Are True Slaves and those subject to Sansha Implantation forever lost?

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of entertaining a conversation in the Summit regarding the humanity of True Slaves and the perception that even with their enslavement through implantation, they remain human. Of course, not everyone agreed. Many of our fellow Captains declared themselves in favour of their complete extermination, irrespective of if they are captured or not, and regardless of whether they are frontline soldiers beholden to fight or the menial labourers toiling endlessly in the factories in Stain.

My curiosity does not reflect an attitude of passivity towards Nation. I wholeheartedly believe in a pro-active defence against Sansha’s Nation and the ongoing Incursions to mitigate any further abductions of the innocent. A system in my member state, Esmes, saw the complete depopulation of Esmes III during the initial Incursion period. It’s inhabitants were kidnapped and are now enslaved to further the Nation’s diabolical agenda. The Nation and it’s armies needs to be confronted with force of action and will and this will manifest itself quite rightly through force of arms.

However, the True Slaves are ultimately victims. Each and every one of them had a life, their own thoughts and feelings, with dreams and doubts. All of this was stolen from them, cruelly ripped away. From the original slaves experimented on, to the civilians that continue to be abducted from their homes, the mere concept of having one’s agency and one’s identity stripped away would strike fear into even the most hardened amongst us, especially in the Federation.

I’m not one of the premier experts on the subject matter of Sansha’s Nation and the True Slaves by any margin compared to some of our more illustrious colleagues amongst us that are more versed in scientific ways, so I ask the Summit for it’s opinion. Much to my eternal regret, I am sure.

Do you think that they are forever lost and the only recourse is euthanasia, an extended mercy as some have described it? Or do you believe that there may still be a chance to reverse the damage that the implantation and brainwashing process has caused? Should there be greater efforts to try and rescue those that have been lost to Nation - if it is at all possible?

Do we not owe a duty to those we failed to protect to try and save them from their present fate?

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As I understand the nature of Nation’s True Slaves, then yes. If someone has been turned into a True Slave they are gone. There is no return. They may still wear the face, but the personality is no longer there. A True Slave is completely subsumed by Nation.

Those who are more lightly implanted, as Citizens or Agents, they are… well… they can sometimes be freed. For a time. But even without the implants, Nation has a powerful hold on them, and sooner or later they will hear the siren song of Sansha Kuvakei calling them back.

This is ofc my interpretation of second-hand reports, I have not examined them first-hand.

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Science explained for thousands years that nothing is 100% absolute. This means that even people considered “irrecuperable” like them can have their way to change their own mind.

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Yes, I have reviewed these reports as well and have often accepted that the True Slaves consciousness is no longer theirs and that their body and spirit now belong to the Nation in full. A control so complete that there are no opportunities to reverse the damage caused.

My close, dear friend who recently returned from a lengthy sabbatical gave me cause to reconsider . Just because we do not have the methods to return the True Slave’s conscious to them does not mean it is impossible forever to do so. For all we know there could be some way of freeing their suppressed consciousness and liberating them from their mental and physical shackles. We just have not found it yet.

That of course raises further questions - can those that are able to be freed from Nation’s grasp ever fully be trusted, with the possibility of a willing return to Nation.

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Yes.

I don’t pretend to know all for certain. What I act on is what I understand to be the state-of-play as of this moment.

Which is: they’re not recoverable-- even if severed from the collective they’ll be scrambled, broken. Nonfunctional.

Better to just stop.

Maybe if we find a way to actually free them. I won’t criticize those who want to try, and keep trying.

But the rest of us have a reality to contend with. Every one of Nation’s slaves that stays active is a branch aflame, scattering sparks and embers on the wind, potentially starting new fires, consuming more lives.

If it turns out that they could all be recovered … that’s great news. And I’m aware it will darken the “mercy” of ending Nation’s slaves.

That’s a price I’d be willing to pay, though. The risk and expense of trying to take them alive is just … just too high, in too many cases, to make a policy of it, at least with no guarantee (or frankly even likelihood) that they can be recovered.

Sometimes the best you can do is act on what is possible now. There may be hope for the rest, but hope doesn’t seem reason enough to spare them so long as there’s substantial risk that they’ll go on to harvest others for Kuvakei’s mad experiment.

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While I do not approve of this conversation, and am all too well aware no one cares about my approval of such things, it is nice that there is some discussion occurring apart from the well worn path of eradication.

Mantel…Edward, you ask the wrong questions. Focus on the wrong aspects. I appreciate your attempt but you’re still focused on the wrong side of this issue. You and the others focus on supposed loss. Loss of the self, the will, the ego. But you are missing the contribution.

Mold me an artifact of clay and ask me what it is, held out in your palm between us. I see a house. You see a station. Someone from another perspective sees a curled, sleeping animal. Whos perspective is right? One’s will, one’s mind is necessarily a singular point of view. It is a limitation we were all born with, but not one we must suffer.

The true answer is to see the artifact in question from every point of view. Yours, mine, a third party’s. Joined we would see it from every angle, and know ever facet of its existence. What purpose it may have, how best it can be used. Joined, we would know best our needs and desires. We would know what tools we have at our disposal and what skills we might employ. Joined, we could prioritize based on collective need, based on collective desire, based on collective ability.

