With respect, Ms. Jenneth, I don’t think Captain Rhiannon said her clan sees capsuleers as inhuman. I think a better way of describing it would be between-worlds.
We are still human, and chained to our humanity, but no longer a part of our original existence. It doesn’t imbue us with any extra powers other than that we have experienced death.
…of course, I’m also extrapolating here, and I’m not familiar with her clan’s customs, but she does seem to be saying that humanity is still part of the deal.
Else, if your opinion of me were the issue, I don’t think I’d have much to say here. We’re enemies after all; I’m sure you’re aware of my opinion of you, also.
But whether I like you or not, whether I hold your ideas in esteem or not, people listen to your words, so I needed to say something.
If the speaker’s identity is why you won’t listen, that’s a little sad, but you being unable to hear me, or choosing not to, isn’t quite enough to make me reconsider my place in this world.
This is the last I’ll say about it, at least right now.
Yeah. Yeah, you did say that. You maybe didn’t mean it that way, but you have this weird obsession with being vague and then insisting you were totally being specific, right along with your insistence on being condescending and then insisting that you were totally being respectful and gosh, doesn’t it just speak worlds about the listener when they don’t want hear what you have to say, when really, they just don’t care to be condescended to.
I mean, feck, at least when I’m being an arrogant snot talking down to people, I own it.
which isn’t about the myths; it’s about us and our state of being.
This is why I don’t talk to you anymore, Arrendis. It’s not because you’re an arrogant snot talking down to people; I can deal with that.
It’s because you’re not honest anymore, if you ever were.
Arguments with you are all about perception-- that is, illusion-- not reality. It’s not an exploration with you; it’s just a fight. And because you weave half your arguments out of ephemera, there’s nothing much I feel like I ought to learn from you. There’s not enough insight to be worth sifting through all the trickery, especially since I’m pretty sure a lot of it isn’t as simple and stupid as what you did above.
I wonder what you really think-- of me, of a lot of stuff. Are you sad? Are you enjoying yourself?
I can’t tell. I don’t expect I ever will.
Trust is always a calculated risk, but you’re a bad bet even at the level of an argument.
That does make me sad, but not enough to be willing to engage with you beyond taking such a perfect opportunity to point out what you’ve become.
I used to talk to her a LOT, though, Else. Private comms, messages, long dialogs here … all sorts of stuff. We didn’t agree much, but we were friends, you know? Even if she felt she had to tell me how horrible I am on the regular. Maybe she was right.
We haven’t talked like that in a while. Arrendis has something she wants to do (I think it might basically be the same as your cause), and she’s kind of trying … I guess I’d say maybe even another way of being, as a fully-dedicated propagandist or something?
At any rate, I’m not sure whether she’s really changed that much or whether I’ve just gotten tired. Either way, I don’t see my friend there anymore, just a dedicated foe who’ll say anything-- maybe literally, anything-- to support her cause.
She was always one to talk about choices and consequences like I didn’t know what the concepts meant, didn’t know what I was doing. I hope she’s content, now, with her own choices, and the consequences flowing from them. Either way, I’m pretty sure she’s all-in. Unless something happens that makes it impossible to move forward, I kind of doubt she’ll back out now.
Um. The idea’s more that stuff like making food, working with our own hands to nourish our bodies, is a very essentially and basically human thing to do, a reminder of an existence as creatures of flesh and blood.
It’s not that those who use bots or servants are less human; it’s that it might be easier in such a case to forget that “human” is something we still are.
So, would you agree, that in the Amarr society, it is easier for the nobles to forget that they are flesh and blood, than it is commoners, or slaves, because they do less human things?
An obvious place for you to go. In some respects the duty of nobility is to be less human. To make hard choices dispassionately.
It makes it all the more important to find something to ground yourself.
I think that’s a risk for persons of high status in any society, Else, from corporate executives to Holders to probably at least some tribal leaders.
And definitely, especially, us. After all, the average Holder doesn’t plug into a system that replaces their senses with feedback from a ship. Sometimes I hear about a capsuleer who just plain never ever gets out of the pod, functionally just living full-time as a ship. That doesn’t seem like it can possibly be good for them, or their crew, or for us in the long run.
You spend so much time looking for the maneuvering, for the hidden meanings, convincing yourself that it’s all about illusion and no substance, that you completely miss the possibility that there was no maneuvering whatsoever.
You can’t tell what I think of stuff? When’s the last time I was inconsistent about, say… you, since that’s the first thing you listed?
Arrendis, many times you have found the slightest chink in an argument of mine and attacked it - even if it was not something I actually said but something that you inferred. This includes the time you essentially declared what I said null and void because:
a) I used a light-hearted turn of phrase which everyone else clearly understood to be as such and you decided to treat it as serious.
And b) You used me spelling Ms Kernher’s name incorrectly as further justification for ignoring what I said.
You accused the other side of:
But shall we be honest? Whilst on some occasions you are incredibly insightful and witty, on others you are just as guilty at looking for the angle as those you accuse.
However, I have to agree that it does seem like PIE has become rather the echo chamber recently. Whilst one expects any Amarrian to ‘toe the line’, as it were, the complete 180° turn some of their number seem to have made around slavery and the Reclamation is concerning.
If I follow what you’re talking about correctly, ma’am, it’s a vassaldom thing.
A vassal might speak his mind long and proudly-- albeit at some little bit of risk-- as long as his liege hasn’t declared a position on the subject. Once the liege does, though, the vassal needs to fall in line or face potentially very serious consequences.
This can look like a total reversal, and in a way it is: the question of public duty versus private principle has come up, and duty wins. It’ll likely remain so until either the liege changes his mind, there’s a new liege (who, again, hasn’t decided), or the liege’s liege (the empress, in this case) declares a contrary or at least inconsistent position, at which point the liege would have to revise his position in turn.
It’s not really a matter of honesty or consistency, since vassals aren’t normally supposed to hold public beliefs at odds with their lords. Being “honest,” in this case, is being true to one’s duty: falling in line, whatever one’s private feelings. The alternative is to go apostate, which pretty much invalidates one’s opinion as far as other Amarr are concerned.
One of the effects of this is that the Great Houses don’t seem to express opinions on passing controversies most of the time except in the most general terms, since doing so can strain their relations with their vassals. Their vassals are required to conform, but testing that loyalty too often can cause problems. They’re better off not making grand statements on trivial stuff and saving their strength for when it matters. A lot of them grant their subordinate Holders a lot of leeway to see to their own affairs within certain limits.
It’s still a matter of honesty, if only being honest enough to say ‘I am a meat puppet who is allowed to have no thoughts of my own that might conflict with the opinions of people who are allowed to have them. Please do not take anything I say as reliable or worth trusting, as I will not hesitate to turn on you or anyone else I claim to make commitments to, just as soon as I am ordered to do so.’
Lord Arrach Sarum has proven himself worthy of following to me, and I renounce my former position that launching an attack on your people is beyond reason. So, in actuality Arrendis, I was convinced that striking back at the Republic is perhaps necessary to remind you of the price of a real war.
By Mizhara, Samira, Elsebeth…
And you.
If words fail, then what other choice is there? I have my part to play and I am in agreement with it. There is nothing more to speak of until it is done. I suggest you then reevaluate your positions.