The Empress' champion

Whoever claims mining is boring, is wrong.

I have been mining raspite in fleets offering boosts and compression. Our very own alliance pilots (including Lunarisse) regularly offer these services in their orcas or porpoise-class ships to all present. I have also been helped by Brother Grimoire - of galnet streaming fame - and a kind pilot who goes by the name of Fury Bastaria. 

During one of those fleets, while I was peacefully mining raspite in my pioneer, minmatar terrorists struck. None other than one of the founders of the terrorist organisation Electus Matari decided to assault random miners. Det Resprox picked pilots who had recently enlisted in the Amarr Militia and who had not yet resigned from their soldiering. That made them legitimate targets for the terrorist in his Navy Thrasher.

He overplayed his hand though, by staying too long, hovering like a bird of prey hundreds of kilometers off the asteroid belt. None other than a true hero of the Empire came to our aid: Lord Kelon Darklight, recipient of the Cross of the Sacred Throne Order! He is one of those elite pilots that make little girls swoon and grown men tremble...

He was Empress Catiz's champion during the Succession Trials. This is a battle to determine the new Emperor or Empress, after the previous one left the Golden Throne. Each Royal House picks a champion (in old days could even be an Heir) to fight. Through the outcome God shows us who the successor to the Throne has to be. Ten years ago, Lord Kelon and his retainers defeated his opponents and ushered in the current era of the Empire.

Next time you go to the Emperor Family Academy station in Amarr, perhaps on a shopping visit, take a look at the four Avatar-class titans outside the station. One of these titans is named after Lord Kelon Darklight.

It was this living legend that came to the miners' rescue. Of course, Det Resprox was no match for House Tash-Murkon's champion - the terrorist was soundly defeated. 

So, yes, in conclusion, mining turns out not to be boring at all.

Out of my comfort zone

Mining. 

I have never done it before, although I learnt the theory in capsuleer training. It is simply not something I needed - not for my quest, and not for money as I have more than enough to pursue my quest.

But now the Empress calls for faithful capsuleers to mine raspite. And so, for the first time since capsuleer training, I mined. I got myself a pioneer class ship, and had to fast-track learning mining destroyers for that. 

It is very different from the Indagatrix. The ship is cheaper and dirtier. The ore dust goes everywhere, I think I will still find it in my monk's gown and in my living quarters for months to come. 

Mr. Firth declined to come along, claiming there is probably nothing I can do wrong while mining in bulwark systems. I wanted to run the pioneer without crew, but there is a mining crew union that insists on taking on crewmembers to help with managing the mining hold. 

-to be continued-

Call to action

We are all called to action by the Empress - to contibute in any way we can, within the boundaries of ones abilities, to the great goal of the Empire.

I had hoped for research assignments, but in stead I found heavily guarded and criminalized intel sites, combat missions for agents of the Empire, and mining. None of which I am any good at.

At least for the combat missions, I figured out a plan. I had only done level IV hauling missions before, so I turned to my good friend Gaun Arel, who has helped me often in the past when force was needed. He kindly agreed, always a paladin looking for a righteous quest. 

We met up in Dresi, and I did have some trouble finding an agent that was working today. They are all overworked from having too many faithful capsuleers take up missions all at once. But in the end, with a bit of insistance, a tired mrs. Dahyaron Lahara, agent for the Emperor Family, agreed to give me a level IV security assignment. 

The Indagatrix is not suitable for this, but during last year's "secret santa" someone gave me a tanky Stratios-class cruiser with armor repair systems, both in-ship and remote. 

The Stratios managed to tank the incoming fire using its armor repairer, and by moving relatively fast and staying far enough from the pirates. Gaun was clearly well trained for this sort of missions. The light of justice shone bright from large battleship lasers and his Paladin-class marauder melted the pirates without even a scratch on his armor. It was a sight to behold! 

Mrs. Lahara was pleased with the outcome, and I was pleased to have contributed to our common goal today.

Raspite mining

Mehatoor has not been that busy since the pirate incursions - there were at some point nearly 200 pilots here. At first I thought it was because Amarr is now only 8 jumps away.

But then it became clear they were all mining a new kind of ore, grade X Raspite. 

I had missed the morning news, and when I caught up with that, I found out that the Empress has called upon us all to work towards a glorious goal: the creation of a new trade hub, in Amarr. I have never very much liked Jita and its noise and its scammers and other shady figures... I am sure we can organize this in a more orderly manner here in the Empire.

