Noooooo, don’t go through this again!
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Hang on a ■■■■ing minute, your entire insane creed states that the Amarr were wrong to enslave the Minmatar, and that they should’ve destroyed them, what with the whole “God gave them over to destruction” business. If the Achur are “given over to destruction,” that means by advocating for their enslavement, you’re engaging in heterodoxy against your own dogma!
You’re a ■■■■ing heretic!
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Uh … Mr. Ixiris?
Before you say such a thing, you should maybe see the condition of his slaves.
The standard Amarrian justification for slavery is that it’s kind of a form of spiritual apprenticeship-- introducing a captive population to God. Mr. Nauplius doesn’t approach things in quite the same way, though he could be said to be introducing his captive population to his deity, who I assume he imagines waiting in the afterlife with really evil sneer.
That’s his idea of what slavery is supposed to be about. It’s precisely about destroying people.
For context, he was musing yesterday that, because my oath binds me to loyalty to Directrix Daphiti even unto death, she should order me to kill myself.
For several reasons, it’s a revealing thought.
There are a lot of problems with “Naupliusism.” I … really wish this really seemed to be one of them.
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I don’t understand.
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Nauplius is a microcosm for the Amarr Empire, Samira. I think that’s why he upsets so many Amarrians. Of course, his deviant excesses could upset even the most bloodthirsty and vicious Sarumite, but I think he makes Imperials uncomfortable on a more subconscious level, because he’s an unpleasant funhouse mirror of their own behaviours and beliefs.
Now, it’s very easy to say that Nauplius is just a bloodthirsty, nihlistic sadist who tortures and kills people for his own personal gratification. It’s especially easy for me to say this because that’s what I actually believe. The problem is, this is a belief I can never verify, because I can’t see inside his head. He may actually believe each and every thing he professes to believe. He may actually, genuinely believe that God has told him to enact a genocide upon the Minmatar people and that this is a neccessary action to balance the scales of the cosmos. But it makes no real difference what he believes, because his actions are what’s important.
The same could be said of the Amarr Empire. They claim that they conquer and enslave other civilizations for the benefit of the conquered, and yet that benefit always seems to flow into the hands of the Amarrians first. Even the highlords who bear the name Khanid are not themselves Khanid. No matter how much a Ni-Kunni or a Khanid or a Nefantar strives and sacrifices for the Empire, they may never rise above a certain point. True glory and royalty is reserved for the Amarr people alone - so much so that the mere question of Udorian blood has raised a furor time and again since Tash-Murkon were elevated.
One could easily condemn the Amarr as a nation of cynical deceivers, preaching a creed of self-hatred to members of other ethnicities for their own benefit. But to do so would be reductive - again, I can’t see inside your heads, and I’ve seen far, far more to convince me that a lot of you believe in what you profess than I’ve seen from Nauplius.
But the thing is, the Empire have murdered before. The Starkmanir, the other tribe of Mishi IV, and hundreds of thousands of Minmatar civilians in their various conquests. Yet to the Amarr this was all righteous, or at least a justifiable evil in the name of a greater cosmic good. Whether or not the Amarr truly believed that is a question we can never answer - but to those slaughtered, the sincerity of their murderers is of little consequence.
Nauplius claims to be righteous, that he clearly hears the voice of God and that he fights a war against the agents of the Deceiver. Yet time after time he’s been defeated, and so one must ask - is God truly with him? Are the servants of the Deceiver more powerful than God? Or is it Nauplius who’s in league with the Deceiver? Yet he brushes aside all these claims. God is testing him with tribulations and torments. He must remain faithful. He must not swerve. He is wedded to his ideology and will not change it. Any inconvenient fact may be dismissed to maintain his faith.
Have not the Amarr claimed that the Battle of Vak’Atioth and the Minmatar Rebellion were tests or punishments from God? That the death of Doriam, and then the interregnum, the assassination of Sarum, were tribulations? And have the True Amarr not claimed that they were most righteous and pure in all things, and yet it’s from them we’ve had Zaragram, Omir Sarikusa and Dochuta Karsoth?
To people enslaved, Samira, there might well be very little distinction between your Empire’s hand on their leash and Nauplius’. They’ve had their freedom taken from them. They are being subjected to the judgement of a religion they do not subscribe to. The Empire makes them work for the rest of their lives for a material benefit that only the Empire ever sees, and for a spiritual benefit the slaves may never feel. Nauplius kills them. And I think that at least a significant minority of slaves might actually choose death over slavery. Why else would the Empire make the death Vitoxin brings so horrific? The answer: because otherwise, slaves might kill themselves too easily.
And from their perspective, Samira - and this might horrify you - at least Nauplius is honest. He tells them he’s going to murder them. The Empire make them work for a paradise it cannot show them, in the name of a God they cannot prove exists. Nauplius tells them he will kill them, and he kills them. He promises no mercy, and delivers none.
I don’t believe in your God, but if I did, I might almost believe Nauplius was sent by God. As a warning, perhaps, or a prophecy. A dark mirror, a charicature, a parody, a sick, cruel satire - something in which the very darkest urges and impulses of your society are revealed.
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Of course he is. Just as any extremist in any group is a mirror darkly for where they come from. Every empire has them, not just Amarr, and it’s insincere of you to speak about it as if that was the case. Of course he flows from the same source. He’s what happens when that river is shorn of the barriers that are supposed to restrain it from running unchecked. What that’s a proof of, is why those borders are necessary. Why there has to be rules, and laws, and enforcement of those laws. Why people cannot be allowed to circumvent them regardless of what ancestry they come from or what titles they hold. The Butcher is a person who should have been the slave, not the master, bound and stripped of his evil impulses. He is a proof against giving people unlimited freedom – or undeserved power.
