So, there’s these people she knows. She associates with them because she feels like they’re good, honest people. They’re people she can work with to try to make things better for everyone. They’re people she believes are honest, honorable people. They have to be, because by associating with them, she’s not just risking her reputation. She’s risking the reputation of her Clan, which is already suspected by some of being collaborators during the Occupation.
So for her, the chief of the cadet branch of her Clan’s lead family, and to whom falls the responsibility for the Clan’s financial well-being within the Republic as well as beyond it, to associate with a group of Amarr loyalists is a great personal risk. It’s the kind of risk that could, conceivably, if things were to get worse between the Empire and Republic, lead to a bunch of masked Shakorites murdering her entire Clan and the government completely ignoring it. She’s risking a lot on the basis of the Amarr group’s honesty, honor, and forthrightness.
Potentially, she’s risking lives.
And with that on the line, this group of people advertised something as benefitting a ‘charity’. So she supported it. Publicly. And then there’s been a limitation of how transparent they’re being. It’s come out that the ‘charity’ is themselves. They’ve been forced to recant the ‘charity’ bit and just call it a ‘fund-raiser’.
None of that has to have happened due to malice or malfeasance for it to look very, very bad from a political standpoint.
None of it. I doubt anyone here thinks LUMEN is seriously ‘up to something’. I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, Aria, but LUMEN’s not really capable of being ‘up to something’. None of you are that good at being sneaky.
But it looks bad. And optics are often all that matters in politics. And the more money LUMEN was taking in, the more her support for it has the potential to look like ‘Clan Ramijozana Supports Amarr Empire’ is a valid takeaway.
She’s worried about being put in a position where she can do one of two things. Either:
- Do what she thinks is personally right, and ignore the haters, or
- Do right by the people to whom she has a responsibility, and protect them by cutting you guys off and maybe shooting you in the face.
The initial error, and the lack of transparency coupled with the apparent uniformity of ‘it’s all Amarr again but me now, oh fukk’, has put her in a very uncomfortable, and potentially very dangerous position. That’s what she’s not thrilled about.