Before I'd start describing how The One Empire of EVE will look like, I'd like to emphasize that I am a politologist of forming this Empire, a "think tank" if you wish and not at all a politician or a leader. I cannot be a leader, you'll see why in the third part of the Empire-series.
The leader chooses between alternatives, makes decisions. The politologist tries to figure out natural laws of politics. He doesn't give orders, his statements worth following because they are true (assuming he is right). It doesn't mean authority, his statements are true or false on their own, regardless of his person. With a simplified example: when one tells "don't fit weapons on a Hulk, since it's much weaker than a battleship which costs the same", you are not following this advice because you obeyed the speaker but because the speech convinced you.
The first characteristic of The One Empire is that it's assimilative and open. It means that it accepts and tries to take anyone useful into itself. One can join it if he is ready to obey its rules. Being assimilative is necessary for success. If any useful person thinks that this Empire will not take him, he will fight against it, simply for survival. Since the seed of the Empire is now small and weak, it has no chance to win against the countless people who are not inside. The only way to win is fighting only against organizations but not people. When a conflict occurs with the first neighbor whose land is to be conquered, the Empire-baby must believably communicate that this war is against the neighboring alliance structure and not its members. The members, assuming they accept the rules of the Empire, can join, keeping their ships and even POS-es, just replacing the flag.
Remember, that while "freedom" is an often used slogan, the average guy is not at all free. He obeys his corp leader, he just does as he told, he owns no part of the corporate assets nor has any control over it. Assuming he isn't a useless idiot it's easy to make him recognize that by changing flags, he wouldn't get into worse position. His current leaders are lying when they tell "we fight for our freedom", the truth is that he is made to fight only for the position of his leaders, he fights for the continuation of his exploited underdog status. If The Empire assimilates his homeland, he would lose nothing while his leaders would lose their status. Actually he would gain by joining because in a larger organization he'd have more options (see the second part).
Obviously to be assimilative, The Empire must not be formed around an idea that cannot be adopted by most people. Typically the Goons can't be The Empire. Former Goons can be members of course, but The Goonswarm can't grow into The Empire itself, since most EVE players are not on somethingawful.com, nor they want to be, neither they subscribe to the Goon philosophy of griefing. If the Goons would declare that they want to own all the stars, tomorrow everyone else would unite against them and crush them. The Empire must be free of anything that divides people in any other way than useful/useless.
The above also means that while The One Empire will have a leader, he will be anything but an omnipotent Emperor. The personalities of people differ and those who would find the leaders style and way of leading unacceptable could not be assimilated, therefore would be a mortal enemy of The Empire. To avoid that, The Empire must have the authority of law and not of any person. There must be written laws that tell the obligations and rights of a member, guaranteeing that all he has to obey is the written law and as long as he does so, he is not subjected to the tyranny of any individual. Obviously the "do as the FC says in battle" is an exception from that, but I doubt that any sane man would question its necessity or would consider it oppression. After all it applies to the limited time of the battle and due to the size of the task (to conquer 5000 systems in 3 years, you must conquer 5 every day) there will be several fleets running concurrently allowing one to pick an FC he likes.
The second criteria is openness: The Empire must clearly state that its aim is to become The Empire and own all the stars. It can't be done silently. Without it, the people who'd like to join can't find it and the members of the enemy alliances can be told by their leaders that "it's just another bunch of mean kids who want to kill you for fun, who would take our systems and would kick you out of it. You must fight against them". If The Empire clearly states that it want to have all the stars, the people will find it much more easy to believe that they will be welcomed inside it, as such organization needs legions. While leaders like secrecy as it make them feel special, conquering the galaxy can't be done with low profile. It has to be open, frank and upfront, not because of moral but to make assimilation possible.
So if you already had Galaxy-conquering dreams just kept it secret and acted like taking just a few systems now and then, it's time to speak up. You will never win if you keep hiding.
EVE Business report: Tuesday morning 12.3B (2 PLEX behind for second account, 0.3B spent on Titan project, new Int and Mem +5 implants)
Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations on the "goblinworks" channel (60-80 people on peak time) and your UI suggestions are welcomed.