And now Empress Catiz has ordained that it shall be so. Through the Deaconry of Economic Oversight, we shall set up a Blessed Exchange. 

Every Emperor or Empress puts their own mark on our history, and Empress Catiz I is definitely focusing on the economy - recently the opening of a trade consulate in Jita, constructing new gates to shorten trade routes, and now announcing a trade hub that might one day even eclipse the fabled Jita! Her Imperial Majesty's interests still bear the hallmark of House Tash-Murkon, and we stand all to profit from this. 

I am happy that also so many independent capsuleers heeded the Empress' call. The Raspite field was cleared in the blink of an eye...

Construction sites

The mystery of the construction site that I saw in Mehatoor, and a similar one I found in Kemerk, has been solved. I had already noticed that the finished gate from Yulai to Manifest had what looked like the remnants of such a construction site layout around it. My guess was that there would be also new gates in Mehatoor (and Kemerk).

This turns out to be right. The Empire will get new jump connections.

Sources tell me that the Mehatoor gate will connect to the Akes system, bringing down the Mehatoor-Amarr trip to 8 jumps through highsec (from the current 13 via highsec, or 10 via lowsec). 

If this turns out to be true, this is a substantial shortening of the supply lines from Domain to the warzone headquarters! And it will modify the "silk road" connecting Amarr to Jita, also shortening it by five jumps. I can imagine the pilots involved in hauling will throw a party.

The danger of transhumanism

Our library has drawn another researcher to our ranks - Stephanos Varkonis. He is investigating religious and sociological consequences of transhumanism, and working on his manuscipt "Theological Considerations of the Soul in the Age of Transhumanism", of which he showed me a first draft. At this stage it is mostly an ambitious outline, but it is already very exciting! 

And it is an extremely important thing to investigate. I need more than a couple of words to explain why I think that, so bear with me as I try to explain it below.

Technological progress throughout history has allowed us to overcome ever more limitations. Cave dwelling ancestors made clothing to overcome the limitations of our bodies to withstand cold. Monastic scholars developed glasses to correct eyesight failing with old age. Paladin-surgeons developed bionic legs to replace lost limbs during the global reclamation wars on Athra. 

Not only do we keep inventing new things to overcome our limitations, but we make the existing technology better: our "clothes" can now keep us safe in the cold of space, perception implants allow us to see things our eyes never could have seen, and cloning replaces not just our limbs but our entire bodies. 

We have changed so much that our cave dwelling ancestors may not even see us as humans, should we be transported back to their age and appear in front of them. Transhumanists embrace the vision that the human body and condition is something to be surpassed, and even transcended into a new evolutionary stage altogether, unrecognizable to the humans of the past.

But there is a grave danger in this. If we devalue the human body as a mere instrument that needs tinkering and improvement, then we implicitly rank human beings along certain dimensions: those that are stronger, faster, smarter, more beautiful versus those that are less so. This can lead to a disdain for those which have not reached the "transcended" or improved state, and therefore a condemnation of some lives as less useful and less desirable. Those are the lives most in danger from technological progress, as they will bear the burdens of the sacrifices to be made in the name of progress. When the most vulnerable among us become the victims of progress, the transhuman program has turned against humanity. 

Indeed, the very hallmark of humane thought is that it considers the vulnerable to be valuable! Consider for a moment that which is truly precious to you in your life. Is it not true that those things of true value are vulnerable? They are not to be repaired or augmented, they are cherished exactly because they are defenseless. 

Transhuman or posthuman thought must never lose sight of the value of vulnerability. The way to achieve that is by pairing the technological advances at all times with equal advances in the sphere of religion and morality. And that is why Varkonis' book is timely, necessary and important.

Interview

I do not like to be in the limelight, so when Haapsalu from the LUMEN News gazette asked to get an interview for a piece on capsuleer ship crews, my instinct was to decline.

While casually chatting with mr. Firth, I mentioned Haapsalu's message. I could see some cogwheels turn in mr. Firth's mind, and indeed he quickly saw in it an opportunity to promote the practice of having political officers among the crew. 

It is common practice on non-capsuleer ships and mandatory on non-capsuleer military vessels of the Empire. Political officers complement the military expertise of the captain with their doctrinal expertise, and make sure that actions are not going against Ministry of Internal Order directives. They also keep an eye on the crew's activities and morale.

But it is very uncommon on capsuleer ships. Somehow this tradition never took a hold among us pilots. Perhaps because some even fly without a crew altogether, at least for the smaller ships. 

