Violent and bloody too.
In the Frigates of Eve book, it was mentioned that there were two engineers who leaked the plans for the Firetail to the Amarr Empire. Before the Republic authorities could get to them, the engineering team had already welded these two engineers suits to the wings of the Firetail (with them inside) and sent them hurtling through the void during the test flight. One didn’t survive the trip. The other was dragged out of his suit and shot.
No fair trials here.
Swift “justice” seems to be a thing in all of EVE, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely here.
In the case of the Republic, I don’t think it necessarily has to do with having too much power.
Based on what I understand from reading the book titled ‘Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging’, a tribe revolves around kinship. You look after your community and your community looks after you. It goes even further than in that the members of the tribe are so invested in the well-being of their tribe that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for said tribe.
So what happens when someone in this tribe does something that can be perceived as betraying the tribe? Well, the level of emotional and material investment by members of the tribe into said tribe usually means that the tribe members will punish said traitor very, very severely. Usually to the point of skipping the whole ‘due process’ part of dispensing justice and execute the guy.
Think of it this way. You and your family are very close. You know every member of your family, what they do, how they behave, their quirks, all that kind of thing. You provide for your family, and your family provides for you. If you fall sick, your family will take care of you until you get well, and you will do the same back for any one of your family.
Now, one day, an uncle whom you and the rest of the family held in very high regard and had thus far been a very prolific provider to the family did the unexpected and sold the family land to a complete stranger without discussing this with the family.
Alternatively, imagine that your sister had been wronged by a complete stranger.
Imagine the level of outrage you and your family must feel in these kinds of situations. Now imagine that an entire nation operates with that kind of mentality.
Why not? In the Republic a lot of power is concentrated on select few hands - tribal leaders are typically the highest authority after the Elders (whenever the Elders see fit to show up) and Sanmatar. But, as stated, there is a strict hierarchy in place in the Republic and it is highly unusual to question it, unless someone clearly overextends their power, like when Acassa Midular called out the rest of the Tribes having overstepped their bounds into Sebiestor Tribes’ affairs when trying to retrieve Karin Midular’s killer by force from the Gallente.
Betraying a tribe is akin to what we call treason, so I’m not really surprised. Severe crimes generally have severe punishments, even in the “civilized world.”
As I understand how the Republic works, this “uncle” would have to had been in a position of authority to sell off family property without asking anyone in the first place, and if he cannot come up with a good explanation, he would at the very least be stripped of whatever authority he had, but it would depend on the family, clan or even tribal customs how he would be treated afterwards. Other would simply turn their backs on him. Others would give him a chance to prove himself trustworthy again, through hard work or whatever. I would imagine it would depend on the size of the group they offended, smaller clans would not have the ability kick people out except for huge fuckups, bigger ones wouldn’t even think twice.
If this “sister” would get wronged by a complete stranger, in the Republic they would know this strangers name, clan and tribe (naming tattoos) and take it up with the relevant authority figures, escalating if needed. Their family, Clan and ultimately their Tribe. As said previously, as far as I understand, tribal politics tend to be higly formal affairs with lots of middlemen and representatives of various levels of authority from the wronged family to a tribal mediator who tends to in-tribe feuds and stability. Tribal politics can be hard to understand to those who don’t live in such a society.
And as we have actually, that I know of, very little information how the Tribes actually work, all of the above is just my headcanon from what little leads I have.
Somewhat, but not really. If you hurt the Republic, you’re in for some serious hurt. But not every slight is met with capital punishment, obviously, not even declaring someone a pariah. There are typically tons of variables to consider, and someone might even be saved just to save face.
But you do agree that the punishments can get very harsh and sometimes the idea of ‘due process’ might be skipped entirely as the members of that particular community group will take matters into their own hands.
By the way, we can say that the ‘sister’ in this case would be Karin Midular and the ‘stranger’ is her killer. Guess what happened to that guy. A kangaroo court followed by an execution. Because far as the Republic is concerned, that guy has killed a very important member of their community, one who has given much more to the community than anyone else at that and must pay one way or another.
Illustrating the uncle example by the context of Eve Online, I’m turning back to the Firetail story and point out that ‘family’ is represented by the team in charge of reworking the Shamrock into the Firetail, the two traitors who sold the plans out to the Amarr Empire as the ‘uncles’, the Firetail plans as the ‘land’ and the ‘stranger’ as the Amarr Empire.
Understanding how these people feel about the subject matter, and the way their society had shaped them into valuing close-knit connections, reciprocity and trust in their community circle (considering that this is what a tribe typically revolves around), it is understandable how such reactions to perceived ‘crimes against community group’ or ‘treason against community group’ can be the way they are.
