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[Sepherim]

Hmm, okay. Then let's take a different alternative, what about the zaibatsu model of megacorps Japan uses?

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

You asked me in steam why this didn't affect the other nations. Well, it did. The Minmatar are flat broke because of it, their people starving like kids in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Republic has had those sorts of economic problems for years - probably for the duration of its existence. I remember widespread poverty being written into its history back when I started playing in 2003. Considering it's a nation composed of refugees from slavery, and the truly vast number of ex-slave refugees it takes in on a continuous basis, it's not surprising.

The Empire, I dunno.

The Federation seems to have grown stronger under a war economy, which I attribute to Roden. I'd have to let other Feddie roleplayers comment on that.

I suspect that the proxy war isn't as big a drain on the economy as, say, an unlimited war would be. Why has it hit the State so much harder than the Empire or the Federation? If KK is effectively funding it solo, that might explain why.

[orange]

Hmm, okay. Then let's take a different alternative, what about the zaibatsu model of megacorps Japan uses?

The modern Caldari are shaped by several events and several parallels can be drawn with modern Japan (to a point and sans WWII).  You can talk about the opening of Japan, Japan's adoption of the best bits and pieces of various western states (copy the Prussian military, British navy, various company models, etc), etc etc...

But this relates back to the inherent conflict between the existence of the megacorporations and traditional (ie pre-first contact) Caldari society.

The modern Caldari corporation is largely a Luminairian construct, heavily built upon Gallente law.   The difference between ORE & Serpentis and the Caldari megas is that the Caldari megas used ethnicity/race/culture on top of just not wanting to be told what to do by the Federation Senate.

As Gesakarian said

t player and CCP rejection of Heth and the CPD simply means the re-assertion of the Caldari State as essentially a corporate police state that it always was prior to the existence of Heth and the CPD.

The corporate police state is the result of the mixing of Gallente corporatism and Caldari collectivism.

The Caldari lived for thousands of years on a harsh world.  Some of us hold a "romantic" view of the pre-Caldari culture, which included ideas like the eldarly/infirm walking into the harsh winter so that the community could survive.  Other ideas flow from it like the idea of me against my brother, my brother & I against our uncle, our family against our neighbors, our village against the others guys, etc...

If you believe some of the player rhetoric floating around, making your corporation rich is bad and you should only be spending your money and everybody else's money on fighting a no-win war!

I love how that is reflected in Kaalakiota, as the conflict has driven KK nearly bankrupt and feeble, while Ishukone has grown stronger and stronger by staying out of it.

Who's laughing now? 

KK even before Heth was traditionalist, walking the line between both corporation and state/fiefdom.  Under Heth it became a Caldari state/fiefdom.

Other than their "parent" factions, one could argue that Ishukone is little different than CreoDron, bending and flexing under various regimes in order to return an increasing profit to its shareholders, patriotism be damned.  In other words, Ishukone is more multinational than Caldari (unlike Lai Dai for example).

[Galen Darksmith]

As Kat has pointed out on a number of occasion, Heth doesn't have much in the way of battlefield ability either.

Hence the "informed" in parenthesis.  

[Katrina Oniseki]

KK even before Heth was traditionalist, walking the line between both corporation and state/fiefdom.  Under Heth it became a Caldari state/fiefdom.

Other than their "parent" factions, one could argue that Ishukone is little different than CreoDron, bending and flexing under various regimes in order to return an increasing profit to its shareholders, patriotism be damned.  In other words, Ishukone is more multinational than Caldari (unlike Lai Dai for example).

Could you elaborate more on the traditionalist and fiefdom concepts for me? I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say in reply to me.

 People keep saying 'less Caldari' and 'more Caldari'. More often than not, it sounds like it boils down to whether Caldari deal only with each other, or with outsiders. That seems like a very Patriot-biased OOC viewpoint to me. It seems like, if you're not Patriot, you're not Caldari enough.

Wouldn't being more profit-minded make Ishukone more (stereo-typically) Caldari? It's just focused on the good of Ishukone alone, in the worst of cases. More often than not lately, it seems Ishukone has been acting in the best interests of the State, especially by finally providing a stable solution to Caldari Prime. Even so, I don't understand how being focused on their own collective good is any less Caldari. It certainly isn't as if Ishukone is ignoring the rest of the State, just working outside of it. I certainly don't understand how being more profit minded translates into 'multinational' instead of Caldari.

