Attacking Darius:

penny wrote:Darius employs slaves to build their infrastructure.

It seems you've read a different book than me...

To End In Fire wrote:Galton's underlying structure had been deliberately crafted to be as different from Darius' as possible. Or perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that Darius, the younger child ,had been deliberately designed to differ from Galton. And as part of that deliberate differentiation, Galton was a harsher, harder, and far more militant entity than Darius had ever been. It was also the reason that even though Galton's cloned worforce might not be called slaves they were still indentured servants - workers indentured for a lifetime and, at best, a step below Mesa's seccies. Galton never treated them with the brutality of Manpower, their physical standard of living was actually quite good, and the perversions routinely practiced upon "pleasure slaves" were strictly prohibited, but they remained noncitizens, with no voice in their governance, their employment, the playce they lived.

Darius's cloned workforce had never been slaves, never been indentured. Like every Darusiaon, their lives were more regimented than they might have been elsewhere, but that was because of the great cause in which they, just as much as any alpha- or beta-line member of the Alignment, were fully invested. And that, too, was part of the plan.

(Emphasis added by me, and if you find any typos, you can keep them for free...)

markusschaber wrote:

penny wrote:Darius employs slaves to build their infrastructure.

It seems you've read a different book than me...

To End In Fire wrote:Galton's underlying structure had been deliberately crafted to be as different from Darius' as possible. Or perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that Darius, the younger child ,had been deliberately designed to differ from Galton. And as part of that deliberate differentiation, Galton was a harsher, harder, and far more militant entity than Darius had ever been. It was also the reason that even though Galton's cloned worforce might not be called slaves they were still indentured servants - workers indentured for a lifetime and, at best, a step below Mesa's seccies. Galton never treated them with the brutality of Manpower, their physical standard of living was actually quite good, and the perversions routinely practiced upon "pleasure slaves" were strictly prohibited, but they remained noncitizens, with no voice in their governance, their employment, the playce they lived.

Darius's cloned workforce had never been slaves, never been indentured. Like every Darusiaon, their lives were more regimented than they might have been elsewhere, but that was because of the great cause in which they, just as much as any alpha- or beta-line member of the Alignment, were fully invested. And that, too, was part of the plan.

(Emphasis added by me, and if you find any typos, you can keep them for free...)

We read the same book. But, I also read between the lines.

To End In Fire wrote:Galton's underlying structure had been deliberately crafted to be as different from Darius' as possible. Or perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that Darius, the younger child ,had been deliberately designed to differ from Galton. And as part of that deliberate differentiation, Galton was a harsher, harder, and far more militant entity than Darius had ever been. It was also the reason that even though Galton's cloned worforce might not be called slaves they were still indentured servants - workers indentured for a lifetime and, at best, a step below Mesa's seccies. Galton never treated them with the brutality of Manpower, their physical standard of living was actually quite good, and the perversions routinely practiced upon "pleasure slaves" were strictly prohibited, but they remained noncitizens, with no voice in their governance, their employment, the playce they lived.

Darius's cloned workforce had never been slaves, never been indentured. Like every Darusiaon, their lives were more regimented than they might have been elsewhere, but that was because of the great cause in which they, just as much as any alpha- or beta-line member of the Alignment, were fully invested. And that, too, was part of the plan.

Yeah, I may have been a little unfair to them. Nah!

I have fielded this before. They are slaves. They cannot leave Darius. They can not change careers, probably not even laterally much less become upwardly mobile. They cannot decide to relocate to Manticore, or the Sol system, etc.

And, as far as Darius is concerned, they are as good as slaves, maybe even better because they are invested in what they do. Reading between the lines, they are, simply put upstream, brainwashed.

As the passage says, that is part of the plan. I just bet it is. There is a lot of mileage in the brainwashed. See Audrey O'Handyhan.


P.S. An important question would be whether Darusian workforce have prolong? Are their lives as short as Mesa's slaves? Are Galton's for that matter.

What's in a name? If it is worked like a slave, treated like a slave (ok, a house slave), and does not own their own life, then it is a slave.

penny wrote:I have fielded this before. They are slaves. They cannot leave Darius. They can not change careers, probably not even laterally much less become upwardly mobile. They cannot decide to relocate to Manticore, or the Sol system, etc.

And, as far as Darius is concerned, they are as good as slaves, maybe even better because they are invested in what they do. Reading between the lines, they are, simply put upstream, brainwashed.

As the passage says, that is part of the plan. I just bet it is. There is a lot of mileage in the brainwashed. See Audrey O'Handyhan.


P.S. An important question would be whether Darusian workforce have prolong? Are their lives as short as Mesa's slaves? Are Galton's for that matter.

What's in a name? If it is worked like a slave, treated like a slave (ok, a house slave), and does not own their own life, then it is a slave.

So you know better than the author does about whether the workers were slaves. You must have evidence that they were being whipped regularly then.