After all, in their case, it isn’t just crime and treason happening in their midst, it’s crime and treason against a close-knit circle of friends and family they knew well and care for personally.
Of course. Typically though it involves someone getting caught red handed doing something considered seriously not kosher. And like I said, sometimes I think people who should be punished will get off scot free to maintain appearances.
Well, again, we’re talking about killing a tribal chief, that is a heavy offense. And I’m actually with the news article on this one - he was already found guilty by the Gallente, Minmatar just sentenced him by their own laws. And I’m guessing Caldari, Gallente and Amarr don’t take too kindly on people who kill their leaders either.
For a more fair look at the issue, let’s say that for example, a Vherokior trader gets conned a hefty sum by a Gallente swindler, to make matters worse, this Vherokior was buying medicine to treat an outbreak on his home colony. Will they send black-ops to find this guy and drag him to the colony to get beaten up by everyone? Probably not. This colony will then likely petition aid from the Tribe - which, in ideal world will take action by securing the medicine somehow, and then raising a ruckus with Gallente diplomats, whom hopefully then would get the ball rolling to punish said swindler according to their laws.
Again this is skirting on treason (leaking military secrets to enemies) and AFAIK they got caught red handed. Are any other empires in EVE more lenient about something like this? But, okay. it could be argued that these two engineers got killed before officials could arrive on the scene because they did something that is unthinkable - betraying what should have been a type of extended family, to a much hated enemy. I just wonder, would have these officials been any more merciful, seeing what they did was if not treason, very close to that.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think these examples are kind of bad in the sense that they don’t particularly showcase offending just a small group of people, but of all Minmatar. While Karin Midular was the chieftain of the Sebiestor Tribe, the Ray of Matar was important to all Minmatar.
Really, tbh, I think the only ones who in the setting actually care for due process at all times are the Gallente, and even them not all the time. The thing is, all of the empires are good and bad in a way. I’m just arguing this because I don’t understand why we are so stuck on arguing that the Republic citizens in particular don’t care for due process because of their tribal culture, and then pretty much the only examples put forth to support this argument are both treason and murder, capital offences in many societies. Yet, I don’t think any of the other empires have any qualms about skipping due process “for the right reasons” either.
What would be a good example of ignoring due process, IMHO would have been the purge of the Republic Parliament: REPORT: "MASS MURDERS" REPORTED AT MINMATAR REPUBLIC GOVERNMENT FACILITIES - EVE Community
I don’t remember that anything ever came of that, that the perpetrators were ever brought to justice, this event was simply considered a necessary step to build the tribal republic - indeed, that the purge itself was considered just, even though it was said that the killers were planting evidence on these killed parliament members of their supposed collusion with the Amarr - and, as I recall, this was never investigated by anyone, if the evidence was even real and did those people deserve to die “for the greater good”? Now that is some grade A tribal duplicity bullpoop that should be brought to light, in my opinion, if we want to discuss the Tribal justice system and indeed sense of justice of the people as a whole.
One thing to keep in mind about Midular’s assassin is that Karin Midular wasn’t just the leader of the Sebiestor Tribe nor was she just the ex-Prime Minister of the Republic Assembly, she was the Ray of Matar, an indication that even the Sanmatar who basically ousted her recognized. I think he said something like “She is our Ray of Matar, even if her light struggles to pierce this darkness.” She was immensely unpopular throughout the Republic for a variety of reasons but between renegade Republic Fleet elements launching an incursion into Federation space and Matari terrorists issuing declarations demanding the extradition of her assassin to Republic authorities, possessing the Ray of Matar still evoked reverence and united the Matari in a way her reign as Prime Minister had largely failed to do.
That said, the nuance here is that Gallente citizens didn’t understand why she was so important to the Minmatar. They simply considered her like any other celebrity, which helped to breed anti-Matari sentiment among ultranationalists following the Republic Fleet jumping into Colelie.
Yup, the purge of the Republic Parliament is definitely a good example. I used the murder-of-Midular example mainly just because it was the most recent. The Parliament one is a better example, to be sure.
For sure. I pointed it out just for Amarr and Minmatar because this thread is asking for the bad parts of each nation, and those two are the ones I can speak well for. Caldari and some groups in the Gallente Federation definitely engage in similar practices (even if they speak against it publicly), but I can’t do justice to describing either nation’s issues so I leave it to other people to go into that.
