In its annual report published yesterday, CONCORD's Communications Regulation Agency (CCRA) revealed a number of intriguing facts about current trends in universal communications. Most notable was the rise in popularity of the GalNet forum, a podium venue for the capsuleer community to bring to light issues of concern to them and their associates. Originally intended as a pure communications vehicle for pod pilots, GalNet has, in the course of the last year, become something more. Last February, in response to budgetary difficulties brought on by Inner Circle funding cuts, the CCRA hit upon the idea of optioning GalNet view access to planet- and stationside holofeeds. This met with little success initially, but as the capsuleers' ranks and influence grew throughout the course of the year, the popularity of the GalNet feed soared. According to the CCRA's report, GalNet view-subscriptions among the non-capsuleer population today number in the hundreds of millions, spanning the breadth of the universe. Whether as a cause or effect of this development, hundreds of pro- and anti-capsuleer interest groups have sprung up within the past year, their stances towards these pilots ranging from quasi-xenophobic dread to an almost religious devotion. Many reported cases exist of noted capsuleers' pronouncements signaling large-scale incidents planetside, as groups variously in support or conflict with the pod pilots make their loyalties known. One recent such incident concerns sermons made by the PIE corporation's Kostantin Mort, a Religious Tribunal Justice and capsuleer paramilitary of some repute. In a recorded entry from the 17th of this month, Justice Mort gave a missive interpreted by some as a harsh indictment of the Caldari way of life. The sermon was contested by many of his GalNet peers, but no smaller was the reaction, planetside, of various interest groups. The Society for the Conservation of State Traditions, a fiercely nationalistic Caldari lobbyist organization headed by several independently wealthy entrepreneurs, in the wake of Justice Mort's sermon launched a scathing series of propagandistic advertisements against PIE Inc. and its perceived propagation of "blind Amarrian arrogance." This then prompted several traditionalist factions within the Empire to respond in kind, affirming their support for the much-beloved paramilitary organization and painting the Caldari as "mindless followers of an inert deity." Cultural analyst Brill Stone warns that the growing number of incidents like these may indicate that a subtle shift in the world's ideological power structures could be under way. "If this development continues in the direction it's been going, there's no telling what the climate will be in the future. We could be looking at a different world. I'd say it's high time the empires took note."

• 

  Kostantin Mort

  Mentioned in 1 total New Eden articles

• 

  Inner Circle

  Mentioned in 123 total New Eden articles

• 

  Pie Inc

  Mentioned in 15 total New Eden articles

• 

  Monthly Economic Report - December 2024

  2
• 

  Community Beat for 14 March

  1