Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Character Development => Topic started by: Thansoli on 14 Jun 2011, 17:42
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I never really intended to get involved in active RP when I started playing Eve, despite having some basic ideas about who my characters were and how they related to each other. After bouncing around the cluster for a year, I’ve decided that I really like living in Minmatar space, and have no desire to go anywhere else unless it’s to shoot someone in the face. This brings me to the difficult task of developing the IC reasons why a native Caldari (who hates the Gallente more than most) would fight alongside the Minmatar. After getting involved in an IC discussion about State sponsorship of slavery and megacorp exploitation of the Matari, I came up with what seems like a logical viewpoint, and I’d like to get some feedback on it.
The Amarr-Caldari Alliance/Trade relationship is, in the long term, not advantageous for the State. The Amarr Empire doesn’t seem to have a long term demand for Caldari products. The Empire is large enough to produce most of what they need, and they really just need us to fill a temporary shortage of gold paint. :P Building a long term economic strategy around The Federation is even less likely, for the obvious reasons. The Republic on the other hand, is going to need equipment and materials from the State for a long time. They need to build up their military, build up their infrastructure, etc. From that perspective alone the Republic is the more logical trading partner. Now, if the Republic is able to properly defeat the Empire that would make it possible for the State to move our trading relationship away from the Empire and towards the Republic. SO, if I help the Republic put the beatdown on the Empire, I am, in fact, helping the State.
Whew. Thoughts?
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Luring the Minnies away from Fed influence is one angle. Seeking profit in distant markets (the politics be damned) is another. A loyal Caldari fighting the Empire to help the Republic... I dunno. That sounds very naughty, but maybe you've just simply gone native (http://magiclanternfilm.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/brando-apocalypse.jpg).
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Lots of folks have thought in the past about the natural affinity between the State and the Republic. I pursued that angle a long time ago, but I know some other folks still have that interest. Keep that up and you'll definitely find some likeminded people.
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Wasn't that sorta what Stitcher was up to? Don't know if he's still at it.
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There's a lot of hurdles that need to be considered with this...(if anything, it's certainly something that Seriphyn would bring up IC, for example)
- Executor Heth regarding the Minmatar Republic as a "Gallente puppet state"
- One-fifth of Minmatar being either Gallenteans or expats in Fed (One-third of Federation's population is Minmatar)
- Historic and strong ties between Federation and Republic military (modern Republic military is Gallente-trained and -supported)
- Foreign aid, support and so on (infrastructure too) is primarily from the Federation and Gallente charities (though likely waned with rise of Shakor and Republic resurgence)
- Caldari support for slavery (Ishukone providing TCMCs to Amarr Empire, allowing slavery to operate in State amongst Amarr corporations, ie. Ducia Foundry and Annaro)
I would say there isn't much in common between the State and Republic other than the fact they were "oppressed" by larger nations. Corporate identity being similar to tribal identity can be seen the same as planetary identity in the Fed and house identity in the Empire. But yeah, most of those things you covered the Gallenteans are already doing or have done. I would argue that, as far as the Caldari Liberals are concerned, the Federation is the better, larger market in the long-term due to the amount of stock the Gallenteans put into capitalism (Shared cultural facet between Caldari and Gallente, though different applications of course). The Republic and Empire aren't interested in capitalism as much in comparison.
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Since Providence I-RED has been supplying/supporting the Cal-Matari Movement, a different approach then most freedom fighters (Obtaining Slaves and handing them over to the Republic or offering them Jobs within the Caldari State, supplying TLF Corps with ships and isk, creating trade agreements ect.) Offering new job opportunities to Amarr slavers among a larger list of things that rarely go public.
The Caldari-Minmatar relationship possibilities always have given me a good feeling RP wise (Even if its very.. very challenging, between dealing with hardliner Amarr, isolationist Minmatar corps, and my patriotic friends in the State.) plus cannot forget all the untapped resources and isk that can be made :twisted:
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You rang?
I don't want to give spoilers about Ko, but the bigger things have already been mentioned, and Ko's IC motivation generally lines up with yours. "A Republic able to stand on its own, as an equal, is best for all, including the State." The less of a reliance on the Federation, the more likely the Republic and the State can warm up to each other on equal terms - at least in her head. Plus, should a Reclaiming ever be aimed at the State, there's the experience of having already been fighting them to help against that.
It's also comfortable from a social perspective, because the family, clan, tribe, nation of the Matari can easily mirror the family, corporation (or still clan, in her case), mega, nation of the Caldari. It's nicely familiar for her to work in that environment and social structure.
