The Martial Unity

"You flatter me," Rui smiled.

"No no, I'm quite optimistic about your prospects of successfully completing this diplomatic mission based on our discussion up to this point alone," The man shook his head. "Coming back to the main point, as I said, you are correct about the means by which we identify how well a third party is able to fulfill primary interests such as food security. However, I did choose food shortage as hypothetical for a reason. It is, by far, the easiest to identify and recognize through the means that you have identified and more. However, identifying the degree to which other interests are fulfilled is not nearly as easy. Even other primary interests such as national security are more complicated than the hypothetical that I gave you, mainly because it is easier to hide."

Rui nodded. He was aware of this fact.

National security depended on factors such as the size of the military, the quality and quantity of militaristic technology, the Martial prowess of a nation; the number of Martial Artists it has, and its demographics as far as Realms went. These were far more difficult to estimate. For such complicated matters, it was safer and more reliable to directly rely on intelligence-gathering agencies and departments to directly gather such facts through espionage, surveillance, and infiltration among other things.

"However, this alone isn't enough," The man explained. "Yes, it's true that we can utilize a variety of means to understand whether or not a third party is able to fulfill a particular interest, it is also important to verify whether or not that particular interest is even an interest in the first place. Do you understand what I mean by that?"

Rui nodded. "I do. Not everybody will value all things equally. Still, there should be a broad intersection. Food and physical security are absolute. Even the secondary interests are largely universal."

motorized transport, development and maintenance of complex infrastructure, and military and defense technology are all almost

had a feeling he knew what the man was

familiar with, such that technological sectors and industries such as communications, transport, and military tech are all entirely irrelevant

their interests thoroughly before proceeding

already figured out

is highly divergent from modern civilization. For example, their little quasi-society

they perceive it as a threat to their culture and way of life, as well as a primal aversion to what they don't understand. This is problematic because that means that they not only reject technology but also many esoteric natural resources that are valuable because of their high utility in technology. For example, what value is Ire Slagpowder to people who reject remote communication technology in the first place? To them, this otherwise valuable resource is no more than a strange form of dust. Vilun Island is quite rich in its natural resources, yet

which everybody operated. Diplomats and ambassadors were trained to excel within this framework, Rui had no doubt that it frustrated the Martial Union to no end that the G'ak'arkan Tribe did not play with these rules and within this framework

Martial Artists as diplomats

warped and are considerably deviated from expectations. As you promptly said earlier, we should learn as much about their interests as much as we can. In order to learn about their interests, we inevitably have to learn about them intimately, their history, their culture and