Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => Player Driven Content => Topic started by: Aria Jenneth on 14 Nov 2015, 11:54
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So, trying to do Sojourn: Federation posts is being a little hard. Aria's going to be shifting focus from general statements to specific explorations, and one bit that we've never developed much is something that's likely to be ... uh, pretty widespread in the Federation.
It's pretty well-established, if not very well fleshed-out, canon that capsuleers are celebrities. At a guess, capsuleers in general have both fans and anti-fans, who watch developments with avid interest. There are probably newsletters, focus articles, and so on. The tabloids probably have all sorts of fun-- much of it made up, as it seems likely that being "capsuleer-specialized paparazzi" is a singularly dangerous job.
More generally, it seems likely that most capsuleers have at least a small individual following, while well-known ones probably have a larger, possibly much larger one.
I can think of two ways to do this, and actually I'd like to try merging them. Firstly, each of us probably has some idea of what we'd want and/or expect in a fan base-- so, a brief description of size, makeup, etc., for your own seems appropriate.
However, no one gets to pick their fans, so input on other people's fan bases is also accepted-- but, this being a game, the player whose character is under discussion has veto power. We can start separate threads for different characters if it takes off.
Ideally, I'd like to see any given post address two characters: typically, one's own, and someone else's.
Sound good? I'll start.
Aria:
She's little, she's cute, she's curious, she's publicly visible, she has an exotic background, and she's an amnesiac-- of course Aria has a fan club ... which is probably kind of a problem.
I think most capsuleer fan clubs would be concentrated in the Federation, and Aria's would be no exception. Being formally an enemy (PY-RE, etc.) might slow things down a little, but she's apolitical enough that she's likely not seen too much as an "enemy capsuleer." Generally, club members might be those with an interest in intercultural exploration, alternative (especially Achur) spirituality, and so on. Serious club members might mirror her penchant for wearing black. She probably attracts either bookish/intellectual sorts or people who admire intellectuals ... in one way or another.
And, there begins the bit Aria would probably find mortifying. If I say "fanfic" ... yeah.
Mostly, the issues this would create would be subtle. Embarrassing doujinshi aside, as with many capsuleers, she likely has some trouble escaping attention if moving in heavily-populated areas.
A possibly more dangerous issue is that she's not the only edition of herself. Her old self was also quite visible, but would have attracted a much darker following-- posthuman-cultists, etc.. Aria's fairly publicly declared her intention to undo the "damage" her prior self did; her old self's club may not appreciate that.
Pieter Tuulinen:
I think Pieter's fan club would (obviously) be concentrated in the Caldari State, but he likely has a following in the Federation as well. (A bit like Irwin Rommel-- an unambiguous enemy who nevertheless commands respect.) Federal attention might not quite rise to the level of "fan club," but more keenly interested observers with the occasional straight-up admirer.
Someone has inevitably "shipped" him with Andreus Ixiris. Probably several someones.
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Alright, that's a good idea... However, I'm pretty poor at tabloid representation, I think..
Lyn:
She probably has shifted a lot between her early days as a pro-active capsuleer trying to fit in every faction she came in, taking model, and rapidly growing as a CONCORD enforcer, albeit in her own way. I suppose fans could have seen her as an alternative to the rigid and corrupted form CONCORD could at times wear, while anti-fans would have seen her just like them as a puppet. It has also to be taken in the pre-TEA context when we were still in the aftermath of Doriam and Heideran, and that what she did was a lot more expected than today (meaning, building bridges between opponents, and routing out unlawfulness).
Now though, I would expect that her fanbase to have shrunk a lot. She is mostly inactive in space bare a few minimum things, and her delusions on capsuleer duties, while probably fitting with a lot of baseliners, also combine with a perpetual indecisiveness always prey to doubt and too much objectivity for the sake of objectivity. Since most fanbases are driven by emotion, I don't see her attracting a lot of people, even less than in the past when she was mostly quiet in her shadows. For those she does though, she might be a quiet figure in a lot of scholarly places as well as posthumans that don't hold traditional faction in very high esteem.
But mostly, I would expect that her loss of capsuleer fame (if she had any in the first place, but at least she was active) means that she is not very much considered by fans unless it's in more embarrassing fictions and kinks, especially since she might draw the dandere (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Dandere) trope around (because of Shrinking Violet (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShrinkingViolet)).
I would expect her to mostly draw ire from most of the imperial masses in the Empire, while probably having a certain attraction in unconventional educated circles, and especially scientific venues where traditional beliefs are probably often eschewed in favor of something different.
I suppose that most of her interventions since TEA have probably also made her a target for the average caldari masses, but maybe that her good relationship with I-RED actually bears different results in liberal circles.
For the gallente, she probably have a lot more fans since she spent half her upbringing here. Probably in two different ways: the few fans that love cultural exchange, especially when it's exotic, and the embarrassing ones that love exotic for exotic sake.
As for the minmatar, they probably hate her for most of them due to her being Ammatar by birth, for that not many of them probably know of her admiration for Midular.
Luna:
I think Luna probably has many fans in the Amarr Empire and is probably the role model of all the young amarrian ladies and children. "I want to be like Lunarisse Daphiti when i'm a grown up!"
She might also have inspired a lot of cheesy romance / cloaks and daggers / political B-series, especially in the Federation, about amarrian Holder politics. As well as probably having been shipped with Aldrith Shutaq, the other Amarrian role model Aldrith Shutaq, especially now that he has been made Holder by Aritcio.
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Luna:
I think Luna probably has many fans in the Amarr Empire and is probably the role model of all the young amarrian ladies and children. "I want to be like Lunarisse Daphiti when i'm a grown up!"
She might also have inspired a lot of cheesy romance / cloaks and daggers / political B-series, especially in the Federation, about amarrian Holder politics. As well as probably having been shipped with Aldrith Shutaq, the other Amarrian role model Aldrith Shutaq, especially now that he has been made Holder by Aritcio.
But he's married-- to an admiral, no less! If their love were ever discovered....
Heeehehehehee. Yeah, the Federation would be all over that. So might a fair few Amarr. People are people, and people are pervs. Especially those who aren't supposed to be. Actually, being as the Amarr outlaw pornography generally, the stuff that is there probably makes a bodice-ripping extramarital romance look pretty tame by comparison.
Hrm. There's a question: lurid romance novels and the like (laden with "good bits") are a traditional method of circumventing societal norms forbidding straight-up smut. The Amarr are moralistic and prudish, but do you suppose the MIO, etc., might choose to overlook the content of such things? If so, the majority of "fanfic" in this area might even be Amarrian-- albeit probably written under a pen name, for safety's sake.
Does that seem likely to you?
Lyn:
She probably has shifted a lot between her early days as a pro-active capsuleer trying to fit in every faction she came in, taking model, and rapidly growing as a CONCORD enforcer, albeit in her own way. I suppose fans could have seen her as an alternative to the rigid and corrupted form CONCORD could at times wear, while anti-fans would have seen her just like them as a puppet. It has also to be taken in the pre-TEA context when we were still in the aftermath of Doriam and Heideran, and that what she did was a lot more expected than today (meaning, building bridges between opponents, and routing out unlawfulness).
Now though, I would expect that her fanbase to have shrunk a lot. She is mostly inactive in space bare a few minimum things, and her delusions on capsuleer duties, while probably fitting with a lot of baseliners, also combine with a perpetual indecisiveness always prey to doubt and too much objectivity for the sake of objectivity. Since most fanbases are driven by emotion, I don't see her attracting a lot of people, even less than in the past when she was mostly quiet in her shadows. For those she does though, she might be a quiet figure in a lot of scholarly places as well as posthumans that don't hold traditional faction in very high esteem.
But mostly, I would expect that her loss of capsuleer fame (if she had any in the first place, but at least she was active) means that she is not very much considered by fans unless it's in more embarrassing fictions and kinks, especially since she might draw the dandere (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Dandere) trope around (because of Shrinking Violet (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShrinkingViolet)).
I would expect her to mostly draw ire from most of the imperial masses in the Empire, while probably having a certain attraction in unconventional educated circles, and especially scientific venues where traditional beliefs are probably often eschewed in favor of something different.
I suppose that most of her interventions since TEA have probably also made her a target for the average caldari masses, but maybe that her good relationship with I-RED actually bears different results in liberal circles.
For the gallente, she probably have a lot more fans since she spent half her upbringing here. Probably in two different ways: the few fans that love cultural exchange, especially when it's exotic, and the embarrassing ones that love exotic for exotic sake.
As for the minmatar, they probably hate her for most of them due to her being Ammatar by birth, for that not many of them probably know of her admiration for Midular.
Hrm. You're likely right about the ebb and flow of the thing. Lyn comes off as profoundly frustrated by multiple persistent aspects of the world, and frustration isn't especially inspiring.
Considering her vocally unorthodox take on the Amarrian faith, there may even be calls for her (and even SFRIM generally) to be investigated for heresy. But, yeah, I could see her views being intriguing to certain of the more reformist students, etc.. That same fierce independent-mindedness may act as a partial antidote to the dandere/Shrinking Violet tropes.
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Oh yes, that sure seems likely, even without pen names for the author... I would expect Amarrian censorship not to bother and smile/grin at that kind of things as long as it remains harmless, especially with a comedy value, or a lurid side.
I mean in our own history, we had plenty of more or less scandalous works that got a lot of success with more daring things breaking the norms and limits, or being outright shocking, as long as it remains in a non political tone... I'm not even sure the Amarr are that much into heavy handed censorship to begin with...
I would expect them to frown heavily upon pleb novels and other works though. You know, much like people praised the usual works of Shakespeare and what was considered to be of good taste and paramount to the 'best', while frowning a lot on pieces like Figaro that were, after all, written with a more laid-back, vulgar approach, and so outright labelled as "for the uneducated plebs".
Which didn't prevent the aristocracy to go watch the play and have a lot of fun.
Or, like every musical piece that wasn't german/austrian/italian was considered of low caliber and vulgar too. I would expect foreign stuff to often fall in that category in the Amarr Empire.
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Over the course of the past year I've been sporadically adding flesh to Vel in her DED profile via post modifications. Further I'm not that prone to sharing Vel's IC life too much in OOC environments. Equally i tend toward a balance between the extremes of Grim Dark & Sesame Street in how i see Eve / tend to play things out. Yet fan clubs? Personal IC PR & Consequences? There's thought.
