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Slavery in Traveller ( need not be OTU)

B

BwapTED

SOC-13
Possible jobs/roles for slaves:

Labor force for low tech worlds
( robots may not always compete, spending on relative costs, local know how and infrastructure, etc. )

Gladiators any TL

Concubines, dancing girls, and so on, any TL

Test subjects?

Soldiers, given appropriate conditioning and training

Service workers of other sorts

What else?

Has anybody here made much use of slavery or other forms of unfree/ bonded labor in this Traveller games?

I'm thinking of making an ATU in which slavery is fairly common.
 
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One of the Honor Harringon series deals with Far Future Slavery.

IIRC genetically engineered skilled labor was a lucrative market.
So you need your TL 12 air raft repaired, but live on a TL 7 world. You can wait while a tech comes from another system at great time and expense. Or you can buy a repairman of your very own.
 
Then we have the whole "cybernetic being slavery"---Robots who are considered independent life forms in one empire and constructs and therefore not independent life forms in another.
 
I can see indentured servitude for colonial passage and settlement, and the demand of labor could create a class of 'invitro' workers.
 
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Pretty much the gamut as you've pointed out. I've used various forms of a slavery, not just US-style Antebellum Slavery, but Greco-Roman Slavery in my campaigns, as well as bonded servants etc. As well as the "AI escaping from its human masters" trope a couple of times, and usually have a strong genetic engineering one in the mix as well.

As a fascinating look at how a very high Law Level society uses slavery (and torture) try reading the Judiciary novels by Susan R. Matthews. Very, very well written and a great example of a very high law level society with a twist.

D.
 
Well the 3I has strong Anti-Slavery laws, only one world has a dispensation and it's so heavily regulated that the practice is in a death spiral, only held on to as a piece of cultural heritage on this one world.

don't think the modern Joes can get their head around the idea, Darians can understand the concept, but dislike it, the Aslan conciser the practice unworthy and without honor.


not saying it doesn't happen in the 3I, just that it happens off book and is hidden.
 
combatmedic said:
I'm thinking of making an OTU in which slavery is fairly common.
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Periodically these kinds of threads come up and there is a relevant point that should be noted: The 3I outlaws chattel slavery. There's other kinds of bonding that may be considered slavery but the definitions are ambiguous so the 3I doesn't involve itself in it. However, the 3I is also a big place and the people who are enforcing the laws few; so I actually think a lot of worlds could get away with chattel slavery for a period of time or even a long period of time under the correct circumstances (mostly if they're quiet about it and can pass it off as part of their culture).

Apologies in advance to the moderators if this skates too close to that "we shouldn't discuss this" but a large area of slavery is "sex" slavery of all kinds; the picking up "wives" from one world (this may be a high-pop world with few opportunities or low-tech worlds where people want to go somewhere more high-tech) - essentially like mail-order brides. Those who sign up for it may not end up on Capital or some glittering Tech Level OMG world that they were hoping for and are more likely to end up on those atmosphere 0 worlds and sold off to the masses of lonely workers who have plenty of money but little way to spend it. The slaves might be kidnapped or they might "volunteer" under fast-talk or similar false advertising. They might be sold by their own families. However, in some cases, the slaves might very well know pretty much what they're in for but decide that an uncertain fate is better than the situation they're in. There a wide variation on this kind of practice that I think the reader can easily conjecture, but I won't get into it because it would definitely be breaking my own personal "taste barrier."

Another example of slavery I've thought of and believe might be pretty common in the Traveller universe would be "technical slaves" or "science slaves." The 3I has wide differences in TLs; discussions of why these large disparities occur and the realism of their distributions are not part of the discussion here -- only that it happens. A world trying to bootstrap itself up (instead of simply buying into Imperial-style capitalism and bound up the TL ladder from TL "low" to TL12) might adopt a kind of autarky with minimal interference from the Imperium. In the range of TL2 to about TL7 (maybe TL8) they have an enormous demand for skilled workers (beyond that, increasing mechanization means that skilled workers vanish and you have unskilled workers + computer assistance making up an increasing part of the workforce); workers such as machine shop technical workers, people who can work steel smelters and repair them, and so on. Typically a world at a given TL in this range needs workers one or two TLs higher. I can imagine a pretty steady flow of slaves - using TL12 technology, it's probably not too hard to kidnap such people from TL2-TL7 worlds, transport them to worlds that need them and turn a very pretty penny doing it where they'd operate machines, train the locals on how to use them, and repair them and so on. Or the "doom trade" might be completely legal - there might be "economic migrants" of this type; as your own world moves from TL7 to TL8 and your machine shop skills become irrelevant against CAD/CAM technology, you might sign on with a trader who'll take you to a world that's TL6 trying to get to TL7 where your skills will be in demand. Once you get there, the ship operator takes fee for transporting you from the government there and now you have to work 20-30 years to pay off the "debt" to the government and you're not free to go anywhere until you do.

