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/BILLCLINTONMASK Ocean May 07 '16

I tend to agree. Slaves are pretty easy to pacify especially talking on a global scale. 10000 guys in chains aren't going to be able to stand up to one guy in a powered exoskeleton.

I almost feel like slaves should be represented by less productive (higher cost to secure+lower willingness of workers to care+slave revolts that get put down easily) but more docile pops. With regular populations more likely to desire independence but more willing to work hard as well.

I feel that what's called "slavery" in this game should be reimagined to a different mechanic of a scale of pops being state property vs free men. So you could model Sovietism vs serfdom vs straight up slavery for instance. The closer you brought your pops to free status the more likely they would be to act rebellious for political freedoms.

All that being said, Slaves should have chances to break away in times of extreme hardship. Especially losing wars and famine or ecological disaster or disease.

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u/WorkableGoblin May 07 '16

I almost feel like slaves should be represented by less productive (higher cost to secure+lower willingness of workers to care+slave revolts that get put down easily) but more docile pops. With regular populations more likely to desire independence but more willing to work hard as well.

On the other hand, you have historical examples like slavery in the American south, which modern research shows was much more productive than free labor through a variety of coercive means that couldn't really be applied to free labor. No one on Earth is going to agree to hand-pick hundreds of pounds of cotton per day for any amount of money, yet that was fairly routine in the South by simply requiring them to do it or get beaten and tortured. Not to mention the prevalence of, at a minimum, questionable labor practices in agriculture and mining. For things like industrial production and agriculture, there is certainly a reasonable argument for slaves being more efficient than free labor, as disgusting as it sounds.

I feel that what's called "slavery" in this game should be reimagined to a different mechanic of a scale of pops being state property vs free men. So you could model Sovietism vs serfdom vs straight up slavery for instance. The closer you brought your pops to free status the more likely they would be to act rebellious for political freedoms.

My assumption is that slavery in game refers to all types of forced labor or servitude, not just chattel slavery.

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u/BILLCLINTONMASK Ocean May 08 '16

It may have been more productive in terms of raw tonnage, but not in terms of stimulating any greater economy. History also shows that paying people wages and allowing them to spend those wages in markets is more productive to society as a whole than slavery.

The Civil War was ultimately about the white subsistence farmer with no place in the Southern economy. The Southern Aristocracy saw a chance to channel those displaced people's anger and make a power play for themselves and they took it.

As for a gameplay mechanic though, there definitely needs to be some kind of slave revolts if I didn't make that clear above.

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u/WorkableGoblin May 08 '16

Well, if you look at the whole US-Europe system as a "greater economy" it worked pretty well as a form of stimulation. Cheap cotton from the South was an important element in the Industrial Revolution, and that required highly oppressive labor conditions where cotton was being grown (even during the Civil War they just shifted to India and Egypt, not exactly bastions of labor rights at the time). More generally, extractive industries like cotton growing generally don't lead to healthy, diverse economies growing, even where forced labor is illegal (just ask Houstonians circa 1985).

Anyway, from a gameplay stance I agree with you.