Fallout Focus: Slavers- Bastards in Suit and Tie · 8:35pm Jun 7th, 2016
So, in the last two week, I had been encouraged to apply for a "World Building writer" position for the Manehattan Project's Gardens of Equestria Fallout New Vegas mod. They had me writing a bunch of content about slavers that I am not going to talk about out of consideration for their part. While they have been very impressed by my writing, I am not sure I am the right person for their project, and as I am in the process of chasing my career, I am contemplating declining the generous offer. However, while working on the project, it reminded me about something I really wanted to talk about in terms of Fallout and Fallout Equestria.
Slavers are bastards, and I am not going to argue the contrary, but I would like to make a case on a more intricate alternative to the bethesda style slavers that Fallout Equestria draws inspiration from, particularly because the precedent set by Kkat's slavers has an impact on how all slavers are implemented in other FOE stories.
I think it is a great tragedy that bethesda and FOE equate raiders and slavers to being the same thing. I have many issues with the universal depiction of raiders as being mindless, psychopathic, drug shooting, murder enthusiasts, but to say that slavers are the same thing is even worse. There is an important distinction to be made. A raider is a warrior, but the slaver... the slaver is a businessman. In a way, they are the slimiest kind of merchant.
First of all, the slave trade is expensive. A dead slave isn't worth anything. You need to expend resources every day to keep them alive. You need manpower to keep them in line which may mean hiring mercs, particularly when dealing with caravaning them. While bomb collars are canon to FOE, if you think about it, it is really an expensive piece of equipment that isn't as domineering as you would imagine. If you are being assaulted, you will not have the time to pick out which detonator of many corresponds with the slave that is attacking. You could have one all-purpose switch, but then you end up killing your entire cadre of slaves, and that is a liability. A bomb collar would be way more expensive than iron shackles that would work just as well. Getting back to discussion on cost of investment, slavers have to make sure slaves are healthy if they want to be sold. They want them to look nice so they catch some buyer's eye, they want workers to be strong enough to do the job, but not strong enough to break out, and so on and so forth. It has all the attention and care of an abusive relationship. If slavers were simply sadistic slobbering maniacs, I doubt they would do the service of feeding any of them.
Slavery in the anarchic wasteland society is one of the great reflections on culture and history of human trafficking. For slavers to be functional in the wasteland, there must be a demand for slaves. I think it is rather unfortunate that Red Eye's slavers are taking slaves purely to do their own projects. While it is a perfectly fine way to use slavers in a story, it misses out on the horrifying implication of the merchant slaver. For the merchant slaver to exist, it means that they are accepted socially. They aren't counter culture or deviant pariahs, they are part of the family. The slaver exists to fill a need. For what ever reason, people accept that it is necessary to step all over their fellow man to maintain their lifestyle. One of the things that I found harrowing in Fallout 2 was that they made a good case for the social acceptance of slavers in wasteland society. They provided an important duty that others would struggle with. The imprisonment of criminals. Between this and targeting tribals who they deemed as uneducated, uncivilized savages, the slavers could argue that the slaves they shuffled around were not deserving of sympathy. And from there, they can snag any poor wastelander who crosses their path without any suspicion. A few silver tongued words, and they can change the story in their favor. In Fallout 2, they even featured a place called "Vault City" where the vault dwellers would buy wastelanders believing them to be inferior and uncultured. Of all the traffic customers, they were specifically the nicest to their slaves, and in a brutal wasteland they are one of the few thriving bastions of civilization. Still, their actions enable and promote slavers in their crooked business. Due to the connection with wasteland society, the doors to corrupt politics are opened. Two words: Political prisoner. Slavers provide an easy out for leaders of towns to get rid of problematic agents that ask too many question or are looking to start a rebellion. Slavers can steal away those powerful individuals and take them far away where they will never be heard from again. They help manipulate monopoly and authoritarian dynasties, and so much more. And even if someone knows that the slavers are enabling this corruption or taking away friends, family, or heroes, they wouldn't have any chance of fighting against the well armed, socially backed, economic powerhouse that is the merchant slaver.
