Someone will. Someone does, I’m sure of it. It’s just that Blooders can be patient with their infiltration - the first results can be decades away.
But still, even in Delve there are people who just sweep floors and fix the plumbing. Whose only contact with the Sabik “philosophy” is the banners on the wall and the occasional not terribly binding weekly prayer or something.
It’s not the laymen I’m afraid of. It’s those they answer to.
Sabik practice kind of eats away at social bonds, Arrendis. The end it tends toward’s not just tyranny; it’s something more … I guess, negatory?
The most basic idea of civilization, after all, is, “lets try to have thousands and thousands of humans living near each other without trying to kill each other all the time.” There’s a lot (a LOT) of stuff that mostly exists to try to support that: legal systems; manners and courtesy; formal power structures and hierarchy; state symbols like flags … on and on and on. (Sporting events: kind of like a skirmish, but usually nobody dies.)
Sabik practice correctly identifies this as artifice, but, dangerously, it identifies all that stuff as a fool’s game to be exploited by those with the insight and will to do so. If the belief spreads, the fabric begins to come apart.
This may be a difference between us, but I’m more comfortable with tyranny than with chaos. Once there’s a structure in place, even if it’s pretty ugly, the structure can be tinkered with, adjusted. Tyranny presents a path for things to improve.
Chaos … doesn’t. Maybe it doesn’t allow for organized atrocity, but it provides a fantastic environment for an ongoing fizz of it. Really, usually the way things improve lastingly from a state of chaos is that somebody imposes a tyranny and puts a stop to it.
My way of thinking might allow for me to loyally serve a tyrant, and I’d even argue that unseating a tyrant by revolting normally comes at the cost of weakening the society (which is why the more narratively satisfying kind of tyrant tends to come in as some kind of usurper, so you can really feel like a revolt is in the right on all counts). But at least my way of approaching things isn’t likely to lead to a full breakdown.
Sabik tends towards chaos. It … well. Just look at the Takmahl. They did some impressive stuff, made some advances we still can’t duplicate, but in the end nobody had to destroy them. They did it themselves.
With respect, not if there’s “a weapon to be wielded without question.” Quite the opposite actually. I’d argue tyranny is less likely to improve if those with power have an ability to crush the status quo. How exactly can change occur if those with the power hold the weapons to initiate or retard the change?
Nevermind by it’s definition tyranny doesn’t allow for change, with chaos there is atleast the possibility of someone with better ideas to gain power to gain the upper hand. Blind devotion being good is subjective. Of course no one complains when their gun fires when the trigger is pulled.
Please don’t take this as specifically targeted towards your masters, it is not honestly. However the concept itself is my focus.
Well, eventually systems that won’t change tend to fracture under the strain, Deitra. Even if I might ideally try to serve as an extension of my mistress’s will, I’m not a drone. If I were in a situation where I really had to act …
Sometimes it’s necessary. Even then, consequences might need to follow once what must be done, has been.
(On such things rest the plots of probably half a million historical dramas.)
Litha.
Thank you for providing this new* insight in your religion.
*atleast new to me
To follow up on Utari’s question: What is your favourite Icecream place in the Federation?
Aria.
I often get asked why I allow a small Amarr shrine to be place in my Temple on my homeworld. To which I reply that not everyone who follows the Amarr religion are following the darker interpretations of the religion, thus they do not pose a threat to us, or anyone else. These people have found the spiritual guidance they need in the Amarr religion and I respect them for it. Likewise I respect your choices as I see that you mean no harm against me or my people, or our culture.
However, I will ask you to offer the same respect to Lithara. If she and other followers of her beliefs mean no harm to others they do not deserve to be put into the same box as those who do, just because they share the same belief.
It’s not quite “can’t” duplicate. It’s closer to “won’t”, or “shouldn’t”, especially for Imperial Orthodox persons. The Covenant are… less discriminating in that regard, though with this Deathglow malarkey, I think their poking at Takmahl bioscience is more a curiosity rather than attempts to duplicate some of the Takmahl plague bioweapons. Interesting on a technical or academic level, but existing things are practical, so why reinvent the wheel ?
