Slavery....in Space!

[Dragoner]

I think I touched on these aspects. Slavery would have to be peculiar to the social structure. That is slaves are only economical when the fabric of the society is at risk. I think the Roman Empire is an example here; for without forced labor, in their eyes, things would not get done, and the social hierarchy would break down. I mean, for them at least, if slaves were freed and flaunted authority where would it end? I think the prejudice there was that slaves were there because they were slaves; incorrigible and not useful for anything other than being forced to work.

If we go the 3I, or its neighbors, there's bound to be pockets of slavery. But for a steller community, one with robots or early android technology, slaves might become rare.

In Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, Rome was a high power distance culture; slavery was different and slaves there had rights and a place as a family member in households. Even there the economics didn't work out and they changed away from slaveowning to contract labor. Any society progressed far enough to have robots, will also have HRM dow to where slavery is not economically feasible. Slaves are just too expensive for low productivity, it's why modern countries don't have slavery now.

 

[Dragoner]

If I were able to have a robot provide my living I would do a lot of more creative and enjoyable things than I am now. Heck, I'd become a professional student and gorge myself silly on history and the life sciences. I think any society would do the same and probably benefit from it. The robots wouldn't have to be replacing everyone - just supplementing to act a a production multiplier, or do repetitive menial or dangerous tasks.

Don't be such a Luddite, the robots are our friends. They say so so it must be true since robots can't lie.

Oh I'm not a luddite, I welcome my new robot employees with open arms. :devil:

The question is what people do when robots take away their jobs.

 

[sabredog]

Oh I'm not a luddite, I welcome my new robot employees with open arms. :devil:

The question is what people do when robots take away their jobs.

Well, first they starve. Then they revolt against the robots. The the robots build Terminators and hunt down the humans. The humans form a resistance and go back in time to stop the robots before they are created. The robots send a robot back in time to stop the resistance fighters trying to stop the robots. Everyone stays busy and has plenty to do.

Actually, I stand by my first point: eventually people will adjust. it will suck but they will abide. Then, maybe (if the writers of more positive vibes are right) we can spend less time feeding ourselves and more time inventing things for the robots to build that will help make a better world. And plenty of time to read, write, paint, sculpt, and explore.

 

[Dragoner]

Actually, I stand by my first point: eventually people will adjust. it will suck but they will abide. Then, maybe (if the writers of more positive vibes are right) we can spend less time feeding ourselves and more time inventing things for the robots to build that will help make a better world. And plenty of time to read, write, paint, sculpt, and explore.

IMO, people's job will be to consume in the Brave New World of technology.

I'm management though.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, first they starve. Then they revolt against the robots. The the robots build Terminators and hunt down the humans. The humans form a resistance and go back in time to stop the robots before they are created. The robots send a robot back in time to stop the resistance fighters trying to stop the robots. Everyone stays busy and has plenty to do.

Actually, I stand by my first point: eventually people will adjust. it will suck but they will abide. Then, maybe (if the writers of more positive vibes are right) we can spend less time feeding ourselves and more time inventing things for the robots to build that will help make a better world. And plenty of time to read, write, paint, sculpt, and explore.

There's an old "mad scientist" trope if I ever heard one. I think that's the ultimate ideal, and it may even come about, but the road there's pretty rough.

Eventually the last manual laborer will retire among a bunch of robots/androids. With or without fanfare is up for grabs. But, having said that, as I stated earlier, I still think, world depending, that there's an outside chance for slaves as slaves are essentially robots; forced labor.

Cleaning up holds where there is slavery in Traveller might prove interesting. As I said before, a world that's poor, low in tech and resources, and with social strife, probably would resort to slavery as a means of keeping order. Like Dragoner said, they may evolve beyond it, but I guess that's part of the fun of playing the game; find those who haven't and seeing what comes of it.

 

[kuros]

There's been a lot of discussion about the superiority of using robots since I last checked in. Using Trav terminology, we all seem to be agreed that in a setting of normalized resources and free economic structure, slavery becomes non-profitable starting somewhere around Tech 5. But robots aren't available until around Tech 13+, and even then require expensive programming in order for them to adapt to a wide variety of tasks. Whereas sub-average intelligent sophonts are created as a byproduct of normal activities, and are much more versatile.

