Pieter Tuulinen wrote:Well, it seems the Caldari desire to return to their Homeworld completely blindsided Federal Patriots here, then? They had no idea that was our chief demand for an end to the war, or possibly our only demand other than our desire to be left alone?
Honestly, you all go on and on about how insane Diana Kim is, but here's the truth. I'm a Caldari Patriot telling you I don't need sovereignty in the Luminaire system. I don't need to kick every Gallente off Caldari Prime. I don't need to conquer Federal systems leading up Luminaire and....
No. I'm still the blind and unreasonable one. It's just like Diana Kim said it would be - move to a position of compromise and those of you here who fly the green will simply redraw the line again.
And like certain Provists, you're putting words into our mouths and intentionally misrepresenting our statements.
I'm usually more respectful when I talk to State loyalists, because I hold a great deal of respect for the Caldari people, but let's be crystal clear about something:
The Caldari do not need Caldari Prime.Yes, the Caldari
want Caldari Prime. The Caldari
deserve Caldari Prime,
should have Caldari Prime, have an entirely just
claim to Caldari Prime, but you do not
need Caldari Prime to be Caldari, any more than the Gallente need Gallente Prime to be Gallente or I need Intaki Prime to be Intaki. The Caldari survived two hundred years without Caldari Prime, and all the Caldari born since then who've never even seen Caldari Prime in person are no less Caldari than the first of the Raata. I want Caldari Prime to be back in the hands of the State just as much as any Civire, Deteis or Achuran, but I am also aware that your people do not
need Caldari Prime to survive.
You did not
need Caldari Prime to remain Caldari, and you did not
need to start this war, almost single-handedly ruining every effort that has been made in the last hundred years to bridge the yawning divide of enmity and distrust between our two nations to get it back. You did not
need to act like the fact that returning Caldari Prime to Caldari control isn't simply a matter of changing a few signposts and CONCORD registry files is a grievous personal insult to every single Caldari. You did not
need to occupy
my homeworld. You did not
need to end the lives of thousands of Federal Navymen. You most certainly did not
need to continue that war past the point at which Caldari Prime was returned to you.
You didn't
need to do any of this. You
wanted to. You let the traitor Heth, obsessed only with his own self-aggrandisement, tell you that war with the Federation - a war that would kill just as many of your people as it would mine - was the only option. You let the Provists tell you that war and death was preferable to peace because a relic of your people's past - no matter how important it is to your culture - didn't belong to you. You let them goad you into killing tens of thousands of our people in an unprovoked surprise attack for which you
must have known we would eventually retaliate. Heth didn't give you back Caldari Prime - he merely stole it from the people who stole it from you, knowing that he couldn't possibly hold it forever. For five years he slowly rotted the State from the inside out, and for what? For a homeworld most of the people fighting his war for him could never even get to in person.
Katrina definitely hit the nail on the head when she said that the Federation has very serious trust issues with the State even after Heth was denounced by the Caldari people and condemned by the CEP - we find it unsettling to know that he was ever able to rise to power in the first place.
But you know what the worst part about this is for me, Pieter?
It's not that I'm angry at the Provists. I'm not. They're pitiful. They don't deserve the investment of my emotional energy that anger would require. What little lingering support for them there is among baseliners dwindles steadily and the few IGS posters that still cling to them become more and more desperate, delusional and pathetic with every passing day. In many cases it's not even worth talking to them, because all you'll get is the same demonstrably untrue aphorisms on infinite loop.
You know who I'm angry at, Pieter? I'm angry at the rest of you.
We always knew the Provists were no good. But you, Pieter? You and your kin are honourable, you're steadfast and you're fiercely loyal to the people you hold dear. In my mind, the Caldari should be a constant reminder to the Federation of their greatest failure - we could have been better. We
should have been better, to you and to ourselves. We lost the love of people who should have been our brothers, and we lost the strength you could have given us. The Caldari State should be an example for the Federation to aspire to, and our sordid shared history a warning to our nation not to repeat its past mistakes. By letting Heth dupe you for five years, you've given more credence to all the people who call the State untrustworthy, backstabbing corporate scumbags more credence than any U-Nat propagandist could ever hope for.
So in summary, Pieter - your desire to return to your Homeworld? Completely justifiable. What you did to us and to yourselves to fulfil that desire? Blind and unreasonable.