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[Merdaneth]

It just measures some general attributes. Self-fullfilling prophecy and societal expectation does much of the rest.

If you get marked a criminal, and people treat you like a criminal, odds are that you will become a criminal if you already have the base genetic attributes favoring such a path. Similar for being a leader.

[Ulphus]

It just measures some general attributes. Self-fullfilling prophecy and societal expectation does much of the rest.

Do you have some evidence for believing this, or is this just your opinion?

[Merdaneth]

It just measures some general attributes. Self-fullfilling prophecy and societal expectation does much of the rest.

Do you have some evidence for believing this, or is this just your opinion?

Opinion, what would make the most sense to me. There isn't any evidence either way, as with much of EVE stuff.

IC you can believe and play it like you want to, this seems to be the best OOC explanation that will give sufficient playing room for all parties.

[Saede Riordan]

It just measures some general attributes. Self-fullfilling prophecy and societal expectation does much of the rest.

If you get marked a criminal, and people treat you like a criminal, odds are that you will become a criminal if you already have the base genetic attributes favoring such a path. Similar for being a leader.

I'd rather like to see the PF that states that outcast marks are automatically indicative of being a criminal/sociopath/murderous monster/whatever
because from what I've been able to find, the only things that outcast marks specifically do, is make you an outcast. Why it makes you an outcast is never specified.

[Mithfindel]

I think the limitations of a few marks are mentioned, but not why they are in place. For example, if you get a mark that forbids you to speak, if you want to say a word, you must be in a place where the tribal laws about Voluval marks are not enforced.

[Merdaneth]

I'd rather like to see the PF that states that outcast marks are automatically indicative of being a criminal/sociopath/murderous monster/whatever
because from what I've been able to find, the only things that outcast marks specifically do, is make you an outcast. Why it makes you an outcast is never specified.

It is certainly specified. From the Ray of Matar:

"We only know what little the chemists that prepare it tell us: that it connects with the sub-consciousness and then uses the free-flowing melanin to form intricate marks on the body. These marks become a permanent feature of the person’s skin, a permanent tan so to speak that alters according to the skin color of the person to be constantly visible. They describe that person’s inner-self; what kind of person he is deep down."

People aren't cast out because their 'inner self' is an outcast or because 'deep down they are outcasts'. They are cast out because their mark represent traits considered undesirable by the society. Their inner selves are considered undesirable. Generally such traits tend to be those who are associated with anti-social behaviour. Those with criminal and sociopathic tendencies probably are probably at the forefront of the anti-social traits.

If there is a connection between traits and the ritual, then for me that would be the most sensible one. An advanced personality profile test based on genetic markers if you will.

The same is also true for positive marks. Like the Ray of Matar mark on the face signifying someone with the psychological potential to become a great leader. Positive marks don't signify just that a person shouldn't be outcast, they signify a certain combination of traits, a desired type of  inner self.

[lallara zhuul]

If the voluval marks would be the truth in a moral and expansive way, would it not mean that all capsuleers would have 'bad' marks?

Being genocidal sociopaths that are only motivated by greed and self-indulgence.

[Mizhara]

What Merdaneth said, pretty much. That it's been going on for so long and with such massive sample sizes as they've got, one'd think it's efficiency is fairly confirmed or debunked by now. Since it's going strong, it's from all indications confirmed, especially taking into account that it is an advanced society with (probably) higher understanding of psychology, nurture vs genetics, brain chemistry and so on than us in our real life time-period.

As for Zhuul here, I mostly agree. I certainly wouldn't RP a Minmatar capsuleer with a 'good' mark... however...

We can't even remotely infer that the genetics required to become a capsuleer is somehow tied to 'bad marks' genetics. The whole genocidal sociopath thing is most likely tied to environmental/external impact of capsuleer life rather than qualities you're born with. Thus you'd probably see capsuleers with all kinds of Voluval marks.

[Merdaneth]

If the voluval marks would be the truth in a moral and expansive way, would it not mean that all capsuleers would have 'bad' marks?

Being genocidal sociopaths that are only motivated by greed and self-indulgence.

You don't need to be a sociopath for push-button killing hundreds. You need to be one to look hundreds begging for mercy in the eye and then kill them. Empathic principles operate way better when you can actually sense (see, hear etc.) those who you hurt.

I'm not ascribing to the school of 'capsuleers are sociopaths'.

[Merdaneth]

What Merdaneth said, pretty much. That it's been going on for so long and with such massive sample sizes as they've got, one'd think it's efficiency is fairly confirmed or debunked by now.

Since there is no double-blind testing going on, my estimation is that its only partially grounded in 'truth'. Self-fullfilling prophecy and labelling theory provides the rest of the evidence.

[Louella Dougans]

The Disgraced Son
The Brutor, Hnarlir Afer, has been an outcast from his home-world, Matar, ever since his Voluval ritual. The mark it left behind was so shameful even his loving father disowned him. He moved to the Gallente Federation, where hardly anyone recognized the mark or paid it any attention. There he began a life of a mercenary, having been bred as a space pilot by his military veteran father.

He quickly made a name for himself, before becoming a freelancer. Using the wealth he garnered from that profession, he started up his own corporation, The Markoni Dragons. It has been quite successful, earning Hnarlir a small fortune.

But even with his change of fortune, Hnarlir greatly misses his homeworld. He desperately wants to return and reclaim a position within his nation of birth. But he dares not return with the mark on his cheek as visible as ever. His family has suffered enough shame on his behalf already.

