Right right, lets cut back on the chestbeating for a second about how much better you want to be than the Kybernauts. If you read my posts just a little above you will see that my arguments here are not being made from the position of a Kybernaut. Do you have any actual arguments? Any excuses for the multiple issues brought up in my post?
Again, didn’t even you admit how the allocation of EDENCOM resources seemed suspiciously lopsided towards Valkanir’s favored Empire?
You should read up on the reason the Republic is cutting EDENCOM’s funding on their end, you will find that these opinions are not mine alone. EDENCOM’s conduct since its conception paints a very damning picture.
Sure, but even with that being the case the Republic Fleet was competent.
The State needs help more than anyone. It was incompetent.
And once again, most of the original points were brought against the EDI capsuleers. I likely wouldn’t have responded if that was not the case.
EDENCOM may have been coordinating and trying to bribe capsuleers to show up, but the fighting was done by the navies supported by independent capsuleers. If anything, the State needs to pay more to get capsuleers to come defend as it didn’t seem interested in adequately defending itself.
And let’s face it, every argument you make is from the position of a Kybernaut. You are not one I trust to have any ability to objectively analyze the situation.
Mighty convenient how literally only the forces under EDENCOM’s command were that way though, right? I know you served probably as much as I during the invasions, I am sure that at some point you have seen those same Triglavian fleets engaging Corporate Security fleets that invariably won even with inferior numbers. And let’s not forget the Caldari Navy’s pretty consistent performance fighting alongside the protectorate in the warzone, again free of EDENCOM’s command, again showing no such glaring failures.
Arguments please. I know that with your apostasy you also have interest in seeing the State come to harm as well, but let’s focus on actual, concrete arguments instead of “The State is bad”.
Then point out where my biases lie, preferably by addressing my actual arguments. I am willing to give you a chance to act civil and unbiased as well, if only because you have shown concern about how EDENCOM conducts itself in the past.
The fact of the matter is regardless of my own personal opinions about the State, I don’t want it to fall to the Triglavians. I believe that any system they take anywhere is bad for all of us. Every system gives them more resources, more people, and another staging point from which to more easily attack. While they were limited to certain windows in which they could come at us from the Abyss, that isn’t likely to be true when they’re attacking from Pochven.
Each system the Triglavians take is bad news for the entire cluster. That’s the reason why I’m invested enough to even respond to any of this. If the State were getting picked apart by damn-near any other group, I’d file it under ‘not my problem’ and you’d not hear a word from me.
Regardless, I don’t foresee any of my arguments making any headway with the current audience. I’ll just leave you all with these last words:
The Triglavians are going to launch another invasion at some point and they’re only going to be much stronger. When that day come, I hope that not just the State, but the entire cluster is ready for them.
The “current audience” would like arguments! The “current audience”, while disappointed in EDENCOM’s performance in the State, in fact raised a lot of questions about their conduct irrespective of signatory!
And the “current audience” is left unsatisfied, as you slink back again failing to make even an attempt at an argument. Not for GunStars, not for the blatant embezzlement, not for their operations over this entire past year, nothing.
Which all genuinely puzzles me. I speak for the good of literally all 4 signatories here, all of which unanimously decided to cut their funding to it. Are you really so immature that you cannot stomach to agree with me when I point out how clearly they are at fault?
I actually do agree with this, however, I’d prefer to strike them first instead of waiting them to invade us again. Some may foolishly claim that I could be just a “militarist” like some sort of a gallente pig, but that would be a lie. I want to strike them only because they have our territory, because it’s them who came at us, not we who came at them. Otherwise, I’d be talking about peace with them. In that regard I disagree with Ms. Malitia.
I don’t want more wars, especially when we have so many enemies to deal with. But when someone comes at us with sword and takes something from us, I am not going to just let them go while they cling to at least a cubic millimeter of Caldari space.
And I do agree we need to be stronger for this. And to be actually stronger we need to make sure we don’t put under our umbrella all that scum who is even more damaging than Triglavians themselves to our Citizens. It means we shall have no pirates, no guristas, no angels, no gallente swines, no minmatar terrorists, and especially no traitors - the most amoral kind who just can’t be trusted because they have already committed a treason once. All these shall be put to execution squads for if they will be left to go free they will do more devastation than the enemy we need help to fight against together.
