The Lies of the Caldari State

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
#1

Brothers and sisters of the Caldari State,

Centuries ago our honoured ancestors took the stars with the dream and vision to secure a home for the Caldari people. The wild frontiers of space were tamed and made productive through the artifice of Caldari ingenuity and determination where after decades of labour and toil the lands where our people settled could be looked upon with pride. The soil where the Caldari people toiled for centuries also had to be watered with the blood of patriots who fought for the peace and freedom of their lands from the tyranny of those who sought to deprive them of their liberties. Once, there was a hope and dream – of Caldari lands made prosperous and free – that our ancestors fought and bled earnestly for that their children may reap the benefits of their suffering and sacrifice.

But fellow children of our Caldari ancestors you must but look out among the stars and fields where our people fought and bled to see and to know that the dreams of our ancestors have been betrayed. Betrayed by the very leaders on the CEP whose sacred duty were to secure the revolution. Too busy securing their own power and privilege has caused the corporate leadership of the State to become blind to the needs and requirements of its own people. So engrossed in the acquisition of wealth above all else they bred the complacency that has lead to the death or servitude of billions of Caldari lives.

It was the corporate leaders of the State who betrayed the Caldari Navy. Preferring instead to secure the power of their own Megacorporations which they operate as personal fiefdoms it is readily apparent that the Caldari Navy had neither the material requirements nor the doctrinal fortitude provided by competent military leadership. The brave men and women of the Navy were sacrificed at the hands of the Triglavian invaders, not for honour, not for the State, but for the egregious self-interests of the Megacorporate elites who remained safe and secure behind their corporate militaries while others died in their name.

It was the corporate leaders of the State who have betrayed their own citizens. Not only those innocent State citizens who must now languish at the pernicious hands of Triglavian invaders and their processes of ‘bioadaptation’ but also the countless brave men and women who protested at the gross incompetence of corporate leadership and sought to hold them to account. The depth of their betrayal now made manifest with the depth of blood they have shed of the citizenry, their true nature revealed, for they do not see their workers as human beings but nothing more than serfs destined to be bound by the indenture of corporate vassalage.

But there are those who saw the Caldari State for what it was decades ago. Men like Jirai ‘Fatal’ Laitanen and Korako ‘the Rabbit’ Kosakami who had the prescience of mind to see what the corporate leaders of the Caldari State were turning it into – the private fiefs of a new Megacorporate aristocracy. As you look out among the stars know that there are still those who maintain the traditions of taming a wild and dangerous frontier out in Venal. Fellow Caldari who treat those who work for them as people and not as subjects to be used and discarded at their whim and pleasure like in the State. A place where true meritocracy exists, where you are judged not by the fortune of your birth and stock ownership but what you can offer with the sweat of your own brow and the toil of your own hands.

Look out among the stars brothers and sisters and decide where you would rather be.

Transcript of speech delivered YC 123

Vehaima Natasiya Zekaarin née Veikitamo Gesakaarin
Guristas Zakura Echelon
Riever Falcon

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#2

I have tried, but it seems the Guristas judge me to be just as useless/unfit as the State has, and discarded me as soon as they had done so.

#3

Your thesis is boldly stated, and I would never argue corporate greed does not lie at the root of suffering and betrayal across many of our cluster’s societies. However, are not Laitanen and Kosakami themselves building a fiefdom outside the boundaries of the incumbent powers?

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#4

The Guristas are still ostensibly Caldari with Caldari attitudes: life can be harsh and uncompromising, and not everyone is able to make it. Besides, it’s called the Guristas Pirates, not Guristas Charity.

Fatal and the Rabbit built and are continuing to build a power structure outside the borders of the State. As for it being a fiefdom like in the State? I don’t think so. The key difference is choice: people choose to be a Guristas, and they choose where to go in the organization based on their own abilities. This is different to as in the State corporate system where a confluence of social factors like tradition, morality, and the family you were born into keep people in a stratified hierarchy exploited by others.

