My family like countless others claimed the right of return after emancipation by the Imperial Throne eleven years ago, the legacy of that day has haunted Republic practitioners of the Rite for more than a decade.
As an adult I learned to see past my hatred of those who’d harm their countrymen for seeming different. Starting to have faith that a nation proud of the differences between the seven tribes might one day learn to accept different beliefs. That acceptance seems more distant now, but I’ve not given up hope that those of us who value the future over the past will begin to assert themselves.
Abel Jarek, the last man to bring pride or even hope to the Republic’s faithful once said of his Salvation Crusade that “God will provide for the faithful in this as He has done in all other things”, while I don’t disagree, I believe that God’s providence lies in giving us the tools to help ourselves and help one another.
I seek to continue Jarek’s work with the tools granted to me; I have approached the faithful of the Federation and the Empire and have been awed by the support I’ve been given, support which has allowed the construction of a new Salvation in a geosynchronous orbit above Tronhadar valley where Jarek himself was martyred at morning prayer.
More than a home for the faithful, Salvation’s amenities will serve all without bias and any citizen in good standing with the Republic may apply to reside here.
Obviously, I can’t speak for any but myself… but I think you’ll find that you can worship as you please… just don’t try to push your faith on others.
That said, I have a very serious question for you: part of the Amarr faith includes obedience to the Empire, and the Empress. How do you reconcile that with being a loyal resident of the Tribal Republic?
If only saying it made it so, I have no reason to believe you’re being anything but sincere, and I do like to think your opinion is reflective of the majority of our people. It’s not the majority who beat the occupants of Salvation in Tronhadar valley or murdered Abel Jarek for intervening, nor is it the majority who half kill teenagers on the streets of Shishaan. There’s no law against the Rite, but there’s an established pattern that bad things happen to those who practice it.
Your question is a fair one, and one to which I have given a great deal of thought. The only answer I can give is that I have few certainties, I am a patriot, and I am of the faith, those two things have never come into conflict, it’d be easy to lie and tell you of course I’d choose the Republic– the only thing I can be sure of is if my church or my nation asked me to harm the other, I would feel intensely betrayed, any more complicated situation would need a more complicated answer.
Like everyone else I know the events you speak of. No representative of the Republic nor member of the Amarr clergy has demanded my involvement.
I fully expected someone to attempt to make this about Floseswin, although I hoped it would take longer. I do not have, nor do I intend to have any involvement in events on Floseswin IV, my priorities lie with those in poverty on Matar, people among whom those of my faith disproportionately number.
More problematically, the Empress has once again affirmed the Republic to be, in the eyes of the Empire ‘Rebel Provinces’, and given oversight of those provinces to Houses Sarum and Ardishapur.
At which point, the question becomes: who are the rightful government of the regions of Metropolis, Heimatar, and Molden Heath? The Tribes… or the Houses? I’m not asking to try to trip you up, or be some kind of smart-assed prick here, either. It’s a question anyone living in the Republic but holding to the Amarr faith has to answer for themselves. Some people I care for quite a great deal fall into that category, and each of them has had to find their own answer. But you’d be doing yourself and all those around you a disservice if you didn’t, at least, realize that the question is there… and you will need to answer it, if only when you look in the mirror.
As Arrendis points out, for the Amarr Empire, the Republic is not a legitimate, equal “the other”. We are “the Rebel Provinces”.
And trust me, if war broke out between our nations, your Faith would not pay any heed to how peaceful and civilian and charitable you intend to be. You have weaponizable assets on Matar orbit. You’d be pressed to service of God in half a second.
And what would you do then?
I would suggest, respectfully, that it would have been be better to not put yourself into that situation.
If you wish, I can offer you this: SoE Roughriders (my corporation, in Electus Matari) takes up the control of that station. You get full control of everything, take care of fueling, etc. I will only interfere if someone (anyone) intends to use that station for war, for slave acquisition or trade, or directly against the Republic’s interests. If you wish, I can agree to dismantle the station rather than allow either side to use it for war. This way, if bad comes to worse, you cannot be made to pick a side on Matar orbit, and given my and EM’s reputation no one will have much cause to doubt your patriotic commitment.
@Samira_Kernher can vouch that I deal fairly with peaceful congregations of God-lovers (other Amarr, more faithful, too, but I cannot name their names here unless they so choose).
We, and by we I mean faithful citizens of the Republic, understand that divine and temporal loyalty can pull us in different directions– that your sentences are better constructed doesn’t change the fact that you choose to march out the same tired justifications many of us would associate the aftermath of a beating. We are not the Amarr Empire, put simply I am certain that God would forgive me for failing to wage war upon my nation; if he would not, then he is not God and I need not worry.
