Why slaves can work only in worker stara?

[Nocty1501]

It should work if you are autoritarian and xenophobe and have alien slaves.

But yeah battle thralls don't work with stratified society. Which makes sense with how Stellaris work. Either all specialists of a specie are enslaved or none. And having only your rulers as free pop seem a very specific fringe case.

I just went into the game and tested this. Battle Thralls can NOT be ANYTHING other than Workers. I made a mod that allows Battle Thralls to be Specialists for a reason, so this isn't a recent update adding this.

How did you manage to get Battle Thralls to be Specialists and Rulers? I'd love to see this without any mods.

 

[Zergor]

I'll check again because if they don't it's not WAD and there should be a bug report (proof: things like thrall world can't work without at least specialists and the thrall tooltip also is the only one that doesn't say they can't be specialist or rulers).
But make sure you tested with a newly enslaved specie. The syncretic evolution one has prole that prevent it from being a specialist independently of it's rights.

 

[Nocty1501]

I'll check again because if they don't it's not WAD and there should be a bug report (proof: things like thrall world can't work without at least specialists and the thrall tooltip also is the only one that doesn't say they can't be specialist or rulers).
But make sure you tested with a newly enslaved specie. The syncretic evolution one has prole that prevent it from being a specialist independently of it's rights.

Oh yes, I'm a die-hard Fanatic Authoritarian, I know how to test-drive my slaves, don't worry. It's definitely not working as intended, and it made me really sad because I loved using Battle Thralls before 2.2.
As for your Thrall Worlds comment, you can still resettle full citizenship (or residence) species to Thrall Worlds to work the specialist/ruler jobs, they just can't reproduce.

 

[The Founder]

I just went into the game and tested this. Battle Thralls can NOT be ANYTHING other than Workers. I made a mod that allows Battle Thralls to be Specialists for a reason, so this isn't a recent update adding this.

Well, they do not need to be anything other then workers to fit into the Soldier Jobs.
And they only need to be on the planet so you can recruit armies from them.

 

[Archael90]

Slavery does not mean humiliating someone and we should not mix it with each other.
A slave is a person without civil rights, a tool, but that does not mean that they can not be faithful and devoted to the cause, in which case there should be no problem with trusting them and giving more responsible activities. A slave does not have to be the person over whom someone is standing with a whip. If someone thinks so, then there is no problem to play like that, but it does not change the fact that it is not the only approach to slavery.
Just as satisfied slaves prefer an authoritarian government, they should be able to work as specialists. And it can be balanced that the lower happiness of slaves, the greater their efficiency in worker jobs (more whips), and the greater happiness, the greater the efficiency (or just the possibility) of specialist jobs and lower productivity of workers (greater trust = less whips).

 

[The Founder]

A slave is a person without civil rights, a tool, but that does not mean that they can not be faithful and devoted to the cause, in which case there should be no problem with trusting them and giving more responsible activities.

What you describe there is a Citizen in Stratified Economy, not a salve with all the bonuses that state grants.

 

[Archael90]

What you describe there is a Citizen in Stratified Economy, not a salve with all the bonuses that state grants.

Difference is that citizen is a free pop, and slave is a property of someone else. This is only difference

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals

Slaves are your tools. You can treat them badly and with a whip, and send them to work in the mines. But you can also treat them well, so that they want to be your slaves, which happens very often in fantasy worlds, but it also happened in human history. In that case, you can trust them and they will use their skills for your own good and development.
This happens also (partially) in Stellaris, where happy slaves wants to be slaves and are pulled by authocratic ethic.

 

[The Founder]

Difference is that citizen is a free pop, and slave is a property of someone else. This is only difference

So being delcared someones property magically increases your work output by 20%, halves your housing needs and quarters you ability to participate in politics without being something you want to get rid off?

 

[Secret Master]

But you can also treat them well, so that they want to be your slaves,

Which is exactly not what happens to slaves in Stellaris. It is even quantifiable that they are not being treated well.

Slaves require less housing. Slaves require fewer amenities. Slaves get few or no consumer goods in almost all cases. The only thing organic slaves are equal to others on is food, except in my machine empire, where I don't even bother feeding them at all (which is probably an exploit).

So, how exactly can a slave in Stellaris be treated well? The answer is that they can't. Designating someone as a slave in Stellaris isn't in some grey area of "Well, you're a slave, but here's an SUV and a McMansion, oh and a 401k and some nice healthcare." Slaves in Stellaris are politically oppressed and receive few to no material comforts.

