The Battle of Darius - What would you say?

ldwechsler wrote:Slavery is NOT really profitable. Anton pointed that out a while ago which was one reason he felt there was something more behind Manpower.

Also, having slavery means you have an immense amount of property that can/will be lost as soon as it is located. Torch will lead the way but remember that Manticore, Beowulf, and Haven were three of slavery's main enemies.

As for Darius, people from outside might not recognize it as a slave state. People lived well; chances are there was no poverty (jobs would be found for those without, even if they didn't want it).

The main difference between residents of Darius and Manticore is that the latter could vote for their leaders. Take a look at Europe now where the EU Parliament makes decisions for countries even if the countries do not like it. Yes, there is a difference but not a big one.

If ships from the GA came in, they could be greeted, treated reasonably well, and then they would leaves. Darius might be producing ships like crazy but it might now be easy to actually prove connections to MAlign. As for the few thousand Mesans there, they would not be hard to disguise from casual visitors.

Slave labor aka Manpower's quasi-legal trade is not profitable, even the Detweillers said that. However the sex-slave trade is definitely lucrative, if infinitely more morally disgusting.

pappilon wrote:Slave labor aka Manpower's quasi-legal trade is not profitable, even the Detweillers said that. However the sex-slave trade is definitely lucrative, if infinitely more morally disgusting.

Second this. Just look at present day Earth. The only appreciable slavery is sex slavery.

Thinking it through there is not much difference between Darius and China, Russia, or other quasi democracies here.
Particularly if they were clever and structured it so people thought they had some say, as is done here.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

pappilon wrote:Slave labor aka Manpower's quasi-legal trade is not profitable, even the Detweillers said that. However the sex-slave trade is definitely lucrative, if infinitely more morally disgusting.

Second this. Just look at present day Earth. The only appreciable slavery is sex slavery.

I am not at all sure that is correct. There is a lot of very nasty stuff that goes on in, for example, brick making in India. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indi ... SKCN0WD01B

There are also political reasons why sex slavery is pushed as a cause, the whole trafficking thing has the feeling of Janet Reno imprisoning preschool teachers over stories told by manipulated kids. But anyhow, even there, slavers are not raising babys, they are paying a rather low amount to someone who delivers an already teen-aged girl to them. The economics change quite a bit when you need to raise them yourself.

kzt wrote:
Second this. Just look at present day Earth. The only appreciable slavery is sex slavery.

I am not at all sure that is correct. There is a lot of very nasty stuff that goes on in, for example, brick making in India. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indi ... SKCN0WD01B

There are also political reasons why sex slavery is pushed as a cause, the whole trafficking thing has the feeling of Janet Reno imprisoning preschool teachers over stories told by manipulated kids. But anyhow, even there, slavers are not raising babys, they are paying a rather low amount to someone who delivers an already teen-aged girl to them. The economics change quite a bit when you need to raise them yourself.[/quote]

All slave labor has to be raised from infancy to minimal adulthood (15, 16, 21 whenever) trained and perhaps genetically modded, more training makes them more valuable, also increases the danger to the manufacturer until they are sold. Just grabbing the vulnerable off the streets of Old Chicago is much cheaper for the seller. Manpower cannot grow and raise slaves cheaper than the vulnerable can be bribed, coerced, cajoled, intimidated into servitude.

Except for White Slavery (pleasure slaves) where any number of kinks can be enjoyed for a price.

So does Manpower just cease operations, now that it has lost its labs and government support? Or does it also relocate to some quiet hole-in-the-wall nobody visits and set up shop?

pappilon wrote:
So does Manpower just cease operations, now that it has lost its labs and government support? Or does it also relocate to some quiet hole-in-the-wall nobody visits and set up shop?

Manpower no longer has government protection and a quasi-legitimate shipping conglomerate fronting for it. Once Torch is able to land on Mesa and rifle through the Manpower offices, chances are they are going to start rolling up every Manpower depot they can get their hands on.

The question is whether any of the outlying depots will hear the news and relocate, or will their crews just disband and leave the business.

Anyone smart will run for it. Sell their ship to "Joe's no questions asked ship broker", split the cash with the crew and disappear. Sell the station to a mining outfit to be converted into micrometer sized dust or just blow it in place.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

pappilon wrote:Slave labor aka Manpower's quasi-legal trade is not profitable, even the Detweillers said that. However the sex-slave trade is definitely lucrative, if infinitely more morally disgusting.

Second this. Just look at present day Earth. The only appreciable slavery is sex slavery.

The human element screams again.

We cannot separate sex slavery from prostititution. It should be a given that sex slavery would be profitable, because prostitution is the oldest profitable profession, even when it was illegal. Even where it still is illegal on present day Earth.

