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[Ayallah]

Yeah, it really hurts that the demographic data isn't there. There's nothing concrete to point at beyond the general impression of fractured politics, crap infrastructure and refugee camps. Basically an entire section of space that resembles a gypsy campsite (and not the picturesque sort with the horse drawn wagons).

But then, you have to remember some of the concrete achievements, the size of the warmachine constructed and maintained and so on, and so on. I think the problem is that there's ANOTHER impression that, basically, the Gallente parachuted in and helped them build up and dumped all this money into their system, and they basically remained in squalor as they built battleships - totally ignoring the fact that Somali Pirates can't build battleships, so the Matari CAN'T have a society like that...

Somalia is a terrible example and is exactly the kind of portrayal that flat out does not work.  It is almost exclusively based on lore about skarkon and other specific pirate shitholes like Starkmanir Prime.  Again, perpetuated by mostly those trying to out-edge.  Not entirely but certainly mostly.

A far, far better example is Wirtschaftswunder and or Israel. The Federations position in those examples is much easier to picture as is how far they have come now. They are not direct examples obviously (they didn't even happen in space) but if you are thinking along THOSE lines you will be much less surprised when you read about Matari art subsidies and falling crime rates etc.

I feel like I always have to point it out but:

• The Republic has the infrastructure to house and employ the entire caldari state.(caldari unemployment is much much lower though FYI)
• The unemployment rate is LOWER than 2011 United States.
• The crime rate fell an insane 24% in a single year.
• According to Falcon they have the second largest military in terms of raw numbers (though third in overall sophistication).
• The homicide rate is 211 per 1,000,000 citizens which is just a bit higher than belgium and around where jordan is.  For perspective the US homicide rate is about 50% greater than the Republic's
• Suicide rates are 4604 people per 1,000,000 which is really pretty high, about south korea-khazicstan levels but those seem to fluctuate a lot more IRL and are harder to pin down. WHO numbers differ in a lot of places.  Either way suicide is by far the greatest threat to a Matari in the republic.  Very likely due to either the pressure to join up and fight the amarr or get out of the way and a general fading of the culture.
• They are highly libertarian and have by far the most diverse culture in New Eden.  The number of languages, practices and currencies are greater than that of the Fed because the Fed has had a lot longer to pressure a uniformity of culture and the Republic has a very strong reversion to enforcing uniformity.  See tribes, see amarr, etc
• It is a nation of trillions spread across hundreds of star systems and Did not exist 140 years ago So if it was IRL it would have been founded in like, 1879.  Like, did not exist at all, 0 planets but a very ruined matar to what it is in 138 years.  Again, a population of six point five trillion people.
• When the nefantar returned to the Tribes after the re-unification of the tribes (in YC110?  idk here tbh) the Republic took in a population sixy five point five times the population of earth.

     

A society that can accomplish all of those things does not worry about purifying water you fucks.  You can probably purify water with a 5quantum laser in YCwhatever. This is the future. Education can be distributed today via a cell phone app but people think that in the Republic no one has one.

The idea that all of these things are there but everyone lives in favelas and can't get clean water is frankly fucking stupid as hell.  Sure, there are always poor and rich areas but there are poor and rich areas everywhere.  I have yet to see any lore in all my searching that puts the republic as the most income-disparate of the nations. 

I also have yet to see any lore that paints the republic as badly as the pity-olympic gold medalist roleplayers have.  Even the most biting examples in lore I have found have always been confined examples.

Of course, we have so little lore to go on and what we have is so dissociated that actually painting a cohesive picture is really difficult.

The investment people get into their fictional lives mean that trying to enforce a cohesive view often causes its own kind of problems. 

Anyway, it is all something that Minmatar rp'ers are aware of these days, people just need to write more stuff tbh.  I feel like a goon in saying so but the Narrative is the problem, not the actual salient points anyone ever brings to the table.

TL;DR: The Republic isn't that bad at all, roleplay about tattoos more.  Everyone should have like 80 fucking tattoos and they should all mean something

Source on all this is just FOUR GODDAMN LINES IN EVE SOURCE That's right, four fucking piece of shit lines about the demographics and a date of the rebellion.  fuck you ccp if you are reading this, 12 years to get four lines of information we can extrapolate shit from.  ...just fuck you

FOUR GODDAMN LINES!

edit: also this isn't really directed at you pieter, you just got me to vent is all ))

[Mizhir]

Well chirped Ayallah. Certainly some great points you brought up.

