Militia corruption: Breaking the Deafening Silence on Dirty Deals

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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I understand the concerns being raised in this thread, and I sympathize with them. But I do have some questions and observations of my own:

Doesn’t that mean that in the eyes of the people in charge, they are contributing to the war effort? Just because we don’t necessarily see the benefits of those contributions doesn’t mean the upper echelons of the TLF and 24IC don’t.

Of course they do. Because it doesn’t matter. You bring up exactly that point in the very next sentences:

CONCORD and the empires won’t let the war be won. If they won’t let the war be won, if they’ve structured the war so that switching sides is the most effective way to benefit from being active in the warzone… why shouldn’t they do it?

What risks? I’m serious, Arsia, what risks are the governments supposed to be taking here? That they’ll ‘lose’ systems they’ve lost a dozen times already? They opted to expose those systems to this. They chose to risk those civilians, their lives, their well-being… and let’s face it, we both know how risk works: whatever you’re risking, you make all of your plans with the assumption that you lost it.

So the empires wrote those systems off, right from the start. Any revenue they get from them, any products, any people coming out of them… that’s all gravy.

But the whole system of the CEWPA war is corrupt. It’s designed to encourage people to be mercenaries, and mercenaries follow the money. Mercenaries flip sides. They’re disloyal. Reduce the influence of corrupt and disloyal mission runners? Why? What exactly is achieved by reducing the influence of mission runners?

Except it doesn’t. Any gains in stability and security being made without a road toward a permanent peace is just inviting civilians to invest in rebuilding, so they can lose all over again. It’s a con, a magician’s force, providing the illusion of hope, of stability. Or do you really think this peace agreement for a few isolated systems will prove permanent?

On what basis? Is that group achieving objectives deemed worth pursuing by militia employment agents, or are they not? If they are, what ‘authority’ do you claim to judge those objectives insufficient?

Well, some of you are pretty sick puppies, then, ain’cha?

But again, how are they not participating, if they’re achieving objectives given to them by their agents? Or are you just taking issue with them not participating in capsuleer battles?

NONE of those systems have ever been liberated, no matter who claims to control them. Not one. Because they’re all still trapped in the meaningless bullshittery that is CONCORD’s little bloodsport league, with the empires keeping the talent close at hand, marketing their home teams, and cleaning up on the merch.

If you idiots were significant enough to matter, I might even consider testing that.

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Literally my own, as stated in the sentence directly after the one you quoted. My combat and leadership experience in the warzone. My observations of who contributes and who doesn’t.

Anyway, we get it: you have a cynical view of the CEWPA War. Hell, most of us in the thick of it do too. CONCORD and the Empires have indeed paid little enough attention to the warzone that it is easy to think that none of it matters to anyone. Those of us who live in these contested systems know differently, though, even if what we see isn’t reported every day in The Scope.

I am very much of the view that these wars are what we make of them. Just like your interminable nullsec feuds are what you make of those. Lets not pretend that essentially the same problems of dead weight membership don’t plague the null blocs. If anything, the illegal exploitation of AI systems has been an even greater blight there.

Null blocs have used metrics of participation in strategic operations to evaluate pilot performance and trim the fat for years. That’s exactly the kind of judgement I am making here, according to my own standard. I don’t give a damn whether the bureaucrats in the FDU agree with me, or what perverse incentives CONCORD and the Empires have created. Nor, frankly, do I care what the overlords of Delve think about it either.

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No, it’s not. See, when we apply those metrics, we’re applying them to personal activity in conflicts for which we are the only arbiters of objectives. The people doing the application—the ones making the judgment—are the people who determine the overall strategic goals.

We are, in effect, the people those agents work for. So no, you’re not making exactly the same kind of judgment. You’re analogous to the line pilot. And we do have guidelines for how line pilots should apply those standards: Just follow your damned orders, and stop trying to fecking think. It’s clearly not your strong suit.

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That’s indeed how I handle my risks. In my mind, anything I’ve undocked has already exploded, for example.

But I don’t think it’s that simple for the empires. For the Empire, I’m not convinced we saw the war as a risk before it was enacted. We don’t particularly have a wonderful record in regards to not being arrogant in regards to war.

For the Republic, the proportionality larger amount of space they need to risk seems too large to easily be written off.

So I just don’t think concepts that apply at our individual levels, necessarily do on an empire level.

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What a laugh. Is this what you call thinking? That because militia mission agents exist, somehow Capsuleers aren’t allowed to have opinions or agency? Thank you for your ridiculous opinion, but no. Honestly your entire position here seems completely disingenuous the more you go on. At every turn, your argument seems to be that because militia pilots participate in a flawed system, we are not only obligated to tolerate those flaws but to defend them as well. Again, no thanks.