Isn't there a certain percentage of colonized worlds that have lost tech levels since the diaspora?


(Oh, and I also want to thank everyone for taking this topic so seriously! This has been a GREAT conversation so far!)

 

[Timerover51]

(Oh, and I also want to thank everyone for taking this topic so seriously! This has been a GREAT conversation so far!)

What is disturbing is that so many people have enthusiastically embraced the idea.

 

[Dragoner]

But robots aren't available until around Tech 13+, and even then require expensive programming in order for them to adapt to a wide variety of tasks.

At our little old spear chucking low low TL7 we're doing lights out factories (meaning factories that don't need lights on to run)...

Just saying.

 

[sabredog]

But robots aren't available until around Tech 13+, and even then require expensive programming in order for them to adapt to a wide variety of tasks.

In LBB: Robots it says robots start replacing people in uncreative and menial labor at TL8. I find that odd even as a Traveller TL artifact since at the time it was written robotic assembly in manufacturing had been around a while and was growing. And today it has advanced far beyond that. So I think the claim that robots show up at TL13+ is a bit off even by Traveller rules.

Autonomous robots that can do what humans do (other than being intelligent and creative) might not show up till TL13+, though, but I think they could still become more common by around TL10+, but it also largely depends on cultural and population issues.

Japan has made it more or less a mandate for a couple of decades now to develop serious advances in robotics to replace what they see as a dwindling labor force and increasing aged population. They have all sorts of robots for nearly any labor and manufacturing task, and have are even developing a companion robot for astronauts on long trips. So the Japanese are embracing robot technology as a serious labor multiplier while some cultures might take the opposite tack. In our culture the first cry is, "It took my job!"

So, like slavery, I think the reasons for the hows and whys of robots will depend on social and cultural reasons. It isn't a matter of "we can" so much as "do we need to?". If your population is low enough to benefit form a labor force multiplier like robots you will use them if you can get them. If you can't get them then cheap immigrants, and if you can't get those then maybe slaves (even if only of the penal system variety).

I gather the Vilani have problems with robots in the OTU, so I think a lot of the weird restrictions on robots showing up and how they are used is related more to that then anything else.

 

[sabredog]

What is disturbing is that some many people have enthusiastically embraced the idea.

It is a time-tested trope in science fiction. It gives the hero somebody to rescue other than the scientist's daughter the BEM with unholy intentions has run off with.

 

[sabredog]

Ordinarily I don't recommend Wikipedia as a reliable resource, but this thing on Japanese robots shows how they view them as a labor force multiplier and to supplement a population concerned with increasing elderly and a lagging younger workforce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_robotics

The range shown here is only representative, but they are some pretty interesting designs. I'm still waiting for a Gundam, though the rescue robot is getting there. It just needs guns, rockets, and a plasma sword.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I put a follow up on the TAS / TNS news feed.

Robot verse slaves; (minute digression; "robot" is a Balkan term meaning forced labor, FYI), like saberdog stated, it's a matter of the world's economics when you examine it in a hard and realistic scenario arising out of our known history.

But, this is a science fiction RPG :grin:

As such we can have all kinds of settings that really don't require a hard social reason for slavery to exist. Traveller leans towards the science end of science-fiction, but just as LASERs and other energy weapons in Traveller circumvent natural laws, so would slavery in the 3I.

It may be that "reserved slavery" exists on the books in spite of the anti-slavery laws; i.e. "an act of criminality on order-Y reacts to yield result-X for those involved. It may not be called slavery, but it may in practice by default actually be slavery.

And I think slaver ships are a good story vehicle to get an adventure going

*EDIT*
I changed the photo on the TAS / TNS feed with something more benign.

 

[rancke]

It may be that "reserved slavery" exists on the books in spite of the anti-slavery laws; i.e. "an act of criminality on order-Y reacts to yield result-X for those involved. It may not be called slavery, but it may in practice by default actually be slavery.

