Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Katrina Oniseki]

As usual, I'd like to put my hand up and wave to the discussion here as someone who has some [what I hope are] fresh and mature ideas about how to hold a discussion about Slavery. As a Caldari who tends to be very respectful of other cultures' oddities and quirks, Kat has a special perspective on slavery - ones she'd be happy to discuss with a slaveholder.

Of course, no arguments or insults need be included!

[Astrid Stjerna]

Instead it degenerates down to these two very basic statements.

Person 1 : "Your religion is bad"
person 2 : "HEATHEN!"

re: slavery, much the same is true. slavers either seem to immediately make it about religion, and then revert to statement 1 above. Otherwise, anti-slaver cites information about vitoxin, torture, beatings, threats of physical violence, slaver dogs, etc, and then slaver reverts to "but I don't treat my slaves like that, I'm the BEST SLAVE OWNER EVER." The exception to the rule would be those rare individuals who state instead that yes, they do use those methods to keep their flock in line. As part of the Amarr faith is that pain and punishment is part of process of bringing others into the light of their god, as per their scripture. Then just accept the hate that flows their way as due course from unbelievers.

I made Evelyn (my Khanid slaver) because of the growing number of people that equate 'slave = sex toy', or 'beat them into submission'.  Evelyn is is sincerely concerned about her slaves' spritual growth, and she feels that beating someone to death or poisoning them with Vitoxin is no way to bring them to God.

Don't get me wrong, she still punishes her slaves if they step out of line, but she does it when they deserve punishment, not just for the sake of beating people.

[Khloe]

Logan, that's my point.

The people playing religious character and slavers AS WELL AS the people opposing them can't handle it with maturity. I wasn't pointing in one direction or the other.

I hope you don't mind me interjecting on this topic, but I couldn't help but wonder how an individual might handle the subject of slavery in a mature fashion.

Pro-Freedom: Slavery is wrong. It is barbaric and cruel, and morally reprehensible. Let my people go!
Slaver: Slavery is right because God has tasked us to be the chosen people to spread His Word to all corners of the universe. This is for your own good.
Pro-Freedom: God doesn't exist. It's just an excuse to subjugate other cultures!

This continues ad-nauseum until everyone wishes TonyG would write in a super-weapon that would wipe out both cultures.

In my opinion, the mature thing to do in this situation is recognize that this conflict has gone very far beyond rational understanding and critical analysis to the point where both sides are exchanging ordinance. Freedom fighters have family enslaved in the Empire and have lost close friends in fighting for their freedom, while Imperial Defenders have watched innocent civilians terrorized and close friends killed in defense of their way of life. Expecting either side to react rationally with a cold detachment to the subject is folly, and I find it rather disconcerting that people expect more from freedom fighters/crusaders than vitriol and hate.

Rich Gallentean executives have the privilege of waxing philosophical over appetizers at the 'save the slaves' charity fund drive because they don't have a personal stake in the matter.

[ArtOfLight]

Gyra,

A fair question, Gyra. I'll try to highlight it clearly.

There's a few problems, really. The primary one being player characters that are "slaves" and attribute all sorts of atrocities to it. "My mother was a sex slave, my cousin was abused physically until he died, our WHOLE FAMILY is on Vitoc, etc, etc." The number of problems with this are astronomical. First, for a capsuleer to be a slave is pretty ridiculous to start with, there's absolutely no way to "hold" a capsuleer in slavery. At best, a capsuleer can be an indentured servant be virtue of owing a debt to someone or if that someone has some way of keeping them there (blackmail, family hostages, etc) but even then it's a workaround, at best.

Second, PF touches upon slave mistreatment and abuse in the Empire (and the Kingdom) but it also makes it quite clear that it's a minority, not a majority and that the Empire actually looks unfavorably on it. Vitoxin is used on less than 10% of total slaves and most of those are ship-crew slaves. Slave abuse seldom happens because if it gets out that a Holder is mistreating their slaves, the constant power struggles between nobles would shift when other nobles brought it to light and caused that Holder to lose favor with the throne and church. The Amarr DO believe in ethics and morality and DO have expectations on how to treat their slaves.

Then you run into the Amarr players that just want to be mustache-twirling evil slavers. The kind who abuse their own "slaves," or constantly make it a point to reference beating, torturing or otherwise harming their "slaves."

When you combine the two, you end up with this overwhelming impression in the RP bloc that the Amarr are immoral, unethical, slaving, evil bastards which doesn't match the PF at all.

Thus, when a conversation happens, it's the constant back and forth spew of bile that we've all grown to know and love instead of anything even resembling what the conversation would more likely look like. (A large part of this comes from our own OOC viewpoints on the detestable nature of slavery and carrying that over into our characters, as well).

The conversation that you referenced is a mature conversation compared to normal filth that gets broadcast over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Hmm.

