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[Lyn Farel]

Re thinking about it, its even more weird. 9 generations is what ? 180 years ? 200 ? How the hell people of more than 5-6 generations can still be living ? Maybe we understand it wrong ?

And if it was more about another way of thinking ? If it was actually a slave family that have been in slavery for more than 9 generations that would be actually freed ? That would mean generation 1, 2, 3, etc, but only for families with a long state of slavery (9 generations in slavery or higher). But if this is the case, this is also quite a lot of slaves, so 600M seems very, very small to me.

[Matariki Rain]

And if it was more about another way of thinking ? If it was actually a slave family that have been in slavery for more than 9 generations that would be actually freed ? That would mean generation 1, 2, 3, etc, but only for families with a long state of slavery (9 generations in slavery or higher). But if this is the case, this is also quite a lot of slaves, so 600M seems very, very small to me.

This.

If you'd been captured and enslaved, you're a first generation slave. If your grandparents were the ones captured, you'd be a third generation slave. The ones freed were the ones whose multiply-great-grandparents had been enslaved, or who were educated. The numbers given seem awfully small (in the order of a tenth of the population of present-day Earth). While that might mean there's a noticeable new sub-ethnicity around the places they now live, it doesn't feel like it should put the sort of huge extra pressure on the Republic that we've been assuming.

[Merdaneth]

Say my dad is 1st generation slave, that makes me 2nd generation when I have kids they will be the 3rd generation their kids will be 4th and so on. So. ZombieQueen says, 3rd and older are free to go, that's gonna leave my grand kids still in captivity. As I understand generations 1 to 3 are the older generations and the 4th one the younger.

Maybe I'm looking this from a more VtM kind of angle.

I think I understand you now. However, when looking at it from that perspective, everyone from generations 1-9 are long dead and releasing 9th and older will not release any slaves at all. Unless you can make a decent case that life expectancy of an average slave in the Empire exceeds 700+ years of course.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Thing is, PF is full of holes and where it isn't it's full of ambiguity. While ambiguity is good for PF to some degree as it allows people to take different stances more easily, CCP easily overshoots the threshold where it just gets ridiculous, the 'older generations' being just one example:

'Older' one can argue can mean all kind of things - it doesn't make clear at all what is meant. If you speak about generations, it's much more wise to speak of higher and lower generation.

Another thing is: If you play with others, say Minmatar internally or Amarr internally, it's easy to get those PF glitches fixed, to fill the holes with something that makes sense to you and the ones you cooperate with in filling those holes, as you have a common interest in filling those holes in a constructive and (for you) fun way.

If one gets out of those communities and does Amarr & Minmatar cross-faction RP, things start to be messy: Suddenly, the common interest to portray the faction as one thing or the other not, fades, as the other factions plays another role in my game than my own. In effect one side has a 'vested interest' to let the other stand there as incoherently and non-sensical as possible, not even because one side doesn't like the other OOGly, but simply because the less sense the other side makes, the more sense does the own side make.

I've the impression that we are therefore naturally tending to maximize the sense the side we're playing makes and minimizing the others in the process.

This is even more accentuated in the case of the Amarr: Slavery simply is a hot topic. And while some Amarr players try to make sense of the slavery system and try to understand it as coherently as possible other Amarr players simply make sense out of the situation by letting the Amarr stand as simply evil (or pretty much that: When we had lots of civilizations in our history that practiced slavery, by studying them we will see that the vast majority of them didn't consider slaves to be pets or animals: In fact, slaves were usually considered to be people and there's no reason to assume the Amarr don't imho).

Now, while I don't want to prescribe a method to interpret the PF and build up from it a coherent picture of the factions in EVE, I personally think it would be good to make the conscious choice to use one for all. I personally go with the method of benevolently maximizing coherence and sense and try to apply that to all four factions (and the minor ones as well).

This is active effort, as I as many others - i assume, would rather like to maximize coherence for the faction my char moves in and let the Minmatar go down the gutter coherence and sense-wise. Not because I don't like the Minnies, but simply because it'd let me experience a more coherent Amarrian world. More coherent means more immersive, more immersive means more fun. And I'd venture that this is true for most RPers.

That's unfair to the Minmatar, though, as I'd measure them entirely different than the faction of my choice. I'd be okay with people generally going for minimizing coherence for all factions. What's important to me is, that I as a player make an active effort to measure all of them with the same stick. What my char does is another story of course.
But then, if he tries to look at the thing objectively, I as a player should be aware to not hold to an idea of the objective state of the factions that has been produced by a lop-sided procedure of producing that which I hold to be 'objective'.

What do I want to say by this long-winded post?

tl;dr: It's easier to get the blatant holes and inconsistencies closed in a way that everyone can agree on if all are on the same side. How incoherent and useless the PF oftentimes is to establish a 'common reality' for all only shows in situations of conflict between to (or more) factions.

I don't think that given the state of PF there's a solution to that problem.

[Arkady Sadik]

Er. About the question what "ninth generation and up" means, exactly, to quote the news article for the emancipation:[1]

Besides, if you’re ninth-generation, you, your parents and all the ancestors you know of will have known nothing but the Empire. The Republic is a distant and frightening dream to these people. Where do you think they’re going to go?

