And I didn’t ask if you were ‘on the same side’ as them.
How about you answer the question, instead of answering a bunch of things you’d like me to have asked.
Really? Because they did that once. It didn’t get us to stop.
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I don’t see it as a reasonable question, Arrendis. I’m not obliged to take your bait.
And about the Elder Fleet? It nearly resulted in all-out war. There won’t be any proxy war half or quarter-measures next time I don’t think, particularly if your next version’s that much bigger.
And there aren’t, relatively speaking, all that terribly many of you.
If the Empire retains any significant percentage of its strength by the end … you’ll lose for keeps.
You think you’re encouraging reforms by pointing a gun. The one you’re encouraging is Lady Admiral Mitara Newelle-- House Sarum. Making it look like war is the only way, like if I want to keep you from murdering those dear to me I need to step up and help weaken your people by culling your young and strong and eager until your society can barely stand without a Federal prop.
And it’s not like I don’t have any ability to do something about that. I just haven’t really wanted to, because I don’t think it’s very necessary or productive.
It should be obvious whose idea of hope for Amarr you’re supporting, Arrendis. Notice which one you’re kicking around.
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That would require undocking and fighting. This isn’t a trait you or yours possess.
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The person who invented the IGS deserves an award for coming up with the most successful method of neutralizing the dangers of rogue Capsuleers. Just give them a way to argue over the GalNet.
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You’re not worth my time, Miz. I’d resent losing a ship to you, and I’d feel bad for your crew if I won.
To me you’re noise and annoyance. Nothing worth killing someone over unless I have orders otherwise.
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And yet, you’re on public record throwing crew away. More importantly, on record being right there as others of your alliance dies horribly without protection or succor. You choose to abandon your comrades to my tender mercies, when you could have protected them if you had even a tenth of what you claim you do here and elsewhere.
Where is this ‘warrior’? This ‘falcon’ on a wrist? Where’s this bird of prey, this raptor?
… cowering behind a cloak, abandoning her own.
No Aria dear, you’re not capable of ‘culling’ much of anything, little weakling.
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What’s unreasonable about it?
I’m telling you that right now, the largest fleet in the cluster is a gun, pointed at the heads of my family. The Empire is currently, as we speak, conducting slaving raids into the Republic. The Imperial Fleet is attacking the Republic right now. And the most—the most—that the Amarr will do is tut dourly about it and insist that if these rogue elements are apprehended, they’ll be dealt with most severely… ignoring the sheer insanity of trying to claim that this kind of sustained, widespread raiding is ‘just a few rogue ship Captains’. And, of course, ignoring just how insulting that kind of claim is[1].
So no, Aria, I’m not the one pointing a gun. I’m the one saying that if they don’t stop firing the gun, they’re going to find one pointed back at them. If you want to keep those dear to you from being “murdered”, maybe you should convince them all to stop murdering us.
But you can’t. Just like you don’t have any ability to do anything about weakening my people by culling our young and strong and eager. Baseliner crews in the warzone are just like the capsuleers there: They’re mercenaries, spouting platitudes while they chase ISK, and not by any measure guaranteed to be members of any specific nationality.
But no, Aria, I’m not kicking you around. I’m asking you a very simple question. One you’ve labelled ‘unreasonable’, as if you yourself think saying ‘rape is wrong’ is unreasonable.
So again: What do you see as unreasonable about the question of supporting rapists?
- And you know, for people who like to bray on about being ‘honorable’ and ‘noble’, that kind of blatant, transparent lying… is neither. It is craven and it is contemptible. It is weakness made manifest.
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We know that in an all out brawl the amarr would win, but that assumes that we fight them conveniently. More then likely we would adopt a scorched earth policy while using whatever means necessary to deal as much death and destruction of amarrian populations, industry, and infrastructure as possible including using biological weapons to render entire planets uninhabitable. We won’t win, but we will make sure the amarr lose.
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That seems more likely…
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When all their forces are diverted to various frontlines, there’s also quite a few trillion slaves out there under a great deal less scrutiny. Hard to say how many are broken or not, but you just know there’d be a significant strain on the Empire’s war economy when most of it suddenly rises up. This time knowing there’s free brothers and sisters out there to give a hand, knowing it has been done successfully before.