Education can be distributed today via a cell phone app but people think that in the Republic no one has one.

This actually made me think about something. I got family (distant uncles/auntsand such) in India that lives in remote rural areas. Not talking about the areas that tourists see but the really remote places. My mum (Scandinavian)is probably the only white person some of these people have seen in person. It may be a rather primitive area compared so the western world, but the Indian government was actually pretty smart. Rather than putting up landline phones they just put up cellphone masts. It was cheaper, easier and the next step in the infrastructure. And cellphones can be purchased for next to no money there. So people can easily acquire one.

Similary I can imagine the Republic skipping some steps in infrastructure and may atually have a pretty decent and well updated infrastructure because rather than keep expanding on old and outdated systems they just build something new.

[Ayallah]

There is actually a lore bit about that somewhere, I will have to hunt it down.

But basically it says that the Republic actually has more advanced infrastructure on average than the Federation because it was bought new. and they already picked the cheaper, more efficient options.  Like your cell tower story.   I think maybe it was in a blurb about holo viewers or something like that.

[Elmund Egivand]

I also like to point out that the kind of engineering brilliance that allowed for battleships to handle like battlecruisers and cruisers acting like big frigates must have also bled down into the civilian sector. I would expect alot of their civvy stuff in the larger population centres to be built of light materials that are way too durable than they have any right to be due to advances in those fields that allowed them to design their starships the way I described. Namely, material science, mechanical engineering and nanotech.

If anything, they ought to be leaders in these fields.

[Ayallah]

Canonically, prior to the Day of Darkness Minmatar engineering was da bes

[Jocca Quinn]

Just want to say, much respect for Ayallah here.

[Karmilla Strife]

Awesome response Ayallah. I've been very frustrated by the portrayal of the Republic as some decrepit refugee camp with a dictator and barely functioning fleet held together by duct tape. Every one of the nations is going to have backwaters like Skarkon. One reason I play my Minmatar character Tabor as positive as I do, is to try to counter the popular Minmatar theme of "look how bad we've got it!" I should probably play him more rather than comment from the sidelines.

[Teinyhr]

+1 to Ayallah. Pretty much how I feel about the issues too.

[Xepharious]

Ayallah, thank you for both of your posts. I actually do agree with you on just about all of that, well, really all of it I guess. I came back to EVE just after Ava left so I didn't get to really play in the richer world that I saw before I left.

people just need to write more stuff tbh. 

Well... actually, I was kinda planning to take a part of my Sunswept narrative out of Origin for the next novel. I don't really know what it's going to look like as a whole but I'd be happy to spend some time/pages/creativity painting out the Republic a bit more. I'll need some strong reference sources ('cause, as you pointed out so vigorously, the Source doesn't cut it). Would you be interested when I get around to it? I like your pragmatic and balanced view and I'd love to put our heads together and try to paint out this picture.

[Ayallah]

I am trying to make a sort of easy to reference place.  Inspired by Samira doing the same a few years ago when she put in a lot of work on the wiki I went through and gathered up every mention of minmatar I could.  Sadly a lot is dead links now but I don't mind helping as best I can if you have questions. 

Also I kind of come off strong, I don't want people to think they can't play poverty or hardship or I will come rage at them IC, there certainly is a place for it.  For example the slaves free'd by the elder fleet likely had a much harder time re-integrating due to the unexpected nature of their arrival and the scattered and disparate republic of the time.   But by contrast, those who were free'd during the emancipation by empress Jamyl experienced more hardship in the Empire and then had a strong social service net to use once they did make it to the Republic.

[Samira Kernher]

I agree with most of this. While I played Samira as going through slums, that was a factor I attribute to being an immigrant rather than something global for the Republic. At the same time I've RPed that there is a significant amount of social services on tribal lines (inspired by a story CCP Eterne wrote). Certainly more than either the Empire (purely charity-based unless you sell yourself into slavery) or the State (completely casting out the unemployed). Good social services doesn't mean you don't have to deal with living in a rough or cramped neighborhood, mind, but it does mean you'll get food and medical coverage and won't be forced out onto the streets.