Beyond that, a lot of the traditional roles for slavery simply would not justify the costs of transporting the slaves themselves. While it's cool and cinematic to have thousands of people toiling away in terrible conditions to do work, slavery is basically only economic under certain conditions. In the Traveller universe, if a realm can pay some slaver (in jewels/gold/credits) to transport humans from one world to another, that realm could just as easily hire someone to bring over some gosh-wow TL14 "fusion-beam driller and CG heavy lifter" (basically a TL14 backhoe and crane) that could do the work hundreds of slaves over years in a few days or even a single week and it'd ultimately be cheaper to rent such a machine than it would be to buy chattel slaves. ("You guys need the "Great Wall" and a "Grand Canal" made? Is that it? I could throw in a few Great Pyramids for the fee you're offering or I could just work here for a month and give you back half your fee.").
 
combatmedic said:
Possible jobs/roles for slaves:
...
I'm thinking of making an OTU in which slavery is fairly common.
Click to expand...

Adventure 6 documents a situation where the party is shanghaied and put into an arrangement that's functionally slavery to mine asteroids by hand. The notion of someone being roofied and kidnapped into servitude to make up the numbers in some labour-short environment (e.g. shitty atmosphere) is a form of slavery.
 
We join you now on this Editorial Edition of Net-7 News, with your Anchor-rat, the Pakkrat:

My game just came off a sub-plot where the crew of the Ares discovered a mass Low-berth cargo container filled with four female and two male identical Darrian twins, (or were they clones?) smuggled into their cargo hold Armory. Each were found packed in like sardines and wearing a TL 15 circlet with micro-miniature electronics. These circlets erased short- and mid-term memory in the brain but left basic survial skills intact, (e.g. reading, writing, basic math, speech, language, etc).

The three Darrian crew on board the Ares, though detesting such crude modalities could not fathom what the 'sextuplets' were to be used for since none of them, upon reviving, could remember what they were before awakening.

Now, were the sextuplets really twins, cloned females and cloned males of twin Darrians? Were they test subjects? Cloned organ sources? The applications could be endless.

My point is that though we can use 'slavery' as a catch-all term to pluck on the heartstrings of the player-characers, the Far Future can use any number of workarounds for the leagalisation of such unknowns as the above example.

Let us not forget that in some polities, slavery (even if it is upward-mobile, graduating to freeman citizenship), can be legal and even seen as gentle social uplift for those who cannot or will not mesh with whatever world they currently reside. Some polities might see this as a service to better those enslaved for such upward graduation during service. One such polity, to name an example, was the Society of Equals in the fan-made Sourcebook: Gvurrdon Sector, (before Mongoose wrote their more-virginal version).

Another polity, further Coreward in Knoellighz Sector, that I am currently developing features highly valued and carefully treated 'slaves'. Six million TL 15, scientific clones on Dzagok (Knoellighz 2436) serve, somewhat blindly, the 'privateers' from UOSA (Knoellighz 2237) in a clon-ish need to be helpful and solve problems and such. They are being taken advantage of, to be sure, but each clone scientist is given safety, security and is returned to Dzagok when the given project is completed. UOSA Syndicate Privateers do their best - as privateers and as Corsairs - to provide the materials the clone scientists request for each project and the needs of their cloneworld Dzagok. Is this slavery in the Third Imperium's eyes far to Rimward? (For more information, search "Ascendancy Pact" on the wiki.)

Two examples of how slavery can be seen as a social uplift service rather than an atrocity of civilization,

Reporting from Serue (Knoellighz 1221), this is the Pakkrat. :CoW:

P.S. Another society where sophonts might be considered 'enslaved' might be Roethoeegaeaegz (Knoellighz 1726), but that's more sexism due to need for survival. YMMV

T-shirt Hell: "Slavery. Gets Sh*t Done."
 
