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We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Difference between revisions
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'''Rygel''': What? You're kidding. They come running when I call.
'''Bobby''': The government wants you to feel at home.
'''Rygel''': Then give me slaves.
|''[[Farscape]]''}}
Common in science fiction, especially in [[Days of Future Past]], but also in [[Space Opera]], [[Wagon Train to the Stars]], and many other subgenres.
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Sometimes the trope is justified by slaves or servants symbolizing social prestige, but in societies that are supposed to the technological near-equivalent of [[The Federation]] or whatever outfit the heroes belong to, it comes as a bit surprising that interstellar polities so frequently appear dependent on menial and dangerous labor conditions with [[No OSHA Compliance]]—and if they represent social prestige, why aren't they on display, as servants? Items of [[Conspicuous Consumption]] aren't conspicious if they are hidden away in a mine.
For what it's worth, there are ''some'' benefits to slavery which could explain its use in a futuristic setting. There are some jobs (namely service work) which are just too complex for any currently envisioned mechanical technology to do without some human assistance. What makes this trope appear blatant is that futuristic slavery rarely involves these environments, but rather things like mining and industrial work. In these environments, slaves are very inconvenient to provide for, and they have much more dangerous machinery at their disposal. A disgruntled slave who's a C4 expert (or even one with just a pickax) is substantially more dangerous than one who works primarily with a hoe (not that you should write the latter guys off if you've got them in a pinch either—isn't that right, oppressors of the peasant caste in the ancient Far East?). Even if kept "safely" in the mine, a mine slave is easily capable of destroying large sections of the mine and costing the overseers large amounts of time and money.
Part of the reason for this is that the evil being portrayed usually isn't the slavery itself, but the punishment which the workers must endure. Many "prison mine" examples are more about the punishment than the mining. In modern-day society, we have machines that are quite capable of automatically pressing license plates, but the DMV is still getting prisoners to do it. In addition, in the real world, slave labour or labour that borders on slavery is used in lieu of automation because it's often actually cheaper provided the workers are from a country with a much lower cost of living than the country their masters or employers are from. Use of manual labor as punishment of finite length is more viable than a life-sentence or slavery, since that dramatically reduces the chance of suicidal sabotage.
This trope can potentially be justified for the same reason many industrial processes that could be automated are not. The time, cost, and effort for completely automated systems can quite often be far in excess of what skilled labor can have. Automated systems often have a fairly limited lifespan, and the cost of building, maintaining, and replacing this systems is occasionally ludicrously high in comparison to unskilled and even skilled labor. In addition, the amount of effort to build certain types of quality control is either not possible or absurdly difficult. In addition, power and maintenance costs of some systems are absurdly expensive, further providing benefit for manual labor rather than automated machinery.
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As well, beware of [[Technology Levels]]; just because a civilization can travel in space [[If Jesus, Then Aliens|doesn't mean]] they actually ''have'' servitor robots. But the series that have already shown automation yet refuse to use it in the obvious places don't have any excuse. This is perhaps the ultimate extension of [[Schizo-Tech]]. Compare with [[I Want My Jetpack]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Similar to ''[[Alien Nation]]'' below, the Dears of ''[[DearS]]'' are a race of slaves who
==
▲* Similar to ''[[Alien Nation]]'' the Dears of ''[[DearS]]'' are a race of slaves who crashland on Earth that possess a good amount of technology for being a slave ship. However unlike ''[[Alien Nation]]'' they're genetically altered to NEED to be slaves. Depriving them of their built in desire to be slaves causes a lot of friction between them and their hosts (currently humans). May be justified in that Ren is genetically programmed to have sex with her master as soon as she detects he's 'in the mood' (they're also blindingly gorgeous) so much of the reason for their creation could be sexual.
* In an issue of DC's post-''Zero Hour'' ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'', Magno, a character from a world where - as his name implies - [[Planet of Hats|almost everyone has powers over magnetism]], observes that on his world mining is still done by sapients because nothing else can replicate the flexibility of their powers. On most all other worlds, such work is done by robots, although in the same continuity the planet of Orando is governed by a ruling class of giant snake people and labor is done by a second-class citizenry of raccoon people.
