Off-Topic Thread vol. 2

Well, in fairness, some did opt out, Arrendis. And left! You won’t find them in Pochven anymore.

Well, maybe traces. Flash-boiled bodily fluids, shattered bone fragments, scorched bits of scalp. . . .

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Pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt. :stuck_out_tongue:

This much is true.

However, the people in Skarkon lived under no Holder. While it was the wild border and restless and full of all sorts of lowlifes and warlords, it was not enslaved. Even the Angel secession rule of YC110 the people called in by vote, themselves.

Neither was Krirald a Holding. Or Eygfe or Avesber or Anbald or any other of the free worlds you tried to take. “The Amarr could be worse” is not a very good excuse for any of those, is it?

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I offered it as a comparison, not as an excuse.

Did you expect me to lie about the challenges that face the narodnya of Pochven? Did you expect me to minimize or deny the suffering of those caught in the warzone? I do not. I never have. Civilians in the middle of a war zone always suffer the most. So it has always been, since our ancient ancestors first picked up stones and smashed them against the heads of their enemies. There is no avoiding such a fate.

War is a natural disaster executed by unnatural means. It scourges worse than wildfire, reduces cities to rubble greater than any earthquake, washes away the living with more violence and finality than a tsunami wave. And like every natural disaster, it creates the opportunity for something new to be rebuilt in its place. In other words, war-- like all inevitable forms of devastation-- creates not merely sorrow but also opportunity.

I find that most people fall into two camps when it comes to such things. There are those (like you, perhaps?) who fixate on grief and grievance; who howl and curse fate, and stamp their feet in rage unending at the unfairness of it all; they blind themselves with rage and grow addicted to the intoxicating venom of victimhood.

Then there are the others-- the survivors-- the ones who understand that there is no such thing as a life free of difficulty, and nothing but random happenstance controls the severity of it; they who feel grief but refuse to be consumed by it; the ones whose eyes remain unblinded to see the new opportunities before them. These are the people who build the universe of the future-- the things that could not have been achieved but for the circumstances that made those achievements necessary.

I do not minimize the hardships that these civilians face. That would be unworthy of the sacrifices they made.

And so we arrive at the heart of the matter: whether or not their sacrifices were, in fact, for the greater good. There are more than seven thousand charted stars in New Eden and Anoikis. The Triglavians conquered an infinitesimal number of them. I have seen your friends and allies deride this fact simultaneously on the basis that it is such a small number-- and therefore ridiculed as emblematic of the Collective’s presumed inferiority-- and on the basis that it is a huge number-- and therefore decried as a grievous sin that can neither be forgiven nor forgotten. (The choice of which of these conflicting arguments to make depends entirely on whatever the narrative du jour happens to be.)

But none of it is ever informed by asking the Triglavians themselves.

I have lived in Pochven now for more than a year, working closely with members of the Collective. The language and cultural barriers are still steep, but I have enough experience to draw some general conclusions. The Triglavian people have a marked bent toward pragmatism and a utilitarian approach toward problem-solving. Much of this may be driven by the fact that they are building up Pochven from scratch. But as I observe further, the thought keeps rising that the Collective only took as much from the Empires as was minimally necessary for survival. (Indeed, Subcommander Foucault practically said as much a few months ago when he warned that the Collective deliberately stopped its incursions into empire space, and could just as easily resume them if provoked.)

And here, at last, is the answer to the question. Because-- contrary to the hysterical ravings of some capsuleers on this forum-- the Triglavians were motivated to come to these “Ancient Domains” not out of senseless bloodthirst, but out of abject necessity. The common threat to us all is, and has been throughout the entirety of the Triglavian invasions and afterward, the as-yet unchecked machinations of the Drifters. To save their civilization, the Triglavians had to come here.

If you had to choose between the deaths of millions or the deaths of trillions, would you not choose the lesser harm? Of course you would, because to do otherwise would be simply inhuman.

