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[Vieve]

I think the loyalties of my characters should be fairly obvious.  I keep being reminded that they're not.

[Invelious]

I think I'll agree with KJLLV and that OOC loyalties to a faction is also alien. My effort into developing the Federation is only as far as a creative endeavour, hobbyist, etc.

What was it about the federation that put them above the other factions for your creative endeavour?

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

Within the Empire though, it's a bit more nuanced.

And this, for all you Amarr faction types out there, is why Rodj stays interesting despite having hewed to the same faction for God only knows how many years.

I don't quite follow. Elaborate, please?

Sorry, I missed this, earlier.

What I was trying to point out there is that so many people treat faction loyalty as an all-or-nothing affair.  "I am a Caldari. I love the State. I support anything the State does. The enemies of the State are my own enemies."

I'm using my own former faction, by the way, as a simple example. You see this all over the place with every faction.

Compare that with people in real life, who's opinions tend to be a lot more nuanced about things. Say I'm a Republican in the U.S., for instance. That doesn't mean that I'm automatically going to agree with each and every thing the Republican Party says. Or say I'm Russian, and work for the government. Does that mean that any brain fart that comes out of President Medvedev's mouth should be gospel to me? Of course not.

Rodj demonstrates this sort of thing really well. He lives in a very politically restrictive society, a theocracy in which the Empress is both blessed and backed by God. And yet that doesn't prevent him from having very real opinions about things that he feels work well in the Empire, and things he feels should change. As he said, his views of things within the Empire are nuanced, and it's that nuance that makes his character fresh after all these years, instead of just a cardboard cutout.

[Vikarion]

Compare that with people in real life, who's opinions tend to be a lot more nuanced about things. Say I'm a Republican in the U.S., for instance. That doesn't mean that I'm automatically going to agree with each and every thing the Republican Party says. Or say I'm Russian, and work for the government. Does that mean that any brain fart that comes out of President Medvedev's mouth should be gospel to me? Of course not.

This is an interesting point. With Vikarion - and with other some Caldari loyalists, I've noticed, discussion within the circle of Caldari loyalists can be quite fierce. However, to the rest of the cluster, most of us seek to provide a united front. This might make us less interesting to outsiders, but it is in line with the Caldari mindset, I think.

[Silas Vitalia]

Compare that with people in real life, who's opinions tend to be a lot more nuanced about things. Say I'm a Republican in the U.S., for instance. That doesn't mean that I'm automatically going to agree with each and every thing the Republican Party says. Or say I'm Russian, and work for the government. Does that mean that any brain fart that comes out of President Medvedev's mouth should be gospel to me? Of course not.

This is an interesting point. With Vikarion - and with other some Caldari loyalists, I've noticed, discussion within the circle of Caldari loyalists can be quite fierce. However, to the rest of the cluster, most of us seek to provide a united front. This might make us less interesting to outsiders, but it is in line with the Caldari mindset, I think.

Very interesting points, and I like the way you've phrased that Vikarion. 

There's a very interesting mix of 'public face' and 'behind the scenes' interactions amongst faction groups.  I'd love to be a fly on the wall on some inner circle caldari, gallente, or matari conversations, as I think they'd be very fascinating, especially with regards to public solidarity and internal bickering.

As was mentioned earlier Rodj does and continues to do a great IC job of staying nuanced as much as possible while still towing the party line. 

I have to disagree slightly with Shintoko though, as in real life there are more than plenty of people who absolutely agree with everything their leaders or religion say, and aren't nuanced at all in how we see their actions. Anybody whose ever blown themselves up with a vest or committed horrible acts of war in the name of a religion or tortured in the name of a government fall into these categories, and we have plenty of examples over many thousands of years.

Amarrians being Amarrians, there's often a mixture of egotism, hubris, being quick to anger, and long to forget supposed insults that keep it interesting for me.  Silas is emotional enough to let differences spill into public when she's upset or it suits her.  And public 'rabble rousing' Silas is very different than private conversation Silas. I wrestle sometimes with when to push it and when to lighten up, but for every person who tells me to IC/OOC stay unified I have others who IC/OOC consider being so uncompromising/hardassed/unlikable a breathe of fresh air.  * shrug *

[Syylara/Yaansu]

Compare that with people in real life, who's opinions tend to be a lot more nuanced about things. Say I'm a Republican in the U.S., for instance. That doesn't mean that I'm automatically going to agree with each and every thing the Republican Party says. Or say I'm Russian, and work for the government. Does that mean that any brain fart that comes out of President Medvedev's mouth should be gospel to me? Of course not.