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Almost like enslaving the Minmatar is akin to willingly giving yourself cancer. The amarr are not the most intelligent bunch, are they?
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There is that joke about the definition of insanity.
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I joined the Falcons to prove my strength, Miz. If that part of me were dead, I wouldn’t cry over it. What I’ve sought in SFRIM was quite different.
And it’s pretty funny that you think you can provoke me. Arrendis is testing our friendship by goading me, but she can do so because I actually kind of care what she thinks. She’s my friend. Even if she’s pretty hard on me about this stuff.
I’d started to get pretty mad at her, but … the opposite of affection isn’t hate. It’s apathy.
Thanks for reminding me of that.
All right; with Miz as a palette cleanser maybe I can take another look at this.
So-- what’s unreasonable about it … it’s kind of like an MIO officer or someone asking you if you’ve stopped Sabik practice or something-- it presumes that I do support rapists, and naturally you’ll claim with your usual bluntness that I necessarily do by supporting the Amarr.
But of course I don’t see it that way, and wouldn’t-- and you already know that. The Directrix isn’t herself a rapist; Lord Avarr isn’t a rapist (and if you insist otherwise the next time I find you frozen and trapped in a “good idea at the time” sort of costume I will pour drinks down your helmet until the bubbles stop); Lord Consort Newelle is not as far as I’m aware a rapist; and none of them appear to support the breeding programs.
I’m not sure there’s anyone in SFRIM who does, and I doubt they’re even all that popular in PIE.
And yet it’s undeniable that they exist, with official sanction. Actually, the thing that gets me the most is something a little different, maybe because it’s so … complicated. Do you remember Lady R’kard? “Goldfinch?” Exotic beauty, acquired as a slave, then married and freed (in principle) by her Holder?
The whole thing … just … it just makes my skin want to crawl off and hide. (And I’m aware that it’s way less objectively awful in terms of volume of suffering than those breeding camps. It still makes me cringe extra, maybe it’s because I’m kind of automatically considered “exotic” myself?)
But I can’t leave, or turn away. Your approach has the merit of straightforwardness, Arrendis, but it’s not going to work. Rhetoric and hypotheticals aside, the Republic isn’t going to do what you’re hoping for, and neither is anyone else in the numbers you’d need. More and more, it looks like your nation’s starting to realize it’s got troubles of its own.
It’s not going to work. And if it did, in part … we’ve discussed what the Amarrian error state is, right? Amarr can treat slaves badly, but Sabik? And if the Empire collapses, you’re going to have … a lot of those, I expect. Out of everything about the Empire, that’s probably what scares me the most: that underlying potential. It seems to scare the Amarr, too.
So, sure, I guess you could say that I support rapists, in that they’re over here and doing their awful thing. But it’s not the rapists I’m aiming to support; they’re in and part of the Empire, and it’s hard to separate one from the other, so it’s hard to support the one without supporting the other. And, as the Directrix is loyal to the Empire, it’s hard to support her without supporting them.
Even so, I have my part to play. And while I might not very much like all that happens here-- might be actively horrified by some of it-- I don’t see a better way. Because I don’t see good coming out of your approach, Arrendis, and because a certain source of a lot of good in the Empire could maybe use someone worth trusting.
So that’s what I’ll try to be.
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You have to admit, it was a really good costume.
And no, I don’t think either one of them are rapists. But as you acknowledge, the people they support are, either through their own actions or the system they have a hand in overseeing. ‘Oh, it’s just a conspiracy to commit billions of rapes’ isn’t exactly a better thing, you know?
And no, I don’t expect you to leave, or turn away. I expect you to be honest, and to answer the question, clear-eyed, when it’s posed to you, even if it leads to a follow-up you find uncomfortable. Because—contrary to your assumption—I don’t presume that you support rapists. I know that you support citizens and minor nobles of the Amarr who, so far as I’ve been able to ascertain, neither engage in, nor promote, that sort of behavior.
I also don’t think that you believe you should support rapists. And critically, the question was never about whether you support rapists, but should you. This may be my own innate optimism and hopeful nature here[1], but I personally choose to believe that you’re making what you feel to be the choice with the fewest negatives[2].
