I’ve already got a job enabling monsters, I don’t need another. 
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“Me” “Making ISK” in the Imperium, as pure (challenging) combat focus…very funny Arrendis. I got my ships replaced, I didn’t make ISK unless I performed in those weird blockbuster Gallente holoreels. You know, the ones where they make you into the sexgod capsuleer who saves the world through some absurd deus ex machina? I’m really famous on several backwater Caldari planets.
The Gallente Federation also charges taxes. That doesn’t make it a collectivist state. I dare you to find a single person who would claim the Gallente are anti-individual. They can’t stand the Caldari for their tyrannical hive mindset. And I do believe Democracy is flawed, and ultimately not the perfect government. It’s the best thing we’ve got right now…but yeah. There’s a strong hand at the helm in Fed space, too…
I believe a very intelligent person who can make snap decisions with no hindrances, when they need to, but otherwise lets his or her nation do what they will, is actually one of the ways this can happen…which is why I believe in the Imperium at all. It’s the best of Caldari competence and Gallente freedom combined.
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A collectivist state doesn’t need to be anti-individual. It simply needs to place the state’s emphasis in a different place. Ship replacement is only a very small part of things. Look at all of the infrastructure the Alliance makes available for members’ use. Every moon in Delve is either set up for public mining, or privately rented… and guess where those rental funds go. It’s not like we’re just sitting on a massive mountain of reserve ISK.
I mean, we are sitting on a massive mountain of reserve ISK, AFAIK, but wer’e not just sitting on one. You see ‘Caldari competence’? I see a distinct lack of the Caldari tendency for excessive repression. Where you see ‘Gallente freedom’ I see a lack of the overblown Gallente bureaucracy. In a lot of ways, GSF feels a lot like my home Clan, only… bigger.
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You fly for a “corp of extremely dedicated paladins focused on the bloody side of the Holy Amarr Reclamation.” And yet you pontificate about the Federation. If you were simply a mercenary doing a job then you might have ground to talk from. But you claim to be a true believer in the Imperial project.
Hey Paladin, the official position of your masters is not that Democracy is flawed but the best thing we’ve got right now. They have no time for it at all. Their position is, do as you are told servant.
I might pay attention to your ideas on small ship combat tactics as you are evidently good at that, but your grasp of baseliner politics is obviously slim to non-existent.
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“There will be neither compassion nor mercy; Nor peace, nor solace For those who bear witness to these Signs And still do not believe.” - The Scriptures, Book of Reclaiming, 25:10
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Uh, pilot? Can we maybe not interpret that passage in a way that might require me and every other foreign national who has much contact with the Empire to be shot?
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Well there is this.
“All things were created by the Divine, and so the glory of our faith is inherent to us all; When thine heart shines with the Light, thou shalt know no hardship; When thine actions are in Light’s name, thou art immortal.” (Book of Trials, 2:1)
And also in Trials, a warning from a Queen
“Thus fools go forth to spread false word, Great misery follows those who heed what only the weak have heard. Heed me champion, for only you shall know;” (2:13)
And of course, Creation.
“In the beginning all things were as one. God parted them and breathed life into his creation. Divided the parts and gave each its place. And unto each, bestowed purpose.” (Book I, 1:4)
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You mean ‘honestly’? Is that how you want to avoid ‘interpreting’ that one? It’s their ultimate intention, Aria. I wish you’d wake up to that.
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Arrendis, I’ve been living in the Empire for literally years, now. I’m pretty well aware.
(See? You can be patronizing when you’re not joking, too.)
Take a good look at what I said, and what I was raising an eyebrow at, in context. It appeared Pilot Aiyn was remarking on Mr. Ravana (otherwise I’m having trouble identifying the reason for the scriptural citation), which would imply that, being associated with the Empire, he was bearing witness to the “Signs.” Having done so, there’s to be no mercy, etc., if he doesn’t believe.
If we take it as a statement from someone who regards themselves as a divine agent, it’s a threat-- a threat, however, that could be made against me on the same grounds.
The Amarr don’t seem to make an actual policy or practice of hunting foreign heathens in their midst, whether we’ve been here for a bit or not. So I’m asking Mr. Ayin not to interpret that passage in a way that’s more aggressive and less welcoming of visitors than the Empire itself seems to interpret it.
… assuming I’m catching his meaning right. Most of the scriptures are a little open to interpretation, which also means he might have been citing it for something else.
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Yup. I can be.
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Miss Jenneth, I was simply responding to Mr. Ogunkoya’s harsh interpretation of the Empire with a quote I found that appropriately summed up the ideology that a few Amarrians have towards outsiders that often get misrepresented as the overarching view of the Empire. It was not at all intended as a threat, in fact I agree with some of what Mr. Ogunkoya said. The Quote was meant to serve as simply further evidence.
Personally, I proscribe to the interpretation I originally responded with, that being that “All things were created by the Divine," which is the general interpretation that the Clergy spreads, mainly because we’re getting kind of sick of being attacked randomly by rabid Gallente and Matari foaming at the mouth to kill everything and anything that dares disrupt their own personal views.
Interestingly the quote in question was the Amarrian outlook on the world for most of our history, as it is the basic principle employed during Crusade, however it’s more of a radical view that all must be punished for not believing, and some quite venerated priests see it as a more specific term to destroy secularism and polytheism, since The Scriptures are open to being interpreted alongside many other religious texts as being further proof of a Monotheistic reality.
