May I be granted a privilege to ask another question?
Your disapproval of the Blood Raiders are acknowledged and appreciated, but as a capsuleer what do you think of their tactics?
I have personally found their tactics of webbing and capacitor draining to be quite effective and I have also seen many veteran capsuleers mimicking such tactics themselves.
I actually plan to acquire a raider Bhaalgorn, so after thorough cleaning, sterilization and deodorization by well paid, hired employees, I plan to equip this very interesting vessel according to such tactics.
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Blood Raider ships are undoubtedly effective. The Bhaalgorn is a mainline doctrine ship. (Because we have so many of them, you see.) I know we also have Molok pilots and our logi director swears by the Dagon.
For being such despicable people, they really do make good ships. However, if you want one, you can buy a BPC! Every so often (like, incredibly often) a Goon will go blow their stuff to tiny bits and find a BPC in the wreckage. By purchasing a BPC, you are directly incentivizing the destruction of more Blood Raider ships and stuff.
Also, the questions are unlimited, so go at it.
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I would like to give you my sincerest gratitude for your answer.
I plan to have my Bhaalgorn equipped to become a truly terrifying presence.
I have betrayed my Amarr faith long time ago, but your interpretation of Sani Sabik belief still deserve my utmost respect.
https://www.evemarkethelper.net/Market/43935-blood-raider-victory-skin-permanent
My lady, if I have my Bhaalgorn fully prepared with this markings, may I ask for a ordained priest of your congregation of benevolent, egalitarian Sanist sect bless my vessel so it can be used for the cause of benevolence instead of advocacy of suffering?
I am willing to donate 10 Plex for such endeavors, but being a apostate I am, you are also free to refuse to do so.
Lady Valate, you are not ignored.
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Fitting Director. Tuzy is GSOL director, and he uses a Rorq when he fights.
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I can ask them, certainly. I feel like it’s a reasonable request, and I think it will be fulfilled.
However, I do not think we need a donation. Instead, donate to one of the relief funds helping the victims of the Blood Raider attacks on Matar.
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And here lies the common misunderstanding in the meaning of blood to the Sani Sabik, why it was so inherently incompatible with Amarrian beliefs and why it was so easily manipulated into what the Blood Raiders believe.
Blood is power. A metaphor that brings with it the basic principles of natural law. DNA, bloodlines passed from the mother and father to the child, the combination of two individuals to create another, forms the basis of every living creature in existence. That transfer carries with it all the benefits and defects of the parents.
For a simple example of this, take any breed of canine, a Syrikos hound for example. Good blood, or more accurately good DNA protects against common diseases and other issues including hip defects. Properly bred hounds can correct jaw defects which reduces slobbering, they can be bred for temperment, which has been used by the Amarr to create efficient guard dogs.
The importance of blood is borne from the core beliefs of the Sani that self-improvement and personal strength is extremely important. Therefore to share blood with another is sharing your strengths and your weaknesses and is, as Lithara described, supposed to be a intimate moment. Though I am sure many sects, especially those in the Gallente Federation do not truly understand the origin of such practices, I am sure that the sharing of strengths and weaknesses is a practice that many cultures integrate into their life bonds and marriages. The Sani version of this is simply expressed in a different way.
Your opinions on blood and it’s meaning the the Sani culture therefore stem from a inherent lack of understanding about why it was important in the first place.
It is extremely common in all our cultures for extremist individuals to twist belief and faith in order to exert power. Omir Sarikusa proved extremely effective in pandering to individuals who don’t just seek personal power but seek self-indulgence, and that is it. While Sani Sabik beliefs do promote personal strength and self reliance, is does not promote the wonton mindless slaughter of everyone else, nor does it promote cloned blood or children’s blood being ‘purer’. These are easy to spot perversions for anyone who actually understands how and why the Sani beliefs developed, because consuming the blood of children does absolutely nothing on a biological level.
For the Amarr, the Sani sects represent an inherent threat to power for the elite ruling classes. You cannot promote strength of the individual while also promoting that one race is superior in all ways to another, and that all life is subservient to a invincible unseen being.
Therefore passages such as this from the Apocyphon ‘For you are all my creation, And are all equal in my kingdom.’ are antithetical to the core beliefs of the Amarr.
I have left out large amounts of information here that would better clarify these ideals, however I fear that true discourse on the subject is not truly possible in a forum such as this as it lacks the proper setting for a real, focused discussion on the subject that is better done one on one. I do hope however that this clarifies at least part of your understanding.
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You put it wonderfully, Sahriah.
Now let me add why exactly capsuleer clone blood is of such high value to the Covenant: as you mentioned, it’s DNA. Capsule compatibility is mostly defined at the genetic level; by harvesting a capsuleer, one gets a blueprint of a living, “immortal” weapon of mass destruction., an “unbound demigod”, as so many seem to think, who is a winner of a one-in-a billion genetic lottery.
A harvested essence of an “ascended” being, a symbolic consumption of the very truimph over an immortal enemy, an essence not only of power (that the Jovian tech provides), but of mystical luck.
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If you want to give your religion a whiff of the scientific by mentioning DNA, you should probably know that it’s in pretty much every cell of the body. Well, notably except red blood cells, which are anuclear and lack even mitrochondria.
If you want to bring in heredity, oh my spirits.
You are aware which cells in humans carry the germ line, right…?
Wrong body fluid entirely.
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Sahriah and Jade both raised some interesting points that I do want to address–which I will when I compose myself more–but I do want to say that I do not feel any of the claims of the Sani Sabik faith are even able to be subjected to scientific investigation or empirical measurement.
If you’re religion is scientifically provable, then it’s not a religion. That’s just science.