Oh, and by the way I’m finding it increasingly suspicious that I keep mentioning the impact of illegal AI enhancements, and people keep ignoring that part of my argument. For the record, there is no evidence that CONCORD or the FDU / STPRO / IC24 / TLF have ever sanctioned such technology. In fact, CONCORD revokes pilots licenses every day for such violations, yet the problem persists. Clearly they did not intend for these mission agents to provide such fertile ground for the use of forbidden technology. So stick that in this entire ■■■■■■■■ claim that just because militia agents hand out these missions, that they sanction all associated behaviors, and pilots exploiting their mistakes are immune from criticism.

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So much pride. So many assumptions and so little actual knowledge and understanding.

I don´t know if this place was decent once but as far as I can see for every good and reasonable contribution there are 5 insane, self aggrandizing, ridiculous or just stupid ones. It seems more important to have gotcha moments and win senseless arguements then to be right and act accordingly. This whole summit is turning more and more into a snake pit.

As for our involvement with the mission blockade I do not answer to slavers or self important capsuleers but to the Republic and the Sanmatar. Call me a traitor all you want. Ushra’Khan and myself will serve the Matari. Always.

And to those seem so concerned about the civilians in the warzone: I lost thousands of brothers and sisters in their defense. I died for them again and again. I fought when the slavers took the whole warzone. I warped with six fearless Matari into 100 Amarrs when Evati fell.
I can say similar things about many of the amarrian signatories of the treaty when we took the warzone. So it feels hollow to be lectured judged by those that didn´t care back then and all the countless times those systems changed hands in the last years.

That being said. Continue your cackling and clamour. I´ll be in the warzone if anyone want to follow up their words with actions.

Chief Harkon Thorson
Ushra’Khan

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You forgot ones that don’t address any criticisms and just deflect, but as I said, not my house to clean.

Have a blessed day, Chief Thorson.

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Can’t argue with that.

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Well, when any of us can prove or disprove such allegations, maybe then we’ll comment on it. I know I can’t prove or disprove them, so they’re not a thing I can reasonably factor into my statements. That said…

That’s a lovely straw man you’ve constructed there. Nobody’s said anyone is immune from criticism. What’s being said is ‘the claim that they don’t contribute appears to be wrong’.

No, it’s what I call ‘shut the feck up’. You’re allowed to have all the opinions you want. That doesn’t mean anyone’s obligated to take them seriously, or that your opinions should carry any weight whatsoever with the people who actually decide what behaviors are permissible, and how the militias should delegate assignments.

Nope. Again, it’s a lovely little scarecrow, but I’m not suggesting you should defend any flaws in the system. Only that as the system is designed, those flaws are actually intended design features. CONCORD wants the warzones to be places where nobody can win for very long. That means they want to encourage people to switch sides as soon as either side is winning ‘too much’. You don’t have to like that. Honestly, I’d think you were masochists if you did.

But then, I think you’re masochists for devoting all your energies to a war you won’t ever be allowed to win or lose, anyway. It’s all well and good to enjoy exercising your craft, to use the skills you’ve spent most of your life honing and perfecting. Stars know, I feel that way. I get a deep sense of joy and fulfillment when I’m in harness, weaving my pilots through hellishly concentrated enemy fire.

But when we go on campaign, we have objectives we can complete, or fail to complete, for the whole of the campaign. Burn down Tribute. Keep Circle-of-TEST from gaining a foothold in Catch, etc etc. Win or lose, we have victory conditions. Our efforts aren’t an endless cycle of futile, pointless deaths. And while I can completely understand people who go into that, who make the effort in the warzones out of duty… I will never understand the maniacs who do it for fun. People who go and get people killed just for fun… should probably be locked up.

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Whew. What a wild ride. The only way I can imagine you thinking this sentiment (or any of the rest of it) will be taken seriously is that you are posting it for the consumption of baseliners who have literally never met a Goon.

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Perhaps something to be aspired to…

Your involvement with the mission blockade has thus far been one failed push, a lost system while you were napping, and complete abdication of all offensives to those loyal to the Amarr signatories.

Past glories don’t excuse present failures, however it’s not for I but your Republic and ‘Sanmatar’ to judge your lack of potency. Your actions are that of a traitor certainly but more than that of a leader who has lost his way, my understanding is that your alliance once had a pride and dignity nowhere to be seen in its current shell.

Neither of those things are found indulging in a criminal enterprise to profit from war, there’s no service to your people in such.
Much as your alliance’s history is in opposition to my people, I cannot help but hold some hope that you find your back to integrity and service to your people. If only that so when I am compelled to fight for my own, it’s against an enemy I can hold in respect.

On a last note Chief Thorson, not all of those who speak against you have been lax in standing against you. I allowed my deeds to speak long before my words.

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Plenty of Goons should probably be locked up, too.

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War can be complicated. When on the field total destruction of your enemy is desired but in the boardroom cooler heads can prevail.

I would think a reduction in the velocity of the pendulums swing is likely to benefit both sides. While at base this Accord doesn’t exactly address that issue it might put pressure on the government’s involved to rationalize the rules of engagement somewhat, leading to real change.

