I had the pleasure of talking to many capsuleers over the last few days, but two of those encounters left a particularly strong impression. Neither of those two meetings was with another scholar! In both discussions young women with a great strength of character were my interlocutors.
They not only share this inner strength, sadly they also share a history of hardship. But despite these similarities, one of them fell, whereas the other rose.
The fallen one is Arsia Elkin. She was for many years a loyal Amarrian capsuleer, a captain of the Praetoria. She exposed corruption amongst the militia working with the 24th Imperial Crusade. She decried war profiteering and was a whistleblower on agreements on the division of spoils between mercenaries of both sides of the war. And yet, these righteous actions were met with only lukewarm support from other Amarrian capsuleers, and with a lot of vitriol from detractors. In our discussion, she also fulminated about the meddling of House Sarum in the war, accusing the Sarumites of purposefully stoking the flames of an endless conflict.
This put a thick black veil of anger over Elkin's soul. She left the Empire and joined Electus Matari, a terrorist paramilitary group that was not involved in the corruption (the other large terror organisation, Ushra'Khan, appears to be involved). During our discussion she tried to taunt me like a child would, by mocking God and pretending she'd attack Him with a sword. And yet, I could also see shimmers of the light of kindness through her veil of anger. She has not closed herself fully to faith: she still listens to The Good Word, and talks to wandering Amarrian monks. And I am grateful she shared her thoughts on the Amarr capsuleer corporations, knowledgeable as a former insider and speaking frankly as an outsider.
The one who is rising is Ishta Maleto. She is a slave belonging to House Pitorjee, but she is given exceptional leeway in SFRIM. She can follow capsuleer training, and she is involved with security tasks. Not only within the confines of the station, I guess. I suspect she went undercover as an employee of Native Freshfood corporation a while ago. To be granted this much responsibility and this much trust is exceptional. She must have completed a major part of the journey to God under Lord Esna Pitorjee's enlightened supervision.
She came to this high station from a dark past. Her previous Holder, now stricken from the book of records, was a blood bishop. He is still alive and sent an assassin after Maleto not long ago. The assassin gained access to the SFRIM offices, and was stopped and killed by Maleto herself. She does not have the looks of an amphetamine-pumped bouncer, but I bet she has the skills to kill me in an instant using only her pinky. Useful, of course, for undercover missions. Also, this assassination attempt explains the nervousness of security personnel around here.
I must conclude today's log with a caveat. As the past has taught me, first impressions can be misleading and one can never claim to truly know their discussion partners. All I can do is to try to sympathize and record without (too much) judgement what I think I learned.