We need good allies. We all shall stand together.
And our ranks shall be cleansed from all the scum with fire and steel.
Only then we will succeed.
Because they are all based on your own false perception of how the Navy operates and the role that EDENCOM had in the command of these forces. Again, you are someone that straight up denies (or denied, if you have somehow reconsidered) verifiable facts about the invasions and dismissed media coverage of those events as entirely fictional. Do you have anything meaningful to add to the discussion based on actual, concrete facts or are you here just to argue with feelings and assumptions?
No shame in admitting ignorance for once, you know. You were down in Delve fighting your own war at the time. You will find that you can benefit greatly by listening for once instead of injecting yourself into a conversation you know nothing about just for the sake of confrontation.
In fact, I flew with EDI in a number of Caldari systems. But we’re used to you pushing falsehoods.
As for my ‘false’ perception of how the chain of command in a military structure works, do you really think there were EDENCOM officers on-board those ships, micro-managing the engagements? That would be ludicrous, and you know it. Moreover, we’d have that paper-trail. We have seen no evidence of such a paper-trail. We have seen no claims of such documentation existing. SOP in any military would demand that everything like that gets tracked. Militaries, like all large organizations, run on their bureaucracy. Without it, nothing works.
So everything, including the tactical command structure, is documented. If it’s not, that’s professional incompetence. If the documentation shows EDENCOM officers were in direct command, then presenting that simple documentation would immediately clear the Caldari Navy of responsibility for the debacle. That means even an idiot would know ‘redact the classified information and release what we can’ is a PR no-brainer. But they haven’t done that.
So one of the following must be true:
The CN was in tactical command of CN assets under EDENCOM operational command,
the CN is utterly incompetent at actually documenting their operations,
or the CN is utterly incompetent at the most effortless, basic PR moves that would immediately take the heat off of them.
Pick your poison, because other than attacking me, even as you pre-emptively whine to yourself (really, that was weird) about ad hominem, you haven’t presented even the smallest bit of rational refutation of the point.
No, but they directed the fleets’ tactical movements and doctrines, all of which were very important contributing factors. I know you aren’t a fan of the news, but maybe you should read up on a few news cycles and SCOPE broadcasts from the period. Throughout all empires, losses to the Triglavians were blamed on EDENCOM, consistently. Just out of curiosity, what do you think EDENCOM’s role was? Because if your belief is that they literally only existed to embezzle funds and outfit CONCORD’s Disparu Troop with new ships, then I think we are in agreement regarding their guilt and the prudence of severing their funding.
We also don’t have any evidence that these documents don’t exist? What are you even trying to argue here? Did you read this thread’s title? It is encouraged that the CBT launch a proper investigation to bring EDENCOM’s crimes to light.
Keep pushing that narrative, I am sure it will catch on eventually.
So those doctrines were fine when used by Caldari commanders, but the problem was the EDENCOM doctrine choices? That doesn’t track. If the doctrine’s a problem, then the doctrine’s a problem.
Also, if the EDENCOM officers weren’t directly on those ships, directing the performance of the ship, why didn’t the Caldari officers who were simply use their ships properly? ‘directed the fleets’ tactical movements’? Really? These weren’t surface engagements where opposing fleets move at subsonic speeds and each engagement takes hours. These were small skirmishes that took on average, maybe half an hour, tops, within the larger conflict in each system. The CN forces moved in exactly the same ‘we all clump up’ ways they did when not under EDENCOM operational command.
EDENCOM wasn’t even in charge of which doctrines they used: the State determined what forces they tasked to EDENCOM. Each of the four empires decided what they gave EDENCOM to work with.
EDENCOM’s role was operational command. Big picture, not micro-management. They got to decide what the overall strategy would be. Execution of that strategy would be up to the forces they’d been given. After all, they didn’t have any ships. If you’ve got a command officer who’s insisting on taking over direct command of ships they haven’t trained on, that’s incompetence. A command officer who has trained on those ships, and willingly hands over command of his or her ship to someone who hasn’t, and who has already lost several systems under their command… that’s not just incompetent, that’s criminal. That officer is throwing away their ship and the lives they’re responsible for.
