It still sounds like a terrible thing, being forced to make that choice.
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Exile is not a kindness. But given what I have seen of those cast out, I canât help but wonder if a service was done to them.
So, again, here comes a slaver using passive-aggressive propaganda, disguised as a quest for understanding, to insinuate how horrible and barbaric our traditions are in an attempt to deflect from how horrible and barbaric their society is.
For the final time; there is no moral equivalence between how so-called bad Voluval marks are sometimes (and rarely in todayâs Republic) handled by certain clans versus the abhorrent, institutionalized and universally condemned practices (e.g. multi-generational slavery, slave âbreedingâ facilities, waging wars of conquest, feudalism, etc.) that Amarr society is built upon.
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I think you misunderstand the service I speak of; adversity endured gives strength. Of all those âof the tribesâ I have ever encountered, the outcasts alone have been truly free.
The Republic still defines itself in opposition to the Empire, you canât even defend the Voluval without using us to give you context.
Even unchained still a slave.
Among the outcasts I saw something different, for all their brutality, their poverty, they they live without petty resentment.
None are turned away, nobody merely tolerated, all who dwell there kin.
What I wished to understand is how by accident a people came to be everything the Republic wishes to, populated only by those unwelcome among its tribes.
How deep a hole are you standing in, for Anabellaâs point to fly so far over your head?
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After she made it so many times I began ducking. She has no more inclination to a discussion on the reclaiming than to speak of the Voluval without referencing her litany of grievances. Relevant as her points may be to another discussion, they arenât to this one.
I think you misunderstand practically everything that has been said in this thread.
The Voluval has no need to be defended. We are simply explaining some of the peculiarities of the ritual. It is not for you or any one else not Matari to judge. You should count yourself satisfied that you have received any answers at all on the subject.
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Whether it needed to be defended or not, it has been. Poorly
As for all the rest I have no more right to judge your society than you do mine. I was curious what spurred the tribes to waste such potential. My curiosity is sated, and I have no particular outrage; the world is cruel.
I hope in future you will view any answers you receive on reclaiming with similar satisfaction, I respect the stance that the internal affairs of a nation are its own.
Comparisons with the Empire come because we are speaking to you. We give you context within your own scope of experience. Here, let me offer you the simplest and most direct defense of the Voluval that does not attempt to give listener-specific context. I promise you, this will seem perfectly clear to the Matari:
Because it is.
So you can take your self-aggrandizing âyou need us to give you contextâ, and shove it up your Empress.
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Clearly only you had time for adequate brevity.
Not true. Your society actively attempts to enslave and destroy ours. I think we have a bit of ground to stand on with regards to criticizing you.
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Iâd like to thank Cain Aloga for explaining. I agree that a consequence chosen when an oath is taken can be enforced.
I also find it a little uncomfortable how the listeners jumped to the conclusion that the choice would always be on the pain of exile. That is not what he said. I feel it would have been enough to point out that sometimes this is the case, and not impose it on his clan when he did not say so.
In addition: I made a separate thread on this originally for a reason. Part of that reason was to distance my comment from the âno u!â -discussion with the enemy. Newsflash: the Amarr would be my enemy even if you could prove beyond any doubt that they are morally and economically superior, apart from the fact that they want to Reclaim me and stop my culture from existing. This war is not a competition about who are the better people.
Yassavi, for the record, you are behaving abysmally by Minmatar stardards: attacking peopleâs customs, pretending knowledge about everyone because you know someone, prying for private information not freely given. You come from a monolithic religion and it shows, but one has to wonder how in a Mary hell have you actually managed to stay in contact with anyone with a clan background long enough to gain what little knowledge you have. I will gladly explain more, but only if you approach it in a true spirit of learning, not to find a PR weapon.
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Heck, in this context, he didnât even say anything about exile, I did.