* In the [[Marvel Universe]], one of the most valuable materials in the world ''must'' be mined by hand. Antarctic Vibranium breaks down the structure of metals (indeed, this is the main reason it ''is'' so valuable), so mining machines are simply too expensive to be practical.
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* Both [[Inverted]] and played straight in ''[[Judge Dredd]]''. One the one hand, in the cities of the world, robots are so effective for so many things that unemployment rarely dips below 85%, causing mass boredom, which in turn leads to massive crime levels. Conversely, penal servitude in the Cursed Earth is a fairly common penalty, and is commonly meted out to those who smash robots in order to be able to work. That type of criminal tends to jump at the opportunity to get back to work.
== [[Film]] ==▼
* ''[[Star Wars]]'': Wookiees and Mon Calamari are enslaved by the Empire, but given the Empire's formidable military-industrial infrastructure, the omnipresence of droids, and the latter species' unusual physiology, alien slavery in the Empire makes little practical sense. (Droid slavery, on the other hand...) It seems slavery in the Star Wars verse is largely a policy intended to [[For the Evulz|humiliate and degrade acceptable targets]], when it isn't a cover for genocide (any [[Putting on the Reich|parallels with Nazi Germany]] are probably intentional). Organic slaves are also seen a status symbol, but that's more for, er,
▲== Film ==
▲* ''[[Star Wars]]'': Wookiees and Mon Calamari are enslaved by the Empire, but given the Empire's formidable military-industrial infrastructure, the omnipresence of droids, and the latter species' unusual physiology, alien slavery in the Empire makes little practical sense. (Droid slavery, on the other hand...) It seems slavery in the Star Wars verse is largely a policy intended to [[For the Evulz|humiliate and degrade acceptable targets]], when it isn't a cover for genocide (any [[Putting on the Reich|parallels with Nazi Germany]] are probably intentional). Organic slaves are also seen a status symbol, but that's more for, er, ''[[Go-Go Enslavement|personal]]'' [[Go-Go Enslavement|needs]]. In particular, the, er, export of female Twi'leks from Ryloth is one of their most important industries. The resulting decline in the planetary population is the entire point; the Twi'leks essentially sold themselves into slavery to get *off* Ryloth. Evolution does not proceed to a perfect adaptation, only a reproductively sufficient one. The Twi'leks found the sufficiency of their adaptation extremely marginal.
** Wookiees and Mon Calamari are described as being favoured for slave labour due to their strength, dexterity, creativity, and intuitive understanding of mechanics and electronics, making them ideal for engineering work. In addition, the prequels reveal that the Wookiees helped Yoda escape Kashyyyk; Palpatine might have decided to enslave them as punishment. It is also implied that the main customers of the slave trade are from worlds which ''don't'' have access to advanced technologies (Ryloth is said to have 19th century technology and little inhabitable land).
** It's not just the prequel era. Czerka wasn't a subsidiary of the Sith, but they sure were cozy during the [[Knights of the Old Republic|Jedi Civil War]]. Wookiee labor was used in places where it would be too expensive to use and keep repairing droids, and was a revenue stream for Czerka while they found out what else the planet could get used for.
** If you're counting the Extended Universe, the Yuuzhan Vong utilize slavery almost purely for status reasons.
** In the EU, the spice mines of Kessel were worked by slave labour; when Luke puts an end to this, the Republic, at his suggestion, keeps the mines in operation, still worked by living beings. This time, however, the miners will be paid, and hired from species who have evolved in the same sort of environment. The dark and cold and tight confines of the tunnels make droid mining impractical.
** It's not exactly clear what most of the slaves in ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'' actually ''do''.
* The ''[[Terminator]]'' series has humans being rounded up and used for slave labor by Skynet in the post-Judgment Day future. Most noted among their uses for slaves was forcing captured humans to throw corpses into furnaces. The reasons for using humans rather than automated systems are never made clear, even in the fourth film which takes place entirely after Judgment Day.
** Odds are they were used in labor camps to build the first terminators and Skynet facilities, what with the lack of automated factories right after Judgement Day. Later they were probably used for [[Squick|materials]] to make the flesh and blood ones.
** ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' implies that Skynet's resources are actually extremely limited - which makes sense since a nuclear war would not only wipe out key infrastructure for Skynet such as mines and smelters, but also eliminate much of the upper-tier technology that ''was'' Skynet. In such a case, human slave labor might actually make sense.
*** And this also makes the furnace slaves even more understandable. It wasn't just a matter of resources; Skynet needed to convince the humans it was pointless to fight back so it had time to rebuild and finish the job before they ''could'' fight back.
* ''[[The American Astronaut]]'' has an ''entire'' planet chock-full of miners whose most advanced technology in the planet seems to be helmets with flashlights on it.
* As seen in the page image, ''[[Metropolis]]'' is big on this. The workers we see are mostly in charge of monitoring and operating the huge machines that run the city, in a work environment that seems to be needlessly oppressive and [[No OSHA Compliance|dangerous]]. Most of what they do would probably be computerized nowadays, but [[Justified Trope|said computers weren't around in 1926]].
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* Lampshaded and justified in ''Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150'', in which the Daleks use human miners because the magnetic forces in the mine's shaft would hinder their own functions or those of their machinery.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* The ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' books are set in the year 4000 with [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]] and nanoviruses that can [[Brainwashed|mind control]] people, yet Manpower, Incorporated is still a ''very'' profitable concern. It makes genetic slaves to order for whatever you want: sex, other entertainment, heavy labour, etc. {{spoiler|It is only in the latest book, ''Torch of Freedom'' that people start noticing that Manpower makes no economic sense, and should have gone broke ages ago. Manpower is really a cover for the Mesan Alignment, which is bent on galactic domination through genetic engineering.}}
** One would think that the sex slaves alone would pay for the whole business.
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** Even the Ixians, whose entire planet is a giant underground machine factory (they are the ones who build the enormous Guild heighliners) use throngs of suboids, a specially-bred race of humans mostly incapable of independent thought. This is considering that factory machines like the ones we have now don't need to have complex computer "brains", which is what they're really afraid of.
*** So do they use Henry-Ford-style mass production or what, because you can get quite a good production going with no automation whatsoever.
** Interestingly enough, even [[
* ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'' uses the lower (read: intentionally retarded) castes to perform manual labor, and has even perfected technology to create multiple clones of the same human being (with the stated reasons of [[You Fail Biology Forever|ensure consistency]]). They have stopped developing technologies and needs a large consumer base - both of which are to ensure societal stability. Of course, one reason they stopped developing technology was so that the lower castes would not be put out of work. (One of the characters ''claims'' that they'd tried a settling an island with only the upper classes, as an experiment, and it collapsed into civil war within a year.)
* In William King's ''[[Warhammer
* In [[H. Beam Piper]]'s story [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20726 "A Slave Is A Slave"], Aditya became a feudal world of a few masters ruling a population of slaves after the fall of the interstellar [[The Federation|Federation]]. One of the characters notes that slavery is economically inefficient compared to automation, but was apparently instituted to help the ruling class keep control.
* Slavery is a major theme in [[Charles Stross]] ''Accelerando''. The very first chapter is about the precedent that prevents artificial intelligences and uploads from being treated as property. One protagonist is a male submissive; his daughter sells herself into slavery [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|to herself]] to get away from her mother, taking advantage of a loophole in Islamic law. {{spoiler|the alien and later human-made sentient corporations use minds as a currency}}. But manual labour itself is more or less entirely obsolete, what with [[The Singularity]].
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* Appears as an [[Unbuilt Trope]] in ''[[The Sleeper Awakes]]''. Being written before [[wikipedia:Fordism|Fordism]] and mass-production, the future society contains a large slave class which is initally presented this way. It's only revealed late on that in fact manual labour is almost obsolete and the future slaves simply operate the machines all day.
* The ''[[Myst]]'' tie-in novel ''The Book of D'ni'' introduces the Tehranee, a race of people so advanced, especially in engineering and chemistry, that they are universally indolent, wiling away their days in the pursuit of superior artistry and poesis, while the burden of building and maintaining their vast artworks is placed on a huge caste of slaves. Worse, these people's linking technology allows them to travel instantly to any planet they can describe, giving them access to basically unlimited resources of every kind, which should make all forms of slavery utterly obsolete. Thus, the Tehranee preserve slavery apparently just because it's traditional and they can't be bothered to create a better system.
