You’ve all seen them. Amarr missionaries haranguing people on space stations. People bothering you as you shop, asking you if you have a moment to talk about saving your soul from eternal damnation. Who don’t take the first refusal to engage as a hint, and keep talking at you, even after you thought you made yourself clear that you’re not wanting to talk.
Does it make people convert to the Amarr religion ? No. It does not. It is laughably ineffective at converting people. It recruits no-one who wasn’t already thinking of embracing the Amarr religion.
So why do they do it, when it is so ineffective ?
The answer, is that it is, and never has been, about converting new people, but to prevent people leaving the Amarr religion.
You see, it has the effect of creating a sense of group loyalty in the would-be missionary, loyalty to the Amarr Faithful. And it is extremely effective at that.
The rejection the missionary receives is more important than the few people they do manage to convert. Why ? Because it makes the missionary experience a level of discomfort when around the people they’re trying to talk to. Those people become “the Others”. These feelings of discomfort disappear when the missionary returns to their own congregation - the Faithful.
So why is missionary training a significant part of education in many parts of Amarr ? Simple.
The missionary is sent out into the harsh universe to experience rejection time and time again, mainly because missionary training is designed to make the would-be missionary extremely annoying. So they are rejected by the foreigners they attempt to talk to.
Then, these brave missionaries return from the cruel universe to their congregation, to be welcomed and treated as returning heroes. They are now safe from the cruel harsh outside. The missionaries and the rest of the Faithful bond as they share the experiences of attempting to reach out to the godless heathens to bring them the Light.
Which teaches them, and teaches them pretty well, that the only place they are accepted is with people who think like they do. The universe is the enemy, but the Faithful love you.
“Uniform Thought is the Way of Life.” as the Scriptures say.
And so they become more and more reliant on their congregation - the Faithful, because they know that the “Others”, the godless heathens, reject them.
“Surround yourself with the faithful, Stand together, for there is no strength like it under the heavens.” as the Scriptures say.
And that’s why Amarr missionaries are bad at converting people. Because they were never meant to succeed.