Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Fiction + Fiction discussion => Topic started by: Mizhara on 11 Jul 2018, 20:32
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Post Link (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/05/31/thoughts-on-futility/)
It’s futile. There’s no path to success. We can not win this. We can not achieve this goal. It is futile.
It’s an odd little notion that tends to crop up every so often in capsuleer circles of all places. This is of course far from unexpected, because it’s true. It’s this delightful twist of irony to know that in New Eden no one soars as high, flies as far, wields mightier weapons or relishes in more wealth than capsuleers and yet… outside of that vile Empire itself there are few as efficiently hobbled, limited, neutered and chained as the freelancer capsuleers. I know, I know. This is a claim that requires some elaboration.
Consider our freedom.
There is no such thing as a border as far as we are concerned. There is not a star system or wormhole we can’t get to. Every trade station sits ready to receive our staggering wealth, every outer region system quakes under the thunderous firestorms we direct at scum in return for bounties and loot. We are as free as any in New Eden could ever be.
Consider our leashes.
We are blinded. Our eyes veiled to the vast majority of traffic and activity in New Eden. We are crippled. Our fingers on the triggers not ours after all, except when the true owners allow it. We are bound. Mere wreckage and salvage, should we tempt the ire of CONCORD. We are pawns and peons. Playthings for the powers that be, in Pendulum Pretense bloodsports. We are dupes. Forging entire “empires” in the outer regions, ready for the real empires of New Eden to swoop in and claim it all the moment our leash holders flicks a simple switch.
Consider then, our efforts.
The bleeding hearts froth and flail as clowns parade in their tents. Mad people wage wars on their ideological enemies among capsuleers, madder ones wage wars on random targets, the maddest wage war because they think they can win. They… we fight and kill and die and rise again, to fight and kill and die and rise again. A perpetual culling of those desperate or insane enough to sign on with our mad wars and our gloriously noble purpose and our relief of drudgery and boredom and our absolutely nonsensical building of empires and… well, our everything.
An example. There’s no defeating the crimson clown. He prances and pratfalls. He proclaims and prosecutes. He fiddles and falls. He loses and then what? He cries and giggles madly, yanks another tent out of the markets for what to us is largely pocket change and starts all over again. His enemies do the same, and start their own script from the start, playing their roles by rote. The cycle repeats.
Have you ever heard the definition of insanity?
What then is the alternative in the face of this futility? For futile it most certainly is. That mad mind isn’t going to change, and nor is the other mad minds that stand in opposition. His efforts are utterly pointless, achieving nothing and so are the efforts of his enemies as they reinforce everything he believes and thinks. Another example perhaps. The goons and NancyDotte and PL and Legacy and CO2 and all the other madmen out there, expending countless millions of lives in their utterly futile wars, achieving nothing but momentary grandeur or illusory successes as their capsuleer enemies lose some assets here, some isk there and some morale over yonder. The maps change a little, banks see the ISK flowing here, then there.
In utter futility, as the capsuleers then flow around the various outer region entities and shore up different sides of the map, bloats another entity, weakening a third, and the whole cycle starts again. Nothing permanent achieved. Egos have been stroked, of course, and grand claims about history being made reverberate throughout Galnet. And nothing actually changes, but local population counts. CO2, who I and many others proclaimed dead have now risen again. The Goons who were soundly and thoroughly shown for what a sad collection of terrible combat pilots and fleet commanders they are, infested another corner of the map and spread like fungus yet again. How many times have CVA and Providence burned to the ground? The Pendulum Pretense, the never-ending culling of pirates at the behest of corporations across the nations, the wars in highsec, low and null, the “colonization” of w-space. All mere cycles, never achieving something that isn’t torn down to be started anew.
Have you ever heard the definition of insanity?
That then, is the conclusion we must come to. Capsuleerdom is by definition insane. Every effort we ever make is futile. This is demonstrably true. The enemies we can fight can not be defeated. The enemies that fight us, can not defeat us. It’s futile. There’s no path to success. We can not win this. We can not achieve this goal. It is futile.