This is an interesting point. With Vikarion - and with other some Caldari loyalists, I've noticed, discussion within the circle of Caldari loyalists can be quite fierce. However, to the rest of the cluster, most of us seek to provide a united front. This might make us less interesting to outsiders, but it is in line with the Caldari mindset, I think.

I agree with this, Syyl has made some public statements that are openly critical of the Loyalist/Provist bloc, but even those were restrained somewhat.  It is less out of a sense of collective loyalty and more of a "don't bite the hand that feeds" sort of motivation.  Yaan'su, being Achura might feel more connected to the overall culture (and as a result, doesn't make public statements), but Syyl is a refugee from Syndicate and isn't quite so entirely "Caldari".

[lallara zhuul]

Just read the OP instead of skimming through it.

As a player I chose the Amarrian faction because to me politically it seemed the least repulsive.

Individuality within a religious society, within the norms, is encouraged.
Also the fact that I like arts, especially the Eastern Orthodox iconic pictures, big churches and whatnot, therefore a hierarchical society would have a class within the population that just creates art that is inspiring in a way that would encourage elevation of the Spirit.
Music, architecture, entertainment, religious imagery and other art made with respect for the actual Craft of creating the end product.
No mass production, society where things were made with human hands with respect for the whole process.
Also this implies that there is respect towards the items and their makers, therefore the hierarchy of the society have within itself a natural cycle of respect that would generate the glue that would hold the society together.

Decisions made on every level of the society made on basis of what is right instead of what is profitable.

Then the slavery bit as well, I am a finn, I do not have the societal baggage that comes with slavery in the States, I am more familiar with the scandinavian kind and what it was like in the Roman times.
For Romans a slave was an investment, it was not maltreated and its needs was taken care of, unless it misbehaved, then it would get beaten down like a misbehaving dog (dehumanization as a concept has been very interesting to me.)
For scandinavians slavery, as I see it, was a form of debt, once it was repaid you were free.
In both cases you were property, with material value, if you were damaged then it would be compensated to the owner, therefore slaves were not abused willy nilly, because it was not financially sound to do so.

The concept of the Amarrian slavery was something along those lines, a slave was in debt to God for the sins of its forefathers and could not be free until that debt had been paid.

In the bigger perspective to me it was clear that the society as a whole, in the Empire, was in debt to God for its existence, therefore the society served God.
Those that had served God for the longest time were higher in the hierarchy of the Empire, the interesting bit, for me, was that the process had been ongoing for millenia, therefore it had to have a lot of inbuilt measures that would deal with all kinds of different disturbances in the fabric of the society.

On top of that we had the Holders, human beings that lived for centuries (One of my favourite books is The Artificial Kid by Bruce Sterling, where the subject is approached in an interesting way.) With such perspective over human interaction the capabilities of the Holders would be unimaginable to a regular person like me, everyone has intuition, I am one of the people that believe that intuition is nothing but using your previous life experience to give you information on a subconscious level, therefore a Holder that had the experience of centuries would be able to create a tapestry of intrigue and manipulation quite beyond the understanding of a regular citizen of the Empire (or me.)

To have a character in a society with such width and depth... it was truly a challenge.

So yes, as a player I was quite impressed by the Amarrians and I threw myself into playing one.

Of course, at one point of my playing career I joined PIE, therefore it caused the scope of my interest grow.

First I picked apart the Minmatar society for the purpose of being able to actually interact with Minmatar characters (instead of just playing the stereotypical racist card.)

Around that time the neuromancer forums opened up (it was run by some player that had a Minmatar character, or at least was on the other side of the Amarr-Minnie conflict) where we had epic discussions about how we perceived our chosen societies and how the opposition perceived them, how PF fitted into the whole thing, how things worked in real life, how they worked in New Eden and at some point the neuromancer admin had to shut the place down, so we emigrated to Chatsubo.
Around that time Herko was still active, Pulgor took it upon himself to be the admin of Chatsubo, Ginger was still Khaldorn, stories were written, shared, fun was had by all.
Things went really downhill after we got some people that just came along to piss in the pool after that.

During that interaction Lallara got more depth, was more fleshed out, New Eden became more than just a setting, it became a living world that followed similar laws of causality that ours did.