* Justified in [[The Peregrine]]. Each ship of the Nomads is a [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|nomadic]] town, and the workers spend their time on artisanship rather then drudgery.
* Surprisingly common (and unremarked on) in very early Golden-Age science fiction, before automation was even ''thought of'' for many tasks. For instance, "The Stoker and the Stars", an obscure story by Algis Budrys, revolved around a character whose job was ''to shovel fuel into the engine of a starship''.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek]]'': Alien prisons frequently double as mines, like Rura Penthe in ''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country''. Romulus' sister planet, Remus, seems to be one giant mine and military-industrial complex. This is so overdone in Trek and other sci-fi to the extent that if a Starfleet officer, [[Stargate SG-1|SG-1]] team member, or other hero is arrested by an alien government, we can be assured that if [[All Crimes Are Equal|the penalty for crime is not death]], then we can expect that they'll ''spend the rest of their days mining [[Stock Phrases]] in [[Expospeak]] mode''.
** The Federation does it to the EMH-Mark-Is (upon which ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'''s Doctor is based). This, when they have devices capable of disassembling matter to the subatomic level and ships that bend the laws of reality at command, not to mention a race of friendly living ore processors (the Horta). But no, they consign outdated humanoid ''holograms'' with glorified shovels and picks to mining. This implies that the Federation either does this on a wide scale, or that they specifically modified this mine to do such a thing. No amount of [[Fridge Logic]] can save ''this'' one.
** An exception appears in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'', "The Corbomite Maneuver", where Balok is the commander and sole occupant of his [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|Sufficiently Advanced]] spaceship, the ''Fesarius'', which is dozens of times the size of the Enterprise.
** The Original Series also had "The Cloud Minders" [sic], about a planet that had actual [[Floating Continent|floating cities]] for the ruling class, while the working class miners used hand tools and were exposed to brain-
** ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'': In "The 37's" an alien race capable of travelling from one side of the galaxy to the other brings back humans from 1937 as slaves. Also done in ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' "North Star" though the distance was a lot less. Comparatively speaking.
* ''[[Firefly]]'''s relatively low tech-level makes this sort of thing more understandable; the use of indentured servants probably did cut costs for barons in The Outer Rim (tm), or was the only available option for them. And then passed the savings from using indentured labour right on to the customer!
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** ''Farscape'' also raises the interesting question of whether [[Living Ship]]s, particularly [[Sapient Ship|sentient ones]], count as manual labour...
*** That being said, Leviathans can do stuff that non-living ships can't (maintain themselves, starburst).
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica
** It gets better. Said advanced cybernetic organisms, the Cylons, also have a "tiered" society where [[Robots Enslaving Robots|mindless Centurions and non-sentient Raiders]] do all the land and space fighting respectively, while the humanoid "skinjobs" control the Baseship's [[Spaceship Girl|female command]] [[Mad Oracle|oracle]]. This eventually comes back to bite them when {{spoiler|the Raiders gain a degree of sentience, half the skinjobs decide the Centurions deserve full sentience, and an [[Enemy Civil War]] breaks out.}}
* The old ''[[Doctor Who]]'' enemies known as the Dominators enslaved the Dulcians because, though they did have the robotic Quarks for labour, the Quarks were also better at fighting, so they were replacing them in the labour areas and using them in an invasion.
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* The Tectonese from ''[[Alien Nation (TV series)|Alien Nation]]'' had been slaves before their accidental arrival on Earth. Subverted in that, while their great physical strength is suited for manual labor, they're also extremely fast learners, whose jobs while enslaved usually entailed a lot of technical know-how.
== [[Music]] ==▼
▲== Music ==
* Played for laughs in [[Jonathan Coulton]]'s song ''Chiron Beta Prime''...
{{quote|''...where we're working in a mine''
''For our robot overlords''
''Did I say overlords?''