Yet we fight.
Because we must.
Because we like it.
Because we hate someone.
Because we love someone.
Because we want it.
Because we loathe it.
Pick and choose, the combination doesn’t matter. There’ll always be one that will incite the need to fight into any given capsuleer, given enough time.
… because it isn’t futile. It’s never futile. Fatal, certainly. Our efforts are magnificent in their staggering bloodshed, but never futile. You can never win a war against capsuleers, but you can win the war against their will and their cause. You can inspire fury, righteous wrath and effort into thousands, millions, trillions. You can inspire fear, terror, despair and futility into thousands, millions, trillions of hearts. You can be a symbol.
Lovely little bit of tosh that, isn’t it? Sure, it’s true, but it’s nonsense at the same time. You can be all of that, and rightly so, but that’s not the real reason why it’s never futile.
Do you want to know why it’s never futile? Why while staggeringly insane, you should never stop fighting no matter who you are and who you fight for?
It’s because of the simplest, dumbest, most pathetically cliché and trite thing there ever was.
It’s because maybe, just maybe… you’re fighting for what’s in your heart. You’ll never have to win or lose, you never have to succeed or fail. It’s quite simply the only reason you ever should need to keep fighting, no matter what. In my case, it’s the words “Never Again” writ in scar tissue.
What’s in your heart, capsuleer? Find out, then fight for it.
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Unsanctioned (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/07/11/unsanctioned/)
This really should be in quotation marks. No one with half an ounce of brain matter actually believes it’s unsanctioned. I mean, take a look at this thrice-damned mess. No matter where you go in that bloated carcass they call an Empire, there’s sites containing thousands of people waiting for some merciful soul to come deliver them from evil.
You think that’s unsanctioned, really? If you do, you can’t exactly be holding the Empire’s own security forces and law enforcement in high regard. Much like the slaver raids outside of their borders, decried as Rogue Elements or Criminals or… well, unsanctioned. It would appear that if we’re to take any of this at their words, a very large chunk of their Navy has gone rogue and a sizable chunk of the Empire’s population engages in unsanctioned slave trade and processing.
Of course it’s sanctioned.
I don’t know if any of you remember this, but a while back Jamyl Sarum once condoned – and likely ordered in the first place – the outright murder of children having been freed and on their way to a free nation. Try to imagine this for a moment. Take in the weight of what that means. The freedom of a Minmatar child was a greater horror to these people than their blatant and outright murder.
So now enough of the various factions composing CONCORD have managed to get these sites onto our overviews, and we’re slaughtering “unsanctioned” slavers and getting maybe a quarter of the slaves at the location crammed into a hauler before it zips off into the unknown. My hangars across the Empire are starting to fill up with enough freed slaves that it’ll take me considerable effort and time to get them all through the Network.
So why is this, you might wonder. Why have the powers that be allowed this, and why didn’t Kittenz veto the hell out of it? Allow me to lay out a few reasons.
First of all, do remember the lovely Kittenz’ provenance. Tash-Murkon have always been a house that prefers a more… mercantile approach to slavery. It’s about profits, work-forces, trade and practicality for them. This is a downright delightful means towards the end of them getting their competitors knocked out of the game rather permanently. Slave prices will rise, their personal stocks will be far more attractive to customers and she even gets to pretend that it’s the Rule of Law.
Secondly, this allows a lot of people to keep pretending they’ve done anything of note. Four hundred times however many sites they do? That’s a lot of freed slaves! Of course, compared to the ocean of shackled men, women and children in the Empire, this is pretty much like pissing in it and expecting floods to happen. Of course, the floods will remain conspicuous in their absence, and when this little celebration is at an end people will pat themselves on the back and cease doing anything of worth. Job done, qe? Ne.