As for the military, the fleet is smaller than both the Empire and the Federation, there's a post on the EVE Fiction forum where Falcon rates them. I can't speak for the rest of the military though, so you might be right if you're counting all active service personnel.

The main disagreement we've had is in the Emancipation. While Republic social services are pretty good, the sheer volume did severely tax the Republic's services and caused a huge economic and societal mess, as described by basically everything written about it. But that mess is something that would have happened in any nation because a huge wave of immigrants is always going to tax resources.

There is actually a lore bit about that somewhere, I will have to hunt it down.

But basically it says that the Republic actually has more advanced infrastructure on average than the Federation because it was bought new. and they already picked the cheaper, more efficient options.  Like your cell tower story.   I think maybe it was in a blurb about holo viewers or something like that.

It's from the HoloVision article.

http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=HoloVision#Distribution

[Nissui]

^ One of the reasons I like boosting Urban Management and Six Kin when RP provides the opportunity.

[Ayallah]

As for the military, the fleet is smaller than both the Empire and the Federation, there's a post on the EVE Fiction forum where Falcon rates them. I can't speak for the rest of the military though, so you might be right if you're counting all active service personnel.

It was based on some argument with falcon in #lore, it is quite likely I misremembered it or that he was talking about total military personnel. It is inconsequential really except to demonstrate that its military is still larger than the State's (which has an equivalent population) and less technologically sophisticated than the Federation's but more so than the Empire's.

The main disagreement we've had is in the Emancipation. While Republic social services are pretty good, the sheer volume did severely tax the Republic's services and caused a huge economic and societal mess, as described by basically everything written about it. But that mess is something that would have happened in any nation because a huge wave of immigrants is always going to tax resources.

I disagree in that conclusion personally.

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/empress-jamyl-i-makes-historic-emancipation-announcement/

The first article, it focuses completely on the impact on The Empire of the loss of workforce and limited rioting amongst slave populations.

Follows is the life after emancipation series which details the social systems that were created to manage the released slaves.  All the hardships stem from imperial holders not giving adequate help to the free'd slaves, not anything on behalf of the republic that cannot be attributed to surprise.

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/life-after-emancipation-the-road-home-1/

”We thought life would get better at first,” says Onyeka, ‘But it only got worse. We saved what we could, but it was months before we had enough for a place on a shuttle.” At the expense of reduced power to the family of eight’s single room apartment, they saved enough to send Onyeka to the Republic to begin a new life.

Got worse While they were stuck in the Empire

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/life-after-emancipation-refuge-and-resettlement-1/

The SoE step in and assist, opening space as well as providing transport.

https://community.testeveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/life-after-emancipation-adaptation-and-adjustment/

Details the social system waiting for them in the republic.

https://community.testeveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/life-after-emancipation-citizenship/

Finishing the series, speaking about the hardships of change and some information about the social system.


Based on this, and paying close attention to the dates, I assert that the main hardships those who were freed felt were while they were in the Empire, unable to afford to leave and not supported by the holders who freed them for the most part.  Once they got to the Republic they had a well developed, if at first ill-prepared system waiting for them.  That three-day burst of overwhelming was a result of the SoE stepping in and transporting people en-mass.  But the civil systems were waiting for them regardless. 

That year of hardships was because the Empire just freed them and then did nothing until iirc Jamyl stepped in and glassed some holds.

What you are remembering is probably this article: https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/many-starkmanir-refugees-finding-new-life-difficult/

This is in sharp contrast to the life after emancipation series and takes place just before it.  It also is about the starkmanir exclusively.  It is really odd to think of the insane difference between the two but I attribute that to two things: the SoE was not involved and they had no tribe in the republic to assist them.  Highlighting the second it could be considered a problem with the tribal structure.  With no tribe to help them perhaps the social systems were not available to them like they were just months later. 

Also the Starkmanir had been freed for quite a long time at that point, they are also supposed to numerically insignificant even today almost a decade later.  To me that pushes my perspective to 'no tribe, no help' which is more akin to the state than the federation but it's honestly hard to say. 

