Were any of those your family? I may never have met her, but she was kin to me. It matters differently in different cultures, Pieter. The heart of a tribe is no mere leader, CEO or Empress. They’re…
… well, they’re kin. And we take that seriously, no matter what we may think of them.
Pardon, as your personal history is quite hard to pinpoint from any sources I have at hand, but from your words I gather you were one of those rescued by the Elder Fleets? I did not know this, or at the very least if I ever heard of it from somewhere it did not catch my attention. In any case, then, you weren’t there when there were talks of “Minmatar Exodus to Federation” - which Midular managed to curb, by the way, and you weren’t there when Karishal Muritor declared himself in open revolt against the Republic, invoking the name of the Defiants - of all things - and his subsequent death; The responsibility of which Karin Midular claimed, despite already being considerably unpopular at the time. She took upon herself considerable hatred, justified or not, to keep the Republic from falling. To me, that is standing up for ones decisions, and certainly not actions of a “spineless appeaser.”
While I’m not comfortable using your absence which you had no control over as an argument against you, but no, you were not there to see anything. You have little to no personal frame of reference to any of this - I don’t know what you could have known about Republic’s internal politics while you were a slave, but it can’t have been much, after all, knowledge is power. So I am forced to assume that all you have is what you’ve been told after you were rescued, and considering your experiences, it is no surprise you’d most readily accept all the slander that was around about Midular at the time.
I wonder then, what you mean with her “fearing the lesser and difficult evils chasing her into greater but easier evils”, as I can’t really piece together anything that would fit with this assertion. Maybe it’s really obvious once you tell me, though. And “Too weak to endure hardships for the sakes of the chained?” Am I correct in thinking that this pertains to your fetish of a full-scale war with the Amarr? That she would not start one? That she actually made deals with the Amarr and Ammatar? Because she endured her fair share of hardships before becoming the Ray of Matar. She was a slave-child herself. Clanless. And she persevered despite those hardships. The last thing I would call her is “weak.” Surely you know all this, but I’m mentioning these for the benefit of those who do not.
Anyway, I’m probably reaching, I’m just guessing what you mean because as I have established I believe in the past, your way of thinking is something I have difficulty of grasping at the best of times. Usually it is due to overthinking and overinterpreting, but right now I have honestly no clue what your accusations against her mean.
Please do explain yourself in better detail, I’d be glad to hear it. Or, if you have done so in the past somewhere, a relevant hyperlink would do just as well.
Spoken like a proper Shakorite. Alternate future history is always a tricky subject to tackle; We have no way of knowing what would have happened if she got her way. Had she not been torpedoed at almost every turn towards the end of her career as a Prime Minister by Shakor, Krusual and Brutor representatives and corrupt politicians, agents of foreign powers, had all of this not made the Republic government incredibly ineffective bureaucratic machine despite working for nearly a century already… What would have happened then? What if she had managed to secure peace with the Ammatar, well, peacefully? What if, what if, what if. We will never know what would have become of the Republic that would have followed a Gallentean style democracy into perpetuity.
Well, in the end, the Elders - these better men and women - had different plans. And I’m not one to criticize them in that the Tribal Republic has so far been remarkably more stable than the old democratic one, for the short time it has existed. And I approve of our current form government, sans Sanmatar himself, but he is… Toothless now, so I suppose that’s something. I am also of the opinion that the old government was too liable for being purchased, being corrupted - in part demonstrated by the Sanmatar himself. I do not weep for the old Republic, no, but I am a bit mournful of its ideals, and that of Midular’s ideals. Some have survived into the new era, some have not.
I would like to raise the point of contention that the Elder Fleet - be as it may for incredibly unforeseen events - also abandoned countless men and women. They grabbed what was left of the Starkmanir and the rest were left to rot. Worse, as I remember reading scattered reports that now cured from Vitoc, the Amarr ordered extermination of slaves that could not be properly controlled anymore in several locations. That the ground task forces of the Elder Fleet in Mekhios did the same, finding death preferable to slavery for them and slaves they could no longer rescue. Of course, opinions on this can be varied, and I cannot truly say which I would prefer - death or slavery. Perhaps I’d choose death.
