Mando Nimata

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

[member="Darth Vornskr"]

Which social construct is this? My honour is my own. No one else defines it for me, and I am strong enough to stand by it.

[member="Adekos"]

Tell me, what made them incapable of resisting their oppressive government? If the government was intolerable they should not have tolerated it. They did. We will not. So let the current so-called Mandalorians fling as many asteroids as they would like. The Nimata will not stand about waiting for it to happen. Ara'nov. It is a choice. We are taking it.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Who knows, maybe the argument about honor is partially caused by the lack of honor in killing that many non-warriors?

The only killing that brings dishonor, at least from a Neo-Crusader point of view, is the killing of children. Otherwise? Ain't nothin' wrong with dropping an asteroid on a planet.

 

[Antoir Setrrin]

The only killing that brings dishonor, at least from a Neo-Crusader point of view, is the killing of children. Otherwise? Ain't nothin' wrong with dropping an asteroid on a planet.

I was mainly just trying to point out that not everything had been stated directly yet.
Are these Nimata-whatevers supposed to be Neo-Crusaders? I haven't been able to really tell much about them so far. Not enough information for my head to make sense of things.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Are these Nimata-whatevers supposed to be Neo-Crusaders? I haven't been able to really tell much about them so far. Not enough information for my head to make sense of things.

No idea, but judging by what I've heard, they're probably closer to them than not. I feel people often misunderstand Mandalorian honor as a civilized form of honor like Predators have - don't kill the defenseless, hunt only the worthy targets, etc. And it's just not the way things are.

 

[Ellie Mors]

The only killing that brings dishonor, at least from a Neo-Crusader point of view, is the killing of children. Otherwise? Ain't nothin' wrong with dropping an asteroid on a planet.

Pretty sure there are children on a planet.

I mean, unless you call those tiny husks of dust something else.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

[member="Sarge Potteiger"] - Bingo. Someone get this man a drink!! Honor is not a universally defined virtue by any means. At all. Sometimes it isn't even consistent throughout a similar culture or ethnic group (take Germanic/Norse peoples before conversion and in many cases post conversion to Christianity) and that is as close as you're apt to find it being consistent... The mandos are a culture that is a largely blended pot of various 'donor' cultures that have permutated the original cultural ideals of the taung. Naturally, this will cause differences of interpretation, and naturally, civil unrest and infighting over it should occur.

This, after some review, will be fun to watch. I'll be sitting the hell out of it with almost 90% certainty. But it should be interesting.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Honor is not a universally defined virtue by any means. At all.

I'll explain in the most succinct manner I can, using a topic very near and dear to my heart - Imperial Japan circa the 1890s. Japan, as many know, was an isolationist island nation up until the last two centuries or so. That meant it lagged far behind the rest of the world with regards to industrialization, culture, and other societal/national constructs. This is not to say they had no culture, or had poor culture, they simply had not advanced to the level industrialized nations have.

Here is the key point, however. As Japan stepped onto the world stage, they wanted to gain prestige, and walk as equals with the 'Western powers.' That is to say Prussia, Great Britain, France, the United States and other imperialist countries. In this attempt they realized they would need to not only advance rapidly, but acquire new values and ideals at a pace unprecedented before. They reformed education, religion (they had a religion they just refused to call it a religion) and adapted the old ways to fit a new global perspective.

And in doing so, they did something important. They came up with their own idea of what it meant to be civilized. In this manner, they decided that honor, duty, and sacrifice for the family and the Emperor were deemed acceptably civilized activities. And so while Americans looked upon kamikaze attacks as uncivilized assaults by a fanatically loyal population, the Japanese viewed it as a perfectly normal civilized act by a dutiful subject of the Emperor.

In this manner, too, can we not describe 'honor' as a catch all term like we would like to with 'civilized.' The Mandalorian code of honor revolves around the concept of growth. Have you fought the toughest enemies? Have you broken their will to fight? Have you, in the process, brought something of value to your clan? These are all key tenets of the Mandalorian concept of honor - it has nothing to do with killing 'innocents,' because the only innocents they acknowledge are children.

Everyone else? Fair game. They're a people of war. Total war.

I look forward to seeing this play out.

 

[Tiland Kortun]

I want to write a Mando now.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

Yup... The Norse went through similar during the Conversion, as did the Germanic people. There's a TON of stuff out there on how the two sides absorbed and altered the other. The important thing to remember, when creating a believable people, is that just because a Mandalorian may look at honor as Sarge and others (like myself) have defined it? They are not, by necessity, heartless monsters with no remorse. They can still feel something over the loss of life (or not) or have their own personal morality that exists within the greater cultural framework.

I love Karen Traviss and her works a TON and i've spent hours emailing with her on concepts for armor, characters, etc... She did a LOT to define the Mandalorians via her contribution in the form of the RC and IC novels. But, in a way, her fans and the influence they have also muddy and damaged things too. It's important to remember a culture is a living, breathing, viable thing that will change and evolve.

 

[Captain Larraq]

For the record, those rocks were intended to balance the terms of engagement and bring down the planetary shields, nothing more.

At the time, the Mandalorian navy was old, rusting, mothballed hulls that were vastly under the factory standard. Expecting to face a significantly larget and better fleet than I was capable of fielding, I chose to instead bring along some rocks.

What people keep forgetting... Is that it was Circe Savan that doomed Dromund Kaas. Fielding a fleet five times the size of my own and ten times the total number of ships, she chose to flee the planet and abandon it to its fate instead of suffering heavy casualties due to the asteroids. With the primary defensive force gone and with nothing left in his way, Larraq found himself capable of hitting the planet with a significantly larger attack than he (or I) had planned on. Sseing first hand the cowardly behavior or the Sith... and knowing full well the stakes (do not forget that the Mandalorians had been at a constant disadvantage against the Sith up to this point, with the Sith going so far as to nuke Mandalore), Larraq chose to lash out with his attack, publically broadcasting the event (to demoralize the Sith IC) and singling out Circe Savan by name as the woman who had abandoned the planet instead of doing her duty.


Personally... I've always been the crusader type. Had this nonsense been happening a year ago, I'd likely have been all over it. But everything that's hapening with this faction is far, far too late to save it in my eyes. It, and the board as a whole, are something that I've simply run out of patience for.

I'm moving on, and I wish you all would as well. Please stop using me and my actions as examples or telling "glory days" tales about me and my antics.

Just... get over it.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

with the Sith going so far as to nuke Mandalore

Technically, wasn't that the Death Watch funded by the Sith Empire?

Same thing, I suppose, but you know.

 

[Yoru Shakou]

Interesting.

Very interesting indeed.

While Preshean Auxiliaries is a rather small company; should you require an Auxiliary force to supplement your own, I would be more than willing to join you in aiding your cause.

[member="Strider Garon"]