To me the stage that was New Eden got bigger and bigger, and it had more than enough space for everyone.

Along came Theodicy, that was torn apart, it was ridiculed, pointed at and snickered at.
Then CCP made its writer the storyline boss.
Then TEA came along.
And EVE turned into shit.

But yeah, only faction that I really care about is the idealized Amarrian one, the one that is around at the moment really does not inspire me one bit.

...and I'm off to get some brekkies.

[Seriphyn]

I think I'll agree with KJLLV and that OOC loyalties to a faction is also alien. My effort into developing the Federation is only as far as a creative endeavour, hobbyist, etc.

What was it about the federation that put them above the other factions for your creative endeavour?

Good question, I am a fan of "future Earth" sort of sci-fi. Or post-contemporay, ie. take a RL location, and sci-fi it, or EVE it up. That's my favourite sort of worldbuilding, which I felt the Federation had the largest scope for it, on virtue of having 1) a lack of absolute lore and 2) CCP consistently hammers 'diverse diverse diverse'.

Look at a system. Is it near the Republic border? Likely has a lot of Minmatar immigrants then. This system in Placid has a temperate world, lowsec, so likely flat-roofed wood/stone buildings of the Intaki, but it's also got Roden Shipyards and Wiyrkomi in the system, so how does that work?

How does the relationship between the various races exist under a democratic system? And so on.

Also, I support Shintoko's statement. Seri gets called a "Roden whipping boy" which is funny really, because he doesn't support Roden and dislikes politicians. Soldiers aren't political by default, either. In fact, if people pay attention, Seri is extremely cynical about the Federation and has a large amount of self-satire. But there is a "larger picture", which is more important than his personal opinions regarding populism etc

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

As a player I chose the Amarrian faction because to me politically it seemed the least repulsive.

OK, weird. The Empire struck me as one of the more obviously screwed up societies of the cluster.

With regard to your observations on Roman style slavery. My understanding is a slave could earn freed status. However most agricultural and mine slaves would be worked to death. Mainly because there would always be a supply of new ones.

Also you have the arena. Making people kill each other for your entertainment is not something that is considered sane behaviour these days, no?

The Amarrian empire struck me as a place where conformity to the expectations of the faith as a whole, and to the expectations of your feudal overlord, would be a crushing load on most subjects. This would surely be more apparent to anyone who had ventured outside it's borders and seen other ways of doing things.

As for me.

I play a Minmatar because the friends that got me involved where doing so. My character is a former base brat (child of a serving officer in the Republic Fleet marines) and is heavily invested in protecting his people and their culture. However he has travelled and has been exposed to other ways of thinking.

As a player I find it difficult to contemplate playing a character who would be completely anti-Republic. However I might try playing a pirate at some point (most likely Gurista, Angel or Serpentis in their loyalties).

Also. As a player I can see that the Minmatar social model has it's faults. But every society does. The only question is do the benefits make it worth tolerating them? I'd say the question is still open because the Minmatar approach to tribalism is not one we have seen in practice to my knowledge. Bear in mind they did build a global culture that got off their homeworld prior to being invaded. That would seem to imply they had eventually discovered a way to moderate the more destructive expressions of competition between tribal groups.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

I have to disagree slightly with Shintoko though, as in real life there are more than plenty of people who absolutely agree with everything their leaders or religion say, and aren't nuanced at all in how we see their actions.

Oh, I totally agree, actually. You see that sort of blind agreement - we call it the "Authoritarian Follower" thing in my family - both in real life and among Eve characters.  It's just that the people who support a system without buying 100% into whatever the current leaders of that system are tend to have the most interesting discussions about it.  But all of them (in game, at least) are valuable to the faction and to the game as a whole.

[Benjamin Shepherd]

Benji tries to unite everyone, but utterly fails. Other than that, he likes Ishukone and Intaki culture.

Also I'm not a player anymore what

[Kazuma Ry]

Kazuma's loyalities tend to go:

Sarum Family (guess it started with the first corp I joined, Ebon Seraph)
Khanid Royal Navy / Amarr Navy
Khanid Kingdom / Amarr Empire
King Khanid / Empress Jamyl
Family / Friends
Corp


As for what Kazuma will fly, he will only fly Amarr Hulled ships (exception being Ore designed ships, and the Blood raider ships (granted I don't have the pilot skills to fly them yet)). Also he only uses Amarr Combat drones, (exception goes to the none combat drones)

[lallara zhuul]

Well, basically before choosing a faction to support with my character I kind of went through all the factions and what kind of battlecries they would have.

