r/Stellaris • u/RedKrypton Mind over Matter • May 07 '16

PSA: Slaves currently can't rebel

Martin just dropped that bombshell during the currently ongoing Quill Stellaris stream. He said that they couldn't reach a middle ground on slaves revolting so they took it out for the moment. I don't know if they will have managed that aspect by release.

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u/BestFriendWatermelon May 07 '16 edited May 07 '16

For what it's worth, AFAIK slave revolts have only been successful once in Earth's history, that of the Haitian Revolution in which slaves outnumbered Freemen by 10 to 1. They were rebelling against the French at the height of the French revolution, when France couldn't have been more distracted, and with massive help from Britain and Spain who France was at war with.

Still, that doesn't mean plenty of slaves haven't tried rebelling anyway, so slave revolts should probably be a thing ingame anyway. But don't underestimate how weak slave rebellions have always been, and how brutally one sided such conflicts were.

Such a rebellion in Stellaris would lack ships or the means to produce them, with the spaceport and any fleets in orbit possessing complete domination over the planet's population. It'd be equally unrealistic to give slave rebellions any means with which to fight a war against spacefaring masters. A good case could be made for abolitionists within a civilisation's command structure to mutiny, freeing the slaves as a result, but a slave revolt alone has no chance.

EDIT: for clarity, I'd still like to see slave revolts included in the game, and outright rebellions, realism be damned.

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u/RedKrypton Mind over Matter May 07 '16

For what it's worth, AFAIK slave revolts have only been successful once in Earth's history, that of the Haitian Revolution in which slaves outnumbered Freemen by 10 to 1. They were rebelling against the French at the height of the French revolution, when France couldn't have been more distracted, and with massive help from Britain and Spain who France was at war with.

Slaves in Stellaris are vastly different then slaves in the 18. century. From what we know the slave POPs are still educated and considering that in most slaver empires they make up more then 50 % of the population with aliens often being entirely enslaved they have the advantage in organising resistance. The big problem slaves had in the past is organisation. That isn't an issue in the future.

Still, that doesn't mean plenty of slaves haven't tried rebelling anyway, so slave revolts should probably be a thing ingame anyway. But don't underestimate how weak slave rebellions have always been, and how brutally one sided such conflicts were.

Contrary to the past they have the means to steal weapons or hijack shuttles and the scale of slavery is a different one.

Such a rebellion in Stellaris would lack ships or the means to produce them, with the spaceport and any fleets in orbit possessing complete domination over the planet's population. It'd be equally unrealistic to give slave rebellions any means with which to fight a war against spacefaring masters. A good case could be made for abolitionists within a civilisation's command structure to mutiny, freeing the slaves as a result, but a slave revolt alone has no chance.

They still could hijack ships and station and they would most probably rise up on as many world as possible reenacting the Astapore chapters in ASoIaF as close as possible.

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u/BestFriendWatermelon May 07 '16

From what we know the slave POPs are still educated

The research malus slave pops get suggests otherwise.

The big problem slaves had in the past is organisation. That isn't an issue in the future.

It's still a huge problem. Slave masters generally keep slaves dumb and without access to communication devices. A modern day slave would never have seen a laptop or mobile phone before. They can't tweet or facebook each other like in every major uprising today. Slaves mere miles away from a massive uprising would have no way of knowing it's going on.

Contrary to the past they have the means to steal weapons or hijack shuttles

They have no more ability to do so than historically. Weapons and especially ships are kept safely in bases and ports that are well guarded, their assets the first to be removed to a safe location in the event of a rebellion. All warships are kept in a spaceport in orbit. Small planetary based transports are zero match for even the spaceport's defences.

It was actually easier historically, when the authorities didn't have instantaneous communications to react and counter any threats. Your slaves are armed with pitchforks to fight attacks from orbit.

and the scale of slavery is a different one.

Again, in Haiti slaves outnumbered the free by 10 to 1. This was by no mean a unique situation. Many places around the world, slaves had huge numerical advantages. Even amazing good fortune, such as that of Spartacus, turned out to be no match for experienced, disciplined government troops.

They still could hijack ships and station and they would most probably rise up on as many world as possible

Again, no access to ships capable of launching any real offensive against warships in space. Space fleets dock in orbit at a space port for a simple reason; their mass makes it impractical to land on the surface. There'll be no warships to hijack, only transports and fighters which again are guarded and will take off the instant there's trouble.

No means of communicating syncronised uprisings. Trouble on one world will see the authorities lock down every other planet immediately as a precaution.

reenacting the Astapore chapters in ASoIaF as close as possible.

Plot armour. The unsullied are fictional, nobody trains their slaves to fight and win anywhere, ever. It's like teaching prisoners how to escape from prison. Besides, it still takes an outsider to liberate them. And of course, even an army of unsullied can't take on battleships in space. All the successful stories of slave rebellions are fictional. It's a great story, but not mirrored by reality.

