[ARC] Hope For All Act litigation

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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Except, “their track record” is kind of irrelevant when their demonstrable loyalties are what they are. I know, having to actually own up to actions and choices made isn’t very popular around here, but the simple fact is that this entity’s actions are those of a loyalist alliance. This casts significant suspicion on ‘this matter’ no matter their ‘track record’. For them to have even the slightest weight in this particular instance, neutrality would be something to be expected. Alas, it’s also clearly not the case.

It’s like Electus Matari or Ushra’Khan trying to play legalese games with the Empire, while pretending not to be enemies of it.

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Isn’t it amazing how a thing can be more than one thing at a time?

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Yeah, I mean it’s not like some things are irreconcilable or mutually exclusive.

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Nothing is irreconcilable if viewed from the right angle.

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That was not actually the point, though, of course it would be nice if all parties came forward with their information. I support that. That is not (yet) what is being asked here, but I digress.
It is very possible for a “CalAmarr” Alliance to still have the best interests of people in mind in this entire affair, and I will not deny the possibility that they are being genuine here. In fact by now, I believe it to be so. Ms.Priano seems genuine.

The point was that their allegiances are likely to make success difficult, as the Federal Courts will probably be more suspicious of their motives then they would have been if this had come from an entity with no ties to any Empire or ties to all of them. Especially as evidence of a mirror request to the CBT has not (yet!!!) been posted.

That was all.

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ARC as a collaborative research organisation (note; not the corp IKAME, or the alliance ARC) has links to all four Empires and beyond. It has done so since before the alliance ARC ever existed.

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That sounds a little vague, if I may say so. What is the difference between the collaborative research organization and the Alliance and how would it affect a potential court case?

Especially as all of their leading figures are now enrolled in the current two corps and are thus associated with the Empires by proxy?

I do understand what people are saying, that ARC is doing more work then just Caldari and Amarr work. It is just as you said.

The State and Empire do consist of more then a rigid military and fleets of slaver ships. There are surely many organizations in both Empires that barely have a thing to do with their Empire’s objectives, consisting of charities or stores or corporations.

It is just that they do remain affiliated with their Empires, and in the case of ARC, at times are very highly involved. It is just not a good look, even if they are genuine. To be perfectly honest find I the attempts to obfuscate this cast more suspicion on this whole affair then if they just admitted to it and moved on.

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The collaborative research organisation includes a large number of pilots who are not members of the alliance. As far as I am aware the corporation, and by extension the alliance, exist primarily for ease of organisation.

Haven’t a clue. I am not a lawyer.

You asked how ARC could justify their case in the Federal legal system considering their Cal/Amarr leanings. They replied that they have members from all Empires and are appealing on behalf of civilians from all Empires.
I am really not sure how this counts as obfuscation.

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Well, in theory, the Federal Courts shouldn’t be taking that into consideration when deciding if the Federal Government needs to honor its commitments. The issue of law doesn’t hinge on the plaintiff’s motives. But really, since a lower court’s already said (if I understood correctly) that ARC, as a capsuleer organization, doesn’t have standing in the Federation to seek any redress through the Courts at all… if the higher court upholds that principle, we should all worry a little bit.

Different legal entities? For example, Trii Seo, who is a member of Goonswarm, is also a member of the Arataka Research Consortium (not the alliance).

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If so, it’s out of frustration. The argument’s … well. I guess I won’t mince words.

It’s ignorant, at best.

The four empires aren’t “enemies” in all ways and senses; they’re rivals, certainly, they spar regularly, there’s a limited war ongoing in certain restricted areas (albeit one with maybe questionable utility), and tensions are often high. However, they’re also, for example, trading partners on a large scale. Quafe has Caldari corporate status; the Federation has a free-trade agreement with the Amarr Empire; you can find just about everybody’s stations in just about everybody else’s territory, sometimes to a degree that looks a little worrying.

Is Isha seriously arguing that Amarrian subjects, even those actively supporting the Empire, should have no legal rights, no standing before a court for that reason alone? It’s absolute nonsense-- and all the more in the Federation, in which ideas like “rights” and “the rule of law” have significant meaning.

Such concepts are basically the Gallentean god, as I understand your own people discovered when you tried to recover a certain person from their custody by force, failed, and then ended up getting him anyway after the court had considered the question. If anyone had forfeited a right to be heard on that matter, it was the Republic, but they heard you anyway, and sided with you.

They believe in law, like, really seem to believe in it. It’s one of their most interesting and attractive features. And here we’re asking for the Federation to abide by the outcome of an inquest they agreed at the outset to abide by, and whose outcome they themselves proposed.

I was there. Like everyone there, I got … almost inevitably infected with that blasted stuff. Kyonoke is an odd thing that acts like a prion here, a virus there, but in the end its structure is more that of a prion. Say what you will about capsuleer “immortality,” nobody was going to let us jump out of there and risk having a burner replicate the disease in a clone bay once that was known. We had backups, maybe all of us did, sure, but the iterations of ourselves attending that conference were facing death.

