Lit Common slave species

I was thinking about kotor 1 earlier today and remembered the scene where Bastila is being offered as a prize to the winner of the swoop races on Taris, and that got me thinking. Were humans a common slave species in the galaxy? As I type this, I can't help but also remember Anakin and Shmi Skywalker, but just how common was this?
One would think that since humans were such a ubiquitous species in the galaxy that there would be significantly more outcry and protest against human slavery, especially given the high positions humans have held thorughout the entire history of the Republic(s) and the Jedi order(s). Am I correct in assuming this or am I way off here? Are there certain species that have a general history of being enslaved? Twi'leks come to mind, but who else?
I know this question is relative to certain periods of time and place. For example, I know the infinite empire had many slave species, but after this empire collapsed were those same species continually oppressed and enslaved by others? Or were they finally free?

 

Humanity being the most populace species and apparently rather adaptable does make them likely to me popular/common slaves, even if it is just enslaved by other humans. The Core Planet Demophon had an entire slave caste of people, consisting of undesirables from any race, whilst the Senex/Juxes Lords apparently also enslaved other humans. Then there are corporations that would regularly use very badly treated indentured servants.

The Hutts where also rather found of human slaves, they would even pay top credit to Pirates in the days of the Empire for getting them human slaves and the Empire itself would also regularly punish humans to slave/force labor (the boundary between which seems to be a little wobbly at times).

 

Humans were a very important slave race to the Celestials and Rakata. The main reason why they're the most populace species since the end of the pre-republic era, is 'cause they have been enslaved and taken from their homeworld Coruscant by ancient races like the Celestials, Gree and Rakata before the founding of the Galactic Republic. The Rakata also gave them the technology to build sleeper ships.

 

This just dosen't seem practical. Adaptable or no, there are plenty of other species that live longer and are more physically fit for slave labor.

 

Those would tend to be far rarer and because of longer life span and/or potential physically greater power harder to control. Though most slavers might not be that picky and take whatever they can unless they require cheap labor for very special projects.

 

Clones

 

Slavery in Star Wars is a psychological phenomenon and is not linked to economics (droids are cheaper and more durable in every way) outside of the sex trade. That informs slavery decisions. However the different slave-keeping societies did so for different reasons, and this no doubt affected the choices they made in what species they preferred as slaves. Zygerrians, for example, believed that taking and keeping other species as slaves was part of the natural order and an expression of their superiority. They also used slaves in almost every conceivable labor role in their economy. As a result, they would no doubt prefer as slaves species with a humanoid frame the same as their own, so that their slaves could function seamlessly in spaces created for their masters. Hutts, by contrast, enslave as an expression of personal power and wealth, and therefore are quite happy to turn anything they can get their hands on into a slave, assuming the circumstances are correct, though they also link this to status - slaves are a luxury product and Hutts treated them accordingly preferring aesthetically pleasing slaves such as Twi'lek girls.

Humanoid species dominate the active galactic population by the shear numbers, and Homo sapiens specifically are by far the most abundant individual species, potentially representing up to half or even more of all members of galactic society. So obviously they would be swept up by default and end up among the most common slaves simply by dint of numbers. While humans are doubtless not the most ideal of slave species, they are far from the worst either, and are capable of functioning in slave status long term without special social or dietary requirements. This is opposed to something like hive species members, who are no doubt more efficient brute laborers in numbers but present certain obstacles to conventional slavery.

In terms of species that are specifically notable galaxy wide for being chosen as slaves, however, I believe the key is to look to the sex trade. This is the one area where slavery is driven by economics (whether its chattel slavery or debt slavery), since droids can't take over as sex workers (well, they can, but human replica droids are the extremely rare form of automaton that are more expensive than their organic counterparts). The ideal sex slave species is one that is found appealing across most species boundaries, especially humanoids, is psychologically excepting of the concept of bondage and not prone to violent rebellion, and that has no usual metabolic or social requirements that make caring for them expensive (needing breath masks in standard atmospheres for example).

Twi'leks fit the above criteria, and further possess a societal clan structure that easily allowed for outsiders to purchase females as slaves without destabilizing the social order. Zeltrons were also probably commonly enslaved, given their high aesthetic appeal. Certain other species with high 'luxury' value such as the extremely rare Theelins were no doubt often forced into slavery quite often as a result.

 

Except we are told numerous times they aren’t and just simply not usable in various exotic atmospheres or radiation conditions. Sure the psychological factor plays into it as well, but it is way too common for it not to be economically viable.We even have instances where Droids supervising slaves doing menial labor just because the Slaves are so much easier to acquire and maintain.

 

Yeah in some ways the GFFA is kind of screwed up and backwards but we have to remember to not base our opinions of their society and the role technology plays in it, droids and AI do play a pretty big part in galactic society but due to various droid rebellions, clone wars, etc they don't play as big of a part and are somewhat distrusted by elements of the populace.

