Isn’t much of a problem, given it was the Amarr indeed who got the most of it.
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Perhaps so, but I’m still having difficulty understanding why the Amarr, of all empires (and specifically the late Empress) were singled out. Semiki, we have at least a bare minimum understanding of the ‘why’ behind it. But Her Imperial Majesty was, if anything, dismissive of the Drifters. I admit, I was deep in baseline affairs at that point, so I know as much as the average foreign diplomat, but I haven’t heard anyone give a definitive reason of why Empress Jemyl specifically drew the targeted ire of the drifters.
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It’s a tangled case around entosis tech, Carthum, House Sarum, Jamyl and her intervention in deploying that tech.
To make a long story short, a company her house owns developed a piece of tech reverse-engineered from the Drifters, Jamyl proved instrumental in it becoming widespread in the cluster and the Tyrannos punched her and the empire in the gut for it.
That’s about the gist of that whole holy martyrdom thing.
Edit, because well, a clarification:
The Jamyl Intervention refers to her releasing a Lai Dai-developed improved shielding to stations within the outer regions. While highly resistant to good old bombardment, it nearly immediately proved vulnerable to Entosis tech, which caused it to become rather widespread around the cluster.
And subsequently reshaped its political landscape.
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We were the first into the wormholes when they opened, with one of the largest expeditions, and have been making many strides in reverse engineering sleeper technology ever since.
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Thank you for that explanation, it clears up quite a bit. Not everything, but it helps.
I wonder if this is all the result of our incursions, anger at something concerning our appropriation, or simply attempts to retard our development until they can deal with more pressing threats.
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Saint Jamyl also declared the Drifters to be abominations not of God to be destroyed.
It is a command I obey with a joyful heart.
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Yes, opposition and antagonizing the Drifters does seem very religious in nature, even from our scientist-monk-warriors.
Well the problem I meant was classifying capsuleers " a side dish" when on the past couple of years visible Drifter aggression has predominantly been against capsuleers. Note predominantly, I am well aware of Drifter assault on SoCT facilities, where I also intervened.
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While the sentiment is appreciated, Alizabeth, I’m not sure the Drifters are entirely concerned with the effects of public opinion. We all know at least one person who can’t let an insult slide, the Drifters would have blown up at least a quarter of the cluster by now if they’d been ‘that’.
At least, that’s the impression I have. I could be entirely wrong, and maybe there is a sensitive Drifter in command somewhere that took exception.
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Nothing is “not of God.”
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It’s possible I am misremembering this early in the morning. But she did call them abominations.
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But there are certainly things which oppose God and His creation, and must be destroyed. I don’t think the edict was meant to say they come from outside the bounds of creation, but that they exist outside the bonds of human fellowship and oppose the work. Given that they have apparently been listening to us this entire time, and likely even stirring up dissent between our empires and peoples, I’m inclined to agree especially on the practical point with the late Empress’s assessment.
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This man religions.
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Not exactly. More like:
- Capsuleers are doing research with poorly-understood materials that CONCORD has not declared contraband or in any way given said capsuleers prior reason to think might be dangerous.
- CONCORD says “hey, you guys, that’s actually kinda dangerous, you should hand that stuff over” (except with a lot more and official words because hey, @Oveg_Drust)
- Capsuleers say ‘Uhm… why? You’ve been letting us play with these things for months. You guys encouraged us to go into the Abyss and start messing with this crap. Before we just give you the stuff the State Megacorp that got attacked asked us for first, can you tell us a bit more about the threats you’re afraid of and how to safeguard this stuff you still tell us we’re allowed to have?’
- CONCORD completely ignores capsuleers and waits for a week.
- State Megacorp asks basically the same damned question of ‘why should you get it when we need it?’
- CONCORD shrugs, and refers the matter to a
never-ending debatecommittee without making any fuss whatsoever. - On the 3rd day of committee-ownership, Drifters attack. Then, just for giggles, Drifters attack everything else in the system, too.