Sprinkle in her family's version of The Way, and the little Stargazer says, "WTF forced 'enlightenment'? What is this? I do not even..." So, off we go to help and to hope.
Of course, ask her IC why she's part of a pro-Matari corp, and you'll get told, "I was hired." Most seem satisfied with that answer and don't ask further.
FW made the mental gymnastics to reconcile the two sides a bit more troublesome, but it's not too hard. From IC experience, it's less the Caldari who create any friction than Matari your character publicly disagrees with or Federales trying to cast your character in a suspicious light. But, it can still become a rocky road very quickly, and that's when it gets fun.
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I never really intended to get involved in active RP when I started playing Eve, despite having some basic ideas about who my characters were and how they related to each other. After bouncing around the cluster for a year, I’ve decided that I really like living in Minmatar space, and have no desire to go anywhere else unless it’s to shoot someone in the face. This brings me to the difficult task of developing the IC reasons why a native Caldari (who hates the Gallente more than most) would fight alongside the Minmatar. After getting involved in an IC discussion about State sponsorship of slavery and megacorp exploitation of the Matari, I came up with what seems like a logical viewpoint, and I’d like to get some feedback on it.
The Amarr-Caldari Alliance/Trade relationship is, in the long term, not advantageous for the State. The Amarr Empire doesn’t seem to have a long term demand for Caldari products. The Empire is large enough to produce most of what they need, and they really just need us to fill a temporary shortage of gold paint. :P Building a long term economic strategy around The Federation is even less likely, for the obvious reasons. The Republic on the other hand, is going to need equipment and materials from the State for a long time. They need to build up their military, build up their infrastructure, etc. From that perspective alone the Republic is the more logical trading partner. Now, if the Republic is able to properly defeat the Empire that would make it possible for the State to move our trading relationship away from the Empire and towards the Republic. SO, if I help the Republic put the beatdown on the Empire, I am, in fact, helping the State.
Whew. Thoughts?
Makes sense to me. Its certainly one angle to take that would get you into the Republic and fighting for their cause. Would cause for interesting RP with the more orthodox Caldari as well.
And that RP was a lot of fun, btw.
(just dont be surprised when Gottii asks, "if you treat your current allies this way, why in the world should we then ally with you in the future?" :D )
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Civire
Ancestries
Dissenters
The cold discipline of Caldari society does not appeal to everyone, nor is everyone happy with the stranglehold that corporate rulers have on everyday life. While not outright rebellious, dissenters nonetheless invest considerable time and effort in trying to change the system from within. The State keeps a close eye on these individuals.
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As long as there are implied Minmatar hardline movements going by "if you're not with us, you're against us" and possibly hitting Caldari targets of opportunity, the corporations are not going to be too cordial with the Minmatar. Not to count Minmatar spies stealing Caldari technology. So, while at a glance Caldari-Minmatar co-operation would be ideal, for practical reasons the Caldari don't have much choice but the alliance with the Empire.
Citing the TCMCs as the State supporting slavery is a bit funny, when it's just Ishukone. Admitted, no doubt there are several corps that have in practice implemented slavery (even if it's masked as having paid workers), but mostly, the State is having a much stronger stance against slavery than the Republic, where the majority opinion is not "abolish slavery" but "I come for my people" - the Minmatar couldn't care less for Ealurians, Ni-Kunni, or other slaves as long as their own are free. Yes, many Minmatar player characters tell they're categorically anti-slavery. So what? I understand that most Amarr player characters state that they don't have any slaves.
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Citing the TCMCs as the State supporting slavery is a bit funny, when it's just Ishukone. Admitted, no doubt there are several corps that have in practice implemented slavery (even if it's masked as having paid workers), but mostly, the State is having a much stronger stance against slavery than the Republic, where the majority opinion is not "abolish slavery" but "I come for my people" - the Minmatar couldn't care less for Ealurians, Ni-Kunni, or other slaves as long as their own are free. Yes, many Minmatar player characters tell they're categorically anti-slavery. So what? I understand that most Amarr player characters state that they don't have any slaves.
To be fair, the Caldari are helping the Amarr with slave raids in Republic space, at least according to the mission briefings I get occasionally.
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The Caldari aren't exactly sentimental and activist on the international scene*; I'm not sure they see any use in the Minmatar Republic unless it becomes a decent market for them. As far as the Liberals are concerned, they want free trade opportunities (of which the Republic may not have any), the Patriots would want to assert military/economic dominance, and the Practicals are unethical so if slavery gets them their monthly profits, then so be it.
It appears the Caldari focus on the Federation and Khanid Kingdom because both have capitalism as strong foundations of their culture (corporations wanting to negotiate with Roden decreased trade regulation against Caldari goods for example). I think the Minmatar are too busy trying to "go for their people" than worry about that.