The way their technology was/is aqquired as well is pretty interesting, frankly a society like the GFFA should have no need of slaves and should have much more of an ability to influence galactic affairs and end tyrannies like slavery than is shown in the EU. Frankly the various members of the Republic should have gone through their own versions of a "singularity" and not require some of the down-right anachronistic tech that is in use.

Something keeps the GFFA behind in terms of both possible tech upgrades and the influencing of negative actors like the Hutts. Judging from what I've read the Republic has more than enough power over its long history to change galactic society for the better.....but for some reason it does not?

 

Double post.

 

Cultrual inertia, perhaps? We prefer slaves because that's the way our ancestors ran their society?

It may also have something to do with sentient species being capable of self-replication!

 

As long as there is need for labor, there will also always be the potential need for slaves, unless you can replace everything with automation, which wouldn’t work in the GFFA because of the limits and problems that show up regularly with droids and central computing systems. And even if they do, those processes are still very expensive to get up running and keep running, whilst living labor just has way lower cost in acquiring it and in maintain it, especially once you go “bulk”.

It’s very similar in modern society where numerous processes could actually be fully automated or be made more productive by using innovative technology for them, but we actually have more forced labor situations than ever before in recorded history, with low guesses going for 12 million people which are currently de facto slave labor and that’s without Corvée systems that some governments still use. Which is getting close to the total number of slaves (guesses go from 10 to 20 million) exported from Africa over a time span of some 1500 years.

And the movies and the EU does point out that usually those that back slavery sit on Coruscant or at least have influence there.

One problem with Technological singularity is that you can't really build anything that is “smarter” than yourself; sure you can use it to help you research/think things you have not been able to comprehend/quantify thus far, but in the end you will always be limited by what you can actually come up with yourself. Besides other problems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity). What happens in the GFFA tech wise seem to actually be that they have pretty much stopped going forward, sure they innovate and try to make certain stuff more efficient, but hardly anything truly new has apparently show up in thousands of years.

To paraphrase one of the old Alien guides the Hutts bring modern technology, trade and culture to many worlds that Republic/Empire would not even have bothered with and generally only serve to connect one party that once something with another party that has it. They are in fact not that different from what the Republic does, where Core Worlds run the show and exploit the Rim. The Core apparently just doesn’t like them too much because they tend to be better at it and have often gotten there first.

Effective powers seems to ebb and flow at various times in its history, as does the influence of its member worlds and that of commercial interests.If you have a copy of the Atlas you can see this pretty nicely illustrated when they started losing ground to the Hutts in many parts of the Rim before the Clone Wars.

 

I disagree. While there were certainly a significant number of planets in the core and other regions where advanced technology was ubiquitous(ie planets where something like a hyperdrive or a blaster pistol was considered a common, everyday item), there were still many planets that were considered primiitive by comparison, in some cases not even being space faring. One could certainly perceive a "need" for slavery on some underdeveloped, "third world"(no pun intended)planet like this, at least in theory, no?
I do agree with you that a government in existence for ~25,000 years should have gotten something done about these injustices. I would be interested to see this explored to a greater degree at some point later in the EU as well.

 

[QUOTE-Gorefiend]As long as there is need for labor, there will also always be the potential need for slaves, unless you can replace everything with automation, which wouldn’t work in the GFFA because of the limits and problems that show up regularly with droids and central computing systems. And even if they do, those processes are still very expensive to get up running and keep running, whilst living labor just has way lower cost in acquiring it and in maintain it, especially once you go “bulk”.[/QUOTE]

The actual canon numbers refute this statement. An ASP Labor droid, a basic unskilled labor unit capable of effectively any and all tasks an unskilled humanoid laborer could conduct (and several that they can't) costs a flat 1,000 credits (source: SAGA Core Book). Self-sufficient level of upkeep for a sentient being is 100 credits per month (source: SAGA core book). Even if a droid somehow costs an equivalent amount to maintain (which is highly unlikely, droid repair is a 1-hour task by a skilled laborer, and should cost less than ten credits (1,000 credit per month average upkeep, 160 hours of work in a month 1-hour of labor is worth 6.25 credits), a droid needs to rest only 1% of the time (source: SAGA core book) while even the most unbelievably efficient organic would need to rest 30% of the time (leaving a mere 7 hours for sleeping, bathing, eating, defecation and all other necessities each day), so the droid is more than half again as efficient than an organic slave. All that is before factoring in the increased cost of supervision of slaves versus droids.

The underlying reality is that the economy of Star Wars, and the labor situation beneath it, simply does not function in accordance with an Earth-based model. It is, among other things, incredibly unequal, with the overwhelming majority of systems in the galaxy contributing effectively nothing to the total economic output of the galaxy. of course, slavery really doesn't make economic sense even on Earth - free laborers produce greater growth over time in the aggregate - slavery is, and always has been, about power and control of wealth and society. Droids simply provide a third way around the calculus.

I will admit that, in a sort of specialized sort term extractive method, slavery can be conducted in Star Wars to economic benefit: in the specialized circumstance where a surplus labor force is acquired at minimal cost and simply worked to death without any intention of sustaining the situation long term. This is a common Hutt practice because they really just don't care and are often interested in getting annoying natives out of the way when they take control of something.