Vel:
Well, in recent years she's spent an awful lot of time in logistics ships or battleships when taking vessels into counter Sansha operations. While her kill report record is hardly stellar, with many more losses than capsuleer ship kills, on average her crews typically survive their tours. Those who've been lost or medically incapacitated have received generous retirement packages, funeral services, end of life insurance coverage payouts to family/next of kin, and personally handwritten letters of condolence. Even if the unavoidable time required to do so for the several battleship crews might have been excessive.
Velarra doesn't generally go out of her way to play the stage be it on the summit or other venues for its own sake and that i suppose would lead her into being viewed through the lens of some of the trope territory suggested earlier by Lyn.
Aside from counter Sansha operations, she's been somewhat off the pop-culture radar i would suppose. There really are so many other much more flamboyant and publicly active Capsuleers to love or loathe. At worst there was a story that she spent a night partying with a popular local rock band, while on Sortet IV. The story made the local Sortet IV tabloid rounds a bit, yet ultimately nothing ever really came of it beyond the fact that someone vaguely fitting her description was poorly photographed in the same hotel the band was staying at and having a rather wild party into the early hours of the morning. Velarra's Federation based publicist eventually released a small location specific statement on Sortet IV denying Velarra's presence at the hotel suggesting it was all simply a matter of the band seeking attention through association.
Outside of empire space, within purely baseline circles she certainly has been forward at a personal level about engaging with Curses' civilian populations. In particular she has focused on linking her Capsuleer reputation, and ties to the Angels with her overseeing the development and awareness of social, health and educational services/institutions for the betterment of the baseline populations in the region. Whether it has been via providing vaccination programs or other health services, made known of via numerous local media sources, new school openings, and related employment opportunities, she has certainly focused on playing the role of a socially acceptable Angel within less militant circles.
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Morwen:
I'm going to suggest that there are likely those who look quite favorably upon Morwen for her past humanitarian relief efforts, as well as organizational talents of a scientific sort. In particular involvement with AJ, and even Syne if one's a fan who appreciates the sciences and the good Capsuleers can be responsible for when disasters occur.
I would imagine these things would be tempered by her earlier history of piracy and acute martial prowess.
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I'm really the sort who tends to fade into the RP scene and then slip away losing track of who's involved in what or RPing which story arc. As a result i'm a little out of the loop of everyone's characters and respective histories to fairly select someone to develop a fanbase for. Here's hoping the above is respectfully decent.
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Elmund Egivand does not believe that he has a fan club of any description. If anyone mentions it to him, he will just stare blankly at the insinuator, probably thinking that the fellow drank one glass too many that night. It also helped that he had walked the long corridors of Dodixie and Jita 4-4 without being recognised by any baseliner who isn't already an acquaintance. That only helped to reinforce the idea that he isn't famous or popular enough to have a band of roadies hounding his footsteps.
However, as he had learnt from the reports of that incident on his plasma world colony, there are individuals within the baseliner population who are scrutinising his activities and are taking too much interest in his pet projects, which he thought was kept well enough out of public eye. He is still getting used to the idea that a someone somewhere is interested in his activities enough to actually take the trouble finding out what he was up to and was willing to risk their lives to infiltrate his property to try and dig up some info.
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Oh i'm sure Elmund has many more or less faithful cults around the worship of the machine spirit :D
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Thou shalt bless the bolt of holiness with sacred oils?
Anyways, Utari I'm certain lives in a dillusion of having absolutely no issues with fanclubs, and probably pays them little to no heed. This has been reinforced by two factors. One, he spent a lot of time in Anoikis and therefore isolated from the rest of the Cluster. And two, he lives in the "nice" bit of the EFA station, where his corridor neighbours are all non-titled nobility and Holders. Generally, these types know not to stick noses into other people's business directly, and I can assume security would be fairly tight (much like a gated community for celebrities?)
His main stay appeal would be among the conservative liberals of the Empire and other Caldari ex-pats (Khaldari? Converts within the Empire?)
I could imagine he'd have plenty of anti-fans within the State, and possibly a small following in the Federation thanks to his brief stay there while missioning in hisec, and his work with the PPC.
Samira Kernher:
Most commoner Ultra Conservative types/freed slaves with a religious bend would be big fans, especially with her forthright attitude. I think many conservative Holders however would frown a little that a minmatar would be trying to speak so often on behalf of the Empire/Ardishapur, but probably would be nodding along and agreeing with much of it. She'd have a large anti-fan/hate club within the Kingdom.
I think her standing would be a little messy in the Republic. Maybe a bit of a following for her making the most of her life within the Empire and enduring, maybe a little hate as a possible "traitor?" I'm not confident enough with the Minmatar perspective to colour that further though.
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One question likely to pervade capsuleer fandom is how far the fandom is tangled up in the bloodshed. Even outside of the Alliance Tournament-- is your crew tapping into your camera drone footage and selling it?
"That move! DID YOU SEE THAT MOVE! And then that battleship is just like, KAFWOOM!"
"Dude, you can totally see somebody's severed foot at frame 2421010. I've attached an image for proof. Look really close at grid A3...."
Moving on, two obvious fandoms Aria's would intersect with: Lyn's and Utari's.
Aria's kinda-sorta romance with Utari is fairly ripe tabloid fare, and never mind that it seems to be stuck at the "wistful yearning" stage. Naturally, that's boring for any salacious gossip rag. Their meeting on Caldari Prime is inevitably going to be made into much more, at least in the gutter press. What Utari's fandom thinks of the situation is likely to be a bit divided-- especially as (I think) he's seeing someone else. Which side Utari's fandom lines up on re: all of this likely depends on its view of Aria. If she's seen as a corrupter, then she's a dangerous person Utari should stay away from. If she's just a lost soul needing guidance, though....
Aria's is probably divided largely based on what the membership thinks of Lyn Farel (speaking of "shipping"). The two are obvious close friends (Aria addresses her as "suuolo"), and there's apt to be all kinds of Sapphic fic out there by now in which someone's true feelings get confessed/acted upon in a variety of more or less compromising positions. This may have helped to perk up Lyn's fan base somewhat (for good or ill).
As a side note, I'd expect Utari to have buckets of fans in the Empire (everybody loves to see their culture validated), but I also would think he'd have a largish following in the Federation. He's got an interesting and pretty sympathetic story, and his choice of the Amarrian culture over the Caldari stands as an implicit rejection of (outside observer's obvious first thought) the latter's policy on persons of mixed blood. He could seem from a distance to have walked out of a book (something full of duty, personal tragedy, and stiff upper lips).
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Quite a fair point Aria, I'd agree with it. And yes, Utari is definatly still seeing someone at this stage.
I think, after talking to Morwen on slack, he might start to have issues with fans since his appearance in the Amarr Championship. It's certainatly raised his profile more upfront, but not as much had Laerise's team won ( :( we wuz robbed)
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Aria's is probably divided largely based on what the membership thinks of Lyn Farel (speaking of "shipping"). The two are obvious close friends (Aria addresses her as "suuolo"), and there's apt to be all kinds of Sapphic fic out there by now in which someone's true feelings get confessed/acted upon in a variety of more or less compromising positions. This may have helped to perk up Lyn's fan base somewhat (for good or ill).
You have no idea the mess it creates in her mind...
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Though Samira takes effort to stay out of the limelight, her vocal participation on venues like the Intergalactic Summit and her membership with already-famous PIE mean she's attracted a diverse range of opinions, ships, and support or hate groups.
Principal of Samira's fans are current or freed slaves who uphold the Amarrian religion, in both Amarr and Minmatar space. She is one of the most prominent Amarr-loyal emancipated minmatar and engages in pro-slave activism and so anyone from those lower classes that is looking for a rolemodel is quick to point to her as an example of the heights to which even a slave can rise. Not everyone agrees on her politics, of course, but even progressive observers are able to at least find some appeal in her successful career.
But not everyone is a fan. Nobility may or may not agree with her politics, but many feel threatened by the ramifications of low-born success stories. True Amarr of all social classes can be especially vehement, especially those of common or slave origin. Rather than being a rolemodel, to them Samira is a thief, the classic "stealing our jerbs" mindset that stems of watching someone that should be inferior achieving far greater social and economic success. Regardless of how conservative Samira's beliefs, these envious groups see her instead as an example of the Empire's failing ways and demand that she learn her place.
Samira's reputation in the Kingdom and the Republic is also bad. Residents of the Kingdom have not taken kindly to her many recent attacks on their king and culture, and whatever groups there that did once support her have likely distanced themselves by now. In the Republic, Samira is viewed as a race traitor in the same light as the Ammatar, and she is often used as an example of just how evil Amarrian indoctrination is.
Samira's prominence in intimate circles is somewhat high, resulting from a combination of her publicly prudish and sexually awkward behavior and her physical attractiveness. She's been shipped with associates of various allegiances and both genders, ranging from Pieter Tuulinen, to Aldrith Shutaq, to Ava Starfire, and there exists a range of fabricated erotic or semi-erotic material. Those of invasive, more-than-casual interest have unearthed parts of her private life that she'd rather remain hidden, including her frentix addiction and her presumed-intimate liaisons with such mercenary capsuleers as Jude Kopenhagen, Hevaima Gesakaarin, and Vincent Pryce.
Samira attempts to distance herself from any fandoms, and only rarely directly interacts with them. She's hired a press group to handle any necessary correspondence, and she has recently employed a security team to protect herself from untoward baseline interest. She is as well in the process of securing an isolated estate, after undesired attention on her previous public dwellings.
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Oh i'm sure Elmund has many more or less faithful cults around the worship of the machine spirit :D
I imagine that cults that spring up around Elmund would be less Adeptus Mechanicus and alot closer to being some kind of Techno-centric tribes with Machine Totems (or Machines treated as Totems) and stuff. They will believe that all Machines have Souls, or Spirits or whatever, bound to them (and thus the Machine's body is the Totem of the individual Machine Spirits), and that they will always try to interact with Man and the Material Realm by whatever means available such as actuators, or if lacking actuators, via more subtle means like unexplained short circuits, spikes in voltmeter readings, variations of thermal distribution, outright not working etc. Anyone who has ever reached their wits' ends trying to get a machine to work and occasionally resorting to praying for the machine to work know what I'm talking about.
They will also believe that the Spirits have their own thoughts and wills and the best way to bring out their fullest potential is to understand their desires and wills and to work towards aligning personal interests and wills with the Machine's and to design, optimise and use the Machine's material body in alignment with the will and desires of their Spirit.
The 'tribesmen' will have regular communing with the Machines, ritualistic maintenance, Wiki-walks, consulting the Supercomputer, wearing Machine-inspired tattoos and being obsessed with fabrication, invention and optimisation. The successful fabrication of pieces of working technology will be treated as a venerable occasion with rituals similar to the Baptising of infants.