As for dealing with foreigners to make a buck, I have to say that's just silly. Again, it's as if focusing on your own people makes a Caldari entity 'less Caldari'. Since when did the other megas operate their profit models based on what was best for Ishukone? Why should Ishukone change their methods for Kaalakiota?

People rag on TonyG for ruining Caldari lore with one hand, and then wave one of his core "Caldari Should Be One Monolithic Entity, Not Competing Methods To The Same Goal" tenets with the other.

[orange]

I put some italics in the wrong spot is part of it.

By fiefdom I mean that KK likely operated as if it was a political entity first and a profit-driven corporation second.  I think this is clearly what KK did under Heth and may have been doing to some extent beforehand.  It could be interpreted that Heth desired to expand the model to the State as a whole, politics before profit.

By traditionalist I mean that KK's internal culture was very interested in pre-Gallente culture and embracing as much of that culture as possible even when it proved to be an overall detriment to the corporation's bottom line.

I am not sure why you believe it is a particularly Caldari trait for a corporation to be profit-minded.  It is not as if Roden Shipyards, FedMart, Quafe, etc are not profit-minded.  They are arguable more profit-minded than any of the Caldari corps, since Caldari corps by necessity must also act as political entities.

People rag on TonyG for ruining Caldari lore with one hand, and then wave one of his core "Caldari Should Be One Monolithic Entity, Not Competing Methods To The Same Goal" tenets with the other.

I am likely not communicating my thoughts adequately.

I think the Patriot/Provist idea that "the State at this point should be unified against a common enemy" is there.

However, I do not intend to disparage the idea that the State's corporations are also at each other's throats should the external threat recede.

TonyG's character of Heth was not necessary to play with the idea of KK and the other Patriots deciding that the time had come to renew the war with the Federation and retake Caldari Prime.  The deus ex machina that brought about Heth's rise and his ineptitude help to create the dissonance with the pre-existing background.

I think the struggle between being a profit-driven corporation and independent political entity exists regardless.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I still do not think being profit-driven should be seen as any less Caldari than being more politically minded, which for the record also strongly exists in both sides.

I think the only bloc that is completely profit minded without being political is the Practical bloc. Liberals and Patriots alike are very involved in international politics, just playing very different tunes.

[Hamish Grayson]

If you go by megacorp size descriptions , by far the fast majority of Caldari fall under the Patriot banner.   The core belief of the Patriot is that the Caldari need to be strong because they came within a hairs breadth of extinction at the hands of the Gallente.   They believe this happened because they were militarily, economically, and technologically weak and they need the might to prevent anyone from doing it again.

This is a key point to understanding the Caldari.   Too many people jump to the conclusion that a corporate based society must be one based on greed.   That's not true.    Think of the Caldari as that guy who turtles up in an RTS - his end goal is to build high walls, a huge defensive force, and max out his tech tree and economy.     He wants to make himself so tough people just leave him alone.

It's not about greed, it's about survival in a hostile environment surrounded by big bad enemies.

They learned from the Gallente, who used the things to dominate them, that capitalism and the Megacrop are powerful tools for building up your economy, military and technology.   They saw the things were the foundation of the Gallentean's power so they took them and made them Caldari.
 
To the Caldari, the cluster is like a sea full of predators that want to eat you.  Big fish eat little fish and our school of fish must be big and strong.   If not,  the Gallente fish*, or Minmatar fish, or Amarr fish will come and eat all of us.  Therefore we must cull our weak and take all measures necessary to ensure survival.   


*Oh and by the way if they can't eat us the sneaky Gallente fish will try to breed with us until we are bred out of existence.

[Hamish Grayson]

I would expect the Empire to be pretty well-off. We have the most reserves due to being the oldest society, and the most food and minerals in the cluster, which we're selling to our beloved friends in the State and possibly to the Federation and Republic (through the Kingdom). I would imagine the ships and weapons used by the State Protectorate are primarily built out of materials supplied by the Empire, or built and sold directly by Imperial Armaments.

