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[Matias]

I think slavery should be incorporated into the game even though I personally am against slavery. I also am against killing people and stuff and I still play games that are about it. There have been some very good points for it and the two comments against it were based on a personal morals, nothing else.

I want it on because it should be possible. Slavery exists even today even in these so called civilised countries we live in and in USA it was officially cancelled only after civil war. But a kind of slavery is practised in many civilised countries even today; it is called forced labor. For exampple USA (and China and other asian countries, Russia, Turkey, Spain etc.) uses forced labor to some extent and they even pay for the prisoners (okey, like 50 cents per day), but in my point of view it still is slavery.

This is also a thing I want to include to slavery if it ever is implemented to DF. Just imagine forcing your nearly legendary craftsdwarf to work menial tasks for a year after tanuntruming after somebody fired his masterfull bonebolt... A way better punishment than the 3 hammerstrikes.

-Matias

[Leonidas]

quote:Originally posted by Matias:
<STRONG>I think slavery should be incorporated into the game . . . There have been some very good points for it and the two comments against it were based on a personal morals, nothing else.</STRONG>

No, my objections weren't moral.  They were aesthetic and historical.

The comments here seem to completely miss the point of slavery.  It isn't about sadism.  Slavers don't take joy in forcing slaves to do menial tasks.  That's all just modern historical revisionism.  Real slavery was about economics.  Slave owners didn't beat their slaves for fun any more than you would beat your car for fun.

DF dwarves are already slaves in every practical sense, because they can't choose not to do as they're told.  They already have no free will.  And we already have all the practical problems of owning slaves, in that we have to keep them fed, sheltered, safe, and comfortable so that they can do lots of work for us.  But our dwarves are better than slaves in one sense: They won't try to run away or start a revolt.

The big cost of slavery is political instability, as in the Spartans with the Helots, the Romans with Spartacus, the American Civil War, and even the Egyptians with Moses.  DF doesn't have any way to simulate that political instability.  And again: A border fortress under regular attack is the last place you would ever want significant numbers of slaves.

Putting slavery per these comments into DF wouldn't simulate real slavery at all, it would only simulate our rather bizarre modern conception of what slavery was like.

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>to scare themselves to sleep.</STRONG>

How do you scare yourself to sleep? Make yourself pass out from fright?

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by Tamren:
<STRONG>

Well thats the thing, if you add it to the game it affects everyone. We could enslave kobolds and goblins, but the reverse could happen just as easily.</STRONG>

What I meant was that if an entity has already enslaved goblins, they could enslave just anyone.

In response to the posts about humans being horrible for enslaving other humans (which I think is less horrible, I mean, keeping it in the family and so on...) the thread Rhesus Politics contains a link to an article about The Monkeysphere which explains how it works.

Given that the dwarven fortresses I hear about in the forums willingly lock out hungry and tired immigrants, I'm quite prepared to think them capable of using them as slave labor as well, given the opportunity. The only question is what Dunbar's number the dwarves have.

[takaratiki]

quote:Originally posted by Leonidas:
<STRONG>
The comments here seem to completely miss the point of slavery.  It isn't about sadism.  Slavers don't take joy in forcing slaves to do menial tasks.  That's all just modern historical revisionism.  Real slavery was about economics.  Slave owners didn't beat their slaves for fun any more than you would beat your car for fun.</STRONG>

I would take exception to this on several points. The thrust of the paragraph is dictated by an overly economic view of humanity. Human beings are not efficient little agents that act solely according to their economic self-interest. Cruelty was and is a salient feature of slavery for the simple reason that human beings in an unequal power dynamic tend to (not will or always) act in a cruel manner to those below them. There is a vast amount of historical data to reinforce this basic observation of our character in regards to slavery that does not require any more "historic revisionism" than picking up a primary text document and reading it.

The first point feeds a second. In the examples given of historical slavery that followed, the problem for these cultures of political instability via slave revolt, for instance, was an issue, but certainly not the sole or even primary issue of inherent concern. In the case of the Sparatans and American South in particular, the big area of concern was that dependence on slavery helped to shape a political, social, and military culture increasingly defined by slavery. If a vast swath of your production is based on slavery then the rest of your culture must follow suit. The more slaves, the more the need to control slaves, the more justifications and reinforcements to preserve the status quo, the more that other areas of culture, military and economics suffer as a result. Hard core dependency on slavery leads to an almost predictable calcification of the society with disasterous results when an outside threat emerges, be it military or economic.

For Dwarf Fort, particularly with the long term arc aiming towards Baronies and Kingdoms, slavery is a real option. Providing an internal stability threat from this force in the form of insurrections dictated by a sliding percentage chance linked to, say, number of slaves within a contiguous locale amplified if they all tend to be of the same race, would lock down military resources otherwise available for other things such as expeditions and should also have a destructive economic (smashing the goods) and social (increased social polarization) element. I'm for it.

[Vay'lon]

What about raping slaves?
They could bear half-breeds, which could then become a slave, or become a full citizen of society.

[alexxeno]

The only problem I have with now most people are suggesting slaves is making them do semi important work there you want super skilled dwarfs, I think they should be limited to things like hauling and collecting, also jobs like food gathering for there masters, basically make them do jobs like butlers would be doing(So hauling, cleaning onces it's implemented, things like that) . Also things like consort slaves, some dwarfs will have odd tastes and wants an elf.
It's either this or you let them gather skill experience like normal, possible make them learn slower but still allow them to increase there skills up to legendary.

[Craftling]

What about raping slaves?

