After playing through Dromund Kaas more times and with more toons than I care to admit, a thought came to me after putting down, let's say, my one trilionth rebelious, malnourished, demoralised and feeble slave worker. Why would you want to employ a work force which is, by its nature, rebelious, malnourished, demoralised and feeble when you have, I don't know, ROBOTS? Who never get tired, don't go "herp derp civil liberties" all the bloody time and only occasionaly require a memory wipe and an oil squirt between their SUPER STRONG joints?

 

And don't tell me that different races have unique skills or traits whiich make them ideal as labor in dangerous environments. Unless the race you're enslaving doesn't need to eat, drink, breathe, grab a ciggy, go to the loo or catch a breath after hauling 100 tons of radioactive industrial equipment, it's not worth it.

 

Sure, robots sometimes rise to crush their puny organic overlords, but if you'd face an uprising anyway, why not get the most of it while you have it ?

 

So, yeah. A slave work force...why would you want one?

Droids are hardly reliable, as you come to know later on in - at least(!) - two separate instances. Either one is prone to cause instability. Edited June 5, 2014 by Darth_Wicked

Droids are hardly reliable, as you come to know later on in - at least(!) - two separate instances.

 

Droids are hardly reliable for the same reasons that slaves are everywhere in all evil empires - sci-fi and fantasy tropes. You have to have robots rising against their masters because it's a cliche as old as Isaac Asimov's first novels and you have to have slaves because its the most obviously deplorable thing in today's civilized society, so your target audience responds to it with "oooh, evil".

 

I'm trying to break down the trope however, especially in SWTOR, where the alternatives are right there, in your face.

 

The AI in the Directive 7 FP was experimental and the droids on Dromund Kaas were hacked, both being presumably rare instances. Even with this risk, droids are being used as primary tools of war, and even represent the axis around which a certain someone's plans for galactic genocide revolve. These are infinitely more senstive tasks in riskier enviornments, and yet the Empire trusts its droid armies with them without a second thought.

 

Conversly, how many slaves DO NOT want to stove in their masters' head with a lead pipe every single day? Or grab a rifle and shoot their leash holder on the battlefield? Or simply do what they are told without excessive amounts of cutesy lip (looking at you, Vette )?

Droids have to be constructed, in factories, with resources, and workers, designers etc. all costing credits. On the other hand if your a xenophobic, imperialist Sith state conquering a planet every other day your going to end up with squishy bipeds pouring out of your ears. The "pragmatic" and cheaper choice to make here is to use them for slave labour.

 

Basically its a practice that's natural evolved out of their culture.

Edited June 5, 2014 by Beniboybling

The AI in the Directive 7 FP was experimental and the droids on Dromund Kaas were hacked, both being presumably rare instances.

There are a lot of cases where droids are hacked, are getting hacked by the player.

Experimental droids are build all the time, I hardly believe Directive 7 was an once in a lifetime exception.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 

In my opinion, the reason they use slaves has something to do with the idea of having power.

Anyone with a bit of programming or slicing skills can control a droid.

But the fact that you can order someone to do a task gives you more the feeling of power than the fact that you can order a droid, that is programmed to obey you, to do the same task.

Then seeing as the Empire is based on such a caste-system, the concept of slavery would give the higher castes more the feeling of power.

Droids have to be constructed, in factories, with resources, and workers, designers etc. all costing credits. On the other hand if your a xenophobic, imperialist Sith state conquering a planet every other day your going to end up with squishy bipeds pouring out of your ears. The "pragmatic" and cheaper choice to make here is to use them for slave labour.

 

Basically its a practice that's natural evolved out of their culture.

 

Guess there's that and it certainly makes sense...except, somehow, all (let me stress that point, ALL) the rebelious slaves around Kaas city are human .

Guess there's that and it certainly makes sense...except, somehow, all (let me stress that point, ALL) the rebelious slaves around Kaas city are human .

Actually some of then are aliens.

 

Anyway, the Sith Empire is at war with the Republic now, and conquering countless worlds in the wider galaxy - many of them would have been populated by humans and I'd assume that they'd be just as intolerant of outsiders as they are aliens - as culture, heritage and upbringing, or rather the lack of it, is at the core of their xenophobia.

 

In reality the whole slave thing is in the long term, not pragmatic at all. Much better that they invest in educating these "slaves" and inducting them into the Empire, and replacing their manpower with droids. It will come at a cost yes but before you no it the Imperial population (of hard-working citizens) will increase tremendously.

Slaves are cheap.

 

And there is something deeply gratifying about dominating another (more or less) intelligent being.