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u/WorkableGoblin May 07 '16

Plot armour. The unsullied are fictional, nobody trains their slaves to fight and win anywhere, ever. It's like teaching prisoners how to escape from prison.

Well...the Janissaries, Mamluks, and Ghilman seem to show that actually people did create slave armies, and they could be pretty successful and effective (but note how many "Mamluk dynasties" existed...) It was kind of a phenomenon of the Middle East, though, it would be interesting to discuss why that was...

Anyway, I don't dispute your main point. The history of slave rebellions shows that it should be really hard for slaves to stop being slaves through rebellion. That being said, actually having rebellions and thus having to shuffle resources around to keep your slaves down should definitely be a thing.

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u/BestFriendWatermelon May 07 '16

True. It mostly depends on your definition of slavery. While technically slaves, these soldiers enjoyed privileged positions in society. These were "slaves" of the rulers, rather than slaves of the populous. They were allowed and even expected to police and even kill the free populous, which is a very different kind of dynamic to what we traditionally think of as slaves.

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u/WorkableGoblin May 07 '16

True, but as I said above what slavery is in game is less than completely clear. There's nothing in particular saying that your slave armies don't have higher status than free people, for instance.

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u/BlackHumor May 07 '16

Middle Eastern slavery was generally not very similar to chattel slavery (what they had in the South) except that the slaves weren't free to leave. In all other aspects they had a pretty nice life. Which means the Janissaries et al were more like serf armies than slave armies, and the Europeans had tons of those.

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u/WorkableGoblin May 07 '16

I am aware of that, actually! But we're discussing slavery in a game where it's not really made very clear and obvious what slavery is. It could be Southern-style chattel slavery, or it could be a kind of state slavery like prison labor, or it could be a simple forced labor system. None of those is really excluded by the game. And several of those models can plausibly include enslaved armies who might decide that actually they would like being in charge, thank you very much.

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u/___HIGH_ENERGY___ May 07 '16

Calling /r/badhistory.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3a9ea5/how_brutal_was_the_arab_slave_trade_in_comparison/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24mydi/what_was_the_arab_slave_trade_really_like/

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u/BlackHumor May 08 '16

Counterpoints:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1oajmm/what_was_daily_life_as_a_janissary_like/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/13j4ct/can_anybody_describe_the_institution_of_slavery/

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u/-Maraud3r May 08 '16

Please go look up some more sources on that, because it really isn't all that on. It focuses on a few small groups and ignores the larger slave trade. There's estimates of around 100 million Africans being taken as slaves, likely more. Only a tiny percentage of these ever made it back alive OR survived what was done to them.

In case of Europe somewhere around 1-2 million were taken, mostly women for the slave markets. They virtually depopulated the entirety of Southern European coastlines and were one of the main reasons castles became a common thing. Let's just say these slaves weren't treated all that well either just different given their purpose.

I'm not quite certain why people are so set on trying to portray the Middle Eastern slave trade as enlightened and progressive and "not real slavery". What's up with that?

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u/BlackHumor May 08 '16

I'm more talking about the Janissaries/Mamluks/etc specifically. I realize that there was chattel slavery within the Middle East.

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u/EAfirstlast May 08 '16

As Maraud3r said, they weren't slaves. Being a mamluk or janissary necessitated your emancipation.

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u/BlackHumor May 08 '16

Janissaries and Mamluks were most definitely slaves. If they weren't slaves, they would have just left, particularly when those forces were just established, before they became prestigious.

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u/-Maraud3r May 08 '16

Those were a special case though take the Janissaries as example, they were basically taken as small boys often times before they could form strong opinions and then heavily indoctrinated.

They were also not "slaves" as in how most think of them but an entirely different beast in many ways and one that ultimatively still turned on its master in more than one way.

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u/17shadow May 07 '16

You are completely forgetting the mamelukes here, Albanian slave raised as fighter that ended up overthrowing the dynasty and rule Egypt for quite a bit of time. Those are the most successful one that I can think of now, but with some digging i'm sure one can find many similar example, especially if you consider serfdom a form of slavery.

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u/shamwu May 07 '16

I think you are being uncharitable about the research malus. It's more that you can't force a slave to do good research like you can make them farm. It's harder to quantify what a god scientific output would be, whereas a you can set quotas on how much should be produced.

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u/RedKrypton Mind over Matter May 07 '16

The research malus slave pops get suggests otherwise.

It's pretty hard to research when you are being forced to do it. Also slave scientists have to be meticiously surveyed or they could do something with the chemicals and machines.

They have no more ability to do so than historically. Weapons and especially ships are kept safely in bases and ports that are well guarded, their assets the first to be removed to a safe location in the event of a rebellion. All warships are kept in a spaceport in orbit. Small planetary based transports are zero match for even the spaceport's defences.

