References for Empire

I was thinking about our politics and general concepts to use as a base to portrait and role play the Empire. I imagine that we would have a lot of similarities with the Assyrian, one of the bloodiest ancient civilizations.

War:
Assyrians were one of the most warlike people in history, lovers of the violence of the war and hunt. Amongst the people of the ancient Middle East, they were famous for their cruelty. At the peak of its power, Assyria stretched from Egypt to Persian Gulf.
Military service was compulsory for all Assyrians, no matter the social class. A body of engineers was created during the 7th century BC, for attacking fortifications.

Enemy kings were beheaded, and their heads hanged in trees and cities were destroyed. Women were made slaves. This cunning policy, the army and good administration maintained the empire for centuries. The conquered populations had to pay heavy annual tributes.

Social and religion: Nobles, dignitaries and kings wore large fringed tunics. Common Assyrians lived in adobe made simple houses. Temples appeared as huge stepped pyramids called ziggurats. The ziggurats were also astronomic observatories. Only priests acceded to the top of the ziggurat, where an altar with a continuously burning flame was located. The priests reported precise astronomic data, eclipse predictions, and changes in the stars' orbits.
The supreme Assyrian god was Ashur (hence the name Assyria), the war god, cruel with the enemies and merciful with his believers.


A body of scribes redacted texts comprising order, laws or commercial documents.

This is how I see that we could use the theme of slavery within the role play

Slaves are considered a necessary evil among many of the societies and cultures. Slaves can be found in many of the great cities and outlying habs. From the gladiators, to the bondsmen, slaves can be seen almost everywhere and are considered the lowest form of life in the social strata of the Empire. Slaves come to Empire planets and dominions in a variety of fashions and by the freighter-loads.

The most common are those who are captured in battle and wars. Occasionally, criminals are sentenced to slavery and then sold to the slavers. Like those captured in battle, they are brought to the slave rings to be bought and sold, many by the very Metrozones from which they are allied.
The rarest of the Empire slaves are those who are actually born into slavery. Since officers maintains so many servants and custodians to maintain palace estates, it would stand to reason that these slaves would be allowed to breed. This ensures that good help is never too far. These slave "bloodlines" have proud traditions of servitude to their masters. In fact they often are treated better than most who dwell on the surface.
However they come the variety of slaves is unquestionable, yet the safety of the Empire is paramount when bringing in new slaves.

Slave Rings
These dens of seething hatred and rage are considered a necessary evil by some. For without them, the Empire would turn to raiding even more habs and settlements to fuel their insatiable appetite for power and wealth. Here, Empire Ladies and Lords buy and sell life for a mere handful of credits. These operations are extremely profitable as the revenue generated by them puts even the mightiest of hab towns to shame and is one of the sources of income for the Empire. Thousands of slaves are bought and sold every day.

Positions of Power
Slaves have no rights. They own nothing except what their master allows them to own. However, a slave who catches the eye of the nobles may be rewarded with a promotion of sorts.

The nobles are too busy to be troubled with trivial matters such as enforcing the peace and guarding sensitive areas. Thus, this position falls to the Sentinels Guards, who are slaves, but trusted with a weapon in the presence of their master. They are the elite of slaves.

The slaves, once selected, are taken to the main mother-ship for psycho-conditioning and indoctrination. These slaves are conditioned to be utterly loyal to their masters and to the Sovereign. They serve as elite shock-troops; they can't be bribed or coerced into betraying the Empire. They will obey their masters and are willing to fight and die for it.
They are trained in various forms of combat to help enforce their duties, and bring fear and terror to those who would oppose their master's enemies or the enemies of the Empire.

Many of their duties include guarding a dignitary, watching over slaves and prisoners of war, guarding a slave market auction, or keeping a watchful eye on their lord's enemies.

Taskmasters are slaves who have shown to have the aptitude for leading. They must oversee all operations that each class of slave is responsible for. Mostly this involves overworking labor slaves to the point of exhaustion and seeing to it that they are fed and making sure new replacements are always coming in. They are greedy and oppressive. Full of hate for the hardships they have endured, they often take out their anger on nearby slaves.
Like the Sentinels, Taskmasters are conditioned to be loyal to the Sovereign. They know that a better life awaits them if they show promise in their duties.

Pleasures of the Flesh
The most satisfying slav is the pleasure slave. These slaves have some physical quality the jaded senses of an noble desire. They are at times scary but some are quite beautiful. To an Empire citizen, no perversion escapes them, as they have no moral dogmas. Sexuality and pleasures of all forms are considered as enlightenment. They are right to treat those beneath them this way, and those that don't fit their idea of a grand pleasure slave are only fit to die in the furnaces below or be tossed overboard.

Against the common beliefs, many of the pleasure slaves do live well. They are treated with care (as much care as their master gives them), and they are fed well. They are also given over to taskmasters or courtesans who train them in the arts of physical pleasure. Once they are trained they are to please their masters in every possible and impossible ways.

All pleasure slaves are fed constant doses of a narcotic substance produced by the Empire known as Absinthe. It stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain and instils senses of euphoria, hallucination, fainting spells and other feelings that are well documented. Not only does this eventually make them addicted to the fantasies of their masters, but it also reduces their willpower, making them even more susceptible to the whims of their lords.

I've taken this from what I've seen from the role play you had there and some specifics like the absinthe touch that Revan asked me to replace instead of common narcotics. Opinions are welcome.

Both references are very good and I'm sure they can be used here. Thank you both and continue to bring us good posts like this, it's very appreciated.

Both posts are really good, thanks for such interesting reading.
Atyria, I think that whole concept of slavery may be very important to us. "We", as cruel pirate faction, could benefit from slavery.
Imagine us exploring far reaches of space, fighting with 'aliens' ;-) we simply won't have time to manage our ground facilities. We could use a legion of slaves to do this, to build things for us, new ships, new weapons when we will be busy fighting out there.
I only wonder how to incorporate such feature into the real game. ;-)

cheers
Xargh

Xargh wrote:

I only wonder how to incorporate such feature into the real game. ;-)

cheers
Xargh

I imagine that it could be a la BoB /PET style or CVA Providence model

M Levian wrote:

Xargh wrote:

I only wonder how to incorporate such feature into the real game. ;-)

cheers
Xargh

I imagine that it could be a la BoB /PET style or CVA Providence model

I don't understand the references.

Atyria, Marcus is talking about BoB (band of brothers, if I remember correctly) - one of the most fearsome pirate organisation in EVE-Online.

Xargh wrote:

Atyria, Marcus is talking about BoB (band of brothers, if I remember correctly) - one of the most fearsome pirate organisation in EVE-Online.

BoB aren't pirates, they're territorial holders with NBSI. Pets are alliances they rent territory to, the alliances get all advantages of being a BoB protegee and use the space. They pay rent. This way BoB can be territorial holder and expansionist aggressive.