The Ministry would like that to change, and realizes this sort of change cannot be imposed on the independent-minded folk that capsuleers are. So, the next best thing is to promote it through various channels like news outlets.

And so, I was slightly pushed into doing the interview anyway...

War clones

The riddle of the new alphabet seems to have been solved. The symbols that dr. Cornelius brought to me, and that decrypted to a passage from Epitoth, is not an ancient script. He, and a pilot named Elinore en Divalone found the full code, and the symbols can now be considered as confirmed.

It appears to be linked to the so-called "war clones". Rumor has it that this alphabet is in use both by Upwell and by the war clones. It is easily stamped or templated, and it has a standardized square shape. So it would indeed match military-industrial needs.

Upwell is using cloning technology to give workers a new body and boost industry, and it is no surprise that this technology also found military applications. The same is being done with soldiers: uploading them to upgraded clone bodies, and then treating these bodies as disposable tools to be used up on missions - the war clones. It is not a good evolution. We have seen that in capsuleers this sort of immortality leads to worsening moral standards. 

Cloning has always had a bit of a strained relation to Amarr culture. The Theology Council says it is not a sin, and the soul is transferred too, during a clone jump. But there is a tension with the Doctrine of the Sacred Flesh, which states that the members of a Royal family should not be clones. 

Now, in principle God could elevate any of the faithful to become a member of a Royal house, or even to the station of Emperor. Even though it is always extremely unlikely, provided you remain in your original flesh it is not impossible. There is a feeling that by cloning one closes off any possibility of such a miracle. We as capsuleers are often not aware enough of this sentiment that lives among non-capsuleers, and that makes them think twice before installing even a medical clone. 

((ooc attribution of the alphabet picture: this ooc forum thread))

Epikouria Chronicles XII

I received another letter - just a short one - from brother Hugo in Epikouria.

I think he is disappointed at my refusal to help his friends of the White Paladins. His letter re-iterates the heresies of the planetside dwellers, the Originals, and he exhorts me to support those who want to restore Amarrian rule on at least one planet.

He writes that he has contacted someone else, another capsuleer pilot who is more devoted to the task of helping the White Paladins. That pilot has apparently already reached out to Publius, and is planning a meeting to discuss rights to visit Epikouria. Brother Hugo contrasts this pilot's eagerness to my refusal and makes a lot of reproaches.

He also writes of another eviction attempt that was thwarted, by the same group that tried it before. Again, friends showed up to help, the Knights of Soliara as well as allies from the Dronelands regions. They are getting more products from that region into Epikouria, especially from Malpais nowadays it seems. Power has been shifting in the Dronelands regions, but wormhole corporations still retain a footing in that part of space.

It is clear from his letter that brother Hugo expected another response from me. Still, I remain convinced that we should not yet interfere in what has now become, for better or for worse, an autonomous system in wormhole space.

Links to keep track of the letters of Brother Hugo:

I. First Contact
II. Diplomatic Talks 
III. Refugee crisis
IV. Setting up a new home station
V. Epikouria under siege
VI. Prince Seraghis visit

VII. A suspicion of heresy

VIII. Pop-up church

IX. Intercultural fair

X. White Paladins

XI. Reactionary uprising

Script

I had the pleasure of having dr. Fritte Cornelius over for a visit. He did not simply make a social call - he brought a riddle. He had come across some ancient alphabet or code.

The symbols are not pictograms or icons or hieroglyphs. For that, there are not enough different ones. They are not phonemes or syllable tokens either: there are the same number as in a regular alphabet. By frequency analysis and decryption algorithms, the different symbols were found to correspond to letters in our own alphabet:

The greyed out letters are uncertain, and inferred from similarities found in a different sets of letter symbols. It could be a block script, usually encountered in either primitive civilizations who use square wooden or lead blocks (or potatoes, even) that are carved, then inked and then pressed on paper or stamped. Straight lines are easier to carve than curved ones, hence the absence of curvy lines or wiggles.

The other possibility is a spray-template font. For those the idea is that the places where the ink should come are cut out of a template; the template is placed over the surface to be written on, and the paint is applied over the template. This is used in military or mercantile applications: crates or equipment can be easily marked via spraying paint on such a template.

The idea then is that the letters are such that the template should not fall apart. The only non-grey letters that give a problem in that respect are the H and G form: they have a little white triangle inside the green that is not connected to the rest of the white, at least not clearly visible. None of the other letters have disconnected white pieces.

