Guardian Gala and the Greed of Capsuleers

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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The Angel Cartel brazenly announced their revelry in advance! Promising to protect themselves from capsuleers better this year. The day came and capsuleers appeared to rise to the challenge.

I say appeared, because quickly it became apparent, the Angels were carrying great wealth this time. The rewards for destroying murderers weren’t good enough to delay their day jobs and the galas were largely ignored.

Murderers! Rapists! Child traffickers! They partied joyously about their wicked crimes! And the capsuleers couldn’t be bothered to end them! How sickening is that? Of course, the majority of capsuleers are Caldari and their vile allies. So perhaps it makes sense why such cowards are only in it for wealth.

They need to resupply their massive losses to the Federation, who fight with only a fraction of the force! Constantly, they are being driven away, even with numbers. They are like rabid mutts, surrounding a person, unable to bring down the man. They have the numbers, but are useless. Gallenteans and free Minmatar need to rise up! Join the cause! With equal numbers, driving out these dogs will simply be a matter of warping to them. They will scurry away, cowards one and all. I know we have tried reaching out diplomatically. To bring peace, civilly. But when dealing with savages, it is pointless. It’s time to fight!

Once peace is brought to the universe, we can then eradicate these other pirates. Unlike them, WE will not allow debauchery to be celebrated. Freedom and safety will be brought to all. No longer will the pursuit of wealth, the supplier of an evil war machine, be the deciding factor of decisions. Mutual respect and basic human dignity will rule the day! Grovel State dogs, you could not eliminate us when you had superior numbers. Just wait until we bring the fight back to you!

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With respect, the Caldari are no slouches. The Amarr on the other hand…

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So terrible! So horrible! To leave enforcing the law to law enforcement. Why, I’ll bet half of us refuse to perform brain surgery without being fully-trained neurologists, too!

You know you just pretty described half of Gallente culture, right?

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:popcorn:

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Conducting massacres for profit is maybe the ugliest of what we’re called to do. Fire on a battlecruiser and you fire on a crowd; the janitorial staff goes up along with the captain and there’s nothing that keeps the brig (or the hold) from blowing up along with the bridge. We’re not really very well suited as champions of justice.

I normally try to stay out of that kind of mass-wetwork unless I have orders or I can imagine individually killing every single person who’s likely to be aboard without getting a twinge. So, yes, I definitely did prefer taking on the Abyss to ruining the Cartel’s party. I do have some projects I’m working on, but that was less significant than … well …

… just not really wanting another fifty or a hundred thousand of the innocent and guilty all kind of dying together on my conscience.

I’m a little impressed that someone’s able to be outraged that we didn’t massacre enough people at a party. Even if they’re supposed to be villains, “don’t let them have fun without righteous and bloody retribution” is kind of an amazing cry.

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Who is this we? Because, I don’t know about you, but debauchery is pretty amazing. Come to Caille sometime, I can show you around some pretty debauched places. You’ll have fun. I promise.

Also, killing is wrong.

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This… This is a joke right? Sarcastic rebuttal or something?

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Sounds about normal for freelancers

I assume you mean ‘weren’t’ carrying great wealth. Well, once again, one must turn to the fact that Capsuleers are, by nature and by legality, freelancers. They’re not paid employed military forces or police officers, so sadly asking privateers to kill other privateers will require reward fitting of the task. Otherwise they’ll just continue acting against said same pirates in easier, more profitable ways.

I refer to my previous comment above that Capsuleers as a population at large is not a police force, and is full of a lot of characters who share those values. As sad a state of affairs this is, this is very much crying into the wind.

As for the majority of Capsuleers being Caldari, that must be taken with a grain of salt on how many of those remain citizens of the State. See also that the State breeds a culture of cut-throat enterprise, and once again it makes sense why the Capsuleer population at large behaves in the way it does.

Again, I refer back to my previous comment that in legality as well as in reality, the vast majority of Capsuleers operate on a freelance basis, away from their home nationalities. Pinning the failure of Capsuleers as a whole to attack these specific sites on the State and State loyalists is about as accurate as pinning it on any other nationality. The majority of Capsuleers roam high-security space doing freelance work for various actors, and the second largest population operates in Null Security space hunting various pirate forces under the banner of one or the other Capsuleer lead power blocs.

It’s not because the State and State loyalists aren’t doing anything, it’s because non-aligned Capsuleers operating for their wallet don’t care.

And now we hit the greasy bottom of this pit of yarn. We need to attack the State, because ‘reasons’. The gala was entirely unrelated to the State. The lack of general Capsuleer interest was unrelated to the State so far as the Inner Circle and the DED collectively failed to offer a significant enough of a bounty to make said freelancers care. The fact that the Angel Cartel was smart enough not to outfit their vessels with the priciest of equipment made this all the more of a success for them.

Can we please keep sabre rattling against one Empire or the other to something they actually did or did not do that they should have done.

Addendum: If the Gallente Federation is some beacon of morality and virtue, why didn’t it stump up the manpower, or even the financial rewards, to entice more Capsuleers to engage these sites? Seems a lot of the pot calling the kettle black.

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Does it sound that strange for me to say such a thing?

Edit:

I can’t tell if you think I’m someone who obviously likes killing nearly-helpless people or … what.

I’m a combat pilot. I kill people, sure. It’s what I’m mostly trained for and I’m reasonably good at it.

That doesn’t make it good for me.