In addition - Midular’s stated dream was “to unite ALL Minmatar.” While she did not spearhead fleets into the Vindication War, while she did not order fleets to partake in the Elder War (though, at that point she had already been stripped of her powers as Prime Minister), I find it incredibly unlikely that she did not have plans (By this I don’t mean she had actual, drafted plans, but the intention itself) to release all Minmatar from slavery, eventually. We never got to see what those would have been, however. And like I said just before, alternate future history is a hard subject to tackle.
I can’t argue with that. I am a freeborn. I will never understand what it is like in my bones. I was born with a proverbial golden spoon in in my mouth. But I am mere three generations away from slavery. I grew up hearing the tales of my great-grandparents. Hearing the stories of those rescued from slavery, much like you. And when I was growing up, and when I was finally a certified capsuleer, oh, I had a fury in my heart alright. Being a capsuleer, though, it changes you. You come to a world so different from what you were in before. You hear and see things, sometimes personally, you never in your mortal life would have.
It took years, but I mellowed out. I still want treedom for all the Minmatar under Amarrian control. I want freedom for all slaves under Amarrian control. But I’ve become inspired in that it can, maybe, perhaps, be achieved without lowering ourselves to the same level as the Amarr. Without sword and whip. In the thread where this veered off from, I said that whoever solves this conundrum without any unnecessary bloodshed is a genius beyond anyone I know, one that would automatically win all the Aidonis’ awards for the next century at least.
Maybe, maybe you are correct, that the only way out is through fire, brimstone and rivers of blood. But I will not accept that option until it is absolutely the last one we have.
There’s ton of other things I should address by now, but this post is getting stupidly long already. But I wanted to address these things. Whether you or anyone else responds or takes anything away from this, is up to them. I see the thread has moved on considerably since I started drafting this, hours ago.
I have to head off elsewhere now, so I’ll get you a proper reply later, but no. I predate the Elder Fleet quite significantly.
Alrighty. Well, I look forward to your reply then.
The issue here, Miz, is that family meant very little to me beyond the last few years. Strongly collective societies use different words for the bonds that tie us together - yours uses kinship through blood, but in all the ways that matter Visera Yanala was an elder of my family.
Right, let’s start here. As my previous post mentioned, I predate the Elder Fleet by quite a bit. While my age is uncertain, I left behind a couple of limbs and my slavery at some point in my late teens. I had already begun learning bits and pieces of the world beyond the Empire from the… subversive elements who scoped me out as one of the potential escapees, and after a brief hospital stay I spent somewhere between six and nine years gaining various kinds of educations in Republic and Sebiestor politics, realpolitics, geopolitics and what kind of drugs you can obtain or brew as a station rat. The latter is surprisingly useful to this day, albeit not entirely relevant here.
Before I became a capsuleer, and before the Elder Fleet occurred, I was fully integrated into the Gripdjur clan and Sebiestor tribe. I saw all that I needed to. I learned more than I wanted to. If it had been up to my Tribe, Midular in particular, at that point I would still have been a slave or dead.
She chose the easy path. The path ruled by fear of having to take a risk, in order to actually gain something other than fearful compromise after fearful compromise, each paid for in sacrificed kin who break every day. She couldn’t even do this with a measure of strength and spine, and rather cowered before even her own rather than dispense responsibility where it belonged.
I don’t think you know what a Shakorite is, then. I praise a few of his actions. The swift and proper way they dealt with the corrupt, debased and bloated criminals poisoning the Republic from within. The strike that resurrected an entire tribe from the dead and showed the Empire it had plenty to fear. The reawakening of a spirit that was dying among the tribes. Reminding the Republic that it still has a job to do, that will not be ignored.
Of course, the blind bastard failed to follow through. Idealism won the day and power ended up in the hands of doddering councils that’ll never get anything done. He managed to push the Tribes a few steps away from the brink of destruction by stagnated corruption and cowardice, but failed to maintain the momentum.
No, Shakorite is a poor descriptor here. He didn’t go anywhere near far enough.
Are you trying to make a point out of a liberation fleet successfully getting as many as they could out, including the mission objectives, is somehow failing because they didn’t have the space and ships for all the trillions, as well as needing to destroy the entire Amarr Navy in the process?
Are you really blaming the Elder Fleet for the Empire exterminating those they now lost control of when the Vitoxin was no longer effective?
As for the rest, well if they prefer to live on their knees rather than die on their feet, I see no loss anyway.