And of course, the Empire already has a very military-focused culture, and thus already has the infrastructure for constructing and maintaining a large armed force. It likely didn't need to do much work at all to convert into a war economy.

As the war grew more intense, the areas directly in the line of fire, especially the Bleak Lands, grew more and more destitute. However, as Holders fled these areas, they brought their many slaves and wealth to the core regions of the Empire, bolstering it as a whole. In general, while the Empire remains economically down overall from its heights prior to the breakout of the Empyrean War, its economy is generally considered strong by most analysts.

-Economy of the Amarr Empire, EVElopedia

The only economy stronger than the Empire's right now is the Federation, and probably only because it's more efficient and more open to outside trade.

Pre-TEA, the Amarr Empire was very much behind the military technological power curve.   While thanks to CONCORD, they,the Gallente and Minmatar had access to any new military technology that say, the Caldari might have developed they didn't have the infrastructure to upgrade their ancient fleet.   They had ships in active service that had been built hundreds of years before.  This is a similar situation that the United States was in during the Cold War.  The U.S. needed advanced guidance chips for all the missiles they wanted and while American Universities were at the bleeding edge of micro chip research USA couldn't pump the chips out fast enough because they didn't have the factories and trained labor in place to mass produce semiconductors.   The Japanese did, and this is the bases for the the famous essay "The Japan That Can Say No: Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals."   Basically some Japanese businessmen believed Japan had America (and the world) by the balls and should stand up to them.


I believe this was very similar to the situation that existed between the Amarr and Caldari for a couple of reasons.    First; Kaalakiota, Wiyrkomi, Lai Dai and Ishukone are all primarily military RnD and producers.    They design new weapons and sell them.    Second; once upon a time we had many news articles that told us Kaalakiota, Wiyrkomi and Lai Dai in particualr were heavily involved with upgrading the Amarr military to modern standards.   Third; Lai Dai, who lean more toward RnD and less toward production, had become major share holders in Viziam,  Carthum, and Khanid Innovations (all of the Amarr RnD corps) and was loaning them scientists, technicans and money to bring them up to the standard of a modern RnD companies.   Lastly, many of the Amarr military stations have one of one or more of the above Caldari corp's stations near by.    I think Kaalakiota only has one Station in the State and the majority of the rest are in the Empire.  Combining these things paints a picture of were a the majority of Amarr's military RnD is done by the State and a much if not most of the shipyards capable of refitting old ships and building new ones within the boarders of the Amarr Empire are actually in the Caldari Stations.

For a long time ingame Amarr ships were much better for PvP than Caldari ships, and my character believed this was because the bulk of Caldari research efforts had for years gone to making Amarr ships better and the expense of Caldari ships.   This was supported by an article in which Wiyrkomi were heavily involved in RnD and production of Armor resistance modules and that hydromagnetic physics is the field of science involved in both Caldari shields and Amarr armor resistance modules. 

I also find it amusing that Caldari ships are dominating the PvP scene from FW to null sec after a period of time when the Caldari might have refocused on their own ships.

[Mithfindel]

Kaalakiota is all over the place. Their major locations seem to be Nonni (Lonetrek) and Ziona (Domain), with major presence in six constellations in the Empire, three constellations in the Republic, one constellation in the Citadel and one constellation in Sinq Laison. 3/4 of their non-event (COSMOS?) security agents are in the Empire, though. (The last one is in the Republic.)

[Della Monk]

Kaalakiota isn't broke because it paid for the State Protectorate. It's broke because it paid for the entire CPD. I'm sure the CPD does stuff other than keep me in Condors and Kessies.

I was referring to the LP stores, where the State Protectorate has been giving out countless trillions in goods for the last five years to capsuleers. That money and material had to come from somewhere. I think that's the real cost of the militia conflict for the empires: LP stores, along with NPC ships for plexes.

Those goods may be discounted, but I wouldn't call them being given away entirely if I recall the LP store mechanics correctly.