I wonder how many of us realized it at the time. Ms. Qerl and I certainly did. I had days to look a slow, miserable, degrading death in the face. Arrendis said at the time that I was terrified, and she was right. But we-- the ARC members and allies (long-term or temporary) present, including and especially Ms. Priano-- focused on the work, and we got it done.

Cured. Yaaaaay. (No, really, that was truly a huge relief.)

But I want to know why that happened to me.

If you want to be heard, approach the Amarr in the name of God and the Empress; the Caldari and Matari in the name of their people; the Gallente in the name of laws and rights. You won’t necessarily win, and they might reasonably be skeptical, but I think they’ll all at least hear you.

And the Federation, if it lives up to its principles, maybe most of all. It’s the place where our claim will probably be taken the most seriously, ARC corporations’ individual loyalties notwithstanding.

Probably, if the Federation won’t produce its data as the Inquest’s outcome required, none of the others ever will. If it does, it may become easier to acquire it from the others.

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That’s a pretty good summary of the Federation’s viewpoint, Aria. It’s a pity you didn’t spend more time on your Sojourn among us.

Of course, we like to view ourselves as idealists, but our institutions are fairly pragmatic about the risks of idealism. I’m actually rather proud that ARC feels their best course to some sort of truth lies through Federation courts. But I expect that national security assessments may prove a barrier, and in the nature of such assessments being shared in camera with the judiciary, we may not get to know precisely why the information is denied.

I’m not so keen on the lower court’s view that capsuleer organisations don’t have standing though. I expect that to be overturned as millarkey (a legal term) and unconstitutional.

Oh, and hi.

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I’m not so sure. There’s a case to be made that capsuleers, as clones, aren’t entitled to human rights. We’re not born, we’re grown from the reprocessed biomass of the dead, and then imprinted with very detailed software that gives us the memories and personalities of human beings who died during voluntary medical procedures[1].

We could be classified as exactly what Aria often calls us: Weapons. The irony is that the Federation, with its legally-enshrined position of non-confirmation toward any ‘spiritual’ aspects of things, might be far more likely to rule that way than the Empire, where the predilection with ‘souls’ has led to an official theological ruling that we’re people, not empty husks.

  1. Just to be clear: even though I do believe we are merely copies of long-dead originals, that doesn’t mean I endorse the position that we’re not human, and don’t deserve to be accorded human rights. I just recognize that there’s a plausible case to be made for it.
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Well, I supposed we should be flattered.

In a roundabout way ‘some’ are admitting that ‘we’ actually have a legal system that is based on law.

Not on the supposition that might makes right, that personal liberty is subservient to corporate need or that some are born merely better than others.

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Is that surprising, Mr. Syagrius?

Partisans might make sharp remarks, but the real question isn’t so much what the Federation’s principles really are so much as (1) whether it actually lives up to them and (2) whether they’re really a good idea or just something that sounds pleasing to the ear.

Based on what Mr. Kinnison said, though, it does sound like your judicial system has arrangements in place to let it try to give people a fair hearing wherever they’re from without being bonkers about national security stuff.

It will be interesting if they refuse the claim based on a national security thing, though, and I expect that’ll foreshadow the effects of efforts to get other empires to cough up their data sufficiently that if it happens we can probably just forget it.

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You present some telling arguments, and I’m sure that kind of position would have underpinned the earlier lawyering.

The thing about our position on rights however, is that we do tend towards all things possibly having certain rights. (Perhaps better expressed as not ruling it out, no matter how weird the idea. There was a time, for example, when certain early nations thought women had no rights at all. The idea that they might was considered crazy thinking!)

These entities don’t always have to be sentient either. There are several jurisdictions that have granted rights you would normally consider the preserve of humanity to mountains and rivers. These are sacred sites to certain indigenous peoples, and since they make a strong argument from a cultural standpoint, even the default secular position has ended up ruling that these entities may have rights.

Of course, it’s rare that such local decisions are appealed to the Senate or the highest courts. In the Kyonoke case noted, the lower court decision has hugely significant impacts if upheld, and I’d expect ARC and a host of our more excitable ‘rights-for-all’ pressure groups to appeal it right the way up the system.

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Do the terrain features have the rights, or are those considerations a matter of the rights of the indigenous peoples resulting in certain protections and considerations toward the places they feel are spiritually or culturally significant, though?

See, the problem with trying to say ‘well, even if we’re not natural, we should have rights as living things’ is that engineered organisms usually don’t. If engineered organisms do have rights by default… so might mutaplasmids. They’re a biomechanical… thing… that might at some point in its activity cycle qualify as alive. I haven’t seen a civilization yet that says that engineered microbes for waste processing or industrial clean-up have rights. Bioengineered tools don’t get rights.

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Its a ridiculous argument, our origins are human, our behavior is human, and that is what underpins the human rights.

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The same could be said of any autonomous drone that we make to act like us.

Do rogue drones have rights? CONCORD doesn’t think so.

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No, because Drones don’t have independent learning. Strong AI research is expressly forbidden by CONCORD, so they never have human behavior. Its not about things that mimic human behavior, its actually having those facilities.

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Welcome to one of the things that makes Rogue Drones rogue. There’s a level of learning and intelligence in the hive minds that at least approximates ours, and might surpass it.

Just ask the Trigs.

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