So to answer your question, Ms. Rhiannon: no, it is not a “good excuse.” I do not believe in excuses; only in reasons. There was a reason why the Collective conquered what it did–and a compelling one, at that. I do not deny the sacrifice that the civilians of twenty-seven star systems paid. I merely tell you that the sacrifice was worth the price.

They did not make a sacrifice, rather they were sacrificed.

Whether it will turn out that it was “worth it” for anyone else than those who sacrificed them, and indeed a necessity, time might tell, should the Triglavians be inclined to engage in further diplomacy. But whatever the case, the people now suffering in occupied Pochven were not the ones who made the call.

I do understand paying heavy prices in order to survive. The story of my lineage is nothing but. Whatever it takes is a thing, and when we say it, we mean it quite literally. In this I sympathize the Triglavians, if their situation indeed is as you describe, with no other means to survive.

But when whatever it takes is making other people pay, it is somewhat ludicrous to ask them to not consider it “unfair”. Or worse.

Many of the Amarr, even those I have seen worth it myself to fleet with these weird days, hate and fear me.

The difference between you and me seems to be that I have no qualms with that. They have a good reason to.

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I would agree that there is no one true path. There are in fact trillions of diverse true paths that all build to something truly glorious.
“In the beginning all things were as one. / God parted them and breathed life into his creation / Divided the parts and gave each its place / And unto each, bestowed purpose”

The strength of humanity at its best is indeed almost infinitely diverse. Of course for every proper place, for each and every one of the trillions of different divinely ordained niches, there are a dozen twisted maladaptive niches that bring people out of alignment with their proper place in the divine order of things.

For example, Shaninn’s importance to the Rebellion is the dark distorted image of the glory that Shahnyn could have been had they kept the Faith.

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Whatever it takes.

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Some ironies should be preserved, lest they later be recanted.

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If this is what you consider insane, then you’ve clearly been living under a rock. Thankfully I’ve been able to step back and see what the Empires truly are.

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You forgot the third type:

Those who needlessly inflict that disaster upon the helpless for their own amusement, and then pontificate about what a great opportunity ‘random happenstance’ has visited upon those caught in the chaos.

And far more than seven thousand stars. Stargates only function in stable binary systems. Every star we visit has a partner, out far enough to not disrupt the orbits of its planets. And it’s impossible that the entire cluster is binary stars. Nor, shocking as this might seem, is a single 100-ly diameter patch of space massive enough to hold itself together, so we know there are stars beyond New Eden.

Surely, out of all those countless stars, there were some that fit the spectral type the Trigs needed. They could have chosen those stars.

And how would you know? Are you privy to all of the private communications of all capsuleers? Do you think Uriel or the rest of ARC wouldn’t love to hear straight from the Trigs what the deal is?

You keep talking up how the Trigs ‘only did what was necessary’ and how they had to save their civilization… but you’ve got no actual evidence of that. Let’s see their civilization. Let’s see any real sign that their civilization is near the brink. Instead, think for a moment about what we do know:

The Trigs demonstrated the ability and willingness to access our communications network and send a message to literally all of New Eden, at will.

The only messages they did send gave no indications of ‘we need these systems to survive’, ‘our civilization is in dire need’, or anything even remotely similar. Instead, those messages were ones of strength: ‘Prove yourself and join in the flow, or be extirpated’.

They willingly spent tens of thousands of ships’ worth of materiel during their invasions—materiel, if we believe Subcommander Foucault, that they could ‘just as easily resume’ sending to its destruction.

No attempt to secure the resources you claim were an ‘abject necessity’ without wasting the ones they’ve already got, and—if getting new ones is a necessity—still desperately need. Does that sound like a people fighting a desperate war they can’t afford to continue without additional resources?

You believe in whatever ‘reasons’ they give you, no matter how obvious the lie or how easily its shown to be one. None of it was anything you could have known—even if it weren’t all just nonsense justifications—when you chose to support the invasion.