Beyond that, operational command means ‘which pieces go where?’, ie: what forces should be allocated to which locations in each system, what assets needed to be deployed from EDENCOM itself—and there, yes, the issue of Gunstars is a serious one, but it’s one the Republic and Federation assets seem to have dealt with more competently than the State forces did.
The decision of ‘we’ll guard the static locations and leave actually doing the hard work of clearing conduits to the eggers we blatantly don’t trust’ is definitely one you can question, but you know… that’s the same decision they made everywhere, so the difference there isn’t with EDENCOM, either.
And I’m personally assuming they do. But if they do, then you’re back to either:
The CN officers on those ships had direct tactical command of their ships, or
The CN is completely incompetent at basic PR.
And really, militaries tend not to be incompetent at PR. It’s how they sell themselves. It’s how they get more money, more people, more R&D.
That’s the nice thing about the truth: it doesn’t have to. It’ll remain true.
EDENCOM’s Caldari doctrine was a missile-based doctrine. Not all missile-based doctrines are EDENCOM’s Caldari doctrine. Simple stuff.
And all that while improperly equipped by EDENCOM.
You mean the grand strategy of “Engage enemy ships in the invaded system” and “Fortify random non-liminal systems that sometimes aren’t even under attack”? Oh man, when can I expect my CONCORD paycheck? Doing all of EDENCOM’s work single handedly just now sure was hard.
Couldn’t agree more.
Indeed, its insubordination. It is an absolute shame that EDENCOM’s incompetents were granted this power, forcing so many to choose to either fight with the handicap or commit insubordination.
Here is the thing you are probably ignoring here. In my post I even said that I am willing to swallow that what happened to the State is simply incompetence from those in command. It certainly seems suspicious to me but suspicions are nothing to base anything on just yet. If a proper investigation is performed and actual information comes to light, then we can constructively argue about this.
My focus was mostly on EDENCOM’s demonstrable crimes. Can anyone claim that they did not favor the Amarr and CONCORD holdings, only deploying GunStars there? Can anyone claim to have seen any of their newly developed ships issued to anyone but Disparu troops? Can you deny that EDENCOM has done nothing but send pointless scouting missions to their deaths in Pochven with absolutely nothing to show for it? All while demanding the same funding they received during the invasions?
It’s a developing story. Give it time, a formal statement is bound to surface soon enough.
But of course, that doesn’t address the other half of the doctrine issue: EDENCOM only had the CN forces that the CN decided to let them have. They only had the doctrine the Navy chose.
Are you saying EDENCOM refitted CN ships? That the Caldari Navy didn’t provide their own munitions, despite, you know, EDENCOM not having any? Those battlegroups each contain their own logistics section, after all. That’s how navies operate: you have centralized supply, and then each battlegroup has their own logistics assets to ensure that they bring what they need with them, and then those guys deal with central supply depots.
So, now you’ve introduced a whole new element of potential CN incompetence. Good job.
Definitely also an element that can be questioned. And also definitely an element that was not changed within the State from how they ran things outside the State. So it can’t be why the Caldari Navy performed so much worse than everyone else who was operating under the exact same conditions.
No, insubordination would be refusing to hand over command. Also, strictly… mutiny.
Except, of course, that there are processes and procedures for declaring someone to be unfit for command. See, command incompetence is a problem all militaries already know exists. They all have encountered it, in the enemy, and in their own ranks. And they all know their own command structure—reliant, as it is, upon human beings who can suffer traumas, be injured, fall ill, or just prove incapable of adapting to a new threat—is no more or less susceptible to it than any other. As a result, they develop ways to deal with it. There are always clear, legal methods to remove someone from command, even in the field, even in the heat of battle. And no ship’s captain, let along battlegroup commander, would fail to know exactly how to invoke those measures as the State losses started adding up.
That sort of action is subject to review and inquiry, of course, and there would likely be consequences if the action is judged to be wrong or unjustified. But if the CN commander sincerely believes the EDENCOM officer(s) unfit for command by reason of incompetence, then failure to relieve them of command out of fear of the consequences would be an act of rank cowardice that I do not believe is present in the actual, salaried and commissioned officers of the Caldari Navy.
