Very possibly. I know that at PTS, my knot of friends were all Sebiestor (what can I say, field projection engineering nerds, yo), and we were… possessive. It was our grief, our loss, our rage. Nobody else knew our pain, dammit, and woe unto them who claimed to understand with more than ‘yeah!’ and agreeing that somebody had to pay. If it had just been the Tribe’s forces… I don’t have any trouble imagining that anyone from the Republic who wasn’t Sebiestor and tried to argue restraint might’ve gotten shot, themselves.
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Reading all these messages is certainly a trip down the memory lane… And I’d like to remind that no matter how much we like to pretend, our respective empires aren’t monoliths that believe or feel just one thing, as the empires are made up of trillions of different people, and none are actively practising technologically enforced thought control.
That day in Colelie changed me, like it seems to have changed so many others. It was the first, and so far the only time I turned my weapons against my own people. And no, I do not regret doing that, even today. I knew what was happening was not something the Ray of Matar would have wanted, ever, to happen in her name. I’m sure she neither would have wanted kin to turn on kin either, but I chose what I saw as the “lesser evil.”
I was there to plead the Republic Fleet task force to turn back and leave, not to sully her memory. They did not, they decided to outright piss on her legacy as a force of peace by engaging in open combat against our closest, oldest - only - allies. Collective madness or not, it was not their place, nor their authority, to act like they did, as Acassa Midular later said.
Further, for how she was treated almost her entire time in office as the Prime Minister of the Republic, I find it extremely distasteful how in, and after death, she became suddenly something important to many Minmatar again. Suddenly it was as if she was always a treasure of the Minmatar people - that billions did not turn their backs on her, call for her death, the Ushra’Khan offering " A one ISK bounty is to be placed on her head. This value representing her worth to the Matari people, rounded up."… No, suddenly she was our Ray of Matar again, instead of the ever so popular “overlord’s pet” or even “traitorous bitch.”
Spirits, this is getting me riled up all over again, and I’m not even Sebiestor! No, and I don’t need to be to tell you that she was someone I looked up to. No, someone who I adored. Not just as a Ray of Matar, but as a personal inspiration.
… Right, so, what was I meant to say again… I do not agree with the view Ms. Rhiannon puts up in the opening that the Republic Fleet incursion into Colelie was by any measure justified. Not in the light that just mere years before, many in the Republic would have had Midular killed themselves. Not in the light that those most affected would not have wanted it to happen, and later affirmed so.
Mind, I do not disagree with that the three empires often patronize the Minmatar, they certainly do. In this very forum somehow anti-minmatar rhetoric is often given a pass, whereas you easily get hordes of people hounding you for reminding that the Empire, State and Federation have their own glass houses they really should not be throwing rocks from.
But this particular case? I do not think they are entirely wrong. The Gallente did allow Sebiestor Tribe delegates to attend to Broteau’s trial in the Federation, and later extradited him to be sentenced to the Republic according to our laws. I acknowledge they did not perhaps fully understand the importance of the Ray of Matar to the Minmatar people, and particularly the importance of a Tribal Chief to the Sebiestor, but they did, even if too little by the standards of some, try to accomodate Tribal sensibilities. Could they have done better? Sure, no question. But they could have also just told us to mind our own damn business just as well. I’m glad they made at least some effort, no matter how minimal.
Of course, these are ultimately just my views on the issue, and I do not claim any sort of superiority to other parties here over them, or that my views are even popular or particularly widespread.
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Well, if you ask yourself who stood most to benefit from her death, and think of the quick disposal of the"lone gunman", and the necessity for the government (not the Tribe, which was the party who on the level of “whose jurisdiction” would have been justified) to use force to extradite him…
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Yes; it could have easily been that.
Now it was more like, no, this was not the Ray’s way, and with all due respect, who the ■■■■ are you to tell me how to deal with this anyway.
Which, on a hindsight, probably saved the peace.
EDIT: Some outsider took our grief and rage and tried to use it as a weapon. That is something that still makes me really mad.
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Ain’t this the truth.
