Hm … well …
It’s nice of you to assume I’m particularly loyal to the State. That is, after all, what would be expected back home, and it does seem to have been true of my predecessor even when she was with the Cartel. For me, though …
Caldari architecture seems cold, hard, and confining. My oldest memories are of being a prisoner in surroundings like that, and even if objectively I was a pretty comfortable one I was still waiting for someone to decide whether I should be allowed to live as the person my paperwork claimed I was or just … shot.
What’s more, I’m a second-class citizen there. Pieter and the others in PY-RE (notable exception: Veik, at least when she’s on a tear) were nice about it and even seemed not to care, but I’m of mixed blood. That’s … not good, in the State. I still value the State for the protection it gives Achura, but I’m not sure linking me to the Caldari, or vice versa, is really fair, either way.
As for your more general point, though, Ms. Teinyhr, I’m a determinist. I don’t see free will as a real thing; it’s an illusion. We’re all products of our circumstances, acting out our lives like parts in a cosmic play. So none of us is to blame for who and what we are, in the end (though whether there are pragmatic reasons to treat free will as real is another matter).
I believe in neither cosmic good nor evil, but admit I’d rather witness a cosmic comedy than a tragedy. (Of course, this is where the sadder but possibly wiser side of myself whispers in my ear: “too late.”)
(Also, it can be easy to forget a lot of this stuff when confronted with things like mass slaughter. Delights and horrors make it harder to maintain any very significant level of perspective. It’s what I’m talking about if I mention getting tangled up in the world.)
Mostly, I’m less interested in being “holy,” than correct. And in some sense that’s a selfish wish, because it’s an effort to disentangle myself from the world-- to clear my eyes and see things as they are to the degree possible, but also to be free from suffering.
Being mixed up in certain kinds of stuff hurts, even if it’s nice at other times. There’s some stuff I’ve got mixed up in the last year or so that’s made it … really hard, even to be happy with some people I’m pretty fond of, like Arrendis. So I guess right now I’m trying to kind of wipe my eyes and wake up a little.
Ah-- yeah, sorry.
Edited a bit for not sounding quite so awful there at the start, and also clarity.