Mmm, because wishes and dreams are all that matters, and that makes the inaction that costs us thousands of our people breaking every single day okay. It’s not like they matter, as long as we get to sit on our behinds doing sod all and feel all civilized and peaceful about it, huh? I mean, we wish they were free and that’s all that’s needed, isn’t it?
Convenient. By the time it is the last option remaining, there won’t be anyone left to free. Only broken husks of what was. Well, until the Empire revs up their Reclaiming again and comes for your loved ones to replenish their stocks.
So what you’re saying is that you’ve chosen the path of inaction, instead of lifting a finger to save the enslaved kin which are on the Amarr planets and all that, the thing you accuse Midular of doing ?
Is that what I’m saying? Oh dear, I wonder what I’ve been up to when not in the pod then.
You really are downright awful at trying to needle people, aren’t you?
just rattling your cage, dear.
Fair enough, you do have some personal frame of reference. I suppose it would be my duty to then say that I think it’s a little bent because of your past, but I won’t push the issue. I doubt it would lead to anything constructive, at least.
Now, though, if I understand you correctly, your criticism on her focuses on her unwillingness to use force, and the well known incident of trying to ban the Khumaak as an ornament; in other words, not wanting to provoke the Amarr in any way. That in your opinion, she did not put her foot down like she should have, on issues you consider important? I guess you could call that the “easy path”, if you wanted to.
However, you should know as well as I, that the issue of Republic attacking the Amarr or even back then, the Ammatar Mandate, is a very complicated issue, gone over in detail in many threads before this one, I’m sure.
In essence, though, I consider it unfair that you criticize her for not doing the same thing each and every Minmatar leader before her and after her has not done.
I was referencing the way you demeaned Karin Midular, which was the favorite hobby of Malaetu Shakor and his fanboy crew back in the day.
But all that was, at least to my understanding, the Elders doing. Shakor was just their puppet in the Elder War - possibly before, now that you think about it. As much as I don’t like Shakor, then, I consider it unfair you blame him for not acting decisively enough. After all, the Elders were running the show at the time. If you want to direct your anger at someone, something, aim it at the Elders. Though it might be hard, since they are surprisingly again, nowhere to be found.
Of course not, dummy. I cannot say for certain, but certainly it would seem that the Elder Fleet was aiming to do exactly what you wanted, permanently cut the throat of the Empire, so that they could not be a danger to anyone again. In that, they failed, while as said, not entirely by their own fault but “an act of God”, as the Amarr put it.
And that was not even the main point. How can you criticize others for abandoning countless men and women, when the Elder Fleet, the greatest show of force to date, the closest thing to the vaunted retribution of the Minmatar, could “only” save some hundreds of millions? (Of course, even that many is incredible, but a fraction of the trillions that needed to be saved)
And they prioritized as previously said, people of “high symbolical value.” One could argue, through your own logic as I’ve understood it, that they specifically abandoned almost anyone else. I do not hold that against the Starkmanir, by the way, it was not their fault that they were politically and culturally extremely important.
No. What I’m saying though, that if the only objective was to secure the Starkmanir, indiscriminate Insorum spreading in planetary and station atmospheres to populations they were not even going to save was a death sentence. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and it was a hectic chaos, who knows for sure what was planned instead of how everything turned out.
Yes, I remember you saying this before. I do not agree with it, but as I acknowledged, I do not share your experiences either, so it is easy for me to say.
Well, if we’re being cold and calculating and not dreamers here, even if thousands break every day, it would take just ~10 billion years for all to break. Even with exponential increases, at the very least several millennia.
Anyway, I have not once, not ever, said that it is “okay” for the Amarr hold slaves. That the breaking of kin is just dandy. That they do not matter. But this sentiment of condemning perceived inaction is something you have also displayed before, and I find it incredibly immature and short sighted.
Considering what you’ve told me about yourself and “subversive elements”, it should be a no brainer then, that a lot is being done behind the scenes, all the time. The official governments officially deny doing anything all the time. But we, we would not know if the next Elder Invasion was scheduled to launch tomorrow. Much like despite all, both battles of Caldari Prime, the Elder War, the Amarr incursion in to Federation space, all came as total surprises, despite everyone always saying that we are not preparing anything, honest.
