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[Artzbacher]

I came up with this idea when I made some rough plans on how to build a smoothly running, basic fortress without too many potash makers running around and putting their noses in other dwarves business. I didn't want to tangle with the population cap since I consider that cheating, and simply sacrificing the peasants to Armok would prove to demanding since I would need to fill the ground with coffins. Instead, unwanted, sub-par immigrants get their profession tag changed to "scum" and are denied access to the fortress. Then I build a ghetto for them.

So, theoretically:

I seal off the land surrounding my fortress (it's more a tower than a fortress. 7 z-levels high, each floor a grand bedroom for my original dwarves). I give the scum some basic plump helmet farms, some workshops and a meeting area. Obviously the conditions in the ghetto are poor. This way I keep the scum alive long enough to make a decent amount of coffins. And since entrance to the ghetto is sealed off with a bridge there aren't many things there to hurt them. Besides the tantrum spirals of course,
and they should bring much enjoyment to my 3 hammersquads, who are prone to excessive violence.

Now, I wouldn't want too many of the scum dying at the same time. I would rather have a steady but gentle stream of tantrum spiral deaths. This means I have to give the scum some bare necessities in order not to rampage too hard. Would plump helmets and booze be enough for the scum to slowly succumb to suicide and murder, or should I take more things into consideration? If I send in my hammerdwarves when things get out of hand, would them killing the enraged dwarves be enough to re-establish temporary peace? Also, scum who prove themselves in the ongoing tantrum spiral olympics will of course gain access to the military and live a life of luxury.

[Mysteriousbluepuppet]

Sounds like a spartan way to choose your millitary.

[twilightdusk]

Make sure to make the entrance a burrow, so you can lower the bridge, assign new migrants to the burrow (assigning ones that have useful skills to a different burrow with your good dwarves), then raise the bridge and unassign them from the burrow, letting them wander into the ghetto.

Of course, any ghetto residents who attempt to make a run for it while the bridge is down will become, without a moment's hesitation, target practice for your archers. Or the goblin archers, whichever.

[Artzbacher]

Yeah! And my soldiers will all be hardened tantrum veterans. Upon first gaining access to a grand bedroom, lavish meals and a personal statue garden I figure they'll drop the tantrum rage and get ecstatic in no time, even with their friends dead or miserable in the ghetto.

Also, I could use the scum for slave labor, having them produce mechanics and crafts for trading. The most valuable scum would of course be the masons, who are tagged as "funeral directors". They produce coffins and bury the mutilated dead.

[twilightdusk]

If they have useful craft skills, they should be put with your good dwarves and kept happy. The way I see it, scum labor should be used for the following:

1. Raw material collection (common stones and wood, you want to trust any valuable stone to your legendary, trusted miners. Have two entrances to your mine, one from the ghetto, one from the fortress, only one open at a time, and make sure the two groups don't intermingle)
2. Items where quality doesn't matter (you never have enough barrels or bins, and some things that need mechanisms don't care about quality.)
3. Brute force hauling (from the mine, to an area where your good dwarves can collect the stone more easily)
4. Cavern exploration.

[Fishbulb]

I'm getting one of those things. A headache with pictures.

The unwanted immigrants ("Novice dyer," you've got to be kidding) get assigned to a burrow where they eat vermin and drink stagnant pond water and where their only purpose in life is to carve their own coffins.

It's dark. I like it.

[Scaraban]

I'm getting one of those things. A headache with pictures.

The unwanted immigrants ("Novice dyer," you've got to be kidding) get assigned to a burrow where they eat vermin and drink stagnant pond water and where their only purpose in life is to carve their own coffins.

It's dark. I like it.

I believe what you are referring to is a thought? 

[parlor_tricks]

This is awesome -

Its like ancient medieval castles and cities - a wall of serfs huddling in the cold mud thatched village houses, with straw and mud being the decorations for their houses.

And on the inside palatial dwarf palaces with soaring architecture and nobles mandating punishments, while  drinking wine out of masterwork goblets and sleeping in masterwork beds.

The military keeps the peace when things go out of hand, beating the serfs when they feel like it. (hammerer! you have a role here!)

They also serve as cannon fodder for the main castle when goblins siege, anyone who survives the horrors becomes immune to sorrow/legendary and deserving of entry into the halls of decadence.


- Sometimes i look upon dwarf fortress and think: "If we are made in Gods image, then DF explains a lot about the real world..."

[Artzbacher]

Exactly! Medieval cruelty FTW! I imagine the scum falling in heaps on the ground where they have failed to catch vermin to eat, dying with the  luxury 7-tower as their last sight... Oh, and the tantrums are really uprisings, protests and class wars! Little do the scum know that their best fighters are soon to stab them in the back, literally, since they will be drafted and paid by the cruel 7.
 
Construction have begun, and the fortress, as well as the scum ghetto, have been sealed off with two very large rectangular moats. I figure the scum will do most of their living in the outside. Now to separate the already too big population!

Soon the workshops, smelters and engravers will be busy. I hope to attract some nobles. They will live with the scum. But I also feel the need to taunt them somehow before they pass away. Perhaps a guided tour inside the 7-tower would do, and a final luxury meal, so that the following starvation will seem even worse in contrast.

[Pilsu]

Turn a guardsman or two into an enemy of the civilization by having them slaughter the dwarven caravan. You can then have them patrol the premises, killing everyone who gets near. Archers probably work better since patrols are likely to kill each other when they cross paths.

[Psieye]

Just be aware, the rate of immigrants coming in is dependent on your actions to an extent. If there's a constant stream of death, you will get less immigrants so be prepared to adjust your scum ghetto conditions accordingly.

[Encased in burning magma]

If you want to consider alternative forms of migrant disposal: my favorite one is someone who had migrants wrestle near a pit, survivor goes in; my method is to have their meeting area under a repeating bridge.

[Artzbacher]

Thank you everyone for the tips!

The fortress is proving to be much fun. I just had an elf siege, but managed to save a promising immigrant woodburner and a soon-to-be broker.

The scum got their first tantrum spiral rather quickly since I forgot to supply them with plump helmet spawn. The tantrum spam made me tired of the present scum population, so I "forgot" to raise the bridge leading to the ghetto, letting the elves in. The tantrum dwarves managed to kill three elves, but now the scum is being chased about, murderer and maimed by the remaining elves. I haven't got a militia yet, but the danger room is on it's way.

Oh, and I have locked away the elves in the ghetto. I now have an elf ghetto, and a confused berserker dwarf running around in the moat. Ha ha.

[Aner-Dyfan]

I'd recommend changing their nicknames to Scum and their profession to Useless. "The Useless 'Scum' is tantruming" ah good times good times.

[Qwernt]

HHmmm... Can you make a wooden pick?  I know wooden axes can chop. 
I would lean toward a very simple implementation, in the castle vs outside the castle.  IE the scum live outside the walls and do the manual labor.  They mine (poorly, but they is an accurate reflection) and chop down trees.  They carry these resources to a dump place hole which gets it to the citizens.  Note, having the farms with the scums would reflect real life better, but would cancel much of the scum starvation, and allow for a spiral to starve the noble, so farming and butchering become noble professions, and you can dump the scraps to the masses (change bisquit to cake and drop 1 per year or something ;^).
I think you need to not have a moat, so there is a chance that the scum could have an uprising, destroy the bridge, get in and have a bit of a revolution attempt (assuming tantrumming dwarves will leave their burrow).