Fellow citizens of New Eden,
It hardly seems controversial to say that following the recent events in the Turnur system, the Amarr Empire made quite a few mishaps. A number of those mishaps are most apparent with the benefit of hindsight. And it is understandable that what was ultimately in the end a wrong choice may have been seen as something potentially beneficial in foresight.
But there is one particular mishap that is not only the reason I have chosen to come out of my recluse to write something on a GalNET forum, but also a reason to worry as it could cause the very downfall of civilization as we know it. It is something I strongly believe that New Eden at large has failed to fully grasp, but should be entirely clear to us.
With the recent burst in aggression and regrouping in the scene of factional warfare between the four major powers that be throughout the cluster, they all seem intent to conquer and command a New Eden that is more or less identical to the one that was before the events at Turnur. This I believe, is simply impossible.
Human ideas and technological concepts of planet-destroying military technologies both in the form of fiction and not have been around for millennia. Since before our very first manned vessels left our various homeworlds so many years ago. But now under the whims of the Triglavian Collective, and now the Empire and years before that at the mercy of the Seyllin incident, one such method has been fully realised in the form of the stellar transmuter.
I believe that the moment these events took place, each step of the way amplifying the threat by an order of magnitude; we have changed what may be the future of the nature of interstellar conflict on a fundamental level each time. Destroying a world beyond natural habitability may have taken an entire fleet of capital starships anything from weeks to months or even years. We have progressed to a level where this can be performed by a single installation within a solar system.
One can certainly draw comparisons to any other technological development of a similar kind earlier on our timeline.
What immediately worries me, however. Is that while earlier developments such as nuclear arms or orbital bombardments (even the relatively straightforward act of a massive collision, either by an asteroid drop, capital ship or even space station, among other odd objects…) to the dawn of the immortal soldier. These developments were usually almost always recognised as the destabilising element of their times. How they always caused us to ponder and meditate on completely different methods and philosophies of conflict and assured destruction, escalation theory, and how it in many cases caused us to think critically of our own civilizations and capabilities to grow and become more civilized beings as we choose which technologies to keep, repurpose or discard. The splitting of the atom by non-destructive means was an essential step in our rise to power, after all.
In regard to the development of the stellar transmuter, and coronal mass ejections. This time, the powers that be only seem to be getting ever more fierce in their fury to eradicate the opponent. Rather than addressing this critical issue that now stunts our technological and sociological growth, regardless of national borders. And even if the four CONCORD-aligned powers decided to abandon this destructive technology, it does not automatically cause other entities across the cluster to do so. Capsuleer despots in the outer regions, pirate and outlaw kingdoms, mercenary groups or even simply curious research groups I am certain would love to get their hands on this new technology.
In an environment as unstable and unpredictable as our current interstellar political scene, it is completely negligent of us not to immediately make the issue of proliferation a widespread priority. On the other hand, it may be political suicide for any side or faction to completely denounce to use of such a potentially influential new variable. And if any one side gained a monopoly on the use of the variable, it would certainly provide them with a strong force of deterrence.
We have reached the point of destabilising entire stars and causing unstoppable destruction on the scale of a solar system. One can only despair at where we may be in twice the time it took us to reach this point if this is not our zenith.
- Ittan Tatani