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[Louella Dougans]

Some premises to start upon:

Spaceships are technically complex, there is not so much in the way of unskilled labour, other than the dreaded "Paint Ship", "Polish Ship" or "Scrub Ship" tasks. These are not oar or sail ships.

Aboard ship, crewmembers are interdependent on each other. Shipmates are shipmates, and there will be some bonding between them.

Ni-Kunni have the "Navy Veterans" ancestry, where it mentions training and education available to those enlisting in the Navy. it is described as "prosperous, if dangerous".

Vitoc is a disciplinary method, but not really a motivational method.


So:

the Navy needs slaves, but they cannot be more expensive to operate than the Ni-Kunni free spacemen.
Slaves obv. don't really get paid, but there's still the Vitoc and supervision costs, over and above the food, healthcare, accommodation and training costs. Disciplining with the Vitoc only goes so far, as any slave spaceman that dies wastes the training expenditure. The slaves have to perform at a significantly high % of the freemen, otherwise the spaceships have too much internal volume spent on non-combat activities.

So the slaves have to be motivated to perform well, and Vitoc doesn't really serve that function, imo. Not because of penalties to the individual, but the wasted expenditure on training to the Navy as a whole.

So what motivates the slave spacemen to perform well?

I suspect the Imperial Navy has a system not too dissimilar to the Prize Regulations which the likes of Admiral Nelson fought under. Whereby enemy ships taken in battle were assessed and sold at auction and the crew that captured it as a Prize would receive some of the value. The captain and other officers received the bulk of the money, with ordinary sailors receiving the rest.

So in the Imperial Navy, when a ship takes an enemy in battle, and the proceeds sold, then the officers and men receive money. This would attract people to be officers and men.
For officers, a successful Navy career gives the Family wealth and prestige. Some officers could then find themselves elevated to the (minor) nobility, which would be a great boost to Family prestige.
For freemen sailors, similar things would occur, wealth and prestige. Enough to lift family out of any dire circumstances, and to become middle class and so on.
For slave spacemen, then any Prize Money could be used to buy that spaceman's freedom, to then pursue a civilian career as a free spaceman, with all the benefits and pitfalls that being a freeman has over being a slave.

As consequences of being shipmates, I think other things may also happen such as:
Some freemen sailors, setting up a civilian spaceship operation on their retiral from the Navy may take some of their slave shipmates with them, purchasing their freedom.
Retired officers may have servants (free or slave) that were shipmates. Such servants descendants may volunteer for the Navy, which gives the Navy a larger, more motivated recruiting pool.

What this might also mean is that in-space, an Imperial Navy ship's crew is likely to be a lot more fanatic than could otherwise be expected, with slavespacemen not really being that enthusiastic about escaping. Any slave spacemen on civilian ships would probably be more enthusiastic about the concept of escaping.

What do you think?

[Akrasjel Lanate]

I depends from the slave character is he a typical human and he want to live, or like i heard there were situations that those slaves on Vitoc rebelled againts their masters and prefered to die.
Also they are slaves from generation so they propably don't remember mych from the past(not all) and maby the Amarrians have some kind of indoctrination programs(brainwashing or something) that makes them accept there fate.

[Shaalira]

Drawing parallels between EVE fictional nations and old Earth historical situations is tenuous at best.  Still, I think it's worth reviewing a period of time in which slave-manned navies were the norm.

These quotes are drawn from an online PDF of a scholarly paper.

"In the growing Athenian economy, numerous slaves - perhaps 100,000 - were available to fight.  The wealth of Athens enabled it to support numbers of sailors in excess of its citizen population for extended periods.  Competition among cities transformed the ability to man large numbers of ships into the necessity for doing so;"

"Athens needed 34,000 men to man the navy that fought against the Persians at Artemisium.  At this time, Athens could still field only 8,000 hoplites.  From early in the fifth century Athens could no longer man its ships with citizens alone."