Edited June 5, 2014 by chillshock

I recommend watching the Second Renaissance, then you'll know why making robots do all the work is a bad idea.

It all comes down to $. Droids cost money to buy & maintain. Slaves cost nothing. If they die, so what, you just get more. The slaves are starving?? Awww.... thats just too bad. They can eat the dead slaves, this now saves you needing to pay for food & burial costs. They need to be given shelter? If they had any brains they would have built themselves shacks already (which then they can be charged tariffs for living on your land & make you more $). Clothes? whats wrong with the ones they came with? They just need to take better care of what they got, or recycle/resue the clothes of the dead; after all, the dead aren't using them anymore why let it go to waste? When everything is considered.... Why wouldn't you want slaves over robots?

What else are you going to do with prisoners, criminals and provocateurs? You could shoot them, but why not make them pay for their inconveniece by serving the empire?

You have to have robots rising against their masters because it's a cliche as old as Isaac Asimov's first novels and you have to have slaves because its the most obviously deplorable thing in today's civilized society, so your target audience responds to it with "oooh, evil".

I apologize if this is a derailment, but I felt compelled to comment.

 

The whole idea of "robots in revolt" was popular in the 40s, which annoyed Asimov to no end, as he saw it as people saying "technology is evil". He purposefully wrote his first robot novels against this trope, coming up with the "three laws of robotics". Asimov's robots DIDN'T rise against their masters (making the travesty of the "I, Robot movie" all the more unbearable).

Edited June 5, 2014 by Khevar

I apologize if this is a derailment, but I felt compelled to comment.

 

The whole idea of "robots in revolt" was popular in the 40s, which annoyed Asimov to no end, as he saw it as people saying "technology is evil". He purposefully wrote his first robot novels against this trope, coming up with the "three laws of robotics". Asimov's robots DIDN'T rise against their masters (making the travesty of the "I, Robot movie" all the more unbearable).

Waaaat they didn't revolt?! Booh, I want by dystopian future plot devices.

Waaaat they didn't revolt?! Booh, I want by dystopian future plot devices.

Ha!

 

You could always read The Forbin Project ...

Have you ever seen a robot pole dance?...awkward.

Guess there's that and it certainly makes sense...except, somehow, all (let me stress that point, ALL) the rebelious slaves around Kaas city are human .

 

There are actually plenty of Zabrak and Twi'lek around.

Actually some of then are aliens.

 

Anyway, the Sith Empire is at war with the Republic now, and conquering countless worlds in the wider galaxy - many of them would have been populated by humans and I'd assume that they'd be just as intolerant of outsiders as they are aliens - as culture, heritage and upbringing, or rather the lack of it, is at the core of their xenophobia.

 

In reality the whole slave thing is in the long term, not pragmatic at all. Much better that they invest in educating these "slaves" and inducting them into the Empire, and replacing their manpower with droids. It will come at a cost yes but before you no it the Imperial population (of hard-working citizens) will increase tremendously.

 

If you take into account that they are not taking EVERYONE on the planet as slaves, you realize that they are indeed investing in re-education of population at some level. But when you have massive populations, it can in a way pay off to haul off large portion of potentially rebellious conquered populace elsewhere, to planet they are unfamiliar with and put them to slave labour which ensures you get something out of them while malnourishment and disease reduce their numbers.

 

From this point of view it is very functional long term policy. Reduce conquered population to more manageable level and get something out of displaced population before they vanish into afterlife.

If you take into account that they are not taking EVERYONE on the planet as slaves, you realize that they are indeed investing in re-education of population at some level. But when you have massive populations, it can in a way pay off to haul off large portion of potentially rebellious conquered populace elsewhere, to planet they are unfamiliar with and put them to slave labour which ensures you get something out of them while malnourishment and disease reduce their numbers.

 

From this point of view it is very functional long term policy. Reduce conquered population to more manageable level and get something out of displaced population before they vanish into afterlife.

That's an interesting point.

 

I also suppose, from a Sith perspective, that this would also have the effect of culling out the weak and unworthy.

 

The Sith Inquisitor storyline starts with a slave who

 

 

That's an interesting point.

 

I also suppose, from a Sith perspective, that this would also have the effect of culling out the weak and unworthy.

 

The Sith Inquisitor storyline starts with a slave who

 

ends up becoming a member of the Dark Council.

 

But then again, the scenario below is also possible...

 

http://s29.postimg.org/bejdyy2br/swtor_2014_06_06_15_38_23_055.jpg

But then again, the scenario below is also possible...

 

http://s29.postimg.org/bejdyy2br/swtor_2014_06_06_15_38_23_055.jpg

True true. But it does open the door for a slave to get trained as a Sith.