Whats with the slavery?

[shde2e]

And why can't we adress the ethical elephant in the room? It's very weird how the game seems to dodge this issue for most of the game.
You can overthrow your society, flout gender norms, make major political decisions, and choose between a half dozen wildly different motivations. But you can't say "Hey it's kinda screwed up that I own people, maybe we should do something about that?"

You have multiple (ex-)slaves in your party and can romance them, for Gideon's sake. I don't think they even mention the money aspect (which was a big deal to actual Roman leaders, like Ceasar).

[=DeadShot=]

Because all things you can do ingame are easier than abolishment of slavery, even for your personal familly. Every civilization had slavery To be a rich / influential person in that time was to deal and have slavery. All the property you have in the country side were worked by slaves. All the gladiators are slaves.
And there is the opinion of your mother to consider.
And it would be easier if the family made their fortune from trade(easier to run without slaves, been involved in the slave trade), but you own multiple plantations, and your family fortune is made from agriculture.

[=DeadShot=]

And despite every upheaval your character makes he is still a roman aristocrat.

[raphoux69]

Originally posted by shde2e:

And why can't we adress the ethical elephant in the room? It's very weird how the game seems to dodge this issue for most of the game.
You can overthrow your society, flout gender norms, make major political decisions, and choose between a half dozen wildly different motivations. But you can't say "Hey it's kinda screwed up that I own people, maybe we should do something about that?"

You have multiple (ex-)slaves in your party and can romance them, for Gideon's sake. I don't think they even mention the money aspect (which was a big deal to actual Roman leaders, like Ceasar).

How is slavery a big thing to talk about. It was a thing at that time. As i said on a previous post. It's quite far from was done later especially with the treatment in big plantations of slaves.
Is slavery bad ? Sure. But remember, slave were used till the 20th century even though we used other terms. Even today slavery exists and thus we should stop talk about ? Playing the shocked card isn't gonna get you anywhere, at least intellectually.

Being slave in a state that anyways doesn't recognize any rights unless you're a big shot or at least a roman citizen is pretty good, especially if you're valuable. Look Syneros, he comes from greece, slaves from greece were highly regarded and were often used as teachers for big patrician families. They were very valued and that's why Syneros is talking about how he's free, because being free is a state of mind. He loved teaching.
Bestia became free because he slaughtered his way through. Getting free through that mean was very rare. Finally Deianeira becomes free by pledging service to Rome.

[raphoux69]

Not to mention, since slaves were expensive, you couldn't really make them disposable. Gladiators being sent into the slaughter block is a myth created pretty late in Europe, just like the thumb sign to signify if the gladiator should live or die.
So is it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you own people ? Not really. Since it's in a roman mindset, so it's perfectly normal.

[shde2e]

Originally posted by =DeadShot=:

Because all things you can do ingame are easier than abolishment of slavery, even for your personal familly. Every civilization had slavery To be a rich / influential person in that time was to deal and have slavery. All the property you have in the country side were worked by slaves. All the gladiators are slaves.
And there is the opinion of your mother to consider.
And it would be easier if the family made their fortune from trade(easier to run without slaves, been involved in the slave trade), but you own multiple plantations, and your family fortune is made from agriculture.

None of those are reasons to just ignore it entirely though. In fact, that's all the more reason to talk about it. If your entire state and personal business runs off mass slave labour, and people make tons of money enslaving people, and you constantly enslave people.... it should come up?
Like why can we have extended discussions on the family business and wine quality and never mention the people who run the farm? Why can we talk about finances but never mention all the people we presumably sell as slaves (Ceasar basically murdered his way out of debt doing that). Slavery and the economics thereof were a big topic at this time.

It's not like nobody in Rome ever thought "maybe slavery is bad actually." the actual people who were enslaved thought that a lot. Some of those people are in your party. The independent farmers thought that a lot (because competition).
When the game focuses this much on agency, why is this never even adressed?