[Mithfindel]

I haven't had a look on the market, but I'd assume that at least faction ships are significantly cheaper to make than what their market price is. Of course, there's a wealth of other things bartered for LP, or LP and tags.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I would expect the Empire to be pretty well-off. We have the most reserves due to being the oldest society, and the most food and minerals in the cluster, which we're selling to our beloved friends in the State and possibly to the Federation and Republic (through the Kingdom). I would imagine the ships and weapons used by the State Protectorate are primarily built out of materials supplied by the Empire, or built and sold directly by Imperial Armaments.

And of course, the Empire already has a very military-focused culture, and thus already has the infrastructure for constructing and maintaining a large armed force. It likely didn't need to do much work at all to convert into a war economy.

As the war grew more intense, the areas directly in the line of fire, especially the Bleak Lands, grew more and more destitute. However, as Holders fled these areas, they brought their many slaves and wealth to the core regions of the Empire, bolstering it as a whole. In general, while the Empire remains economically down overall from its heights prior to the breakout of the Empyrean War, its economy is generally considered strong by most analysts.

-Economy of the Amarr Empire, EVElopedia

The only economy stronger than the Empire's right now is the Federation, and probably only because it's more efficient and more open to outside trade.

Pre-TEA, the Amarr Empire was very much behind the military technological power curve.   While thanks to CONCORD, they,the Gallente and Minmatar had access to any new military technology that say, the Caldari might have developed they didn't have the infrastructure to upgrade their ancient fleet.   They had ships in active service that had been built hundreds of years before.  This is a similar situation that the United States was in during the Cold War.  The U.S. needed advanced guidance chips for all the missiles they wanted and while American Universities were at the bleeding edge of micro chip research USA couldn't pump the chips out fast enough because they didn't have the factories and trained labor in place to mass produce semiconductors.   The Japanese did, and this is the bases for the the famous essay "The Japan That Can Say No: Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals."   Basically some Japanese businessmen believed Japan had America (and the world) by the balls and should stand up to them.


I believe this was very similar to the situation that existed between the Amarr and Caldari for a couple of reasons.    First; Kaalakiota, Wiyrkomi, Lai Dai and Ishukone are all primarily military RnD and producers.    They design new weapons and sell them.    Second; once upon a time we had many news articles that told us Kaalakiota, Wiyrkomi and Lai Dai in particualr were heavily involved with upgrading the Amarr military to modern standards.   Third; Lai Dai, who lean more toward RnD and less toward production, had become major share holders in Viziam,  Carthum, and Khanid Innovations (all of the Amarr RnD corps) and was loaning them scientists, technicans and money to bring them up to the standard of a modern RnD companies.   Lastly, many of the Amarr military stations have one of one or more of the above Caldari corp's stations near by.    I think Kaalakiota only has one Station in the State and the majority of the rest are in the Empire.  Combining these things paints a picture of were a the majority of Amarr's military RnD is done by the State and a much if not most of the shipyards capable of refitting old ships and building new ones within the boarders of the Amarr Empire are actually in the Caldari Stations.

For a long time ingame Amarr ships were much better for PvP than Caldari ships, and my character believed this was because the bulk of Caldari research efforts had for years gone to making Amarr ships better and the expense of Caldari ships.   This was supported by an article in which Wiyrkomi were heavily involved in RnD and production of Armor resistance modules and that hydromagnetic physics is the field of science involved in both Caldari shields and Amarr armor resistance modules. 

I also find it amusing that Caldari ships are dominating the PvP scene from FW to null sec after a period of time when the Caldari might have refocused on their own ships.

First, I don't think that game mechanics are a good argument for what is happening background wise: The aim of game mechanics is to have all factions on an equal footing and I strongly doubt that they decide to put inequalities in there because "the Caldari research the Amarr ships".

Second, I don't think that the Empire lets the State run all the military production. Yes, the State corps were and are involved in Amarrian military RnD, but by no means do we have reason to think that they are doing all of it. Also, one shouldn't forget who was handing out massive amounts of money to keep State economy working, no?

Third, the Amarr really didn't have an economy nor a military suited for war for a very long time, which practically is since the conquest of Athra, up until now. Yes, Amarr had many conflicts in their history, armed conflicts, too, but usually they were in numbers and technology so superior to the cultures they subjugated, that they didn't really have to wage war, because there was fundamentally no real resistance. (It's called the unchallenged era for a reason.) This is even true, in a way, for the Matari. Only when the Amarr met the Gallente they discovered someone who was on an equal footing with them. And what did they do?

