Slavery in the Menschlicher Sternenstaat

**Slavery in the Menschlicher Sternenstaat** has been a phenomenon for over seven hundred years since the end of the Second Human-Kizankai War, and modernly incarnates as a tremendous live industry that fosters economic relations between the country and that of xenoi-collecting nations such as Olimpiada, and contributes to the industrial and military power of the Sternenstaat.

A variety of slavery forms exists within the Sternenstaat, ranging from domestic servants to military slaves or chattel - all of which mainly being occupied by members of the xenoi bought from slavers across the Milky Way. More often than not, huge swaths of alien and human criminals drawn from penitentiary centers across the nation also are enslaved and ensnared within the sprawling *arbeitslager*, or labor camps, of the country. The intimate connections between slavers and the Sternenstaat also opened up avenues of intelligence and memetic dispersal, often disseminating human supremacism in the wake of large-sum transactions.

## Forms of slavery

### Chattel slavery

Most xenoi and near-human slaves that are purchased from slaver nations, corporations, or organizations first fall into the hands of state-owned companies or solicited buyers. From these bulk purchases of slaves, they are then cataloged by the National Servitude Index of the State Ministry of Health and Population (*Staatsministerium für Gesundheit und Bevölkerung*) in processing centers prior to being put on the national market for purchase by the private sector. Many slaves, however, are usually kept by the same state organisations or buyers that purchased them and placed into government labor camps, or *arbeitslager,* and become property of the state (and thereby differentiated from chattel slaves).

Once purchased by individuals or by a private entity, the slaves are then rendered chattel based on the specified owner. Since agricultural, mining, or production and refining companies are the highest buyers in bulk, purchased corporate slaves are considered chattel to the organization as a whole and divided in equity between the stakeholders of that private group. For example, the agricultural company Aurelion manages its hundreds of millions of chattel slaves that are distributed throughout its many plantations and preparation centers by ceding technical ownership of said slaves to local stakeholders and franchise individuals or groups. This can mean that, despite slaves being bought by the Aurelion company, they may actually be owned by franchises or by the stakeholders that operate local infrastructure. Stakeholders that do not get involved in personnel and/or infrastructural management are not able to hold company chattel slaves.

Aristocrats and nobles are the most populous groups of individual customers that buy chattel slaves in the Sternenstaat. Many are put to work in the direct demesne of the nobility or their properties, and can usually find themselves in similar positions to corporate chattel slaves if said noble owns private, profitable ventures.

By default, all slaves imported to the Sternenstaat are either sterilized by their previous owners, or are sterilized by slavery authorities in the nation during processing. However, customers are able to pay extra for chattel slaves that retain reproductive capabilities, as the customer will maintain ownership over the offspring produced.

Criminals, human or otherwise, that are enslaved from the penitentiary systems of the Sternenstaat are considered to be government proper and thereby are *not* considered chattel slaves.

### Domestic servitude

A large degree of near-human slaves that survive liquidation by the state (and a very select few xenoi) are rendered *domestic servants*, with some human slaves also becoming such after entering the slave market. This is often due to said slaves being explicitly humanoid in appearance and not offering explicitly lucrative labor properties.

Human, near-human, and xenoi domestic servants often enjoy a higher quality of life than slaves who work labor, are the most common type of slave to be freed. However, many domestic servants are bought as chattel, which includes any offspring born until the parent(s) are freed. These buyers are also practically always private entities, which means a majority of life standards and freedom chances are left to the slave methodologies of the buyers themselves.

Since domestic servants foster the most sympathies with their masters, they also receive frequent audits to prevent the spread of xenophilic tendencies or sexual exploitation thereof.

### Military slavery

The military (*Staatswehr*) and the *Staatsschutz* are the two largest government slaving entities. Many prisoners are transferred to serve as effective slaves in penal legions under the two organizations, and a bulk of xenoi slaves that display physical potency, nominal intellect, and the ability to be psychologically manipulated end up serving in the construction (or often "sacrificial") special units of the military and SS. Freedom is assured for all military slaves if they survive the duration of a ground campaign, but many do not survive conflicts and situations to receive such. They are often deployed in combat alongside battle droids to maintain cohesion, loyalty, and survivability.

