Personal account of the Drifter Summit (1st of May, YC 127)

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
22

That is decisively incorrect. It showed a station full of corpses.

If you mean the footage of the Triglavian facility on Athounon V, that was captured by an EDENCOM drone, and published freely as ordered by my CO. You cannot use the later discovery of novel Triglavian presence to retroactively justify the slaughter of Caldari Navy personnel over an indirectly correlated operation in-system.

I need you to go through this thread very carefully and try to explain to me which part of it you believe to be addressing it in any satisfactory capacity. You cannot enable the murder of innocents and then wash away the blood on your hands by offering hollow platitudes about ‘balance’.

I genuinely urge you to restrain yourself from just defending this as a kneejerk reaction and critically examine if you think this was in any way justified. Tell me if all those murders achieved anything of value.

Robbery is not justified just because you decided not to pair some more murder with it. Not sure why you think Turnur is somehow justification either. We are not the Amarr Empire, and we have an unblemished record for the successful adoption, development and exploitation of acquired precursor technologies, whether they be Jovian, Sleeper, Triglavian or Drifter in origin.

Direct your Turnur-inspired concerns to the Empire.

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23

Oh this is fun.

Please, keep going.

24

This doesn’t look like Empire technology

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Requesting for something to be adressed in a satisfactory capacity is a subjective requirement, though it does fit with your approach. You have proven in this and other interactions that this is impossible as you keep moving the goalpost, mix in personal attacks and operate under a ‘rules for thee but not for me’.

Interesting that you bring this up as that is exactly what was done to the EDENCOM facility and its content.

25

Kneejerk defense and zero capacity or willingness for critical thought it is. I do not know why I expected anything more.

Let this exchange serve as a demonstration of what kind of people are so enthusiastically advocating for the release of all hive findings to whomever of consequence may come upon it. Pirates, murderers and robbers with no regard for who their rampant irresponsibility will harm.

26

As everyone knows, I have always kept an open mind towards co-operation with outsiders. I co-operated with outsiders to stop the original Triglavian Invasions. I co-operated with outsiders to create educational material for rookie pilots in the warzone. I co-operated with outsiders to seize territory in the Drifter wormholes.

With that in mind, I still hope that the CEP takes note of ARC’s suggestions in this thread, and does the exact opposite.

Your group is so hungry for precursor technology that they gladly put bounties on Caldari Navy ships in the Athounon system. The blood of my comrades is on your hands. May you, and everyone who works with you, step on rectangular-shaped blocks from children’s construction sets, with frightening regularity.

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27

Ms. Tereven, I have a lot of respect for you. You’ve been a thoughtful and reasonable voice on many subjects.

One of the great virtues of the Caldari– sometimes carried to a fault, but not often– is pragmatism. The Caldari prepare constantly for winter, even on planets where the local temperature seldom produces any ice at all. This is because, even in such places, the cold always comes eventually.

They’re a hard people, and take pride in that.

I get that you’re a soldier and feel loyalty towards your comrades. That is admirable to a degree. But you shouldn’t think that the State will put their loss over its own future; nor, for the most part, would those lost ask it to. State policy cannot be about sacrificing the future of the many to avenge the loss of a few.

It’s a ruthless business we’re in. Capsuleers work at cross-purposes, routinely. Alliances and loyalties shift and recombine. Normally I see Caldari as being uniquely well-suited to this environment: we understand that everyone has their duty, that competition leads to clashes, and that allies may become enemies may become allies in even the course of a week. That’s just being an egger.

If there is one kind of person in this cluster I mistrust, it is the one who cannot see their own darkness, their own capacity for error and harm. Usually such folk will forgive themselves anything, and others nothing.

Malitia I expect this kind of folly from, but you I have respect for. This bitterness, this entrenched, unreasoning hate, rigid and unyielding as Abyssal isogen, doesn’t become you.

There may be some merit to what you say, but no one, again, no one, has produced an alternative to the work ARC does. Maybe you’d like to start one, but until then they are the people who do this work.

It’s tempting to mirror your bile, to curse you like you just cursed me. I’ve tried hatred before. It’s a source of strength, but it would hurt me, and maybe more than it would hurt you.

Instead I’ll wish you wisdom of your ancestors, their insight and understanding of what is truly important and why.

28

Oh! There’s someone that may finally answer the question ARC’s authorities so regularly avoid then.

You speak of pragmatism? Then let’s go of the personal attacks and baseless accusations for a second and talk concrete results.

Please show me the work that resulted from the murder of Navy ships in Athounon then the subsequent robbery of Triglavian data from sites throughout Serthoulde.

A paper, a scientific finding, a way that it attained Priano-guri’s desired ‘balance’? I can point to some very concrete results that came about from the State’s work during that campaign.

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29

I might be tempted if I cared much about your opinion, Ms. Malitia. DG might, but to me you’re the least-trustworthy kind of soul: the kind who can’t see her own shadow, who can’t admit fault or weakness.

Ms. Tereven’s worth talking to. You’re sometimes fun to talk to but that’s not quite the same thing.

30

This is a public forum. Please, if not for me then for everyone else who might be reading, share with the class.