PS: is there a way to request more than the last 1000 wallet item from the API? Or to request only one item type? (which is possible with the in-game wallet).
The leader chooses between alternatives, makes decisions. The politologist tries to figure out natural laws of politics. He doesn't give orders, his statements worth following because they are true (assuming he is right). It doesn't mean authority, his statements are true or false on their own, regardless of his person. With a simplified example: when one tells "don't fit weapons on a Hulk, since it's much weaker than a battleship which costs the same", you are not following this advice because you obeyed the speaker but because the speech convinced you.
The first characteristic of The One Empire is that it's assimilative and open. It means that it accepts and tries to take anyone useful into itself. One can join it if he is ready to obey its rules. Being assimilative is necessary for success. If any useful person thinks that this Empire will not take him, he will fight against it, simply for survival. Since the seed of the Empire is now small and weak, it has no chance to win against the countless people who are not inside. The only way to win is fighting only against organizations but not people. When a conflict occurs with the first neighbor whose land is to be conquered, the Empire-baby must believably communicate that this war is against the neighboring alliance structure and not its members. The members, assuming they accept the rules of the Empire, can join, keeping their ships and even POS-es, just replacing the flag.
Remember, that while "freedom" is an often used slogan, the average guy is not at all free. He obeys his corp leader, he just does as he told, he owns no part of the corporate assets nor has any control over it. Assuming he isn't a useless idiot it's easy to make him recognize that by changing flags, he wouldn't get into worse position. His current leaders are lying when they tell "we fight for our freedom", the truth is that he is made to fight only for the position of his leaders, he fights for the continuation of his exploited underdog status. If The Empire assimilates his homeland, he would lose nothing while his leaders would lose their status. Actually he would gain by joining because in a larger organization he'd have more options (see the second part).
Obviously to be assimilative, The Empire must not be formed around an idea that cannot be adopted by most people. Typically the Goons can't be The Empire. Former Goons can be members of course, but The Goonswarm can't grow into The Empire itself, since most EVE players are not on somethingawful.com, nor they want to be, neither they subscribe to the Goon philosophy of griefing. If the Goons would declare that they want to own all the stars, tomorrow everyone else would unite against them and crush them. The Empire must be free of anything that divides people in any other way than useful/useless.
The above also means that while The One Empire will have a leader, he will be anything but an omnipotent Emperor. The personalities of people differ and those who would find the leaders style and way of leading unacceptable could not be assimilated, therefore would be a mortal enemy of The Empire. To avoid that, The Empire must have the authority of law and not of any person. There must be written laws that tell the obligations and rights of a member, guaranteeing that all he has to obey is the written law and as long as he does so, he is not subjected to the tyranny of any individual. Obviously the "do as the FC says in battle" is an exception from that, but I doubt that any sane man would question its necessity or would consider it oppression. After all it applies to the limited time of the battle and due to the size of the task (to conquer 5000 systems in 3 years, you must conquer 5 every day) there will be several fleets running concurrently allowing one to pick an FC he likes.
The second criteria is openness: The Empire must clearly state that its aim is to become The Empire and own all the stars. It can't be done silently. Without it, the people who'd like to join can't find it and the members of the enemy alliances can be told by their leaders that "it's just another bunch of mean kids who want to kill you for fun, who would take our systems and would kick you out of it. You must fight against them". If The Empire clearly states that it want to have all the stars, the people will find it much more easy to believe that they will be welcomed inside it, as such organization needs legions. While leaders like secrecy as it make them feel special, conquering the galaxy can't be done with low profile. It has to be open, frank and upfront, not because of moral but to make assimilation possible.
So if you already had Galaxy-conquering dreams just kept it secret and acted like taking just a few systems now and then, it's time to speak up. You will never win if you keep hiding.
EVE Business report: Tuesday morning 12.3B (2 PLEX behind for second account, 0.3B spent on Titan project, new Int and Mem +5 implants)
Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations on the "goblinworks" channel (60-80 people on peak time) and your UI suggestions are welcomed.
PS: is there a way to request more than the last 1000 wallet item from the API? Or to request only one item type? (which is possible with the in-game wallet).
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