Today I attended a conference promoting Empire-Federation economical relations. It had been organized at the LUMEN embassy in the Aideron building in Luminaire, a very appropriate venue to bring us together.
The main part of the program were keynote speeches. It started with some short and to-the-point talks, by Luna and by James Syagrius. There was also a talk by Kriv Aldent, who offers to facilitate trade, I think a hauling service? I'm afraid I dozed off a bit during the talk, I had spent a long time traveling from Amarr to Luminaire, and did not get my coffee yet.
Lord Garion Avarr also took to the lectern to give a speech. It was quite rousing! He talked about Itzak Barah and his magnum opus Cathedral of Oceans, and how its translation formed a bridge to the Federation. Books as diplomats. He also outed himself as someone advocating the end of slavery. The Gallente loved it, they had little stars twinkling in their eyes when they heard an Amarr noble talk about ending slavery. Yet, I do not think he did it to butter the Gallenteans up. He meant it.
He did not say anything unbecoming, he did not advocate revolution. It was all in line with Imperial policies set out by Heideran the Good and continued by the Empress Jamyl and by our current Empress. Nevertheless, outing yourself as a abolitionist is still a courageous thing to do and not without its dangers. There may be a lot of resistance to his stance, and not only outside of LUMEN.
Finally, Isodorus Orissus talked. He was certainly the odd one out. Unsurprisingly, he gave a speech about his knife. All in all, it reinforced the image of favoring trade and money over tradition in order to overcome the hurdles between the Empire and the Federation - that is the "vibe" I got from this conference, overall.
I do not agree. I mean, I understand that trade can be a good first step to normalize relations between empires. But as an ultimate motivator, profit is a false prophet. It has appeal for a while, but in the end all these possessions stacked around you cannot fulfill the existential need of giving meaning to your life.
After the presentation, I had an interesting discussion with mr. Kalodote Lafisques in one of the meeting rooms. He is advocating cooperation between capsuleers, in a way that is disconnected from loyalty to our empires, and motivated -again- by profit of some kind. At least, that is how I understand him at this point - I think there was a bit of a cultural barrier and some things got lost in translation...