And if we’re theorycrafting here, unprepared assaults on signifigantly stronger enemies are a sure way to lose, and leave those left behind in greater danger. Unless you want every man, woman and child in the Republic to fight to the last Minmatar standing? Because at least we’d all be free in death.
Well, you’re welcome to hold that view. I’m not required to share it, and I’m glad that few do.
I would say I have the benefit of having experienced both perspectives to the point where they’re engraved in my bones. My past informs me. I carry physical reminders of what those the Republic willingly sacrifice for nothing have to endure. I would argue this is a perspective that should carry weight, and those who do not have those experiences probably should be cognizant of the severe gap in the knowledge they base their views on.
Why? I criticize Shakor for failing to follow up on his actions. I criticize the Tribal Council for failing and abandoning my people. The failure being endemic does not make it less of a failure. It’d be rather unfair to those she betrayed and abandoned if I gave her a special pass for being the Ray, while criticizing all the others that failed in the same way.
I’ve flown in significantly larger fleets than what scant reports we’ve had of the Elder Fleet showed. Perhaps it did try to do these things, but I highly doubt that was the objective. No one who can fly those kinds of vessels and command them are that stupid, thinking it’d be sufficient for the task unless the opponent somehow completely failed to mobilize.
A headshot that’d put the Empire on their back feet perhaps, but hardly a killing stroke. No, I think it achieved its objective and was going for bonuses until Jammies pulled a superweapon out of her arse. Interestingly enough, a superweapon that was rumored to function surprisingly similar to the Upwell version on Keepstars.
I can criticize them because the Elder Fleet actually did go out there, knocked down the defenses and brought back a significant amount of people, and the others do exactly sod all. There’s quite a bit of difference between doing what you can, and actively betraying them instead. I criticize those who sit back and don’t keep up the pressure. Those who delay, hem, haw, and appease until it’s too late and the war starts when the Empire is beyond defeat.
Death sentence? It gave them a chance. To live or die, either one as a free man or woman. Whatever it’d end up with, a violent death or successful uprising, I would rather have shackles and chains broken than remain whole, were I there.
… you don’t seem to grasp it. How many generations have passed? We’re not starting the meter from zero. There’s trillions, and so many are already broken. We’re quite literally running out of time. My own parents were zealots. They tried to stop the escape. We don’t have time to sit on our hands and do nothing. Not unless you consider sacrificing every last one of them to be the right thing to do.
Not a single one of those were wars. They were brief skirmishes. Battles at best. There hasn’t been an actual war waged in New Eden in our generation, and that is not something you can pull out of anyone’s arse. I can assure you, anyone successfully starting a war by surprise, will be someone completely and wholly unprepared because there is absolutely no way to mask that kind of logistics for that long.
You know what a surefire way to lose is? Allow a wounded enemy the time and peace required to grow vastly stronger, vastly wealthier and having vastly greater morale. The Amarr will come. If you allow them to do it on their schedule, everyone’s fuckered, because we’re sure as hell not going to outpace them. Our only chance is to kick it off as soon as possible, pay the price such a war will cost us, and bleed them to death before they become unassailable.
There simply isn’t another alternative. Peace is an impossibility when the core of the Empire’s very existence is the Reclaiming. Waiting only worsens the odds. What kind of insane miracle are you hoping for here? Our only options are bad, or guaranteed eradication.
Past colors everyone’s perceptions, including mine. Sure your past carries weight, but it is also psychological baggage. You are angry for what you appear to perceive as willing disregard. You condemn the Republic, and you claim to have all the answers. At least, answers that matter. No, sorry, but I won’t accept it. You do not get to dictate this discussion just because you have a past that has weight.
Fair enough, I guess.
Indeed, we do not know for sure what were the objectives exactly, we can only guess, and one of the strongest guesses was the extraction of the Starkmanir. But the Starkmanir were in the Ammatar Mandate, Halturzhan in the Jarizza system - considerable distance away from Sarum Prime, even with jump drives. I would say it stands to reason that they had other, weightier objectives - were it just scare tactics to invade Domain just to show that they could? But that would seem a waste of a Titan headed fleet. Mind, I am far less experienced in capital deployment than you are, my knowledge just mostly acadamic theories from more than ten years ago. And, as stated, above is all just guesswork.
I see.