The Shamans would be the ones with the phDs or something, the guys who really understand the most complicated of technologies and how to fabricate them and utilise them, and how to convince the most stubborn of Machine Spirits to act in ways the Machine may not agree with initially as part of the process to reach their combined goals.
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Oh i'm sure Elmund has many more or less faithful cults around the worship of the machine spirit :D
I imagine that cults that spring up around Elmund would be less Adeptus Mechanicus and alot closer to being some kind of Techno-centric tribes with Machine Totems (or Machines treated as Totems) and stuff. They will believe that all Machines have Souls, or Spirits or whatever, bound to them (and thus the Machine's body is the Totem of the individual Machine Spirits), and that they will always try to interact with Man and the Material Realm by whatever means available such as actuators, or if lacking actuators, via more subtle means like unexplained short circuits, spikes in voltmeter readings, variations of thermal distribution, outright not working etc. Anyone who has ever reached their wits' ends trying to get a machine to work and occasionally resorting to praying for the machine to work know what I'm talking about.
They will also believe that the Spirits have their own thoughts and wills and the best way to bring out their fullest potential is to understand their desires and wills and to work towards aligning personal interests and wills with the Machine's and to design, optimise and use the Machine's material body in alignment with the will and desires of their Spirit.
The 'tribesmen' will have regular communing with the Machines, ritualistic maintenance, Wiki-walks, consulting the Supercomputer, wearing Machine-inspired tattoos and being obsessed with fabrication, invention and optimisation. The successful fabrication of pieces of working technology will be treated as a venerable occasion with rituals similar to the Baptising of infants.
The Shamans would be the ones with the phDs or something, the guys who really understand the most complicated of technologies and how to fabricate them and utilise them, and how to convince the most stubborn of Machine Spirits to act in ways the Machine may not agree with initially as part of the process to reach their combined goals.
I'm not so sure about cults, but I think Elmund's "gimmick" in this area probably does garner him some attention. Also, I'd think his plain-spoken, unapologetic approach to things, including himself (self-described bully, etc.) would appeal to a certain segment. Maybe not the segment he'd want in all cases (taking brutal honesty as its own reward).
Elmund running into a (probably young male) fan trying to impress him by acting like said fan thinks Elmund acts could be a great scene.
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Pieter's unabashed patriotism for the State means that he probably 'puts off' many fans whose political views clash with his, nonetheless he has exhibited tendencies of support and sympathy for Amarrian, Gallentean and Minmatar causes that probably create sufficient ambiguity to allow fandom enough of a niche to take root.
One aspect Pieter's fandom has that perhaps differentiates it from the others discussed thus far is that it is probably staged, manipulated and shaped by Corporate Interests. Pieter loudly repudiated Heth during his fall and his Corporation probably seized upon this to use him as a poster boy in the Post-Hethian "Oritsu Reconstruction" period. Added to that we have his StatePro "Rookie of the Year YC116" status.
As a Caldari his charitable work is barely publicised, but it's possible that people have found out about the benefits his crews have and about the Tuulinen Foundation's work with the disadvantaged, giving non-Criminal Disaffected second chances and working to provide security for the Aurora Arcology.
Pieter has likely been shipped with almost anyone in the public eye, due to his reputation pre-marriage. Likely ships include Red Miromme, Punx Evangeline, Ava Starfire, Kyllsa Siikanen, Samira Kernher, Diana Kim, Both parties in the Charantes-Oniseki marriage, Andreus Ixiris, Jude Copenhagen, Stitcher and Anslo. He has never cheated on his spouse, however, so may also be considered a rolemodel for traditional Caldari Family Values.
Aria:- She has to have a small sect of monks examining how she has developed her life from a state of complete detachment to the present. There will be meditation and minute examination of her public appearances to determine the psychological impact of her various periods of experimentation and assessment.
Samira Kernher:- If she isn't the Patron Saint of Matari slaves who elect to remain within the Empire then I want to know why. If she isn't the Arch-Devil of Matari slaves who elect to leave the Empire then I want to know why.
Aldrith Shutaq:- Isn't his haircut one of the 30 acceptable hairstyles for Seminarians joining the Amarrian Clergy?
Mitara Newelle:- Mother, Leader, Warrior. Why isn't this woman the subject of a cult? "Mother Mitara, Full of Wrath, Blessed art thou...'.
Stitcher:- Sports personality. His Splinterz team forums will be full of gossip and speculation.
Andreus Ixiris:- Continually skating the line between political commentator, military hero and society figure. Expect the needle to be swinging wildly between adulation, scandal and redemption. Expect his fandom to have a high turnover but a dedicated base who claim he's misunderstood.
Anslo Tetua:- He's a musician. He's released albums. He gigs - or used to until recently. His meltdown when he embraced violence as the best means of expressing himself probably ranks up there with Britney shaving her head - only with Mass Murder! He's never not cracking contraversial quips that make excellent media soundbytes. How can he not have a following?
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Oh i'm sure Elmund has many more or less faithful cults around the worship of the machine spirit :D
I imagine that cults that spring up around Elmund would be less Adeptus Mechanicus and alot closer to being some kind of Techno-centric tribes with Machine Totems (or Machines treated as Totems) and stuff. They will believe that all Machines have Souls, or Spirits or whatever, bound to them (and thus the Machine's body is the Totem of the individual Machine Spirits), and that they will always try to interact with Man and the Material Realm by whatever means available such as actuators, or if lacking actuators, via more subtle means like unexplained short circuits, spikes in voltmeter readings, variations of thermal distribution, outright not working etc. Anyone who has ever reached their wits' ends trying to get a machine to work and occasionally resorting to praying for the machine to work know what I'm talking about.
They will also believe that the Spirits have their own thoughts and wills and the best way to bring out their fullest potential is to understand their desires and wills and to work towards aligning personal interests and wills with the Machine's and to design, optimise and use the Machine's material body in alignment with the will and desires of their Spirit.
The 'tribesmen' will have regular communing with the Machines, ritualistic maintenance, Wiki-walks, consulting the Supercomputer, wearing Machine-inspired tattoos and being obsessed with fabrication, invention and optimisation. The successful fabrication of pieces of working technology will be treated as a venerable occasion with rituals similar to the Baptising of infants.
The Shamans would be the ones with the phDs or something, the guys who really understand the most complicated of technologies and how to fabricate them and utilise them, and how to convince the most stubborn of Machine Spirits to act in ways the Machine may not agree with initially as part of the process to reach their combined goals.
I'm not so sure about cults, but I think Elmund's "gimmick" in this area probably does garner him some attention. Also, I'd think his plain-spoken, unapologetic approach to things, including himself (self-described bully, etc.) would appeal to a certain segment. Maybe not the segment he'd want in all cases (taking brutal honesty as its own reward).
Elmund running into a (probably young male) fan trying to impress him by acting like said fan thinks Elmund acts could be a great scene.
Yeah, people who take to his seldom-elaborated-and-demonstrated preference for machines and his beliefs in the Brothers (and Sisters) Machine probably won't be very organised due to the said lack of elaboration. I imagine that the fellows who take to his poorly defined beliefs are most likely engineers, mechanics, technicians, programmers, machine operators, fighter jockeys and other people who have worked with technology for much of their time and it likely extends to talking and/or pleading to their machines hoping that they stop malfunctioning and work this time (just like how some of us pray that our computer will not blue screen), on the off-chance that Elmund was right in his suggestion that machines are also living things and have moods.
Starship engineers may pay more attention to his words especially when he posts anything particularly technical on the IGS.
I also imagine that there's a small population of Gallente youths somewhere who are plotting to feed him snails and send to him skirts of dried leaves.
As for 'brutally honest' fans, his reaction will depend on whether the fans are 'posers' or they are sincerely blunt and brutally honest. He takes negatively to posers and positively to the very sincerely blunt and brutally honest 'speak your mind unashamedly' folks. It's one of the things that makes him appreciate his currently constant companion (only Lunarisse and Synthia knows of her IC), who is very much capable of being very direct and very blunt about things (and that other expression of cruel streak-ness that shows up from time to time).
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I'd be less worried by the fanfiction and more searching your capsuleer name in FedGoogle's images with safe search off.
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I'd be less worried by the fanfiction and more searching your capsuleer name in FedGoogle's images with safe search off.
"Worried" probably isn't the word. Aria would probably find the stuff shipping her with Lyn kind of amusing (without mentioning it to Lyn).
Darker sorts of stuff is the-- well, still not a worry, quite, but it would kind of unnerve Aria, knowing that someone out there is having, ah, certain kinds of fantasies about her, and that she's apt to be be sharing the Federation's streets with these folks from time to time. Sure, it's probably harmless (-ish), but it's not like nothing awful ever happens to women in the Federation (or anywhere).
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Interesting discussion.
I think Kala would have had a large and passionate following during her time in the TLF (YC112 - YC114). The "Republic Fleet Firetails" holovids, (describing the adventures of a group of very attractive redheaded female Firetail pilots) would have taken heavy inspiration from her adventures. Her close friendship/ eventual relationship with Ava Starfire, turbulent love affair with Kikia Truzhari, and eventual running away to spend several months living in Morwen Lagann's estate, would likely have generated a storm of rumours and "shipping". Her flirtatious nature over channels like The Summit and habit of getting extremely drunk at capsuleer parties, (blue pill with TS-F, throwing water on Verone instead of Aldrith) would probably have exacerbated this.
However, I expect she would have faded somewhat from the public eye in the period between early YC114 and late YC115, as she went off the radar to explore life in nullsec.
This would be followed in the last few months of YC115 onwards by a kind of distressed outrage as she reappeared, first pledging her loyalty to the Guardian Angels, and then compounding this by joining the, at the time Amarrian aligned, Pyre Falcons.
At the moment her fans would probably be a small but dedicated group who are most interested in, and have considerable respect for, her capabilities as a combat pilot. She's also still pretty hot :lol:
Pieter: The poster child of Caldari duty and honour. A respectful, handsome, honest man who stays calm in every situation. His fan club would be massive and dedicated.
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I'd be less worried by the fanfiction and more searching your capsuleer name in FedGoogle's images with safe search off.
"Worried" probably isn't the word. Aria would probably find the stuff shipping her with Lyn kind of amusing (without mentioning it to Lyn).
Darker sorts of stuff is the-- well, still not a worry, quite, but it would kind of unnerve Aria, knowing that someone out there is having, ah, certain kinds of fantasies about her, and that she's apt to be be sharing the Federation's streets with these folks from time to time. Sure, it's probably harmless (-ish), but it's not like nothing awful ever happens to women in the Federation (or anywhere).
