I don’t mean to imply any such thing, I personally align my ideals with those of Veles, as does most of Stribog, but to claim that this incursion was anything more substantial seems simply erroneous.
I have no reports at hand that any pillaging took place during the attack, and the force was grossly insufficient to even establish a significant beachhead. This was a probing attack, one meant to test Senda’s defenses and Svarog’s own offensive capabilities. I do not for a moment suspect that the clades will attack themselves with the ferocity they showed during the summer. This is proving, plain and simple, a sustained clash for the mutual improvement of the whole. A chance for Veles to fill in gaps in their defenses and drill their new militia while Svarog troops improve their own tactics. The goal is the attainment of metaxy, not domination or self destruction.
I wish you better luck than most people who put their faith in Svarog like that, then.
His account read more as a simple report of the occasion and not a prediction of general behavior, at least to my eyes. Granted, my perception is quite different from most. Also -
Of course, none of this would be necessary or anything at all were it not for the Collective murdering the system and desecrating its tomb for their own agenda. An agenda we actually know very little about.
Don’t mistake my interpretations of your reports as approval for the actions leading up to these events. Even if their end goal is relatively benign or beneficial, their means were despicable, exceeding the worst of any of the Four Empires’ atrocities. There were alternatives at every step of the way, both for Kybernauts and Triglavians.
Not that I particularly care, but explain.
Ah, I suppose you haven’t witnessed one of my deconstructions of the full effects of murdering a feckin sun. I’ll disregard any effect on capsuleer business in this post, because honestly we can pick up and move quite easily compared to the rest of the troubles.
To begin, Kybernauts most often claim their motivation to be a grudge against the Empires. However, their actions completely missed doing any significant damage to the Empire leadership’s agendas. The Caldari State suffered the greatest shakeup to their operations and that has only resulted in the furtherance of megacorporate interests.
The vast majority of destruction affects the baseliner populations of the systems in question. People who were simply trying to make a living, raise a family, now have had their homes become completely unrecognizable at best, and at worst have lost everything to their name, to say nothing of the actual death toll among folks who ain’t coming back. Folks who had no chance to prove themselves because they simply never had the means to, families with children, dead, scattered, or mutated.
And all of this is simply the immediate effects. Now I ain’t no professional scientist, but I do have a wide range of basic knowledge. It shouldn’t take much thought to realize that, at the very least, each of the 27 stars affected by stellar transmuters have had a significant drop in output on at least the visible light spectrum.
This in turn is an inescapable extinction event for the ecosystems of planets in these systems. The naturally occurring plants die to a lack of the sunlight they rely on, the local animal populations die when the plants are gone, leaving barren wastelands or some mutated travesty engineered by the Collective.
This is the end of millennia of natural evolution in the affected systems, the murder of unknown further millennia of evolution in the future, to be replaced by an artificial ecosystem that probably couldn’t sustain itself in the first place considering the Triglavians had to come here.
Full offense, this is your feckin problem, and the Kybernauts in general. Y’all stopped caring. The only thing left now is destruction. Left unchecked, it’s just a spiral into entropy. Feck that and feck you.
Well, even when dully noted, that is the way of things.
And as most cases, the ego really dislikes the perspective of having its illusory form torn away.
With respect to your beliefs, “the way of things” is one matter while wanton destruction is another. As I understand it, enlightenment is a process that one grows into, not a matter that is forced from the outside. I would argue that both the Kybernauts and the Collective are very much dedicated to their own ego to the point of forcing it upon others.
Furthermore, right and wrong are not a matter of ego. When I received a signal asking for help evacuating Raravoss, the right thing to do was to help. When I looked upon Raravoss’ dying star as I brought those people out, the right thing to do was to prevent further suffering. When the next invasion broke through and people were crying out for a leader, the right thing to do was to swallow my instinctive aversion to leadership and establish a fleet to push back.
I’m fairly certain those convictions were not a matter of ego.
Facts. Entropy is a very observable phenomenom.
In agreement.
Oh, some are indeed. Some just flow with their paths naturally.
Some would say otherwise, but that is a topic for another place, another mood and another time.
Just saying things left checked or unchecked, entropy goes on.
Only to not count the chickens before they hatch, the megacorps have yet to quell the political unrest.
Actually, planetside destruction was provoked exclusively by planetside resistance. Good job Caldari State…
You’re still peddling this. Not only can bioadaptation chambers be used to modify more than just humans(though they obviously take priority), the mutaplasmid swarms ultimately induce bioadaptation in organisms they come in contact with. Imprecise though it may be, the end result is that viable populations of native flora and fauna that can survive the new conditions are produced.
Someone missed a few classes. Mutaplasmid bacterial colonies thrive on the ■■■■■■■ rocks floating in Abyssal Deadspace. An ecosystem founded on these things can sustain itself nearly anywhere.
Specifically in the context of the Collective. I just had to see what they could do.
Bioadaptation is an artificial mutation. It’s a subversion, and destruction, of the natural course of evolution. The process is involuntary and in some cases lethal.