Merchant slavers get to include many different practices that are really unsavory. The concept of slave auctions, like the kind westerners did with african slaves, gets society's buying in to the slavers market, and at the slavers benefit. From a pony stand point, it reminds me of the way the MLP art community likes selling "Adoptable" characters. With all the crazy races those artists invent, you could have a rather fucked up auction culture, dressing up slaves to be exotic novelties. By having smarter slavers, you can access many of the repulsive tactics and practices historically used in real slavery. Establishing a slave as a manager of other slaves and holding them responsible for the misconduct of the rest just to take the anger off of the slavers and redistributing it to divide the slaves against each other was a common practice to hamstring any chances of rebellion. Using spouses and children as collateral to coerce slaves to keep working with obedience was also a common practice. They had every intention of controlling them from birth till death. Rebellious slaves could be tortured and maimed in public or within earshot of the other slaves to dishearten any heroic dreamers from acting out. Slavers could establish a culture and language that dehumanizes and undermines slaves. They say that the slaver is so nice for taking care of the slave, for saving them from the harsh wasteland, they say that the slave should be obedient because they are inferior to their masters and that it is a natural phenomenon. They can deprive them of possessions, meaning they get to pillage what they grab off of others, and they can deny slaves things like education and knowledge, further indoctrinating the slaves to be submissive. Slavers are free to experiment with disobedient slaves, and in historic slave culture, it is not unheard of for slavers or slave owners to force two slaves to fight to the death for the personal enjoyment of the owners. It doesn't have to be a big public event, it can be in somebody's home, in front of the fireplace, while the owners sit in suit and tie enjoying the fight like some kind of game. The more intelligent you make the slavers, the more you can understand how slavery took over, and how even in the modern world, the remnants of those ideologies are still very much alive.
The last thing I want to talk about is something that many do not think about when dealing with slavers. Most of the time, we focus on the slaves, the slavers, and how fucked up all of that is, but we often forget that they are an economic power. Money makes the world go round, and they have one of the hottest businesses that pays handsomely. Because they have money, they become a major power in the wasteland. They are free to manipulate groups and settlements to their will, with a little bit of cap grease. They could use that to backstab and swallow and entire settlement whole, which is harder to do for the unorganized raider and with less benefits for the raider. The slavers can become a suitable economic sponsor for the establishment of career bounty hunting and other mercenary occupations that need to have big suppliers of money and jobs to support a consistent lifestyle. Slavers can own and control so much by having the monetary superiority . They can play politics, amass fearsome arsenals, and gain control over great amounts of territory. As a business, they can be the subtle monster that doesn't have the giant army of mutants or robots or what ever. They aren't interested in killing you, they want to keep you alive so they can profit and control you for as long as possible... and if they can, they might even enslave you.
In the end, people might hold firm in their allegiance to Kkat's depiction of slavers because that is what was given to them, but I wanted to provide an alternative that I believe is significantly more despicable and interesting. If you've kept up this far, I am impressed that I haven't bored you to death. What are your thoughts on slavers? Do you like Kkat's slavers more, and if so, what is your reasoning? Which is more evil? Tell me what you think.
So the towns wants the slaves so they support slavers. Slavers want the ponys so they support raiders draider want the ponys so they go to towns and see who the town is willing to get rid of and basicly are crazy to a point mercenaries. I think I'm seeing a terable cycle of business here. It might explane why we see so manny slavers and raiders. Not to menchon a all the equipment they have in spades. Slavers and raiders made themselves esenchal and a booming business.
4006926 A raider is not particularly interested with ponies. They want stuff. If you have it, they want it, and they will take it from you. However, established, functional towns would generally have enough firepower that it wouldn't be worth the raider's while. Raider's go after caravans, because they are less secure, they move around, so they walk into traps and ambushes, and they carry more resources for less effort than taking a town. Plus, in a fight, the merchant is less likely to use their supplies because it is their merchandise.
Towns do not necessarily need slaves, but in affluent areas, more morally lax cities, and with groups that have big ambitions that require a lot of power, slaves are going to be in demand. The relationship with basic towns is that they can take away criminals and establish rapport with the town, and from their they get more negotiating power. They can make corrupt deals and manipulate towns around.
I'm not sure what you talking about the slavers in FOE are the same as you just describe, Red Eye's slavers are the most economic powerful faction in the story, they have pull with a few towns, their business is accepted on some level since no one cares enough to stop their trade lines unlit Pip shows.
However I will agree we don't get much about the slavers in FOE, I think it's mostly because the story focus on Pip stopping their operations rather than learning about them. I best story FOE that goes completely in-depth with slavers are usually the one's that have the main character as a slaver, mostly stories focus on fighting slavers.
4008201 Red Eye does not sell slaves out. The slavers he has are used for the purpose of getting more slaves to do labor for their own force. They are not an economic entity. It is more likely that any economic power Red Eye's forces have is based on their ability to pillage and conquest based on their massive raider forces. It is arguable as to whether or not red eye's forces are the most economically powerful force in the original, but to be honest, there aren't all that many factions in the original, and economics never plays a big role in the story.