But in that chaos ensues. Maybe I’m just getting hung up on tyranny as it seems to have always been to my understanding, a constant fight to maintain a power structure. It seems to me atleast it’s a matter of fighting the tides so to speak, to maintain power/stability and stop change. Tyrannical governments generally end in revolution, revolutions being more akin to chaos than what they are attempting to replace.
In the end I guess I’m finding it hard to understand how defending something that doesn’t appear to promote change is anything other than simply put, trying to suppress change, ya know?
And systems that promote the individual over the group tend to have just as much self-correction inherent in them… because they’re made of people. People form bonds. People get attached. It takes a tremendous amount of strain or conditioning, for example, for a parent to casually kill their own child.
Because, no, the most basic idea of civilization isn’t ‘lets try to have thousands and thousands of humans living near each other without trying to kill each other all the time’. The most basic idea of civilization is: ‘I benefit more from cooperation than from competition.’ It’s all predicated on self-interest. Every little bit of it. That’s what underlies the basic social contract: ‘this gets me more than I’m giving up, in the long run’.
Where that breaks down is the aberrations who don’t care about the ‘long run’, they want it now. Like Omir, etc.
Sani thread, maybe? This is becoming very un-AMA.
It’s fine here. There are plenty of AMAs with comments and opinions. I’ll respond to some points as soon as I really wake up.
I am not here to talk about nuances. I am here to talk about the common practices of Gallente Sanists, which I am reasonably familiar with. I am incredibly familiar with the Caille Sanist community.
Here’s the point I want to make: we’re not violent; we’re not Blood Raiders. Not a single one of us had anything to do with the attack on Matar, and there’s universal condemnation. The opinions of all the Gallente Sanists I’ve talked to about the Matar attack range from disapprove to disapprove strongly. The people that are being attacked are, ironically enough, on the side of the Matari. It’s only that we share some parts of our faith with the Blood Raiders that causes problems. That’s what I am trying to do here. You want nuance, go talk to a priest, Ms. Valate. However, right now, you cannot see the forest for this piece of moss you’re looking at, much less the trees.
Chocolate. (I know, a girl can be boring sometime.) And I actually prefer frozen custard. Not that I won’t eat ice cream mind you. I love them both, and have had quite a lot of rocky road recently. And my favorite place is Gulliver’s in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Caille. I would love to take you both there sometime.
You’ve so far refused to ask questions, to even make decent points beyond ‘Sani bad.’ It’s getting annoying. Do some Gallente Sanists go and join the Raiders? Sure. It’s disgusting when that happens. But you know, there are people that join the Blood Raiders straight away.
They are a facet and the most recognizable. That’s why I am trying to push back. When I was growing up, I didn’t even know about the Blood Raiders. Even in undergrad, when I first explored the Sani Faith, the Blood Raiders were this kind of myth, because they were so far away. It’s only been recently that they’ve really gone public, with that whole naked in a blood bath thing, and the harvest thing.
It’s disgusting and worrisome that genuinely good and decent people are being mistaken for monsters.
A point of note, in Midna’s interview, Sani Sabik was translated from ancient Amarrish and Blood Friend. Apparently, that’s not right and it’s Blood Seed? I like Friend much better, for that is what we are. I’ll elaborate more below.
Better can vary. I know a professional athlete who was really driven to be the top in his field. I know a professor and scientist who is working on some weird mathematical stuff I can’t even begin to explain that wants to solve an unsolvable problem. I know a politician who wants to keep winning elections and become president.
For me, I want to be the best supercarrier pilot in GSF. I want to be a capital director. I want to learn to fly a titan so that when there’s a fight that can only be solved with a bigger hammer, I can be that hammer for my alliance.