So, no, ‘but insubordination’ is not an excuse.
No, I definitely noticed it when you said:
I also noticed that you fail to allow for the possibility that the incompetence wasn’t on EDENCOM’s part. Once again: the only thing that changes from their performance in the Republic and Federation to their performance in the State is… the Caldari Navy.
But here’s where you go awry:
Being a subdivision of CONCORD, via AEGIS and the DED, the money the empires (and, through our market fees etc, capsuleers) put into the New Eden Defense Fund was always going to CONCORD. Always. And at no point has the Caldari representative in the Inner Circle made even a tiny peep about it.
So if EDENCOM’s corrupt and guilty of embezzling, it would seem like the State’s representative is also corrupt.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think EDENCOM was perverted from the beginning by Valkanir’s slavish devotion to the Empire. (Heh. Slavish. Totally didn’t intend for that play on words, but having written it, damn is it apropos.) And I completely agree with you that it’s important to make the distinction that Kim fails to make between EDI capsuleers and EDENCOM itself1.
I simply disagree with the focus on ‘the problem was EDENCOM’, when it clearly wasn’t. Keeping that emphasis will only allow the Navy to squirm out from the eye of accountability2. If that happens, the State will not address the obvious problems with their combat performance. They will not learn even the most basic EWAR skill that even Goons can manage3. They won’t correct the failures in training and tactics. Which means, when the Trigs attack again, the Caldari Navy will fail, again. And nobody except maybe you4 and your current cohort want that.
It’s really not. As you said:
The active part of the invasion—the part where EDENCOM and the Caldari Navy together utterly failed to protect the State—that is not ‘a developing story’. That’s something the Navy was taking heat from before the end of the invasion. And ‘why it happened’ is something that should have been investigated thoroughly and public statements issued immediately.
After all: the paper trail exists. We both know they’d have to be complete imbeciles for that to not be true. And capsuleer observers were able to identify exactly what they were doing wrong, even while they were doing it. The only thing we didn’t have access to is the records of ‘who was making these decisions?’ Which is exactly what the Navy does have.
So this is only ‘a developing story’ in the sense that it’s a story people are finally starting to ask questions about. As far as the Navy’s concerned, this is clearly a buried story. In a way, it’s a lot like those talks over Floseswin that you and I have locked horns about in the past. They were buried, but acknowledged, for about a year. Now, shocking no-one, they’ve stopped even being really mentioned when we get updates about CONCORD’s policy concerns.
I fully expect this issue to go exactly the same way. It’s buried, and something only tangentially-related has had a public statement made. And it came from the Amarr rep to the Inner Circle, no less, not the State’s. I expect you’ll see all of this basically disappear in favor of ‘Darn those nasty Guristas!’ And maybe a bit of ‘yes, we need to have more direct control of financial markets within the empires, and reduce the power of the SCC’.
CONCORD/DED/AEGIS/EDENCOM bias in favor of the Empire and Federation at the expense of the two smaller powers? Never heard of it!
If nothing else, this should recommend to both the CEP and the Tribal Council that they’d be better off jettisoning their dependence on the expansionist powers, and aligning with one another. The cosmopolitical west will never agree with one another. They’re too diametrically opposed as a theocratic monoculture and a pluralistic neo-anarchy representative democracy. The east should just let them have their squabble and tell them ‘you keep it on your half of the map’ and work together to ensure CONCORD stops being so beholden to the expansionist empires that seek cluster-wide hegemony.
Besides, I’ve seen what Republic/Thukker shield emitters and PDS can do when paired with Caldari shield hardening tech. Active technological exchange between the two could produce something truly amazing.
1. Yeah, for those in the cheap seats, that’s at least two things we just agreed on. It happens. There’s even things I agree with Jackal about, like ‘Vily’s a doofus’. Shut up.
2. And make no mistake, whoever in the Caldari Navy feels like they might be the one to be blamed? They’re looking for a way to avoid that happening, no matter what it takes. Human beings might sacrifice themselves in the moment, but if the choice is ‘accept that I’ll have to drink the tea’ or ‘blame that multinational group everyone’s already mad at’, you better believe they’re gonna try to make it all about EDENCOM.