"The casualties suffered in naval warfare were also far higher than those in hoplite battles.  If 50 ships sank in a battle, up to 10,000 men could die.  More than twice that number of ships went down in the largest battles.  On the other hand, hoplite casualties in the entire century from 470 to 370 may have totaled only 24,000."

"..., when Athens mounted its most ambitious campaigns - or showed the depth of its resiliency - its navy probably included the greatest proportion of non-citizens.  Similarly, it was during the zenith of Spartan power in the 390s that Sparta sent out armies of Neodamodeis.  Citizen armies may dominate the 20th century world, but this has not always been the case.  It ceased to be the case in Greece by the mid-fifth century at the latest."


From this, we can see some similarities with the Imperial Navy:

- The Amarr Empire is vast, and its Navy is the largest of the four great nations.  At the same time, it has a hierarchal, feudal social structure.  The Empire's wealth and size may support/require more ships than can be manned purely by the available non-slave personnel.

- Space battles in EVE, when looked at in terms of personnel casualties, appear to be as costly as naval battles in ancient Greece.  Lost starships result in a decimation of on-board staff.  This may mean that the only way to conduct a lengthy campaign while maintaining the personnel pool would be to leverage valued citizen or Holder officers with large numbers of slave staff.

- The high casualties of space battles may also encourage obedience and cooperation in the slave crew.  In essence, they are held hostage by their own vessels.  If they perform well and the ship survives, they will survive.  If their vessel is destroyed in battle, there is a very high probability that they will die with it.

- Incidentally, this is why capsuleers are a major advantage - the command and control personnel are replaced by a single 'immortal,' and only more disposable staff are risked.

- The pattern of the Empire's early expansion favors incorporation of slaves into the navy.  Subjugation of other nations results in a larger pool of slaves immediately available, while it may take generations of religious and cultural assimilation before the conquered worlds are host to sizable citizen or Holder contingents.

[Bataav]

I know very little about the Amarr and slavery back tory, but here's my take on it drawing from what I've read in other sci-fi fiction that I think applies.

In my mind there would be a difference between the slaves across the Empire in general, performing the menial tasks throughout Amarr towns and cities, and those who are deemed worthy enough to set foot on an Imperial Navy warship.

To me these would be less “slaves” and more Imperial Navy serfs.

One step up on the slavery social ladder if you like.

Being chosen in this way is likely to be of some value even though the serfs, or slaves, most probably still harbour the dream of freedom.

I can imagine that on an Imperial Navy Revelation for example there would actually be what could be considered a slave community on board. Sub decks and entire levels dedicated to service shafts and maintenance corridors would be home to the slaves. Black markets might exist at particular bulkheads, where items are traded and bartered for like food, medicine, tribal trinkets and even basic weapons.

There would be a spectrum of opinion aboard, from those grateful enough to not be sweeping the streets in a city somewhere, to those who want to rise up and mutiny against their oppressors.

The tasks on the ship for these people are likely to include paint ship, polish ship, scrub ship scenarios, yes (I can't help picture the opening scene from Red Dwarf here, or the scene where Rimmer has the Scutters painting the corridor from something like Sea Grey to  Sky Grey... only aboard an Imperial Navy ship this is more likely to be from something like Empress Gold to... Regal Gold), but they would probably involve more than simple ship maintenance. They could be weapons loading (those expired laser crystals are probably a bit dangerous to handle after all) and attending to the ranking officers.

Being attendants to officers could introduce an even deeper mix of scenarios. Some officers being relatively benevolent to their serfs, treating them well enough, making sure they are fed and watered, etc. while others might be the type to beat their slaves if they fail to polish every gold button on their uniform to their satisfaction or don't apply enough starch to their shirts. You get the idea. And while this could mean envy between slaves depending on their treatment, it also allows us to explore the relationship between the Amarr officers themselves. For example, would one intervene if he judged the mistreatment of another's slave a step too far?

[Silas Vitalia]

Interesting topic.