There are some personal details that I won’t get into, because they have really nothing to do with Sanism. However, I will say that I wasn’t in the best of places. I was dealing with some trauma after a significant emotional event and was listless. When Midna said how much Sanism helped her get on track, I decided to try it. And, I got back in undergrad, finished that, and am now a capsuleer.
In the spirit of AMA, I’ll have to answer: I don’t know?
(Rhetorical questions do not exist in this thread.)
Interesting to note, that all of our blood rites bind us more closely together. When I share blood with someone, she or he becomes a part of me and I them. We lend each other a small bit of our soul. A small piece of string cannot hold up anything much, but weave them together into a net, and suddenly there’s strength.
There’s really no point to. So I would not.
As much as we support individualism and personal empowerment, at the end of the day, our religion is that of the Blood Friends. I think that at the end of the day, we all understand that while we all have our own goals, wants, desires, we’re in this together.
I am really happy to see this kind of discussion, even the ones that are not questions. The only way we can move forward is with better understanding. Even though I think Aria Jenneth is very wrong about my faith, she is engaging. And that is good.
As long as there’s some kind of combination of sticky and toffee I’m in.
To actually ask a question for this ama instead of simply having a side conversion in it:
Admittedly the details of your faith aren’t exactly well known to me, from what I gather it seems to be a religion based on much of what Aria and I was discussing, namely power for yourself, how it is or isn’t anything for change or self improvement, ect. It’s obvious relations to Blooders reinforces my beliefs to me.
Simply put, your religion is disgusting to me. From what I know of it it falls very far from my own beliefs in many ways. Even more so than the Amarr in some ways. Please prove my thoughts wrong, is there more to it seemingly being a religion based on power grabs or am I missing details you feel I shouldn’t be?
I don’t know that I’ve ever said it was based on power grabs or power. I have used empowerment, but in a way that is more reflective about controlling one’s life, destiny. This is going to be the most Gallente phrase ever, but I guess a way to put it would be: ‘you don’t have to be a domme, but don’t be a sub.’
(We can have a huge argument later and in another thread about the power exchanges in BDSM and whether the sub has it all, but not here. This is mainly in regards to one’s life. One’s bedroom activities need not be affected.)
It’s not about controlling others, or backstabbing for it, but about going out to seize the day. Everyone makes their own goals and has their own desires in their life. They have the right to work to that with all their will.
I feel like I am at wit’s end here. I practice a religion that has the same name with the Blood Raiders, but it’s very, very different.
It’s sort of like comparing Sabikism with the Amarr faith. Same roots, but ultimately you’re judging an apple against an orange, right?
I got that idea more so from the Blooders more so than anything you said. The whole blood to consume their power thing, as well as just in general I’ve heard in the past a large part of it was to empower yourself to satisfy your god or something along those lines. I’m not asking to make a statement, I really have heard many different random things over the years and nothing I could say I’d support. I’d like to think there’s more than the negatives, ya know?
In my version of Sanism, blood is always offered and shared between two Sanists. It is, first and foremost, a gift.
As far as satisfying God goes . . . I’ve explained about my thoughts and beliefs on that. Needless to say, it’s complicated.
But I am happy you’re asking the questions, Deitra.
If there’s one thing we Matari have learned, it’s that religions that are famous for their glorification of control and domination over others are Not Okay.
If your friend made the choice to live openly as a Sabik in a society that knows what Blood Raiders are, frankly she’s lucky she lasted as long as she did.
The Sani faith may not share every facet of the Raiders, but the Raiders are a part of that faith. By choosing to follow the Sani faith, believers are associating themselves with Sarikusa’s lot.
Do you think it’s realistic to ask people to put aside the crimes inflicted by the Blood Raiders on millions of innocents in the name of the Sani Sabik faith, while you and those like you operate under that same banner?
^ This is so. What if one actually called oneself a Blood Friend, and eliminated the troublesome connection? One could still improve oneself, strive, and do whatever things you do with blood, I imagine…