Someone who is invested in what they do, escapes the normal meaning of being a slave. So the workers at Bolthole are also slaves by your definition; also the Oompa Loompas at the Chocolate Factory. Even members of the armed forces that are constrained during wartime (such as the workers at Galton) meet your criteria, so you say that they must also be slaves. The Southern politicians before the War Between the States also compared the "wage Slaves" of the North to their slaves; however they were wrong. There are graduations; there are some basic choices denied slaves, that even serfs could enjoy.

You do not know that they "can not change careers, probably not even laterally". You definitely do not know whether they could buy what they wanted, nor whether they could date whom they pleased (within their social class).

If they are happy and content, without the desire to change; then are they slaves? Admittedly that is partly due to the way that they were genetically designed, but that is still within the range of normal human variation. They are not "brain washed"; they are domesticated, like dogs. But dogs are NOT normally slaves.

PS: I do not believe we yet know whether Galton's workers have been denied prolong and certainly have no ideas about the workers at Darius. My guess would be that they have been given it. The slaves sold by Manpower did not have it in order to guarantee continual sales, an act of planned obsolescence. But that is not desirable here.

penny wrote:We read the same book. But, I also read between the lines.

"Reading between the lines" means interpretation of meaning which is not there.

penny wrote:I have fielded this before. They are slaves. They cannot leave Darius. They can not change careers, probably not even laterally much less become upwardly mobile. They cannot decide to relocate to Manticore, or the Sol system, etc.

We don't have any information of how they chan change carreers, and how much control they have over their private / family life.

But I think it's more like citizens in an authoritarian regime, not like slaves. Yes, there's a considerable difference.

penny wrote:P.S. An important question would be whether Darusian workforce have prolong? Are their lives as short as Mesa's slaves? Are Galton's for that matter.

I don't recall any textev. But my guess would be they have prolong, and also they would try to fix or avoid the defects which lead to extra short lifespan. Different to Manpower (who earned money by selling new slaves when the older ones died), they tried to build up a sustainable population on both planets, relying on as few external ressources as possible. And the longer a trained / educated worker can work and reproduce, the better for building up population, and the economy as a whole.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I have fielded this before. They are slaves. They cannot leave Darius. They can not change careers, probably not even laterally much less become upwardly mobile. They cannot decide to relocate to Manticore, or the Sol system, etc.

And, as far as Darius is concerned, they are as good as slaves, maybe even better because they are invested in what they do. Reading between the lines, they are, simply put upstream, brainwashed.

As the passage says, that is part of the plan. I just bet it is. There is a lot of mileage in the brainwashed. See Audrey O'Handyhan.


P.S. An important question would be whether Darusian workforce have prolong? Are their lives as short as Mesa's slaves? Are Galton's for that matter.

What's in a name? If it is worked like a slave, treated like a slave (ok, a house slave), and does not own their own life, then it is a slave.

So you know better than the author does about whether the workers were slaves. You must have evidence that they were being whipped regularly then.

Someone who is invested in what they do, escapes the normal meaning of being a slave. So the workers at Bolthole are also slaves by your definition; also the Oompa Loompas at the Chocolate Factory. Even members of the armed forces that are constrained during wartime (such as the workers at Galton) meet your criteria, so you say that they must also be slaves. The Southern politicians before the War Between the States also compared the "wage Slaves" of the North to their slaves; however they were wrong. There are graduations; there are some basic choices denied slaves, that even serfs could enjoy.

You do not know that they "can not change careers, probably not even laterally". You definitely do not know whether they could buy what they wanted, nor whether they could date whom they pleased (within their social class).

If they are happy and content, without the desire to change; then are they slaves? Admittedly that is partly due to the way that they were genetically designed, but that is still within the range of normal human variation. They are not "brain washed"; they are domesticated, like dogs. But dogs are NOT normally slaves.

PS: I do not believe we yet know whether Galton's workers have been denied prolong and certainly have no ideas about the workers at Darius. My guess would be that they have been given it. The slaves sold by Manpower did not have it in order to guarantee continual sales, an act of planned obsolescence. But that is not desirable here.

All slaves were not whipped. Some slave owners [liked loved] their slaves so much they were questioned by the other slave owners. House slaves were already several rungs above.

Yes, I do know better than the author! He is no better than the government who told us that Lincoln freed the slaves. But the IRS didn't get the memo.

I stated this a long time ago. The whole of the Alignment are slaves. Everyone up to and including the Inner Onion are slaves. The Detweiler Family are slaves to the cause.

penny wrote:I stated this a long time ago. The whole of the Alignment are slaves. Everyone up to and including the Inner Onion are slaves. The Detweiler Family are slaves to the cause.

This strays into the metaphorical and makes the use of the word pointless, because it conveys no common meaning.