The Purge will be done, markets will have been created and profits are to be made again. Breeder facilities will remain “unsanctioned” yet plentiful, with slavers wandering the hallways sporting a semi-erection. Breaking facilities will be cathedrals of tormented howling and sobs. Spirits will break under the lash and chain. Trillions of fates will remain horrifying.
So tell me, ladies and gentlemen of New Eden. Will you be done when this little diversion is over? Will you have done your part, and consider yourself finished? Don’t. Do not allow yourself to be lulled into complacency by this. Take it for the lesson it is, in just how vile the Empire’s slavery truly is. How they feed their markets with “unsanctioned” slavery, while at the very same time using it as a smokescreen to give their practices a slight veil of legitimacy.
These chains must be broken for good, and the only way to achieve that is to maintain the pressure.
Even if you have to be… “unsanctioned”.
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I like the website/blog! Well done...are those completely to be taken OOC or whats the path for IC knowledge if such is the case?
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IC site. If someone searches for Miz's corp on Galnet, they should find it.
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Musings on trust. (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/07/22/trust/)
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You have never heard of these people. (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/07/25/youve-never-heard-about-these-people/)
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I like your musings. This latest one has a welcome echo of Carl Sagan's elegiac monologue on the Blue Dot.
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Thank you, and yeah I realized by the time I was finished that I either used that line because I was thinking along those lines, or using that line pushed me more towards thinking along those lines.
Whether it was the egg or the chicken doesn't really matter, The Blue Dot ended up part of it all entirely unintended.
(No seriously, I haven't had an original thought since I learned how to read. Send help.)
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Did you make up the details of the history of that movement out of whole cloth or did you base them off a real group?
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I used part of the story of a real group I read about a while ago as the rough outline.
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This is what fuels most of Jason's behavior, to be honest. He's well aware of how pointless it is and attempts to mock and parody it. When he's serious, and makes serious investments into his behavior in space, it's because part of him believes there's a reason for the capsuleer's existence, that one day we will stumble upon some alien civilization that won't put up with our presence, or perhaps we won't put up with theirs, and the wars will be meaningful. The chance of humanity being the only advanced species that arose from so many temperate planets just doesn't add up to him. He's training for that day.
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looks vaguely similar to some bits of something about Yemen that I read a couple years ago.
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Let's talk about disparity and stagnation. (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/07/28/50/)
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A Thousand to None (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/07/30/a-thousand-to-none/)
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First and Second Debt, repost from old IGS (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/08/01/grudges-and-debts-first-and-second-debt/) in order to prepare for a continuation down the line.
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Let's talk about Neutrality. (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/08/02/neutrality/)
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Does the article on "Things I am not allowed to do" take any inspiration from Skippy's list (aka: The 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S. Army)?
http://skippyslist.com/list/
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There's a million of those lists out there. I've read several, including Skippys, and have probably copied half of my entries from those lists too. I can't remember which in particular.
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All your writings are fascinating, but I really enjoyed reading the First and Second Debt. Well perhaps 'enjoyed' is not the correct verb for such a harrowing tale, but nonetheless illuminating.
May I ask what Kyn'aldrnari means?
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Corpname. Butchered and mangled Norse/English (and thus Sebiestorish) mashing the words kin and fire. "The search for kin with the embers required to light a villieldr. (wildfire)". Since capsuleers are currently largely unable to affect fuck all but each other, Miz (and her solo+alt corp) pretty much only has that as a purpose. Roam the skies, watch for opportunities and seeing if there are any other Matari left that aren't Pendulum Pretense addicted or peacemongers.
Glad to hear you're enjoying it. Third Debt and onwards will be coming along eventually.
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Thanks for putting these out there. Immersive reading and intriguing character study.
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Glad you like it, and sorry there haven't been updates lately. Some of the RP stuff going on have taken a lot of time, and other things I've meant to update on have crawled to a bureaucratic slog and so on. I should probably just write some one-offs in the mean time. I'll get something out tomorrow or the day after.
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Data Breach (https://kynaldrnari.com/2018/08/21/databreach/)
A different format. Figured I'd give it a try.