Oolite Bulletins

Totally agree - If I were writing the code I would probably have industrial systems favoring emancipation and agricultural systems opposing or at least not supporting it. Slavery is mostly closely tied to economics and the politics of the government, whatever its form, flow from there. As always, follow the money.

Disembodied wrote:

(and, in the case of the Brotherhood, probably at least semi-illegal).

Most governments would view the 'Sparticans' as little better than pirates.

Disembodied wrote:

PS: "Emancipation Station" would be a good nickname, I think, for one of these stops on what could be, in certain systems anyway, an analogue of the US antebellum "underground railroad". If there were lobsters involved it could be a Crustacean Emancipation Station!

Ouch, that joke hurt.

Cmdr James wrote:

It doesnt really matter what we think Confederacy means, the legal systems are the same on all worlds (possibly not Anarchies?) and are enforced by GalCorp arent they?

Not at all. The Galactic Cooperative of Worlds in no way moderates or even oversees the govenance of any particular world. All GalCop essentially does is ensure the (relative) safety of traders between worlds by supplying the Galactic Police and Navy, as well as improving the economic strength of the member systems by supplying space stations and Witchspace Beacons which allow inward transit for 'alien' traders. The member systems are left to devise their own governments and their own legal systems, although the laws of the world do not have any standing on the stations. This is because, although staffed in the majority by residents of the system, the station is still the property of GalCop and thus is subject to GalCop laws.

This is why, even in Anarchy systems, launching from the station with illegal goods affects your legal status.

Captain Hesperus

matt634 wrote:

it might be helpful not to resort to any historical or existing states on earth that bear the attribute "confederate" in their names

It would indeed... however, that's unrealistic. Human nature is to fill in the blanks with known information (historical or existing). It obviously applies when we think about Communist systems - quite SOVIET aren't they?

Indeed, they are, but that's fine with me. The Soviet Union was the first communist state, and very influential on top of that. So its corporate design was (and continues to be) influential on other communist nations. And why shouldn't even communist systems in the 34th century be reminiscent to that?

For me, and this could entirely be an American perspective, confederacies - admittedly a form of democracy even on earth - don't equate well with the emancipation of slaves.

I agree with you - but only in the point that this is an American perspective. Citizens of Switzerland (full official name: Confoederatio Helvetica = Swiss Confederation) would probably not agree.

As a form of government (and this is its use in Oolite/Elite; it denotes a certain form or style of government, not an ideology of pro- or anti-slavery) a confederacy or confederation simply is defined as an "association of sovereign states". No presently existing state on earth matches this definition as being built of sovereign states. However there are a couple of quite highly de-centralized federal states (like Switzerland or for instance Canada). Or you could say that the European Union, if it finally gets a constitution of its own, will be a confederation. To none of these confederations promotion of slavery is in any way constituting (quite the opposite, I would say).

matt634 wrote:

Totally agree - If I were writing the code I would probably have industrial systems favoring emancipation and agricultural systems opposing or at least not supporting it. Slavery is mostly closely tied to economics and the politics of the government, whatever its form, flow from there. As always, follow the money.

Well, I think that's part of the story, certainly, but social/cultural attitudes play a big part too. All these factors feed into each other, of course: there's no one "master control" of a society which overrides the rest!

On that basis, I would argue that Oolite Democracies (which I thinbk we have to interpret as true, i.e. universal suffrage, democracies, and not pseudo-democracies like ancient Athens or post-Revolutionary America) would be culturally opposed to slavery, whether they were agricultural or industrial. On that basis I would also argue for all Oolite Confederacies to be anti-slavery, but would be happy to split this into pro-slavery Agricultural worlds and anti-slavery Industrial ones. As for the rest, well:

Corporate States would be pro-"market forces", and would be ideologically opposed to interfering in the buying and selling of anything, so they would have no objection to slavery. Communist worlds probably wouldn't call it "slavery", and might be opposed to the trade in slaves, but they would certainly make use of slave labour. Dictatorships are inherently hierarchical and unequal, as are Feudal planets, so they'd both be up for it. And Multi-Government and Anarchy worlds would just be too disorganised to form any coherent opinion.

Ultimately, though, the prime objective here would be to make an entertaining OXP: the explanations come after! We'd need to decide what made for the best player experience: how many chances for players to free captured slaves do we want to provide? Let's you're cruising in to a Feudal system, and you off some pirates and scoop up a couple of cargo cannisters of slaves. If you continue all the way into the station, you're left with a dilemma: do you sell them there, and feel bad, or do you launch with them in your hold, getting a bad legal rating in the process, and fly on to the nearest system with an Amnesty station in it?

I think this is a problem: I think sometimes players will do "the right thing": other times, though -- if they're in the middle of a timed delivery, say -- they won't, and they'll feel bad, and might start to resent the OXP. In this form the OXP would run the risk of being either an irritant or just an occasional thing, or both.