I think for me it's more how, the way the Federation lore is written and presented in Eve it's the only faction that is roughly analogous to, "Us" as players if you happen to live in what could be described as modern day Western democracy with access to the internet and prescribe to things like individualism, personal liberty, and freedom of expression.
In many ways, the Federation is probably the most meta-gaming faction in that regard. You really only need to look at yourself to know exactly how things function in the Federation. What would Federal citizens do with access to FTL internets? Well they probably do the usual things like shitpost on space-reddit, go looking for the elusive OC on space-imgur, post their life's mundanities on space-facebook, go looking for love on space-tinder, and when that fails fap alone to space-pornhub/redtube/brazzers (holy shit the Fed probably has a lot of porn).
So if you're talking about capsuleer celebrity and the Federation, then you only need to look at the celebrity nude hacking scandal to know that there's probably a lot of interest in naked pics of celebrities. If not that... then Rule 34.
So yeah, I guess that's what sort of makes the Federation so fun and hilarious as a faction. It's like the omnipresent Fourth Wall continuously going, ayyyyyyy lmao, or the ultimate form of Author Insertion trope in the current Eve narrative.
I mean the Federation has even meta-gamed its own cultural victory as written in the lore when you consider that the majority of Eve players don't roleplay but do probably come from a liberal Western democracy, and so carry those values into Eve when they play the game.
How do a lot of Eve players-as-capsuleers behave when they play? Shitpost local, define themselves on an individualist basis as regards their own interests, and deploy dank memes, and generally just be themselves. Behaviours most prevalent in the Gallente Federation. Because of the Federation you can even quite easily turn "OOC" capsuleer (player) talk into "IC".
A player capsuleer talks about something like, "Stop being a salty fuccboi juggling chodes" and the Federation being the Federation if that gets picked up, used, and becomes popular in the Federal internets then, "Salty fuccboi juggling chodes," becomes an in-character meme/phrase popular among subcultures that co-opt "Capsuleer speak" within the Federation.
As for darker stuff in the Federation... awful things happen all the time. The appeal of the Federation to me is that it is not perfect and that it is flawed. It's about people just being people, capable of both good and evil, all trying to live their own lives as they define it culturally, politically and individually as best they can and how they can. Sure the Federation has "nice" places like its Alpha-class cities such as Heuromont or Caille where it is unlikely she'll come to harm; but there's also Delta or Omega-class cities where if you want to talk pretty fucked up, their breakdowns in law, political corruption etc., could probably see her kidnapped for ransom or sold into sexual slavery by a criminal cartel.
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I can see the Feds going all 'Dank Meme' and everything. I also imagine that every capsuleer 'fan-club' probably originates from Fed based on what's understood about their people, namely the tendency to join one cause, fraternity, cult, etc for one month then switch to the next, depending on taste and trendiness.
Fan clubs in Caldari State, Republic and Amarr Empire on the other hand are more likely to have a more model-citizen-ish, spiritual or religious undertones. The clubs that treat capsuleers as rock stars or whatever are more likely to be niche groups made up of youths.
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I mean the Federation has even meta-gamed its own cultural victory as written in the lore when you consider that the majority of Eve players don't roleplay but do probably come from a liberal Western democracy, and so carry those values into Eve when they play the game.
Forgive me for derailing a bit from the OP, though that's something that as a player as well as Lyn ICly, intimately believes that in the current state of affairs, the Federation is going to "win" culturally on the long term, unless something drastic happens (maybe a Tash Murkon empress actually). One just has to look at capsuleers mentalities, the overspread gallente influence everywhere that also tends to be the faction adapting the best to post modern themes with the caldari just after (but the caldari suck at cultural expansionism).
Having lived in both worlds, Amarr and Gallente, and seen them for what they are, she would answer without much hesitation that the current Amarr Empire is doomed in its Reclamation effort if things do not change, because the gallente are way better at it. The only thing that gives strength to the Amarr cultural expansion is religion, because religion is a powerful asset when exerted upon Man.
Now then, she would argue that the Amarr would be unstoppable if they started to use the same methods as the gallente, with added religion on top, though.
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I can see the Feds going all 'Dank Meme' and everything. I also imagine that every capsuleer 'fan-club' probably originates from Fed based on what's understood about their people, namely the tendency to join one cause, fraternity, cult, etc for one month then switch to the next, depending on taste and trendiness.
Fan clubs in Caldari State, Republic and Amarr Empire on the other hand are more likely to have a more model-citizen-ish, spiritual or religious undertones. The clubs that treat capsuleers as rock stars or whatever are more likely to be niche groups made up of youths.
I would agree totally, but to elaborate a bit further on my thoughts what I meant was that when you consider:
The Gallente homeworld was a comfortable and biodiverse world that was still divided into nation-states (along with corresponding ethnicities and cultures), though the political and economic effects of their Information Age meant a large amount of globalization had started to take place. This included the intermingling of the different ethnic groups, as well as the evolution of the first international organizations (initially based on trade and diplomacy) evolving into the World Democracy League.
Technology and communication had resulted in democracy and libertarianism being exported from the Garoun continent to become the dominant ideology on the planet. Nations that had proved uncompromisingly resistant to these ideas (or were deemed politically unfashionable or anachronistic) were weeded out in interventionist wars by the major powers and alliances of the time. These one-sided conflicts would be over in days or weeks with minimal collateral damage, thanks to the development of precision weaponry such as guided missiles.
There was still some political tension on the homeworld despite the ideological standardization taking place. Many states were wary of democracy and liberalism, especially when it was forced onto other states via economic or military means.
There exists a very strong meta-premise with the Gallente Federation that essentially might be considered as: What would happen if Western civilization and liberal-democracy became the sole and dominant world ideology and then humanity went into space.
What would later became the Federation began when a single democratic and liberal hegemon along with its democratic allies managed to unite their planet under a single ideological banner called the World Democracy League through a series of military interventions that toppled dictatorships and theocracies weakened by internal rebellions and mass uprisings caused by citizens access to a global communications network.
When it is considered Gallente isn't even a racial or ethnic identifier, and its linguistic etymology comes from Gallentia which is the name of a planet. Then Gallente Federation is essentially the same as if we called a future political space entity, "Terran Federation," or, "United Federation of Earth." Whose culture is essentially liberal, democratic, and Western in nature.
In many respects, at least for myself, the core fictional archetype that drives the Federation is in fact a modern day futurist question of, "What if Western liberal-democracy finally wins and unites the entire world?" That is contextualized in the lore of Eve. The values of the Federation correlate almost directly with modern Western values that in a very broad sense it's almost as if the majority of capsuleers behave as if they come from the Federation in their behaviour and outlook if the majority of capsuleers are players who hold Western values.
More pertinent to this discussion however is that the Federation thematically is also about the interrelationship between humanity and the technology they create. I think people make a critical mistake in believing the Federation is just about democracy. The Federation is not democratic purely out of a cultural or ideological basis -- it's democratic because it entered an Information Age nine hundred years ago and it's pretty damn difficult to adopt or maintain any other kind of political system if your citizens have access to a communications technology that allows for instant access to information, discussion, and means for mass mobilization/protest if they want to call their political leadership to account.
The Federation is just as much an Information Culture as much as it is a democratic, individualist and liberal culture. Federal democracy and culture as it exists wouldn't even be able to function if the Gallente had not invented FTL communications and networks. We have just entered our own Information Age and look at how much the nature of modern life is fundamentally different to that of generations before due to it. Now imagine if that was extrapolated as having existed not for 30-40 years but for nine centuries and the potential individual participants is not 6-7 billion but on the scale of double digit trillions spread across hundreds of planets and states each with their own particular histories, cultures, ethnic identities, and demographics.
Of course the Federation would be notorious for adopting fads. The very nature of its information driven society means there's such a sheer output of content and discussion along the entire spectrum of human experience; politically, ideologically, philosophically, technologically, academically, culturally, artistically, and in its varied forms of media and entertainment, that there's always something new and trending to go and look into for a Federal citizen to look into.
And when your society is driven by information and the creation of new content, then that lends itself to a people that seem to have a desire to always want to know new things and different things on a variety of topics. The cults of celebrity and capsuleer fan clubs are just an extension of wanting to know about notable people as well as that human love of gossip.
I mean the Federation has even meta-gamed its own cultural victory as written in the lore when you consider that the majority of Eve players don't roleplay but do probably come from a liberal Western democracy, and so carry those values into Eve when they play the game.
Forgive me for derailing a bit from the OP, though that's something that as a player as well as Lyn ICly, intimately believes that in the current state of affairs, the Federation is going to "win" culturally on the long term, unless something drastic happens (maybe a Tash Murkon empress actually). One just has to look at capsuleers mentalities, the overspread gallente influence everywhere that also tends to be the faction adapting the best to post modern themes with the caldari just after (but the caldari suck at cultural expansionism).
Having lived in both worlds, Amarr and Gallente, and seen them for what they are, she would answer without much hesitation that the current Amarr Empire is doomed in its Reclamation effort if things do not change, because the gallente are way better at it. The only thing that gives strength to the Amarr cultural expansion is religion, because religion is a powerful asset when exerted upon Man.
Now then, she would argue that the Amarr would be unstoppable if they started to use the same methods as the gallente, with added religion on top, though.
Well I think the Gallente culture, historically, has a long history of knowing exactly the direct and indirect methods to use to expand its values and ensure its success. As I wrote above, the Federation is the successor to a planetary society that managed to ensure that only the cultural and ideological values of Garouni liberal-democracy prevailed over alternative systems such as dictatorships and theocracies.
The Federation can use a full gamut of direct tactics it is well versed and experienced in to ensure its own success.
Sometimes it will use diplomatic engagement methods to create things like the CONCORD Assembly, which when you look at it is a bit like Federation-lite.
Sometimes it will use economic methods to assert control over resources or deny them; incentivize political interests with commercial inducement (the Federal franchise system is good for this); and use Free Trade Agreements to promote liberal ideology through liberal economics.
Sometimes it will use clandestine or covert actions to achieve its political aims. The FIO remains particularly effective in this regard -- Just look at the Minmatar rebellion and Operation Highlander.
Sometimes when all else fails it will just go screw it, and go the full military interventionist route. In that regard, the Federation under a peace-time economy under Foiritain with deep reductions in its military budget and size was still able to essentially force the Caldari State to remain like North Korea and maintain constant conscription.