Why a small number of people had such a difficult time but a much larger group just after had an easy one is hard to say.  Additionally, there are a LOT of nefantir in the Republic.  More than were emancipated and a hell of a lot more than the starkmanir.  Emancipated was in the 700mil range, starkmanir was supposed to be in the thousands ...yet the nefantir numbered in the hundreds of billions.

a few thousand had a hard time, 700 million were portrayed as having a good social system once they got to the republic and almost five hundred billion were completely unmentioned. Many of those nefantar returned with the starkmanir as well. it was supposed to have taken place at near the same time.  I assume that the 500 billion trickled in over the intervening years though.  Also they had their own money and resources and were not as slaves so that probably contributed.

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/sanmatar-shakor-affirms-starkmanir-nefantar-tribal-chiefs/

When they both got chiefs years later is really the only snapshot I could find.  Also this

Nefantar, today, face many challenges. Their ancestral lands, unlike that of the Thukker and Starkmanir on Matar held in trust, had no accommodation for the Nefantar. Court cases, land disputes, and religious tensions have made it difficult for the Nefantar refugees and the integration of the tribe with the Republic

...which I think points to the harships being Tribal political in nature rather than a lack of infrastructure. Well, infrastructure than belonged to the nefantir anyway.
 
  is all I can say.  How the protected people in an insignificant number had a hard time idfk.  I think they were just used as an example of the hardships that can be felt by those returning and is ..well it should have been written as hardships the nefantir face imo but it is PF so we have to reconcile.

Here is more confusion:
http://eve.wikia.com/wiki/Nefantar_Tribe
http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=Nefantar
http://eve.wikia.com/wiki/Starkmanir_Tribe
http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=Starkmanir#cite_note-e-5

Note the contrast between all these sources. Also check out the series on the religious backlash the nefantar/ammatar faced after defection.   I don't have the time now to hunt down all the dead links but from what I can piece together is this:

Those freed in emancipation experienced hardships in the empire but were well taken care of once they arrived in the Republic.

The Starkmanir were protected but experienced hardships possibly due to not having a chief or resources available at the time.  They faced religious persecution.

The Nefantar returned in much better shape, they had resources to do so maybe?  But they faced a lot of religious persecution as they brought with them the Imperial Rite in quantity.

Where those social systems that assisted the emancipated went and came from is anyone's guess but I am personally attributing it to Tribal politics/ the fact that the Nefantar had to make it more on their own?  Perhaps the Starkmanir did as well.  Room for debate I think but also room to bring inter-tribal politics and the hardships of the transition from the first republic to the new tribal republic in. 

The new Tribal republic with the new chiefs was after all this so presumably those hardships have been dealt with now that the starkmanir and nefantar have representative chiefs.  God only knows though.

It's from the HoloVision article.

Yep, that's the one I remember.  Thank you ))

http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=HoloVision#Distribution
[/quote]

[Samira Kernher]

The articles I think to are:

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/in-the-wake-of-jarek-religion-continues-to-be-contentious-issue-1/
(Evidence of clear social unrest between different groups of immigrants. Anywhere where there are Amarr faithful, there is religious conflict, particularly when both sides are immigrants)

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/food-supplies-to-republic-at-risk-according-to-aidonis-medical-1/
https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/gallente-medical-charity-under-pressure-over-salvation-crusade/
(Makes the case that Republic-based sources are possibly biased (Aidonis Medical could be the ones in the wrong, of course) and there might be pressure to refuse humanitarian aid to Amarr faithful)

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/minmatar-crime-lord-escapes-maximum-security-prison/
(Evidence of a "great increase in arrests" following the emancipation)

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/sanmatar-shakor-calls-for-assembly-of-the-seven-tribes/
("... domestic strain stemming from the rising population ...")


I do agree that the worst of the economic problems was likely faced by the Nefantar and Starkmanir in light of there being no tribal infrastructure existing for them. Other tribes most certainly fared better overall, but religious conflicts still caused issues in these cases. Most often conflicts between faithful and non-faithful immigrants, who the Republic refused to segregate.

There is domestic strain and increases in crime and arrests, but that is again something I attribute to high immigration numbers and not as a condemnation of the Republic itself.

[Xepharious]

Thank you both, so very very much, for summarizing those links. What a wealth of resources!