’ll always be waiting for the moment when it’s time to kill us, again.
If that’s the case… I don’t see what the selling point for forbearance is.
Allowing a temporary peace allows for us to increase our fleet size, allows us to enter the next war with much more of a stockpile to throw at them. Do we need that build up? Not so much. Would it bring a quicker end to to this next conflict? Maybe I’m just too much of an optimist but I’d like to think so.
The current ‘warfare’ isn’t stopping any planned expansion of the Republic Fleet. If it were, they’d commit fewer ships to the warzones. And it’s likely that even a ‘temporary’ peace would be used by many factions as a reason to shrink the fleet. ‘Why do we need them, we’re not at war?’
The longer we take the more bodies and spirits break under the weight and torment of the Empire. There’s been enough stalling and cowardly propping up of the status quo. It’s time to bring the conflict to the only possible end it might see, and the path towards that goes through an actual warzone.
Even the worst case scenario we’d face there would still be the lesser of evils, compared to allowing the current state of horror and breaking of spirits to persist.
Without constraints caused by perpetual war you dont see infrastructure for making these ships being improved? Id like to think the thought of us being invaded when we let our guard down after our time of peace would spur on the sentiment of “never again,” maybe I am more of an optimist than I figured?
I have faith in our people, we are strong. I know you would be a much better voice to speak of their atrocities than myself. Do you really feel those true to our blood are in that much peril of falling wayside to this blinding light posing as a religion? I won’t argue you, You would really know better than me.
Or I’m just that cynical. Without the impetus provided by constant war, I see a lot of people who’ll decide that ‘peace has triumphed’ and be eager to see the Amarr as no longer being a threat, so why should we invest all that money into a military buildup? Surely, we’d be better off putting that time and effort into civic improvements…
… like economics is a zero-sum game, and investing in the military infrastructure won’t require more civil industrial activity.
The worst case scenario which has been already explained at considerable length, is the extinction of the Minmatar people, and the cluster wide collapse of civilisation.
And you think that’s preferable to the status quo.
I am pretty sure that the extinction of the Minmatar people is pretty much achievable without collapse of the civilization. In fact, that might cause only positive effects on the stability of human civilization. On the other hand, I am damn sure that the conflict will be put to the end times before the last Minmatar dies.
You see, I don’t think it is proper to blame all of Minmatar for the existence of people like Mizhara. (But we can blame Gallente!)
We can see how Minmatar can live in peace in the Ammatar Mandate. Exterminate only those, who are rotten by gallente influence of filth.
Please remember that without people like Miz those people you speak of would be about as Matari as Aldrith. I will say at times she goes off the handle but honestly the mentality she has is what made our Republic exist.
@Diana_Kim
If you wanted proof of some form of higher power, the Republic is it. It was formed spitting in the face of those who (unknowingly in some cases I’d imagine) bastardize their higher power to pursue their own gains. If his word were so powerful, my brothers and sisters would not ned to suffer in chains to understand it. I know you don’t understand it, I know I won’t be able to convince you, we fight the same fight. Self determination, the right to live our own lives with our own cultures untarnished. Their religion gave us a major gift they did not intend on giving us, purpose, a battle cry, a point to reset ourselves into a stronger people that is what we are today. They created this monster you see before you, your guns should point at your real foe, Amarr as well as the Gallante. They wish to shape our peoples into their spitting images. They. will. not…