Show us results.

31

With you as the other focus around whom the conversation would revolve? No. I haven’t even agreed, and you’re already trying to lay the frame of the discussion to give yourself maximum advantage, knowing full well that I didn’t specify an incident or timeframe.

Let me be explicit, Ms. Malitia: when it comes to debate, you’re Arrendis without the self-awareness and pointy-toothed charm.

I don’t think you even know how dishonest you are. So no, I’m not going to invest my time and energy in such a way.

32

I find it moderately tiresome I have to weigh in on this.

There is good reason as to why.

Any time an attempt has been made to do similar work to ARC, the community of pilots around ARC becomes aggressively violent, verbally and in space, against those that try. Treating science as competition instead of collaborative pursuit of understanding.

This has happened several times.

Sapphire Interstellar Banking Solution’s Rhea Initiative, decried as illegitimate as it was ‘against’ ARC by those around the Consortium, swept into the dirt by a pilot who regularly worked with ARC buying out war mercenaries to destroy their operations, supposedly for jilted love but as time went on very clearly did so as spite for it being seen as competition to their friends.

Serenity Valley attempted to gain traction, seemed to start to make headway, then trusted a pilot who regularly worked with ARC, tried to set up a collaborative effort, then the pilot ran off with their data and handed it to ARC as if it were their own.

It has even, admittedly, happened to UNF-A when we even suggested we might try to do similar work, multiple pilots around ARC tried to shout us down or say our science was invalid as it wasn’t sourced through Arataka or ‘legitimate science groups’… and attempted to steal our data.

what is seems like to me, is that ARC, while perhaps having not ordered these events, has certainly benefited greatly from the degree of separation between it and it’s ‘community of supporters’ and gives it a free pass as it ensures they remain the only ones able to do it.

except… they aren’t the only ones able to do it now, as it happens, Fraternity. of all groups has started to contest on brute forcing scientific material collation. And only because Fraternity. Is larger than the community around ARC that they cannot be shouted down or bullied into submission by it.

As for Makoto’s bounty on the data fragments from Navy wrecks back in the day…. At best, I can say it was shortsighted with a clear perverse incentive to destroy the garrison vessels to access those materials from Athounon and later to aggressively bust apart the caldari occupied triglavian data sites… a perverse incentive Makoto, being intelligent as she is and well versed in the behavior of pod pilots, should have foreseen and understood. The fact all she really gave amounted to what was an ‘oops,’ and shrug is in my opinion, telling.

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33

With respect, Ms. Brezia– and maybe because you aren’t aware– you fail to mention the organizations that did rival ARC, and proceeded unmolested and even with some amount of curiosity and/or cooperation until they ended operations for unrelated reasons.

Two come immediately to mind, both relating to the Drifter crisis.

Alizabeth, the pilot who conceived of ARC’s Drifter hive doctrine, was discontented with ARC’s pace and relatively-neutral stance towards the Vigilant Tyrannos and (if I remember right) eventually fell out with its leaders, desiring to wage all-out war. I was one of her pilots as well as ARC’s. She continued with the project and to refine her anti-Drifter doctrine until unrelated troubles disrupted her work.

Sinniel (sp?), the pilot who perfected the Rattlesnake Drifter-hunting doctrine, maintained continuous, cordial relations with ARC while more or less setting up camp in the heart of Drifter hives. Eventually burned out and retired, but was in fact so cordial that they left ARC their entire hoard of stockpiled elements upon retirement.

Neither’s departure from the business was due to some kind of harassment campaign by ARC supporters. Maybe things get a little more tense on the theoretical side of things; I’m a combat pilot, not one of ARC’s serious data-crunchers, and it sounds like that’s maybe the side you’re talking about.

As for Fraternity … good? I think? Probably? … Hopefully that produces good results.

34

Actually, in this conversation it is you who has been Arrendioting. You have been asked rather precise question and you failed to give definitive answer, with going into places with your replies instead.

Moreover, it wasn’t some sort of tangent or derailing question, but question directly challenging your claim with outrigt explicit context.

When you can’t back your position, honorable way is admitting your fault and moving on.

But let me correct your inability with my interpretation. I won’t claim I know everything that ARC did, but from what I have seen, their largest achievement is producing rather droll papers for an infamous coward and dishonorable guri to earn some sort of popularity among her own circle of mutual headpatting.

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35

Soooo, not rivals but affiliated or adjacent.

Right, totally valid responses.

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36

One started with ARC, but diverged, ultimately with a fair bit of friction. (Ali’s an … intense person.) The other had wholly different methods, but got along well and ultimately contributed.

If you exclude all those with some relation you’re going to wind up with a short list indeed. I doubt even Fraternity is proceeding without looking at a lot of ARC’s past work. Reinventing wheels isn’t a very practical way to pursue new research (as opposed to checking/confirming the old) unless there’s really some reason to think you’ll be able to improve what’s already there.

37

This is pragmatism. Technology is a resource that can be hoarded, much the same as food. It is also an acknowledgement of the fact that we live in a cruel world, where everyone is out to get us. In that context, the last thing we should be doing is sharpening the fangs of would-be predators.