And what people call slavery may not be slavery. Just because slavery is involuntary servitude[*] does not mean that all forms of involuntary servitude are slavery. Most people do not consider conscription, penal servitude, or forced indentured service to be slavery. Some do, I know, but be that as it may, none of these forms of involuntary servitude are chattel slavery, which is what is forbidden by the Imperial Warrant of Restoration.

Transferrable labor contracts, now...

[*] Actually, some societies allowed people to voluntarily become slaves, but I consider that a quibble.​

Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

I put a follow up on the TAS / TNS news feed.

Robot verse slaves; (minute digression; "robot" is a Balkan term meaning forced labor, FYI), like saberdog stated, it's a matter of the world's economics when you examine it in a hard and realistic scenario arising out of our known history.

But, this is a science fiction RPG :grin:

As such we can have all kinds of settings that really don't require a hard social reason for slavery to exist. Traveller leans towards the science end of science-fiction, but just as LASERs and other energy weapons in Traveller circumvent natural laws, so would slavery in the 3I.

It may be that "reserved slavery" exists on the books in spite of the anti-slavery laws; i.e. "an act of criminality on order-Y reacts to yield result-X for those involved. It may not be called slavery, but it may in practice by default actually be slavery.

And I think slaver ships are a good story vehicle to get an adventure going

*EDIT*
I changed the photo on the TAS / TNS feed with something more benign.

It is perhaps an exercise in semantics, but I agree with Rancke. I would draw a distinction between "an act of criminality on order-Y ..." penal servitude, or debtor servitude for that matter, and slavery. While the outcome is the same, the circumstances that resulted in the outcome are very different: a person who knows, or should have known, that a set of behaviors on his part could result in a loss of freedom, is a different matter from a person who suffers a loss of freedom through no fault of his own. The one is a consequence that may need some regulation and monitoring to prevent abuse. The other is a de facto opression that would inevitably be controversial unless there were some strong social or economic circumstance mitigating in its favor.

 

[BlackBat242]

The antebellum South was looked at as a pretty backwards society among the Europeans who had long before abolished slavery and even (in the case of the British) were combating in the trade on the open seas beyond sovereign territorial entanglements.

In 1808, after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, the Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron.

However, despite slavery having been illegal in the United Kingdom for centuries, it was completely legal in every British colony!
In 1785, English poet William Cowper wrote: "We have no slaves at home – Then why abroad? Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs receive our air, that moment they are free. They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud. And jealous of the blessing.

Slavery was not something the US started in on at Independence... it was something we inherited from our Colonial British Masters!

An Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire (with the exceptions "of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company," the "Island of Ceylon," and "the Island of Saint Helena", which exceptions were eliminated in 1843).

So Britain only beat the USA by 20 (or 30) years.

 

[Vladika]

I keep seeing this "10k" credit cost for a slave.

On old Earth we used to slip sailors and landsmen a Micky Finn (chloral hydrate) and put them aboard ship against their will. Called Shanghaiing. Cost: totally insignificant.

In Traveller? Acquisition about the same. Low Berth passage is 1000Cr IF paid for... ("Low passage costs Cr1,000 and includes a baggage allowance of 10 kilograms." LLB 2 p. 5)

Costs are 100Cr per low passenger ("Each occupied low passage berth involves an overhead cost of Cr100 per usage." LBB 2 p. 8)

Now, I put 4 Shanghaied or Kidnapped victims in ONE emergency low berth and haul them pretty much forever at those costs. ("Emergency low berths are also available; they will not carry passengers, but can be used for survival. Each costs Cr100,000 and displaces one ton. Each holds four persons who share the same revival die roll." LBB 2 p.)

Survival rate unattended is approximately 30/36 or 83 1/3 %. Attended by a medic is 91 2/3 % ("Throw 5+ for each passenger, when he is revived after the ship has landed. DMs: Attending medic of expertise of 2 or better, +1; low passenger with an endurance of 6 or less, -1. Failure to achieve the throw to revive results in death for the passenger." LBB 2 p. 5)

If resale was the 10K figure I keep reading here then at say 9000Cr after "costs" 9000Cr x 4 low berth slaves / ton = 36,000Cr / ton.

