The Completion of the Reclaiming

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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Wherein I make the argument that the Reclaiming is already complete:

So. The Reclaiming. The thing that the angry Minmatar, and the paranoid Caldari, and the deviant Gallente believe looms over them like a hanging looming thing. Maybe a fruit. Or a hammer. You know, that thing that was in the mythology. No, that was a sword, wasn’t it ? that was dangling ? Anyway, it’s not important right now.

What is important, is that the other peoples of the cluster live in Fear that the Reclaiming is going to happen to them, and that everything they care about shall be destroyed underfoot of the stomping boots of Imperial Paladins.

This fear is born out of the Book of Reclaiming in the Scriptures, where it quite clearly states the following:
"I give to you the destiny of Faith,
And you will bring its message to every planet of every star in the heavens:
Go forth, conquer in my Name, and reclaim that which I have given."

Now, the fearful masses of the heathen sinners, believe that the golden Boot of the Empire shall squash them like a sinful insect. As if insects are capable of sin - being creatures of pure instinct and no reason, they cannot sin, they merely act. Why, it is like accusing a Slaver hound of being naked in a public place. They have no concept of clothing, therefore nudity means nothing to them.

Anyway, the important thing here, is that there is a comma, after the “conquer in my Name” bit. Which is Important.

So, conquering is not, by the existence of that comma, a requirement for the Reclaiming to be complete. So the fears of the heathens are unwarranted. Anyway, that’s not quite the point I was going to make.

The point I was going to make is this:

In that same passage, it says to “Bring its message to every planet of every star”.

Now then, the cluster of New Eden is now fully explored. Humanity has reached everywhere reachable by the stargate network. Unlike the time prior to the encountering of the Gallente and Caldari, where vast areas of space were unknown to the Amarr.

So, we can see that within New Eden, there is not one single planet that is unaware of the existence of the Amarr faith.

Thus, the Reclaiming of New Eden is complete. The message has been brought to every planet of every star.

Now then, if we look elsewhere in the Scriptures, we find that it states:
"To know the true path, but yet, to never follow it. That is possibly the gravest sin"

Which means that the poor heathens that are aware of the existence of the Amarr faith, but choose not to follow it, are committing a grave sin. And Sinners must be Saved. And the route to being Saved is to embrace God’s love.

Thus, the Reclaiming by Force has already been completed. The heathen peoples of New Eden have no reason to fear the Golden Boot.

All that remains, is for them to embrace God’s love, and be Saved.

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Your God has a funny way of showing love, don’t it?

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And how precisely are you going to have us “embrace God’s love”, if not by the sword? Because a whole lot of us see no reason to embrace it willingly!
Perhaps I am misreading your words, but it sounds to me like you are preaching a reclaiming without calling it a reclaiming. “The reclaiming is complete, now we just have to force the sinners to convert.”
…Well, wasn’t that the point of the Reclaiming all along?!
As an open and proud sinner, I am not sure I see any difference here. Certainly no improvement.

And I also wish to add that the Scriptures seem to leave room for choice more often, the problem to me is not solely what the Scriptures command (though that’s certainly a big part of my beef with the Empire), the problem is the way the Empire CHOSE to execute those commands, namely violently and with a shocking disregard for the sanctity of life. The Empire can also choose to perform its duties differently, but it’s always had that choice, hasn’t it?

So you are right, we have no reason to fear the boot of a god who may quite well not exist. The boot of the Empire, however…

P.S: “God’s love” is the punchline to a bad joke.

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While yes, the Reclaiming is done in more ways than just force, it is fallacious to say that it is complete and no longer necessary. The enemies of the outside have to be defeated, not simply ‘informed’, and Amarr must rule the worlds of the heavens. The universe will not be whole until all of creation is part of the Amarr Empire. Force may no longer be the appropriate way to do this, but it cannot be interpreted that the use of force is in any way “complete” already. And certainly the Reclaiming is not complete, because the Reclaiming is not some mere application of force, but the wholeness of bringing of creation back into unity with God and Amarr - defeating and controlling the enemies within ourselves and without, cultivating the spirit of mankind.