The Rebellion, as you surely know, was pre-planned well in advance, with help from the Jove (or so I’ve been told) and more extensively by the Federation. The slaves in Mekhios would not have had any foreknowledge that that would be the day they might have to fight for their lives or perish trying. Sure, I suppose you could argue it gave them chance, but an Infinitesimally small one.
You would rather have your chains broken if for just the few blinks before death, but I don’t think you can demand that from everyone. I think it is easy to evoke the images of heroic or at least moving images of dying free and standing “than live on their knees”, but the actual experience varies from person to person. Some would rather live on their knees, in the hopes that one day the can stand free and not pay immediately for it with their lives. I wonder, what kind of spirit was it that had my ancestors endure slavery for centuries, rather than just have them throw themselves to the Amarr until none were left? Were they cowards, then?
Depends on how you measure generation, but if one generation is 33 years, 26,5. Meaning my great-grandparents were 22nd, What has happened in four and a half generations - or, nearly in the span of living memory, that has made more than ever lose hope in gaining freedom, that did not happen in the previous 22 generations - over seven hundred years? That we’re running out of time right the heck now, lest all are lost so fast that we don’t have time to sit on our hands (which, is still just your assertion and opinion, not a demonstratable fact) a minute longer, or actually years ago, because I’m getting recollections of you saying this same thing undefined amount of years back.
And before you start, no, this does not mean that we can count on them maintaining resistance to the brainwashing forever, but the situation can not be as dire as you love to paint it. And if the Elders believed the same as you, that the catastrophically complete cultural, spiritual loss of our kin in the Empire was imminent, they would not be standing idly by all this time. You know, our actual, known, shadow government. You might not agree with it, I might not agree with it, but it would appear they consider the price of thousands every day an acceptable exchange for trillions, later.
Well, like I said, you should perhaps start drafting a letter to your favourite Elder, because I cannot launch a war against the Amarr by myself.
I know. I’ve said as much in said thread. An enduring, lasting peace is impossible. But it could be broken after we’ve gotten our own people out… Just saying…
I do not know what kind of miracle would change things. The actual appearance of the Amarr God saying “yo stop dat ■■■■ I never told you to conquer anyone?” ¯_(ツ)_/
At the very least, it’s probably not difficult to see someone thought ‘that’s a damned good idea’.
It doesn’t have to be anything new, you know. Let’s say 1% break each year… and I know that’s a gross oversimplification, but it’s just for the purposes of simple math.
1% break per year. If we’d started with an initial enslaved Matari population of 10,000,000,000,000 (10 Trillion), then after 1,000 years, there would be 431,712,474 unbroken-but-enslaved Matari left.
431 million. Out of 10 trillion. 0.00431%
Now, it’s not 1%. It’s nothing so simple as that. Segregated populations break faster when the numbers in segregation shrink. It’s like biological extinction: each generation loses bits and pieces of the cultural memory, the ‘biodiversity’ of identity, and so has a harder time holding on to what they still have… or remembering why they resist. How fast does that kind of accretion, that acceleration of decay, happen?
Let’s say it starts out at 0.01%. 1/100 of 1%. And then each year, it increases by 1/1000th of 1% (0.001%). That’s a pretty rosy picture. After 1,000 years, that leaves us with 60 billion of the original 10 trillion left. 0.6%. If it accelerates by 0.005% every year, then after 1,000 years, we’re left with… 84 enslaved Matari who remain Matari. Not 84 million or 84,000. 84.
By the way, if it accelerates by 0.01%, just 1/100th of 1%, every year… the last unbroken Matari starts to have doubts about 764 years in, is leaning toward accepting the Amarr faith 8 years later, has a 90% chance of doing so by two decades after that, and probably never even bothered telling their own children any of the stories of their grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ legends. Oh, and by the time that happens? The annual decay rate still hasn’t hit 8%.
Each year, the number who hold on gets smaller. Every time it gets smaller, the ability to hold on is reduced. The things you’re saying? I believed them myself, not long ago. But I spent time talking with people, not just Mizhara, and seeing how things have progressed. I’ve spoken with a lot of baseliner sociologists and psychological trauma experts about it, too, in and out of the Republic.
Most of them say it’s more or less a miracle we held on long enough to rebel in the first place.
Those 3 star systems the Minmatar had at the time must have been pretty crowded at that rate.
