Whether you have claimed it or not isnât relevant. The fact is that it is Amarr that needs to be fixed, and the Mandate is part of Amarr, as guilty of its sins and as in need of penance and change as the rest of the Empire. Separation is selfish. You speak this idea as if freedom and individualism are inherently good, that Ammatar having had its own church was a good thing, but they arenât. The issue is not that it is ruled by Ardishapur â indeed, that it is ruled by Ardishapur instead of one of the other houses is a blessing; Lord Arim, like his uncle, is a great man â the issue is that too many of the elite, both Amarrian Holders and Ammatar Elite, are corrupt and not held to account to the laws of God. This is most visibly demonstrated in Ammatar Elite being allowed to own slaves despite not being Holders. Do you really think, if separate, that the Mandate would reduce the power held by its rulers? An independent Mandate would not likely see reform, but rather the assumption of even more power in the hands of those Elite, now free to take on the roles of Holders themselves.
I am a heretic. I was exiled from Thebeka and outcast from the Empire. Do you think I welcome that? That I will be able to do as much good for the Empire from outside of it rather than inside? I did what I felt was necessary at Kahah and Thebeka, to help prove that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, both where it is at its worst and where it is at its best, but to be separated from Amarr is a source of pain, not pride.
This has never been a fight for independence. At least, not for me. It is a fight for the soul of Amarr, for the will of God. And Godâs will is that all nations be one under him in the great Amarr Empire. Secession can only be a walk back from that goal. As it was for the Kingdom, and as it was for the Republic.
Then do not push them to ideas of even greater power as independents fit to rule over themselves. That is what leads to sin. Service is not evil. The issue with slavery is not that people are made to serve. It is that those given lordship over them will, when trusted with such great independent power and authority, use it to commit evil upon them. Rulership leads to decadence. Power leads to sin. We must be bound, all of us equally, from the lowest servant to the emperor, under the same law â Godâs â and be held unswerving to that law.
The call, then, for me, cannot be for Ammatar independence. It is instead for the Ammatar slave, the Ammatar peasant, to look to their own Ammatar elite and ask the very same questions the slave and peasant in the rest of Amarr must: âAre you using your power justly? Are you held to the laws that I am held to?â And if the answer to that question is no, then to fight until the answer becomes yes.
No, it has not. It is a thing only the sefrim could provide. Mortals are too corrupt to be entrusted with it, and so, instead, the power it bestows twists the Holder and the slaver into sin. That it was, perhaps, never possible for mankind to do Blessed Servitude right does not change that we have betrayed its purpose. We have simply been betraying it since time immemorial.