Then why didn’t the Collective stay there? Eh? Or, why not cultivate these colonies on dead worlds instead of ones with active thriving ecosystems already? That would have been not only a feasible alternative, it would’ve been downright benevolent.
Yes, how dare people decide to defend the only homes they’ve ever known?
Nothing about these invasions is justifiable. There were always alternatives, chances to not only find their own niche but also to use their technology for the good of all. Instead we have mass casualties and more of the same crap we already had with the Four Empires. The Kybernauts have become a copy of the monsters they sought to fight.
Stop trying to fool yourselves. It’s too late to avoid the history of atrocity you now share in common with the Empires. If you want to become something different, better, than the Big Four, cease hostilities, allow the planetary populations to leave should they choose to do so, and start expanding into the outer reaches of the cluster colonizing dead worlds. Take responsibility for the wrongs you’ve done, do no further wrong.
Oh please, if you are for some reason so stubbornly attached to what is “natural”, as if humanity is some sort of mysterious force that is not part of nature itself, then go right ahead and rip your implants out and suspend all your cloning contracts, you glorious technological marvel, you. We routinely manipulate and shape living organisms and entire ecosystems alike, but when the Collective does it with improved speed, effectiveness and precision, suddenly they are committing some kind of affront to god’s world. Unless you are blinded by the dogma of some sort of cult, to think any of this is intrinsically wrong is just plain hypocritical on your part.
I should have guessed that only one so woefully ignorant on the Collective’s actual objectives could involve himself in this conflict with such passion and still side with EDENCOM of all factions. The factional militias that have fought alongside you at least fought for their homes, their beliefs and their culture. What have you fought for? A dysfunctional shell of a coalition used as a means to bypass even those few restrictions CONCORD is supposed to abide by? One that has continually sent out fleet after fleet after fleet in Pochven just for them to routinely get wiped out?
I would suggest you at very least listen to the messages Zorya Triglav has so widely distributed throughout the cluster by billboards and semiosis consoles alike. Their only interest is in the stars themselves, the Collective is working on a stellar-based spatial engineering project of untold scale, all while they are being exterminated by Drifter fleets. Had they not been invaded by them I assure you, all hints at their existence we would ever get would be archaic and cryptic references to them and their technology inscribed in ancient databases floating around in deadspace. This is a people that fights for their survival. Their occupation of the planets surrounding their desired stars is a matter of practicality, and the fact that they even bother bioadapting the local populations and ecosystems at large are nothing short of an act of benevolence, for they most certainly do not require them for their task. The loss of life incurred by the war is, of course, unfortunate as always, but the scale of this is far larger than the idyll of some baseliners.
I don’t see a reason to get hung up on the “natural” course of things, so you’re talking to a wall here. And it only has a chance of being lethal when done by such imprecise methods as a roving mutaplasmid swarm.
They would’ve, if the Drifters had not found their way into the Abyss. The return to the Ancient Domains is to finance their conflict against the menace. They do not need the planets to cultivate mutaplasmids. They need mutaplasmids to cultivate the planets.
The Collective did not descend to take or destroy their homes. There was no need to defend them. Those who laid down their arms have ultimately come out of the ordeal just fine.
I am not one of the ideologues this statement is relevant to.
And yet, it’s still forced upon people, a violation of their person, their body, their very humanity. But of course, you don’t care about that either, do you?
Riiiiiiight. Everyone who’s been killed trying to leave without ever taking up arms is just fine. The Collective totally didn’t come and destroy the biospheres on multiple temperate worlds. In other news, the Amarr Empire’s become an egalatarian atheist commune.
Of course not, the Collective is far too cool for me to care about that.
Clearly, taking to space was a far more dubious proposition than staying put. But just as many went unmolested in their exit.
Which makes this…
… a lie.
Now, some limits to the spin, please.
Maybe there’s been some mercy in Krai Veles, but people did not know when they fought which of the ■■■■■■■ they’d land with, did they? And Veles fought alongside the others and gladly gave 18 systems of the 27 to Svarog and Perun, fully aware what would happen, did they not?
People have very much died and been forcibly displaced. Even people trying to just leave have been killed.
And you know that.
Rather than accept that the Triglavians and Kybernauts caused this situation directly, rather than acknowledge that your lot have committed mass ecological devastation, rather than take responsibility for the trillions of humans that have been mutated, uprooted, or obliterated, you’d prefer playing semantic games, while the Kybernauts who live in Svarog at least have the decency to acknowledge the effect they’ve had on the worlds around them, to the extent that there’s even been a pact negotiated to facilitate evacuation efforts.
There is an entire cluster that wants to wipe the Collective out now, on top of the Drifter threat you claim they were fleeing. Either you’re wrong or the Collective is betraying the ideal of “Proving” we’ve heard so much about by fleeing rather than standing their ground in the abyss. And now that they’ve acquired a more defensible position (theoretically), they’ve provoked an even worse situation.
The Collective’s course of action is not only morally wrong, it’s strategically idiotic. Your words here make the situation worse on both fronts. Furthermore, Kybernauts who have actually fought the invasions have more respect for the dead systems and suffering people than you have demonstrated.