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I hesitate to speak on this, because the word âdiscriminationâ was used, and that is usually a sign of the exact kind of imposing cultural superiority I am trying to avoid, butâŚ
If it was the case that individuals with undesirable or incompatible Marks find new lives outside of the tribes more often than others (and I donât know for certain that this is the case), then the system is working as intended. We would want to keep those gifted and compatible more often than others, right, and let go of those not wishing to live in accordance to Fate and their bloodâs tradition? And the people emigrating, while no doubt finding it hard work, do not face the kind of hardships Bad Marks used to bring for all bearers. Living conditions in the Federation are, in my understanding, quite comparable to those on Matar.
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We had not actively done so in some time, and current affairs have been done to death elsewhere.
If it was felt that I was attacking tribal customs, then I both owe an apology and in pique expressed myself inadequately.
Whatever the intent on both parties, âno u!â Raises its head with some frequency. Instead of treating that thread with as much consideration as due, I conflated Ms Rella and the Republic. Which was unworthy.
I would dispute the prying, I asked precisely one question. Your perception that I have been insincere may be heightened by my knowing what I freely concede is an answer, not the answer.
To give some context to my hard-headedness on this topic, for one born to âa monolithic religionâ, the actions of some represent us all.
I could tell you in all sincerity that breeding facilities are not the norm, that the tales of the breadth of the most severe practices are largely unsubstantiated hyperbole, and slaves in the Empire in most respects live very much like the poor everywhere else.
To do that though would be to deny who we are. To borrow terminology from your compatriot, the reclaiming is.
The responsibility of those of my class is not to justify it, but to ensure the Empire remains worth the many costs it will always incur.
What I sought was not a weapon or advantage, merely an acceptance that the culture that gives birth to perhaps the fiercest defenders of your people has its own costs, and perhaps its own imperative for wise leadership to justify them.
Your PR attempt leaves a lot to be desired.
Raids on our population by the Empire are a common occurrence, though they are denied by the Amarr.
Breeding facilities are the norm, as they can be found without much trouble and with great frequency. Even if the ones we find in mission pockets are all there are, it is still too staggeringly common an occurrence to be brushed off as ânot the normâ.
And âthe culture that has given birth to our fiercest defendersâ has only incurred the costs it has because the Amarr destroyed any context we had for those rituals and traditions after they enslaved our people. What we do or do not accept about our own culture is no longer of any concern to the Amarr.
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That should be none of your concern.
Now, I donât know how to make it any clearer that I wish you all to take the âno u!â to somewhere else, so I will simply stop answering to it.
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Like this.
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Though there has been a fair amount of the predictable rancour, I should like to offer my gratitude for much of the discussion here.
My only knowledge of the âVoluvalâ tradition was gathered from infrequent visits to my grandmotherâs quarters when granted leave from training. Her great-grandmother had been a âfreeâ Minmatar and the stories told by that generation had been handed down as far as my own time. I strongly suspected that the process had not been without some loss of fidelity, or influence from matters of the Faith.
It was claimed that the mark was supernatural in origin, a visible curse, so to speak. Those cruelly marked by divine Judgement were to be shunned at all costs by their families, to the extent of becoming grey spirits, mere shadowy demons on the fringe of being, but could be brought to God by arduous service and thus could be welcomed by the Faithful if they embraced the message of Scripture. Were these Abandoned to be left among the Minmatar, they would be lost in endless, dank mists.
Of course, none of us had ever seen anyone with any sort of tattoo, so these stories of the Damned and their ghost-like existence were quite exciting to us as young boys. My grandmother was an exceptional storyteller and could produce quite the shiver on a cold winterâs candlelit night, even among we aspirant warriors.
I see that as is often the case with oral tradition, there are some shadowy truths and some embellishments. The conventions of my ancient forebears continue to fascinate, so I give due thanks to those who have spoken so eloquently.
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Thank you very much for sharing your esteemed grandmotherâs stories, these were very interesting.
My clan believes that when a person dies, before rites of death are performed and kin lets them go in their hearts, they wander the tribal lands as ghosts, that can turn malevolent or be snatched by the Amarrian God. Thus we must never abandon our dead without proper letting-go, but we also must not cling to memories of those gone ahead but go on with our lives. âFunâ fact: capsuleers are âghostsâ in this sense, dead but not gone.
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