- Somehow, the reaction is 'Let’s deal with the Drifters and then we can go back to asking CONCORD to actually give us information like ‘how many of these things in one place is a bad thing?’ and ‘are you really sure these should be legal in the first place?’
- A capsuleer with a known obsession with killing Drifters notices the number of drifter battleships in play and say ‘you know, I got more Doomsdays than that, and mine don’t have to wait for me to be 75% dead. Bring it on, Jovian punks.’
Gets a lot easier to argue with the Sisters’ conclusions when you’re dealing with an accurate run-down.
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I love you. So much.
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Maybe I am dumb or brainwashed but nothing in that rundown serves to convince even me that capsuleers are not a menace.
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Oh, I haven’t said we’re not. I just said it’s a lot easier to argue it when the pivotal point in the sequence of events isn’t ‘lol, no’ but ‘uhm… threats? What kind of threats and how do we take precautions with this stuff YOU TOLD US WE COULD HAVE?’
Really, who’s the menace here? The capsuleers who wanted the research materials to go to the people who asked for them in response to an attack, and asked for more information to avert another one?
Or the non-responsive guys with increased access to Jovian tech who not only won’t answer the question, but also won’t make these things illegal?
I mean, it’s all well and good to say ‘that kid with the explosives is a menace’, but if the ‘kid’ with the explosives doesn’t know better, and even asked why he shouldn’t be playing with explosives, and the ‘adult’—the more powerful authority figure who has all the information—not only refuses to answer, but keeps letting him get more explosives…
… I’m not blaming the kid on that one.
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Your metaphor is terrible.
Even the littlest kid knows that when an adult says “that’s not safe, put it away and back off”, you do that first and ask why after.
At least Rhiannon kids do. Don’t know about Stjornauga, obviously.
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It might have been a different story if the Drifters, who quite obviously can understand us and communicate with us, had made their intentions and expectations clear. It isn’t the actions or words that bother me so much as the silence.
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We communicate just fine. With guns.
And missiles. And sometimes drones and fighter craft, too. I think there’s a saying that the barrel of a gun is a universal language.
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But that’s not what they’re telling us.
CONCORD, in this situation, is an adult who alternatively tells a bunch of children ‘hey, yeah, go play with all that dangerous crap’ and ‘no no, don’t do that!’
In fact, what CONCORD objected to was the number of these things being stored in one place. Here, look:
“Such a major stockpile”. Not ‘having these things’. Not even ‘having a stockpile’. It’s clearly ‘that many’. And it was so critical, that ARC was given 5 days to hand them over. Now, keep up with me here, because this is important:
At no point did ARC refuse to hand them over.
None. Didn’t happen. Nobody refused. People may have advocated refusal, but nobody refused.
Instead, what they did was say ‘that’s too many? Crap! Ok, how many is safe? We can split it up. Because those Megas over there asked for this stuff to try to save lives, and we’d really like to be able to help them save lives, in a safe but timely manner’.
And: ‘Tell us more about the threat and how to safeguard these things so we minimize the danger’.
And even: ‘Why the hell are these things legal if they’re that dangerous?’
So, just to check here: which of those reactions is irresponsible? Which one is ‘a menace’?
Because again, the one person who’s said ‘give them to me’ is blatantly doing it to initiate a wholesale slaughter of Drifters on a scale not even the entire Throne Worlds campaign would match.
And let’s remember: 5 days to hand them over. If CONCORD wanted to, they are fully capable of confiscating these things. They’ve stopped and boarded capsuleer vessels in the past over a lot less. It’s kind of a no-brainer as to whether or not they can override Upwell’s docking permissions and seize the items from cargo. They didn’t do that. The matter was so ‘urgent’ that they were willing to wait a week not answering questions.
EDIT: And frankly, with Alizabeth demonstrating what a single Hel can do, I’m really wondering where the hell the Caldari Navy is in this. A half-dozen Leviathans with Bosonic Field Generators would clear gigantic swaths of these things in less time than it takes to yell ‘FIRE IN THE HOLE’
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