Instead, let's discuss what is likely to exist: the population of Darius is composed of salaried workers and no one is being forced to work without wage (aside from cases like forced labour as punishment). Those workers are probably receiving decent wages and have a reasonably good quality of life, higher than most Verge planets on average (compare to what we've heard about Split). The Detweilers' intention was to create a paradise, after all. I'm also positive that the population is well-educated in all types of subjects, especially technical ones, because that is required by the further objectives of the Onion. Dumb workforce does not create innovations; short-lived workforce is a waste of investment.

However, the economy of Darius is probably fictitious and propped up by its authoritarian State (not too dissimilar from China today). Therefore, a "decent wage" is actually meaningless. Only "good quality of life" does and, to be frank, I don't see how in 2000 years we couldn't provide a reasonably good quality of life to everyone if we cared (corollary: the Verge systems don't because their rules don't care about doing just that).

Moreover, the population is brainwashed. Not explicitly and intensively as you'd expect treatments for it, but their media consumption is extremely limited and they have no access to outside, impartial sources. Therefore, they do honestly believe all the propaganda that is fed to them. The education they've got is put to use in the service of the Detweilers' and Inner Onion's agenda, and done so mostly voluntarily.

That's not to say that there aren't dissidents. We're told that Darusians have fairly regimented lives, so there will be those who stray far. The reaction of the State is probably severe... and yet it's probably not widespread nor common-knowledge. Again, "wanting to create a paradise" and "control of information" come into play.

The system of government is clearly authoritarian. We don't know if there's a democratic façade like Mesa did or if it's simply imposed. The former case would help keep the population at ease and from revolting, so it's probably there. We'll have to wait to learn more, but I also think it's irrelevant.

We're told that the Darius system is very different from Galton in its militaristic stance, so we also have to conclude that the majority of the Darius population is not in the service of a massive military. What they're doing there is unknown... kind of like the majority of the MBS population. Worse, because for the MBS we at least know there are thriving merchant and financial services.

Finally, there's one group of people who is very different from the population norm: the transplants from Mesa. Those are people who had access to Galactic information, and as elites on Mesa, they would have access to unfiltered information. Those were Onion members so presumably they were already fully bought into the objectives of the Plan, but as we know, the details of the Plan had never been shared so some of those will strain at the leashes. They're also placed in positions of authority in the Darius system, so they're also able to effect more change / cause more damage.

penny wrote:Yes, I do know better than the author! He is no better than the government who told us that Lincoln freed the slaves.

Technically the Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the rebel states (not those in Maryland, for example). So it mostly had a moral effect and only freed people in conquered areas. Making the system illegal everywhere required a Constitutional Amendment and Lincoln was dead by then.

PS: The attitude that an author's work of fiction is not allowed to deviate from what people know of the real world is something I first encountered in this forum when the subject was "locked" genetic modifications. People with a smattering of knowledge about genetics claimed at that point that genes could not now nor ever be locked. Since then it has been demonstrated with one hundred percent accuracy in insects and with better than random accuracy in somewhat higher animals. So who knows what the future holds.

tlb wrote:Someone who is invested in what they do, escapes the normal meaning of being a slave.

That is not true.

Exhibit A: House slaves.

tlb wrote:You do not know that they "can not change careers, probably not even laterally".

True. I do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt. But my logic is inferred. How can one who is "genetically inclined" to do something change careers? Talk about flushing an investment down the toilet. Not to mention it would go against the validity and success of genetic uplift. In that environment, I'd be afraid to ask to change careers. You could be viewed as a trouble maker. As someone who does not conform. As a black eye to genetic uplift. Quite possibly a traitor. You could be considered a traitor, and or a failure, and terminated.

tlb wrote:If they are happy and content, without the desire to change; then are they slaves? Admittedly that is partly due to the way that they were genetically designed, but that is still within the range of normal human variation.

The answer to that question is quite possibly yes. It could mean that they have no hope, that they have never known anything else or that anything else exists, or that they do not know there is life beyond the iron curtain. Case in point, some slaves were successful in running away, but later returned on their own.

tlb wrote:They are not "brain washed"; they are domesticated, like dogs. But dogs are NOT normally slaves.

Slaves were treated like dogs. Well, maybe dogs were treated better.

penny wrote:All slaves were not whipped. Some slave owners [liked loved] their slaves so much they were questioned by the other slave owners. House slaves were already several rungs above.

I do not believe that it is possible to state categorically that house slaves were happy and invested in their work (except to avoid being punished). I will agree that there are aspects of working in a house which are better than working in the fields. I will also agree that owners could have had relations with some of those slaves, but whether that puts them several rungs above the field slaves is questionable. I certainly expect that some house slaves could be, and were, whipped (yes, all slaves might not have been whipped; but unlike Darius and Galton, the possibility was always there). Although perhaps they were just punished by being sent to the fields, where whipping might be more prevalent.

It may be instructive to view some of the interviews of citizens in Putin's Russia.
Many obviously will be careful to not upset the security systems, but many do seem to support him and his dictatorship. Possibly because of a closed media system.