If you count this as an invasion, what do you call the Day of Darkness I wonder? Besides, you really feel you are entitled to call it “our” home? The one person in orbit that actually does have a claim to Thebeka as “home” is not on your side, you’ll note.
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We invaded nothing.
It was people native to Thebeka III who rebelled.
We provided assistance, yes. As we have before, as we will in the future. But our presence on the surface has been minor - not non-existent, no, there’s no point in claiming that now - but negligible in numbers compared to the big picture. Capsuleers don’t land armies on core worlds uninvited.
We provided free people information they wanted, resources they could not have otherwise, means to communicate denied to them. We offered and continue to offer transportation. To free people, to freely go where they choose.
But it was not our fight; it was theirs.
Go to the people
Live with them
Learn from them
Love them
Start from what they already know
Build on what they already have
You know the work is done
Your task accomplished
When people say of your leadership:
“We did this, ourselves”
(trad, Sb.(?))
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You tried to pour fuel on a fire the Blood Raiders lit to burn down the Empire.
You’re right. It’s not expressly a home invasion. It’s a home invasion with an attempted arson.
Now that we have our gun we are not going to let you run without a bullet in the back.
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Yes; that is fair enough, though savagely put. We helped a slave rebellion. That is not something I am ashamed of or will try to deny.
And you know what? As long as there are free people who want our help, and opportunities to take, we will do it again. And again. And again.
That is how we have a Republic in the first place.
The harder you try to put out that fire, the brighter it will burn, the wider it will spread.
Because this was not an invasion. We did not bring the fire. It was always there. EM will leave, and you can fight us, and maybe you can even break us, but the fire is still there, tended in hidden places, burning in secret, and every chance there is, it will spring out, and in the end, Newelle -
you will burn.
Never again another long night.
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Duties common to the state of being human.
I have others as well.
As did you. And I was willing to recognize this until now.
I understand what you want. I understand why you wanted it. But this, I have trouble understanding.
You armed a doomed rebellion, which you had to know was almost certainly doomed. You might have hoped it wasn’t, but even so you knew better. Your nation wasn’t behind them. In fact, you weren’t behind them.
But you inspired them. Armed them.
You led them to their deaths. And now you declare victory and go home, taking a few of the survivors along.
I wonder, will they thank you for it? Should they?
Ignis fatuous. Elsebeth Ghost-light, False Hope of Thebeka.
See you in space indeed.
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I didn’t.
Time will tell. Some will, probably. Some won’t.
But know this: I did nothing the people I helped did not wish me to. I did not force ideology on anyone. I inspired, I facilitated, I helped.
But I did not make anyone do what they did not want to. Those who did not want my help I left alone.
Can you say the same of your masters?
Else
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You did. Like this:
Yaaaay! Job done! Seeds of further mass-scale war and death laid! (Or so we’re going to say to comfort ourselves that all the groundwork we laid isn’t going to be hunted down and rooted out by Amarrian forces.) Well done! Medals all around!
How many people (YOUR people, or so you keep insisting) did you just get killed?
It is natural for a person lost in a wilderness at night to long for human voices and safety and direction. A ghost-light promises all these things … but it’s a lie: a bit of marsh gas over a bog.
Bait for the hopeful.
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Ah, Keitan Yun. Now there’s a name you don’t hear every day.
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Those are your words, not mine, and your claims that you understand me are once again proven completely untrue.
Get off your high horse, Jenneth. You look silly on it.
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I’m not afraid of looking a little silly. I’m not a wise person-- just a clever one. If my pride takes an occasional beating that’s probably good for me.
Either way, I’ve said what I meant to.
See you around.
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Typical, shoot them in the back…coward
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I’m sorry, what? She led people who, of their own volition mind you, chose the path they took. Self determination. If you honestly think “No, you shouldn’t follow your own path, I won’t help you” is in our vocabulary you don’t know us. That’s how we formed our Republic.
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Now if you just applied this wailing and gnashing of teeth and fervor to ending the institution of slavery… That’d be great.
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Aria, you’re being an idiot.
“EM’s job here is done.” This is not a statement of victory. To assert that it is would be to claim that when a patient dies, the doctors claim victory. The struggle is about the struggle, Aria. Is victory preferred? Of course. Would EM have liked it if the slave populations of Thebeka had thrown off the yolk and made a mass exodus somewhere else? Probably, though I’m just as sure they didn’t have the capability to evacuate billions.
But so what?