Sex slavery is a better "form" of prostitition. It is efficient and more practical for the "John." It is nothing less than a tailored form of prostitution. Prostitution had, has, its limits. The prostitute had rights. She had pet peeves, dos and don'ts, like abstaining from kissing the John to prevent emotional entanglement. A prostitute may also have aversions to certain kinds of sex, therefore she maintains some semblance of control. There were time limits. All of the negative aspects associated with prostitution is genengineered out with Mesa's introduction of sex slaves. It should be intuitive that it would not only be profitable, but insanely so.

There is inherent power involved in supplying such a sought after commodity as old as time. Mesans are the new pimps who beat their "harlots" into submission, in assembly line gang-rape fashion, to train them. Who test their merchandise until they're ready.

Mesa has delivered the perfect woman only dreamed of since the beginning of time, by the kind of man who enjoys them -- a woman who delivers what a wife won't. Sex on demand w/o speaking until spoken to. Who don't get headaches or give them. A true perverted a**hole's, wholeass dream.

Really, why wouldn't it be profitable? In the Honorverse, man is still as degenerate as he has always been. He will always be prone to carrying his weakness in his pants, and will always be willing to put his brains, and sometimes even his mouth, where his... zipper is.

This is a post I'd only share with Joan Rivers if she were alive -- because with her, "We could truly talk."

pappilon wrote:Slave labor aka Manpower's quasi-legal trade is not profitable, even the Detweillers said that. However the sex-slave trade is definitely lucrative, if infinitely more morally disgusting.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Second this. Just look at present day Earth. The only appreciable slavery is sex slavery.

cthia wrote:The human element screams again.

We cannot separate sex slavery from prostititution. It should be a given that sex slavery would be profitable, because prostitution is the oldest profitable profession, even when it was illegal. Even where it still is illegal on present day Earth.

Sex slavery is a better "form" of prostitition. It is efficient and more practical for the "John." It is nothing less than a tailored form of prostitution. Prostitution had, has, its limits. The prostitute had rights. She had pet peeves, dos and don'ts, like abstaining from kissing the John to prevent emotional entanglement. A prostitute may also have aversions to certain kinds of sex, therefore she maintains some semblance of control. There were time limits. All of the negative aspects associated with prostitution is genengineered out with Mesa's introduction of sex slaves. It should be intuitive that it would not only be profitable, but insanely so.

There is inherent power involved in supplying such a sought after commodity as old as time. Mesans are the new pimps who beat their "harlots" into submission, in assembly line gang-rape fashion, to train them. Who test their merchandise until they're ready.

Mesa has delivered the perfect woman only dreamed of since the beginning of time, by the kind of man who enjoys them -- a woman who delivers what a wife won't. Sex on demand w/o speaking until spoken to. Who don't get headaches or give them. A true perverted a**hole's, wholeass dream.

Really, why wouldn't it be profitable? In the Honorverse, man is still as degenerate as he has always been. He will always be prone to carrying his weakness in his pants, and will always be willing to put his brains, and sometimes even his mouth, where his... zipper is.

This is a post I'd only share with Joan Rivers if she were alive -- because with her, "We could truly talk."

The only real issues are practical ones, How much tech and stock can they make off with and where do they establish their new base of operations. Oh yeah, how much access to their capital will they have. Which is dependent on how long Mike is diatracted by O'Hanrahan.

Jessyk is probably in no great hurry to abandon their slave transports to the highest bidding scrap yard.

Having just re-read A Rising Thunder, the conversation between Honor and Chien-lu prompted me to come up with a slightly different scenario.

---

Darius, the effective secret capital of the Mesan Alignment, architects of the new Übermensch, sat there in it's hidden corner of the galaxy. Surrounded by fortresses, fleets and shipyards, its rulers had believed themselves safe until their inevitable victory.

Then a massive hyper-footprint lights up the system, a huge fleet drops in out of no-where. They are accelerating far too fast to be anyone but the Alignment's most hated and feared opponents. They have found their opponents secret refuge.

But no impeller drives light up, no sidewalls activate, even the spider-drive detectors show nothing.

Honor instructs her fleet to decelerate, and waits for more information from the drones heading for Darius. Nothing happens, the ships and fortresses orbiting Darius remain inert.

"Take a drone right in. I want to see the planet's surface," Honor snapped.

A hush fell on the flagship, while the drone continued to close. Details began to be visible on the drone's feed. First seas, then cities, then roads, and even buildings. Finally, the watchers could even make out people. And still, the ships and fortresses remained inert.

The drone continued to close, and the viewscreen showed a skeleton-thin man, apparently dancing in a circle, with his right arm extended ... and then another, repeating the same dance ... and then another.

Quietly, Honor mused "I told Chien-lu that I hoped that the Alignment were able to keep their nanotech from mutating. It appears that they failed,", then, speaking to her officers, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new task. To sterilise this entire system so that not even a single virus survives. Lets be about it."