Monday, March 21, 2016

From the Jeshen Space Setting for StarCluster 4: Jeshen Races, Humans, Stereotyping, and Slavery

Stereotype: noun - a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Jeshen do not have a history of slavery at all, let along slavery based on ethnicity. Any sort of coersive employment is anathema to Jeshen. They do have a history of servitude, though that is very rare now. They prefer non-sapient robots to servants currently.

Jeshen do tend to stereotype their own races, though it is understood individuals vary widely within a race. This takes the form of 'all other things being equal, this race is more like this than other races' rather than some hard and fast rule. Still, it is often used as a 'first pass filter', and some Jeshen resent it when that filter is wrong.

Humans in Jeshen Space, because of their conscious genetic diversity as a result of the selection process of their ancestors, have little to no racial stereotyping. Everyone is a mutt. On the other hand, stereotyping based on what world culture one is from is definitely taking hold.

On the other hand, many Human worlds in Jeshen Space consider sapient species as possible candidates for slavery. Commonly, sapient robots, uplifts, and designed bioroids can - and almost always are - legally be slaves on these Human worlds. Jeshen consider this disgraceful, and any slave who touched foot on Jeshen 'soil', including embassies and stations, is legally free anywhere in Jeshen Space.

Because Jeshen maintain that non-coercive servitude is not wrong - if one chooses to be of service one should be allowed to - Humans almost always implant a strong desire to be of service in their slaves. This clouds the picture for Jeshen - when the slave gets emotional fulfillment from performing a service, is it coercive or not? - so they have not as yet interfered in the Human system of slavery on Human worlds.

On most Human worlds, slaves are high priced servants belonging to the rich. They are not typically exploited for work, as most such work can be more economically done by sub-sapient robots. It makes for a tricky moral web, which is not at all simple to disentangle.

So the Jeshen maintain their strictly free worlds, and Humans maintain their legal slavery, and no one is perfectly happy. There are Jeshen organizations dedicated to freeing slaves of Humans, but when the slave finds fulfillment in service, most do not attempt to escape.

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