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[Hamish Grayson]

I surprised you posted that with your main.

[Graanvlokkie]

Posted this thread just an hour ago. As expected, the initial replies were "wut".

This goes back to what I've mentioned months ago but not basing characterization around faction. There have been many occurences in my time RPing that Seriphyn should join the Guristas or Angel Cartel, but from how I've characterized him, it makes little sense. It makes as much sense as going "The UK government is corrupt, join the Taliban!". Germany may have a superior economy to the UK, but I'm British, not German, so why would I join the German military? From an ethnocentric perspective, if the Gallente Federation was the only human race in EVE, and the rest were aliens, then no one (incl. Seri) would need to question why he was fighting for the Federation. It appears completely natural.

I think it may stem to the fact that, as players, we have a metaknowledge of all four factions, their flaws, their redeeming factors, and so forth. That makes it fair easier to jump ship, and whatnot.

To address the OP, I must say that I am not personally agree with this statement.

Everyday modern life is filled with examples of people emigrating to other countries to pursue what they see as personal (economic) gain in other countries.

Everyday modern life is filled with examples of people taking up arms (literally) against their own government and fellow country men. Genocide is happening in many countries, right now. You might say that these are third world countries, but modern history is filled with what has become refereed to as a home grown terrorist, where ordinary people seem to turn against their government and kill their fellow citizens.

History is filled with examples of people in government or the military betraying their country, sometimes going on to be highly regarded by the country they helped.

Often, its about perceived advantage of switching sides. A capsuleer always has a great advantage if he switches sides.

[Edit for spelling.]

[lallara zhuul]

The problem with a 'baseliner' changing factions is that we do not know how much it costs to do it.

Is it closer to someone from Ivory Coast trying to make it to America or closer to an Irishman flying to Australia?

In both cases the reasons for the travel are purely economic, in both cases most of the income (that does not go into living costs etc.) goes back to the nation of origin (the Irishman will buy a house in Ireland with his income, while the other one supports his family and tries to collect enough money to get his family to America.)

In the first case the emigration is more motivated by survival, while the second one is more about getting the perceived average, or prosperous, living standards of the culture that they left.

The original living standards of both cases are not really comparable, mostly the cause for the difference is the strength of the infrastructure that they lived in. In the first case is a third world country and the second one is a first world welfare state.

You could hypothesize that how much the percentage of the persons total wealth is used for the emigration affects the effect that the emigration will have with the core values of the individual and her financial situation.

In this case... for a capsuleer it would not do either.

Emigration is a very complex issue and actually talking to someone who has done that, or is doing it, would be my recommendation before sharing your views about it.

A filipino friend of mine (who has spent more than half of his life abroad working like a dog) put it quite nicely for me.

'Would you go and work in a gulag for twenty years if it would mean that your family would live a better life?'

My answer was 'Hell no. I hate my family.'

He just laughed and we drank more vodka.

[Graanvlokkie]

... Emigration is a very complex issue and actually talking to someone who has done that, or is doing it, would be my recommendation before sharing your views about it. ...

I don't know whether the above statement was aimed at my post, but I find it strange to for someone to flippantly assume that I know little about emigration. 

[Lyn Farel]

Posted this thread just an hour ago. As expected, the initial replies were "wut".

This goes back to what I've mentioned months ago but not basing characterization around faction. There have been many occurences in my time RPing that Seriphyn should join the Guristas or Angel Cartel, but from how I've characterized him, it makes little sense. It makes as much sense as going "The UK government is corrupt, join the Taliban!". Germany may have a superior economy to the UK, but I'm British, not German, so why would I join the German military? From an ethnocentric perspective, if the Gallente Federation was the only human race in EVE, and the rest were aliens, then no one (incl. Seri) would need to question why he was fighting for the Federation. It appears completely natural.

I think it may stem to the fact that, as players, we have a metaknowledge of all four factions, their flaws, their redeeming factors, and so forth. That makes it fair easier to jump ship, and whatnot.

To address the OP, I must say that I am not personally agree with this statement.