''I meant protectors''
''Merry Christmas, from Chiron Beta Prime!'' }}
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Flash Gordon (comic strip)|Flash Gordon]]'', slavery is common in the less-pleasant nations of Mongo. In the [[Flash Gordon (animation)|1970s Filmation cartoon series]], it seemed like Flash got captured, enslaved, and then led a slave revolt about once a month.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==▼
* ''[[Warhammer
▲== Tabletop Games ==
** [[Schizo-Tech]] is common in ''40K''; it's the only place where your starship is powered by plasma reactors but you need thousands of press-ganged deckhands to load its guns. With ropes. While being whipped. Not because the Magos on board doesn't know how to build a decent automatic and mechanised loading system, it's because it's far cheaper and easier to just beat some people over the head to do it manually. ''[[Battlefleet Gothic]]'' has some illustrations that involve manual loading of cannons. Those shells start about at the size of a half-truck and go up from there, and torpedoes are about the size of a ''big'' jet plane. Of course, artificial gravity doesn't need to be the same under the team and shell, so perhaps it's less of lifting than controlled pulling.
▲* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'': Everyone except the Necrons and the Tau use manual labour. The Imperium has a ban on effective robotics because the creation of intelligent machines is an abomination to their religion, the Eldar need to keep themselves occupied all the time or they go insane (and they don't do dangerous industrial work anyway; everything is made by [[Applied Phlebotinum|wraithbone]]), and the Orks are just... limited. [[Schizo-Tech]] is common in ''40K''; it's the only place where your starship is powered by plasma reactors but you need thousands of press-ganged deckhands to load its guns. With ropes. While being whipped.
*** In BFG Campaign rules one of common weapon refits is "auto-loaders"; those give a bonus to Reload Ordnance check, i.e. readying torpedoes and small craft still depends on the crew competence, but goes slightly faster. The rate of fire increase is modest, probably because loading is but one stage between an elevator ride from magazine and pumping out the airlock to save air. Buried in the fluff is an explanation that while ''cannon'' loaders are used sometimes, these things are somewhat expensive (both powerful and precise, and of course war demands other machinery of this sort), and when present at all tend to break first, then it's back to manual again. Since in the end it's necessary to have those teams around anyway, maybe it's easier to use them, and redirect the funds either to better rations (which they would appreciate more), or servitors (which don't complain and are far more versatile than auto-loaders), than purchase and maintain auto-loaders.
▲*** Not just "would." The rebellion of the 'Men of Iron,' Man's robotic soldiers, was a major factor in the Age of Strife which preceded the founding of the Imperium. This is the primary reason their religion forbids <s>Artificial</s> Abominable Intelligence in the first place.
* ''[[GURPS Reign of Steel]]'' has many of the AI Zoneminds keeping human slaves in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes. This makes sense in many applications since robots are expensive to produce but human vermin are cheap and disposable. Notable cases include:▼
▲**** Also most of the manufacturing is done by 'servitors', which are cyborgs used for manual labour (although they are often equipped with heavy weaponry in combat situations), made up of non-believers, criminals etc, then completely mind wiped and many of the organs/limbs replaced with more 'efficient' robotic equivalents. The Forge Worlds (run entirely by the Adeptus Mechanicus) are responsible for producing the monumental amounts of equipment needed daily by the Imperium of Man, have a relatively small human population, for example Mars (The first human colony and the headquarters of the Adeptus Mechanicus) has a population of 20 billion, while the Hive World Ichar IV (before it was consumed by the Tyranids) had 500 billion and produced far less (particularly when the Genestealers showed up)
▲* [[GURPS Reign of Steel]] has many of the AI Zoneminds keeping human slaves in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes. This makes sense in many applications since robots are expensive to produce but human vermin are cheap and disposable. Notable cases include:
** Zone New Delhi and Zone Denver, which use human brain tissue or even whole brains as a substitute for expensive electronics to run lesser robots.