[raphoux69]

It does come up. In greece you have an event where you can sell slaves. The servi talk comes often with Bestia, his sister and even Syneros. Hell the quest of Deineira is all about that. The big talk is about how you treat them, because remember, being free is worthless in roman society. Law isn't on your side and getting a job is often hard because you have no education.
If you take Syneros, he has everything he wants, is protected by a patrician family etc. He can't really ask for more.
For Bestia, he fought his way through and people will seek him to be an enforcer which he can ultimatly become. Is he free ? Well kind of since he served in the legion, but he doesn't feel free and he even tells why.
The whole freedom talk and slavery is talked about if you pay attention to the dialog.
And to the comment : the actual people who were enslaved thought that a lot. There's no evidence of that. So no.
Some slaves even beared the child of high patricians to prevent the death of the wife in important families. You put so much credit into freedom, but freedom gives you jack at that time. Even being a citizen was worthless since the patrician could predate on you. That what happened during the multiple wars. You serve a master, you can be protected and they don't really have an interest into killing you anyways. It comes up in the high place btw.

So if you say it's not addressed, you didn't pay attention. And if you say it's not the main theme, it's not supposed to.

[Pods-Greg]

Slavery at the time was viewed and was done differently than modern or civil war era slavery. Most of the slaves you talk to are greek slaves who had a better standard of living and higher status than most people. Literally no Roman or greek, even those who were enslaved would question slavery. Barbarians slaves who would be closer to tradition slavery would not be in the Roman army but on farms or employed as body guards or gladiators. Greek and Roman slaves even had rights and could take there owners to court. While yes slavery is bad and im not defending it, Romans would and no roman or slave would question slavery but rather how they were treated. Even when slave rebellions happened the goal wasn't abolish slavery it was we are not going to be slaves anymore let me go back to germany. TLDR: No one in this period would question slavery or even have a moral issue with it.

[=DeadShot=]

Originally posted by shde2e:

Originally posted by =DeadShot=:

Because all things you can do ingame are easier than abolishment of slavery, even for your personal familly. Every civilization had slavery To be a rich / influential person in that time was to deal and have slavery. All the property you have in the country side were worked by slaves. All the gladiators are slaves.
And there is the opinion of your mother to consider.
And it would be easier if the family made their fortune from trade(easier to run without slaves, been involved in the slave trade), but you own multiple plantations, and your family fortune is made from agriculture.

None of those are reasons to just ignore it entirely though. In fact, that's all the more reason to talk about it. If your entire state and personal business runs off mass slave labour, and people make tons of money enslaving people, and you constantly enslave people.... it should come up?
Like why can we have extended discussions on the family business and wine quality and never mention the people who run the farm? Why can we talk about finances but never mention all the people we presumably sell as slaves (Ceasar basically murdered his way out of debt doing that). Slavery and the economics thereof were a big topic at this time.

It's not like nobody in Rome ever thought "maybe slavery is bad actually." the actual people who were enslaved thought that a lot. Some of those people are in your party. The independent farmers thought that a lot (because competition).
When the game focuses this much on agency, why is this never even adressed?

Because of game limitations.
1.The financial part of the game is lightly touched. This game focuses more on political and military side of things.
2.Also you see plenty of things about slavery. But more in the sense of abuses of the slaves are bad(Bestia sister, Deinera) rather than slavery is bad.
3. When an evil practice is the basis of a society / economy it gets normalized and put in the background as something that is and couldn't be changed, but in individual situations. Like it is ok for individual examples (Syneros, Bestia, Bestia sister, Deinnera, Deinnera sister fate) to feel sad or outrage about it. But it is another for a person in that society to make a leap from abuses against slavery , and maybe enslaving some examples of people are bad to enslaving people is bad. In ancient Rome, Greece , Asia Minor, Egypt slavery is something that exists. Abuses and that certain people are made slaves is bad, the institution as a whole is neutral at best, good at worst.
4. The game like Expedition Rome would never be as complex to do slavery justice. That is for games like BG3 or Pathfinder. And I would rather slavery be treated as non existent than been just a throwaway line of dialog to be forgotten a few moments later. So it easier to default on the mindset of a roman aristocrat or roman citizen that slavery as an institution is fine, what is not fine are the abuses, and just certain people don't deserve to be enslaved.
5. There are plenty of times when you can make a stand against slavery(ex Bestia sister, Deinnera recruitment arc and personal quest).
6. Treating slavery , and an abolitionist playthrough I think it was not the sort of game tone the developers wanted to take. Or the theme the game wanted to take and show.

[Chaoslink]

I think that our most recent history with slavery, especially in the US where it was entirely focused on racism, gives most people an overly negative opinion on slavery as a concept. It isn’t inherently bad depending on exactly how it works and how the slave is treated. In some cases, like the legion missions you can do to buy slaves on the campaign map, all you’re doing is offering people a job who lost everything due to the war. They sell themselves into slavery to be sheltered and fed while they worked doing simple things like cooking for the legion and helping to move camp and the like. Honestly, from some point of view, it isn’t really much different than people stuck working minimum wage jobs.

