“I’m confused,” Rui admitted. “For one, why is the Martial Union even taking a formal diplomatic approach? We dominate the weaker and smaller nations around us much more forcefully because we can. Isn’t it more efficient and effective to apply this same approach to the G’ak’arkan Tribe? Furthermore, why me? A Martial Artist with no competence in the field of diplomacy?”
“Your point is valid,” She nodded. “We generally do not take such a soft approach when dealing with third parties that are vastly smaller and weaker than us. The two strongest Martial Artists of the G’ak’arkan Tribe are merely Martial Seniors. If we deploy a single Martial Master or even our best Martial Seniors, we could dominate the entire island… However, our intelligence department and foreign affairs department has long since decided against such an approach,”
Rui waited for her to complete her point.
“The G’ak’arkan Tribe and the many Martial tribes of Vilun Island generally possess a highly warmongering and prideful culture. Based on the profile our foreign intelligence division has created on them, there is an extremely high probability that the G’ak’arkan Tribe are entirely willing to fight a bloody war to the very last warrior, if need be, than to submit or lower their heads.” She paused, before continuing.
“Based on the extreme responses that we have recorded from them to a show of domination or hostility, we have deemed that the probability of the G’ak’arkan Tribe willingly submitting their techniques to us if we adopt a forceful and hostile approach is very low. It is much likelier that they would get themselves killed, knowingly, than to cooperate with us to avoid conflict with us. While this may not necessarily be true for every Martial Artist among them, there is a preponderance of warmongering, reckless, and conflict-seeking elements in their culture that will simply cause most of them to respond in an undesirable fashion to our objectives.”
“I see…” Rui narrowed his eyes, absorbed in thought.
This was one of the few explanations that actually made sense. The Martial Union’s fundamental goal was to progress Martial Art and the interests of Martial Artists. It was not a sovereign state that cared too much about territory or other capital and assets. The Martial Union did not seek to dominate the Martial tribes of Vilun Island. It would far rather cooperate with the Martial tribes of Vilun Island than it would engage in conflict that would end up annihilating those Martial tribes, causing their reservoir of techniques developed across centuries to be forever lost.
Short of these techniques falling into the hands of a technique, there was nothing else less desirable than this outcome to the Martial Union.
“That is why we do not want to take a forceful approach that could very easily lead to this outcome,” She sighed.
“That does make sense,” Rui nodded. “But I still don’t understand why I’m being assigned the role of a diplomat.”
“I was getting to that, young man,” She chided him. “We have tried making peaceful initiations before, however, they have generally been to very little avail for several reasons.”
She raised a finger. “First, their highly insular tribe as well as their enmity with all external entities on the island have led them to develop an inherently hostile and uncooperative attitude towards foreigners. This has heavily hampered any and all diplomatic measures that we have taken in the past to gain their friendship and engage in a mutually beneficial exchange of Martial Art.”𝚘𝗏xt.𝚌𝞸𝔪
Rui could see why this hindered the attempts at befriending the G’ak’arkan Tribe. Diplomacy and negotiation came only after there was an established intent to cooperate due to mutual interests or issues. Between more standardized sovereign states or independent third parties on the Panama Continent, this was a lot easier because everybody played within the same broad framework with each other. Money, resources, political, economic, and militaristic incentives, and disincentives guided the interactions between all of them. There were broad interests, both mutual and exclusive, that all these nations and groups shared with each other.
However, all of that was thrown out due to the highly unique circumstances and history of the G’ak’arkan Tribe, making regular means rather ineffective. The G’ak’arkan Tribe almost certainly didn’t care about the Kandrian currency in the slightest bit at all. From what Rui understood of highly insular and small tribes whose culture and lifestyle were deeply rooted in their natural environment, they probably rejected foreign influence on their culture vehemently and would most likely adopt a close-minded outlook on the modern technological resources that the Kandrian Empire could provide.
Rui could easily imagine the Martial Union and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kandrian Government getting frustrated as the G’ak’arkan Tribe remained indifferent to money, esoteric natural resources, technological resources, knowledge, and the various other assets that the Kandrian Empire and Martial Union could muster.
Of course, there were still elements that didn’t entirely make sense, but each time she spoke, it became increasingly clearer.
“Another hindrance has been the fact that they only respect strength above all else,” She explained. “They do not respect normal humans anywhere near as much as even Martial Apprentices. This applies even to our diplomatic teams consisting of normal people that underwent higher education in diplomacy and foreign affairs before being hired and trained by the Martial Union. The status and authority that our diplomats have are meaningless in the eyes of the G’ak’arkan Tribe, and they have received less than lukewarm receptions from them.”
“Why not dispatch strong Martial Artists capable of earning the respect of even the strongest Martial Artist of the G’ak’arkan Tribe?” Rui asked, gaining a clearer picture of why he was being assigned this mission.”
“Martial Artists are capable of superhuman feats in the domain of physical conflict, but unfortunately, that is the one trait that is the most unnecessary and perhaps even definitively unconducive with the field of diplomacy.” She sighed. “We have found that blindly sending in Martial Artists has a high propensity for even worse outcomes where fights almost broke out between the Martial Artists we dispatched and the G’ak’arkan Tribe and our Martial Artists.”
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