Man cannot exist in space without technology. Man cannot leap from star to star without technology. Once again, technology has offered the answer to transcend another limitation of mankind, their limited singular perspective. Singular thought. It is this joined existence that will allow us to pave the way forward. Perhaps in the end not for everyone. There are those who say the war should end, the point has been made, and Nation should remove itself from the rest of the cluster for its own safety. But the Whole has not agreed and vengeance upon the empires is still sadly the route we are on.

But my point stands. They have not lost their self, their self has joined Nation. And from that joining, they can see beyond their body and know along with the rest what must be done to push forward. And besides, the attempts to ‘save’ them by some out there are objectively cruel.

Taking a True Slave, or True Citizen for that matter, out of Nation is like physically, bodily ripping out a Capsuleer from their pod. Lines and cables snapping and breaking, ports along your spine ripped out and mangled. Severe nerve damage, intense hemorrhaging of blood from interlinks shearing and gouging out the surrounding flesh as they are wrenched free. It is not a process you are able to do, and even if you were to do it you would diminish them greatly. Like reducing someone who could once flex their arm and send forth a hail of missiles, to someone who is simply flesh and blood. It’s cruel. And those it does not kill outright, either are mentally broken for life or are driven mad and seek to end their own shattered solitary existence you have forced on them.

You are a good person, Edward. I know it’s too much to hope, but I wish one day we will have peace again.

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The mind is an emergent process of the meat. Alter the meat with implants, you alter the mind. Enforce brain-state change through signals from the implants, you irrevocably change the meat, and change the mind.

No, there is no recovery. And if anyone wants to claim this is somehow a benevolent thing being given to humanity… then why do the Sansha have to abduct millions to fuel their meat-processing engine?

Kill them. Kill them all.

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No, I do not believe they are lost, nor do I believe I have the right or sanctimonious ego to declare that they should all die.

What I do believe is that there is a stark lack of will and technology available to address the issue humanely.

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What if the solution is to inject them with even more implants? Totally stuff their heads full of implants. Like, maybe if you inject enough sedevacantist teachings into them, they will be a critical point where they become sedevacantists instead of Sanshas. Hmm.

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  • The mind is an antenna tapping into superior realities.
  • True Slaves threaten those higher dimensions with their corruption.
  • We must neutralise them, neutralise them all.
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Demonstrate the existence of those realities, then.

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As of now, there is no known method to completely reverse Sansha brainwashing. The implants are thorough in tampering with a True Slave’s psyche and personality to the point where they could no longer survive outside the organization. That said, forever doesn’t exist. Eventually, the nations and factions of New Eden will wither and die, as will humanity and the universe itself. Within that time frame, a method may eventually be found that would reverse this. But not now, at least not yet.

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Dear Arrendis, even Jing Ko demonstrate such readily when they sense falseness but can not prove it.

I assume you accept the existence of Idama. Then you must accept individuals experience realities of higher order.

It is my belief that Sansha seeks to infect All with its perverted system of unified control and I propose alliance with Veles Clade as a way forward to root out this corruption.

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Why would I?

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My mistake, apologies, yet I suspect you accept that the greater galactic community has recognised the existence of Idama and that all that is required to establish our common cause.

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I recognize that the various cosmopolitical entities of New Eden have recognized that the Intaki believe in the ‘Reborn’. That doesn’t mean they endorse such things. Among other things, the Ida posits no heaven or hell, which makes it automatically heretical and anathema to the Amarr Rite. And while being anathema to the Amarr isn’t a bad thing… it doesn’t provide any support for the claims of the ‘Reborn’, either.

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Both The Theology Council and Intaki custom may justifiably draw judgement upon Sansha. That the current political situation makes such a stance difficult to maintain is a shame.
You can influence this circumstance Arrendis. Perspectives can change. People can come together.

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As one of the responsible parties for sparking this conversation I feel compelled to reply and thank Mantel for keeping the conversation going. Though I see in many cases much more eloquent replies already covering the ground I had planned to tread I will try.

I have to admit, seeing the more tempered responses here has come as a bit of a shock, based on the conversation that sparked this in Summit I certainly felt like there was far less room for compassion than I see here.

@Evi_Polevhia I think what sparked this whole conversation was the little chats we shared years ago. Maybe I took the wrong lessons from them, but I must admit I saddens me to hear you speak of yourself as an artifact an object of usage. I hope we can talk again one day so I can better understand this.

I feel a great hesitancy not for those who chose Nation, but for those taken. Obviously preventing more abductions should be a paramount issue in the question of Nation, but even should the claims be true that once a part of Nation they would not want to leave, should they not be given at least one opportunity to say so? To treat them like sickened chattel, culled to save the herd, it cannot be the best way.

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By… killing all the Sansha and the Theology Council? Is that an option here? Because it really is a coin toss which group needs it more.

It can, and it is.

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Arrendis is correct and that’s just the sad reality of the matter. Unless a person is recovered and receives medical and cybernetic intervention very soon after being processed into a True Slave the technology seems to fully subsume and replace whoever they were before. If any fragment of them remains I am sure they would welcome death as a mercy. The best that can be done is grant them that so they need not continue existing and cannot be leveraged by their master into visiting the same unfortunate fate on other innocents.

These people are already dead and gone, their body just doesn’t know it.

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