What if I dress myself in traditional Khanid male military (not official without any regalia or insignia) uniform and will participate anonymously?
For sure they don’t ask participants to undress to figure out their roles in childbearing, do they?
I can even wear a fake beard.
Like that would stop me doing that anyway.
The man is a coward. He cowered behind Aria when I confronted him after he was invited to an awards ceremony. Aria is only 147cm and an Achur to boot. So much for his supposed notion of superiority.
The traditional clothing required for wrestling purposefully exposes the front of the chest, seemingly in order to show that the participant is not a woman.
The exact reason for this is unclear, indeed, it might even have been a legend, rather than a real incident.
There is a reference in one source, to an incident alleged to have happened some 1500 years before contact with the Amarr, where two tribes fought a mutually-destructive war that caused such depopulation that it led to the subjugation of the area by the Udorians, after one tribe had sent a particularly large and muscly woman in disguise to compete in the other tribe’s grand championship, which she won before tearing off her clothing and exposing her true nature, thereby humiliating all of that tribe’s men on one of their most holy days, in front of all of their gods and spirits. The insulted tribe was not going to take this, and immediately went to war.
But suffice it to say, there is no legitimate way, for a woman, any woman, disguised or not, to participate in the traditional Khanid wrestling. Not in the festivals that take place where Khanid communities still follow the ancient traditions.
You might be able to participate in a mixed-sex “khanid-style-rules” wrestling competition, but that is a completely different thing.
I didn’t want to mention all this, because fundamentally, I am not Khanid, and it is not really my business to Amarrsplain the intricacies of Khanid culture to a non-Imperial citizen.
In fact, I consider it slightly odd, that I am having to explain to a Caldari the importance of respecting someone’s native culture and traditions, and not seek to twist them.
So what, same @Ax_l_Thorne has way bigger chest than me, would you call him a woman?
On the other hand, I do not intent to participate in any activity that would leave my capsuleer implants exposed. That’s just outright indecent.
It’s true. My chest is quite a bit heaftier than Kim’s, but I’m a male by virtue of having an XY chromosomes
My days use to be so much simpler when all I had to focus on was the mining module laser blasting away at the asteroid, extracting their contents.
Now I’m going through a phase where I must decide whether I receive training to then share the asteroid belts with others.
I don’t think any sort of training will change what I had become or would it have any effect on me.
I am a New Eden Miner and had learnt through many years out on the asteroid belts to never bow down to pirates.
I will never forget what she put me through!
Stop stealing our quotes or I will call my lawyer.
I’d love to hear more about this if you’re willing, Mr. Menkali.
The War Commentaries of dos Rouvenor refer to companies of mercenaries, known as Condotta, selling their services to the various rival states of Garoun before and during the Wars of Unification. In an age of fragmentation, before standing armies, they brought a professionalism to warfare that earned them a position of influence, prestige and even glamour in Garouni culture. Some say that Doule dos Rouvenor himself developed his military genius and personal following as a condottiero before ousting his employer, the Ensî of Cylle.
Some of the larger companies even found a new role after Garouni unification fighting the Seven Armies of Morthane. They were often given the more dangerous assignments, such as holding isolated outposts against impossible odds, which only added luster to their image. There is a wildly popular genre of costume holo-dramas set in this period available on Impro’s back catalogue, often involving doomed love affairs between misunderstood Garouni condottieri and their exotic Morthani lovers, such as “Under the Red Coin Tree”.
Anyway… the present day Condotta Rouvenor is deliberately modeled on those historical companies, leaning on that heritage for its recruitment campaigns and organizational culture.
Not so different, then, maybe. How large a level does that apply at in the Federation? Every time I’ve visited Caille, say, I’ve kind of felt like someone in my position (current or former mercenary) would be popularly seen as a truly horrible person, an out-and-out villain.
Was that just my imagination?
Part of that may be your imagination but not entirely. People you picked that up from may distinguish between the Condotta tradition and the many other forms of less glamorous hired help which also feature in local culture and, perhaps, have put you in the wrong bucket.
Or the right one. I mean, it’s not like I am or ever was a Condotta, and it’s not like the Federation generally, and the Gallente in particular, aren’t about the only people for whom Caldari mercenaries generally really won’t ever work.
Yes, well, I didn’t like to labour the point.
I am not surprised in the least that the Gallente have a rich mercernary tradition. Invariably you seem to take pride in adopting the weaknesses of Caldari society and none of it’s strengths. You need to grow up and take a hard look at yourselves in the mirror. I expect that it will lead to much of your populace defecting to the State.
I … uh. While I understand the sentiment, sir, I don’t think the State mostly wants that.
And if I understand correctly this Garoun mercenary tradition would have predated first contact between Gallente and Caldari Prime, by probably centuries.
(How exactly is our mercenary tradition a weakness??)
I’m not so sure. For how many years did our forces liberate Intaki? Such a thing would not have been possible without the assent of the locals. And of course who can forget Mordu’s band of pirates. President Aguard surely must have felt the Intaki were starting to slip from the Federation’s grasp… her invasion if it could be called that was inevitable.
You mentioned in the other thread that “foreign contracts are still expected to be honored even if they bring the mercenary company into conflict with State entities” ?
The ideal of internal, healthy, competition is quite different from what has developed with these mercernaries. The State is ultimately tied to the precepts of loyalty and cohesion, not economic factors.
What’s to stop these criminals from directly attacking nationalized forces like the Caldari Navy if they are so hired? A lukewarm sense of honour? I doubt it. Such unworthy elements exist very much in the Caldari moral grey.
Naturally I am not speaking of the corporate security wings or associated forces who obviously would not act in any way against collective interests.
It was made possible without any local interaction the moment the Federation designated it as part of the CEWPA warzone, and made impossible the moment it came out of the warzone. Ascribing CONCORD tolerances to local assent is just dumb.
An occupation of Gallente Prime would be bumpy to say the least no matter what Concord decrees. If the Intaki willed it our occupation would have been mired in counter-insurgencies and all the other unpleasant details of controlling an unhappy foreign population. The Federation seem to be experiencing this now ironically. On the other hand the Syndicate sent a very strong message to the President and her thugs with their invitation of a State military presence.
The generally non-confrontational, ‘we don’t want violence here’ Intaki? and no, the Federation isn’t experiencing it now. There was a brief period of protest, and some minor incidents, but nothing that spoke to a wide-spread insurgency even as large as the objections the Intaki raised when Lai Dai went pillaging their cultural sites.
Which, you know, they weren’t ok with, but Lai Dai kept on doing it.
And yet, the calm, considered response, filtered through caution and propriety, is no less incomplete, and usually intentionally false, as well. After all, by leaving things out, by saying only what they should say, they’re misrepresenting the truth… which makes it not the truth.