The idea of any sort of 'merit' based pay or promotions seems quite contradictory to Amarrian culture though in my opinion.  The sort of system you've mapped out sounds far more likely in the other empires like the State or Federation.

I imagine slave crews in Amarrian vessels, to be almost entirely authority-driven in a quite stern manor. 

I see far less internal conflicts among the general Amarr crews, due to their positions being the result of race, family power, etc.

In the Amarr society where many individuals believe your superiors are your superiors due to the will of God (IE they are born into a superior position, or they are a superior race), not through merit or performance, the more westernized concepts of merit-based performance and rank increase would make little sense, and probably be viewed with contempt.

I imagine quite a bit of maneuvering and positioning -within- officers of the same few ranks, but most likely there are LOT of glass ceilings due to race and family backgrounds.  A Ni-Kunni junior officer might be able to scheme his way up or down a few levels but will most likely run into a glass wall were he to try and rise above 'his station' in life. Follow? Same for the slave crews and more important overseers.

[Louella Dougans]

Yeah, glass ceilings no doubt, you wouldn't likely see Minmatar officers. Definitely no Minmatar admirals.

Although ingame, the current head of the Navy is a Ni-Kunni, as are several of the high level agents.


As for merit, I thought that it being based on taking/destroying the enemy would also suit an expansionist ideology too, and the Empire is expansionist.

[lallara zhuul]

The slaves, because of the training time put into them to make them into specialists of a starship means that they are well taken care of. Probably fifth, sixth generation slaves well on their way to freedom.

Also the mentioning of brain washing made me chuckle.

The Amarrians have their religion.

If you look at any of the Paladin or FW stuff you clearly see that even the Amarrians are being brain washed to do the bidding of the Empire (All the empires do something like that, but in the Empire its mostly through religion.)

Just look at the militaries of the world today, everyone is indoctrinated.
Hell, its even in all the societies.

[Kazzzi]

The HBO Rome series gives some good historical insight into slavery. Some slaves are skilled and perform complicated tasks, are treated very well by their masters and are loyal and appreciative, whereas some slaves are forced into prostitution or worked to death in limestone quarries. It's a paradigm that modern people in western civilization do not comprehend.

The main points of slavery is cost effectiveness and status quo. Ammarians are simply used to it, it's a society norm.

High functioning slaves are treated well enough that they obey out of fear they wont be treated as well or will lose their meagre creature comforts. Labor slaves are kept in their place by the whip.

[Ken]

Just look at the militaries of the world today, everyone is indoctrinated.

Everyone may be a bit of a leap.  I could totally overreact and write a long counterpoint, but probably best to not for fear of derailing the fascinating and fruitfully discussed topic here...

[Akrasjel Lanate]

The HBO Rome series gives some good historical insight into slavery. Some slaves are skilled and perform complicated tasks, are treated very well by their masters and are loyal and appreciative, whereas some slaves are forced into prostitution or worked to death in limestone quarries. It's a paradigm that modern people in western civilization do not comprehend.

The main points of slavery is cost effectiveness and status quo. Ammarians are simply used to it, it's a society norm.

High functioning slaves are treated well enough that they obey out of fear they wont be treated as well or will lose their meagre creature comforts. Labor slaves are kept in their place by the whip.

Oh yea i forgot about Rome 

[Lyn Farel]

Rome is very good comparison, though the only difference now might be that while slaves are still considered as property (like in Rome), with the new Heideran decree (or was it Doriam ?), mistreating them is a crime. Though a lot of holders still do it considering the vastness of the Empire, I suppose.

[Mithfindel]

Around here, animals are considered property, and there's still laws against mistreating them. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

[Lyn Farel]

Never said they were... I just doubt that romans had laws concerning the mistreatment of their slaves.

[Kazzzi]

Corporal punishment on a slave isn't mistreating them. Ancient Rome had similar laws on the treatment of slaves, as did many other slaver cultures.

[Lyn Farel]

Unfortunately I do not see it like that. But I doubt we have sources precise enough to support either of the interpretations.