What might be better is if players first have to sign up to Amnesty -- even purchasing an Amnesty licence (this doesn't have to be expensive but they've got to get their funding from somewhere! 100Cr, to any pilot rated "Competent" and above, with a Clean legal record, say). Once the players acquire a license, when they dock anywhere with slaves in the hold (i.e. not scooped escape pods but actual in-the-can slaves) the slaves are transformed into an equal tonnage of "liberated slaves", a special cargo that can only be disposed of at an Amnesty station. There is still a cost to the player here, in that his hold will start to fill up with liberated slaves; but there are no legal penalties incurred for launching with slaves on board.

Carrying a cargo of liberated slaves could also attract the attentions of Slave Takers, seeking to recapture what they regard as "escaped slaves". To make things worse, these Slave Takers could even be legally Clean -- presenting players with some awkward situations sometimes!

If this is the sort of route we go down, then it would probably be best if Amnesty stations were fairly few and far between -- perhaps limiting them to Average and Rich Industrial Democracies only, or to any/a selection of planets with a tech level of "X" and above (where robot technology has reached a level that makes slavery not only morally repugnant but economically unviable as well -- TL 12 and up, maybe?).

I agree with you - but only in the point that this is an American perspective. Citizens of Switzerland (full official name: Confoederatio Helvetica = Swiss Confederation) would probably not agree.

I assumed there were other confederate forms of government in the world (unlike many Americans I do at least recognize my prejudices) again, just putting out another point of view.

Once the players acquire a license, when they dock anywhere with slaves in the hold (i.e. not scooped escape pods but actual in-the-can slaves) the slaves are transformed into an equal tonnage of "liberated slaves", a special cargo that can only be disposed of at an Amnesty station.

I like this idea except the cost to the player might be greater than anticipated. Using specialcargo (may be different now with JS) disables the entire cargo hold until the special cargo is removed which would be a big deterrent for most players I imagine.

Well, I think that's part of the story, certainly, but social/cultural attitudes play a big part too. All these factors feed into each other, of course: there's no one "master control" of a society which overrides the rest!

Quite right, the agricultural vs industrial idea was too simplistic. You're idea regarding Tech factor and mechanized labor is good. I still would advocate staying away from government type as an indicator, however. Even Democracies can suffer "tyranny of the majority". Whose to say that a world wouldn't unanimously agree to enslave other alien races which they view as inferior - possibly a humanoid view of non-humanoids?

matt634 wrote:

Once the players acquire a license, when they dock anywhere with slaves in the hold (i.e. not scooped escape pods but actual in-the-can slaves) the slaves are transformed into an equal tonnage of "liberated slaves", a special cargo that can only be disposed of at an Amnesty station.

I like this idea except the cost to the player might be greater than anticipated. Using specialcargo (may be different now with JS) disables the entire cargo hold until the special cargo is removed which would be a big deterrent for most players I imagine.

Hm... I didn't know that. Even so, it might still be a worthwhile method to explore. The solution would be to make Amnesty stations more common, to give players a chance to clear their cargo bays relatively quickly. Or possibly, the slaves could be converted into passengers, who occupy a special (small?) Amnesty-provided cabin. Would this throw up any unusual effects? E.g. difficulties fitting multiple "passengers" into a single cabin? Or could the Amnesty cabin be made relatively roomy, since it would only be accessible to rescued slaves?

One other issue would be to make sure that slaves are automatically released when players dock at Amnesty stations with slaves on board, still in their cans. It would be annoying to have them convert into liberated slaves, forcing players to launch from and re-dock with the Amnesty station.

Unless freed slaves were converted into passengers with destinations, i.e. their home planets -- removing the need to take them to an Amnesty station altogether...

matt634 wrote:

Quite right, the agricultural vs industrial idea was too simplistic. You're idea regarding Tech factor and mechanized labor is good. I still would advocate staying away from government type as an indicator, however. Even Democracies can suffer "tyranny of the majority". Whose to say that a world wouldn't unanimously agree to enslave other alien races which they view as inferior - possibly a humanoid view of non-humanoids?

True. If slavery is cultural -- say, if it's seen as a justified punishment for a crime, or a result of a caste system intrinsic to the society -- then the government-type approach would be overly simplistic too. There are different kinds of slaveries, too: it's possible that in some societies (insects, for example), members of a slave-caste might even accept their position: "I was born a sterile worker, and I'll die a sterile worker: I know my place!" Mind you, in gameplay terms that might be overly complicated!

I think perhaps we are over complecating things. How about you get a license, or join some kind of alliance (opt in) and then when you dock with any station all your slaves simply walk off as free men.

Specialcargo is probably a step too far. Why would men be freed by GalCop and then you have to ferry them someplace to go free?

I am happy to let slaves free at the first place I land, but really, making me fit special stuff to my ship, taking up cargo space, giving me orders to take them somewhere else? No thanks.

