Let's Talk About Exploitation

To meddle in the occult, of course.

 

I'm not sure Dagon would be angry if you... asked him nicely to send some of them your way, would he now? He would probably just want something in return. He may not even care if you eat them or eat their eggs, as much as that antagonizes the fishpeople themselves. The video game cruelty potential of bribing a god to harm his own charges is... pretty good, I want to...

More seriously, although CE references cosmic horror it's in a significantly more humorous setting. It doesn't have to be as hopeless as even Warhammer 40,000 is (which also is something of a humorous take on cosmic horror, and hopefully a bigger inspiration than the mythos itself, seriously, it's quite a bit richer and better). Elder gods and the empire can both be rather incompetent and petty with a poor record of achieving their goals, and amusing consequences to their actions. There's less of a need to portray the gods as quite as inevitable and destructive as those of the "mythos".

Thinking about this excites me a little. I really want to get on cruel, amusing, and downright stupid sacrifices and betrayals in the name of occult boons, especially ones that persist across colonies. It'd have the same roleplaying effect playing Killer Vegan or Banksterism in Dredmor. Honestly my ideal "character" for roleplaying in this game would be a suspicious administrator who always seems to guide his colonies to nasty ends at the hands of occult forces, doing just enough to keep the empire happy.

 

How many that stay, could be depending on how happy the colonists are. Perhaps if colony goes well, could get higher educated castaways to stay. If it totally lawless and hopeless, the scum of the earth might be tempted to stay.

 

I'm sure there will be better and less controversial ways to do that as the game develops. (Say plundering the oddly shaped ruins you found the fish men living in and dragging the Pulsating Pedestal back to put in your foundry for it's Wonderously Invigorating Effect on the overseer who uses it.)

 

I have this lovely book called:


The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook by F.A. Steel, G. Gardiner, published in 1888 and contains all a young memsahib need to know when comes to building the empire in India.


From hiring servants, organize, discipline and train them, what to pay them, to cure dogs bad breath, make a home, even in a tent camp in the jungle, how many camels you need to move a household, including a piano and how to raise your children to good, disciplined members of the empire while trying to bring civilization to the natives. Under no circumstances must you accept the word dustoor (custom) from the Ayah (Nanny), or else you risk the young ones acting like Indian children that are: “proverbially captious, disobedient and easy to throw out of gear”.

You should not despair if the bungalow you move in to is dirty, remember its English dirt and not as bad as native dirt.
Give your servants blankets as a personal gift, or else they just steal and sell them.
Keep an eye on the cook or else you risk he use his dirty hands to mix the custard and his toes as a toastrack.
And so on...


It gives a wonderful insight in how colonists was thinking back then and could perhaps give the game developers some ideas of the domestic part of building of the empire.

 

Wow... cool.

Well, actually... in todays society it's probably quite racist in it's views and suggestions, but... let's face it... a very cool book to own :-D

 

It’s very interesting to read books like that and they did not regard them self as racist (not that modern time racists do either.)

Nor was it limited to other skin colours.
You don’t have to go back further than 1960s England where you would find signs saying: "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish" when it was rooms to rent. Or “No black or Irish” on hiring signs.

And to add a piece of forgotten/ignored/hidden history.
Regarding force breeding of the fish people. Mid 17th century an Irish slave would cost you 5 sterling, while an african slave would cost 50. How to deal by this? Mulattos would bring better prize than the Irish. Hence they started a breeding program with Irish females as young as 12 and African males. Reason this was stopped in 1681 was not because of the ethics, but the people that traded in African slaves protested. An Irish slave was also worse treated because he/she was cheaper to replace.


I’m rather sure the colonists would have no problem making the fish people their slaves after all they eat them and it’s not regarded cannibalism, so they would most likely not even see it as slavery but more like beast of burden.


Yes, yes I know, I read too many strange things.

And I’m the queen of google, all lesser geeks bow before me.

 

Yeah, that 's the trouble with dehumanizing people. If you manage to not think of them as humans (or "one of us") then you basicly can do anything with them. And how much easier would it not be to not recognise the intelligence in somebody that's actually a different species, like the fishmen. Let's face it, we have no issue eating whales, monkeys, dogs or any other animal that excibit any kind of intelligence (no matter how rudimental). It's supposed that at some point we'll change the "human rights" to "rights of the sentient" or something similar when we start recognising intelligence in other species. As somebody once said, "if they can feel pain, sadness and memories why inflikt pain and sadness?" right.... /SJW_off

 

Exactly.


And it’s not even limited to race, religion or nationality but also social class.

One story I read from North of England. A young woman had lost her whole family, mother, father and two brothers in two separate coal mine accidents. The wife of the owner asked her husband if nothing could be done for the poor woman.

He responded: She will get drunk on saturday and get over it, they can’t feel grief like we do.

 

Honestly, I can joke about lots of stuff in game. Farming mermaids in DF, harvesting caviar and serving it to fishmen merchants etc. But I must admit my tolerance for real life stuff is far lower. Examples like those mentioned here...I can't find the right word... "Provoserer meg". Fair to say I'm really, REALLY glad we have come so far as we have. We have a long way to go still, but compared to how things have been in the past this is bloody paradise.

 

It’s a good thing it provokes you, because it should.
But I think its important we know about these things, because then we are able to recognize it when it shows it’s ugly face again.
Sad to say: Slavery was not abolished in Mauritania until 2007: and some places you could find open slave marked as late as 1960s.


There is however one game I remember that have slaves. Tropico 2 Pirate cove (yes, i have to admit I’m a great fan of the Tropico series but not because of the slavery in nr 2..) only way to get workers was to capture them from ships or raid nearby settlements. Then you needed to keep prisoners in constant terror to avoid them running away or even worse, rebell and storm the palace.

Now in the Tropico series, you can actually shoot troublesome citizens. In all of series you have to avoid the people storming the palace…

 

Ah, tropico reminds me of a good old "Junta" the board game

There was a strong woman (Safia Abdi Haase) that said "Brutality must be met with brutal honesty". Something I wholeheartedly agree with although my stomach can't handle too much brutal honesty at a time :-S

 

And that, I think, is exactly one of the many reasons Gaslamp have (rightfully) chosen to sidestep this issue. As they say, there are avenues and games that can handle this kind of horror and inhumanity in a way that makes you think, makes you contemplate man and his many dealings with other men.

This is not that game. It's lighthearted with just a dose of dark humor running through it. While I don't think it's necessary to always be politically correct, there is a time and place for everything. Honestly, I would think less of Gaslamp if they just randomly put in slavery. They have better, more original things they can spend their time on, and they are!

...but fun discussion in here.

 

As the Monsignor say in the movie Boondock Saints:. Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.


Perhaps one could hire the fish people, but i can’t imagine they will be very good at farming. I have an excellent idea, one should be able to trade seafood with the fish people in return of (let’s go real empire style) opium...

 

I do believe this says it all hehehe

 

I do TRY to stay on topic. Yes, I do. But she's not helping! *points at Ms C*

I even went to the lengths of putting up a "lounge" thread in the general forum so as not to "clutter" up on-topic threads with our quite-so-intellectually-brilliant-but-oh-so-unfortunately-meandering-discuccions :-D

 

Hehe.


And after all, if you can give it to your children when they don’t want to sleep, should be no harm to give it to the fish people.



Life becomes so more idyllic with some laudanum drugged kids.

 

What??? Me???

No, no, no, can’t be.

 

*points accusingly at Ms C*
Yes..... You!


Although I might not put up all that much of a fight when I give you my arm and ask you to twist it. "Caaam on...twist my arm!"