Yes, thank you for your incredible observation, since I wasn’t blatantly overstating the starting number to keep the math simple and simultaneously make the point of ‘we didn’t start with that many’.
Go make me a damn smoothie.
Fascinating math, really. Thank you.
The thing is - the slave populations do not exist in an informational vacuum. Small bits of information trickle in, small bits trickle out. When the Amarr glassed Starkmanir Prime, and were presumed to also wipe out the Starkmanir, it is now widely considered the ignition catalyst to the Rebellion that happened 250 years later. Generations later. Similarly, then, their rescue in the Elder War, surely has traveled by word of mouth, covert operations and hidden communication devices - throughout the Empire.
One could certainly argue, that their hope - and knowledge, that there are free Minmatar out there trying to rescue them, has bolstered their resolve to keep fighting. I do not think that painting the doom and gloom around that they are breaking by the thousands, every day, is beneficial to anyone - least of all those still enslaved.
I’ve been accused of being an idealist myself, so maybe I’m just too much of an optimist and you are right. Finding the truth is difficult. But I’ll believe in the Elders, and I’ll believe in the resolve of our kin.
No, they don’t. And a lot of the information they’re getting… is ‘The Republic is not coming for you’. The Elder Fleet? ‘They saved the Starkmanir, but they didn’t save you. They don’t care about you.’
That flow of information cuts both ways. You speak of hope? What about resentment? Imagine all of the anger, all of the frustration, that Mizhara represents… but among those still enslaved. How many turn because of that information trickle?
I believe that hope is stronger than resentment. And at least I am not sowing resentment, unlike some.
If they were the only factors, it might be. But they’re not, are they? Hope isn’t just competing with resentment. It’s competing with resentment reinforced by constant propaganda, intrustive re-education, aggressive messaging, and the promise of a better life for them and their children if only they embrace the Amarr faith.
Your trickling hope is competing with the offer of far more immediate, concrete hope. The Republic is distant, remote, an abstract idea at best. The Amarr—including Matari who have converted and been emancipated—are there. They can see them, talk to them, touch them. The better life is right there for them.
That hope is the very carrot they’re being tempted with to give up on dreams that have gone unanswered for a thousand years, and it’s right in front of them. Every. Single. Day.
You’re willing to bet all of them on the hope? The failure state here is unconscionable, and the odds on your wager here are at the absolute very best grim. How about an anecdote that proves nothing, but should nicely illustrate something nonetheless.
I carry around my scars and wounds, as reminders. Not all came from Amarr, though. I lost my eyes after I was freed, after a stint as a station rat junkie. Some freed slaves of my generation were broken, but subtle enough about it that they weren’t under monitoring anymore. Their faith very much intact, to the point of zealotry, they managed to homebrew some explosives meant to trigger a chemical attack on the station. I’m not going to go into the details, because the story is long and a lot of people involved deserve more credit than I have time to give now, but the crappy prosthetic of mine proved resilient enough to reach the device and tear out certain hoses, which in turn boiled my eyes in their sockets.
Freed Minmatar, trying to kill both slave-children and freeborn for their God and Empire.
Now, this alone hardly merits any kind of conclusion on the subject, but it did make me very cautious and disciplined when it comes to processing freed slaves. There’s extensive treatment, analysis and evaluation at every step of the way in the Network’s facilities and logistics.
… and the ratio between those who can be safely released, and those who are outright threats is changing, for the worse. Every new batch, more and more come in already broken. Fewer and fewer have resisted the indoctrination. Your ‘hope’ isn’t doing much there.
No, you’re arguing for their abandonment. Arguing to not fight for them. Do you think they gain any hope when they hear their free kin preach that they should just remain chained for any reason? Do you know what instills hope? What kept the ember in our hearts fanned, back then?
It wasn’t the appeasers. It wasn’t ‘belief’. It was the whispered tales of very different symbols. The “terrorists”. The ones who would be known under names as “Bloody Hands”. The Defiants. Hope was born in the fires of the hearts who fought.
I think the most demoralizing things I’ve seen in New Eden through my years on the ground, in the Empire or Matar, in space and everywhere else have always been those who counsel “no, not now.” If it’s not now, well… it’s in the future somewhere, if ever, and even the very next moment in time is an unsurmountable obstacle to clear when you’re completely in someone else’s control.
Again, freeborn will never understand.