Intergalactic Summit

I came upon this question in one of the recent threads, and it sort of stuck. There are threads in this forum about what would you do if left alone for a day, or what games you play, so why not: what would you do with forty thousand slaves?

My personal answer is: I would take a week or two to select those I deem fit and the most loyal to me as their saviour to crew my ships and planetside installations. Their opinion counts, of course. That would be 150, maybe up to 500 people. They would be freed, paid and treated as they deserve, depending on their character, history and abilities.

The rest would be asked if there are volunteers to permanently settle in Origin, the home wormhole system of my current corporation. All volunteers would be then transferred to the baseliner system authorities through Saede Riordan.

(I could, of course, establish my own small colony with that number of people, maybe using one of the PI outposts as its core. But it'd be a killer management hassle, so... no.)

The rest would be shipped to Rens and given over to the Tribes, probably ending up in a camp or a slum of some sort.

Now, it's your turn, dear reader. What would you do with forty thousand slaves?

And no, Nauplius is not eligible to answer: he'll sacrifice them all to the Red God anyway.

Given the relative disparity in wealth between even the poorest capsuleers and the upper classes of baseliner society...

40,000 of them? Give them each a million ISK and tell them to enjoy their lives.

Free, finance education and care... then aid in seeking employment and full Federal citizenship. Additionally, attempt to obtain information on previous holders for possible punitive action.

Really depends.

Are they or are they not Vitoxin-infected? If they are, just send them to the Republic or anyone with treatment facilities.

If not, well, depends on their background. If they were abducted from a colony somewhere and have some kind of useful skill and can join the workforce immediately, I see if they are interested in joining my body of staff. Otherwise, send them into the Republic or any of the closest refugee camps or something.

Yes, no small number of crew in colonies under my management were all either war refugees or liberated first-generation slaves with the aforementioned background. I do not take in too many of them however, simply because:

1. Those are all industrial colonies and they aren't supposed to be *living* there long-term.
2. They all have homes in stations or elsewhere. Hell, I encourage them to set up roots elsewhere and if they haven't already, use their income and their downtime to find a place to settle down.

I will not take in any slaves of the second-generation or up, because frankly, I do not have the facilities to re-educate or rehabilitate them. First generation slaves, namely, slaves who were once free-men abducted by maleficent organisations or sold by their families or communities (yes, things like this still happen, especially in border regions or the seedier parts of high-sec) know what freedom is and, with some work, can be rehabilitated without too much deep-seated psychological effects. However, second generation slaves onwards are hard to work with. First, they don't even know what freedom is, and have a hard time adjusting to the notion of 'doing things for your own sake'. Not to mention they are deeply indoctrinated to be slaves. It takes alot of time and effort to erase this programming.

Usually, a story of unrequited love tugs at my heart at least a little.

This time, not so much.

We would save them.



Interpret that however you will.

Did a little math.

For each colony I run, I need:

4 Power Engineers
4 Hangar Operators
8 Civic Engineers
54 Automation Engineers
10 Launchpad workers
5 Flight controllers
3 in Admin
4 MTAC Operators
14 Drone Operators
2 Planetside Pilots
5 Janitors
5 Med Techs
100 Support Staff
4 Communications technicians
6 Chefs

Total per colony is 228 personnel. I run 5 colonies so total is 1140 personnel.

Then we discuss stationside. I need:

2 Programmers
20 Communications technicians
4 MTAC Operators
1 Power Engineer
1 Drone Operator
1 Automations Engineer
1 Starship architect
100 Support Staff/Technician
2 Janitors
4 Med Techs
4 Hangar Operators
4 Flight Controllers
6 Chefs

That means 150 personnel.

Total personnel I will need is 1290.

Assuming that I'm taking all of these from the 40,000 slaves, I'm think I will have to turn away 38,710 slaves.

Seriously. 40,000 is about the population of a Skarkon slums. I can't employ all of them and will need to have them relocated to the Aurora Arcology to sort out. I'm not even sure if the Republic will simply just take in 40,000 slaves. Well, they probably will considering that 40,000 is pistachio nuts compared to what they took in when the late Empress decided to emancipate slaves, but moving 40,000 slaves through Federation territory and into Republic territory and having to explain to customs that I'm not a trafficker? Aurora Arcology is much closer and requires a deal fewer paperwork.

This is why I say just give them each a million ISK. As baseliners, they're more or less set for life, and it's more or less pocket lint.

Nope. I don't expect them all to thrive. But I do expect that a million ISK, dirtside, will buy them a lot of room for error - and that's a hell of a lot more than I can give them.



Oh. Uhm...

Sorry?

Isn't slavery illegal in the State?

Wouldn't that mean you're an accessory to a crime? I mean, completely ignoring the 'cold-blooded murder of 40,000 non-combatants' angle.

Also, you're associating with Federation and allied assets right now. Should you take the same hard stance regarding your own life?

And finally: Are you sure you're not Diana Kim?