Right now Roden has a pretty big trump card in reserve because if the Federation is currently able to be a serious military power to the extent Jamyl Sarum was willing to backroom deal after Kador's invasion of Solitude then what happens if the Federation goes into Total War mode, increases defense spending to 50-60% of GDP, switches its entire civilian manufacturing base to full wartime production, implements a draft and all its member-state home defense fleets and private military corporations are integrated into one military command?
The military depth the Federation can achieve if it really wanted to, and which I think the other powers recognize (If the Empire really thought itself capable of a military reclaiming of the Federation it would have already tried after all these years) means the Federation can culturally pursue indirect methods intended to create individual engagement once it is secure.
Its inclusiveness and participatory nature means that it is very easy to be exposed to and be part of Gallentean/Federal culture even if it isn't intended. The barrier for entry is pretty low -- you just have to be a person. You don't have to convert to a religion, be part of a clan or tribe, or be of a certain ethnic or racial identity to be included.
Just look at having your own fans from the Federation as a capsuleer, who doesn't enjoy being adored and liked by others? If you were to engage with those fans and talk to them then you've begun engagement with Gallentean culture. Even criticizing the Federation is engaging in Gallente culture -- critical discussion is part and parcel of democratic politics in the Federation.
The Federation culture is like a celebrity itself: It doesn't matter what is thought or said about the Federation by others so long as the discussion is about the Federation. Even negative exposure is still exposure and creates a form of participation.
Then there's the nature of Gallentean corporate branding and advertising. The Gallente have 900+ years in selling dreams and products. They don't exactly just slap flyers onto a wall. They probably have sociologists, cultural anthropologists, historians, psychologists, etc., who spend their time thinking of ways to export their products as much as the culture behind their brands. It probably leads to situations where someone might write about how much they hate the Federation from a device that was made in the Federation while drinking some Quafe.
As for religion in the Federation, it exists in varied forms but it also gets exposed to Gallentean culture and individualism to the point that if you take the Amarrian faith for example there's the potential for a belief in God but to only pick and choose the Scriptures that support their own individual worldview and perspective. A Gallentean conception of the Amarrian God is likely akin to protestant/evangelical christianity: Belief in God but with an individual, personal interpretation of Scripture and connection to the faith instead of derived dogma from the Imperial clergy.
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I can see and agree with what you are getting. We are experiencing this very cultural assimilation right now and what you did was shine the light on it.
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Pieter has likely been shipped with almost anyone in the public eye, due to his reputation pre-marriage. Likely ships include Red Miromme, Punx Evangeline, Ava Starfire, Kyllsa Siikanen, Samira Kernher, Diana Kim, Both parties in the Charantes-Oniseki marriage, Andreus Ixiris, Jude Copenhagen, Stitcher and Anslo. He has never cheated on his spouse, however, so may also be considered a rolemodel for traditional Caldari Family Values.
I'm disappointed Kor was not included in this list.
Not sure about Kor's fanbase to be honest. He generally tries to stay out of the spotlight, but with not a lot of success. Although I'd imagine most of his fanbase would be in the State, I can also see some existing within the Federation, Empire, and Republic as well. For various reasons of course. Kor has hosted or participated in various social events, conferences, guest lectures in Federation universities, and humanitarian efforts in the Federation. Kor for quite some time had been very sympathetic to the turmoil and strife afflicting the Republic. And, more recently, Kor has made a number of appearances and performed a number of deeds which would cast favor upon him from those in the Empire.
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Miz heading a rust metal band quite overtly used for propaganda purposes and putting a significant amount of resources into that aspect of it probably grew her fanbase somewhat significantly. Given that she's also one of the few hardliner tribals among the capsuleers (only one? Can't think of others off the top of my head) she's probably also one of the few that'd get the baseliner hardliners' attention.
Having realized her actions as a capsuleer pretty much doesn't matter at all, other than how they may inspire actions and views dirtside, she's been focusing on that part and as a consequence probably grows her fandom regularly. I've RP'd a few times that she's hired marketing specialists and got several firms working 24/7 on expanding the Sarz'namarr band specifically and the Tribal thing in general.
Recruiting and even creating entire organizations from the fanbase towards further spreading of the ideologies etc as well as actual terror cells in the right places would also be happening, but the details are quite a few steps away from Miz herself as she's largely just a figurehead with good rust metal songs and some public statements on the problems to solve and enemies to fight.
There's certainly office buildings around New Eden full of people who do nothing but monitor what the search bots are flagging on Galnet in relation to her fandom, anti-Amarr communities, etc etc and analyzing these things in order to swoop in and capitalize on the right opportunities.
Killing other capsuleers or taking systems is worthless on its own. Swaying the public opinion using a capsuleer's resources to saturate the "airwaves" of New Eden with the right propaganda? Priceless.
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I can see and agree with what you are getting. We are experiencing this very cultural assimilation right now and what you did was shine the light on it.
I actually recently wrote a throwaway fiction piece on Federal/Gallente cultural assimilation and I think it's achieved in a very particular process. In it Calliste described the Empire, State and Republic as all essentially seeking a form of cultural and political homeostasis. A stability ensured by creating forms of social, economic, and political heirarchy that negate change and preserve a particular way of life and thinking, etc. The Amarr Empire being the most effective in this, as regards its overall structures that all act in concert to enforce high degrees of cultural and political stability.
Where the Federation differs is that it is structured very much like an information network itself, a Complex Adaptive System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system). All aspects of life in the Federation is tightly interwoven and interconnected with each other through its information and communications networks: socially, politically, economically, technologically, and individually, to such an extent that to interact with a single aspect of the Federation potentially exposes one to the entirety of the Federal network as a whole.
It's like searching for one thing on a site, and then a few hours later ending up in some random place with no idea how you ended up there. Except the entire Federation seems built like that. You might start with just wanting to know about one topic or participate in one aspect of the Federation but that exposes the individual to its entirety. You start with fan clubs but those fans are linked to social media platforms, that are linked to different platforms, that are linked to their life and work, that are linked to their interests, that are linked to their politics, that are linked to their favourite brands.
In a sense, the Federation's citizens while all essentially different as individuals, polities, and organizations do seem to create a kind of gestalt culture as a whole that is a reflection of its own constituent elements because of the nature of its own inter-connectivity between all those individuals, polities, and organizations. The Federation assimilates other cultures into its own by the very nature of both its own inclusiveness and free access to its information society. This is how it spreads itself in a sense -- you just plug in another device into the overall network.
This is probably why it's so hard to describe as a process, because the constituent individuals of the Federation aren't all sitting in some kind of illuminati undersea volcano lair planning how to take over the cluster. It's just the nature of the Federation as a whole and the ease by which individuals can participate in its overall culture that actually spreads that culture beyond its own borders.
That's what makes it so difficult to combat. Because the exact process of Gallentean assimilation doesn't have just a single locus or vector, it's multiple vectors all at the same time that is ineluctable for an individual. How can you combat something whose force and effects you can feel and see, but which you cannot fully describe or comprehend?
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Quattras:
As the public face of a charitable foundation three generations old, Quat was already a recognizable figure before becoming a capsuleer. Given his radical public stance on matters of faith and politics, he has a sizeable following amongst types who find themselves on the fringes of polite society. He happily embraces the title "pirate," yet is a subversion of the stereotypical image of pirates - educated, well-mannered, a bookish creative type slow to violence even if quick to anger. Thus he appeals to disaffected intellectuals whose own ideals fail to line up with the traditional values of their respective societies.
His music is popular among young adult males, hard-edged punk rock lacking in polish that often features collaborative work with baseliner musicians whose works have been deemed subversive. On the other hand, the one novel of his that has been successfully published - an adventure piece entitled Diamonds in the Sky - has garnered him a following among the "suburban housewife" set, who fawn over the relatively obviously author-avatar protagonist and the romantic subplot that takes center stage through a large portion of the story. In essence, and much to his chagrin, Diamonds in the Sky has become the New Eden equivalent of a Danielle Steel novel.
Nauplius/Anyanka Funk:
Nauplius and Anyanka are both central figures in highly-niche dark metal communities. Their exploits are celebrated and embellished in songs that revel in bloody domination of the meek. The more shocking the subject material, the better.
Diana Kim:
Diana is the face of a new generation of young reactionary conservatives, whose ideals of Caldari exceptionalism are too young to be tempered with the understanding of why the fighting stopped in the first place. To these youths, the expulsion of Heth and the destruction of the CN Shiigeru are points of shame that fuel their desire to see the State use military force to dominate the Federation and eventually the New Eden cluster as a whole.
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How can you combat something whose force and effects you can feel and see, but which you cannot fully describe or comprehend?
Ruthlessly.
The Caldari have been doing it for, literally, centuries, and a lot of their larger, hairier warts (e.g., borderline-racist selective breeding via officially-arranged marriage) seem linked psychologically and culturally to a frantic desire NOT to assimilate with the Gallente. They'd probably be a lot less militant about being themselves if they didn't have to work so hard at it.
Nauplius/Anyanka Funk:
Nauplius and Anyanka are both central figures in highly-niche dark metal communities. Their exploits are celebrated and embellished in songs that revel in bloody domination of the meek. The more shocking the subject material, the better.
Hrm. You sure about that? People into the crueler end of genre fiction/music are frequently turned off in a big way by the genuine article unless there's some sort of ideological alignment going on.
It's easy to find fans of Hannibal Lecter. It's a little harder to find them for Jeffrey Dahmer (or Pol Pot), and even other Sani tend to get turned off by Nauplius.
Diana Kim:
Diana is the face of a new generation of young reactionary conservatives, whose ideals of Caldari exceptionalism are too young to be tempered with the understanding of why the fighting stopped in the first place. To these youths, the expulsion of Heth and the destruction of the CN Shiigeru are points of shame that fuel their desire to see the State use military force to dominate the Federation and eventually the New Eden cluster as a whole.
I'd agree with this if poor Diana (and I think her player would concur) weren't so obviously broken. There are coherent (note I do not say "good") arguments to be made for a Templis Dragonaur worldview. Diana as a character is aware that they exist, but presents them as ideological salad. She occasionally has a point, in the same sense that a stopped clock is right twice daily, but her point of view isn't a sane one even from her own ideological perspective.
Also, though she denies it, she's of mixed blood, like Aria or Utari ... and her would-be fan base is very much the sort to be keenly and unsympathetically aware of that.
(That said, there's undoubtedly a fan base for "cute but insane.")
Probably, all three of the capsuleers you mentioned have defenders, but even in a universe as large as New Eden I'm not sure it would get to the level of a fan base of any substantial sort.
