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[Lyn Farel]

Don't expect to find massive holocaust genocide machines - you won't find them. It's messy, inefficient and we know what damage it does to your soldiers if you use them up in actions like that.

Do expect to find the creation of an underclass, restrictions on services and privileges (such as healthcare and education) and the encysting of a minority population within a good, healthy, bunch of boisterous Civire proles who will not hesitate to apply boots if stuff is going on that runs contrary to Heiian.

Now imagine the worst excesses of the American policing system and imagine that profiling, unlimited stop, search and seizure, incarceration without recourse to legal representation, unlimited electronic surveillance... Imagine a majority population who honestly believe "You have nothing to fear, so long as you have nothing to hide" and police who behave accordingly.

What you have to do is create a society where there's a pretty decent standard of living, near 100% employment, universal healthcare and a good standard of education and pretty low levels of crime, a generally clean and tidy environment and strong stresses on politeness, deferment to your elders and betters and respect for authority (not just police but doctors, teachers etc).

Sounds like a nice place to live - until you think about what happens to those who rock the boat. All those who want to be different - dress differently, colourful hair, political, religious or artistic expression, gender assignment... Those people get swept under the rug - and the state can sweep pretty hard when it wants to.

I don't think many of us would do terribly well in the Caldari State...

And that is supposed to be grimdark/dystopian ? 


Compared to the other factions, or what the State was before TEA in the lore, it's kinda nothing imo... There is even laudable traits in it, depending on the point of view.

[Vikarion]

And that is supposed to be grimdark/dystopian ?

EvE isn't presented as a grimdark or dystopian future. It's gritty, with strong flavors of gothic and cyberpunk elements, but it isn't grimdark. Even the Amarr Empire has a lot of bright elements.

[Lyn Farel]

Believe me, i'm the first one to cringe when CCP goes overboard with too much grimdark for the sake of grimdark.

What Pieter presented looks to me like a gray objective overview of what the faction is on an everyday basis. It's really interesting and can be done for most factions.

I was more interested in the really grimdark points of the faction though. Veik gave me a good handful of hints that I hadn't considered. I still feel that compared to the ugly things you can find in other factions, it's not much, but well. It's already something.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Oh, wow. To me, the downsides I mentioned seem horrible.

[Katrina Oniseki]

It's also slightly inaccurate. Colorful haircuts are allowed, as are varying fashion choices. The State is not totally completely monochrome in culture.

There are dingy clubs and rock stars, there are tattoos and outlaw gangs, there are fetishes and mohawks. There's colorful drinks, nasty drugs, loan sharks, and more than your fair share of five dollar hookers prowling the back alleys where Corporate Security dare not wander.

The key that sets the State apart from the Federation is that none of this is glorified. It's all a tightly controlled, constantly oppressed, and painstakingly secretive subculture of the State. There's always an underworld, and the State definitely has one.

For every underworld, there's always bits of it that sometimes appear in every day life - like that young tattooed girl with the pink mohawk that just walked out of a Corporate Bank.

[Lyn Farel]

Oh, wow. To me, the downsides I mentioned seem horrible.

No, you are right, it doesn't seem pleasant but... I mean, compared to child pornography, slavery, mass genocides, scarification, mass terrorism...

That's why i'm kinda meh everytime I see CCP going further away from the corporate drone dystopian trope that fitted very well to the faction in the past...

[Aria Jenneth]

To me, it's long looked (especially in light of the Demographics article) like the Caldari have a lot of fascistic tendencies, but, crucially, rarely quite get there.

Mostly, it's a matter of degree. Where fascist societies crack down, Caldari take a more nuanced approach. Dissidents are tolerated, grumpily. Governance is authoritarian, yet the multi-corporate format makes it surprisingly decentralized and diverse (and both maintains and protects dissenting enclaves). Outsiders are only really unwelcome if they bring those weird foreign ways with them. And so on.

The State also occasionally finds itself in a shooting war with its own bona-fide fascist elements, IE, the Templis Dragonaurs. Hence, the closest it's come to true fascism has been its recent time under Space Hitler Tibus Heth, a Dragonaur.

But even Heth's regime didn't get to the point of actually crushing dissent, and the State had started turning back from the brink even before a certain Titan refused to fire on Caldari Prime.

