My mother is/was Sebiestor.
But fine, Teinyhr was the only one gatekeeping.
And let’s please not pretend that’s not what she was doing, this kind of stuff is common with the Tribes, they don’t like ‘outsiders’ talking about their affairs and history, which is sometimes fine, but make sure that person is actually an outsider before you call them one.
If she’d like to clarify/retract and state that this is not what she was implying about me, I’d welcome it and drop it.
Yes, I was gatekeeping. And I’d gatekeep you again.
Quod erat demonstrandum
Thank you for your honesty.
Teinyhr’s only using a gate because she can’t find a steel folding chair. 
She’s old-school like that.
So, outsider question; Is it blood lineage, blood lineage and rites of passage, or other factors that determine a claim to tribal heritage?
There are slight variations (or not so slight, depending on who you ask), however generally:
Lineage gets you in the meeting.
Rites of Passage gives you a voice in the meeting.
For example: Someone of Brutor lineage, but born in the federation. If they have lived outside the tribes, not undergone the different rights of passage (the Voluval being amongst the most prominent) then that person would be considered Galante and ‘outside’ the tribe as it were.
EDIT: Perhaps it would be better to compare them to a Matari child in terms of status, rather than a foreign citizen.
However, that same person, if they so choose, has the right to undergo the rites of passage and thus become of the tribe.
It is also possible for those of non-Matari lineage to become members of the tribe, however this is handled differently between each tribe and is somewhat controversial.
Makes sense. Rikaato.
This may have run off the rails of the original topic, and I apologize to Elsabeth for having done so. Back to business!
I will do just that, then. The universe is made of souls, of spirits, of consciousnesses beyond our fleshy exterior. God is beyond that, has crafted it and maintains it. The evidence for that can be found everywhere, but an excellent place to look is in ourselves as capsuleers. We are pre-eminently qualified to see God, as a matter of fact. To begin, where is your spirit, Arrendis?
Never seen one. Can you demonstrate they exist?
I can, I think. Do you remember what you were doing around now last year?
Nothing. I’m roughly 39d, 3h old.
There was an Arrendis Culome then, who was going back out on deployment with the Reavers Special Interest Group after a short break for the 9-4 Keepstar nonsense. But she died on the fourth of April, YC 120, shortly after her Loki was destroyed by a DeadCoalition fleet. She also liked being a smart-ass on Galnet forums.
Excellent! So you weren’t anywhere, you remember nothing, and you have no reason to have any feelings about anything that happened prior to that date, especially which was happening last year?
Of course I do. I have the memories of the Arrendis Culome who lived at that time, imprinted on my brain when it was grown.
No, you don’t, apparently. Those memories are gone. You have, to your rationale, raw data. How can you feel anything about another person that not only have you never met, but with which you have no connection. That entire life was snuffed out, and you are equipped with a reference to someone else. It would seem strange then to feel anything about those particular data.
Nonsense. Her memories, along with all of the other information about the electrochemical state of her brain at the moment of her death, were transmitted via burn-scanner and imprinted onto the next Arrendis Culome. Those memories are data. Your emotions, too: data. Nothing more.
Precisely your point, those data are nothing more, including those emotions. In this analogy, someone may have been angry, sad, frightened, in love, but it wasn’t you. That person died long ago, their attachment to the world thus ceased. You are no heir to it, it’s simply in your keeping in some fervent hope that person would see a full-grown newborn take up her work and relationships. Which, for some inexplicable reason, you did. Why?
Because the next Arrendis had the same electrochemical state imprinted onto her brain when it was flash-grown. And when she died, her final electrochemical brain-state was imprinted on the successive Arrendis. And so on, and so on, until me.
Which, for the record, was seven poddings ago.
Each of us, as we awoke, had the state of our brains already set. Each of us was wetware, running an electrochemical program that was identical to the program and wetware of the prior iteration. A meat-machine, nothing more.
But, as you just told me, it’s nothing but someone else’s data. The state of your brain is as irrelevant as the state of your body. None of those things actually happened to you, and none of those people mean anything to you. You are a meat machine for some reason pretending to be something you’re not. Why?
A ship flies through space. An Omen, let’s say. Five primary, three secondary thrusters. Balanced. Calibrated. It flies straight. The ship takes extensive damage that leaves the outboard port-side thruster non-functioning. Now it only flies straight when the systems compensate. A scan of the ship is made, storing every detail of its state… and then it’s destroyed.
Another Omen is built to perfectly match that scan.
It will not fly straight, unless the systems compensate. It has a faulty thruster, right there, outboard, port side.
It’s a new ship. It’s someone else’s damage. But it was built to perfectly match that damage.
I was built to perfectly match all of the accumulated damage of 32+ years of Arrendis Culomes. I cannot help but be as I was constructed to be.
Impossible, you just told me that it was nothing but data in nothing but meat. The construction is irrelevant. You have successfully rationalized your situation and must realize the thruster disrepair was artificial. That data would be objective, wouldn’t it?