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(...)the Empire, State and Republic as all essentially seeking a form of cultural and political homeostasis.
Where the Federation differs is that it is structured very much like an information network itself, a Complex Adaptive System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system).
You are aware that homeostasis is a property of Complex Adaptive Systems? All human societies are by necessity such systems.
I don't think that analysis is either correct or helpful.
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Hrm. You sure about that? People into the crueler end of genre fiction/music are frequently turned off in a big way by the genuine article unless there's some sort of ideological alignment going on.
Ain't that the truth. I don't think I ever meet nicer and friendlier people than when I'm at various metal gatherings. It's one thing to cheer and rock the fuck out when the vocalist growls in detail about how to perform the (mythical) blood eagle, and another thing entirely to imply it'd be cool in real life.
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How can you combat something whose force and effects you can feel and see, but which you cannot fully describe or comprehend?
Ruthlessly.
The Caldari have been doing it for, literally, centuries, and a lot of their larger, hairier warts (e.g., borderline-racist selective breeding via officially-arranged marriage) seem linked psychologically and culturally to a frantic desire NOT to assimilate with the Gallente. They'd probably be a lot less militant about being themselves if they didn't have to work so hard at it.
Yes true, and I would agree. I was just trying to point out that it is particularly difficult to define deliberate agency or identifiable actors on the part of the Federation as regards cultural assimilation or adoption of what might be described as its normative ideologies and values. Because its core ideologies and values are premised on individualism, freedoms of expression, and liberalism it assimilates other cultures because enough individuals choose to adopt those values and become Gallente. Which for the Gallente itself isn't even a racial or ethnic term but a humanist cultural identifier since the word itself for the Gallente was a multi-ethnic identifier they used when they globalized under a single unified culture.
That's what makes the Federation so pervasive and effective at cultural assimilation: anyone can decide to be Gallente if they want to, regardless of their genetics or culture, and those genetics and culture then become Gallente just as all the rest. It's not assimilation as much as a form of multiculturalism unified under a singular dominant ideological basis and not ethnicity or race.
In a sense, the Gallente and the Federation just by being as they are manage to exert a real cultural pressure that everyone else reacts to. To prevent it creates an absurdity for the Gallente, because what can you tell them?
"Please stop being a society of trillions of networked individuals in an information society continuously expressing your own personal values and ideas; or sharing the products and content of your arts, media, technology, sciences, and entertainment with everyone else so people stop deciding of their own free will to accept Gallentean ideology and values"?
Will that view be shared on the IGS that depends on the FTL communications technology the Gallente themselves invented and developed that allows others to express their own personal values and ideas?
So yes, with the Caldari as your example in order to resist that process then creating a rigidly hierarchical political/societal/economic system with the ugly warts of top down measures of repression that can result in things like militarism, selective breeding programs, forced marriages, racial xenophobia, and homophobia is a good way to go.
Curiously this also ties into the nature of the Gallentean meta-game. Because as an example, the most accurate reflection of what the Caldari are like as written in their actual lore and in Source is Diana Kim. Yet the content of what that character says, full of militarism, anti-liberal ideology, racist thinking, and homophobia is exactly what is written about the Caldari.
To me, the reason the character is really met with such constant criticism is because other players don't enjoy having shown how completely unlike the State is to the Gallente, and thus to modern Western Liberal thinking, values and ideology. Because there is very little objectionable to the nature of the content expressed by the Diana Kim character as regards the written lore of the Caldari.
The Federation is just a political entity with identifiable borders, but the Gallente culture is something else. One without borders that resides in the realm of information, memes, and ideas to reproduce itself among humanity. An inability to divorce oneself from any form of liberal ideology, individualism, or patterns of modern Western thought as a player from the character can be seen only as the acceptance of Gallentean values on some level, because it remains only the Gallente that are written in the lore as having direct parity with those ideas.
Which is why I've always found it strange over the years when players either directly or indirectly complain about how their respective faction is unappealing in the metagame sense to a modern audience. Because if one really wanted to be part of a faction with strong parities to modern Western civilization then why not have chosen the Federation in the first place? Any attempts to bring other factions "in-line" in that sense would mean essentially they have begun the process of Gallentean cultural assimilation/integration towards its liberal, individualist worldviews.
That's why all the other major factions and cultures feature elements that could be considered repressive, authoritarian, and generally counter to modern liberal culture because then they'd just be Gallente. Even the Jin-Mei that are integrated into the Federation practice a discriminatory caste driven society and defend it in order to maintain their own cultural identity.
You are aware that homeostasis is a property of Complex Adaptive Systems? All human societies are by necessity such systems.
I don't think that analysis is either correct or helpful.
It was an in-character analogy using systems theory, and sure a good CAS needs some degree of negative feedback otherwise you end up with cancer or something.
Calliste as a character was just trying to explain that, as a society, the Gallente and the Federation is one built on rapid technological progress and societal change: on positive feedback.
This is borne historically in fact when compared to a place like the Empire.
The Gallente took 765 years from constructing their first stargate to where they are now. The Empire took 2063 years. The disparity is even greater when it is taken from the time of planetary unification with the Gallente taking 890 years compared to 2982 years for the Empire.
The Federation itself as an entity is only about 200 years old. It has grown from a treaty organization composed of a diffuse confederacy of independent homeworlds and their colonies to a constitutional supranational entity with stable political structures and robust institutions that effectively manages to represent the varied interests of trillions of people and hundreds if not thousands of different member-states.
And those internal networks and structures are all able to change and adapt to meet new needs and developments far more rapidly than in other societies. When the State invaded the Federation, the pretty rapid response to it was the creation of a new Agency in the SDII/Black Eagles and the expansion of its military industries -- to the point it now has a private corporation in Roden Shipyards providing military security in addition to other agencies.
An Emperor trying to make similar changes to nature of the Empire faces institutions like the Theology Council, the Privy Council and the Heirs, the House Holders, and an Imperial bureaucracy that even in the lore itself is described as, "Byzantine" in its nature as impediments to change, which together act in the analogy as the negative feedback in a homeostatic system.
Even the Caldari ended up rejecting the reform attempts of Tibus Heth and the CPD because it seems its culture, corporate structures, and executive stakeholders all similarly resist any attempts at uniform change of their society.
It's not that change doesn't happen in societies not the Federation, it's just that comparatively their rates of progress, change and adaptation are far slower because they are structured differently.
And that seems reflected in the lore.
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Curiously this also ties into the nature of the Gallentean meta-game. Because as an example, the most accurate reflection of what the Caldari are like as written in their actual lore and in Source is Diana Kim. Yet the content of what that character says, full of militarism, anti-liberal ideology, racist thinking, and homophobia is exactly what is written about the Caldari.
To me, the reason the character is really met with such constant criticism is because other players don't enjoy having shown how completely unlike the State is to the Gallente, and thus to modern Western Liberal thinking, values and ideology. Because there is very little objectionable to the nature of the content expressed by the Diana Kim character as regards the written lore of the Caldari.
Careful.
Diana Kim is a carefully-designed (arguably too much so; she could maybe do with a few more paths for development), very badly wounded character. Her player runs her as a rage-addled victim of trauma, not as a clear-headed example of even the most extreme forms of Caldari ideology. She does not make a good Caldari, or even a good Dragonaur, and she's not supposed to.
From our (open, Western) perspectives, the Caldari (esp. Patriots) are, and here's an important distinction, nearly fascists. They're a relatively closed, ordered, self-concerned society. They care mostly for their own people and their own interests, and don't much like interlopers of any sort. They see life as a crucible, burning away weakness, and they're determined to pass every test to come their way, in the way of their ancestors.
There's a gap, though, between even Patriot attitudes and those of the Provists/Templis Dragonaurs/Tibus Heth, whose militant xenophobia has played key roles in the start of both Caldari/Gallente wars as well as other fun historical events such as the Waschi Uprising. Those are the bona fide fascists. Bear in mind that those groups/persons are presently unpopular in the State. Diana Kim would be a pariah, presently, even if she were a paragon of Provist politics.
The Caldari grumpily tolerate dissent (jaalan). They also grumpily permit others to visit the State, and even to become Caldari themselves. They allow certain others (Khanid) to practice a foreign religion in private. They shelter (but also isolate) indigenous cultures that accept their protection. And on and on.
It's not a free or open society, but it's not what Tibus Heth would have made of it.
It's probably pretty short on capsuleer fan clubs generally, but among those with the time and information access I'd guess that highly sanitized versions of various Caldari capsuleers get a fair amount of attention. Propaganda FTW. Matoko Priano, Pieter Tuulinen, etc., may come out smelling like Raata roses. Even poor Diana might have her remarks aggressively edited, and come off quite differently-- though probably not. She's kind of a reminder of the not-wholly-unmitigated disaster that was Heth, these days.
Caldari capsuleers would naturally and necessarily be or become more cosmopolitan than those who remain citizens of the corporate system, though, and I suspect the State's careful how much information on their anarchic doings gets out.
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There is a good reason that the State places strict restrictions for baselining on capsuleers.
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Uh yeah, the Caldari State is all but fascist. Heth regime totally was though.
I think the word has turned rather bloated and vague over the years and we tend to associate it to everything that comes more or less close to authoritarianism.
The State is authoritarian. The State sure shares a few facets defining fascism, like the corporatist side of it, or the national pride / militarization of the youth.
But the State doesn't share many core components of fascism, like the almighty, centralized, authoritarian state above the corporations, for example, as well as the central figurehead, like it was the case with the dragonaurs.
The State is before everything much closer to what you will find in shadowrun corporations like Renraku, rather than true european fascism.
It is also good to remember that while the gallente and caldari systems are on the opposite spectrum in terms of authoritarianism vs libertarianism, they are on the exact same page on the capitalist/liberal mindset, and that is the origin of their conflict (which also explains why they decided to go in opposite directions in terms of government).
Which is why I've always found it strange over the years when players either directly or indirectly complain about how their respective faction is unappealing in the metagame sense to a modern audience. Because if one really wanted to be part of a faction with strong parities to modern Western civilization then why not have chosen the Federation in the first place? Any attempts to bring other factions "in-line" in that sense would mean essentially they have begun the process of Gallentean cultural assimilation/integration towards its liberal, individualist worldviews.
Personally I have always loved the gallente lore. If I had to start again I would pick up gallente. That's also why I shamelessly inserted a bit of it in my own RP.
However, I have never really been unhappy about the appeal of my respective faction per se, or at least not for the reasons you describe. What annoys me most with most other factions is that they often fail to depict what a DIFFERENT but MODERN society would look like.