There’s a poisonous quality to killing. It eats away at people. It eats away at me. It’s a lot of why I’m with LUMEN and Directrix Daphiti: trying to heal. Or at least, making sure I don’t end up killing my soul for nothing.

Diving the Abyss means risking my crew, and it means fighting-- playing the Triglavians’ games. Fighting the Ancients. It’s unclear what the significance of blowing them up might be.

But I know the significance of blowing up a Cartel battleship. It means blowing up some street kid from Curse who joined the Archangels to help herself and her family out of poverty-- and also killing all her superiors for like five steps up the chain of command, and all their inferiors for all those steps back down!

And it won’t even be interesting.

I’ll do that to Covenant or Sansha’s Nation. Cartel? Guristas? Serpentis? All those samples of raw, desperate humanity? … I really, seriously have better things to do.

I’ll leave that kind of work to someone who enjoys mass executions.

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I suppose welcome to the future of the OP and Kim arguing vehemently who is in fact the greatest victim and hates the other more for it.

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It is established the Triglavian ships have crews as well, is it not? What leaps of logic do you do then to justifying destroying them, when you know absolutely nothing about them?

Cartel battleship is still a military vessel, just for an organized crime syndicate. I find it interesting you bleed your heart over them. They, just like any other crew, know what they sign up for. Or at least they should, street rats or no.

Just checking - weren’t you in Kahah, defending the Khanid doing just that?

And “raw, desperate humanity”? Really? They engage in slavetrading, drug trafficking, unsanctioned mercenary work, piracy, etc. etc. They are not as despicable as the Covenant or Sansha, but don’t try to ennoble them, please.

This is what most of us do every day, attacking the Galas are really in no fundamental way different, even if you delude yourself about it.

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The Caldari state is a much more natural ally for the Minmatar - and the Intaki people - than the Federation is. It’s just a shame that historical events played out in the order that they did, precluding that relationship from budding the way it should have.

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Jenneth used to be Cartel herself, of course she’s sympathetic. She even sold me a thousand enslaved Amarrians once.

Of course, last I spoke to her she vehemently denied that she was her. Or something. I don’t recall the mental gymnastics required to reinvent oneself so thoroughly, but the new persona seems to have gotten her accepted into the more popular, less vilified and presumably better paying ranks of the Imperial loyalist bloc, so whatever, good for her.

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This much I agree with.

I don’t actually do that, though.

You have a generous soul if you think “raw, desperate humanity” is in any way noble, Teinyhr.

I was at Kahah, though I was not present for the freighter run. You can ask Samira what I was doing; it was before she broke from us for good.

I doubt, very much, that they really know what they sign up for. As Mr. Havohej hints, I do have some knowledge of the way the Cartel operates behind the scenes. Capsuleers are known to be dangerous, but the sheer power of the technology isn’t (or wasn’t; my information’s a bit out of date) widely understood by the rank and file. It’s a bit of a closely-guarded secret.

Morale, you know.

Of course, the same’s true of our own crews. I wonder how many truly understand what they’re getting into.

For me it boils down to this: I try not to treat their lives as worthless. I’ll admit readily that this isn’t just for their own sake. It’s for mine, as well.

I’ve built several, and they do seem to want crew. It’s not clear how the Triglavians view such things; it might be that every single one of their people is essentially a clone soldier, transferring to a new body the instant they die. Considering how casually they throw Leshaks away it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they have whole clone ships-- stored ships, with all stations manned with unoccupied clones waiting for their prior selves to go up in a flash of crimson plasma, ready to deploy seconds after death.

Or they really could be using me as a way to get rid of their undesirables. Packing Leshak hulls with hapless petty criminals and political prisoners, tossing them into the arena with compromised defenses and telling them if they can slay the slaver hound coming through the gate, they’ll be free? … But the data fragments we’ve recovered don’t suggest such a thing.

“Cladistic proving,” a test conducted by ritual combat: that seems to be what they’re doing. And, they keep doing stuff that seems to invite us to come back, to dive deeper: the suspect status hack; the frigate access hack. At least, if I take them on as they seem to want me to, I’m engaging with a great mystery of our time. I’ve seen the strangest things, Teinyhr. And the danger to my ship, crew, and pod is substantial; it’s not just slaughter. It really is a test.

“Fighting” Cartel, or any of the other pirate groups … there’s not even anything much for me to learn, just more blood on my hands and more ISK in my account. That doesn’t mean I never will for any reason-- I’m still a combat pilot, after all-- but “we’ll pay you for it” isn’t enough.

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Well, there wasn’t even money in it this time. CONCORD had forgotten to place bounties on the damn things. If they want to party, they can do it in their own space, in Republic space they’re target practice.

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The Cartel is just as bad as the Covenant. And there’s doubtless some desperate street kids roped into the Covenant’s beliefs and crewing their ships, too.

Yes, this is true. You spent your time during that mess shooting blooders. You didn’t exactly disagree with the position your corp took when I talked to you about it, though.

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As a member of the Minmatar tribes, Im not racist.

BUT really man, Caldari people…

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As a member of the Tribes, I am absolutely racist.

Screw the 100m dash. I mean, seriously. WHAT THE HELL, 100m?? SCREW YOU, BUDDY!

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I don’t prioritize the Sabik out of moral disapproval, Samira. I do it because their beliefs are antithetical to civilized life. They corrupt and corrode the bonds that make societies possible.

In a way, they’re heretics in my eyes, too.

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I shot a couple of waves of 'em. Was kinda boring though. Went back to hunting other capsuleers rather quick, much more fun.

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