So yes, it is all excuses.

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Disliking the empires isn’t generally what people call insane.

Using dislike of the empires to justify Triglavian support or other ridiculous positions is what’s insane.

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“Triglavians didn’t behave the way I think they should be allowed to behave therefore everything you say is wrong!!" Okay, cupcake.

There’s a lot of evidence, actually-- which of course you have selectively chosen to ignore. Communications fragments of transmissions between the Triglavian clades and their central authority, reacting to Drifter attacks, for example. The fact that they stopped when they did, rather than continue on is one of the most powerful indicators. You assume that spending the materiel they did to conquer Pochven was a waste if they were truly under threat. And that assessment is based on. . . what, exactly? Your comprehensive knowledge of the complete economic and military resources of the Collective? No?

Let’s try an analogy that you are definitely familiar with instead. A year and a half ago, when Mittens uncovered Vily and LOLGodLegend’s plan to create a blue donut coalition to exterminate Goonswarm, he and his wise counselors immediately started spending every resource necessary to fortify Delve and the 1DQ constellation. And yet he did this before PAPI fired a single shot in anger. Because he and the other masters of the Imperium had the necessary foresight to anticipate what was coming and take precautions accordingly.

Perhaps you should examine why you are unable to acknowledge the possibility that the Triglavian Collective has the same capability of strategic planning as Mittens does. Perhaps, before flinging accusations about bias to me and others, you should try acknowledging some of your own.

It’s a funny thing about languages and words: they have a great many shades of meanings; and translations between disconnected languages are particularly vexing because those shades are often hidden or lost.

You take a translated statement as if it were a law of mathematics, black and white, with clear inputs and a finite, indisputable output of meaning. But this is the wrong standard to apply. There are other possible interpretations; substantially increased discourse between our civilizations is necessary. But one interesting alternative interpretation-- one which apparently never occurred to you, or that you rejected in bad faith because it does not fit your narrative of Grr Trig, Hat Trig is this:

“Prove to us that these particular stars we see and have critical need of are more important to you than they are to us; but because we do not know you and cannot trust that you would deal with us fairly, let us determine which stars you care about the most in a way that cannot be faked and cannot be gamed: a life-or-death contest where each of us puts all that we have on the line.”

That, Ms. Culome, is a very Triglavian way of thinking-- which you might be able to acknowledge if you chose to engage in something more nuanced than one-dimensional, reactionary thinking.

I don’t know anyone that would fit that description. It certainly does not describe me-- something you’d know if you bothered to do more than Otherize me, my kybernauts, or the Triglavian civilization. But you don’t, of course, because that would interfere with your apparent desire to make “Professional Forum Troll” your full-time job.

I asked before and now l ask again: Where is the Ms. Arrendis Culome that was able to demonstrate more than slavish devotion to jingoism and cheap shots? I wish that she would post more, instead.

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OMG. Walls of text. My only question at this point is if Sahara and Arrendis were in the same room and shook hands would the anti-matter/matter explosion resulting from their contact rival Caroline’s Star?

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Heh. Ironically, I actually like Ms. Culome. Her forum troll personality leaves much to be desired, but in person (when not posturing on The Summit) she’s perfectly lovely.

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Nice try, but we both know it’s more ‘the Triglavians didn’t behave the way intelligent entities in the situation you describe would behave’.

Is evidence of the Trigs being at war with the Drifters, and says nothing about the status of that war, their supposed level of desperation, or anything else relevant to the issue.

No, it’s not evidence of anything. Especially since, as you so helpfully parrot, Foucault insists they could easy restart it whenever they feel like it. Stopping when they did doesn’t demonstrate ‘that’s enough systems’ or ‘we can’t afford to continue it’, as is easily evidenced by the fact that it can be spun either way with the exact same amount of credible support: none.