3. Spread jams, you idiots. Seriously, even we can manage to spread ewar, rather than putting everyone on one target. And our line members have the functioning intelligence of a pithed slaver hound with a gaping head wound, on average.
4. Maybe not you. Who knows? Still not a telepath.
The State provided the fit ships according to EDENCOM’s specifications, seeing as in all empires the provided ships were not, in fact, standard naval doctrine for that empire.
Correct, misread your earlier statement.
Very nice of you to argue with your own assumptions again. Do you have any concrete data on such processes being in place regarding forces seconded to EDENCOM?
If you do, please, do share, otherwise it seems like you are making things up again.
And the only thing that changes between Caldari forces under Megacorporate or Navy command and forces under EDENCOM command is, evidently, who is in command. Only one of those failed so magnificently, but again, until a proper investigation is performed, I don’t thing arguing this will go anywhere.
Don’t be pedantic. I mean that funds clearly intended to repel the invasions is instead used to outfit CONCORD’s own clandestine forces, not used remotely for the benefit of the singatories, only CONCORD themselves.
Now THAT’S a wild reach.
I don’t think anyone here is against reforms? Of course the failures of EDENCOM controlled forces should be used to improve comparable flaws in State doctrines and tactics, who would argue against that? This isn’t about stopping reforms and development, it’s about holding EDENCOM accountable for what it has done and what it has failed to do for over a year now.
Not what I was referring to. I meant the empires actually pulling support for EDENCOM and the Megas outright accusing EDENCOM for the terrible performance during the invasions.
Agreed. Better late than never, I suppose.
I am not implying that it doesn’t, what I am saying is that it is not a known fact. It is entirely an assumption on your part that we cannot verify at this moment.
Yeah, they didn’t just snap their fingers and conjure those ships out of thin air. They may not have been front-line ‘best of the best’, but I think it’s pretty safe to say they were, in fact, doctrinaire ships. Unless, you know, you have concrete data that shows the fits varied from the normal Navy fittings for those hulls?
Such processes are present in all militaries, for exactly the ‘we know this is a problem we’ve run into already’ reasons I already laid out. Do you have any concrete data that the normal operating procedures of the Caldari Navy were expressly suspended?
Except ‘money is fungible’ is an axiom in both econmics and politics. Any money you give an organization for X purpose will, on their books, go to X in order to provide basic essential function. But the organization will move exactly that same amount of money—money that otherwise would have gone to X to provide those functions—into some other place where they wanted more money.
Not really. Note the ‘seem’. Would you have preferred ‘there’s at least the appearance that the Caldari rep is willing to tolerate it right now’? Means exactly the same thing, but it takes more words, and there were already a lot of them in that reply.
Except, just by the nature of humanity and bureaucracies, putting too much emphasis on EDENCOM—like laying the blame for the Navy’s failures while tasked to EDENCOM solely on EDENCOM—means the Navy will skate. They’ll avoid spending money they don’t want to spend, the people who should get blamed will avoid dying for their failures, etc etc. If you blame EDENCOM for everything, the Navy will declare itself absolved.
Scapegoats aren’t still a thing at this point in human history because they don’t work. They do.
Yes, it’s not a known fact. It is, however, a safe assumption, as that kind of documentation would be necessary for the proper function of an organization as large as the Caldari Navy. If you can’t track who’s in charge of what when, and you have millions of people in the org, you’re pretty screwed.
Looks like you have exhausted your argumentation across all points with this post and are resorting to really tiring and unsubstantiated statements. Let’s revisit this when more is known. You will not be getting any more engagement out of me until then.
altough no longer embroiled in the frontlines I am happy to see your unwavering allegiance to the State.
It is rare to find people true to themselfes, no matter how naive that might be, more on that later.
However, perhaps it is time to move on and leave the ungrateful corporate leadership and its obvious corruption wich you hint at in your letter ?
The State died with Tibus Heth and his killers are now running the show.
The Stateless however do not only offer the chance for revenge but also riches.
You can find Guristas Envoys in Venal.
Yes Guriastas, the people that have exposed the SCC and will continue to be a thorn in the sides of
the so called State that replaced the cherished meritrocracy with boardroom politics, corruption and nepotism.