Caldari
'For State/Megacorp of choice!' or 'Remember Caldari Prime!'

Gallente
'For Freedom!'

Amarr
'For God!'

Minmatar
'For our Brothers/Clan/Tribe' or 'Kill the Amarrians!'

Basically Caldari and Minmatari had in this approach pretty much the same motivations for their military endeavours.
Vengeance and loyalty to a national entity, or a smaller entity, that is closer to your personal set of beliefs.
To say that both have defensive dogma in their military is a valid point, Minmatar of course want to protect themselves against the Empire bulldozing them (again) just like the Caldari have with the Gallente. Both have an offensive aspect to their military culture with the Freedom Fighters for the Minmatar and Mercenaries for the Caldari. The problem for me as a player was that I would not want to play a character in a culture that was primarily motivated by fear.

The Gallenteans, uhhhh, well 'Freedom' is the most malleable propaganda tool that you can come across. When you ask people what true freedom is, each and every one will give you a different answer. When you have society that uses such a term in the way they control their population the whole society to me comes off as monomaniacal. Obsession with one aspect of the human equation, an aspect that is defined by every single person in a different way, to me is a horrible, horrible thing. A society that is controlled by creatively using that concept to mean just about everything, freedom to bear arms, freedom to fuck a goat in the public, freedom to kill those that have wronged you, freedom to serve My God, freedom to express my own beliefs by practicing paedophilia, the list could go on and on. I guess what I want to illustrate is the fact that the concept of Freedom is perceived as something good, while the concept itself is neutral, varies from individual to individual and can be used for both 'Good' and 'Evil'. There are other concepts that have the same versatility 'Eugenics' and 'Competition' are the first two that spring into my mind. Therefore playing a character in a culture that had nothing but chaos in it, did not come off as a good way to spend my time.

Amarrians, well. 'Religion' is also a versatile concept that can be bent to whatever shape necessary to get the wanted result. The difference between the broad concept of 'Religion' and in the Amarrian concept of religion is the fact that the Amarrian concept is very, very structured. Well, at least that is how it seemed to me in the beginning of my playing career in EVE. Amarrians had the Scriptures that covered every aspect of society, how to do things the way you served God and the 'other way'. Playing a character that would serve God would be very safe in the Amarrian faction. Hell, I come from a culture that is very scandinavian. In the words of Bjork 'thought I could organize freedom/how scandinavian of me' of course a very organized society would appeal to me.

Hence the Amarrians took the cake, this is just on top of the reasons that I have mentioned earlier.

[Major JSilva]

Well, basically before choosing a faction to support with my character I kind of went through all the factions and what kind of battlecries they would have.
Caldari
'For State/Megacorp of choice!' or 'Remember Caldari Prime!'
Gallente
'For Freedom!'
Amarr
'For God!'
Minmatar
'For our Brothers/Clan/Tribe' or 'Kill the Amarrians!'

This image from the movie called The Mummy comes to mind when you mention you don't know what Faction to support.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Also I'm gonna have to rail you about the State bit hear though I'm sure It wouldn't be uncommon as say a compeitition of sorts to support your megacorp because in the state you live and work for your mega corp. Though usually it just be for the state as individualism is neglected upon in the state. Problem si the caldari are usually a silent people so public support like that would be minimal I'd assume

[Lyn Farel]

When I started the game I had no idea of what faction RP to play. Most of it came from my choice to join the CVA, actually. That way I got enticed by the NRDS ideals and instead of discovering the bad sides of the amarr empire, and especially the reclaiming, I saw the opposite : a more moral reclaiming.

Having then played since my first corporations a more or less RP "close to the Society ideals" (because I still find this scientist faction amazing to play), my character has always been quite detached of the Ammatar Mandate she was born in, and has traveled a lot. Her loyalties would always come to :

1) Truth / Science / God
2) The unified Empire (Khanid, Amarr, Ammatar), The CVA
3) CONCORD, even if this is a minor point due to its multiple stains and weaknesses that occured recently.


Concerning the player, my factionnal loyalties are quite nonexistant. But this has been less and less true as much as I have defended the Amarr Empire : you get attached to it. But I sometimes feel the envy to play something else, probably caldari, or even gallente, or SOE, whatever, except maybe minmatar (does not really tempt me, maybe on a biased experience).