THAT is dodgy!
Although there were slave concubines and the like.
But does dwarf fortress really need rape?

Anyways I was thinking that some nations might not worry about your slaving problem, or it may even please them making them more friendly with you and bringing slaves to trade

[Bryan Derksen]

Yeah, I'm thinking menial tasks like hauling should be the limit for slaves too. If you want more out of them, make them citizens.

Which leads to lots of interesting tradeoffs. There are goblin civilizations that wind up kidnapping themselves into extinction, so that eventually their dark towers are filled with just the descendants of those they 'adopted'. If you capture every goblin siege and put them to work in the mines, eventually they'll exceed your dwarven population. Is it really a dwarf fort any more then?

Also, all this talk of doing horrible things to your slaves brings up the obvious response - slave revolts. This could range from petty sabotage all the way up through to full scale rebellion. Are slaves worth the trouble if every once in a while some bitter former kobold thief unlocks a door, tosses a valuable item down the well, or sets loose one of the giant leopards stashed in the animal stockpile pending the arrival of a dungeon master? Would your military be up to the task if all of a sudden the goblin haulers trudging back and forth through your stockpiles all turned and murdered the nearest dwarf, then raced your soldiers to the weapon stockpiles to take up arms? Slaves shouldn't be like tamed animals, they should have a more complex psychology.

[Zangi]

I like the concept of Prisoners of Wars and Slaves.  Diplomatic effects it can have both ways.

And trading for captured dwarves...

Races with ethics which make slavery Acceptable... can have a slaving business.  They attack your fort, by ambush or whatever, with low-lethal weapons, like whips.  (Pain to knock dwarves into unconsciousness or stunning)...  unconscious/stunned dwarves(even military dwarves) can then be captured with a net wielding slaver.  (Like kidnappers...)

Grab 1 or 2 dwarves... then run like heck for the border!  With the non-carrying slavers intercepting any close by rescue attempt...

Would be great to be able to pay some sort of ransom to get kidnapped kids and captured dwarves back... prisoner exchange too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since Dwarven civilization... is by default... against Slavery...  it means you, your fortress can do it.  But, noone is gonna like it.  Your own civilization won't like it.  Give them the power to boycott trade with you.  Or something...  lower immigration too.  The less happier dwarves can also emigrate over this.  Once emigration is implemented...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone should be able to play their fortress as they see fit. (Who are you to dictate what I let my slaves do and don't do?  >.>)
If I wanted to, I can order that slaves only be able to do menial hauling work.  And someone else could decide that menial work includes butchery or fishing or farming.  And some other could decide that slaves can do the same sort of work as Dwarves do...  and that they can eventually gain citizenship/freedom...

Or just abuse/work em to death... (who in their right mind is going to give citizenship/freedom to elves?)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Should also be able to buy slaves from slave acceptable civilizations...  and be able to enslave your own/other dwarves... (big big immigration dropper and quick way to be hated/attacked by your home civilization, after failed diplomacy)

Slavery, a way to stop dwarves from emigrating... >.>  A nice way to piss off their friends and relatives too...

Declaration of Independence from home civilization... over slavery rights. 

And multi-race fort...  I want.

[Servant Corps]

You know, don't slavery already exist in DF?

And since civs of the same race usually don't go to war, it usually means that people of other races are enslaved. It's going to be pretty hard to argue that a drawf should let his pet elf go free, especially with all the hatred the DF races have against each other. You need some tolerance of other races before you can seriously think about slavery.

Come to think of it, you'll need some sort of tolerance to even have slaves as opposed to committing genocide.

[Zangi]

Slaves are not common enough... and you can't make it happen in dwarf mode.  Simply prisoners who do jack...

The way races/civilizations are handled now... in world gen, has more of an ethic based influence then it is about economy.  Slavery is mainly used for economic benefit...  World gen, economics has no bearing or influence whatsoever...  from what I understand anyways.

I think I've only ever seen 1 slave from a world gen summary...  and I've made multiple worlds.  I'm hoping it gets expanded on later...

[Bunny]

If slavery gets implemented (which would be most awesome), slaves could be a commodity for nobles much in the same way as furniture and bigger rooms is.  For example; a mayor should not have a need to own a slave, and neither should philosophers, clerks etc... but a baron/baroness, a dungeon master, or a duke should want slaves.  A baron could want say, 1-2 personal slaves that could be assigned to them via the same screen that assigns war and hunting dogs.  A duke could demand 3-4 slaves.

This would make the slavery element more interesting for people who do not want to make use of slaves for moral reasons; at the moment, a noble demands some piece of tatt that can be whipped up in 5 minutes; you just give it to him.  If it is something you don't have material for, you get rid of the noble.  But if a noble demands x-number of personal slaves, you have to make a choice between your morals, the desires of your dwarves, or killing off a noble.

Of course, for those who consider slavery in DF entirely inappropriate, the option to disable slavery in the init.txt would be essential.

Lessee...

Capture enemies during battle, "tame" them in the same way you tame caged animals... maybe train them once tamed using a similar room to the kennels, to be trained as haulers, pit fighters, personal servants etc, cleaners etc... then assign them to either a slaver dwarf (job type) or to a noble, or just chain/cage them up somewhere.

Noble dwarves and dwarven slavers could either be kind or cruel to slaves, based on personality type; a noble with a personal servant could develop a friendship with the slave over time.  If that happens, they would get additional unhappy thoughts over the death/wounding/loss of the slave than just "damage to property"; although maybe they would get a happy thought if the slave escaped?

Hmmm...