Though I’d actually say it’s probably the Amarr, ironically, who engage in the least legal abuse of its judicial structures. But that’s only because Amarr invests a significant amount of the judicial power directly into authority figures and has a cultural aversion to outright lies. There’s no need for unseemly show trials when it’s the lord’s legal right to simply pass whatever judgment he sees fit with limited to no opportunity for appeals. The sentences are certainly just as, and frequently more, swift and harsh.
Of course, the authorities will not be more merciful, and that isn’t the point I’m trying to make.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is a cultural reason behind the whole ‘skip due process’, tied to them being, basically, extended family to each other. The sting of a crime against one of their own is felt much more deeply compared to what we would have felt if we simply just read the news that some diplomat from our own soil had been selling state secrets to another nation, which would serve as the impetus to take matters into their own hands. For us, it’s some stranger betraying our country. For Minmatar, it’s a family member betraying the rest of the extended family, and therefore, far more personal.
That level of emotional involvement might drive the tribesman to just go right ahead and confront the traitor and beat his teeth out, or, in the case of the Firetail incident, execute him in such a vicious manner, instead of just waiting for a cop to come around to arrest him.
This is why I mention that it’s isn’t necessarily a case of ‘power corrupts’ when the Minmatar decides to skip due process and dispense harsh justice. Sometimes, justice is dispensed due to outrage born from themselves perceiving the crime as that against an extended family member.
You may argue that Shakor was ‘corrupted by absolute power’ when he had the Parliament purged of ‘traitorous senators’. However, I think that it’s also likely that Shakor might also be acting on outrage that there are traitors in the Parliament and decided, for whatever reason, that so-and-so are traitors and had to go before they continue to hurt what is basically his family. Does not make it any less wrong, mind you. Just figuring out what’s going on in his head when he was sitting in the parliament proceeding several couple months prior to the Elder War and the purge, looking at all these senators blocking Karin Midular constantly and clearly not acting in the interest of the Republic and the Tribes and internally seething on how these guys are hurting all these people he cared about.
Yep, that sounds reasonable. I’m just thinking though, that most examples where we’ve seen this are emotionally charged events to begin with, where even “better people” would struggle to keep calm.
Of course, I don’t think the Minmatar generally consider giving in to this “rage” to inherently be a bad thing, when they see something like that, they see a wrong to be righted, right then, right there, without some pretentious Gallentean trials that would just unnecessarily prolong justice being served.
From an outside perspective, isn’t that a textbook case of abuse of absolute power? I don’t necessarily disagree with the rest, it does actually sound a reasonable assumption to make.
I guess judging by the material here, “Why the Minmatar Republic Sucks” is going to be the first one. Really enjoying the look into how their society works on a more day to day level. I should try and find out what some average jobs might be in the Republic as well, as I’ve heard their economic situation “Isn’t Great”. Thank you all so much for your contributions though! <3
Good luck finding out, since info on day-to-day affairs of the Minmatar is possibly sparsest of all the empires, and what has been said so far is mostly conjecture with personal opinion mixed in.
As for what would be average jobs? Well, often in the chronicles Minmatar do manual labour, and hold establishments of various sorts, but also do high-tech research. Kind of like what we have on earth right now, depends a lot on social status and where you live. While the common misconception is that Minmatar are “space savages”, their society is still leaps and bounds more advanced than ours at least on the more central regions, where fringe planets might be more like our current planet with crude technology and sparse contact with the galaxy at large.
This is again just conjecture and personal opinion, partly drawn from that I’ve read how even Gallente and Caldari have low-tech s—tholeplanets here and there, and from our standpoint they operate on fairly utopian level of technology and welfare.
Yep, the Republic is the smallest economic powerhouse of the four to the best of my knowledge, but it has been improving and somebody correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I’ve gotten the impression that part of the reason the Republic was somewhat impoverished in the past was because a lot of resources were more or less secretly stolen to fund preparations of the Elder Invasion - including Gallentean aid money, which was supposed to be used to strenghten the Minmatar infrastructure.
This is a little backwards but might offer some insight into the kind of skills that Minmatar might possess in the every day and also gives a glimpse into Matari life in the Federation. I think Eve Source might say that 60% of the Federation is of Matari descent, but I would have to double check that. (Edit: Eve Source, Page 67, “Gallente Federation Demographics,” shows that 35% of the population is Minmatar.)
However, it might imply that although the Minmatar are a highly advanced race, there might be a sense in the Federation that they are only fit for manual labor jobs.