Slavery would be VERY profitable.

BTW, if you couldn't BUY chloral hydrate you could make it from ingredients found aboard ship. (Google it) Dose is +/- 1 gram per use.

 

[Whipsnade]

Slavery would be VERY profitable.

You've apparently missed the posts which explain the problem with the demand side of the issue. Those places in the OTU which might have some use for slaves also happen to be poor and, because they're poor, the prices they'll be able to pay aren't going to be too high.

We're looking at a matter of scale here. Yes, you can "roofie" some poor bastard, pop him in a low berth, and sell him at your next stop IF you can get the unconscious body past whatever security and immigration controls exist at the ports in question. What you aren't going to do is jump to Hellhole-3, purchase a hold full of slaves, jump to Plantation-2, and sell them all for a quick million bucks.

So it's more of a case of "Slavery, yes" and "A widespread slave trade, no" than anything else.

Shanghaiing exists IMTU for most of the reasons it existed and still exists in the real world today. Chattel slavery, debt bondage, peonage, and all the other wrinkles exist in IMTU just as they all still exist in the real world and despite the same opprobrium.

Shanghaiing also exists in the OTU as Expedition to Zhodane illustrates and slavery was one of the charges leveled against Margaret's Faction during the Rebellion.

The stars are far apart and the authorities distant so things in those backwater systems can get very dark indeed. All the more reason for adventurers, wouldn't you say?

 

[Vladika]

I very much agree on the adventure part.

White Slavery was, is, and probably will be vastly profitable though.

Fit a surplus scout out with just a few low berths hit a mining colony, rich patrons, (al la A***h). Blonde, blue eyed buxom women still go for quit a price.

For that matter the "Mob" makes huge profits on high end call girls...

Forget class A and B space ports if it's to tough. Use the backwater star-ports or NO star port. Small-craft landings, air rafts reach low orbit, etc. Blockade run and smuggle. It's risky but that's why the profits are there. Adventure? sure thing!

From either side. From Slaver, Buyer for transport, all the way to private abolitionist zealots. They're all there for the playing.

You've apparently missed the posts which explain the problem with the demand side of the issue. Those places in the OTU which might have some use for slaves also happen to be poor and, because they're poor, the prices they'll be able to pay aren't going to be too high.

We're looking at a matter of scale here. Yes, you can "roofie" some poor bastard, pop him in a low berth, and sell him at your next stop IF you can get the unconscious body past whatever security and immigration controls exist at the ports in question. What you aren't going to do is jump to Hellhole-3, purchase a hold full of slaves, jump to Plantation-2, and sell them all for a quick million bucks.

So it's more of a case of "Slavery, yes" and "A widespread slave trade, no" than anything else.

Shanghaiing exists IMTU for most of the reasons it existed and still exists in the real world today. Chattel slavery, debt bondage, peonage, and all the other wrinkles exist in IMTU just as they all still exist in the real world and despite the same opprobrium.

Shanghaiing also exists in the OTU as Expedition to Zhodane illustrates and slavery was one of the charges leveled against Margaret's Faction during the Rebellion.

The stars are far apart and the authorities distant so things in those backwater systems can get very dark indeed. All the more reason for adventurers, wouldn't you say?

 

[sabredog]

Slavery was not something the US started in on at Independence... it was something we inherited from our Colonial British Masters!

An Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire (with the exceptions "of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company," the "Island of Ceylon," and "the Island of Saint Helena", which exceptions were eliminated in 1843).

So Britain only beat the USA by 20 (or 30) years.

20 or 30 years is a long time

My point was that slavery in the OTU (or any other TU) might exist as a cultural artifact, which is the same thing you pointed out in greater detail.

 

[atpollard]

Dysentery is real too, but don't expect it in any of my games.
Slavery is icky. While plausible, count me out ...

... "That ain't the way to have fun, son" - Momma Told Me (Not to Come)