To be honest, (and I hope I don't offend anyone in saying this!) I'm a little hesitant to really engage in any serious Amarr/Minmatar roleplay, and the slavery thing is probably the prime reason. It just seems to completely dominate it as the centerpiece. Like, to start with, I'm not super keen on the subject just from an out-of-character perspective, in that it's something I've seen explored to heck and back in other settings and have kinda had my fill of. (And wasn't that interested in to begin with.) This wouldn't be a problem, on it's own. But it sometimes seems like it's all the roleplay for those two sides are about.

Like, to give an example, I've been in one-on-one RPs with about 4 Amarrian RPers with Gwen, and three out of four of those had them wanting to attempt to enslave her, out of which only one mailed me in advance to ask if I was interested in pursuing the plot thread. Now, I wouldn't mind something like that happening on occasion, since RP obviously becomes dull if nothing unexpected ever happens on trips to procrastinate over drinks.

But more then half the time? That's a level beyond. There's a point where it ceases to be a feature for RP with that group and becomes THE feature. And though it's been more subtle in Gwens dialogues with Minmatar, the subject does seem to tend towards slavery and linger there, too, for one reason or another. It's like a themantic whirlpool that tries to pull you in if you approach someone involved in it, sometimes! It's a little scary. And I already find myself running out of doors to open with it.

I like the Caldari/Gallente conflict better (and find it easier to become invested in people invested in it) because it seems to be more a battle of ideals. A temperate war with abstract motivations and variable levels of involement that doesn't really need to have a proper, final revolution, so long as it continues to simmer on in interesting manner. But I feel like the Amarr/Minmatar conflict is, in the inverse, so hot that it seems to define those two factions, which in turn makes it a bit more dissatisfying when no final resolution can ever be reached. I mean, the Minmatar are never going to be all freed, yet neither will the Amarrians manage to enslave them back again. The lore seems to demand anger at the situation, but all it's going to give anyone involved is a headache.

Maybe this is why it gets grilled down to a base level most of the time, Azdan.

I also... speculate (and I hope I don't start to sound like Gwen here by going all "Power=BAD") that the dynamic in slavery tends to attract people who are more interested in the power fantasy side of roleplay, as opposed to the co-operative fiction element. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate any further on this point. Needless to say (though there's not anything wrong with that) it kinda doesn't mix well with what I'm going for, most of the time.

Not that I'm suggesting that applies to even the minority of people involved, of course. But it's something that makes me a little wary, as well.

[Ilsenae Alexandros]

+1000 to everything Azdan and Gwen said.

[ArtOfLight]

I believe I was the one person who didn't try to enslave Gwen.

I've been told more than once that I don't play Amarr correctly exactly for stuff like that.

[Makkal]

Like, to give an example, I've been in one-on-one RPs with about 4 Amarrian RPers with Gwen, and three out of four of those had them wanting to attempt to enslave her, out of which only one mailed me in advance to ask if I was interested in pursuing the plot thread.

lolwhat?

Sorry, I've only played Makkal (Khanid noblewoman) and had no idea this was a thing.

[Casiella]

I must have misunderstood terribly because that sounded like Amarrian characters trying to enslave another capsuleer.

[Gottii]

I like the Caldari/Gallente conflict better (and find it easier to become invested in people invested in it) because it seems to be more a battle of ideals. A temperate war with abstract motivations and variable levels of involement that doesn't really need to have a proper, final revolution, so long as it continues to simmer on in interesting manner. But I feel like the Amarr/Minmatar conflict is, in the inverse, so hot that it seems to define those two factions,

Thats funny.  From my experience, while the IC fight between the Minmatar and the Ammarians seems the most intense, from my OOC experience the Gallente/Caldari conflict just had a ton of vitrol between the players as much as the characters.  Just seemed to be a lot of antagonism there.   And I wub most of the Ammarrian RPers I run into, theyre good people and fun to play with/against.  (Rodj is like my favorite EVE RPer of all time, I dearly miss the Archbishops Sermons, Aldy's hair is flowing and aweinspiring, etc)

Also, may I suggest to the Mods that we branch off the "Slavery" discussion to its own thread?  I would love to contribute but dont want to hijack Ava's thread any more than it has been.

[Morwen Lagann]

Dropped a note into the mod area in case someone has a chance to do it (not sure if I will tonight).

In the future, reporting your own post (or the beginning of the place where the side discussion starts) with a note requesting a possible thread split works just as well.

[Casiella]

[mod]Done. Let me know if I missed one.[/mod]

[Silas Vitalia]

I'm usually of the opinion that capsuleers who own slaves, being stupidly wealthy, probably have extremely little to do with the day-to-day running of slavery business. 

The super-rich at the top could care less how the house staff is being disciplined; they have people who have been hired to handle that sort of thing. 

If you own even a few capsuleer ships and holdings you've probably got -thousands- of people working for you. I imagine you only deal directly with a small, small minority and leave the daily ins and outs to subordinates far down the chain.

IE I find it extremely unlikely capsuleers are the ones getting too involved in the gritty parts.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I'm usually of the opinion that capsuleers who own slaves, being stupidly wealthy, probably have extremely little to do with the day-to-day running of slavery business. 

