I mean the same thing I can see with the Amarr. Whenever I see people trying to twist the PF to ameliorate the consequences of slavery and conquest inherent in the Amarr faith I see it as nothing more than people trying to make it palatable to a modern audience in some kind of attempt at meta-PR. Because once slavery, conquest, and the racial intolerence/prejudice is removed from the Amarr you might as well be roleplaying a character that prescribes to a Christian ethic that just so happens to fly spaceships.
First, if one thinks that after removing slavery, conquest and racial intolerance/prejudice from the Amarr one is left with space Christianism, then one does have quite a lack of knowledge of the Christian religion as well as Amarr PF. This argument is not only a slippery slope, but a straw man as well.
Second, there is a huge difference between arguing that Amarr has a plurality of stances culturally availabe and trying to remove slavery, conquest and racial intolerance/prejudice from the faction alltogether: I don't feel in the least affected by that argument, in fact it simply flies by me as it doesn't at all match what I argue. My point rather is that Amarr sees slavery and conquest as valid options that can be (ethically) justified, given certain circumstances - but aren't the only options available. They have been in the past been portrayed as being more sophisticated than only relying on one option. Similarly, I don't aim at all to remove racial intolerance/prejudice from Amarr entirely, I rather argue that it's has been in past PF not at all the only option available for Amarr and though maybe for some reasons or the other the most widespread (probably because simplistic worldviews are also attractive to future humans) option, certainly not the most convincing option available in and to Amarr by past PF.
Third, as to the issue of OOC 'bleedover', any fiction available will for the purposes of RP always be interpreted. Interpretation though will always go in the OOC -> IC direction, as any RP is based on OOC understandings of a fictional background. If people want to style that already as "bleedover", than such bleedover is inavoidable and all parties here are guilty of it. Furthermore, though, I don't see at all how an OOC discussion of whether any faction is is portrayed realistically or too simplisticas well as whether CCP removed with EVE: Source too many grey areas for the sake of a simple black-white dichotomy qualifies as bleedover into IC. Also, I'd venture the claim that if people would actually confuse what they want their faction to be with what it actually is, and was, they'd be those that would have the least reason to complain, because after all for them, their faction is just how they want it to be, no?
Lastly, I have to agree with Lyn: There are many people who tend to a interpretation of the Empire that makes it's worst characteristics the only one that shine through, or at least makes those overproportionally prominent. Be it that they oppose religion IRL and are thus informed in their interpretation of the Empire (up to simply ascribing to Amarr what they perceive to be inconsistent in RL religions even against PF), be it that they are ardent democrats or simply are opposed to the Empire as their characters ended up to be in an opposing faction. So equally as it prolly happens all the time that how one wants the own faction to be informs how one interpretes the available PF, it is true that how one wants the opposing factions to be informs the interpretation of PF. And who wants, deep down, to fight an enemy that isn't evil? Truth be told, most of us find it much easier to oppose things that we percieve to be abhorrent and thus we automatically tend to give the opposing factions a less cheritable view.
The Amarr are also quite suited to be interpreted that simplisticly as they espouse two characteristics (and I think no one denies that they do, really) that we are either taught as being 'obviously' abhorrent (in the case of slavery) or many had traumatic experiences with (religion) and that we all understand as something that should be seperated from the political sphere at least (so theocracy again flies against our understanding of freedoms humans have innately). With the internet community being made up mostly of individuals that highly value freedom and quite a high percentage of people generally loathe (organized) religion the Amarr Empire seems to be the natural enemy stereotype of EVE's general demographic.
If anything, therefore, portaying the Amarr Empire as having accomodating or maybe even positive traits aside and - God forbid! - even within those abhorrent practices of theocracy and slavery (and racial intolerance/prejudice of course) is something that is unpalatable to most EVE players. In my opinion that is though what makes the Amarr Empire interesting: That it shows that it's not self-evident that theocracy and slavery are abhorrent practices, but that it is a cultural accomplishment of our civilization that we came (over centuries, really) tho this conclusion - something that we are prone to forget. And furthermore that it also shows that those activities can be comitted by people that are not inherently evil, but have in fact good intentions. Because that reminds us - painfully - that our good intentions are no sufficient defense against us committing horrible actions.
And then there's another instance, there are apparently those that want the experience of abusing people as well as those that want the experience of being abused, for whatever reasons and be it only in RP - which is at least kind'a socially accepted in contrast to living out these fantasies IRL. Over my years in the Amarr community I had my fair share of those people, especially of the latter type. This went up to people going all crazy OOC onme for not clearly have my character abuse theirs. Especially after those people repeatedly had their character do actions that were clearly out to provoke punishment after I denied them leashings to half-death for no reason whatsoever and my char simply put them into psychological counseling - as those chars were clearly suffering from a disorder there.
Also there seem to be the people that simply can't think of slavery as being possible without an underlying racism to justify it. I'm not quite sure if that's because their view is informed by southern US slavery as I know little about that. But I know that there were native Americans that kept other native and black people as slaves and also free black people in the south that kept black slaves. Certinly those fre black people didn't think that they were justfied to keep black slaves because they were
racially inferior. I'm not quite sure if there are incidences of white slaves in the US.
Anyhow there are historically many incidences of slavery that were not based on a racist ideology and in fact many economic studies point to the hypothesis that slavery is to be understood as an economical phenomenon. The latter would explain the former.
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