Slave trade internationally

[Ghant]

I've been openly willing and eager to RP a war against Scandinvans for over ten years, in fact against anyone (or everyone!) in Gholgoth. My Prefect of War explicitly called them out. So far all have refused OOCly. They're terrified of me.

I question how much of it has to do with being "terrified" as much as it has to do with limited time / interest in conducting such an RP.

[Menelmacar]

I should clarify. I am not really referring to everyone in Gholgoth per se. I'm referring to the dystopian sorts like Scandinvans, Automagfreek, and the like.

I think you do make a valid point, but there are a fair number of nations in the region, AMF is probably the worst offender at this but there are others, who like to pick fights with what they think are 'soft targets', and abruptly stop posting when resistance turns out stiffer than expected. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if so much of the regional identity (and so much of the national identity of certain members) didn't revolve around being unstoppable in war.

Ultimately I do think that RP is entirely consent-based, and should be. I don't go off bombing AMF and Scandinvans because I know AMF and Scandinvans aren't going to play ball (and would fire ignore cannons if I did). But, at the same time, I don't have a lot of respect for people who RP actions for which they will refuse to RP the consequences. This is why I say they're terrified -- it's not that they don't do war RP, it's that they don't do war RP they might lose.

[Vektra]

The Multiversal Federated Empire of Vektra is against slavery. Those nations who buy or sell people, will be destoied and anexed to the empire.

[The Cybernet Protocol]

The Cyberiad disagrees with the notion of an international ban of the slave trade as it is unlikely that a ban would stop the practice, and that slaves would likely suffer from poorer conditions due to lack of funding. The Cyberiad also notes that it believes the best way to deal with the practice is to purchase as many slaves as possible, and set them free upon arrival.

[Allanea]

The Cyberiad disagrees with the notion of an international ban of the slave trade as it is unlikely that a ban would stop the practice, and that slaves would likely suffer from poorer conditions due to lack of funding. The Cyberiad also notes that it believes the best way to deal with the practice is to purchase as many slaves as possible, and set them free upon arrival.

OOC: Purchasing slaves creates a demand for more slaves, thus encouraging slavery.

[Menelmacar]

The Cyberiad disagrees with the notion of an international ban of the slave trade as it is unlikely that a ban would stop the practice...

Would it stop it? Of course not, banning murder doesn't stop murder, banning bank robberies doesn't stop bank robberies, and so forth. However, it provides additional cassus belli for killing slavers and breaking their things until they stop doing it, which has fairly consistently proven effective.

[The Macabees]

I by no means claim to be as terrifying as the great Menelmacar, but I'm able to RP a war with (an invasion of) a Gothic slaver state (four of them, potentially), with no problem. If Gholgoth isn't willingly RP with you, it might be time for introspection.

[Allanea]

I by no means claim to be as terrifying as the great Menelmacar, but I'm able to RP a war with (an invasion of) a Gothic slaver state (four of them, potentially), with no problem. If Gholgoth isn't willingly RP with you, it might be time for introspection.

This is a non-sequitur and you know it.

[The Macabees]

I don't follow. Explain it to me, please.

[Allanea]

I don't follow. Explain it to me, please.

The fact that you are having an ongoing RP with Gholgoth and they don't RP with Menelmacar does not ipso facto lead to the conclusion that Menelmacar needs to do "introspection".

[Menelmacar]

I by no means claim to be as terrifying as the great Menelmacar, but I'm able to RP a war with (an invasion of) a Gothic slaver state (four of them, potentially), with no problem. If Gholgoth isn't willingly RP with you, it might be time for introspection.

To be honest I'm not actually bothered by this whole thing, I genuinely find it amusing. I've long ago accepted that I wasn't going to get to crush AMF or Scand; life goes on. The only reason this even came up to begin with was Common Territories calling out the anti-slavery crowd over going after Corpa while letting Scandinvans live, so I explained why.

EDIT: Originally linked the wrong post.

[The Cybernet Protocol]

The Cyberiad disagrees with the notion of an international ban of the slave trade as it is unlikely that a ban would stop the practice, and that slaves would likely suffer from poorer conditions due to lack of funding. The Cyberiad also notes that it believes the best way to deal with the practice is to purchase as many slaves as possible, and set them free upon arrival.

OOC: Purchasing slaves creates a demand for more slaves, thus encouraging slavery.

But the supply is still finite, and they will eventually run out of slaves to sell.

The Cyberiad disagrees with the notion of an international ban of the slave trade as it is unlikely that a ban would stop the practice...

Would it stop it? Of course not, banning murder doesn't stop murder, banning bank robberies doesn't stop bank robberies, and so forth. However, it provides additional cassus belli for killing slavers and breaking their things until they stop doing it, which has fairly consistently proven effective.

But attacking slavers whilst they are transporting slaves poses an additional risk to the slaves, seeing as they could be accidentally killed or used as living shields. And once they run out of slaves to sell, they go out of business.