Respectfully, I must question what you mean by this situation, because any situation otherwise has been attempted before, we trusted to the Republic’s assurances on the streets of Matar’s cities, in Tronhadar valley, and many times after in many ways, all that remains is to take responsibility for our own safety to worship as we choose.
I can tell you with some certainty, that I do not wish. I do not wish to betray the trust of my donors by handing the fruit of their generosity to someone who has and will again wage war on them. I do not wish to betray those who live here or those who might yet do so, by surrendering what may be their only chance to live free of persecution to a privileged tribeswoman who has less in common with them than she does with those who once held many of them.
While I cannot speak to the truth of your claim of fair treatment of other congregations of “God-lovers”, I cannot help but believe that for you to see us as peaceful, we must be defenceless.
But your faith does not. That’s what worries many of our people. The Rite holds that there is no difference, that the only legitimate temporal power, ultimately, is the Imperial Throne. All others must submit, must be converted and subsumed into the Empire… willingly or no.
And it’s that, not personal animus (after all, how many of them know you, personally?) that motivates people to be mistrustful, and lash out—that fear. Because the highest loyalty in your faith would necessarily be loyalty to your god, and your god has commanded not only temporal loyalty to the throne, but the expansion of the empire, and the expansion of that submission to throne and god.
By hard power or soft, the Amarr god demands conquest, conquest of all of humanity, until all of humanity is the Amarr Empire. The mandate all of the faithful are charged with by god is to bring all of humanity back into the fold… by fire and sword, if need be. And that… does not allow for an independent nation, full of people who follow other beliefs, to exist.
The way you speak, I feel like you have your answer to the question I posed you, even if you do not realize it. So I have another for you:
Are you sure the faith you follow is the Amarr Rite? Because the one you describe seems rather schismatic, heretical, and altogether… better… than theirs.
Scripture was written by men far wiser and godlier than I am; it was also written over millennia during which the Empire was so powerful that it unthinkable to most that it might ever be thwarted. I do not live in the Empire, nor in a time where its primacy was so sure.
Is it schismatic or heretical to believe that God can forgive acceptance of the Republic’s authority? I do not think it is, The Code of Demeanour tells us of God’s immense wrath, His limited tolerance, but also of His swift and decisive justice. For those who strive always to show Him their worth, there would be no justice in damnation for such an acceptance of reality.
So, basically, you are funded by enemies of Republic loyalists? And you believe, and you want us to believe, that the aim of this structure is not to harm our nation?
So, basically… a structure is a structure, it has no aims at all. I have been clear about my own aims, initially to my donors, and now publicly.
Your careful wording I assume is to obfuscate the fact that you have more enemies than most Republic loyalists, you cannot possibly be ignorant of the fact that there are those even in the Republic who feel the misguided grandstanding of you and others like you has the potential to get us all killed.
Even if I hadn’t made commitments regarding peaceful utilisation of donations, I would not want to add to the infrastructure from which you could support your activities.
I find Ms. Joringer’s project admirable. My time in the Republic as a faithful convinced me to return home to the Bleak Lands, surely I am not the only faithful who has felt rejected in the Republic. Providing a haven for minmatars of the faith could only be in the long term interest of the Republic.
These are quite the words to throw at me and especially at Electus Matari. Care to elaborate?
Would those donors care to identify themselves and tell the public how they feel about your proclamation that come war, you will choose the Republic over the Faith?
To identify themselves or not is the prerogative of those donors, and I don’t recall a conversation with a single one of them who would be duped by your misrepresentation. I will not wage war on the Republic nor upon the Faith. In accepting the Republic’s temporal authority, I accept whatever consequences such a refusal entails, for the other refusal eventually I will answer to God and trust that my reasons justify that answer.
So let’s see what we have so far. You object to helping our brothers and sisters who would throw of the shackles of slavery, your “patriotism” is not fighting when warships of the Faith come knocking on Pator orbit, your donors are what a loyalist organization regularly wages war against and cannot be brought to daylight.
And you want this to be bought as a completely legit charity operation.
Sounds more like trying to bait for a fight to me, to be honest.
Without the mandate or context of government, you use force to implement your own foreign policy. Carelessly playing a game with stakes no one person has the right to wager.
I object because you endanger the hopes and dreams of trillions for your own affirmation at helping.
Once upon a time, there was a nonconforming sparrow who decided not to fly south for the winter. However, soon the weather turned so cold that he reluctantly started southward. In a short time, ice began to form on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard, almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on the little sparrow. The sparrow thought it was the end. But then the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy, able to breathe, he started to sing. Just then a large cat came by and hearing the chirping, investigated the sounds. The cat cleared away the manure, found the chirping sparrow and promptly ate him.