** Zone Moscow, which uses human agents to collect what remains of the libraries and artwork of human civilization.
** Zone {{spoiler|Washington, where the human inhabitants believe themselves to be the sole remaining human-controlled nation and labor mightily to maintain the strength of their military robots to keep it that way - controlled, of course, by their 'tame' AI that in actuality runs the government.}}
** Some of the Zoneminds that have instead chosen to ruthlessly eradicate all humans immediately are actually at an economic disadvantage to their
* Slave traffic is mentioned in ''[[Traveller]]''. It is illegal in the Imperium, though the Sword Worlds have a judicial slavery as punishment for murder, treason, and other heinous crimes (which makes one amused at the [[Irony]] of the fate of a [[Space Pirate]] caught while trying to sell off his captives). It is not always made clear what the slaves are expected to do. However the [[Schizo-Tech]] of ''[[Traveller]]'' at least sort of justifies it.
** Some VIPs prefer servants to robots. Sometimes this is vanity but perhaps some aspects of domestic work might still be better done by a human or alien then a robot.
** It is theoretically possible to have robotic starships in ''[[Traveller]]''. Aside from general dislike of ''independent'' robots (which prejudice does not really extend to computerized machines with a user) no one really likes the idea of a ship malfunctioning without a crew to stop them, including the Imperial government. Hivers are different in this as in a lot of things and use robot starships a lot.
** A lot depends on the twists and turns of local economy and politics, and a given culture can be behind either generally or ahead. Or simply they may have their own ideas about what to do with labor freed up by machines. Or whatever the GM picks. For instance the Sword Worlds which are an interstellar society are so short of antigravity vehicles that they often resort to wheels and tracks and in out of the way country, even to animals.
* This is almost to be expected in ''[[Rifts]]'', given the [[Schizo-Tech]] of the setting. Throughout much of North America, people are often enslaved or indentured, turned into cyborgs and used as miners. The Coalition doesn't use slave-borgs, but [[Fantastic Racism|nonhumans]] are sometimes enslaved and employed in the mega-cities or the 'burbs. In magic-dominated places, meanwhile, slavery is widespread and slaves are used for any and every task, be it labor, warfare, [[Gladiator Games]], [[Sex Slave|sex]] or [[To Serve Man|food]] (the latter is a big one, since a ''lot'' of alien evils do it to cement their [[Card-Carrying Villain]] status).
* In ''[[Stars Without Number]]'' technically the only job that really requires sapience (and even then, allowing AI) is interstellar navigation, and even a lowly Shuttle may install Automation support to replace most crew with bots. And there are AI fleets, indeed (though they may "possess" armatures as needed, rather than rely on stupid bots). And robots including from janitor bots are available in a [[Tech Level]] 4 economy. Practically, common vessels from Patrol Boat to Carrier require minimum crew of 5 to 300 respectively, and Automation support remains an option (not the most attractive one, at that: on anything larger than Shuttle you could have e.g. improved sensors or [[Tractor Beam]]s for the same space/power and half the cost, and crew bots only have basic skill level). Minimum crew is noticeably greater for warships, since there things are expected to go bad eventually.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Perhaps one of the earliest examples of this in video games is from ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'', in which some of the slaves hack into the titular ship's
* ''[[Half Life]] 2'' has the "unwillingly made into cyborgs" version with Stalkers, people who have their limbs and most of their organs removed and replaced with mechanical equivalents, and appear to be brainwashed/programmed to near-nonsentience. The "transhuman" arm of the [[Evil Army|Combine Overwatch]] also appears to be a lesser version of this; the changes made are less radical and they retain more intelligence, however the process is voluntary.
* In ''[[Empire Earth]]'', no matter what age the player advances to, workers will still chop trees with axes, mine minerals with picks and carry everything in a wheelbarrow. Even when soldiers are using giant mechas to move around.
