It’s not insipid, merely an acquired taste.
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The who?
Not quite the analogy I’d go for, but that doesn’t sound so bad.
Depends on how it works out in the long term.
She’ll have to wait a bit to do so, we’re blue at the moment.
Personally, I wouldn’t object to some first hand bioadaptation. It’s such a fascinating process, and the changes would be interesting to observe and experience firsthand. As for something like this:
I’m practically always in a survival suit anyways, so it’s irrelevant. Not like I’d object to the changes though, a lil bit of triangular flair is nice.
Regardless, amusing discussion y’all have here, not like it’ll change anything.
You say that as if I care.
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I was having a snooze in my office chair, and was having a really good dream about sausages and just as it was getting to the good bit, I woke up suddenly and found I’d knocked over the coffee mug on my desk.
Amarrian brainwashed and enhanced slave-soldiers from tribal bloodlines.
Well said! One might even say “Good Words!” 
Um. So, thank you, a lot. But, I kind of have to ask: by “topics” do you mean like the political stuff or more just … grim imaginings?
Like, is this about that time Dr. Valate rhetorically demanded an atrocious method for doing philately?
I was Meaning that your Opinions and Analyses of various things sometimes make for Uncomfortable Reading for some people.
Most usually it is Political Interpretations of events, that people may find Disturbing.
Also, that you are willing to Publish such things, despite how People may be Uncomfortable. Honesty is Another attribute that is Admirable.
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. . . Oh. Well, now my face is very warm.
(I wasn’t fishing for an expanded compliment really I wasn’t but thank you thank you aaaaaagh!)
Uh-- pilot? Without necessarily disagreeing with your underlying point, can we maybe not overuse that word? Terrorism is a strategy of the weak against the strong, a method for forcibly drawing attention to a cause, usually a pretty desperate one. It uses fear as a weapon because it largely lacks other strategic weapons.
The Triglavians, ah, don’t. They inspire a lot of fear, sure, and civilian casualties don’t seem to bother them much, but their situation’s more in line with the old joke about what a fifty-meter squid does: anything it wants.
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This is an odd definition of terrorism.
Is it? … I think it’s pretty close to the technical one, though. As a strategy it’s summed up as, I think the phrase is, “propaganda by deed.”
“The inequities and iniquities of my situation have driven me to such depths of despair that I must blow up this bustling marketplace (and maybe also myself) to get your attention.”
That sort of thing. You don’t normally do it if you have a lot of other options.
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Weren’t the Trigs portrayed as weak because they were fleeing from a breaking apart area of space, hunted by Sansha and Drifters, and fought against the strong empire? I don’t see why the word is used wrongly.
They forcibly drew attention to their plight in Abyss space and to their hardship by invading Empire space systems, disrupting critical infrastructure and terrorizing populations, trade and the very fabric of spacetime itself.
They used the fear of taking away our systems from us against us, which was a very effective approach in Caldari space. It made the state fear them so much that their defences crumbled just by the mentioning of Trigs.
That sounds exactly like the things that Trigs did. Terrible thing is that they did not terrorize the root causes for their issues (namely Drifters and Sansha’s Nation). Instead, they went after the Empires for no apparent reason, likely because they considered the Empires to be softer targets than Drifter held systems or Sansha held systems.
…?
??
. . . .
??? … ?!
… Um.
What?
. . . .
I mean, I apologize for all the incredulous bric-a-brac above but it’s kind of hard to square this characterization with a culture that overheard some physicist joking about using a tiny black hole as a campfire and thought that sounded like a great idea.
Pilot, the Triglavians have been casually throwing voluntarily-crippled battleship squadrons out as puzzle-tests for lone pilots since we first got hold of Abyssal filaments. Since then, they have fielded larger-than-Titan ships we have barely been able to scratch the shields on, much less kill (keeping in mind that their strong suit is armor), and also pretty directly declared war on all four empires simultaneously and proceeded to not only avoid being crushed but semi-literally absconded with multiple star systems.
They’ve walked through CONCORD computer security like it wasn’t there, altered local space-time on a systemwide scale in essentially every system they’ve taken any kind of serious interest in (never mind conquered), flooded stargate wormholes with exotic matter from the inside (solidly and probably irrevocably sealing them), and tapped our stars to build still more fun-sized singularities.
Oh, and then unilaterally disengaged mostly from the war effort and transformed their stolen systems into a sort of closed loop that might be in the process of falling into the Abyss but in the meantime maintains enough connections to let the Drifters, among others, raid it while the Triglavians continue to cheerfully raid us through their wandering highsec wormholes.
Fun!
What exactly in all of that gives any but the most completely blinkered Kybernaut the sense that the Triglavians are the underdogs in this cluster?
Terrorism: bombing a building or city, then scurrying off and hiding, drawing (or sustaining) a disproportionate crackdown whose very brutality unintentionally generates sympathy for your cause.
Not terrorism: STEALING STARS.
I mean, it’s totally possible that the Collective’s desperate. They might be running short on resources of some kind or the Drifters might be causing them more trouble than is apparent, but either way they’re operating more like conquerors than terrorists.
So I guess actually my answer to your question is: No, no they have not.
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That they are not weak is debatable, I guess, considering that single capsuleer cruisers could decimate entire fleets of theirs. But if you insist, I can change Terrorists to “terrorizing conquerors”. That’s fine with me.
Yeah, that’s true, they don’t have the pod. The pod’s pretty strong.
Only in certain ways, though. I don’t know about you, but I definitely can’t just walk through CONCORD security like the Collective does, or bend large-scale spacetime topography to suit me, fun as that would be.
Also, well, so, we mostly live and associate among ourselves, pilot, so this might not be instantly obvious, but the fact is we’re pretty rare. If you count all us “independents” you might possibly have a high enough head count to staff a single astrahus. Also even having us around turns out to be a mixed blessing since about half of the involved pilots ended up siding with the Collective anyway.
The pod was a gift (or “gift”) from the Jove. But, they’re gone now. It’s a powerful tool, sure, and it’s probably why the Collective’s so interested in eggers in particular, but it didn’t give us the power to stop them.
Anyway, sure, “terrorizing conquerors” or a bunch of other stuff would probably work. “Thieves.” “Murderers.” “Offensive re-terraformers.” “Mass involuntary ultrainvasive body-modders.”
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emphasis added
I think it’s safe to say the Collective does not lack for other strategic weapons. The terror aspect is a side effect of their actions, not a direct objective. I do not intend to downplay the aspect, simply frame it in perspective, and also note that they don’t care about the terror they inflict.
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