So, either block stamp letters or spray paint template letters, and an alphabet with possibly only 21 symbols if the grey ones are not present. The only other clue is the text that dr. Cornelius came across: a quote from Epitoth: "Their power being mighty and their presence potent the people were wise not to look too closely upon them." 

That seems to suggest it might be some alphabet from somewhere in the Empire. There have been many over its various millennia and its vast space. A quick first search reveals no match, though...

Treason!

I have been doing some hacking during my usual search for relics, and bringing in warpath information to the Ministry of Internal Order and the Ministry of War. Whenever I find one of these Minmatar listening posts, the Indagatrix's political officer urges me to do my duty. He assures me that my contributions will be noted.

Today, I received a mail from Sword Marshal Sirdan Xer Qosh. It read:

Hostilities between the Amarr Empire and the Minmatar Republic have escalated with more conflict zones emerging across high security space. As a result, your continued involvement in the defense of the Republic during this Warpath Crisis will be rewarded with fast-tracked access to blueprint copies of the new Navy Issue destroyers.

The boldface is mine. 

First, I was terrified. Am I being accused of treason? How shall I clear my name?

Next, I was even more terrified. Is the Sword Marshal himself a traitor, delivering the Empire to its worst enemies? Encouraging me to help the terrorist rebels? Ironically trying to bribe me - who has sworn an oath of non-violence - with a destroyer warship? 

In panic, I went to mr. Ivan Firth. After he helped me calm down with some breathing exercises, I could explain my predicament. He was stunned at first, but after a bit of communication with the Ministry, he told me this was an unfortunate error. These kind of mails are not sent by his excellence Lord xer Qosh himself, it would not be befitting for someone of his station to communicate with commoners directly. The mails are sent by his office, prepared and then sent by some clerk to large groups of capsuleers.

Tonight I thank God that I am not this clerk.

Spring cleaning

Cardinal Dex has answered my mail and has accepted to visit the Lamp's Chapel! The date is not fixed yet, but it is not every day that we have a cardinal over for a visit, and everything has to be perfect. 

I have requested urgent quotes from several parquet servicers and woodworkers, to make sure the woodwork of the chapel will be polished and scratches are repaired. Mittens has been using one of the pews as a scratching post, despite the fact that I have a cat scratching post from a famous brand at home.

The gold filigree on the altar cloth is a bit dull, and also the blood stain from that time Ishta pinned a sedevacantist to the altar with a knife never really got washed out completely, so I ordered a new altar cloth with same-day delivery. Janitorial crew is scratching the wax drippings from the candle racks and the floor, and is polishing the chalices. 

In his answer, Cardinal Dex also explained his plans for the Providence Theological Seminary. I am impressed at the scale that he has in mind! Our local congregation is not small, but the Providence seminary will -when finished- be a place of learning for up to two million students from all over that region. It would be nice to have our library accessible to the seminary students remotely, so I will also give the cardinal a tour there.

My own interest is more about a seminary specifically for capsuleers - for the peregrinan members of LUMEN that want to learn more about the faith. For now I have been working with each pilot who expressed interest individually, working out a personalized trajectory. But perhaps we can come up with a common learning plan and common resources rather than my ad-hoc improvisations...

The Amarr Sector

-continued from yesterday's log-

The first Amarr station that one encounters is in the Steadfast system, a Tash-Murkon trade post. God always choses the Emperor or Empress for a reason, and it looks as if now we are due for some additional trade and prosperity, with our current Empress coming from a more mercantile House. The Tash-Murkon colors give the station a palette that lacks a bit in gold but will be quite reassuring to those who want to make good deals.

The first system in the Amarr sector is Adaz, home of an Emperor Family Bureau station. That is where I decided to make the delivery. It is a fine selection of books to hand out to new pilots joining our efforts, in order to enamor them of Amarr ships and technology. 

I traveled around the Amarr sector, and was happy to find a Hedion University station. Various other institutes in our sector have stations and outposts here. I was surprised to find a Navy Anchorage that again reminded me of what has recently been built in Mehatoor. A very similar station is found in Taikud:

There is something odd about space here. It lacks the usual anomalies - they are either very easy-to-scan training ones, or level V signatures that turn out to be the usual level I anomalies. And, quite to my surprise, there are no wormholes here. This region of space must have remained disconnected from the Talocan wormhole network. 

It is neatly divided up into the central area managed by Concord, and the four sectors, each controlled by one of the four core powers. On my way back, as I left the Amarr sector, I saw a hastily put-up sign warning people:

I'm sure this is something temporary, part of the overall constuction getting this region ready to host freshly licensed pilots soon.