"Faced with an entity of unknown strength with at least some technological superiority to them, the Amarr immediately put out the call to its ships to take a diplomatic approach to further contact. The Empire sent out its best orators and linguists to open contact with the Gallente." Amarr-Gallente contact

Diplomacy. The contact between the Caldari and the Amarr wasn't any more militaristic.

Lastly, the Amarr are quite isolationist, have little trade with outsiders, even the Caldari, and their economy suffers somewhat from that in regard to growth, but on the other hand it means they are quite self-sufficent. I'm quite sure the Empire doesn't have to care that much what happens outside it's borders economically, as it has little effect on it's own. ("The economy is highly insular, with lower rates of import and export than the other major empires of New Eden, though recent measures have opened the borders somewhat to trade.")

So, this said, I don't think that the Empire really has a strong military culture, the Federation and State, both at odds for quite some time, are much stronger in that regard, for their experience in fighting someone on roughly equal footing alone. The good thing for the Empire is that it's not very dependent on outside trade or high-trained labor so that makes the transition to a war economy easier. (Not that I think any of the 4 nations really has a war economy right now). Also, the Caldari depend on Amarr resources just as much as Amarr seek Caldari help in their RnD projects. The idea that this is a one-sided deal is quite off, imho.

[Hamish Grayson]

First, I wasn't using game mechanics to support an argument, merely pointing out and taking amusement at the happy but obviously unintentional congruence of RP and mechanics.     

Second, I didn’t mean to indicate that I thought State was doing all RnD and production for the Empire and I thought I’d made it clear that I was talking about PF that once was and may or may not have relevance today.   My comments were on Pre-TEA events and didn't take into account Post-TEA events like the loan you mentioned.   That's a mess I'm not intrested in debating too much.   Many of the important facts that formed the base of my understanding of Eve have been retconed out.   I honestly don't know what still stands as fact and what has been hand waved away in the new vision of things.

However, having money to loan the State has no bearing on the high-tech infrastructure the Empire may or may not have in place and if you recall the State immediately took that money and re-loaned out to Amarr corps at a higher interested rate than the Empress charged them.   In the end it was the Empress loaning to Amarr corps with a much smaller loan (a cut of the interest) going to the State.     To break it down simply, the Caldari had Tech and the Amarr had money.   The Amarr wanted Tech and the Caldari wanted money so they traded.   You point that Amarr had more liquid money supports my argument not detracts from it.   I'd like to add too that if the Caldari provide a critical part of the Amarr war machine it would provide the motivation for the Empress to provide those loans in a time when the Caldari were in trouble.

Older PF, which may or may not have been retconned out,  did say that Lai Dai was heavily involved in the three Amarr RnD corps as venture capitalists.   I believe that they helped found Carthum Conglomerate and hold the largest bunch of shares in it.  They also hold very large if not the largest percentages of shares in the other two.   It wasn’t a case of the Amarrians giving the Caldari control of their RnD, it’s that the Caldari RnD was miles ahead and they were willing to sell it to the Amarr.    Since it didn't do the Amarr much good to have some nice new blue prints if they didn't have the factories and personel use them OR the ability to build factories and train personel at a fast enough pace for their needs the Caldari built and manned the factories too.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Well, we could have a look at the shareholders of those Amarr corporations which got the money from the Caldari and I think we will see that there was more in it for the Caldari than a cut of the interest.

Also, even in space ship desgin it's not like the Caldari RnD was simply 'miles ahead'. For example in regard to generating energy for spaceships, the Amarr had little to learn from the Caldari. Anyway, my point isn't that the Amarr didn't and don't benefit from their relation to the Caldari, especially in the RnD department. My point - in regard to what you said - has been that the relationship between the Amarr and the Caldari is not near as lopsided as you depicted it, even though I don't think it's true that the Empire at large is having a particularly strong military culture.

I simply think that "Combining these things paints a picture of were a the majority of Amarr's military RnD is done by the State and a much if not most of the shipyards capable of refitting old ships and building new ones within the boarders of the Amarr Empire are actually in the Caldari Stations." is not true, because it comes from overemphasizing the Caldari side of the deal.