Everyday modern life is filled with examples of people emigrating to other countries to pursue what they see as personal (economic) gain in other countries.

Everyday modern life is filled with examples of people taking up arms (literally) against their own government and fellow country men. Genocide is happening in many countries, right now. You might say that these are third world countries, but modern history is filled with what has become refereed to as a home grown terrorist, where ordinary people seem to turn against their government and kill their fellow citizens.

History is filled with examples of people in government or the military betraying their country, sometimes going on to be highly regarded by the country they helped.

Often, its about perceived advantage of switching sides. A capsuleer always has a great advantage if he switches sides.

[Edit for spelling.]

I do not think that Seri meant that this is not possible or for little minorities only. But what he might have pointed out is that this tendancy concerns a big majority of the characters in Eve, which might be weird.

Not that I necessarily agree, because this is about capsuleers (and not baseliners), though. I dont know.

[lallara zhuul]

I knew someone would feel like the above thing was aimed at them.

It is not, I meant it as a kind reminder that when talking about such big issues there is a lot of generalization which usually means that the fact that there are individuals, real people, involved forgotten completely.

Which kind of the pet peeve of mine, especially when talking about RP.

Very few of the characters actually seem like real people.

I do not mean that they do not have a background, nor do I mean that they are nothing but Mary Sues for the players.

I just get the feeling that the worldview that they are based on, as characters, is a mix of the players worldview and what they think is cool in the EVE setting, which makes the worldview of the character even more biased and mired in 'metaknowledge' that kind of makes me roll my eyes.

On the issue at hand.

The capsuleers are the elite of their societies.

To reach that elite they have had to jump through every cultural hoop in their society so that they would get the privilege of being a capsuleer.

To me it would be ridiculous that any society would be desperate enough to put in the resources of creating a capsuleer that would not have loyalty towards them.

Which leads me to the conclusion that the resources needed on a societal level to create a capsuleer is very low, which would suggest that they are not the elite that they are told that they are.
Or there is some great benefit to the societies involved to create capsuleers that have the chance of turning against them that we are not aware of, in this case a viable option would be that the 'free capsuleers' are the failures, the low percentage that the societies generate that are not serving the societies themselves.

Which would be kind of connected to the other possibility.

In both cases the capsuleers would be indoctrinated, and would be constantly fed with propaganda that would make them think of themselves as the elite and being free and powerful. Controlling them through manipulating their worldviews.

If I would be still a CCP fanboi and believe that they actually have a Vision for EVE as a more of a simulator of being a capsuleer than as a game, then this would support that view.

Let me elaborate.

EVE client is the UI of a capsuleer into New Eden by the capsuleer (you), all information given by CCP is a tool to convince the capsuleer (you) of a certain worldview of New Eden.
Alts and other accounts are just tools that are commonplace in the world of informorphs as ways of interacting with New Eden, there is plenty of information in the chrons to suggest this.
The capsuleers (you) spend their time out of pod socializing with other capsuleers through forums.
The capsuleers (roleplayers) play pretend games through their UI where they pretend to have different sorts of interactions (RP) in New Eden, but it really does not happen.
Some capsuleers (roleplayers) entertain themselves by making make belief stories about their meat puppets (characters) withing the 'game' (New Eden) and get emotionally involved in them.
Some capsuleers even pretend that the meat puppets are these better versions of themselves that they use to pretend play with the other meat puppets to deal with their own insecurities (Mary Sues).

Using players as part of an gaming experience like that, without them knowing it, would be a hell of a trick to pull off.

Too bad that the guys who would have been able to pull it off have left CCP.

[Shae Tiann]

As someone who has attempted to emigrate -- to a nation my "homeland" was friendly with, no less -- I will say that it is incredibly difficult to meet the exacting standards the other nation often has (standards which are frequently so strict that even a native of that nation might not meet them).

The capsuleers are the elite of their societies.

To reach that elite they have had to jump through every cultural hoop in their society so that they would get the privilege of being a capsuleer.

