For years, I have used this forum to argue for more recognition of the Intaki Syndicate within CONCORD’s international order. I see now that I was wrong. CONCORD and its member nations have no interest in healing the wound inflicted by the exile of Intaki dissent. Preoccupied by jostling among themselves for position on the wider stage of New Eden, the Syndicate’s grievances are a sideshow, maybe a destabilizing threat or even a convenient safety valve. It is time to stop pursuing the approval of the ‘Inner Circle’ and embrace our outcast status. At a time where the priority must be the power to defend ourselves and weaken our enemies, let us turn unapologetically to those who alone have supported the Syndicate since its foundation, those others often outlawed by CONCORD but who offer the clearest chance at that power, however dreadful.
Despite the Intaki Syndicate’s contributions to the international order, when it asked CONCORD for security guarantees in the face of Federal aggression, CONCORD left it exposed. When abandoned by CONCORD, the Station Owners Council was driven to the tender mercies of the State, which took advantage to the tune of a whole constellation! Of course, neither would have been necessary if the Federation had not frustrated the rights of the Intaki Assembly to choose its security franchisee and then used security as a pretext for militarizing two constellations along the border. The Deathless offers recompense.
I used to be an upstanding Federal citizen. Wanted nothing more than to explore New Eden and chart its mysteries, maybe make some friends, protect my home from belligerents… never imagined my own Federation would be the biggest belligerent of all.
Our people didn’t ask to be torn from our roots and our way of life all those ages ago, but we adapted, as Ida does, and we yielded, as the sages do. While we embrace the way of water, the pratimaha of all living things, we redirect the violent and arrogant forces away from our way of life as best we can.
But useful things get used, and we are nothing if not a useful culture.
The Sage says: “the tree which is most upright and healthy is chopped down for lumber. Thus, what is useful is used up.” The Sage also says: “to remain whole, become twisted.”
And so I say we of Syndicate become like the gnarled tree full of knots that breaks the logger’s axe. Let what little water we have left be used to nourish us in what is now the final resting place of Intaki independence; as dark, and polluted, and unseemly as Syndicate may be to self-aggrandizing, imperialist onlookers.
Beware the ones you cast out. They and their children will survive. And they will tell stories of you.
Finally seen the truth of the world, welcome to the proper side of the table that the rats and bootlickers of the Empires call outlaws.
To rise the challenge and take ones destiny into ones own hands is the greatest challenge, but the freedom and power that comes from doing so is intoxicating.
Let Blood and whatever gods you follow grant you strength on the road to true freedom
Those who seek offers from those who come just to plunder and pillage (like these “Deathless”), aren’t really smarter than those who wish to join such amoral entities as Gallente Federation.
But in either way it doesn’t matter in the end from which side you look at it. Whomever looks for freedom have only criminal intents in their minds. They’re all the same.
Do the Deathless really offer recompense, Captain? That they will provide restitution for the harm that you feel you and yours have suffered in the Syndicate?
The Deathless will not grant you the succour, the restitution that you feel is due to the Syndicate. The Deathless do not care for the Syndicate, they care only for themselves, and those that choose to align with their designs on New Eden. It shall only serve to enable you to manifest your evident frustration into acts of violence, inflicted upon those that you hold responsible for the predicament you see Syndicate mired in now.
My own personal feelings in regards to the Syndicate aside, can you not see what your actions will do? It will serve only to reinforce existing preconceptions that the Syndicate is the den of vice and criminality that you have spent so long trying to change in respect of its perception.
I urge you to reconsider this proclamation. You are not… whatever it is you proclaim yourself to be here. You are a good person, someone who I have always seen as an honourable and forthright individual, not a common bandit or a thug like this mob of criminals that now add more misery to an already weary zone of hostilities.
I must caution you against telling a man what he is or isn’t. At no point in my dealings with Auriga have I ever known him to be out of touch with himself.
It is possible to be of two minds. I live in a world that has room for kindness, fresh fruit, and romantic love. I also live in a world of violent murder, altered states of consciousness, protection money, and terrible injustice.
The existence of things I loathe enhances my ability to enjoy the things I love. The mobs of thugs you fight against are my foes as well, when it suits me. I look forward to atomizing Guristas by your side, sometime. My kikimora loves playing with friends and foes alike.
Every ecosystem is rocked eventually. The space lanes of New Eden would be dreadfully boring without our local sharks churning the waters.
It’s wonderful that Federal citizens get to live in a world of democracy and individual choice. We have that where I’m from, too: we also have rigid traditions and family structures. It’s all very flexible.
Sometimes I feel like Syndicate and her people are just the forgotten eldest child of a bitter divorce between Caldari and Gallente. And here we always are in the middle, wondering on any given day if you’re going to kill each other or not.
It’s always a fleeting tease of hope when some dread force from the outside shows up and makes you both to look at what a lovely, complimentary force you are. We’ve learned not to cling to that hope, though.
Better to be on the ground level, behind all the closed doors, where the compromises and secret trysts happen…
Our corner of New Eden is just so beautiful! What rich history! What drama!
CONCORD and the Four Empires only serve their own interests and will do whatever they can to maintain their status quo. Any recognition of the Intaki Syndicate carries the risk of upsetting the political balance of the Federation, thus it is within the interest of Senate to keep the Syndicate in the current position.
As much as the Federation prides itself as a cultural melting pot it becomes hard to stand by your identity. Either you get swallowed up by the grey mass, or you stand by yourself but often get left out in the cold. Both the Intaki and the Matari people have retained our strong connections with our ancestral ways, however in doing so we pose a threat to the general Federal identity.
It saddens me to see that you have come the realization in this way, my friend. But do not let it crush your spirit. You walk the path of your ancestors and this path will be your guidance. Become the twisted tree as Nimrat mentions.