On the very basic premise that if you need more resources, spending any of what you have before attempting to get it diplomatically is wasteful. But you know, I wouldn’t expect someone with your diplomatic background to know that. Should I ask Merk to have your CD rep explain it to you, maybe?

In fact… no. We didn’t. We ■■■■■■ up. A lot. Certain preparations were definitely made, yes. Others, we only realized afterwards that we not only should have made, but were so blindingly obvious that they’re kind of embarrassing to talk about. Not pulling down all the faction forts in Querious, for example. There was a plan for those, and then we realized ‘oops, that’s a bad plan’, but it was too late.

I’ve been there when Mittens has strategically planned. Lemme tell you, the two things Mittens consistently gets right about his strategic planning are a) Have a lot of intelligent people to tell him ‘that idea is amazingly stupid, don’t do that’, and b) quickly reverse course just as soon as things aren’t working properly. The Trigs don’t seem to have either of those.

Good thing they didn’t use a disconnected language when they broadcast this, huh?

Which part of that conveys desperation? Or that they’re coming for resources for their war against the Drifters? Or a survival necessity? The whole thing reads and sounds like someone speaking secure and unquestioningly in a position of strength.

No, there’s nothing in there about ‘prove to use these stars are more important to you’. There’s nothing in it about the stars except as the location for this ‘proving’ will take place. You’re peddling crap, Jackal, and you’re doing it badly.

Astonishing. You’ve managed to spew out an ungodly number of words in a post and yet not one single idea or statement therein is worth responding to. The entirety of your post consists of (1) child-like "NUH UH!! denials; (2) deflections; (3) cheap shot insults; (4) mischaracterizations; and (5) irrelevant nonsense.

Please select my name and open my IGS profile. You’ll see an option there to “Ignore” all posts from the listed user (i.e., me). Go ahead and activate that option. This will do me the great favor of never having to read another one of your responses to my posts. Moreover, I suspect this should be perfectly agreeable to you as well, because-- as you so eagerly point out on each and every opportunity to do so-- you already discount everything I have ever said on the subject of the Triglavian Collective as “crap.”

I wish you well in wherever your conversational endeavors take you.

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Yes, and it’ll let you spew your nonsense unchallenged. But hey, good job. That’s the most aggressive ‘I’m going to tuck my tail and run now’ post I’ve seen in a while.

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I don’t know about combat, but in terms of being argumentative, I think the good citizens of Kaztropol might be able to give the Triglavians a run for their money.

I mean, they’re so argumentative and uncompromising, that there are four rulesets and governing bodies (the Association, the League, the Federation, the Confederation) for the sport of rubber duck racing, let alone more complex sports.

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Discounting for a moment that they are not a people.

If the person in question argued from a place of rational empiricism, invoking AIR may have been relevant– she did not, she offered admonition on behalf of humanity at large for a betrayal of the values and morality those who would become Kybernauts were born to… hence risible.

The insult on competence aside - where can I find these Amarrians?

As no; I have not found them in Lux Invicta or other Edencom co-operations, so far, to my sadness. I suppose that is fair enough in way, because neither are there many Minmatar in those ranks who are willing to forgive the Empire for still holding our people because of Edencom.

Still, if these imaginary forgiving Amarrians existed, maybe a way to a long-term peace could be found, after all. At least if they were powerful enough inside the Empire to deal with that little issue with our people.

Smokey in Angymonne is strictly speaking not a Minmatar loyalist structure. It was set up by an international co-operation at the time of the formation of Pochven, and originally held by PNS, and is currently held by Gradient of Electus Matari, but not for EM or for Minmatar only. At the time of this writing, it is used by multiple entities, including independent parties, in addition to the Edencom capsuleer co-operation known as Lux Invicta.

If only the Empire as a whole was as short-sighted as their newly converted. We’d have crushed them in the Rebellion, when they’d have been unable to settle for peace with the Jove to deal with it. No need to involve any Triglavians a century later.

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