I believe it is also a misnomer to say that ‘to know the true path but to never follow it’ refers in any way to the heathen. Know in this instance should be interpreted as true understanding, not simple awareness. I believe it speaks of condemnation of faithful who refuse to uphold the duties of their faith, and apostates, not the heathens who, while knowing of the faith, do not truly know the faith. They must be taught before they can reach that level of understanding.

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By preaching at you at great length.

Maybe also some of those pastries and other baked goods you get in those bakeries in Dam-Torsad, you know, the ones with the little roll of paper with inspiring Scripture quotes on them.

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While your offer of pastries is very tempting…Do you see the point? What happens if you preach at me, and I refuse? What then? Won’t it just be back to the way of the sword anyway? And if so, what really changes?

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Then I preach at you again. At even greater length.

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Dare I ask, Valerie, why should I praise your God?

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All right, ms.Valate, I admit I like that. I would much rather this battle be fought with words then with lasers and autocannons.

Still, I truly wish to know, what is the “plan” for those who will never convert? Are you contend to let possibly billions and entire civilizations live out their lives while you preach at them?

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I was wondering this, since as an Intaki I have no need of the Amarr God to be reborn.

Note that though my inuendo centres are screaming at me, I’ll avoid discussions of great length out of respect.

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The way I see it, I can refute everything she says, she says more I can refute that. It won’t end until the point where everything is refuted.

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I have no problem with theologies in general, but almost always have a problem with the religions used to implement them. Seemingly always for the benefit of those at the top, whilst claming it’s for the good of the ‘meek’.

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Oh ya, even Amarr wouldn’t be as bad if they accepted boundaries on other groups personal beliefs. Unfortunately they don’t.

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I refute this.

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After all these years, I still come back to the same Valerie. It almost gives comfort.

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She’s a blooder. I wouldn’t confuse her particular insane blather with the Rite, its tenets and underlying motivations.

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Ultimately… no. No matter how persuasive, no matter how persistent, the Empire will always run into those it cannot convert. And no matter how much Valerie would like us to believe otherwise, the Amarr were not charged with ‘the Proclaiming’. Their divine mandate is to “Reclaim” all of humanity. Bringing a message is not ‘reclaiming’. Reclaiming is taking. It is ‘claiming again’.

The Amarr are tasked with laying claim to all of us in the name of their god, and the mechanism proscribed for it is conquest. Conquest is the message that they were to bring, to inform the cluster of their ‘destiny of faith’. And in a move that surprises nobody, they only decided ‘maybe conquest isn’t how we’re supposed to do it now’ after it became clear they couldn’t do it.

They changed the rules so they could claim they hadn’t failed, and claim their infallible god who told them to conquer isn’t a hoax, a lie. And now they’re saying ‘well, we can do it without violence’. It’s another hoax, another lie. Eventually, they will run out of people willing to listen. When that happens, what will they do?

They won’t simply accept ‘well, we did what we could, job’s done’. And really, if they did, they’d be pretty lousy followers of their god. The Scripture doesn’t say to reclaim everyone who’s alive ‘now’. If they ever accept that even one person can remain free, they’re abandoning their divine mandate. So they’ll change the rules again. They will go back to overt, extroverted violence.

Because, of course, they’ve never abandoned violence… they just cover it up. They engage in covert raids while their rulers swear those raids are unsanctioned. They continue to operate ‘breeding facilities’. They continue to perpetrate violence and systemic abuse on trillions of human beings.

Make no mistake: the use of force is very much still a part of their Reclaiming. And that’s not even the silliest bit of what Valerie’s trying to push here.

Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that Valerie’s right, and there are no planets in New Eden where they haven’t been exposed to the Amarr faith. This cluster is not the only stars in the heavens. The visible universe is billions of light-years across. The most distant specks of light, the most far-flung galaxies we can see… they’re charged with conquering all of that, too.

To Reclaim, not Proclaim.

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Conquest has many definitions and even interpreting it solely militarily it can be accomplished through many means.

Furthermore, the Reclaiming is many things more than just the conversion and integration of foreign peoples.

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Conquest as the means for bringing a message means conquest of others. And while I’m sure the Reclaiming means more than just that external focus, it still includes it.

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I , for one, would have expected that Arrendis, of all people, would appreciate how the insertion of that comma changes the overall meaning.

Because you know, she is a massive, figuratively that is, not literally, pedant.

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