[Allanea]

But the supply is still finite, and they will eventually run out of slaves to sell.

Do you think farmers will ever run out of cows?

[Allanea]

but I will say you got OOC agreements for said claims - the kidnapping, for example, was not done out of skill but out of an agreement you two came to.

That's hardly relevant, because the issue was whether my nation is in-character afraid of Scandinvans, which it absolutely is not, which is demonstrated by every in-character my nation has taken IC.

My nation has sought out war with Scandinvans repeatedly and it's simply not true to say that Allanea will not fight or take on large slaver nations, as it has repeatedly done so in the past.

[The Cybernet Protocol]

But the supply is still finite, and they will eventually run out of slaves to sell.

Do you think farmers will ever run out of cows?

I'm fairly certain cows reproduce more frequently than humans do. As an example, if a slaver had a thousand slaves, and I was to buy a hundred slaves every year, the slaver would quickly run out . If I was to buy one slave every month, they would probably be able to keep a fairly constant business, even though I was freeing the slaves as soon as they arrived.

[The Macabees]

The fact that you are having an ongoing RP with Gholgoth and they don't RP with Menelmacar does not ipso facto lead to the conclusion that Menelmacar needs to do "introspection".

It does suggest that there's some probability that maybe introspection would explain why they don't RP with you guys.

[Allanea]

Do you think farmers will ever run out of cows?

I'm fairly certain cows reproduce more frequently than humans do. As an example, if a slaver had a thousand slaves, and I was to buy a hundred slaves every year, the slaver would quickly run out . If I was to buy one slave every month, they would probably be able to keep a fairly constant business, even though I was freeing the slaves as soon as they arrived.

The reason cows don't die out is because farmers are not dumb and space out their sales in such a way as to guarantee themselves a source of income.

Furthermore, slavers can always just enslave more people if there's profit in it.

[Menelmacar]

Do you think farmers will ever run out of cows?

I'm fairly certain cows reproduce more frequently than humans do. As an example, if a slaver had a thousand slaves, and I was to buy a hundred slaves every year, the slaver would quickly run out . If I was to buy one slave every month, they would probably be able to keep a fairly constant business, even though I was freeing the slaves as soon as they arrived.

Or he might just go take more slaves.

Consider elephant ivory: poachers kill elephants because there is demand for ivory. They can sell the product. They don't give a damn what you do with it after they have your money. If you buy the ivory to take it off the market and destroy it, you've still bought it, and you've still stimulated demand; they will go kill more elephants. If nobody buys the ivory at all, there will cease to be money in killing elephants, and the poacher will go do something else.

Buying slaves to free them encourages the slaver because he still has your money. He will gladly go enslave more people to sell them to you because he doesn't actually care that you're freeing them after. You're still funding his business.

[Ghant]

It does suggest that there's some probability that maybe introspection would explain why they don't RP with you guys.

The explanation is simple. It's because if they allow their nations to get beat, and their nations changed to something different from what it was before that, then all of a sudden players find themselves RPing nations that they didn't intend on RPing, which sort of defeats the purpose. A slave nation exists because the player wants to RP it, that's what optimizes their RP utility. So to force a player to change from that, sort of defeats the purpose of playing it to begin with. Which is to derive enjoyment from the actual roleplaying experience.

While I cannot speak for everyone, I personally refuse to write conflict RP with people that are OOCly bent on "beating me." For me, conflict RP is something I only do with players I trust, that are in it to tell a good story and achieve a mutually satisfactory outcome from an OOC perspective. The fact that Macabees and Scand are doing a conflict RP reflects that Scand is willing to engage in conflict RP...just not in a way that is intended to totally upend his nation concept.

[The Scandinvans]

Currently my narrative is dominated by G's conflicts, the rise of a radical internal faction, the war with Mac, and a few other minor derivatives of these things.

[Allanea]

Currently my narrative is dominated by G's conflicts, the rise of a radical internal faction, the war with Mac, and a few other minor derivatives of these things.

Is it fair to say that until recently and with the sole exception of the war with Mac, you've had a policy of not doing war RPs with anyone?

[The Tiber and Wisdom]

My courts can give the punishment they see fit. I breed clones and cyborgs for war and manual Labour, I sell excess because that's their purpose. Your "morality" is your nations law. Don't force others to follow.

[Palmyrion]

So, to sum it up, Al and Menel feel like this when RPing with those from Gholgoth who back out abruptly when their forces face stiff resistance from what they invade:

[Common Territories]

To clarify my post (after seeing above mentioning my post), it was not directed at the anti-slavery crowed per-say. My post was meant for the constant stream of people who seem to like to spam their storefront pages with one-line protests or those who seem to believe it's the best option to fuel their actions. I in no way meant to discourage active RP'ers who wanted a thread with said slavers - as some of you already demonstrated, you actually went through the right channels rather then just spamming the storefront with condemnations. And years of seeing crap posted on such slave threads is what lead to my frustration with them.