There are also large swathes of the Star Wars galaxy where droids, and a wide variety of other Republic-level technologies are simply unavailable or prohibitively expensive to import (because space based shipping is extremely expensive, the opposite of the current Earth situation of extremely low global shipping costs by the way). In those situations slavery may prevail, and it may even seem common, but while such 'primitive' societies occupy a majority of planets in the Star Wars galaxy they consist of a small minority of the total population. It's worth remembering that most EU products, and even the movies themselves, so a stilted picture of the galaxy as explained in the broader setting materials. We generally see only Coruscant and the distant fringe, and not the extremely prosperous and heavily modernized Core and Colonies sectors that dominate the galaxy in population and economic output.

 

We do have various instances where it is commented that Slave labor is actually cheaper and easier to use than Droid labor (mining/processing on worlds that are outright hostile to droids and somewhat less hostile to living beings is one mentioned very often) or as you mentioned worlds that just don't have regular access to high tech goods, which is not that uncommon and related to the problem of them not really having that much to sell that others would want.

Mindharp of Sharu mentions that they require as much rest as human beings once they reach similar skill levels or intelligence, whilst the SAGA guide only points out that normal droids will run out of power after 100 hours and that they will require about an hour to recharge. Add to that you will need replacement parts, mind wipes and droid labor also needs to the supervised as well - the movies show numerous instances of droids becoming deeply erratic and just outright odd if left to their own.

As is Earth, a person in Luxemborg produces more than 300 times as much GDP than one in the Congo.

Geopolitically speaking no, because of the political strife you tend to impose on the region that supplies that slave labor and how it tends to depress its development, economies supplied by it on the other hand seem to boom from the influx of labor, especially if it is acquired by trade, though it does seem to discourage investing in less labor intensive technology.

Apparently depends on the system of slavery, one where they regularly semifree some of them tend to also have these booms

Free Labor cultures are also about control of wealth and society, economic dominance over labor can turn out to be just as harsh in a free society than in unfree ones. Being a Core World corporate drone on a super industrialized world can easily be worse of a live than indentured servant or tenant on some green fringe planet.

One could actually argue that Droids encourage Slavery of sentient beings, as you are de facto already enslaving something that is smart enough to know its unfree, reducing inhibitions about doings the same thing to living beings. The not uncommon droid rebellions and just simply renegade droids also kind of point at them just having created another class of beings to mishandle, side by side with less fortunate living beings. Some planets even consider smart droids to have the rights of citizens (Naboo being one) and we have been shown various Droid liberation movements, that often also dislike slavery.

Not Hutt exclusive, the CorpSector and other groups are also notorious for this.

Eriadu and Metalorn sort of begs to differ in this.

There is also slavery on Coruscant either underworld or if the Empire is running it, work gangs and other kind of fun stuff and we also have mentions of Core Worlds that kind of still go for slavery as well, like Demophon, propely others if I dig a little.

 

Ugnaughts were also slaves.

Originally from the planet Gentes in the remote Anoat system, Ugnaughts were taken away from their homeworld as slaves long before the Imperial era. Entire tribes would often be sold into slavery.

They were shown on Bespin in ESB but also turned up working on Oovo IV in the SW: Bounty Hunter game.

 

One would think that enslaving humans is a decidely dicy game - far more likely to rile the Core and bring down retribution from the Republic/Empire/Alliance. Especially the Empire.

On another note: is there any source at all indicating droid manufacturers lobbied against slavery. It does seem a rather obvious move.

 

On your latter point, were the Droid manufacturers (a) able to feed that level of demand and (b) trusted enough after the Clone Wars and/or Kueller?

 

As to (a), I suspect yes, at least as of the film era, given the quantity churned out at short notice during the Clone Wars. Also, the 'lawless' slave-using regions are mostly far more sparsely populated. I imagine they'd be a drop in the ocean next to the extant droid market.

With regard to (b), those two crises would undoubtedly put a damper on the influence of the manufacturers, as would other crises through history, most obviously the Gread Droid Revolution of 4015 BBY. In fact, I particularly recall a passage from Yoda: Dark Rendevous where a chap was pretty anxious about droids specifically because they were the enemy. That said, the pall cast by those incidents is hardly insurmountable. In Millenium Falcon Han and Lando discuss Tendrando; Lando says "Tendrando's facing a lot of competition all of a sudden. The Verpines, Mandalorians, even Baktoid and the Colicoid Nest are trying to get back in the droid market."

Actually, Tendrando's sudden competition is very close - suspiciously so - to the outbreak of the slave revolts and the rise to prominence of Freedom Flight. Maybe there's a story to be told here.

 

I agree! There are quite a few loose ends to be tied up - although we have been told who started it and why - we don't know who is/was making the policy decisions once it took on a life of its own.

Also, was the Bothan on Tatooine the same as the one who told Mahdi about Blandu Sextus? How much Bothan involvement is there, and is/was Nek involved at all?

Hopefully we'll get told!