Whether that applies in the real world or not is a different question, but in Stellaris, slaves are quantifiably worse off than non-slaves. In fact, that's half the reason to use slave labor in the first place. Who would waste time with slaves if they used the same housing, amenities, and consumer goods as non-slaves? You'd be better off emancipating them.

 

[Archael90]

Its not about equality i really dont know how you could think about it... we are talking about slaves, who are by definition not real people.
But you can treat them well, and this doesnt means they are treated like normal pops, or citizens. You can beat your slaves, or not, give them starvation food rations, or enough, give them old carton box or warm place to sleep. Just like your car, you can do not take care of it, leave it outside, or care about it, clean it, and put into garage. You can have a dog, or other pet, and make it starve, sleep outside, or care about it, and allow it to sleep on couch.
You can treat slaves as a spare tool, or loved pet, and the second options doesnt mean that they are treated like normal pop. They still needs less housing, and consumer goods, have less happiness, but high enough to be trustworthy.
Stellaris slaves do have happiness, and you can rise their happiness, and when it will be high enough, they would be happy to be your slaves.

 

[The Founder]

Stellaris slaves do have happiness, and you can rise their happiness, and when it will be high enough, they would be happy to be your slaves.

Wich results in them producing not nearly as much crime via Runaway or Rebellious slaves.

 

[Banelingline]

Which is exactly not what happens to slaves in Stellaris. It is even quantifiable that they are not being treated well.

Slaves require less housing. Slaves require fewer amenities. Slaves get few or no consumer goods in almost all cases.

Almost all of this comes down to "their living standards are decided by others", and those standards don't need to be squalor. Dense housing doesn't need to be horrible, and low amenities can very much mean they're not given much more than needed. Byzantine Bureaucracy is explicitly achieving the effect of reducing housing and amenities usage by making sure there's need to have those things, with the attached Administrator jobs offering amenities purely through administration, given their total lack of upkeep.

Really, Amenities seem to be the material living standards metric, but the fact slaves having high Happiness drives their ethics towards Authoritarian means that well-kept slaves are very much able to willingly do the labor demanded of them. We have a slavery type system, adding a new type of slavery for this wouldn't be too hard. Balancing it would be somewhat difficult, but its job modifiers could be handled entirely independently, meaning it could be balanced in isolation from the rest of the slavery system.

 

[Secret Master]

Almost all of this comes down to "their living standards are decided by others", and those standards don't need to be squalor. Dense housing doesn't need to be horrible, and low amenities can very much mean they're not given much more than needed.

They explicitly get a fraction of what free POPs get. It's hard not to see that as squalor.

Byzantine Bureaucracy is explicitly achieving the effect of reducing housing and amenities usage by making sure there's need to have those things, with the attached Administrator jobs offering amenities purely through administration, given their total lack of upkeep.

Yeah, and if you read the description of that civic, it's clearly modeled on dystopias or comedy like the Vogons from Hitchhikers or the government in the film Brazil. It even has shades of the resource management from 1984, but without the brutal mind control.

We have a slavery type system, adding a new type of slavery for this wouldn't be too hard.

Well, if you want an entirely new kind of slavery, that's a different matter. But just letting chattel slaves do specialist jobs like they aren't clearly treated like garbage would be silly.

 

[Banelingline]

hey explicitly get a fraction of what free POPs get. It's hard not to see that as squalor.

It's not hard to see it as squalor. Given the definition of squalor, it's also quite possible to see it as forced lean living, instead of actively damaging poverty, as required for squalor. Giving the necessities for healthy living, rather than the minimum for survival and forcing them to work anyways. This would cost more, but that's why you build on living standards to give this touch of granularity.

Yeah, and if you read the description of that civic, it's clearly modeled on dystopias or comedy like the Vogons from Hitchhikers or the government in the film Brazil. It even has shades of the resource management from 1984, but without the brutal mind control.

And? The inhabitants are perfectly willing to go through it. Authoritarianism doesn't need to be actively oppressive, in the sense of harming the ruled. It's defined by the government having widespread control, not what the government does with it. Why do you think Socialism is generally defined as Authoritarian? Because the government has total control. Granted, in Stellaris, Authoritarianism takes on the added defining characteristic of low government accountability... Which is also common to Socialism, in accordance with the theory of it as the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", but going any further is a digression into detailed politics.