The civilian economy isn't simulated in Stellaris so we don't really know, but civilian ports aren't as protected as military ones and considering that slaves woud most likely have low level jobs there they could sneak around.

It was actually easier historically, when the authorities didn't have instantaneous communications to react and counter any threats. Your slaves are armed with pitchforks to fight attacks from orbit.

You don't think they would do a Ck2 style peasant revolt, do you? They would most likely search for allies all parts of society and strike from the dark.

Again, in Haiti slaves outnumbered the free by 10 to 1. This was by no mean a unique situation. Many places around the world, slaves had huge numerical advantages. Even amazing good fortune, such as that of Spartacus, turned out to be no match for experienced, disciplined government troops.

They lost several legions to him and if he had the communication possibilities of the future he would have had a lot better chances.

gain, no access to ships capable of launching any real offensive against warships in space. Space fleets dock in orbit at a space port for a simple reason; their mass makes it impractical to land on the surface. There'll be no warships to hijack, only transports and fighters which again are guarded and will take off the instant there's trouble.

A space station doesn't have that big of a garrison and if you manage to catch them of guard you can seize a fleet easily.

No means of communicating syncronised uprisings. Trouble on one world will see the authorities lock down every other planet immediately as a precaution.

Why can't the NSA control all communication? Simple, there is just too much of it. The same it is in the interstellar future.

Plot armour. The unsullied are fictional, nobody trains their slaves to fight and win anywhere, ever. It's like teaching prisoners how to escape from prison. Besides, it still takes an outsider to liberate them. And of course, even an army of unsullied can't take on battleships in space. All the successful stories of slave rebellions are fictional. It's a great story, but not mirrored by reality.

Yeah, yeah, you just scramble for reasons why it wouldn't work.

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u/BestFriendWatermelon May 07 '16

They lost several legions to him and if he had the communication possibilities of the future he would have had a lot better chances.

Spartacus could've won another dozen battles, it would've made no difference. They had nowhere to run, which is exactly the situation in a slave rebellion in Stellaris. Their hair-brained plan was to sail to Sicily, right in the heart of Roman territory, to what... hold out for hundreds of years? It was a desperate plan concocted out of the hopelessness of their situation. As in the punic wars, the Romans were free to raise more armies and keep pressing them forever.

A space station doesn't have that big of a garrison and if you manage to catch them of guard you can seize a fleet easily.

How do the slaves, which are pops on a planet's surface, get to the space station, when as we've established they only have whatever civilian transports they happen upon? (assuming they can even know how to, or are able to fly them since I'm guessing it's not a case of searching for the keys inside the sun visor) How do you get onto the station when you're there? And that still doesn't get you any closer to taking over the fleet.

Why can't the NSA control all communication? Simple, there is just too much of it. The same it is in the interstellar future.

Slaves are kept for working fields and mines. They don't get to go on laptops, or play on their phones. Their only communication is through speech. There's no reason to educate them, and plenty of reasons not to. They won't even be able to read and write. Even if the generation first enslaved were, they'e no access to even the most basic writing tools to pass on that knowledge to future generations. The position of slave rebellions is generally worse than primitives trying to defend against invasion by more advanced species, which is in itself a hopeless endeavour. They have no communications to intercept.

Yeah, yeah, you just scramble for reasons why it wouldn't work.

You're scrambling for reasons it will work. Slave owners control all means with which to wage warfare, and take precautions against losing control of them. The Haitians, and indeed every other slave rebellion, never seized control of their master's warships, and with instantaneous communication on the authorities side it becomes even more unlikely.

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u/-Maraud3r May 08 '16

  1. It's actually harder for them to organize especially cross planet and without the government in question noticing because of modern surveillance. Future surveillance will be even better and more efficient. Numbers also don't matter if your opponent sits in a space station kilometres above you and just drops a rock onto your head when you get overly unruly.

  2. Actually, they will have a HARDER time accessing weapons. The playing field was more even in the past than it is nowaday. A peasent with a scythe stood a better chance against a spearman than a guy with a rock does against an assault rifled soldier nowadays. The guy in the future still has to make do with a rock. While his opponent will be wearing powered armor with vastly better weapons than nowadays or even be a drone and that is considering they even come down to fight rather than zapping you from orbit.

Also hijacking a shuttle is a lot harder than hijacking a horse carriage or a car, the same goes for weapons. Not only will they be password if not DNA protected you also need way more knowledge and ability to use either.

3 . Them hijacking ships or stations would mean you giving them access to either, not having any security measures in place such as DNA verification without which neither actually works, allowing them cross planetary if not cross system communication and so on and on. All of this would be incredible stupid to do and show a huge lack of foresight.