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#5

Freely choosing to join is a fair distinction.

To avoid the issue entirely, I might phrase the problem as “the megacorporations have broken their feudal contracts.”

In the feudal contract, the ruling caste agrees to protect in return for service and obedience. To receive service and obedience without protection is unjust enrichment. The megacorporations may even be preying on those they owe protection. For example, the power supplier constrains supply in order to enrich itself, and those who freeze to death are none of its concern.

This dereliction is true of megacorporations in all socieities, not only the State. I am not making a nationalistic argument. In the State, however, the corporations have served (as you said) an honored role in society for centuries.

It has been a while since I brushed up on the history of the Guristas. Does the organization still have a relationship with Ishukone? I may be conflating histories.

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#6

My words were chosen in the context of a speech within the constraints of time allowed and the audience. The audience were working class citizens of the State not academics requiring my defense of thesis, so I consider my analogy apt enough for the purpose where the dereliction of the duties of Megacorporate leadership was more implied and less tacit.

As for Guristas involvement with Ishukone – I have no idea what you’re talking about.

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#7

Fair enough with respect to language. Looking things up, it seems the relationship was not between the Guristas and Ishukone so much as with an officer of that corporation. I suppose these interactions may also only be rumors. There is certainly no shortage of those.

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#8

I would say the Guristas is a large enough organization that we do not have to know what each other are up to.

As for rumours? Don’t always believe everything you hear.

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#9

Caldari State was organized under the principle that Corporations represent Will of Caldari people, and Corporate leaders get on the top based on their merit. They fight for power, and they win. Caldari Navy serves them, we all serve them to ensure the system works. We are here to remove the incompetent fools who make nuisance of themselves, who think they’re smarter than our gloirous leaders without being truthfully so (otherwise they would be corporate leaders already).

These two figures know nothing about being Caldari.
They’re disgraceful traitors. They’re the scum.
For us, Honor is more valuable than life.
And Honor means Courage! Honesty! and Loyalty!

Those who don’t have Loyalty cannot be Honorable. They cannot be Caldari. Treason is the worst of disgraces known to men. Ancestors and children curse their names.

They’re just criminals now, dishonorable traitors. Those fools, who will follow them, will be hunted down like rabid dogs. They will answer for their crimes with their blood, and they will be cleansed from the face of our cluster in Caldari way


WITH FIRE AND STEEL.

Glory to the State!

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#10

Brave words from an adherent of a State who has proven to be nothing more than a paper tiger and whose legacy for the past decade has been a cavalcade of one failure after the next: Caldari Prime; the Shiigeru; and now the Triglavian invasions. There is nothing to fear in the Caldari State which has proven its weakness and incompetence for all to see, but I think where fear lacks then mockery and derision will suffice!

As every successful Guristas raid and heist upon the corrupt State corporations have shown, when the whole structure of the State is so rotten to the core it becomes all too easy to kick a few walls in with minimal effort.

But credit where it is due, your bravado is commendable even if the capability of the State to undertake its own defense is as lacking as your wit.

How tragic and ironic when the only incompetent fools who make a nuisance of themselves are those very same leaders whom you grovel at the feet of like a dullard and lapdog!

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#11

Was the State actually less effective at repelling the Triglavians than any of the other empires; or, is the issue that performing only as well (or poorly) as everyone else is itself a failing?

#12

Emphasis mine.

Leaving all else you’ve said alone, Veik, it doesn’t seem like a very good idea to trust people who consider morality an obstacle with structuring or restructuring a society. The results tend to be 
 ah. Self-interested? And not in that “enlightened” way you tend to hear about a lot and then not see.

Why try to establish a better, more equitable or at least more genuinely meritocratic system when it’s so much easier just to rejigger the hierarchy so you’re on top? If a system like that ends up being cruel and capricious then, well, as long as you’re secure, that’s somebody else’s problem.

Or a “moral” concern.