*By this I mean they do things for flat-out economic reasons, not participate in humanitarian endeavours or candycoat things.
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Minmatar are, according to missions, co-operating with the Gallente very tightly. They work together to raid Caldari research centers. However, they are also very quick to raise the "we are neutral" card, for example when they are helping anti-State dissenters or acting as cheap labour, working for the Gallente to build secret behind-the-lines bases for the Federation Navy.
Interestingly, KK does owns shares (via Echelon Entertainment) in Native Freshfood.
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I wasn't aware that the Caldari had started supporting slavery and exploiting the minmatar. I must have missed that one.
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I wasn't aware that the Caldari had started supporting slavery and exploiting the minmatar. I must have missed that one.
Other missions I have seen include the Minmatar shooting Gallente because the Gallente intelligence agencies are poking around too much, Caldari shooting someone (maybe Angels?) because unlike our friends the Amarr they don't just enslave criminals and traitors, they enslave anyone they can catch, Minmatar shooting a mixed force of Amarr and Caldari who are doing slave raids...
I'm not sure that we can draw many conclusions about it all other than each of the state, fed, empire and republic are sufficiently diverse and large that there are people within them who push in many different directions. I'd bet there are anti-slaver Caldari as well as anti-Fed Matari.
I don't think you can make assumptions about the overall direction of each polity based on isolated mission text.
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OK, glad to see I'm not the only Caldari thinks this way. Thansoli would never classify himself as a Dissenter ("Merc" by birth), but others certainly would. He has some pretty liberal views, and doesn't realize why he has them. If someone TOLD him why he's so liberal, he would probably flip out and start throwing punches or shooting. He certainly wouldn't accept it. I don't want to go in to too much detail, as the introduction chronicle is still being written.
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I wasn't aware that the Caldari had started supporting slavery and exploiting the minmatar. I must have missed that one.
There's those missions with "slave traders" in the title where the agent says something like "they are not to be confused with the lawful slave traders we do business with on occasion who get their stock from POW's, criminals, and undesireables..." or something like that.
So there is the implication The State isn't against the existence of slavery, especially if they can do proper business with the slavers. Those who are against it bigtime would take issue with The State for that.
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Miz has several times voiced her desire to break the State away from the Empire (costing the Empire a very valuable support) and try to create bonds between the Tribes and Megacorps. On a purely individual note, she considers the Caldari to be very similar to the Tribes, a hundred times more honest and straightforwards than the Gallente (in that you can always trust the State to look out for numero uno first, a position she respects a lot when paired with the Matari 'Family first, Clan second, Tribe third, People fourth, everyone else... eh, somewhere' attitude. And a far more worthwhile potential ally for that matter.
She's taken some serious flak for her opinion on the matter, though.
The Caldari having supported Amarr slaver runs in Republic space is a major hurdle to get over, though.
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I wasn't aware that the Caldari had started supporting slavery and exploiting the minmatar. I must have missed that one.
There's those missions with "slave traders" in the title where the agent says something like "they are not to be confused with the lawful slave traders we do business with on occasion who get their stock from POW's, criminals, and undesireables..." or something like that.
So there is the implication The State isn't against the existence of slavery, especially if they can do proper business with the slavers. Those who are against it bigtime would take issue with The State for that.
I've always read it so that they don't mind doing business with the Amarr etc. just because they use slaves, even when slavery is abolished in the State. So no, you can't have slaves in the State*, but they don't care if slaves are used elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind. Of course, the corporations of low moral fibre may act rather as NIMBY - being closely affiliated with slave labour while upholding the law that there's no slaves in Caldari territory.
Of course, generalizing that to all of Caldari would mean that it would be necessary to generalize that slaves are used everywhere in New Eden. Amarr of course, Gallente criminal groups use slaves - and may have connections to Roden and other megacorporations, Minmatar are the strongest empire region for the Angel Cartel which trades slaves, and previous Caldari discussion pointing out that some Caldari may use slaves, as well - and some workers could be considered slaves, see below.
*) Low wage in obscure corporate scrip which can be used only your own stores and which cannot be exchanged except through the corporation that issued it is A-OK though. So technically freed slaves could be made to endure such an environment.
And naturally, if we take missions as something that is common and happens often, I'd very much like the Minmatar to stop trying to genocide Caldari planets with bioweapons. (This is even funnier when it happens in the Republic.) Also the licking of Gallente boots by fighting the war for them is something that does not go down well with most Caldari, I assume. In Caldari missions, the Republic is essentially a protectorate state of the Federation.