To me it would be ridiculous that any society would be desperate enough to put in the resources of creating a capsuleer that would not have loyalty towards them.

Which leads me to the conclusion that the resources needed on a societal level to create a capsuleer is very low, which would suggest that they are not the elite that they are told that they are.

Or there is some great benefit to the societies involved to create capsuleers that have the chance of turning against them that we are not aware of, in this case a viable option would be that the 'free capsuleers' are the failures, the low percentage that the societies generate that are not serving the societies themselves.

Which would be kind of connected to the other possibility.

In both cases the capsuleers would be indoctrinated, and would be constantly fed with propaganda that would make them think of themselves as the elite and being free and powerful. Controlling them through manipulating their worldviews.

If I would be still a CCP fanboi and believe that they actually have a Vision for EVE as a more of a simulator of being a capsuleer than as a game, then this would support that view.

In the case of capsuleers having very little loyalty to the empire of their birth: due to the nature of gamers having very little attachment to the empire they start with in Eve, and the very nature of Eve being a sandbox where there are minimal restrictions and no script to follow, we need more than a little leeway. Telling others that they're not being "realistic" in terms of character loyalties is verging dangerously on "ur doin it rong".

CCP's stance on it is that the qualities that make an effective (not "good", but "effective") capsuleer are few and far between. The empires frequently are very much not picky about whom they select for the training: if the person is mentally and physically suited to deal with the training and implantation process, and won't break down at the idea of being killed and cloned, that really is all that matters. There's a certain prestige involved for every (npc) institution that offers capsuleer training, and they must surely get very pretty government subsidies for every successful graduate.

Many would-be capsuleers would possibly see the training as a route to advancement, whether social, political, economical or spiritual. Some could see it as an escape route from their current situation, no matter what that might be. There is canonical evidence that there are plenty of capsuleers who remain in service to the institutions that trained them, or at the least in service to their empire. These are to be considered NPCs, and you do see them on rare occasions in missions or listed as corporate CEOS, political figures, and naval brass.

Because of the concept of NPC capsuleers, players are thus free to be considered the "minority": the 20% or fewer of capsuleers who choose to follow their own paths, rather than what their government leaders might wish. All the indoctrination in the world won't change an individual who doesn't agree with it; they may put up with the crap simply to get what they want before saying, "Sayonara, sucka's!".

[Verone]

Because of the concept of NPC capsuleers, players are thus free to be considered the "minority": the 20% or fewer of capsuleers who choose to follow their own paths, rather than what their government leaders might wish. All the indoctrination in the world won't change an individual who doesn't agree with it; they may put up with the crap simply to get what they want
before saying, "Sayonara, sucka's!".

This is pretty much the way I see it.

We're the rebellious few, the vast majority of eggers are success stories for the empires and go on to become corporate CEO's, diplomats, military brass and famous faces.

The rest of us are the ones who take the training, the investment, and then at the end of it turn around and say "well, thanks for all the fish, but I'm gonna go independent".

It's kind of like the situation we have with on the job skill based training in the UK. I'll use my self as an example :

I was hired by a very well known car manufacturer directly out of school at the age of 15. They put me through college for two years and I didn't have to pay a penny. They then put me through university to degree level. I didn't pay a penny toward tuition. The government hands out massive grants to companies and corporations to train people as apprentices and give them a trade, to secure the future of British industry.

When my 5 years was up, I was offered an employment contract as a full fledged Electrical & Robotic Engineer, rather than as a trainee. I declined and parted ways with the company to seek fresher pastures. I didn't owe them jack shit.

It was only when I went independent, moved to another company and pushed more education under my belt that wasn't covered by my apprenticeship that I started to pay my own school fees and discovered the wonders of student debt.

It's the same with our armed forces, you sign up and you're fed, clothed (for the best part) and trained for your duration of service. That's just the way it is.

I see being a capsuleer kind of like being an apprentice, but with special entry conditions. You have to be genetically sound for it, you have to have the correct level of mental aptitude and strength, and you have to be able to survive the training. You train long and hard, everything is provided and in the end you become a qualified capsuleer (which is displayed, in essence by what our rookie characters are).