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#13

I would agree, morals (at least in the inferred values derived socially) have to be applied and adhered to by all or not at all in my view. When some rules apply to some people but not to all you get what exists presently in the Caldari State. You can see it in the moral principles of meritocracy applied by the corporations of the State how the rules apply to some people but not to others. Trillions are fed the lie that if only they work harder, study harder, put in the effort they will rise to the top. Many do try - and fail to succeed, whereas those born into the Great or Executive Families don’t have to try so hard because they can leverage their inherited wealth and pre-existing social networks to remain at the top of corporate ladders – even if those more qualified and harder working exist beneath them.

It’s one of many reasons why so many come to join the ranks of the Guristas: the lack of desire to participate in a system that is rigged against personal success by those who already inherited their wealth, status and power. Where people are told their failures are their own, and not that of a corrupt system which readily exploits their personal labour and talents for the advantage of a conceited corporate elite.

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#14

Amusing of what are you proud of. Shall we all live in reinforced safes with three-meter thick tritanium carbide doors? Why? Because there are some mad guristas can break in and steal something?

Our structure is quite nice, to be honest. As for the criminals stealing some thingamajimmies, well, what I can say. We find them and exterminate them. Would you like to compare amount of successful gurista heists with amount of successful raids on guristas fleets and/or installations? Just even without Navy our contracted capsuleers wipe off almost any significant gurista presence in high security space, and not just in the State, but in Empire, Federation, Republic. Of course, the State is the most clean of gurista in that regard, because capsuleer density here is the greatest. Sometimes I wonder, how gurista even manage to fly after all, considering their successful heists are so few, and their losses on a daily bases so colossal. Admit, you’ve been illegally mining in Caldari space too, right?

Ah, yes, here it comes again. When you are cornered down by someone smarter than you and unable to counter arguments, you just attack other person, claiming it’s them who lack wit instead of yourself.

#15

If Guristas losses are so colossal and yet Guristas assets continue to exist within State borders then those losses are survivable and within the capacity of the organization to absorb.

Besides, if you wanted to showcase the ability of the State, pointing out that Caldari corporations are forced to resort to hiring capsuleer freelancers to do the job of fighting Guristas that they are unable to do themselves might not have been the best option.

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#16

It’s amusing how someone squealing earlier about wit displays such obtuse ignorance. You’re just digging your hole deeper with every reply! Because


Well, because Gurista do exactly the same! And I bet literally everyone knows about it. It’s just only the demented capsuleers do freelance work for Gurista, while majority choses to work for the State - which is as well a well known fact.

#17

I never said Guristas don’t hire capsuleer freelancers – they do. What I didn’t say was that the successes of capsuleer mercenaries were the successes of the State corporations beyond having the ISK to pay them for their services. Even despite such mercenaries hired by the State, the Guristas continue to conduct well documented and well publicized raids and heists within the borders of the State. If the objective of the State is to destroy the Guristas then they are failing quite miserably at doing so.

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#18

Patriot Kim, I am not sure underlining the fact proper authority and piratical forces are the “same” supports your contention that the proper authority in question is virtuous and well-run.

Anticipating the outburst that is coming, I freely admit the Federation also has a problem with extra-legal actors running amok in its territory. In our case, it is obvious the Serpentis are agents of corrupt politicians, but you didn’t hear it from me. I am fairly certain this is true for the State as well - if less obviously so. After all, the Guristas are only outlaws until they are recognized as a member corporation.

#19

For which they drop like flies.
It is still amusing to see how they’re proud of behaving like rats to sneakly steal something. Maybe they get some stolen goods, but they pay with their blood for stealing from our citizens. Thieves are just dishonorable scum, all thieves must sit in jail
 or be exterminated if they dare to resist.

#20

Allowance of criminal agencies is neither State’s, nor Federation’s fault. CONCORD permits them to operate in null security space still in their stations. In my opinion, all Serpentis, Gurista, Angel, Blooder and Sansha stations must be disallowed from docking by independent capsuleers and must be dismantled at once by CONCORD.

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