The Amarr often fail to check that mark, as well as the Minmatar. We often forget that them too, are as advanced as the others, and yet the depiction we get of them is often... medieval compared to the gallente.
That, I dislike heavily. Them too have access to the same level of technology and societal progress.
That's also why on the little RP Aria and others got on Dam-Torsad, the only post and setting I introduced was totally high-tech/blade runnerish. Why would the Amarr not get those fancy societal doodads too?
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(That said, there's undoubtedly a fan base for "cute but insane.")
In what is best described as a hilarious case of immense irony, odds are, most of that fanbase is probably from the Federation.
Morwen:
I'm going to suggest that there are likely those who look quite favorably upon Morwen for her past humanitarian relief efforts, as well as organizational talents of a scientific sort. In particular involvement with AJ, and even Syne if one's a fan who appreciates the sciences and the good Capsuleers can be responsible for when disasters occur.
I would imagine these things would be tempered by her earlier history of piracy and acute martial prowess.
Since I got namedropped, might as well chip in.
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Demographics and Views:
Morwen has been around as a capsuleer long enough that she likely has a 'fanbase' of some sort in most parts of high- and low-sec regardless of which empire it is, so I'm going to break things down a bit. Generally speaking, most of Morwen's fanbase or following is centered around her frequently un-capsuleer-like behavior. The majority of attention directed at her by baseliners is probably positive: the extensive humanitarian and anti-Nation efforts, her musical talents, the general drive to act (in public) like she's just a normal, regular person... these are all attractive to a variety of people. There are definitely plenty of reasons for baseliners to dislike her of course: her time spent as a pirate will have irritated some folks, and it's likely that most pirate entities are not particularly fond of her for their own reasons. Morwen has been known to engage with followers, though rarely in traditional "celebrity" contexts; she prefers lower-key methods that reinforce the emphasis she places on appearing "normal."
The Federation is where the bulk of Morwen's fanbase would likely originate, not just because she was born and raised in Caille, but also because she had regular musical performances prior becoming a capsuleer and had a small following there already - capsuleer training merely increased her exposure and increased the size of her fanbase as a result. Her humanitarian work and recent tournament piloting have also contributed heavily to the increase in size of her Federation fanbase.
In the State, if she has any following it is likely to be very small, primarily centered among the more Liberal groups, and specifically for her humanitarian work with the Hearth and Home relief effort post-Highlander. Among the Practical and Patriot blocs, if there aren't tiny specks of grudging respect or acknowledgement for the H&H work, she's either unheard-of or not necessarily well thought of, given her brief stint with Veto, and its affiliation with the Guristas. It's possible she might have people being aware of her through the fanbases of Caldari capsuleers such as Jude Kopenhagen (whom she flew with in Ghost Festival, and is a casual acquaintance of), Katrina Oniseki (a fellow moderator of the Summit), Makoto Priano (via Consortium work w/r/t the Drifters) and a number of the Pyre Falcon crew, particularly Pieter and Veikitamo.
In the Empire, I'm a little less certain. If she has a following there, it could go either way, and likely is a mixture of positive and negative views. She's had connections in the past to plenty of people the Empire wouldn't (or doesn't) care for, but has also gone well out of her way to redeem herself and has made a fair amount of progress in the last 4 years, and her appearance in the Succession Trials as a Retainer probably didn't hurt, either. In the Kingdom, she's probably got more people aware of her there in varying positions in the food chain. She has some friends among the more liberally-minded social elite, as well as the local average citizenry in the city nearby the Tyrathlion estates, but also quite a few enemies. (Three of whom met their rather untimely but quite deserved demises about a month prior to this post; I've been a bit lazy and haven't finished the writing for that stuff. She didn't do it, though. Honest.)
In the Republic, she definitely has defenders and detractors. Morwen was pretty outspoken against slavery in her early years, and has been known on multiple occasions to rescue and repatriate slaves rescued from facilities and vessels in space. On the other hand, over the last four years she has become rather close with the Empire and Kingdom, and most people in the Republic would object to this on principle, despite her work in the past. Some supporters might point to the fact that even during that period she had a number of close and well-known friends among the TLF, like Ava Starfire and Kalaratiri Saskia as a case of "well, they liked her and stayed friends with her, she can't be that bad" - but opponents would probably use the same fact to attack her as well as Ava and Kala.
Regarding "Shipping":
Morwen has never hid nor shied away from being bisexual, and as a result has probably been "shipped" with quite a few of her peers of both genders. In addition, Morwen's occasional modeling stints (of varying sorts; none within the last two years, and reportedly encouraged primarily by her now-deceased fianceé Repentence and their close friend Kimochi) have have done little but encourage further generation of material.
Her age-old friendship with Aldrith Shutaq will have spawned no small number of lurid tales, and her place as a Retainer for Aldrith's unsuccessful bid to become the Champion for Aritcio Kor-Azor in the Amarrian Succession Trials would have served only to renew interest in this particular pairing. A small number of other men may have been paired with her by the shipping community over the years, including people like Esna Pitoojee, a couple of True Slave Foundations pilots (Degen Sankriga and Kybernetes Moros, in particular), and because of GalNet's particularly odd fixation on pairing people who hate each other, Seriphyn Inhonores.
When it comes to women, Morwen will have been "shipped" with a very large portion of her peers over the years. Beyond the ones based on publicly-acknowledged romantic relationships with other capsuleers (including Repentence Tyrathlion and Lilly Terranova), notable pairings include a significant portion of her friends and acquaintances, including fellow Ghost Festival and Veto pilots Kimochi Rendar and Inara Subaka, current corpmates Steffanie Saissore and Kaaeliaa, Pyre Falcon's Veikitamo Gesakaarin, TLF pilots Ava Starfire and Kalaratiri Saskia, ex-Fractionites Jekaterine and Punx Evangeline, fellow musicians Sakaane Eionell and Catherine "Quintrala" Delorois, and potentially the wives of two of the men she has been "shipped" with - Mitara Newelle and Rin Kaelestria (married to Aldrith Shutaq and Esna Pitoojee, respectively). Similar to the case with Seriphyn Inhonores, GalNet's fixation on pairing people who hate each other together will have resulted in a not-insignificant quantity of material involving Morwen and Diana Kim.
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I'd post a theorized thing about someone else but I need to finish packing!
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Enough people consider Louella to be a Saint, for the Theology Council to have taken notice.
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Full Disclosure: I was just practicing my pro-Gallente loyalist kayfabe and ability to defend my fictional choices with poorly chosen real-world and intellectual analogies.
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Havohej is vice president of the Samira Kernher fan club.
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:|
... who's the president?
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Katrina Oniseki, under the GalNet pseudonym "Y0n1s".
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Veikitamo Gesakaarin:
* First came to prominence to Gallente fan club communities after her nano-second buyout of a Roden Shipyards subsidiary; CPD Commissarial Audit of a Wiyrkomi subsidiary, and formation of the Pyre Falcon Defence and Security corporation between YC 114 - 115.
* Once called her fans in the Federation as, "A bunch of fucking BDSM enthusiasts that seem to enjoy my abuse." on social media in reference to her apparent cult following among Gallente.
* Appears to have a strongly acerbic and vitriolic hate-love relationship with her fanbase.
* Her apparent narcotics addictions and homosexuality apparently stem from her use of Federal social media to post images of as one description put it, "A fucking mountain of Crash," Along with sexually suggestive shots of Achuran, "Secretaries," described only with: ;)
* When questioned about her openness with her personal life, often responds with, "Look I have no time for HeiianDongs when I'm applying the jackboots medium style to some clown." This popularized the #HeiianDongs social media descriptor along with image macros of Veikitamo involving jackboots and clowns.
* Sells an energy/sports drink in the Federation made popular with her fans called Salté. It is described as having been bottled with, "Only the finest and best electrolytes." Commercials for the product often parody Gallente perfume ads in which she slowly licks the tears off the face of various crying models.
*Once started a crowdfunding kickstarter for a personal autobiography set at 50 Million ISK in what many assumed was a joke. Remarkably, the target goal was reached and within six months Veikitamo Gesakaarin's autobiography titled, "My Struggle," was published and made available as a 3,436 page tome in digital print in which a reader was unable to skip a page in a period shorter than two minutes.
Beginning with, "My Father was a manic-depressive marionette artist and my Mother was a syphilitic prostitute." The biography begun to detail a life exposed to domestic violence, personal struggles with alcoholism, drug, and sex addiction in addition to a rise from a disenfranchised youth to top corporate executive involving blackmail, extortion, kidnap, and murder. The biography ended with, "Actually I was born a tube-child so everything you have just read must be bullshit. Thank you for the ISK and wasting 114.5 or more hours of your life."
* During what appeared to be a, "Defection," to the Federation in YC 116, Veikitamo excited fans by offering a chance to be part of an, "Intimate concert," So long as they wore a fedora hat. Held at the Saravellin Theatre in Chantrousse, Veikitamo played Dausienne's concerto for piano No. 36 in C major known more commonly as, "A death by duty's ditch." Upon conclusion of playing she stood, donned a gas mask, and watched as the locked theatre was doused in organophosphate killing 6,456 fans.
When asked about the incident the only response was, "I fucking hate fedora wearing hipsters, don't you?"
* Even after the above incident her fanbase appears to remain constant if one believes the analytics of her social media followers in the Federation.
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I think I just got a papercut reading that last one.
:lol:
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"Hello. Yes, this is her. I.. mh-h. Mh. A fan club? Really..? Really. Despite my best efforts to stay low-profile. Really. I see. Yes. Do you.. do you have some kind of club house? Central gatheri-.. I see. Yes. Could you message me the coordinates, for orbital bom-.. an orbital signing ses-, I mean, for let's say, a signing session? Thank you. I'll be right over."
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I think I just got a papercut reading that last one.
:lol:
Veikitamo Edge Theorems are a branch of non-euclidean geometry used to describe the edginess of multi-dimensional structures.
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Mit lives, or has been living anyway, in something of a bubble and has been totally oblivious to any kind of fan club or celebrity status. Her first exposure to a 'fan club' was meeting Charm Meson who told Mit she was president of this fan club and had some kind of action figures. Mit was mildly amused thinking it is just Charm and a couple of her friends and the action figures being something they made themselves, even though Aldy said 'yes, I authorized those', he is always the joker you know.