Now onto the Gholgoth thing. As I remember, it may be expired by now, but I remember their selection of threads being limited due to time and interest. If they didn't find interest, they said no and ignored. Im sure we all can understand that feeling. I have never seen on my part a Gholgoth resident joining a war and when they start to lose just stop posting; prove me wrong because I never tracked their threads, but I have never heard of such dirty actions before from them. And I think since some people have touched the subject lightly, let me bring it more to the front that maybe the reason they don't have threads with you is because they have no interest in it. Scand himself told me after I showed this thread to him that he had no interest in prolonged war threads if his participant isn't up to his tastes - I emphasize with that since I've been stiffed plenty by either poor quality writers or people who quit when losing. Mac touched this but I don't think people understood clearly that he meant if people didn't want to write with you then you should also look into yourself to see if you're the cause. It's not a blanket "cause I don't like you" or "you bad kid" statement, it's a statement meant to point out that you may be the cause of the person's distrust in you.

As you can see, Scand's schedule is packed between fighting Mac and whipping that new slave shipment he got into proper work horses. So if he doesn't have interest in writing with you, tough luck. I'll leave out the rest of this discussion because I could write on forever about why people write war, how they do it, and yata yata yata.

[The Ctan]

OOC: That's a rather slimy reply, you don't mean to complain about people who RP... except sometimes they reply on storefronts anyway.

As for time commitments, I've certainly had an invasion by AMF that fizzled during the anti-pony RP days with my pony-nation, which I mainly attribute to the fact that my theme of 'bravely preparing to resist the invasion hoof and tooth' wasn't going to mesh with the 'AMF genocides ponies' story that I think was intended. I don't really think that's 'cowardice' but I can see why enthusiasm quickly ran out, and of course, I'm happy to start questioning Scand's prince any day now; enthusiasm for RPing a guy who's been "extraordinarily renditioned" to a black hole in a pseudo-saharah being beaten with a hose five times a day is also I imagine, quite hard to come by (even if he escapes it'll be 'being chased through the desert with dune buggies and camels' which is probably also not everyone's idea of a fun RP. The idea originally was to hold him hostage for some sort of manumission, but apparently the Scandinvan royal family don't like him so that would have probably ended up with him never getting ransomed). I don't begrudge them that or think they're lesser because of that. Nor is refusing to RP a war with Menelmacar, an exclusively-FT nation that could destroy any MT navy of any size in a single, literal second, at all cowardly. There's not much of a story there, apart from what Menelmacar chooses to do in the occupation phase. We're all here to have fun, some people like RPing guys getting beaten with hoses, or occupied by technologically superior guys, some don't, and nor are they under an obligation to.

But this:

Your region has little to no right or authority to be deciding what policies a country in another region does. Quite frankly, I find people who get all outraged over threads like this childish (and by that I mean EVERY DAMN SLAVE STOREFRONT HERE ON GE&T). For example, where was your outrage over the last dozens of slaver threads here throughout the years? Where's your outrage over real slaver scumbags like Scandinvans who more then likely has the worst slavery record of anyone on this website - He's sitting there laughing at how pathetic this slave operation is, vowing to continue his own brutality on his own slavery program.

Is basically untrue. Certainly there's no shortage of people who would happily RP sending folk to die (or blowing up his entire navy in one literal second) in Scandinvans to end the slave trade there. So going around touting that he's able to do so OOCly with impunity as proof that people aren't consistent is silly. The nature of RP is that it's consensual, and just as I can't get on with torturing Prince Erik (again, I am in no way upset by this) I can say, torture the genocidal prince of Mystrian Altea (And I do!) because that nation's player is entertained by that, but ICly, my nation is totally willing to go on in to Erik's cell any time of the day or night with the old cosh and give him six of the best. Calling nations/players (which was your complaint directed at again, it was kind of an OOC reply to an IC post...) hypocrites for being unwilling to do things that aren't possible for OOC reasons is a bit odd.

I have a slave-owning puppet nation, Lord Atum that I also don't let people do abolitionist-wars against, because frankly, that would bore me. But I don't go touting it around in GET threads as a reason nations are being hypocritical for objecting to other slavers and protesting about it. No one's going to RP abolishing slavery by force of arms in Lord Atum any time soon. I won't let them. But it doesn't mean you should go around crowing that they're not willing to. The inability to do so is OOC in origin.

But im frankly sick of slave storefronts getting this kind of attention - it comes off to me like its just one big fish for attention. Im not bashing any side really, im just getting my thoughts out clearly since this thread has been reduced to nothing but an OOC arena.

I'm sure someone can be persuaded to launch a moralistic crusade into your nation. Perhaps you should advertise somewhere appropriate for it?