Gonna have to agree with Else on this one. You have no idea what degree of what you’re seeing is ‘disapproval’ of her vs what’s simply ‘disagreement’ with her, or disapproval of her statements. There’s a lot of things, for example, that I think Mel’s 100% wrong about. I still consider her a decent person, and generally approve of her desire to make the cluster a better place.
It does seem kind of funny, though, that exactly the thing Else’s complained about multiple people doing—and in large part, the cause of the visible frustration and annoyance you’re assessing as ‘failure’: making assumptions about her without bothering to ask her, is precisely the thing you’re doing now with no apparent appreciation for the irony of that course.
Does this mean you have to fail yourself now? Can I maybe suggest that in the future, when your Circle is attempting to ascertain information about a person’s feelings on something… just ask them?
While it’s quite nice that you think of her as a decent person, the Circle cares little for personal opinions of her. She was graded on her ability to influence her Amarr and Matari peers, and whether there was a material presentation of that ability.
While we found evidence of this among the Amarr she had befriended, we have found none among the Matari.
If any of you have some sign that she does hold any position of influence among you, I will happily recommend that her mark be raised.
So, serious thoughts on this… which makes it off-topic to the pointless argument thread[1]
When you have a lot of bored people who neither agree nor particularly like one another sitting around blathering at one another in their downtime, you’re going to get a far more… negative… image of things than if, for example, you observe the same people talking with friends about common interests. So I don’t know that capsuleerdom is the depressing thing, so much as a discussion forum where everyone’s dealing with people they can’t stand is a depressing idea.
1. Is it that the arguments are pointless, or the thread itself? Who cares?
The examples you have posted do not seem back up you assertion. The first two quotes reflect Elsebeth’s attitude towards Melisma personally, and even that may not reflect the full context. The third quote reflects to her attitude towards peoples expectations, which again, based on the entire issue being discussed now, is still missing context.
If I may suggest something, to increase the reliability of your data for what ever mysterious project you are working for, is to Ask directly how we feel about this “idea” that you are trying to seed.
Here, I’ll help you.
Pilot (Fill in blank), how do you feel about (What ever it is you are trying to accomplish)?
Edit: While I think i know what this idea is, how about I just ask you directly to avoid any confusion.
What idea, exactly, was Melisma supposed to ‘plant’?
Because those are vastly different things, and are achieved in fundamentally different ways. For example, I really don’t think I gained much approval from SFRIM when I told them that if they didn’t fish or cut bait in Thebeka, I was gonna show up with a few dozen offended logistics pilots in alpha-strike Tornados and blow them to hell the moment they went suspect as ‘third-party’ logi.
Pretty sure the fact that when I said that, I’d already shown up with a dozen of them and was sitting there waiting provided some influence though… and a material presentation of the same!
Huh. I’m not sure on the public burn notice of your asset, but I guess that’s your prerogative. Most Krusual I’ve known probably would have just put a bullet in her head and leave her face down in a river.
I would suggest that the backlash against Melisma’s ‘promotion’ is, in itself evidence of the influence she had in Matari circles. I am concerned, however, that both Mel and her employers seem to deem not agreeing with her every word as having no influence.
It makes whatever outcome you are hoping for sound rather… totalitarian.
Except there isn’t any. Really, Ange, look at what’s being said. Nobody’s taking issue with ‘Mel is getting a transfer to something else she likes doing’. They’re taking exception with someone coming in and making claims about how much the Minmatar capsuleers here “approve” of Mel… or, wait, no, now it’s how much she was able to ‘influence’ them… without actually talking to any of us to find out anything of the sort. Instead, they’re going by… what? Public statements that aren’t even about Mel or her ideas, in some cases? I mean, look at this one:
That’s Else talking to Constantin about… Constantin. If anything, the attitude toward Mel there is an almost protective one. ‘You say you love this woman who is my kin and of my homeland, but don’t care if your affections harm her’.
The third one, too, isn’t even about Mel. It’s about the people Else has had to deal with at social gatherings who more or less rub in her nose ‘you’d really love to hit me, but you can’t, so I’m gonna come right over here and does this bother you? I’m not touching you… see? Not touching you… na na na na, still not touching yoooouuuu’.
And yet, Else went to Mel’s skate thing. And that’s supposedly a sign that she doesn’t approve of Mel, and Mel doesn’t have any influence? Stars below and void above, Ange, if all Krusual were that dumb, Shakor’d have nobody to carry out his skullduggery for his old blind ass! They’d have all drowned in the rain or gone outside to take a leak while flying through space.
I’m not much of a spy or anything, but I’d like to think someone conducting an “influence operation” would have more realistic goals than “agree with me completely or I give up”. I’d imagine such operations are things that take years, or decades, gradually building relationships and trust while exploiting opportunities as they present themselves.
Publicly burning someone by revealing they were part of some intelligence operation seems counter-productive to me? Instead of salvaging the asset somehow, or focusing on the Amarr side since they said that had been more productive they created suspicion and lack of trust on both sides since now ulterior motives have been revealed to be at play.
And do people always tell the truth? Perhaps I’ll test your theory to find out. It might be a fun side experiment.
To begin, the idea that war is a last resort, not a first one.
“Approval” leads to “influence,” Director Culome.
The example you provide is of a very loose definition of “influence”, and not one that we wish to achieve.
The idea of us launching a quiet plot involving multiple capsuleers merely to convince a single Amarr, much less a priest, is patently laughable.
I think I would laugh, if I could.
You’re thinking of Brutor. Krusual are far more subversive and cunning than that.
That’s a rather large logic jump, but perfectly in line with your typical thinking.
Is the attendance of a single Matari loyalist at a single party months ago your single evidence of influence?
Even if we accept this faded logic, that “influence” surely ran out at the Matari summit last month, where the rhetoric ran more along the lines of “whore of slavers”.
Uh. Okay. So. Um. … my brain’s kind of jamming. Sorry.
WHY???
I mean, not WHY??? try to get middle ground going; that doesn’t seem necessarily troublesome. But, WHY??? out your agent? Complete with telling us her performance review? I mean, couldn’t you have, like … I don’t know … made use of her contacts on one side while getting a different agent set up as sort of a moderate Matari partisan or something?
I mean … maybe it’s all over my head, but I just don’t get the logic. And I don’t know how much damage this revelation is going to do to what she succeeded in but it definitely feels like it’s going to do some?