Well, if you want an entirely new kind of slavery, that's a different matter. But just letting chattel slaves do specialist jobs like they aren't clearly treated like garbage would be silly.

...And? We have Battle Thralls that exist specifically to let slaves be in military positions, and chattel slaves can still be in decent conditions. Entirely livable without issue. Set aside the vision of abuse, slavery is actually rarely widespread abuse because that is not stable in the long run. The only times it's happened have been punctuated by nearly-economy-destroying slave revolts or massive power imbalances baked into even more fundamental aspects of the economy than property law extending to people.

Abused slaves aren't going to last as long, aren't going to produce as much and are going to require more resources to keep controlled. They're actively worth less than well-treated slaves, in every way

 

[dezuman]

And? The inhabitants are perfectly willing to go through it. Authoritarianism doesn't need to be actively oppressive, in the sense of harming the ruled. It's defined by the government having widespread control, not what the government does with it. Why do you think Socialism is generally defined as Authoritarian? Because the government has total control. Granted, in Stellaris, Authoritarianism takes on the added defining characteristic of low government accountability... Which is also common to Socialism, in accordance with the theory of it as the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", but going any further is a digression into detailed politics.

I want to oppose the point of "low government accountability being common in Socialism", given that in e.g. Transparency International ranking almost all the top "non-corrupt" countries are Social(ist) Democracies. Since generally low government accountability = high government corruption this would imply that democratic socialism actually correlates less with low government accountability than, say, more libertarian capitalism.

I only wanted to say this because I live in a socialist country (Sweden) that also happens to be one of the most transparent, democratic and non-corrupt countries in the world. I refuse to take the Soviet Union, Venezuela and the likes as examples of socialism, because dictatorial nations where socialist policies are only used as tools to secure the elite's rule would be like holding up China as an example of democracy because they call themselves democratic and has elections.

 

[The Founder]

I only wanted to say this because I live in a socialist country (Sweden) that also happens to be one of the most transparent, democratic and non-corrupt countries in the world. I refuse to take the Soviet Union, Venezuela and the likes as examples of socialism, because dictatorial nations where socialist policies are only used as tools to secure the elite's rule would be like holding up China as an example of democracy because they call themselves democratic and has elections.

Or the former GDR for that mater. The German (definitely not) Democratic Republic.

Wich was in reality a Oligarchic Police State.

 

[Banelingline]

because I live in a socialist country (Sweden)

To be brief, what I call Socialism is the Marxist-derived theories conceptualization of a transitory state to Communism. It's an absolute, with pure Capitalism being the modern opposed absolute (they're actually pretty much the only times the extremes have ever worked out, even in the short term, since communication and industry limited things to somewhere between). Sweden's economy is primarily currency driven, with the widespread welfare spending being confined by a limit on public spending instituted in the 1990s, marking it as a mixed economy.

Even ignoring me relying mostly on the Marx-derived concept for defining Socialism, Sweden's economy is generally regarded as one of the most competitive in the world, following a wave of deregulation in the 1990s. All the Noric countries massively deregulated after the 1980s, following a serious of harsh economic problems that got resolved and stayed resolved through targeting regulation to what's important to stop things from imploding. They're regarded as some of the highest-competition markets on the planet. The whole peninsula's economy is practically made to let businesses come into being and grow.

...Please do research before you bring up things like this. You have no idea how painful it is for me to keep this down to just two paragraphs.

 

[dezuman]

To be brief, what I call Socialism is the Marxist-derived theories conceptualization of a transitory state to Communism.

I suspected that that might be the case, but I don't agree with the way you use the term. To most people "socialism" is all about welfare policies. That might be considered a misuse of the term, but given how much confusion and degraded arguments stems from this distinction it's important to consider it.

I fully agree that all attempts that I know of to achieve Marxist Socialism/Communism have been made by authoritarian leaders and resulted in varying degrees of dystopian states, so I can go with "Marxist Socialism = authoritarianism". I just want to enlighten the common person that quite a few countries successfully combine generous welfare policies with a strong capitalist economy (= Egalitarianism I guess?).

I also apologize for any pain I caused you. But hey, discussion forums are for discussions right?

(PS: I voted your post "helpful" because I like informed opinions)

 

[Archael90]

I believe we lost the subject

 

[dezuman]

I believe we lost the subject

Kind of, but what would the paradox forum be without extended real-life-stuff discussions that's barely tangental to the subject?