It’s all a matter of perspective and specifics. It was bad in some cases, good in others and overall a more neutral thing. Don’t let recent history give you the wrong impression, it wasn’t all bad and for many people, their lives improved by becoming servi to a Roman household.

[LeoinFL]

Because its not Expedition Spartacus - would make a nice DLC btw slavery is addressed in many ways but your character is a product of his/her tiime

[Urfarah]

Originally posted by shde2e:

But you can't say "Hey it's kinda screwed up that I own people, maybe we should do something about that?"

You can actually say something along those lines. In Asia Minor, after you gain control of Legio Victrix, a local slave merchant comes to your tent and offers you a contract for all the slaves your legion captures (prisoners of war usually became slaves, which means "spoils of war" included the people the legions captured, turned into slaves and either sold or brought back to Rome. This is one of the main reasons Rome was always at war against someone) and you can flat out refuse him by saying that you find objectionable to deal in slaves. As a slave merchant of that time, he is baffled by your decision, goes away and you don't gain the extra denarii from his offer.

As for the slavery in the game, well, this is not a game about Spartacus or a slave rebellion. By that I mean, the MC doesn't have the motivation to go against the institution of slavery itself (and, by themselves, the MC wouldn't have the power either). After all, the MC is a patrician (a citizen from a very traditional ruling class family, a member of the oligarchy who traditionally owned and dealt in slaves) and going openly against slavery would mean going against Roman interests. In practice, this means your character can take individual action against slave traders who embody the worst aspects of the trade, you can treat your slaves well and you can help individual slaves but you cannot take organized action against slavery itself as that would shake the whole society.

Slavery in Rome, as it still is today in Capitalism (to a lesser extent through the expropriation of work and to a higher extent through literal slavery, which still exists in most, if not all, capitalist countries. We have both where I live, despite laws existing against literal slavery), is one of the economical pillars of society and slaves did much of the labour that kept daily life going (from "reputable" jobs like teaching, medicine and accounting to "disreputable" ones like all kinds of manual labor and the sex trade). It also needs to be said that, despite some slaves leading what could be considered good lives, like Syneros, and doing work that was valued by society, slaves were, legally, property of their owners, which meant their owners could do with them as they pleased (we get a very, very brief glimpse of the worst consequences of that with Deianeira and Bestia's sister). So, to depict an organized struggle against slavery, one of the pillars of society, the game would have to be mainly about that. It would have to depict such a struggle and it's tolls on those fighting it, it would have to propose other models of societal organization and such. And this would be another kind of historical fantasy altogether (and not showing the slavery at all would be worse imo, that would just be historical revisionism and flat out fantasy).

[words14_]

the whole game is killing people but its the slavery that makes you uneasy ?

[raphoux69]

Best part is, nobody talks about the stereotypical african representation to represent the nasamonian people which lived in Libya.
It was probably done that way because we don't really know what their accent would be in english or whatever. I just find it funny that slavery is a big topic, when you have racist and sexist comment in this game, which makes sens, but slavery in a roman game ? The humanity.

[Atma]

Well, there are certainly moments where you can encounter slavers and decide to kill them (campaign map events). There's also the event in your tent with the Greek slavers where you have a moral choice to accept their deal for more money, etc.

Also, I suppose if you wanted, you could roleplay your moral dilemma by selling off all of your slaves as you get them, but I imagine you'd run into the same problem everyone else did back then... you'd have nobody willing to build your Farms and Quarries, etc.

[=DeadShot=]

Originally posted by Atma:

Well, there are certainly moments where you can encounter slavers and decide to kill them (campaign map events). There's also the event in your tent with the Greek slavers where you have a moral choice to accept their deal for more money, etc.

Also, I suppose if you wanted, you could roleplay your moral dilemma by selling off all of your slaves as you get them, but I imagine you'd run into the same problem everyone else did back then... you'd have nobody willing to build your Farms and Quarries, etc.

And you need farm and quaries for the legion upgrades.
Also at the end of Deinnera recruitment drive you get some gladiatorial escape slaves. Where you accept their offer to be hired to work at one of your outposts of your choice. And you gain a free outpost of your choice.
There are plenty of instances where you can take a stand against slavery, but not slavery as a whole, or any of your family plantations slaves.