I thought it would probably be more interesting to have 'practical slavery' but dress it up in a cultural 'gilding'.

Imagine the Roman Empire 'Patron-Client' relationship where it works both ways ... you are legally bound to a Patron who has power over and an investment in you, while you have people below you that you have power over and an economic interest in.
Or build it on the Medieval concept of 4 estates and Liege-vassal relationships (down to the serfs).

In Traveller (ATU): Only a Titled Citizen of the Imperium may own a Starship and only YOUR Noble Patron can grant you the documentation to leave the system of your birth. Those titles come with real land and people to govern. Perhaps a character is like Onesimus, you have stolen from your Patron (Philemon) and fled servitude. You now travel with forged papers hoping not to get caught and sent home to face criminal charges. The Captain of the starship has taken you on as crew and learned the truth and must find some way to make things right with your former patron and his current patron.

It will still allow you to play with all of the 'slavery' tropes, it just doesn't need to be yet another 'stop the evil space Orcs and rescue the damsel in distress.'
 
[girls] might be sold by their own families.
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heh. forgot all about that. standard practice in asia, always has been, and the western women have been only slightly better off.

heh. read up on malinche, the female aztec sold into slavery by her own father, who wound up the translator for cortez and made possible his conquering of the aztec empire. she is hated to this day, in total disregard of how she ended up being what she was. women as chattel? oh yes, it will be around.
 
During the Long Night, the Wuans began a genetic experiment. They studied, modified, and standardized human genotypes, creating a variant human race also known, confusingly, as Wuans. Now, specialized humans can be produced, suited for any task or environment. A visitor to Wuan factories will see long rows of identical Workers performing the same industrial task.
 
Condottiere said:
During the Long Night, the Wuans began a genetic experiment. They studied, modified, and standardized human genotypes, creating a variant human race also known, confusingly, as Wuans. Now, specialized humans can be produced, suited for any task or environment. A visitor to Wuan factories will see long rows of identical Workers performing the same industrial task.
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I'm reminded of Cherryh's Azi.
 
Possibly, Confederation Marines, ordered just shortly before the Solomani feel the time is ripe to liberate Humaniti from Imperial tyranny.
 
Don't forget prison labor; it was highly common in the past and is still highly common today at TL8. Not all of it is profitable, as in some cases prisoners are made to perform pointless tasks as labor itself is considered to be of value in their rehabilitation. Of course, there is also transportation as a punishment - involuntarily shipping off convicts to the colonies (such as Australia for Britain or Siberia for Russia) both to keep malcontents out of the main "civilized" areas and to populate undesirable rocks with unwilling colonists. Many of these transported may even be skilled workers. Some regimes might even specifically frame and arrest people of certain trades which are in high demand in the colonies.
 
Khan Noonien Singh (or simply, Khan) was an extremely powerful and intelligent superhuman. He was the most prominent of the genetically-engineered Human Augments of the late-20th century Eugenics Wars period on Earth. Khan was considered, by the USS Enterprise command crew, over three centuries later, to have been "the best" of them. Reappearing with a cadre of Augment followers in the 23rd century, Khan became a notorious enemy of James T. Kirk. Khan's existence as an Augment served, as well, as a warning to society of the danger in attempting to create "supermen" through technological means.

The geneticist Arik Soong believed Augments like Khan could be created without exhibiting his more vicious, psychopathic or megalomaniacal instincts. Soong's "children", created from Augment embryos stolen in 2134, failed to live up to the hopes of their "father". Soong believed Khan and the Botany Bay to be nothing more than a myth, although his "children" believed differently. After his imprisonment in 2154, Soong, convinced by his creation's actions that his theory was dangerously wrong, redirected his efforts to the perfection of artificial Humanity. His descendant, Noonian Soong (possibly, given Arik's admiration for him, named after Khan Noonien Singh) continued the effort with the invention of Soong-type androids, including B-4, Lore, and ultimately, Data. (ENT: "Borderland", "The Augments"; TNG: "Datalore"; Star Trek Nemesis)
 
to populate undesirable rocks with unwilling colonists
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might explain all those high-population rockballs and low population garden worlds. "they just could not fit in, so we sent them somewhere they could be useful ...."
 
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