Do you only defend Luna when you know you’ll win? Do you only hold to your ‘duty’ when you have a chance? If that’s true, then your sense of duty is as poor as your grasp of principles.
And somehow, Aria, I don’t think that’s true.
Except you clearly don’t. You might understand the most pie-in-the-sky hopes and ‘hey, wouldn’t it be great if…’ desires and motivations for EM in this… but your very next statement says you don’t understand the most fundamental aspect of what they wanted.
You claim to be clever… but clearly, not clever enough to understand what every logistics pilot, every doctor, every mechanic, every carpenter and mason, everyone who has built or maintained a thing has known:
The struggle is all. Everything fails, eventually. Lives end. Ships explode. Wood rots, stone erodes… and none of it matters, as long as you fight to hold it back, while you can. Stars and spirits, Aria, Alizabeth understands this better than you do… understands us in some ways, much better than you do.
EM didn’t declare victory. EM had no victory. But every single former slave who fought—or fights—until the Amarr are forced to kill them, they won. They beat the Amarr. Maybe they didn’t get the absolute victory that many dreamed of, but they still won… because they died free.
And that’s not me saying ‘freedom is victory’, Aria. That’s me saying that those men and women who decided that the Amarr would no longer rule them died they way they chose to. When you goal is self-determination, then dying as you choose is achieving your goal.
Is it a Pyrrhic victory? Maybe. But it’s theirs, nonetheless. Theirs. Not ‘ours’. Not EM’s. And most definitely not Amarr’s.
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Elsebeth may say things like:
But those who accepted Elsebeth’s help did not leave those who did not want it alone.
She armed and organized the violent criminal elements in the aftermath of a major psychoactive planetary attack and they tried to build a rebellion in conditions where the vast majority of the population did not want to join them. Do you think those Elsebeth armed took no for an answer when Amarr of Matari descent did not wish to support them?
I expect, despite what she may say, Elsebeth is actively disappointed that her efforts didn’t cause a conflagration. I expect the body count from this horrible terrorist attack is too low for her tastes.
There is also a rather huge difference between the events of the initial Amarr Invasion or the Matari Rebellion and anything that happens today, and that is the existence of the rather robust set of international treaties that culminated in CONCORD.
This whole affair has repeatedly made it clear that the capsuleers supporting the Republic have no respect for these treaties. They have repeatedly broken international law that the Republic signed with attempts to land military forces on Amarr worlds.
Spitting in the face of it’s own treaties is business as usual for the Republic in the aftermath of the Shakor/Elder coup, though, so I guess Electus Matari is just following suit.
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Nope. No, they haven’t, in fact. The Republic’s treaties cover the Republic’s forces. EM isn’t even part of the militia, let alone an actual arm of the Republic. Nor does it claim to be. As such, sorry, those treaties don’t cover or constrain capsuleer action. Only CONCORD regs do.
So if we’re going to take your vein of ‘these people are covered by X rule the Republic has, therefore the Republic is reponsible’ nonsense…
CONCORD is behind the Thebekan rebels.
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To be fair, they deserve at least some blame for almost everything that happens in New Eden.
So you’re not really even wrong despite the fact that you’re joking.
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Incorrect. Those treaties that the Republic signed include restrictions on planetary military interventions by independent capsuleers.
Now, Electus Matari is not the Republic, but they do claim loyalty to the Republic. So while their actions do not break rules that Electus Matari was involved in designing, they do break rules that the government they claim to support signed on to.
Edit: By contrast, the fighting in space has been almost entirely legal and treaty bound.
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Support, yes. Represent, no.
Perhaps you should direct inquiries to Empress Katie’s eventual Brutor baby-daddy the Tribal Council about condeming Republic supporters?
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I’m asking this out of my own ignorance, not to prove a point: What exactly do you understand would happen to a person of Matari Descent who walked to the Amarrian forces and seeking protection from those willing to defend themselves? Just knowing from the past it would not be a stretch that those who already know they will die aren’t beneath suicidal tactics. Surprise attacks, suicide bombing, ect? This situation I can’t imagine them welcoming those who do not wish to fight. Knowing the events of Kanah, post Deathglow, do you honestly expect them to actually feel safer going to seek safety from the forces who slaughtered innocents just a month prior? Yes they would be forced into it by one side but the other would end the same in their eyes. Am I wrong? Recent history on this is not exactly the material good feelings are made of.
There probably no definitely were those who didn’t wish to comply with revolting. Its easy to think rationally when its not a life or death decision for yourself. In the situation we have here, I personally wouldn’t see a life option in this decision making so why fight the tide?