[Vikarion]

I still feel that compared to the ugly things you can find in other factions, it's not much, but well. It's already something.

I have to admit, I'm a bit surprised about this, since from my point of view, the Caldari are the third-most reviled faction by players and CCP, after the Amarr and Sanshas. And the bad sides of the Caldari are on constant display, from news articles to EvE:Source to dev comments, whereas the bad side of the Federation is only evident if one does quite extensive digging, or, to paraphrase one Gallente loyalist on this board, "in mission descriptions written in 2009 by an intern".

As well, TonyG's books and EvE:Source are basically a long, continuous, and sycophantic hymn of praise for the Federation. An example: EvE:Source (in the Gallente section) states that declining participation in local elections is probably due to people being so happy that they don't want to change anything. The only real problem they are stated to have is that some of their citizens go overboard in their hedonism and engage in criminal acts.

Given this, suggesting that the Caldari are the most glorified and least-badly-portrayed faction comes across to me as more than a little bizarre, although I fully accept that this a very subjective matter.

[Lyn Farel]

You are right Vikarion in that for new players, the Caldari and the Amarr look like the evil ones, while Gallente and Minmatar the good ones. But i'm speaking with the view of someone that has many years of Eve lore behind, and am trying to find a single, terribly wrong/dark point to make about the Caldari, and can't find one. For the 3 other ones, it's rather easy.

Amarr -> Slavery
Gallente -> All kind of excesses, every part of their underground actually, their legal side is clean, their underground is incredibly disturbing
Minmatar -> Mass terrorism and Voluval/mutilations
Caldari -> Was the corporate drones before, but half of it seems to have gone away... I hear all your points and those made by others as well in this thread, but this is hard to put them on the same level of atrocity imo

And TonyG, well, lol.

[Vikarion]

Well, it's not like the Caldari don't have an underground either. Where do the Guristas come from, after all?

[Veiki]

I think the thing I've noticed most is that a lot of loyalist roleplayers have a tendency to point out how CCP hates their faction and wants to make it shit for a variety of reasons while portraying the opposing sides as better.

Roleplayers do love to complain a lot I think.

[Lyn Farel]

You seriously think that's what I am doing right now ?

Well, it's not like the Caldari don't have an underground either. Where do the Guristas come from, after all?

The Guristas are a pirate faction. Every empire has spawned at least one of them.

Maybe though I am seeing too much into the "recent" disgruntling additions they added to the gallente while they are doing the opposite for the caldari. Especially since before TEA, the gallente were pretty white imo. Not TonyG white, but pretty white, except for the Luc Duvaller slippery.

Maybe the caldari are on the same foot as the gallente when it comes to that now ? Definitely not on the scale of the Amarr or the Minmatar though.

[Valadeus]

So...

Formerly the player of Malcolm Khross, who probably white-knighted the Caldari more than most people during his time before retirement.

The Caldari definitely have some dark parts to them.

I'm not pointing the finger of blame at anyone, but you really have to look past the players who have generally lifted the Caldari up on a pedestal. The Caldari have the largest representation among capsuleers, the largets pool of RPers and account for most of the RP that goes on on the forums. This makes for a very biased output of pro-Caldari RP and whitewashing compared to the other factions.

Believe me though, it's there. You have to read between the lines to see it. Look at the things the Caldari laud and praise in their history and you'll find that other factions would be put off by them. For example, the Caldari laud Admiral Tovil-Toba's crashing of a titan into a planet as a heroic sacrifice in honor of his people, most other cultures would see this as a military massacre of non-militant, civilian lives. A massacre that the Caldari praise with a unified voice.

The totalitarian nature of the Caldari is also something they praise, their focus on family and community is a point of their culture that the Caldari proudly proclaim. To an outsider, the complete dissolution of the individual identity and the cultural expectation to sacrifice self for the "good of the many" is oppression and mental conditioning of the worst variety - even the Amarr don't expect their citizens to sacrifice their individual identity. In the Caldari culture, a person's entire livelihood is literally dictated by their corporate identity.

Their meritocratic society looks great on paper but it easily dissolves into nepotism. The fact that your advancement in Caldari society depends upon your deeds being noticed and your merit awarded means you are quite literally at the mercy of your superiors who are under, at best, cultural pressure to recognize your achievements and advance you accordingly.