** Somewhat averted in ''[[Rise of Nations]]'', where your workers' tools advance with the age. Modern workers will use chainsaws and jackhammers.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Red Faction]]'', where stereotypical futuristic Martian mine slave protagonist muses to himself about how robots should be able to do nearly all of the hard work themselves. It then turns out that robots ''do'' perform most of the real mining labor, and the human-heavy mining operation is really just a front for the [[Big Bad]] [[Evilutionary Biologist]] to get test subjects for his (honestly pretty pointless-looking) secret experiments away from the prying eyes of Earth's government. Note that ''RF'' originated as an entry in the ''[[Descent]]'' series, the premise of which centers around futuristic mines run entirely by robots (which have [[
* In a recent{{when}} ''[[Gaia Online]]'' event, each of the four towns was assigned two fantasy races to assist them in the upcoming "Rejected Olympics". The futuristic town of Aekea got [[Our Orcs Are Different|Blizzard Style Orcs]], in addition to the previously introduced Aliens. The new aliens were created by leftover [[Applied Phlebotinum]] that the ''real'' aliens left behind, while the orcs were [[Handwaved]] away by saying they were a newly discovered species that have been hired as manual laborers. One character even wonders if the orcs are actually being payed for their work. ...Of course, there's just one problem. ''AEKEA IS A CITY FULL OF ROBOTS''. It's the only city that's even ''allowed'' to have robots, as they were banned everywhere else after some [[Noodle Incident|war that no one talks about.]] But the fact that you are enslaving ''orcs'' to effectively do something that could be accomplished by a ''tow truck'' or a ''pulley'' is a bit confusing...
* In ''[[EVE Online]]'' the Amarr Empire makes a wide use of slaves. Although they could easily replace most of their slaves with advanced technology, like the other nations have done, the Amarr believe that, by enslaving "lesser" peoples like the Minmatar, they are saving these people's souls. It's no surprise that the Amarr are quite far behind technologically when compared to the Gallente and especially the Caldari.
* The second ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'' game, ''No Regret'', makes a few things clear. First, the most valuable mineral in the solar system is found almost
* Averted in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' when you eventually learn the slaves in the [[Magitek]] human ranches aren't there for any real work. The bad guys just need them to waste away while the implanted [[Green Rocks|exspheres feed off of their anguish.]]
* The batarians in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' still practice slavery, despite a being starfaring civilisation for centuries. They argue that slavery is a "cultural right" of their people; the [[The Federation|Council]] doesn't buy it.
** Slavery is also practiced on the asari planet Illium. Only it's called "indentured servitude," ''thank you'' very much. It's considered perfectly legal and is tightly regulated with restrictions on treatment and terms of service, legal requirements for documented consensus on the part of the servant, and strict limitations on how long the servant can remain indentured. It should also be noted that indentured servants aren't necessarily physical workers; they can be practically anything and are contracted to do a normal job for a company or individual. Well, just without pay. Or the ability to leave. Or... You get the point. One indentured servant you meet on Illium is a software engineer who had a gambling debt problem.
* A variation in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'': the Pit of Saron instance takes place in/around a large open-pit mine being worked on by undead miners and slaves captured from the Alliance and Horde armies. Fair enough. But when the players lead the Inevitable Slave Revolt against the overseer, you might wonder - why would the Scourge bother with living slaves when they could just kill them, raise them from the dead, and have undead slaves? Undead don't need to eat, after all, and mindless skeletons won't be plotting revenge any time soon.
** Tell that to Sylvanas and the Knights of the Ebon Blade...
*** Those aren't mindless.
** I think the best answer to the question is the simple answer: [[Cold-Blooded Torture|Arthas is a dick]].
* ''[[Command & Conquer
* In ''[[Elite]]'' you could trade in slaves, though it would mean your legal status would take a hit. You could even ''accidentally'' pick up slaves if you scooped up an escape pod from an enemy ship (and there was no way to free them, or hand them over to the cops). [[Open Source Remake]] ''[[Oolite]]'' fixed this by offering a small reward paid out from the survivor's insurance policy instead, and occasionally a bounty from the local police if they turn out to be a wanted felon, but [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|you can still do it anyway if you feel like being a dick.]]
* ''[[Risk of Rain]]'' is set in a future with space travel and robots (two of the playable characters are robot janitor HAN-D and robotic cooking assistant CHEF), yet if Loader and Miner are any indication, businesses still employ people for manual labor like loading cargo and mining. Loader has a powerful exoskeleton which makes the physical part of his job trivial, buth Miner only has pickaxes and a worn protective suit.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In the ''[[Terinu]]'' universe, the hyper-advanced Varn Dominion used slaves a great deal, but it was regarded as culturally necessary since their gods had declared they were the [[Master Race]] and deserved to rule over the lesser races and have their every whim catered to. Five hundred years later, the good guys' successor government permits the use indentured service as punishment for criminals (with one [[Jerk Ass Protagonist]] declaring it was "Cheaper than letting them sit in a cell and eat up public funds"!), and just good old-fashioned corporate evil as isolated industrial facilities bind their workers through indenture and selling their souls to the company store.
