I suppose that this question actually hinges upon whether or not there are Shark Foxes besides Rebs and myself. I know that sometimes I see Bergie. Wellspring seems to be well and truly gone, which is a shame.
Hey, guys, I just got back from our holdings in the Chainelane isles. Oh, what's that? You've been there? Well, I've been in
other holdings in the Chainelane Isles. Amazing that we missed one another. Definitely haven't been at any secret "off balance sheet asset" of a base somewhere. No way.
What are the Sea Fox opinions about Compassion?
I think it varies within the clan. I feel like there are three themes that run through Shark Fox thinking, with different people emphasizing different themes.
There's the Karen Nagasawa idealistic thread; she was a true believer and I think sometimes in our zeal we forget that the sharks really are true believers, or at least many are at least to some extent. They've had many opportunities to abandon the Clan Way and haven't. It also gives them the ideological confidence to toy with heresy, as they often do. That's the theme that inspires the Sea Fox totem: honor your opponent. In combat or commerce.
Then there's the David Kalasa thread, who at least from what I've read seems like a genuinely nice guy who helps people out when he gets a chance. Their philosophy would be best described as "doing well by doing good"-- and make no mistake, trade helps both partners, builds relationships, bridges differences. Their first priority is their fellow Sea Foxes, of course, but outsiders get a taste of their compassion, too.
Finally, you have the pragmatic Angus Labov theme. Survival and profit, roughly prioritized in that order. A good way to put it is the "Venetians first, Christians second" attitude of medieval Venice. These are the ones who angle for every possible advantage: economic, social, military, political, genetic, intelligence-gathering. It's the Sea Foxes who watched as the three other clans "allied" w/ them in KLONDIKE left them to die, the ones who watched what happened to the Not-Named.
These aren't factions, or even contradictory. They infuse every action that the clan takes. Where there's conflict between threads, they look for ways to satisfy both impulses. But they try to avoid situations where those conflicts happen in the first place. That takes good intelligence-gathering and good planning, something the Foxes have always excelled at.
Say there's a famine on New Dishan. Compassion suggests that the Foxes help. Pragmatism notices that the world has resources the Foxes could use, and Idealism agrees that framing it as trade rather than hand-outs would honor the people of New Dishan. So a CargoShip loaded with food is dispatched with heavy escort, offering to trade for the resource rights. The local warlord tries to seize the food by force. Idealism demands that the escort stomp the warlord flat, and compassion might have a say depending on how bad the warlord is. So they probably will, but what comes next? That depends on pragmatism.
What doesn't happen is dogmatic adherence to Clan traditions, or self-destructive altruism, or ruthless profiteering. If the Shark Foxes do their job, the inhabitants come out alive and grateful, the Foxes make a tidy profit, and the local government is friendly and available for future business. If they decide poorly, they're seen as unclan-like exploitive profiteers. In which case they collect their pay, pack their things, and leave. They're not terribly worried about how others see them except as pure expediency. But I think they do try to do good so they can think well of themselves.
Much like the Star Adders and Cloud Cobras (and to some extent the pre-Vlad Wolves), they have their convictions, but they're not going to be stupid about it. They try to think a few steps ahead rather than driving everything down to an algorithm, slogan, or reflex.