The same does go for inside the Empire. Where we sin, we must be righted. The enemies of the outside must be defeated, and the enemies of the inside controlled. Amarr who claim that they can do no wrong because of who they are, are wrong. Amarr who claim that their failures are God’s will, are wrong. Calling it ‘all part of God’s plan’ is an excuse made by those too afraid to take responsibility for their own inadequacies. God commands, he does not micromanage. If you fail to carry out His will, that’s on you. Vak’atioth was our fault. Our inability to see and purge the Red Chamberlain was our fault. Every losing heir house to win the tournament failed their heirs; it was not God’s choice. Every sin we ever commit is our own fault, and we must be punished for them.
I know my wounds.
As a person that was a slave, there is absolutely a distinction between someone who treats you well and someone that tortures and kills you. It is an incredible simplification to view treatment by all slaveowners as the same. There are good owners, ones you hope you’ll have, and terrible ones, that you’re terrified you might become property to.
Yeah, there’s a minority of slaves who would rather die. Sure. But the majority don’t want to. The majority want, like anyone else in the cluster, to live their lives in as much peace and comfort as they can find.
Slaves are not defined by ‘free’ and ‘not free’. We don’t go our lives moping around and crying about not being free. We live our lives, good or bad.
There is absolutely a distinction.
He wasn’t sent by God. He was sent by us. By humanity and our failures.
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Well you’re halfway there, in more respects than one.
I’m glad that you think people should take responsibility for their own misdeeds, and not chalk failings up to the will of God. The thing is, I don’t believe in sin. At least, I don’t believe in sin in the traditional sense, because sin is the concept of a misdeed upsetting some sort of cosmic order. I don’t feel like on a fundamental level the cosmos cares about who you sleep with, or even if you murder someone.
The insidious thing about the Amarr religion is that not only does it invent this concept of sin, a fundamental wrongness that can only be cleansed by the intervention of an agent of the cosmos itself, but it teaches that all but a select few are born fundamentally wrong. Born so wrong, in fact, that some will die without being “fixed” - that generations may pass before this taint is removed. That’s insidious and abusive. Imperial religion projects it onto entire civilizations, as if their mere existence is an affront to the cosmos. It tells people they were conceived filthy, spiritually misshapen.
You tell that to a child? That they were born wrong? That they’re a mistake? You don’t need chains or Vitoxin to coral them. If they’re taught to hate what they are, you can control them with the promise of making them into something else. You never need to whip a slave if you can withhold the promise of a salvation they truly believe in from them. All ownership of other human beings involves some kind of abuse. That some slaveowners use psychological whips instead of physical ones doesn’t make it less disgraceful.
The thing with you, Samira, is that you never got a choice not to believe what you believe. You were taught it from birth - that you are metaphysically lesser than the Amarrians, that there was something innate to you that you were required to atone for. And I think you at least suspect, deep down, that you might’ve been lied to, but at the same time you still hold the fear that it’s true. The thing is, you were born someone’s property, and they were able to do with you as they wished. If they never physically abused you, that’s… well, certainly a good thing. But they were able to constrain what knowledge you received, and the context within which you received it.
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So, Mr. Ixiris? What you’re describing are orthodox Amarrian beliefs. They’re what I, also, thought the Amarr were like, when I first came here. They’re not the only ones out there, though. How important one’s birth is varies, depending on who you talk to.
I don’t think the Imperial Rite would appeal to very many people outside the Empire if there weren’t some variety on this.
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And yet, strictly speaking, anyone who doesn’t adhere exactly to the Orthodoxy espoused by the Throne and the Theology Council is a heretical sinner.
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No-- there’s definitely room for difference while remaining in the Theology Council’s good graces, Arrendis. The various royal houses reflect a pretty wide range of different views on a number of topics.
It’s maybe not surprising if it’s hard to see from outside, though. It was for me.
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That would rather imply they’re all within the tolerances of the Orthodoxy the Council espouses, now wouldn’t it?
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I guess? But, there’s “orthodox,” and then there’s “orthodoxy.”
(Basically every Amarrian thinker I think I’ve met claims to be a “conservative” and practicing and thinking in the oldest and most proper way. That seems to happen no matter what their politics are. But, when you talk about “orthodox Amarr,” people go, “Ah, Sarum or Ardishapur.”)
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Ms. Jenneth is largely correct regarding the role of slavery within Naupliusism.
I fear it being a lie more. I wish it were true. If it were true, then there’d be people you could actually rely on to be pure and noble and good. What is insidious isn’t that people are taught that they are born filthy and wrong, it’s the teaching that there are some who aren’t.
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Aw, come on Samira, not every human is garbage.
They just have a high potential for being garbage.
I mean, I’m alright, at least.
I think.
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Well most people tend to think that they are a good person even if they’re absolute human garbage.
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Adequate use of the Sturgeon’s Law would imply that 90% of humanity is garbage!
And what divides the rest of us is whether or not those 10% are worth fighting for!
Spoiler Alert: They are!
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I like the gist of this law, but what do these fish have to do with it?
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They are like Long-Limbs but their roe is not as tasty and about 90% of the canned stuff tastes horrible.
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Indeed. Remember that despite the words of the Pax Amarria supposedly being divinely inspired and therefore utterly unchanging, the Theology Council permits the Paxistas - a community specifically dedicated to pointing out changes or revisions between print runs.
But their tolerance ends at anyone who dares speak of the 62nd edition, whose cover was printed wrong.
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