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* An episode of ''[[Futurama]]'' has the crew enslaved on an Egyptian analogue planet, where thousands of people are worked to death for laughs to build huge monuments and tombs. Bender gets himself named Pharaoh and takes it up to eleven.
** In another episode, Hermes and LaBarbara Conrad unwittingly vacation at a forced-labor "spa".
* In ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', Krang is the proud owner of [[Base on Wheels|the Technodrome]], with all the [[Mecha-Mooks]] he can use. He and Shredder still force [[Dumb Muscle|Bebop and Rocksteady]] to do all the cleaning work around the Technodrome, even though they are lazy and incompetent enough that it would seem more efficient to have the work done by robots.
* ''[[The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie]]''{{context}}
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Many people just want the handmade version, even if they have to make it [[Crack is Cheaper|themselves]]. There are TV shows, books and even art projects all about doing things the "old fashioned way" or "as they did back in ___". Oddly enough, people are using 3-D printers to make hand tools, overlapping with [[Schizo-Tech]].
** Cosplay is a good example, most cosplayers will make their own costumes. Ditto Goth, [[Elegant Gothic Lolita|Gothic Lolita]] and other "do it yourself" fashions promoting hard work and original looks. They will mock those whose hardest work is swiping the credit card.
** Cooking is another. [[The Fifties]] promised us a [[The Jetsons|
* An interesting historical case: Ancient Greece. Towards the later parts of its history, this society seemed to be teetering on the brink of an industrial revolution, but never quite made the plunge, instead sticking with slavery and other traditional, labour-intensive methods of production. Ancient Greece had a great deal of scientific thinkers, the capacity to build complex mechanical devices, and even developed a simple steam engine. The steam engine especially, if developed further and perfected, could have been used to simplify a lot of labour-intensive jobs, as it was when the Industrial Revolution finally did roll around. But the Ancient Greeks saw it as nothing more than a curious toy.
** Those that did think the steam engine was great tended to not be taken seriously. One guy was pretty sure that Hero's Engine could be used to predict the weather. Given that the boiling point of water varies depending on air pressure, and that quite a bit of the weather is dependent on moving high/low pressure fronts, he was probably actually on to something.
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*** Only he's a biologist (biophysicist and physiologist to be precise) and ornithologist by his main published body of ''scientific'' works. Anthropology is something of a hobby of his, and his anthropological works are hotly disputed.
* Taking advantage of their food being very heavily standardized, McDonald's once experimented with a robotic kitchen, going so far as to build a Hong Kong outlet that used one. They scrapped the idea, but not the outlet, when the construction and maintenance turned out to be far more costly than employees. Their one fully automated outlet is still there, as a minor tourist attraction, but building more isn't worthwhile with today's technology.
* Autoloaders for tanks and artillery free up some room, and save weight (for artillery anyway) but are notoriously unreliable. With one you only need 3 people (driver, commander, gunner), not 4 (the loader) and any weight saved can be used for extra armour. During the [[Cold War]] the [[Reds with Rockets|Russians]] had auto-loaders in their tanks. The [[Yanks With Tanks|US Army]] never used them, even on the [[Tank Goodness|M-1]]. Why? The auto loader added weight and complexity and a 19 year old with a strong right arm was ''faster than any auto loader''. As for the unreliability, the Russian auto loaders were famous for catching the gunners sleeve and trying to load his arm, some times it did. They do see use in NATO artillery, and large-calibre autoloaders can easily outload humans (6/2 rounds/min rapid/sustained for the manual loaded AS-90, but 10-13 rounds either way for the auto-loaded
** Not to mention that the 19 year old is a lot more versatile than any autoloader, he can help you change a tread, watch your back while you make repairs, or fill in for a comrade if they get incapacitated. Try to get an autoloader to do any of those things!
*** Which is exactly what one
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