I’ve explained why you’re hated, I’ve explained the full extent of the atrocities, and I’ve laid out several different courses of action that are better for conscience and diplomacy while also keeping the territory they’ve acquired.
I am trying my absolute damnedest to give you chances to not be a complete fedo phallus.
More like incorrect. I should have specified that I was thinking of those who remained.
I get the distinct impression you’re being deliberately obtuse, but in case it’s a lack of reading comprehension I’ll reiterate.
This is absolutely my conviction.
Nor would I. If there had been a chance of peaceful cooperation that didn’t involve murdering the ecosystems of 27 systems, I’d be all for assisting the Collective in finding a new home. I was even perfectly willing to let the Empires and the Collective duke it out until I saw what happened to Raravoss’ sun. I have no desire to further any Empire’s agenda, but when the people suffer this greatly, my conscience would not allow me to sit out any longer.
You’re forgetting Drifters, rogue drones, and Sleepers. We already have capsuleers stating they’d work with those factions. Your only saving grace is that these factions are hostile to each other and the Empires. Not something you should be counting on forever if the Drifters are truly dedicated to wiping out the Collective.
How else should I interpret it? “Might makes right?” A detestable philosophy.
I live in a wormhole sector, so that ain’t it. I’ll also reiterate that the extreme reduction in the star’s output has effectively destroyed the existing ecosystems and the mutaplasmid bioadaptation is an artificial bastardization of such, and that bioadaptation could have been benevolently applied to worlds without an existing ecosystem. I would applaud using mutaplasmids to terraform uninhabited worlds, but not when it’s twisting people’s homes beyond recognition.
That relies mostly on the Collective. They’ve demonstrated they can freely communicate with the whole damn cluster, now’s the time to cease hostilities and open diplomatic channels.
Lo and behold, look what the hell happened.
And the Collective definitely proved their potential as an existential-level threat by murdering 27 stars.
False. They’ve demonstrated a willingness to work with capsuleers. It would have been fairly simple to negotiate new territory simply by selling their ships and technology to capsuleers in exchange for ISK and outright buying land and stations. Hell, they could’ve opened the table for bids and had their pick of capsuleer corporations to join while retaining a high degree of autonomy, or flat-out buying out a corp by way of purchasing a controlling share. ■■■■, that’s actually an option now. All within the existing system, all without firing a shot, and helping people out while they’re at it. They were even fully aware of the value of their technology considering that those deadspace pockets had Triglavian items within.
So you were perfectly fine with a war unfolding before you but when a system full or barren balls of rock and ice hosting only a limited number of subterranean mining colonies fell suddenly you thought “Ah, I have to put an end to this, the Collective should be left to die.”
You claim your mission is the preservation of life, but are you really able to fool yourself into thinking that you wouldn’t be causing the same loss many times over through either inaction or active opposition of an entire peoples’ last shot at survival? Don’t act like you have some sort of moral high ground here, you would just rest easier knowing its the foreigners that are out there dying out instead of the more familiar faces that you grew up knowing. I am sure the Triglavians’ suits and bioadaptations, things they needed to adopt in order to survive in the inhospitable hellscape of the abyss, made it all too easy for you to forget the men and women underneath the masks.
No matter which direction your flow took, you would be responsible for deaths and suffering, as all people are. I am responsible for the deaths of navy crewmen by the hundreds of thousands by now. You are similarly responsible for the deaths of many tactical and logistical troikas. Choosing not to participate would also make us responsible for deaths on either side we did not prevent.
And you are forgetting Sansha, Angels and CONCORD death squads. The Collective has been fighting them all in Bujan all this time, nothing has changed.
Proving is simply a very involved form of dialectics the Collective uses in multiple levels of decision making. You must be more familiar with the proving taking place in abyssal deadspace, intended to test both cladeship schemas, tactics and the analysis of foreign entities they engage within. That form of proving is indeed militant in nature, but the scope of proving is much broader than that. Anything that involves a clash of different ideas, abstract or materialized, with the intent of mutual self improvement qualifies as proving. Its a wonderful system promoting equality of ideas and the improvement of the whole throughout every stratum of Triglavian society that uses it.
I have noticed you seem very strangely fixated on ecological conservation. Mutaplasmids are nothing but a tool, they aren’t black magic. Just out of curiosity, do you feel similarly about more mundane and pedestrian terraforming? About the genetic manipulation of organisms to better thrive in different planetary environments? I really do not understand why you draw the line where you do.
“Lets pillage and fear those people! They are so hostile! What- they are acting hostile towards us after we treated them as we did? Looks like we were right all along!”
Do you know any capsuleer that owns a star? Do you know where one could buy a star? How much would it cost?
You do remember that this is what they needed right?
This isn’t a matter of collaborating with capsuleers, this is about collaborating with the empires. Which empire do you think would allow the Collective to claim even a single star? The Amarr and Gallente would seek to subjugate and dominate them and the State and Matari would sooner burn their own worlds into glass than let an outsider have them.