It has nothing to do with an unwillingness to accept sacrifice either. The CEP’s decisions should be made by a careful weighing of what is in our interests. Not of what is in ARC’s interests. If they start taking advice from ARC, they may as well hire the Federal Defence Union as an external advisory board.

I do not differentiate between regular people, and people who have a few implants and enough cash to maintain clone contracts. I do differentiate between citizens and non-citizens. Especially in such contexts as who should have a say in the State’s future decisions. With that in mind I find it a miscalculation, that people from a hostile group think they are entitled to influence State policy.

That is not relevant. Any decision should be weighed against the survival of the whole. That survival depends principally on deterrence. Deterrence is not credible if you can not maintain parity with, or superiority, over threats. One factor in that process is maintaining a qualitative edge. Technology plays a key role there.

I did not curse you. I cursed ARC. Therefore your words are incorrect, unless you are a part of ARC. Is that the case?

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38

Ah, now this is much more interesting reasoning. Traditional, also; the State has often preferred to walk alone, in isolation as much as reasonably possible.

So as I understand it the five powers currently holding Drifter hives have voted 3-2 to share information amongst themselves but not with others, outside. Is this acceptable to you or would you rather the State went its own way entirely?

(I’m fascinated that the Triglavian Collective is apparently willing to share research with the other four. I do not think I’ve ever wanted to be even just a lab assistant so badly.)

? … I thought I’d been quite open about this.

I’m not a formal member in the sense of being a direct employee. Very few are. I am however an officer-level associated pilot, trusted with special roles during hive operations and the like. I’ve been active in their hive fleets since a few months after the death of Empress Jamyl I. The Empire was at war with the Drifters, after all, and I served as SFRIM’s, then LUMEN’s, regular representative in the hive fleets. All told I might have flown under ARC more often than under LUMEN.

Aside from that, I’ve submitted materials, offered hypotheses, given talks at conferences … my position relative to the serious theorists is maybe what a naturalist is relative to a biologist: a keenly-interested observer, enthusiast, and even participant, but not a scientist in my own right.

ARC writ small is a very modest entity that doesn’t even include most of its own major participants. Writ large, though, it’s a whole consortium with that tiny administrative entity at its core. I’m a long-standing participant in that latter one.

Were you planning to curse just the administrative core?

39

I have no problem with co-operating with other major powers in the cluster in order to eliminate threats such as the Drifters, Triglavians, Sansha, Rogue Drones, and the whole plethora of other animate problems in the cluster. I am also no stranger to sharing fitting knowledge with others. However, there is a slight difference in scale and consequences between me sharing personal knowledge, and the State sharing technology from the Drifters. The former would merely make the Slicer obsolete as a combat platform in the solo context, if people from TLIB could read. The latter could potentially see precursor technology fall into the hands of those who would do us harm. The more people have an understanding of Drifter tech, the more likely such knowledge could leak via corporate espionage. Thus any form of technology sharing at the international level is cause for personal consternation.

This is the first I hear of it.

Whomever is responsible for the Athounon bounties.

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40

That’s nicely clean-cut but also troublesome. Thank you, though; it spares me actually arguing against the position both the Empire and State actually seem to support. (ARC, unsurprisingly, went a little farther than the Empire in what it wanted, so yaaay, I just get to argue the Imperial angle.)

So, first off, keeping your one hive all to yourself doesn’t just deny the undeserving outsider access to State secrets; it also denies the State access to the secrets from four additional hives. (It also misses out on the chance to watch the Triglavians work, which would be just a tragedy. We’ve seen plenty of their combat and engineering units, but when else are you going to get to watch the Collective’s scientists at work?!)

Drifter hives’ most unique and least-understood assets are the “elements,” which are as far as we know only really usable as a completed set. That requires assets from all five hives, which will be in short supply if you’re hoarding all yours to yourself.

It also makes your stockpiles a target for literally every other faction that’s got itself a hole, even if they’re not working together but especially if they are. Worst-case, you could find yourself having to defend against a joint strike force of the other four (which, again, lest we forget, would include the Triglavians).

It’d be a little surprising if that were the only thing you needed access to all five for, as well.

Then, also, you have no guarantee that you’ll be able to extract data any more effectively than the other four, especially when one group of the four are precursors themselves.

I could probably go on, but you get the idea. The State keeping to itself here would be just taking its one ingredient of an amazing stew and going and making a lacklustre roast or something.

As for ARC’s preferred position, sharing it all out, well, put it this way: more hands playing with it allows for more possibilities, possibly even something to surpass the Drifters themselves. Might be handy if/when they come back (or someone even more alarming, like maybe the Talocan).

Not surprised the Empire and State weren’t persuaded, though.

That might just be Ms. Priano, but I’m not sure.

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Makoto Priano for the bounties, Dutchgunner for the robberies, most of ARC’s officer base for supporting and excusing all this.

Speaking of, you should ask them what their “work” in Athounon was that they feel justifies all those murders. Every time I ask what it is they achieved, they all seem to mysteriously change the subject.

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