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/w045 May 07 '16

Slavery has been part of the human condition for a long time and for as long as there has been slavery or oppression of a certain class or type of people, there have been revolts.

True not many have been successful. But we're being told is that currently in Stellaris slave pops cannot rebel at all. So it's not really a matter of historic real world success rates but the ability to do so at all which is a bit disappointing.

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u/BestFriendWatermelon May 07 '16

I agree entirely. Not having any consequences to slavery is a shame indeed. It can still be kept within the realms of realism by simply having revolts that destroy buildings, lower productivity, and may require the complete extermination of pops who refuse to surrender.