Manifest

 -continued from yesterday's log-

The mystery of the new construction sites may have been solved in Yulai. There, the new jump gate into Exordium is located at a construction site similar to (but not the same as) the ones in Kemerk and Mehatoor. It is dissimilar in that it is not the Empire building something, but Concord, and it is also in the process of being cleared up again. Nevertheless it bore a close enough resemblance that I am now convinced that the things being constructed are new jump gates.

I wonder where the one in Mehatoor will lead to. And Kemerk? It was probably chosen so the Empire will have a better connection to Yulai and Exordium. We shall see.

The Yulai gate leads to he very heart of the Exordium constellation, a star system called Manifest. Also there, the construction is not yet complete: a vast AIR station is in the making, still wrapped in scaffolding, with building materials in containers next to it, and little welding bobs and carry-all drones darting around.

It is already possible to dock in the station, but the inside of the station is not finished either - it is also still covered in scaffolding. Construction materials clutter the station, and there is a relentless activity of drones and workers welding, painting, putting in wiring or tubing, installing or removing machinery, the sound of which barely drowns out the shouts of contractors panicking about deadlines.

Making the wormhole map has gotten me interested in the nebulae that one sees in the different regions. So I warped to some spot away from moons or planets that might obstruct the view. All four of the core nebula are visible in the sky, with Verge Vendor appearing largest. All in all, the sky here looks like in Sinq Laison. That's not too surprising, since the stars of Exordium are located quite close to that region.

There is not much to do yet in Manifest, and I got the impression that though welcome in the AIR station I was mostly standing in the way of the construction workers. So, Urad and I headed out towards the Amarr part of Exordium.

-to be continued-

Book delivery fleet

I am curious about Exordium, the new region that has been opened up for exploration. The Empire has already claimed its share of systems there. AIR plans to use the whole region for its training programs for new capsuleers - and the Concord powers did not object to this, given the relatively low strategic and mining value of the region.

There are various stations there already, among them an Emperor Family Bureau station in Adaz and also Hedion University opened a branch, in Mazor. Since a few days they are open for business, and I think it is a good place for various corporations of our alliance to open offices. 

Any LUMEN main office should also have a library annex, with books of interest to new capsuleers. Textbooks on Amarr cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships. Handbooks on energy turrets of all sizes. Reference works on boosting armor resistances. Everything for new capsuleers to learn about the most capable ships in the cluster, and avoid weapon systems not based on light (Khanid missile systems are fine too). 

And because it should not all be about spaceship skills, also a bunch of Pax Amarrias.

So, I decided to indulge my curiosity and do something useful at the same time: deliver books to Exordium's Amarr space. I went up to Yulai first, since the only gate to the entire Exordium region is located there. I was joined by Urad Gula, in a confessor-class destroyer - he had already been to Exordium, and very kindly provided an armed escort to keep the book shipment safe.

On the way from Girani-Fa to Yulai, I noticed something interesting in Kemerk: another new construction site. One completely similar to the one in Mehatoor that I wrote about in yesterday's log! I can understand reinforcements in Mehatoor, given the escalating war, but Kemerk?

-to be continued-

Not just us

It is not only LUMEN that is expanding its presence in Mehatoor with new stations. Our alliance built new structures over the past year.

Also the Imperial Navy has been adding strongholds, such as this one close to the inner lava planet.

Those navy installations have been built fairly recently, and are now more busy than ever. And now there appeared a new construction site too that I had not seen before!

It is not clear what is being constructed, and when I was inquiring I was told to move along. 

I suspect that this is related to the worsening of the relations between the empires and the low-key warfare that is going on all over the cluster. It is not too surprising that Mehatoor as the Navy headquarters is getting reinforcements. 

Mehatoor will soon become a fortress system the likes of which have not been seen since the Traumark Installation. That too was a realization of House Tash-Murkon, the royal line which has given us Empress Catiz. This time, for fortress Mehatoor, the Navy fleets will be bolstered by the presence of the brave LUMEN capsuleer pilots!

Wormhole Atlas

With all the data collected from Sanctified Vidette, I have completed the wormhole map. It can be downloaded from this galnet link (large size to zoom and scroll) or viewed right here:

When you encounter a wormhole, you can view it more closely using the "look at" command on the neocom, and rotate the view about. For wormholes leading back to the known systems and regions of our cluster, you will see a distorted and upside-down picture of the sky in the destination system. Even though it is distorted, it is usually possible to discern images of some of the twelve main nebulae in our cluster.