The list goes on, but they dark elements are definitely there. You just have to look in the shadows.

[purple]

the Caldari laud Admiral Tovil-Toba's crashing of a titan into a planet as a heroic sacrifice in honor of his people

This may have changed, but If I recall it was a converted 'water freighter' and capital sized freighters didn't exist then.   Before capital sized freighters, the term 'freighter' was interchangeable with 'industrial.'   

I'm not even sure anything bigger than a current day battleship existed back then even though you some times come across the term 'carrier' referring to drone ships and ships that would have launched sub-light single man fighters that I imagine wouldn't be much larger than a modern large drone.


Also, I don't think he's lauded for killing Gallente, but for giving up his life to save the Caldari race from what was perceived as a serious threat of extinction.


Further, the topic is Slavery in the State.

[Lyn Farel]

So...

Formerly the player of Malcolm Khross, who probably white-knighted the Caldari more than most people during his time before retirement.

The Caldari definitely have some dark parts to them.

I'm not pointing the finger of blame at anyone, but you really have to look past the players who have generally lifted the Caldari up on a pedestal. The Caldari have the largest representation among capsuleers, the largets pool of RPers and account for most of the RP that goes on on the forums. This makes for a very biased output of pro-Caldari RP and whitewashing compared to the other factions.

Believe me though, it's there. You have to read between the lines to see it. Look at the things the Caldari laud and praise in their history and you'll find that other factions would be put off by them. For example, the Caldari laud Admiral Tovil-Toba's crashing of a titan into a planet as a heroic sacrifice in honor of his people, most other cultures would see this as a military massacre of non-militant, civilian lives. A massacre that the Caldari praise with a unified voice.

The totalitarian nature of the Caldari is also something they praise, their focus on family and community is a point of their culture that the Caldari proudly proclaim. To an outsider, the complete dissolution of the individual identity and the cultural expectation to sacrifice self for the "good of the many" is oppression and mental conditioning of the worst variety - even the Amarr don't expect their citizens to sacrifice their individual identity. In the Caldari culture, a person's entire livelihood is literally dictated by their corporate identity.

Their meritocratic society looks great on paper but it easily dissolves into nepotism. The fact that your advancement in Caldari society depends upon your deeds being noticed and your merit awarded means you are quite literally at the mercy of your superiors who are under, at best, cultural pressure to recognize your achievements and advance you accordingly.

The list goes on, but they dark elements are definitely there. You just have to look in the shadows.

You probably also remember that we made OOC turn a bit sour between both of us was exactly that I kept pointing as the caldari flaws and vouched for a more nuanced faction, so I definitely saw those dark parts. That's I did it especially because for the Caldari faction, there has always been the group of RPers "before TEA", and the group of RPers "after TEA", which are 2 completely different entities, even today (albeit a lot less). So, actually, i'm definitely not judging the caldari on the image given by caldari white knights past TEA since I was the first one to fight against that image, which alienated most of the caldari community of the time.

Before TEA, it was as I said : corporate drones, inter megacorp inner fighting and cloak and daggers, police state, etc. What pissed off so many Caldari RPers past TEA was exactly that : the loss of that Caldari identity in favour of Dragonaur identity (yeah something that the caldari can't be blamed for either : Nouvelle Rouvenor was of course, not of their doing, but dragaunors...). Then now, CCP tackled the issue and fixed the Dragonaur/nazi issue, to get back to the roots...  But not totally. That's why I find it a lot more difficult to find those grimdark sides.

So all in all, with all your answers, yes, I probably tended to minimize a lot of them, but they are... smaller. Minor, in comparison of the atrocities found especially in the Minmatar and the Amarr (what made me say above why the Gallente and the Caldari are... a lot subtler as factions). I think it is rather hard those days to find especially atrocious sides to the Caldari, but you can however add up a lot of minor things like individual liberties, homophobia, being a cog in the machine (albeit a lot less than in pre-TEA PF, which saddens me), and also the point Gwen brought up about the Caldari way of dealing with natives and minorities.

But, for the topic at hand though (even if I did not really intended it as such), yeah, slavery in the state is harder to argue than it was before (since before most caldari were just as I said, corporate drones/cogs). Though it still can be fortunately.