## Banned forms of slavery

### Ritualistic slavery

The purchase of slaves for the performance of rituals is banned due to the context of such often referring to sexual exploitation or ritualistic sacrifice.

### Sexual slavery

The purchase and transport of slaves through the Sternenstaat for use in sex is banned and heavily enforced, regardless of species. This is due to the cultural aversions to interspecies copulation and xenophilia (seen as simply zoophilia), in addition to the view of all human slaves as potential new citizens and thus undeserving of immoral sacrilege such as molestation.

Nonetheless, a select few human and near-human slaves purchased by private entities are usually found by state auditors to have been sexually exploited (almost always being in domestic servitude conditions). Significant investigations are usually conducted by the state to prevent such cases from occurring for domestic servants.

### Child slavery

The purchase of a juvenile sophont for slavery, or to put said juvenile sophont into labor, has been banned by the government on the grounds of both poor labor efficacy and immorality. For children born to chattel slaves, they are not put to work until the age of maturity. However, this is often ill-enforced even with government slavers (especially in the context of domestic servitude).

## Freedom

The ability to gain freedom from slavery in the Sternenstaat is contingent upon a multitude of conditions, the chief of such being whether slaves belong to the government or private entities. It is important to note that human slaves are the most freed out of any classification due to the ideological lenience portrayed by the state from its espoused human supremacism. However, human slaves rendered so from penal systems are only freed after serving their sentence.

### Freedom from the government

For slaves in the Sternenstaat to achieve freedom from the government itself, it is integral for them to be seen as an "accepted race" - these mainly constitute humans, with very few near-humans and xenoi applying to this set. However, special cases are often made for those who display exceptional dedication to the state and the labor or work that they are performing. It is still up to assigned slavemasters to cede freedom to government slaves, but auditors from the government are able to disperse freedom at will if excessive maltreatment or exploitation is displayed. This does not apply to those who end up in dedicated *arbeitslager.*

### Freedom from private entities

Slaves that are owned by private entities - a collective or an individual person - are only able to be freed at the discretion of their official proprietors. This often means that slaves owned under individuals achieve freedom faster than those owned under a collective, as corporate slavemasters must place requests to higher officers for a case to release the slave (this does not count for franchises, who internally handle slavery matters once chattel is placed under their discretion from the central corporate authority).

Even so, state auditors are still able to extend freedom to privately owned slaves for similar reasons as government-owned slaves. However, slaves who are audited by the state can possibly be made slaves of the state directly, as legally the ownership is transferred from the private entities back to the government itself.

### Life after freedom

Almost all xenoi and near-human slaves that achieve freedom without recognition of a *Geistzertifikat* are officially supposed to be deported from the country, but recorded instances have occurred of individuals disappearing entirely without even stepping off-world. Xenoi and near-humans who do possess *Geistzertifikat* papers are rendered (albeit second-class) citizens of the country, and are allowed to engage in most normal civilian processes of the nation.

Human slaves do not need a *Geistzertifikat* upon freedomdue to already being considered natural, first-class citizens of the country. However, upon freedom, they will be considered unemployed and are thereby have the chance to be folded into government assistance and work-relocation programs. A notable facet of human slave freedom is that any and all offspring had will also be freed, which does not exist as an option for near-humans or xenoi unless explicitly approved by auditors.

## Effects

### Effect on the Sternenstaat economy

Before the Civil War of the State, slavery held such a high significance in the Sternenstaat economy that it became a focal point of the Kasmanite Movement and its revolution; not for the liberation of slaves in a fight for their autonomy, but rather in the terms of the Sternenstaat proletariat not being offered jobs replaced by such slaves. The end of the civil war lead to the Slave Purge and the deaths or deportations of hundreds of millions of slaves, and the restructuring of the national economy to accommodate the then-disenfranchised lower class, with new slavery programs instituted as *complementary* to existent economic infrastructure.

Due to the extreme efficacy of synthetic automation, slaves are often used as contextually cheaper alternatives in colonies, as complements to synthetic drone laborers, or in special cases as domestic servants. The high mortality rates of penal and slave legions in the armed forces also necessitate their constant influx.

*Work in progress.*