I don't think there is much of a doubt what is meant there, really?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Indeed, re-reading it, it's "nineth generation and up", which most certainly meaning higher generations were as well freed, that's 9th, 10th, 11th... etc.pp.

Still, doesn't solve the inconsistencies that have been pointed out.

[lallara zhuul]

Lyn, to me it seemed like you missed the biggest point of my post in your hurry to be offended and feeling criticized.

To me as a Finn a liberal means something, to someone from different country and cultural heritage a liberal means something completely different. Even talking to another Finn that would have gone to the same school and had the same education as me, the meaning would be different.

To me the crux of the problem is the fact that people have the tendency of judging the Amarrians by their own worldviews and cultures, therefore giving meanings to word 'liberal' that are not there.

Personally I feel that as roleplayers playing within a predetermined setting, we should strive to honor that setting by trying to work with the information that we get from PF to create worldviews for our characters that are consistent with the world and the cultures they inhabit.

What I was trying to get through was the fact that a liberal Amarrian 20k+ years in the future has very little in common with the worldview of a liberal whatever in the year 2011.

With the Amarrians we are talking about the only culture that has pretty much been unchanged since its conception. Technologically, philosophically, economically and spiritually. There has been situations where the technological advancement could have leapfrogged forward , but the Amarrians rejected change by labeling such urges as heresy therefore as something that is against the basic teachings of their religion. (I am referring to the Takmahl technological advancements in the areas of cloning and biotechnology about 2k years ago in the past.)

What I am referring as the basic teachings of the religion, are Reclaiming and the burden of Sin.

As a society and culture we are talking about something that is quite unfathomable by our standards.

There is no religion in the world that equates to the religion of the Empire.

When your holy Scriptures hold every aspect of life, it would come to reason that the religion itself covers every aspect of life.
Like Kama Sutra was compiled by a holy man as a way of having a perfect marriage (there is more than fancy snus-snus there) so has the Scriptures been compiled as a blueprint for a perfect society that cultivates the Spirit of Man by bringing spirituality and holiness into every single thing that you do in your life.

There is a right way of making breakfast in the name of God, there is a right way of making love in the name of God, there is a right way of making War in the name of God, and it is all covered within the Scriptures.

Then the modernizing of the religion and substantial economic reform.

Think.

What does that mean.

Trying to shift power from the old power block that already has their power set in stone by the basic concepts of the religion and the power structure that is in place.

So that the liberal Holders would have that power themselves.

By changing the religion so that they can make more profit.

Like Tash-Murkon did, they made their fortune by taking out the middle men while dealing with foreign cultures.

So, liberal Holders want to change the Reclaiming and the burden of Sin.

It would be profitable for them to industrialize the production as much as possible, get rid of a whole class of people in the economy (the artisans) by using standardized goods and opening up greater markets by changing the definition of Faith into lip service.
You get a cheap labour force by freeing the slaves and having them in a economic prison like in the Gallente Federation, you would also have a disposable work force from the artisans that could not compete with the cheap goods flooded into the market from the other empires and from the factories.
With the Faith being nothing else than holding a Symbol of the Faith, you could basically deal without any middle men with anybody (pretty much making Ni-Kunni and the Khanid Kingdom obsolete.)

It's just very hard for me to think that the word liberal, in liberal Holder, means anything morally good.

[Arkady Sadik]

Nice post, Lallara.

It's just very hard for me to think that the word liberal, in liberal Holder, means anything morally good.

This, really. One of the things that I really love about EVE is that no one in this universe is "good" or "nice" - it's a dark universe indeed, and everyone there is "evil" in some way.

The Amarr and Caldari are obviously so, but so are the Minmatar with their tribalism, primitive exile, infighting and rather low standards of living; and so are the Gallente, with their completely exaggerate "personal freedoms" and hedonism (that chronicle about the Amarr and Gallente executions was *awesome* for this).

At the same time, none of them are simply "Evil Genius" kind of evil. None of them is "evil just to be evil" - they all have the best intentions, they just suck at implementing them, and the only options they have left are "evil" or "bigger evil".

That's what I love about the EVE backstory :-)

[Lyn Farel]

Yes Lallara, thanks for stating the obvious. And I am not going to answer to condescending stuff telling me to "think", sorry. Anyway, I agree and have always agreed on what you just said. You missed the point completely.

[lallara zhuul]

I am sorry if I come across condescending, it may come through that I am just sick and tired of hashing through the same old thing time and again.

[Victoria Stecker]

To me the crux of the problem is the fact that people have the tendency of judging the Amarrians by their own worldviews and cultures, therefore giving meanings to word 'liberal' that are not there.

Personally I feel that as roleplayers playing within a predetermined setting, we should strive to honor that setting by trying to work with the information that we get from PF to create worldviews for our characters that are consistent with the world and the cultures they inhabit.