The super-rich at the top could care less how the house staff is being disciplined; they have people who have been hired to handle that sort of thing. 

If you own even a few capsuleer ships and holdings you've probably got -thousands- of people working for you. I imagine you only deal directly with a small, small minority and leave the daily ins and outs to subordinates far down the chain.

IE I find it extremely unlikely capsuleers are the ones getting too involved in the gritty parts.

This. I tend to roleplay that if Katrina needs to get involved with any sort of discipline, the person involved is probably going to lose their job on the spot. Katrina has more important things to do than tell a maid to show up on time or make sure the floor is spotless.

That said, I think a lot of the slaves we see being mentioned are personal servants to the capsuleer in question, which offers plenty of legitimacy for the capsuleer interacting with them regularly.

[Khloe]

Thanks for the reply, Art.

There's a few problems, really. The primary one being player characters that are "slaves" and attribute all sorts of atrocities to it. "My mother was a sex slave, my cousin was abused physically until he died, our WHOLE FAMILY is on Vitoc, etc, etc." The number of problems with this are astronomical. First, for a capsuleer to be a slave is pretty ridiculous to start with, there's absolutely no way to "hold" a capsuleer in slavery. At best, a capsuleer can be an indentured servant be virtue of owing a debt to someone or if that someone has some way of keeping them there (blackmail, family hostages, etc) but even then it's a workaround, at best.

Second, PF touches upon slave mistreatment and abuse in the Empire (and the Kingdom) but it also makes it quite clear that it's a minority, not a majority and that the Empire actually looks unfavorably on it. Vitoxin is used on less than 10% of total slaves and most of those are ship-crew slaves. Slave abuse seldom happens because if it gets out that a Holder is mistreating their slaves, the constant power struggles between nobles would shift when other nobles brought it to light and caused that Holder to lose favor with the throne and church. The Amarr DO believe in ethics and morality and DO have expectations on how to treat their slaves.

Then you run into the Amarr players that just want to be mustache-twirling evil slavers. The kind who abuse their own "slaves," or constantly make it a point to reference beating, torturing or otherwise harming their "slaves."

When you combine the two, you end up with this overwhelming impression in the RP bloc that the Amarr are immoral, unethical, slaving, evil bastards which doesn't match the PF at all.

Thus, when a conversation happens, it's the constant back and forth spew of bile that we've all grown to know and love instead of anything even resembling what the conversation would more likely look like. (A large part of this comes from our own OOC viewpoints on the detestable nature of slavery and carrying that over into our characters, as well).

The conversation that you referenced is a mature conversation compared to normal filth that gets broadcast over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I highlighted and underlined the section of your reply that best summarizes your issue on the subject, and while I see your point I think there's plenty of room for understanding in the matter.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that Amarrians are also people, and I think we can agree that people can be awful. To make the presumption that mistreatment (both physically and mentally) of slaves never happens would be highly unlikely. In fact, I bet there are some Holders who see themselves as good people despite the terrible things they do to their property, for a variety of reasons. Does that mean all Holders are abusive and or unethical in their treatment of slaves? Probably not, but propaganda is a useful tool for detouring the uneducated.

You can't just wash away human behavior with 'evidence ' from prime fiction. I'm sure many Gallentean humanitarian organizations, Minmatar freedom fighter groups, and mustache twirling holoreel villains depict slavers in a negative light. I don't need PF to tell me that people of different cultures won't understand that the Amarr can be ethical and morally upright by their cultural standards. All they know is that the Amarr enslave innocent victims and inject them with brutal poisons to keep them in line. It's not much different than the slutty Gallentean stereotype, or the greedy Caldari stereotype. It's simple and it catches people's attentions easily.

Who cares if former/current slaves were mistreated or abused? If I were an ethical Amarrian Holder, it would be all the more reason to adhere to my values and not mistreat my slaves. It gives an Amarrian faithful an opportunity to separate himself from your lawless Angel Cartel slaver or Sansha Drone Overlord, but expecting a general audience of people who don't share the Amarrian ideal to empathize is folly. Do you really think a former slave is going to care whether you treat your slaves better than the Sansha? Probably not!

I think most of the problems you're describing has more to do with the application of the role than the role itself. Mustache twirling villains and slave-capsuleers can be done well if applied in an appealing manner with many dimensions.

Years ago, I had a slave capsuleer who was a Minmatar that fully embraced the teachings of the Amarrian faith and accepted her place as a slave despite being a pilot. When her owner placed her on sale on the Summit, Verone outbid everyone and let her go free. She killed herself because she couldn't handle the idea of being free. Personally, I thought I put enough thought and background into the character to make her more than just a stereotype or failed idea, but that's just a matter of personal opinion, I suppose.

Also, I'd like to see someone play out the blackmail background as a motivation for their behavior, as it gives lots of opportunity for internal conflict. Imagining a former freedom fighter being coerced to fight for the 24th Crusade to ensure no harm comes to their loved ones still in the empire could be an interesting role if fleshed out.