I was even thinking of a supersimple oxp that you just add if you want to have slaves released instead of sold. If you want to trade in slaves, you remove the oxp, simple as that.

That would work too -- although it might be a nice wrinkle if the freed slaves would ask you for transport to their home planet/the nearest Amnesty station/the nearest TL 12+ world. Alternatively they could just be handed over to GalCo-op as refugees, since GalCo-op obviously diapprove of the slave trade: it is after all a crime to carry slaves out of a GalCo-op station, so there might be some justification. I think we need something: just abandoning the poor sods in a random system could be a bit rough!

A more complex OXP could be created for those who wish to join the Spartacus Brotherhood, and carry the fight to the slavers.

A ship upgrade that lets you see if someone is carrying slaves?

Or an OXP that creates "slaving stations" in certain systems, like pirate havens, and makes a class of (armed, escorted) merchantmen slavers, and possibly shuttlecradt running the slaves from the planet direct to the slave stations. Then there's the investors, who won't take kindly to your harassment of their trade...

Yes, that is pretty good

best ting to do is to do both sides of the spectrum:

slavers stations and missions

anti-slavey outposts and emancipation missions

in one mod.



Isn't it possible to have a question pop-up once in a while, when docknig with slaves in cargo ahether to sell to a slaver (+ slaver rep) and sometimes to free slaves (+freemen rep).
or both: offer to sign plyer up for feemen-charter and always free slaves on docking and repeatedly ask for signing it at 1+govtrating/10 when not signed.
(to mimick the annoying fact of goodcause-merchandising... oh, I hate those commercial vultures)

One possible emancipation mission coud be a mission in which you track and then harrass a boa to eject X slave-pods then return to their home planet X.

Since I came up with the Spartacus Brotherhood, I should say that though I did start on the OXP, it is in complete halt after finding myself lacking badly the skills to script it, and wound up with half a basic set of ships with Spartan textures (half done )...
My views on them are as follow:

1)they begun as a 'Robin Hood'-esque band of pirates that helped a few ejected slaves, and secretly grown and spread as frontier traders and settlers, while others honed their skills either as bounty hunters or pirates (depending on their views on the locals), and finally gained an ideal and a centralized strategic command. It's easy to see them as foolish idealistic cruzaders, and forget just how dangerous the historical cruzaders were;

2)their indoctrination and social reinsertion system provided an economical and manpower base, and as importantly, intelligence by their operatives and connections. Some of these have infiltrated less 'efficient' organizations as the Amnesty Ooniversal and suchlike, to nudge them into activity (not war). As combined effect, slave owners (bought or rescued) are frequently harassed by bands of protesters demanding the slaves' release.

3)the authorities have a very ambiguous relation with them - since they patrol the systems and fight pirates and slavers, the normal beat cop and innocent trader think they're Giles'sent and would be great bounty hunters... except for the fact that they declared WAR against ALL the slavist systems and thus on the whole alliance. Though the GalCop Police and Navy attack patrolling Spartans on sight as if they were Thargoids, the Spartans try to flee from these engagements... but not when massed up for a planetary assault! They'll also chase and fight to the death against any ship with the tag "slaver" (random chance for NPCs - high for pirates, low for traders; see below for the player).

I was thinking of inserting some assassination missions, but LB's Random Hits OXP took care of both slaver and Spartan hits. More missions could come from

The Spartans:
-every slave released increases the 'sympathizer' % counter and rolls for a Spartan agent to appear and offer a rescue mission against an escorted Python or Anaconda full of goods and slaves (or a fair share of the prize if accompanied), followed by a sun scoop and a meeting with a Spartan carrier to deliver the captives - this is sure to boost the counter;
-this counter decreases over time, more drastically when selling slaves - or can make the commander a known Spartan simpathizer when reaching, say 50%... getting a mark on his/her/its head (or functional equivalent(s), resulting on constant attacks);
-the opportunity to C&P emulate Matt364's Galactic Navy OXP and send the player to a troop concentration against a slavist system (BTW, what are they?)

Slaver guilds:
-if the 'sympathizer' counter becomes negative, the Commander becomes considered a 'slaver', fair pray for the Spartans (and their bounties);
-higher prices for slaves (with the Spartans and all...), more crew and passengers on larger ships' escape pod(s), and a non-mandatory anti-slavery insurance...
-when buying or selling slaves, a 'slaver' commander can be asked to join in an expedition to a neighbouring system to 'hunt' - shoot into submission and capture an escorted passenger ship (or a Commie's Commuter) and force it to follow the group through witchspace to a pirate cove... high cash for average risks.

A while back in the discussion somebody wrote:

just make your bid on the "shoplifters and deadbeats"

Is this actually possible? How?

I'm pretty sure it's a reference to the convenience stations in 'your ad here'.

I must confess I haven't looked to see if there's actually slaves shoplifters for sale in tescoo...