From there, unless you commit to your chosen faction full time (that decision is already made for us on character creation), you're released and on your own, hence having to pay for your own skill books, hulls and everything else.

Fair enough, some eggers choose to join the militias, or work as independent contractors to Navies or Megacorporations, but that's all it is. It's a contract, a job, they're providing themselves as a tool, as a means to an end and being paid for it. It's just like being in employment.

Whereas the other vast majority of eggers, the NPC leaders we hear about, are still bound to their corporation and faction.

I mean, there's no saying that a player egger didn't serve at the Republic Military School at the same time as Malaetu Shakor, or Study at the University of Caille at the same time as Joroutte Duvolle. They just chose to take different paths, and ended up in different places in the end.

Personally, I don't see a character's race as anything more than signifying where they were born, or where their family originates from.

[Matariki Rain]

I have a slightly different experience in real life that I suspect also colours my expectations in EVE: I expect that vocational training paid for by an employer comes with bonding to work for that employer for a certain period, or a pay-back clause.

Problem is, how do you stop podders leaving if they want to go? It's a bit like the incomprehensible idea of podder slaves: you can't hold them directly by force, so if you want them you use indirect approaches and sweeteners. The certificates of tribal sponsorship and such seemed to me to be part of this approach of trying to cultivate bonds with capsuleers.


Edited to correct the autocorrect of "podders" to "plodders", amusing as it was.

[Hamish Grayson]

It's also possible your character paid thier own way.

[Bastian Valoron]

But I get disappointed that most Gallentean Nationalist Roleplayers seem (in my opinion) to be playing indentikit State Fascists. (Amarrian extremists or Caldari jackboots with Gallente flags draped over their extremism basically).

We need to align the people, and to do so we need a leader who fits the season.

Let me re-cap: Malkalen economical summit ends in disaster, Gallente-Caldari war resumes, a titan arrives at Gallente Prime, threatens population of tens of billions. There are people playing magpie and ostrich style characters, but I don't see how someone trying to play a Gallente activist could just ignore these major points in the storyline.

I guess I'm saying nationalism would be easier to love it wasn't always the extremist nationalism of the provosts and black eagles jack-booting around new eden only differentiated by their uniform lapels.

I agree that the extremist nationalism is kind of an overused theme, but it's right there in the primary fiction on a high pedestal and very hard to ignore. Another reason why some people go for it is probably because it's easy to role-play, everyone knows immediately what to expect, and you can personalize it by changing the stereotype a little. One immediately has a conflict that drives the character, and you will be relevant for the opponents of one's 'nation'. It's also a position that is compatible with the game mechanics. A more 'vibrant' gallentean has to do more work on creating a fictional setting around them, and they may run into problems with PF support, lack of character motivation and relevancy.

I've been much happier with the Intaki roleplayers over all, who I perceive do bring more actual difference to their portrayal of nationalism according to their factional choice.

(Referencing particularly the anti intaki, anti syndicate, anti this that threads from these directions in last few months).

The Intaki separatist movement as represented by ILF is not really interchangeable with the Intaki culture at large as described by the primary fiction.

According to PF, most of the Intakis are connected to the Syndicate and play a major role in peddling drugs. Their traditional society is not democratic but basically follows charismatic leadership (like Silphy or the Idamas). The position of an individual in their old culture is determined by birth. It's like a mix of mafia and Tibet. So it has actually been puzzling me how can the Star Fraction be supporting in-character a patriarchal, authoritarian model where many of the basic individual rights are missing? Out-of-character it's understandable because the ILF members are nice people and generally easy to work with.

As a consequence, since the separatists say they support the traditionalist ways and the Intaki Assembly, the only way my pro-fed character can understand their "portrayal of nationalism" is that they are covering their true agenda and rallying support by saying things that people find pleasing, pretty much like a real movement would do. Out-of-character I think they're doing it right and and it is a clever and solid role-playing avenue.