Or not but ■■■■ it, at this point it’s probably worth trying something crazy.

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I’m glad we agree on that.

While we’re at it, you might consider moderating your conceit that your objectives in null sec campaigns are so much more meaningful than in the warzone. You and I both know how often sovereignty in null security space has turned over. We both know that your sovereignty rests on CONCORD rulesets that are every bit as flawed in their own way as those the militias endure.

The kinds of objectives that you mentioned are exactly the kinds of objectives that we set for ourselves in the Militia. Holding on to our home systems, capturing strategically valuable enemy systems to stage our fleets from, defending our space based infrastructure and destroying enemy assets. None of those objectives have ever had anything to do with directives from the FDU hierarchy, which has always confined itself to mere automated LP reward distributions and standings audits.

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Meaningful? Only on a subjective level. But see, that’s kind of the point…

See this? This actually highlights my point.

You are not fighting your own war.

Look, when we set our objectives, we’re setting the objectives of the war. We go to war because we decide to go to war. We go to war for the reasons we decide to go to war over. When you try to draw comparisons between your objectives and ours, you run into that small stumbling block: You’re fighting someone else’s war.

The governments decide where you can fight. They decide the goals. They decide the scope of the war. They decide what constitutes victory and completed objectives, and what doesn’t. And those ‘mere automated LP rewards’ and ‘standings audits’? That’s the war. That’s the only thing that actually matters to the people in charge of things.

You guys can set your own objectives. You can hold your home, set up advance stagers, bicker and squabble over what the map says… it doesn’t matter. That’s not the war. Not to the guys running the war. Not to the people who have actual authority over those systems and what happens in them. All they care about is those standings audits, and the LP distribution. Because controlling space… that’s not what that ‘war’ is about.

It never was. CONCORD and the empires didn’t set up the CEWPA warzones in order to contest space. They don’t care about the civilians in those systems. They sacrificed those systems, wrote them off as a potentially interesting backdrop for their bloodsports. The purpose of the war, the real strategic objective… is you. Keeping you close, keeping you invested, keeping you useful, and—if possible—used to taking orders. Their orders.

And that means that all of the fighting you do, all of the systems you contest, it’s all meaningful to you… but to them? To them, it’s just busy-work. It’s you masturbating to keep yourselves occupied. None of it has any impact on the real objectives of the CEWPA: to maintain a supply of reasonably tame, semi-independent capsuleers handy for when the empires need people to go and get something done, but don’t want to risk their precious navies.

As far as the actual militias—the TLF, FDU, 24IC, and StaPro, as opposed to the capsuleer organizations that sign on to work under their auspices like U’K, FEDUP, PIE, CALSF—as far as they’re concerned, the mission runners are the people they want. The rest of you? You’re just… not contributing.

How? In order for there to be change, the people setting the rules of the Pendulum Games need to change those rules. In order to convince them to change the rules, you have to have something they want—you need leverage. What leverage do the capsuleers in the warzone have? ‘Well maybe we just won’t fight, then’? Give it a try for two months with no fighting. See who breaks first, CONCORD, or the capsuleers… if you can even manage it.

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Seems a sort of circular argument. If the mission runners are what’s important to the Empires as the tool of continual oppression or whatever then it would follow that inhibiting that process would effect the Agents participation metrics or whatever exactly they are looking at to justify all this.

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Oppression? That’s a really strange way to read ‘they want to keep you guys handy for when they need you’.

And… no, inhibiting that process doesn’t really achieve anything. To them, it’s just more masturbation, more ‘eh, whatever, they’ll amuse themselves’.

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According to you. My reasons for fighting this war are my own. Just like your reasons for fighting for Goonswarm are yours.

This discussion has become beyond tiresome. I could just as easily reduce the meaning of all the vaunted independence of the nullsec blocs to paying sov bills to CONCORD. You think you’re so free? Stop paying for your iHubs.

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Once again, you’re arguing against a thing I haven’t said. I never claimed our sovereignty wasn’t at CONCORD’s sufferance, or that we aren’t paying them rent for it. In fact, I’ve said just the opposite when I was publicly questioning why the hell we kept paying full price on those sov bills despite them reducing the services we were getting for those payments, during the Blackout.

And, again, you’re fighting for your own reasons. The objectives you set are meaningful to you. But they’re not meaningful to the people controlling the warzone, the ones who can actually make the changes you want… and the changes you want are directly counter to their objectives—the real objectives the CEWPA wars serve.

But, you know, I am sorry that being so completely wrong and unable to refute a single thing actually being said is getting tiresome. Try being right for a change, or not throwing up straw men all over your posts. It might spice things up a little for you.

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And I have said over and over again in this thread that I don’t care about what their objectives are. That has literally been my entire point all along, that I am judging the contribution of mission runners according to my own standard, and I don’t care whether the “people controlling the warzone” agree with me or not.