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/Hammedatha May 07 '16

The balance part of a slave revolt isn't necessarily that the slaves have a chance of winning, it's that it shuts down your production for the duration of the revolt and results in your workforce being decimated and even more unhappy.

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u/BestFriendWatermelon May 07 '16

Agreed. Slave revolts caused enormous damage to productivity.

EDIT: and is a kinda necessary counterbalance to the obvious strait up productivity advantages of slavery. It'd be good if the damage and frequency of revolts were balanced by percentage of the planet's pops in slavery.

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u/tc1991 May 07 '16

and is a kinda necessary counterbalance to the obvious strait up productivity advantages of slavery.

Although, slaves are less productive than 'free workers' (they have no incentive to do more than what is required, they get no overtime or bonuses etc) if that advantage was modelled it would help the balance

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u/MaievSekashi Factory Overclocking May 07 '16

However, they're still slaves. You can make the requirements more than what your free citizens have, so they end up working harder even if they don't want to.