Slavery in Union: An exploration of the concept of "Redemptive Slavery".

[The Syndicate Leagues]

Slavery and the Union

The history of the Union within the Sirian Slave Trade is long and complex, seeming far removed from the Union’s ideology of personal independence, strength through self-sufficiency, and denouncement of any authority seen as restrictive. Indeed, for the first century of the Union-in-exile, slavery remained viewed as an alien, abhorrent trade, little different to the class slavery the Republic of Rheinland has inflicted upon the populace to the present day. The change of attitude occurred gradually, without embrace by the Union’s ideological core. The extortion of hostages from foreign shipping and enterprise had remained a fundamental tool within the Union’s resistance since the movement’s inception - and, inevitably, hostages were expected to work for their board by their captors, especially amidst smaller, less resourceful cells who lacked the capability to waste consumables on another several souls left to consume the remaining air in their cells - when ransomed remained unpaid, it often became pragmatic to provide willing captives the opportunity to fuze with the Union in return for a period of servitude. Continued contact with the Rogues further diluted the Union’s views once the cells realised the Libertonian underworld’s constant demand for captive individuals with no Libertonian citizenship could be turned into a means of reducing the human cost of raids on shipping traffic. Bretonians and Kusarians alike thrust into Unioner captivity would frequently find themselves repatriated into the holds of a Rogue or Junker slaver bound for the cardamine fields of the Maltese.

As the grim practice became normalised, it gained the credence of the Arbeitsdirektors who had once themselves ran slave hunting parties. The Unioners started to refine the efficiency of slave capture and storage, using them to replace hard-to-come-by robotics in in-house manufacturing whenever necessary. Slaves were presented with a path to freedom - gradual subsumption into the Unioners for those who expressed sufficient loyalty. Ex-slaves would gain freedom of movement and property - but not freedom of transit. Their children would become fully fledged members of the Union, but in all but the rarest of circumstances, neophyte slaves themselves would not reach salvation, and thus, the possession of spacecraft and a means to practical emancipation. Gradually, slavery crept into acceptance by all walks of Unioner society, with any captured party unclaimed by third parties becoming fair game - with one considerable exception; only foreigners could be rent of their independence. Rheinlanders could not be subjugated under Union mandate, and all attempts to do so remained comparable to treason within the laughably inconsistent Union judicial system. Since Rheinlanders made the vast majority of Unioner captives, the need for acceptable candidates helped motivate the Union’s expansion into the Sigmas and Texas itself, vastly increasing the reputation of the Union for inter-house violence. Externally, the Union quickly earned the reputation of the primary sources of terror within Rheinland house - whilst the ever-growing Hessian movement started to unseat the Union from its position as the primary source of piracy within Rheinland’s trade lanes, traders still remained petrified of Union capture, earning the Bering route considerable notoriety and hefty insurance premiums. The Unions, no stranger to the value of terror to create economic shock, have swiftly embraced the image. With the steady militarisation of the Unions in the ramp up to, and initiation, of the Union’s entry into the centuries-old war between the Corsairs and the southern socialist front, the Union has started to make the transmission into enslaving their own countrymen - however, the circumstances are usually exceptional - reserved for SCRA and Coalition civilians thought too insignificant to warrant execution. Legislatively, individuals cannot be enslaved lest they have committed an offence against the Union national idyll, however, in practice, this is rarely checked.

The Unioner philosophy dictates as follows: enemies of the state, serving the cause who they have harmed, are not slaves - they are merely undoing the wrong they have previously caused in life, and thus are being subjected to a redemptive punishment similar to a life sentence in a working prison. The term “Slavery” itself is discouraged, and the Unioners still massively object to the GMG and Maltese slave trade, viewing their own trades as blunt exploitation, rather than an a mechanism of justice.

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