lovely seal you’ve got there, maybe i should get it tattooed
Taking my foreign self out of the thread.
Sure. I mean, capsuleers are almost always going to be wealthy and live comfortably no matter how vile they are, but at least pressure can be put on the worst among us and people can be educated as to what people are doing. Kinda hard for the worst nutjobs to get any support from anyone other than other buffoons if their actions are plastered all over Galnet.
Sure, but calling out the monsters lowers the chance that somebody who isn’t evil might accidentally help a monster out of ignorance. The craziest of us will be stuck with one another.
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Following on the “staying out of somebody else’s oath thread” theme:
This is sort of just concretizing some stuff others have said, but …
A lot of private oaths are promises made to someone in particular, a person or a small group. My oath of service to Directrix Daphiti is like that; I’m not exactly secretive about it, but in the end the only person whose judgment on whether and how well I’ve kept it really matters is Directrix Daphiti herself.
A public oath is more likely to be a promise to a larger group, like a whole nation or a public figure (like the Empress) who has so many subjects she’s going to have a lot of trouble personally keeping track of everybody’s loyalty. The expectation is that those who witness the oath are, well, witnesses.
I think that’s what Mr. Aloga was taking: an oath his entire clan, tribe, and maybe nation stands to judge his performance of.
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I did not object to foreigners; I objected to the disrespect by them.
And I’ve respectfully moved my conversation with Astaire here.
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I appreciate it.
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There’s a lot of arguing in almost every empire-specific thread that typically ends up being off-topic or only quasi related and it just goes on and goes on and goes on.
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Which foreigners were disrespecting the oath? Nearly all of them were agreeing with you. Saronu appeared to take potshots at something, but it was so cowardly and vague as to not be worth the attention.
Unless you’re referring to me, which… heh.
I’ll certainly attempt to be more… valorous in my future opinions. An absurd sentence to be certain, but it gives context to your apparent misapprehension that cowardly applies to anything you might dislike.
Vague is a descriptor that might warrant a sensible answer, that character is of more value than words is a broad concept. But not I think vague, if however you require assistance in seeing how it was applied. Aloga’s character makes us believe his oath, or doesn’t, it is not for the oath to make him believable; and with the fluidity of his allegiances. Would you vouch for his character?
I would, in fact.
There are plenty of things I dislike about Aloga. But he has never made a pretense of where his allegiances stand: with the Minmatar Republic. He did not wind up in Aegis Militia due to supporting the Empire; in fact, if I recall correctly, he refused to fire on Minmatar pilots during his tenure there. And since leaving, he has been one of the most forward and bravest capsuleer presences in Floseswin.
The issue I took with his oath was not the substance of it, nor with any belief that he would not stick to it. It was only that his display of the oath in this medium struck me as showy, especially given current circumstances.
To have wound up in Aegis Militia without support of their cause does not make him any more trustworthy, wherever he claims his loyalties lie. That decision shows him to be a creature of compromise, one who will act in opposition to his stated principles while still stating them.
I admire the generosity of your assessment Doctor, but as much courage as he possesses in battle. Aloga shows himself no more trustworthy than a simple turncoat, merely more complicated.
Your basis for calling him a turncoat appears simply to be that he used to be in Aegis Militia and now isn’t anymore. In the same post that contains his oath, Aloga clarifies his reasons for his prior membership. Whether one believes him or not, while he was in the alliance he made it clear that he did not ascribe to their beliefs and policies, and this was accepted by both Matari and Amarr loyalists (even if found distasteful by the latter).
Even if we were to accept your logic, that would only provide one instance of coat-turning, while in your post in the other thread you illustrated a habitual turncoat. Surely you weren’t embellishing?
And in case you need a reminder, at the time AM’s “recruitment” policies were open enough to warrant courting Sansha as well. Aloga’s hiring was hardly the most sensational news regarding them at the time.
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It was noticeably strange, though.
Pilots, what is there really to argue here?
I mean, he did “turn” both to and from AM, even if his feelings were always kind of clear. Not to restate the obvious, but the uncertainty his affiliation created seems to be exactly why he felt the oath was necessary.
However, it seems equally clear that he was working for a certain specific cause all along. It doesn’t seem like his loyalties are fickle; just the opposite. The head-scratcher is maybe why AM considered it wise to employ him.
What’s the issue? Whether he’s a good or trustworthy person? Whether he should have felt like he had to take a public loyalty oath? The first is for his own people to answer; the second’s purely subjective, and it seems like his own people respect the gesture, which implies that it was probably a good move.
What else is there?
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I am all too aware of the power words hold, so I choose mine carefully. It was not fickleness I raised, but that his actions taken in isolation speak to a lack of character.
If one is charitable, it can be assumed that the unknown loyalty is a worthy one, and his character is unblemished. However it seems certain that this loyalty is not the one he enshrined in oath, so if it is upon the man to make his oath believed; and his compatriots are otherwise than profoundly naïve, he has work to do.
I guess you don’t think much of spies, Ms. Yassavi?
(I don’t necessarily mean the capsuleer type. I mostly mean the sort any country that wants to stay a country employs quite a few of.)
I think they’re necessary, and that you’d be a fool to trust one.
As a foreign national or private citizen, sure. As, like, their handler, though? Or the power they actually serve? It seems like for them to be useful, they’d have to be considered pretty trustworthy.
Trust is always a risk to begin with, of course. But hopefully it’s a calculated one.
A handler may develop attachment or respect, certainly rapport. But genuine trust, in that game? There is a reason spies work in confidence not certainty, and why those who collate the intelligence seek corroboration from as many sources as possible.
Of course, ma’am. But it seems like that’s likely true of anyone whose business is constructing and maintaining a working model of reality, whatever its purpose.
Apparently I need to revisit fundamentals. You’re advocating trust in people of unclear loyalty, whose job is deceit.