My approach, on our end, is preparedness, Aria. I may believe we’d be best served with a massive, coordinated first-strike to cripple the Empire and then concentrate our forces to attack theirs piecemeal, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s going to happen. And since it isn’t going to happen, the Republic needs to be engaging in a sustainable military build-up and modernization program, while engaging the Empire diplomatically, and addressing our internal socio-economic issues.
You make a lot of assumptions about people. You assume people are trying to trick you, or trap you. You, and others, especially make that assumption of me. You assumed here that I was trying to trick you into some kind of catch-22. Instead, I just wanted you to answer the question that was actually asked.
As for ‘my approach’ with regard to the Empire… I already told you what my motives in this discussion were, Aria:
That’s not just about slavery on its own, you know. It also applies to getting them to take a long, hard look at themselves in respect to a culture of systemic, literal, often violent rape. But how can they be expected to confront the monstrosity of their own actions if the outsiders among them can’t even bring themselves to name those actions for what they are, and to say ‘this is wrong’?
Your silence is taken as tacit approval. If you want change from within, it will never come about because of people being nice about it. It never has. Change only comes when the status quo is disrupted.
- As we’ve discussed, that innate optimism is a big and important part of why I hold humanity in such contempt. Having such low expectations makes it very easy for humanity to exceed them, which I have significant faith in happening. It’s a bit of cognitive dissonance, I admit—expecting people to be utter crap so I can expect people to not be utter crap—but it keeps me smiling.
- That’s different from choosing a good thing, mind you. Just because something’s the least-bad doesn’t make it good.
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Okay, sure, but … leaving the present conversation aside, are you really saying that you don’t, haven’t, and won’t?
I mostly get into these discussions as ways of exploring realities, and some realities get kind of painful or difficult to discuss. Historically, you’ve kind of approached them as a game-- a bit of fun. You’ve said so yourself, and more than once. I know this is one topic that you’re pretty serious about, but the tactics you use aren’t always easy to distinguish.
It’s also not all that long ago that you were enjoying hurting me, and while you seemed to feel I was benefiting by becoming “tougher” that’s not a thing I ever asked or wanted from you. And it’s something it started to look for a while like you might be doing again, tonight.
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I’m saying you shouldn’t make assumptions. You could, you know, just ask what it is I’m getting at.
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Arrendis, there is nobody who doesn’t make assumptions. (I’m assuming right now that you won’t be able to find an example, but I’m pretty confident you won’t.)
But sure, if I’m really not sure I can ask. The problem is noticing when that’s the case.
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Doesn’t mean they should. 
Heck, you can askwhen you think you know, too. You might be surprised by what you learn.
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I’m reasonably confident you’ll tell me whether I ask or not, being as you’re a gleefully confessed pedant (a quality I might share in lesser degree). But sure.
Anyway, I’m tired, and a little grumpy, and going to bed.
Please be well, Arrendis.
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Supporting the lesser evil is still supporting evil, and in fact makes you a major part of the reason why life doesn’t get better for a lot of people. The line between pragmatism and cowardice can be very thin indeed, and in this case I feel entire empires have confused the latter for the former.
This is, unfortunately, true. It is becoming increasingly clear that Shakor is really no improvement over Midular when it comes to dealing with the Amarr issue - And can we go ahead and call the Amarr Empire an issue as it exists right now?
But the odds of the Empire “changing from within” are even smaller then the Republic finally taking action. The Amarr Empire has not changed for thousands of years, what kind of arrogance and ignorance does it take for someone to think they’re going to change it now? What, because you’ve got a shiny capsule? Come on, that isn’t realistic.
Those who want change from within are paying lip service to the concept of making things better without exposing themselves to the hardships of actually taking action, i.e cowardice. Unless they have a real, actionable plan with realistic prospects of succeeding, but I am yet to even hear rumors of such a plan and highly suspect nobody actually has one, even if a select few have deluded themselves into thinking they do.
Here is the core point I want to make though:
Yes. Very true. If the Empire collapses, that area of space will be absolute hell. For a while.
But it WILL get better.
It will. Over time, the Republic and the other Empires will clear away the cults and the anarchy that erupts, they will resettle those worlds or assist the newly freed people, Amarr and Minmatar alike I hope, in founding a new, fair, and more just society. A mess of that scale won’t remain a mess forever.
It will get better. And that is not a prospect that exists under the current Amarr Empire.
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