This makes sense, although one might consider the impact that being/becoming a capsuleer is going to have on that worldview. The average amarrian hasn’t seen the entire cluster, been exposed to foreign cultures, etc. If we want, as capsuleers, we can fly missions for the competing factions and see, for example, both sides of the “Amarrians are still making slave raids” argument, both the side that says it’s illegal and the side that says it happens every day. So I think it would be a stretch to expect an Amarrian capsuleer to still see the world the way a normal Amarrian, even a holder, does.

What I was trying to get through was the fact that a liberal Amarrian 20k+ years in the future has very little in common with the worldview of a liberal whatever in the year 2011.

With the Amarrians we are talking about the only culture that has pretty much been unchanged since its conception. Technologically, philosophically, economically and spiritually. There has been situations where the technological advancement could have leapfrogged forward , but the Amarrians rejected change by labeling such urges as heresy therefore as something that is against the basic teachings of their religion. (I am referring to the Takmahl technological advancements in the areas of cloning and biotechnology about 2k years ago in the past.)

Agreed here – mostly. I think certain major events would have had impacts on the culture whether the Amarrians wanted it or not. For example, the Kingdom splitting off, the Minmatar rebellion (especially since it was largely successful), the defeat by the Jovians that is mentioned in the True Amarr description as having left its mark on a generation.
A comparison would be to the erosion of a riverbed. You can take measures to prevent the slow, gradual erosion, but there’s really nothing you can do against massive catastrophic flooding.

What I am referring as the basic teachings of the religion, are Reclaiming and the burden of Sin.

As a society and culture we are talking about something that is quite unfathomable by our standards.

There is no religion in the world that equates to the religion of the Empire.

When your holy Scriptures hold every aspect of life, it would come to reason that the religion itself covers every aspect of life.
Like Kama Sutra was compiled by a holy man as a way of having a perfect marriage (there is more than fancy snus-snus there) so has the Scriptures been compiled as a blueprint for a perfect society that cultivates the Spirit of Man by bringing spirituality and holiness into every single thing that you do in your life.

There is a right way of making breakfast in the name of God, there is a right way of making love in the name of God, there is a right way of making War in the name of God, and it is all covered within the Scriptures.

Actually really neat stuff to think about. Bolded part is extremely important and is part of why it annoys me to see people going after Amarrians with arguments against RL religions, but oh well.

Then the modernizing of the religion and substantial economic reform.

Think.

What does that mean.

Trying to shift power from the old power block that already has their power set in stone by the basic concepts of the religion and the power structure that is in place.

So that the liberal Holders would have that power themselves.

By changing the religion so that they can make more profit.

Like Tash-Murkon did, they made their fortune by taking out the middle men while dealing with foreign cultures.

So, liberal Holders want to change the Reclaiming and the burden of Sin.

It would be profitable for them to industrialize the production as much as possible, get rid of a whole class of people in the economy (the artisans) by using standardized goods and opening up greater markets by changing the definition of Faith into lip service.
You get a cheap labour force by freeing the slaves and having them in a economic prison like in the Gallente Federation, you would also have a disposable work force from the artisans that could not compete with the cheap goods flooded into the market from the other empires and from the factories.
With the Faith being nothing else than holding a Symbol of the Faith, you could basically deal without any middle men with anybody (pretty much making Ni-Kunni and the Khanid Kingdom obsolete.)

While I think this is a really neat idea of what a Liberal Holder might think, I’m interested in whether there’s solid evidence for this view or if it’s the answer you came up with to “What does this mean?”
I think it would be really neat to see different “Liberal” Amarrians, all looking to make these ‘reforms’ but with different ideas about what the reforms should be. There might be room for abolitionists and peace makers, there would be room for people like you describe (which sounds very heavily Caldari, and would be very scary – the resources of the Empire with the efficiency of the Cladari? Oshi- ), etc. The PF regarding liberal holders seems to be very vague (probably on purpose, or just because of :ccp: and :lazy:) so I think it could encompass a broad range of people with different agendas.

It's just very hard for me to think that the word liberal, in liberal Holder, means anything morally good.

From whose perspective? Ours? Probably not. Theirs? Maybe.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

From what I can recall of chronicles dealing with the upper end of the Holder class and the Heirs. Faith is a tool for social control, not something that they have themselves. I'd say Jamyl's plotline is the ultimate expression of this.

This would tally well with the setting's rather cynical and jaded cyberpunkish style. But is that the way the rest of you see things?

[Lyn Farel]

Mostly for me. I see it that way in all the empires.

But like IRL (RL comparisons are often bad, ok, but I did not make my feeling out of a RL comparison here), most things are not about ideology, but power/influence/money, even if coated in ideologies.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

With the Amarrians we are talking about the only culture that has pretty much been unchanged since its conception. Technologically, philosophically, economically and spiritually.

I beg to differ: just because the Empire is set up against (especially sudden) change it doesn't follow that it does not change: In fact, we have PF stating that the Empire changed quite a bit since it conception, just look at the Tertrimon e.g. - there are also other examples. There have been examples where change has been resisted as well, but it's simply not the whole story.

[Louella Dougans]

lookat all that ooc-derived terrible discussion on the IGS