Don’t get me wrong, I pretty much loathed her. Spineless appeaser, seeking to abandon our own to gain mere momentary “peace” for the freeborn, so short-sighted that this being the path to an inevitable war of annihilation didn’t even register with her.
Nonetheless, she was mine. She was Sebiestor. She was the heart of the tribe, and they not only failed her, they stood between us and her murderer. I was fortunately rather insulated from the Tribe at the time, and most I know of who were in a position to act were surrounded by all manner of Matari.
Imagine if it were otherwise. If the tribe’s people were surrounded only by others with the same grief-fueled wrath in their hearts. If the feedback loop had been properly established. If even those of us who loathed her had such an urge to bring down nothing but fire on those who would deny us our right to… impose consequences, imagine how it all would have been reinforced and strengthened by other such little fires.
Villieldr. No one would have gotten out of that unscathed.
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Shakor, Shakor and Shakor?
Is that so? What would that make you? Standing up for what she did, in the face of what she had to face, I consider her so much high above you and your ilk, you must be a gutless worm. Nay, an amoeba.
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Is that what ‘standing up for’ looks like? I saw only cowering before the difficult choices. Fear of the lesser but difficult evil, chasing her into the greater but easier evil. Too weak to endure hardship for the sakes of the chained, and thus abandoning them instead.
If she got her will, if better men and women hadn’t ignored her, I am not the only one who’d still be among the trillions of enslaved to this day, or dead trying to fight our own way out of it without the aid and support of those few freeborn with strength and fury in their hearts.
Yes, I consider her spineless, because she and her kind abandoned countless men and women. Including me. She may have been mine, of my tribe, but she betrayed me and all those born alongside me. Ironically, even with how much I loathed her, I was probably more loyal to her than she ever was to me and mine.
Feh, freeborn. They’ll never understand, I think. They won’t know in their bones, no matter their words.
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That’s what you think it was about? That it was a fear of personal hardship that kept us from crossing the border?
Oh, gods be damned, snow-eater, slave-child. You just have no idea.
What we would not have given to be able to just throw ourselves at it, to go and fight and be burned and die, die knowing we tried.
You talk about hard choices as if you know something about them. You are Matari, so ask yourself: which is harder, to suffer and die in war, or to choose which of your kin to leave because you cannot save them all?
You said it.
I am not supposed to.
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When the answer is “all of them”, it very quickly becomes apparent which of the two was considered too hard. The rationale does not match the actions she and her ilk undertook. The path was crystal clear. If she had her way, we’d still be missing an entire tribe of our people, in the name of “peace”.
What was gained from her choice of abandonment and betrayal? What solace absolved the Republic of its failure? For all his own failures before and since, Shakor did demonstrate very eloquently that force was the path that can save at least some of us, and those who cowered before and since, are still here. Their world didn’t end. Their inaction now unjustified, by the demonstration of strength and courage that resurrected an entire Tribe from the dead. A tribe that would have remained dead under her.
The only thing that “hard choice” led to was the Empire having breathing room to hunker down and reinforce, preparing for the final resolution of the conflict, while trillions remained abandoned and the Republic weakened, spiritually, economically and politically. Their fires quenched, until there would be nothing left to resist the inevitable continuation of the reclaiming.
The words “never again”, slowly fading away.
I know you believe otherwise, and I can understand why. I have just never heard an argument for it that ever held up when seen from the other side of the border.
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No, but it came close, and the price we paid are the toy wars, which are not much more than a slower version of the end of our world. And our people are still in slavery.
For you, it might be enough that we did not betray you, and that we did not lose immediately. I do not think that way, but I also do not think silently accepting the trade of your freedom would be a sacrifice that anyone could ask of you, so fair enough.
But I think Shakor getting glory for throwing us into a slow death by attrition in order to save a small number people with high symbolic value while we still betray the rest every single day is ridiculous.
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Like I said, he is far from short on his own failures both before and after that event. The pendulum pretense being the nonsensical farce it is doesn’t change that the events preceding it were vital and the right things to do. The follow-up was the failure.
And she did betray me. I was freed by those who rejected her. My tribe never came for me.