Now that the Succession Trials are over, her imagined reality is starting to crumble as the magnitude of what her participation in it means begins to sink in. It was made all too real recently as Alizabeth Vea was going over the progress of the Team Sarum Museum with Mit and Kerri Kane came up and fangirled all over Alizabeth. Aldy reiterated how well known they all are in the Empire and this time Mit could tell he wasn't joking at all, and it terrified her. She cannot comprehend any of it as she equates what she does as being simply God's calling for her, the same as your everyday navy officer, baker, or factory worker in the Empire, nothing too exceptional to speak of and not worthy of notice outside a handful of people. Time will tell to she how she processes it and copes.
As to the details of Mit's fanclub go, I would have no idea and will leave that up to the likes of Charm and Aldy!
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The most interesting and fun fan club in the Empire I would think has to be that of The Golden Mountain, Lord Vaari. I mean, we capsuleers have a fanclub for him right here, I can only imagine what the baseliners do! :)
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Although Nauplius has supporters, he has supporters in the same way that the Unibomber or Anders Breivik have supporters -- you can find comments sections on the edgier corners of the Internet where those people are admired, but actually organizing non-anonymous or meatspace groups in admiration of them probably gets you on various government watch lists and would make it hard to hold a high-status job.
Anyway, Nauplius's actions are probably censored in Amarr space for religious regions and censored in Minmatar space because they'd cause protest.
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I think it's more likely Naup's actions are widely featured in the Republic as an example of extremism among the enemies of the Republic. No point wasting good propaganda material, however inaccurate it may be.
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After thinking about it for a bit, I decided that Elmund does not have a fanclub. What he does have, however, is an audience amongst baseliners.
His baseliner audiences are members of the academia, defense contractor engineers, Federation Tourism Board marketing division personnel, coffee aficionados, fans of pulp fiction and really, really bored Federation youths who love trolling Minmatar on the Galnet.
Members of academia who tune into whatever Elmund is saying typically are students of technical schools and universities, particularly those who major in Starship Engineering, since every so often he says something really relevant to their studies and they will start taking notes. There are also anthropologists who will record his posts about Minmatar, or rather, Sebiestor culture, taking note of the deviations from the Sebiestor norms within the Egivand Clan for use as case study of what happens when a branch of a Tribe deviates from the main body sufficiently enough.
Defense contractor engineers are interested in what he has to say due to his own background as a Marine Combat Engineer (Elmund performed two roles on the Typhoon he was stationed during his cadet days. His other role is Marine Engineer, as in, during the stoker work, fixing broken machinery, reactor control systems, electronics, etc). He occasionally mentions about how he goes around screwing with ship subsystems and weaponising starship architecture and electronics and they take notes and then study what he has to say, verify the truthfulness of his statements and figure out how to defend or exploit the 'facts' he revealed about boarding action and surface operations (particularly on demolitions and fortifications).
Elmund has a habit of talking about the places he visits, and he talks the most about the Federation. This caught the attention of the marketing arm of the Federation Tourism Board, and they keep track of his activities and read his posts to figure out what his beef with the Federation is, and then decide on how they are to make the subject he talks about into a better tourist trap, set up new tourist traps or scrap the idea completely.
Coffee aficionados because, well, Elmund takes his coffee seriously and has the tendency of going into rants about the quality of coffee of certain shops, much to the delight and amusement of these people. They also note about the places he stated serve good coffee, because, as it turns out, when he praise the coffee, the coffee turns out to be cut above the rest in terms of flavour.
His privateering activities and planetside skullduggery caught the imaginations of the pulp fiction fans, who felt that his adventures, when he does have any, read like something out of their favourite magazine short stories. The fact that one of his adventures does get featured in a pulp fiction magazine helps matters. There is also that novelty of 'one of us' (Elmund does read pulp fiction) too.
He also attract the attention of trolls because the guy tends to go into ranting fits about misrepresentation of the Minmatar in popular fiction.
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Vieve's genuine fan club is quietly engaged in erasing her and her blood kin from history. It's just better for all concerned, including history. :)
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Vieve's genuine fan club is quietly engaged in erasing her and her blood kin from history. It's just better for all concerned, including history. :)
We still need to have tea, next time you find yourself in a deranged enough state to resub Celeste. (This may or may not result in another name being added to the "shipping" list for Morwen, with potentially hilarious, if cringe-inducing, results.)
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Vieve's genuine fan club is quietly engaged in erasing her and her blood kin from history. It's just better for all concerned, including history. :)
We still need to have tea, next time you find yourself in a deranged enough state to resub Celeste. (This may or may not result in another name being added to the "shipping" list for Morwen, with potentially hilarious, if cringe-inducing, results.)
The results would depend upon which Celeste showed up. If it was Celeste. Or even mostly Celeste. Seriously, the entire family is a case study on why infomorph engineering should not be practiced without a license.
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That's a name I haven't seen in some time!
On-topic: I would suspect Sak would have a bit of a fanclub. After all, who doesn't like a bit of a rebellious beauty that's willing and capable of getting her hands dirty? It would probably be a bit underground though, given that she's actively attacked pretty much all the empires, raided a large swath of lowsec, openly admitted to having been (and still being, in some ways) a pirate, and so on.
The rest of the Nihils will, unfortunately, probably remain in Sak's shadow for the indefinite future. Barring some serious tragedy resulting in Sak's death (super-unlikely, btw), they'll always be compared to her and her achievements. Hopefully, they'll be able to distinguish themselves in time, and set themselves apart.
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I like to think of Enkil 'Havohej' Akheteru having, not so much a fan club, but rather thousands of edgy teens who wear his face on a t-shirt in much the same way kids where Che Guevara t-shirts, or Stalin t-shirts, or Fidel, or the list goes on.
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I dunno if Val would have a fan club, but she certainly used to run one. I imagine she has some conspiricy theorists in the Republic who think she is some Sansha slaver still and her TLF loyalties are a ruse, and I am sure there is a rumor of her still seeing a certain Amarrian Templar.
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So! Resurrecting this topic for updates.
Aria's fan club probably has had mixed reactions, at best, to her withdrawal from the Federation and (particularly) her oath of service to Lunarisse Aspenstar Daphiti. I'm trying to think exactly how that would go over.
Suggestions welcome.
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So! Resurrecting this topic for updates.
Aria's fan club probably has had mixed reactions, at best, to her withdrawal from the Federation and (particularly) her oath of service to Lunarisse Aspenstar Daphiti. I'm trying to think exactly how that would go over.
Suggestions welcome.
Caldari fans would probably view it with the distaste and scorn reserved for those who abandon their native culture to appropriate a foreign culture.
Gallente and Minmatar fans look on her as a convert and apologist for the Empire.
Gains Amarrian fans, especially those of the, "Look, peaceful Reclaiming, it's working!" Persuasion.
This might not be the actual case, but any look at social media IRL and there is an abandoning of facts for controversy and outrage -- because that's what gets retweets and views.
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So! Resurrecting this topic for updates.
Aria's fan club probably has had mixed reactions, at best, to her withdrawal from the Federation and (particularly) her oath of service to Lunarisse Aspenstar Daphiti. I'm trying to think exactly how that would go over.
Suggestions welcome.
Caldari fans would probably view it with the distaste and scorn reserved for those who abandon their native culture to appropriate a foreign culture.
Gallente and Minmatar fans look on her as a convert and apologist for the Empire.
Gains Amarrian fans, especially those of the, "Look, peaceful Reclaiming, it's working!" Persuasion.
This might not be the actual case, but any look at social media IRL and there is an abandoning of facts for controversy and outrage -- because that's what gets retweets and views.
I'm not sure about gaining Amarrian fans. Aria is very forthcoming that she is not of the Faith in public. While some may be hopeful for her, I think many would look on her with suspicion serving such a prominent Amarr like Luna while being a heathen.
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So! Resurrecting this topic for updates.
Aria's fan club probably has had mixed reactions, at best, to her withdrawal from the Federation and (particularly) her oath of service to Lunarisse Aspenstar Daphiti. I'm trying to think exactly how that would go over.
Suggestions welcome.
Caldari fans would probably view it with the distaste and scorn reserved for those who abandon their native culture to appropriate a foreign culture.
Gallente and Minmatar fans look on her as a convert and apologist for the Empire.
Gains Amarrian fans, especially those of the, "Look, peaceful Reclaiming, it's working!" Persuasion.
This might not be the actual case, but any look at social media IRL and there is an abandoning of facts for controversy and outrage -- because that's what gets retweets and views.
I'm not sure about gaining Amarrian fans. Aria is very forthcoming that she is not of the Faith in public. While some may be hopeful for her, I think many would look on her with suspicion serving such a prominent Amarr like Luna while being a heathen.
Yes, that could also be the case.
My point was that if these capsuleer fan clubs occupy the same space as modern social media then there is a strong tendency to focus on the negative/create outrage and drama within that space because that is what drives reader/viewership of those commenting on those capsuleers.
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Ché would likely have gained his first fans by competing with his team in the Sub-warp Racing League, and becoming the SRV champion.
After this, he may have gotten a fanbase (particularly Gallente Doves) due to his interest in peace and his humanitarian work. He is likely quite popular among the Caldari Prime citizens that supported former Arcurio mayor and YC 117 Gallente President candidate Shaileen Ramnev.
His Search And Rescue patrols would likely have gotten him some Matari fans.
In Origin he has some fans among the Decentralizers, as he is/was one of the most public faces of that group. Since becoming a Gateway (special ambassador) for ALXVP, his reputation among Origin's Minmatar population may have taken a hit due to talks with SFRIM.
He likely has some fans among Sansha sympathizers as well.
There is a Church of Ché in Caille. Attendants spend time thinking about "what would Ché do?", which for most seems to be an odd mixture of hedonism and charity.
Due to his love life, it would be strange to not find fanfics about him and some other capsuleers being involved in romances, particularly Cynthia Gallente, Aria Jenneth and Lasairiona Raske. It's also possible to find tabloids with interviews with some baseliners claiming to have shared a night and bed with him.
Lasairiona Raske:
Likely has a mixed reputation among the Matari. Some might see her as an emancipated woman doing occasional humanitarian work, others as an Angel puppet and criticize her for having L'Amore in Ballo in the Ammatar Mandate. Those less politically inclined (and non-matari) may just admire her performances as a singer and socialite.
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Ria wouldn't really have a fan club. It'd be more of an anonymous posting side that's rife with conspiracy theories on whether or not she's a triple double agent for the Angel cartel, various guesstimates on what she really does and all sorts of smut.
That is, outside of the State. There's a smallish online community within Lai Dai discussing various semi-exotic engineering projects, as well as other various research topics. Conversely, she runs it and uses it to headhunt personnel for her labs.