This is why much of Gallente and Matari religion was rejected from the outset, whereas Caldari religion was taken in as a… stretched… interpretation of Monotheism.
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Hee … thank you for the explanation. Maybe you should be careful about quoting scripture that reflects a thing you don’t mean to say, sir?
Particularly since, as an Imperial subject, you might be expected to enforce it. . . .
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Sure. That had nothing to do with political necessity, right? Telling the Caldari ‘you’re a bunch of filthy heathens who are no better than the Federation’ wouldn’t have caused any problems, would it?
The Amarr faith explicitly calls for the eradication of every other culture and belief system in existence. Even the ones who claim to want peace admit this, they just insist there’s a way to attack someone else’s culture without being hostile. If you’re going to peddle that poison, at least be honest about it.
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The Scriptures can be interpreted that way, yes.
Luckily, the Empire has decided to not interpret it in this way.
I have said this multiple times, as has the Empress Catiz, her advisors, His Holiness Pope Singularity, multiple major leaders within the Loyalists, and the Clergy.
Yes, they have. Just because they’ve decided to stop using lasers right now doesn’t mean the attempts to convert the unbelievers ends. This entire thread is rife with the evidence of that: ‘we’ll use words’.
It doesn’t matter. Whether you use lasers, words, attempts to buy peoples’ belief, or other means, attempts to stamp out my culture and my peoples’ beliefs is still hostile. It is still an act of aggression and an attack, no matter how much you might think you’re doing a wonderful thing. ‘Everything will be fine! You all just have to agree to be not you.’
And you wonder why we’re willing to go to any extreme to keep you from killing us?
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You mean burning Amarrian colonies from orbit?
If you’re not going to read through my whole post and actually listen to what I am saying then there is no hope for you, and God has abandoned you.
Yes, we try to convert, I try to convert because that is my purpose! The Reclaiming goes on and we have tried to take on new interpretations! We have changed our methods to suit the changing galaxy by using priests instead of battleships, books instead of beams.
How, how can you justify the murder and havoc and Genocide that the Matari commit in the name of the freedom that you already have?
Why do keep fighting this war that you’ve already won? The Empire lost, we changed, why do you still act like we’re in the midst of a revolution?
Please, Arrendis, I beg you, I’m telling you the truth! The Empire has changed!
Why doesn’t the Republic?
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So when I fly through Republic space preaching my belief, you have the right to blow me out of the sky?
When I bring people together with my sermons in our shared belief, will you attack the church? Kill us all for our Faith?
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And that is an attempt to murder my people. That is my entire point.
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HOW?!
How is preaching attempted murder?!
You do not have to attend the Sermon, you do not have to listen!
If you truly wish to let God turn his back on you, so be it, but do not kill for the sake of objection!
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Because you are attempting to destroy who we are.
If I go into your mind with a dataspike (which can be done with our infomorphs, ask Aria!) and make changes… is the person who results you? Or is it someone else that I’ve made?
Actually, let me back this up and offer you a piece of commonality between the Amarr and the Matari: I am irrelevant. My family, my Clan, my Tribe, they matter. They are the legacy that must endure. Our ways are passed to our children. Our lives serve as the vessel for this, the means by which the Matari people pass the essence of ourselves on to the next generations. Part of it is genetic, sure. But not all of it. Much. much more of it is cultural. It is our identities. It is the fact that we are families within independent Clans, and Clans within independent Tribes.
The Brutor do not have authority over my Clan. The Vheriokior do not have authority over my Clan. We are Sebiestor. We work within the Republic, and answer to those we work for as any employee would. We answer to those who own or administrate the stations on which we live, as any tenant would. But the laws we adhere to in our own enclaves, in our lives where they do not intersect with other Tribes, are those of the Sebiestor Tribe. And only the Sebiestor Tribe.
If I were to convert, to take on the Amarr faith… that would not be true. I would have to turn my back on that, because one of the tenets of the Amarr faith is obedience to the Throne. We’ll come back to that. But for now? A convert no longer observes the ways of their Tribe. They observe the holy days of the Amarr faith. The festivals of the Amarr faith. The dietary and behavioral customs and requirements of the Amarr faith, not their Tribe.
If I were to do that, I would no longer be Stjörnauga. I would no longer be Sebiestor.
Now tell me that attempting to make that happen is not an attempt to murder my Clan, my Tribe. You seek to destroy our ways, the legacy we pass to our descendants. You seek to kill off who we are.
You seek to murder us.
Now, coming back to ‘obedience to the Throne’: The Emperor or Empress is the Voice of God. God’s Will must be obeyed. So, a hundred years from now? Two hundred? If whoever sits on that damnable chair says ‘The Republic must be destroyed’, then any of the faithful within the Republic are obligated to destroy the Republic.
And when you run out of people willing to listen, that will be the only avenue left to you to expand the faith. That day will come. Maybe not for centuries, but it will come. And that is why we cannot trust you, as long as you claim you have a mission from an infallible imaginary friend who has ordered you to kill off every other culture and force all of humanity, one way or another, into submission before your chosen mouthpiece of ‘god’.
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