You’re of course right that the current state of affairs is far from what it should be. I think we’ve both argued that fact quite a few times. However, the attrition was already there. The slaver fleets were already there. The spirits and strength of our people were eroding, every single day the Republic sat back and did nothing. The failure of Shakor was that he didn’t propel the Republic far enough in the other direction.
I do think silently accepting the trade of my freedom would be a sacrifice worth asking for. It’s one I’d gladly make.
… if it had led somewhere. If it could lead somewhere. If it wasn’t just a pointless one, gaining us nothing but a status quo working for the Empire’s benefit, and against ours.
I think we agree on the current state of affairs, in the end. The fork in the road has been passed, there’s no turning back. The path forwards needs to be walked, or we’ll simply be stuck. Actual sacrifices will now have to be made, if we’re to get to a good place for all of our people, rather than just abandonment and betrayal leading us nowhere.
We need to move forwards on the path of great risk and hardship, because the other paths… her path… was the one where complete defeat was an inevitability. Sadly, it does seem like we have no leaders willing to do so.
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The the thread is on track, brothers and sisters washing the dirty laundry and fighting about internal affairs.
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If you want to show off your wisdom, Ms. Tsukiyo, you could start by not being a smug prat.
This isn’t for or about us anymore. Let them talk in peace.
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Don’t have any.
In case you haven’t noticed yet (and it was pointed to you many times during the discussion), the main topic was the patronizing on the events in Colelie and the continuous disrespect of outsiders on even trying to understand the circumstances involved in it by the perspective of the Matari. Everyone kept saying all the time how their perspective couldn’t encompass the actions and meanings of the Matari due to this or that rule/law/tradition, missing the point of the discussion completely, no matter how many times it was pointed out.
Not “anymore”. Never was.
As if i interrupted. Listening to a genuine brother/sister fight is way more enlightening than reading a thousand posts by external analysts/commentators.
If one of them asks me this, i’ll happily oblige. But in case you haven’t noticed, even when you tell me to shut up because they are talking, that can be interpreted as patronizing. I’m quite sure any nuisance i make they will have the instruments and initiative to deal with me.
You big babysitter.
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This is where our perspectives differ. I can only offer the fact that I was there with the Republic, with the people who worked day and night to build up to until we could actually win. No, it was not a project everyone believed in, and no, not everyone could keep up hoping, and yes, it was a long shot - but it was a chance.
Shakor’s way is the worst of both worlds.
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I get the feeling that this is just another reason why the federation must be destroyed.
Mizhara, someone had to keep Mary talking instead of shooting more than they do anyway.
And in the background people still came and got you and people like you (like my father) out. Do you really think none of those people had any official sanction? They did their work quietly and with a minimum of fuss and against huge odds. If you ever get the chance to talk to Evanda Char ask her.
Even then the war never completely ended. My father’s career from liberated mine slave through Fleet Marines enlisted to senior NCO in the wars with the Mandate proves that. I fear your time with Du’uma Fiisi and Havohej has left you with a slightly skewed perspective.
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Hah! If anyone got them to take some proper shots, it would have worked in our favor. Getting them to move before they could mend the cracks in their armor? Before they were ready to continue their Reclaiming? It’d be the best possible outcome. More importantly, the Elder Fleet proved quite elegantly that this wasn’t going to happen. They have too much to lose if the war kicks off before they’re ready for it.
You know the people who got me and mine out? To this day, they’re branded criminals. By their tribe. Because they didn’t toe the line of the appeasers. Official sanction? They had official exile.
As for the Havohej runt, it becomes very clear that you have no idea what you’re talking about if you think that pissant has had any influence on me.
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It’s not THAT hard to explain, Kala.
For Ishukone it was like losing Otro Gariushi. For the State, in general, it was like when we lost Admiral Yanala.
For the Empire, it was like losing the Empress in a battle with the Drifters in front of the Imperial Navy.
For the Federation… Well… Okay… That one’s more difficult…
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They are certainly events that could be considered parallels, but my point was more about it being an event with a great deal of personal meaning. I don’t know Aria well enough to give an equivalent for her.
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