Yet Hnarlir still has hope. Hope that his ‘condition’ can finally be modified. Even though it goes against everything the Minmatar consider holy, Hnarlir is just desperate, and wealthy, enough to pull it off. He wants to learn the method which the Vheriokor shamans use to perform the Voluval ritual and modify the mark so that it no longer resembles the symbol of the Ammatar Mandate.

This is from one of the introductory missions for Minmatar. The agent is I think in Eram.

[Isobel Mitar]

For what it is worth, I think the Voluval mark ceremony is a magical technology personality test of sorts. So yes, I do think Voluval has a portion of truth in it in the sense it does accurately pick out and make visible some actual good and bad characteristics/tendencies of a person - while missing and not showing others.

To elaborate, I find it fairly likely the test is pretty accurate in recognizing correctly the things that it is designed to recognize from the data it gets. Advanced science handwavium and all that.

However, I also expect both the test and the lore surrounding the marks and their meanings have limitations. All classification schemes have limitations. And something classifying "inner-self" based on brain chemistry and DNA of a teenager and outputting the most important thing about that inner-self in a single blot of pigmentation sounds like something that would by necessity have plenty.

For example, good or bad stuff about the personality the test does not (or cannot) measure, or which by necessity gets lumped together with other variables, or stuff about inner-self that just gets ignored in favour of a variable the test creators considered more important. Human factors in interpreting and passing down the lore about different marks - what marks there exist, what do they signify when they appear in different parts of the body, what to do about different marks? (Human factors including politics, but also many other issues.)

Some more questions I consider interesting and relevant to the topic:

1. Where Voluval came from? Who designed the stuff and decided what personality variables to measure? What were they trying to do with the test? Just as one example, a test designed to weed out "bad people" will be quite different from one designed to indicate suitable career choices for a person - the choices made about weighing and displaying factors will be quite different.

2. Where the lore surrounding the different marks came from? How old is the tradition and the lore? How much reliable recorded data there is about different marks and their significance?

3. Is there a discrete preprogrammed set of marks, or are the marks freeform? (In which case interpreting whether a mark qualifies as an instance or a variation of a known mark or whether it should be considered a completely new type of mark is necessarily part of the traditional lore)

[Lyn Farel]

Everyone seems more or less agreeing on the fact that the Voluval is a not fully understood technology anaylizing the inner self, not writing a "label of unique destiny" on each face. From what we know at the moment, the mark shows an "inner self", nothing more, no truth about something unavoidable mentionned (could be the case, could also not be).

Then we have matari people interpreting this and outcasting the bad ones. Be it the TRUTH or just the picture of an inner self, they will be right in every case in the former, and wrong in a lot of cases in the latter.

Sidenote : has anyone more info about the voluval mark looking like the Mandate sign ?

The Voluval marks are 'truth' as far as I'm concerned. I've seen nothing in PF that says otherwise, no matter how much 'bleeding hearts' or 'wrongfully exiled outcast' RPers spin stories that says otherwise.

There is also nothing of the PF that clearly states it is "truth" either. They let it vague that way for a purpose actually I think.

You are biased by your faction, you should take some detachement. I am not sure if going for a "my way of intepreting it is the only valable one" approach is a good idea ("urdoingitwrong").

- The narrator is not said in the text to be a character with his own convictions, and no clue is left to tell us that it is the case. By default, it is most likely the author/the storyteller himself that is speaking (so CCP). Occam's razor for me.

Then it's OOC, not PF? Filled with the opinions of a modern RL person?

No, this is about 2 kinds of narrative styles :

- Either you have a point of view.

- Either you have a 3rd person omniscient narrative, and this has nothing to do with IC or OOC.

[Isobel Mitar]

Some idle speculation:

To contemporary western eyes, the Matari practice of making people outcast based on the marks they get seems quite cruel, as it judges people based on what they might do, not what those people have actually done.

I find it interesting to speculate why the tribal Matari find such practice justifiable or even good. What is different in their value system and view of society? Perhaps their view of justice and rights is more group-oriented?

In the contemporary western world, the individual has traditionally a strong right to be judged by what they do - "innocent until proven guilty".

Perhaps among the Matari the members of a clan are seen to have a communal right to trust their clanmembers? A right to live in a society where all clan members have a low likelihood of engaging in intra-clan antisocial behaviour? The communal right to safety and ability to trust all members of the group is seen as weightier than individual rights of potential "problem members"? (Perhaps even the communal right to breed out criminal tendencies from the clan future generations of descendants?)

This would possibly mesh well with clan being to some extent held responsible for what it's members do - an assertion I find quite reasonable given what we know about Matari culture. (weak central justice system, strong clan/tribal autonomy, strong clan ties, a value system that seems to consider nepotism a virtue)

[Kaito Haakkainen]

The technology behind the Voluval may no longer be fully understood by the Mystics who keep the technique secret. It may be a true reading with the Matari having forgotten how to fully interpret the marks.

The Minmatar have been acknowledged as being capable of advanced engineering before the Day of Darkness but are not noted for having had any other advanced technologies. It is pointed out that their hospitable world made striving to retain and rediscover such technology less of a priority. Yet the Voluval appears to imply a level of understanding in genetics thus far attained by no other race and could be tied in with many "soft sciences" at an advanced level. Because of this it could be thought that the technology might originally stem from the Enheduanni influence on the Matari and their attempts to steer them onto a similar path to themselves. Alternatively it could be linked to the Yan Jung who appear to have occupied Matar in the distant past. Less interestingly it may also be related to Jovian genetic studies, or a Jovian attempt to subvert the Enheduanni agenda for the Matari. But then almost every mystery can result in fingers being pointed at the Jove.

Point?
What the Sefrim were to the Amarr through the Scriptures another (or the same) group may be to the Minmatar through the Voluval.