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So… Does the whole “blood thing” basically stem from eugenics or am I missing some nuance that’s important? I’m sorry, I’m not trying to make claims or whatever, I really don’t know. It just seems like a massive jump, pure genes to litterally consuming power from drinking blood. It’s hard to understand how such a leap can be made.
For my faith, no. It’s a physical medium of a spiritual aspect. There’s no science-y stuff involved. There’s no DNA, no eugenics, no caloric or dietary benefits.
If someone gifts me their blood, and I gift them mine, it’s a mingling of spirit, our anima.
Understandably i wouldn’t expect you to have an official reason, but any ideas how such a leap could be made? It just seems odd such a cut and dry philosophy could be so distorted. Perfecting the gene pool turning somehow into consuming blood for power, ya know?
I think I am confused as to what your exact question is. Are you asking why blood was the medium the Sani Sabik chose?
Mr. Asbjordja, thank you for your very basic lesson in biology. You are very correct in your statement that red blood cells do not contain DNA, however human blood, as i’m sure you know, is composed of primarily three different cell types. While it is true that the erythrocytes lose their nucleus during maturation, the other two main constituents of human blood do contain DNA.
So unless you are telling me that every Blood Raider or Sani Sabik practitioner actually goes through the process of separating the red blood cells from the rest, i’m content to theorize that yes they likely do in fact, consume DNA.
That is all, partly, irrelevant, but you have segwayed us nicely into the reason why it is irrelevant. Because the use of blood in Sani culture is symbolic, not practical in its current form. I would have thought this would be easily understood from my previous post, but no sane person in fact believes that you can gain mystical power or strength from consuming other peoples blood. That’s simply not how nature works.
To Jade - Yes that is what the Blood Raiders believe, but it is a misguided practice with inherent flaws in its reasoning and implementation. Rather it began at a logical start point and devolved into public display of pointless self-indulgence. Smart predators do not drag the kill around for all to see for obvious reasons.
To Lithara - The Takmahl, the original Sani Sabik practitioners, were masters of bioengineering and cybernetics. All evidence suggests they had an excellent understanding of science. It is quite reasonable to assume they had a excellent understanding of biology. Therefore the relevance of blood to their society was most likely in their research into DNA and genetic enhancement, the improvement of the self, perhaps in a similar way to what the Jove attempted. Many religious practices have evolved from a scientific baselines and most cultures carry examples of this.
I do believe you are correct in saying that the belief system is not so much faith as proven science. There is plenty of evidence to show that the majority of the core Takmahl beliefs were based on the natural laws. Thankfully, because I do not subscribe to omnipotent, omnipresent beings that control our destiny.
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‘Blood is life’ is one of the oldest, most universal concepts in human cultures around the cluster. It was probably ancient when the Takmahl were first putting their beliefs in order. It was probably ancient when the Amarr were first learning how to write. It’s got nothing to do with DNA, and is entirely scientific, in the sense of ‘this theory is based on observed data, and makes predictions that can be tested’.
What data? What predictions?
If you lose all your blood, you die. That doesn’t happen if you lose all your toes, all your arms, all your gonads, all your eyes…
But if you lose all your blood, you die. Even the Brutor get that.
So by the time the Takmahl were studying advanced bioengineering, there was almost certainly already a sense of ‘blood is life’ as a metaphysical concept rattling around in their heads, and it was probably there a lot longer than their biomechanical research.
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More less I’m asking for your thoughts on how some parts of your faith can turn what is essentially eugenics into drinking blood. It seems like a massive leap of logic some make.
So, my genuine answer is that I don’t have a ■■■■■■■ clue. There’s a huge break in the logic chain.
I really cannot speak for Sani outside the Federation (and cannot speak for most in here, honestly.) A lot of the stuff about the Blood Raiders and the Takmahl are things I am hearing for the first time.
However, I can honestly say that I’ve really never encountered a eugenics<—>blood drinking connection in the Federation.
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Ms Vess, forgive me as I mean no disrespect, but you seem to lack a general awareness of human nature.
All life is a complex power struggle over who survives and who does not, that’s how every species advances and evolves. One of the most effective ways to come out on top of that equation, for a more advanced species like us, is to rally people around ideals, a set of structures to which those who do not wish to think, can conform and do so with a clean conscience. In much the same way that the Amarr can justify their enslavement of millions of Minmatar through God, the Blood Raiders justify their self-indulgence for violence and fetish for blood drinking through their beliefs, either as a ‘sacrifice’ to the Red God or whatever they choose to use as reasoning. People often look for a set of ideals that fits them, rather than examining if those ideals are worthy of being followed. Therefore it is easy to lure those individuals through sheer acceptance that they can butcher without recourse.
The practical difference in this case between Lithara and the Blood Raiders beliefs is that one has chosen to embrace the ‘gentler’ side of the belief system, emphasising personal freedoms and personal strength, while ignoring, or more accurately not understanding why the belief system developed in the first place, and the other has taken that belief system and twisted it into an excuse to mindlessly butcher in an environment that is ok with that behaviour
There is a duality of purpose that can be found in all things. Fire can provide life-giving warmth, or it can burn the flesh from the bone. But fire is not bias. It has no desire to protect or to destroy, it simply is, and it is us who chooses to view it one way or the other.
God created everything. Science is part of faith. It is the work done to discover His laws for us and His world, as He reveals them to us.
You are not helping dispel the belief that religion is ‘just a fantasy’ by saying that a religion only counts if it is a fantasy. Enlightenment and understanding is the goal of many religions, and that requires knowledge and learning.
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Science and religion serves two different purposes. The laws of your God does not apply to me.
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