Sometimes I have even said IC that to Jade's perception most Nationalists are the same and issue the same kind of argumentative dogma and core set of beliefs in roleplay that means in essence the nationalist "game" is no more differentiated than "red vs blue".

For example. Look at a core Gallentean Nationalist outfit at the moment... Serephim, Soter, Ixirus - all the rhetoric coming out seems to be "X nation is the mother and father, obey the Senate!" and I can't really see how that differs from the pro Heth people in the Caldari State or even the Pro Sarum people in the Amarrian Faction.

In my opinion, the gist of the loyalist role-play is rationalizing, sanctifying and supporting the actions of your chosen faction. I believe Seri said somewhere that sometimes he's even playing both sides of the argument. That's just what we find entertaining.

The rhetorics used in this context is almost universal even in the real world, so it's not a surprise that it appears the same for most of the factions. However, the factions are not the same. The Amarr stand for theocracy, the Caldari for megacorp-meritocracy. When the Star Fraction quit siding with the Minmatar and resisting the Amarr, and started a campaign against the supporters of their ideologically closest faction in New Eden, GIPA's previous chairman, who was a pious undercover reclaimer and now kicked out, was very pleased and declared a peace with SF because he saw this contributing positively to the ultimate Pax Amarria.

So I guess technically speaking it's true that if one just want to oppose nationalism, it doesn't matter where one goes, but if one wants to promote freedom, individual rights and so on, then these externalities make a difference. If the factions are in a war, and you are beating down the people who are ideologically closest to you, you're indirectly contributing to the defeat of your own principles. Not saying that it would be immersion breaking in any fashion, it would be more surprising if no one was acting like that.

[Myyona]

According to PF, most of the Intakis are connected to the Syndicate and play a major role in peddling drugs. Their traditional society is not democratic but basically follows charismatic leadership (like Silphy or the Idamas). The position of an individual in their old culture is determined by birth. It's like a mix of mafia and Tibet.

This sounds really interesting. As I plan (vaguely) to make an Intaki character I would be very interested to know more about this. Can you help with source(s)?

[Shae Tiann]

According to PF, most of the Intakis are connected to the Syndicate and play a major role in peddling drugs. Their traditional society is not democratic but basically follows charismatic leadership (like Silphy or the Idamas). The position of an individual in their old culture is determined by birth. It's like a mix of mafia and Tibet.

This sounds really interesting. As I plan (vaguely) to make an Intaki character I would be very interested to know more about this. Can you help with source(s)?

According to PF, the Syndicate is where the extremists. pro-independence separatists, and criminal elements of the Intaki people end up; the vast majority of that ethnicity are resident within the Federation still and toe the line regarding drugs, contraband and other issues.

Lumping the whole of the Intaki into the Syndicate is like saying that everyone who lives in Texas owns a gun and wants to secede from the US: it's a gross generalisation based on the reputation of a few minor elements.

[Bastian Valoron]

This sounds really interesting. As I plan (vaguely) to make an Intaki character I would be very interested to know more about this. Can you help with source(s)?

Yes, I'll start another thread and post the best quotes I have there.

[Bastian Valoron]

According to PF, the Syndicate is where the extremists, pro-independence separatists, and criminal elements of the Intaki people end up; the vast majority of that ethnicity are resident within the Federation still and toe the line regarding drugs, contraband and other issues.

Lumping the whole of the Intaki into the Syndicate is like saying that everyone who lives in Texas owns a gun and wants to secede from the US: it's a gross generalisation based on the reputation of a few minor elements.

Can you show the piece of PF where the Syndicate is connected to the separatism of Placid? I don't see how their business would get any advantage out of further territorial claims, I would rather think that they are happy to covertly exert influence on Federation's affairs from their own area.

I agree that the extremists and criminals flee to the Syndicate, and as you say, separatism has to be a minor special interest group, because otherwise the Foiritan's anti-Heth storyline, Intaki disenfranchisement demonstrations and the terror after the Caldari occupation would not make sense.