Once you learn to distinguish the nebulae, you can figure out to which region the wormhole leads without having to jump through. For example, take a look at this wormhole:

It sports the Vapor Sea nebula and the Cauldron. In the chart above, you can identify four regions that show just those two nebulae if you zoom in on the chart: 

The relative size of the visible nebulae matters: in Kor-Azor, the Cauldron dominates, while from Querious the Cauldron is tiny. The only region where they are both medium-sized is Khanid. That is the region to which this wormhole will lead. The thickness of the lines in the chart and the example pictures shown of the wormholes will help you identifying the destination.

Some regions are particularly hard to distinguish, like Tenal and Venal, or Paragon Soul and Period Basis. But those are usually regions with relatively few star systems, close to each other at the edge of the map. 

I will probably use this as a reference from time to time, so here I include links to some other resources that can be useful to the explorer: explainer on scan probe strength and pinpointing, wormhole spawn mechanics, some scanning tips, and of course a brief (lore) history of Anoikis.

Theological Seminary

I noticed a message from Cardinal Kahar Dex on the galnet forums. The cardinal's see is in Providence, where the Curatores Veritates Alliance is projecting the Empire's power. I think his cathedra used to be in X6AB-Y, the Providence Monastery Cathedral. That information may be outdated, given the tumultuous history of the Curatores during the last couple of years.

In this letter, Cardinal Dex remarks that many who serve the Curatores in Providence wish to deepen their faith. It is a phenomenon not unknown to LUMEN! In the Societas, one of the major corporations in the alliance, we welcome capsuleers from all parts of the cluster as long as they abide by the laws of the Empire and are willing to assist us in our service the the Empress. There is no requirement that they have had a religious upbringing. 

Of course, during the course of their work with us, many get to know our faith and start they journey to join the faithful. We call those peregrinans, wanderers. I help them on their journey and for some, it results in conversion. 

I work case by case, but it seems that in the past Cardinal Dex has worked out a curriculum, and taught it at a theological seminary. Now that CVA has re-taken the marches of Providence from the barbarians, he plans to re-establish the Providence Theological Seminary. That seems to me a great opportunity, also for our peregrinans, to follow specific courses and work towards specific goals. I would be happy to learn more about it, and I wonder if my amateur-expertise in capsuleer conversions can be useful to the Seminary.

I have sent a letter to his eminence Cardinal Dex, inviting him to our humble chapel and library to discuss these matters.

Jubilee gifts

Now that I am back in the quiet sanctuary for the mind that is our library, I have completed the wormholes-and-clouds atlas. 

My commission allows me to re-use the data and images that I gathered for my own projects. I have decided to turn this into a commemorative piece for the Empress' jubilee. Rather than a panegyric reviewing all the great deeds of our blessed Empress during the ten years of her reign, I can focus on the particular achievement of the conquest of Vidette.

Like many other Amarrians, I will send in a gift to the Emperor Family Academy. They collect all these gifts, going from school children's drawings over simple produce by humble farmers to poems by writers and to lavishly gilded treasures gifted by noble Holders. Every year people honor the Empress in a way that suits their station, but this year is special as it is a jubilee.

The grand celebration is set for the anniversary of Her ascension to the Throne, September 27th. So, I will be well in time - a nice change for someone with an innate tendency to treat a deadline as a motivation to get started.

Outsourcing

To my surprise the State will relinquish control of the day-to-day running and safeguarding of the trade hub of Jita to third parties, Concord and Evermore. 

That just shows how much outsourcing has become dogma in some corporate circles. 

It is rarely a good way to save ISK - perhaps it looks like that at first, but in the end I think it often turns out either more expensive, or less qualitative. And with Evermore involved, it looks as if some jobs of system management will go to artificial intelligence. 

Trade consulates will be opened. The post of consul will be important, and no doubt many vie for the honor. It might have gone to House Kor-Azor, given their tradition of diplomacy. But in the end it went to House Tash-Murkon, which is a wise decision given their long mercantile tradition. The republic too is sending some clan elders from the Sebiestor tribe. 

But here comes the second surprise. The Federation is not sending any career diplomat or government legate. They will be represented by... the Quafe company! I think will never understand democracy. 

Well, it is not unprecedented. Some thirty-odd years ago, Quafe representatives negotiated a deal between the Empire and the Federation, to resolve a clash that we had over the Girani-Fa system. Back then, we trusted the Quafe company because Amarr is the largest consumer market among the four core empires, so Quafe has a real interest in fostering good relations between the Empire and the Federation.