Here is an article on a reprisal attack conducted within the Federation by the Bloody Hands of Matar terrorist group in response to Midular’s assassination:
https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/impetus-facility-in-atlanins-torched-7-dead/
And here is an insightful article about Federation Matari and ethnic Gallente feelings about Midular being attacked that demonstrates the wide gap of culture: https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/minmatar-residents-of-federation-express-growing-concern/
Federation Minmatar react to Senate report on discrimination: https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/minmatar-react-to-senate-report-call-for-elokurs-freedom/
Senate report on discrimination, dismissive attitude towards junior Matari senator: https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/senate-report-no-evidence-of-widespread-discrimination-against-minmatar/
I think the terrible economic performance is more due to a combination of factors which also included money being syphoned for building the Elder Fleet. The other factors include corruption within the government, general mismanagement, economic development policies being blocked by partisans within the Parliament for partisan reasons and others I haven’t thought of yet.
Yes, that’s why I said it was part of the problem, and a particular strain to Republic’s economics before the Elder Invasion. However I believe I’ve read how the Republic is slowly becoming something to take seriously as an economical power, this is in part reflected by the Republic’s military, which has pumped out better and better designed ships that also become capsuleer favourites more often than not.
I believe we had a discussion about something akin to this with you in the past, and I got the impression you didn’t hold Republics’ economy or technology in high regard. I respectfully disagreed then and disagree even now, I maintain that the core regions and worlds would have nothing to be ashamed of compared to any other “jewel worlds” of other nations. Where the Republics reach starts to wane (generally low-sec and border worlds) is a different story altogether, though.
Contrary to your belief, I actually really like Republic tech. There’s something anachronistic about it. However, I also believe that the technology of the Republic trends away from the glitter of the new science and towards refinement and optimisation. It is really something to make a fission reactor work at powering the warp drives.
At least until CCP decided that it’s really nuclear fusion the Minmatar are using.
I still insist that the foundation behind the Republic’s technology is nothing cutting edge in any way. What the Republic really excels at is the mechanics and engineering part, and the materials science part. I still won’t mince words about it: compared to practically anyone else, the Republic’s tech is nothing wunderbar to talk about.
At least when we are talking about what’s on the surface. It’s when we get into the nitty gritty of it all, for example, the materials used for fabricating all these bearings that allow the engines to run without a hitch and the sort of propellant used to propel the shells into another ship’s hull almost instantaneously at 20km or more, that one really finds the magic in the tech.
The Republic’s technological marvel is not perceivable on the surface. One has to actually dig into the details to find it. Hence my comparison of the Republic’s starships with the muscle cars of our era. Outside, she’s not a beauty. She might even look like utter crap. However, this utter crap will absolutely soar and corners like a champ.
Imagine a rusty Beetle that’s hiding a Cardillac engine.
There is a good reason why I absolutely adore the Breacher. She’s ugly. She’s just a cell tower with engines strapped on, firing rockets and launching two drones. However, she tanks like a champ and will outfly and outpunch that swanky golden ship with the laser guns. And her rockets are such wonderful things like nuclear warheads. She’s a wonderful piece of engineering disguised as garbage.
I still have a dim view on the economic development of the Republic, however. Though, cutting the Republic some slack, she’s finally found footing and started to run instead of stumbling and tripping all the time.
Well, Minmatar have done some truly heinous things in pursuit of either freedom or simple vengeance. For example, the Chronicle “Daughters of the Revolution” mentions an instance in which Minmatar rebels decide to “pollute the enemy” by setting up labor camps for captured Amarrian men and forcing captured Amarrian women into sexual slavery.
Minmatar freedom fighters, radicals and terrorists have committed a number of atrocities as well. The Chronicle “Innocent Faces” records an instance wherein a Minmatar terrorist group kidnaps the daughter of an Amarrian children’s show host and demands that he denounce the religion on his show if he ever wanted to see his daughter again. He doesn’t, and it’s implied that she is murdered.
But since you mentioned “factions”, I was only mentioning major examples that had taken place after the rebellion and the establishment of the Republic, and which were either carried out by, or sanctioned by, the government of the Republic.
Holy shiiiitt that’s some brutal stuff
Anyone mentioned the Intaki (Galente) Reborn faction yet & their transfer of memory to newborns or children (not sure which) for clone free immortality?
Assuming it wipes or subsumes the infants mind that ones effectively systemic culturally encouraged infanticide for you right there.
Gotta wonder how far back some of their memories go seeing as they’ve apparently been doing this since long before capsuleers & even before they got off planet again… wonder if any can remember coming through the EVE-gate?
I haven’t found enough about the Intaki Reborn to know when the process if performed ( /paging @Bataav and the ILF ) but it’s an interesting question. (I’m becoming interested in Intaki lore myself)