Hey I AM doing something, I'm discussing it in a forum using a phone made by slaves. That makes me a job creator.

You summed up my thoughts for me Jusey, so I'll just second this.

I'll have you know I pay my raiders one cap per day plus all the bloatfly meat they can eat (that stuff's nasty).

Human slavery is not ok, but synth "slavery" is a-ok. One is machine, the other is human. Machines are fundamentally made to serve humans. Most people wouldn't care if synths look like Codsworth anyway, especially if they made them with the desire to serve like Mr. Handy.

Watch this video and tell me you don't feel sympathy for the Robot over the sadistic handler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

The fact is that ingame at the moment you can build prison camps, where your prisoner settlers can work away at producing food from behind prison wire.

With a well laid out camp, you can even set electric traps, so if they come near the wire they get zapped.

I feel like it's totally okay. They're raiders man, and I don't buy that this is what we have to do nonsense. I'm fresh out the vault prewar and I'm establishing settlements it ain't that hard to plant food, and make water purifiers. I'm just enjoying my walk through he wasteland, and some [censored] raider takes a pot shot at me, trying to kill me, and take my [censored]. Hell no brush, bring back the Mesmetron, and let me enslave these [censored]s, and to use a quote that one of these raiders said "It's nothing personal, it's just you, or me."

So yeah, I'm totally cool with being able to make them into gladiators in the second DLC. Have them earn their freedom, and if they get killed, they shouldn't of chosen to be a raider. Maybe after surviving my arena, you'll choose to become a functioning member of post apocalyptic society.

Are you serious or is it like a joke? I just want to be clear.

You paint a positively glowing account of serfdom, a system that had roots in slavery and was a form of bondage, non-consensual if you were unlucky enough to be born a serf. Given the problem in the modern era with slavery and the exploitation of those living on the fringes of society I find it hard to believe that the fates of the majority of serfs in the mediaeval era was any better than that of slaves.

On topic, in a post-apocalyptic world where most activities are back to unskilled labour, slavery would return as a predominate form of the economy underpinning most of the workforce. And along with that would return the fear and paranoia of a slave uprising amongst those in control thus crippling them in the long term.

Again, you seem to have quite a positive upbeat idea of serfdom. Just ask the lord of the manor to let you leave and hey presto off you go. Like I mentioned in the previous post, there are enough issues with modern slavery and people trafficking for me to have a less rosy picture of what the actual lot of a mediaeval serf was. It might have been a reasonable life if you were lucky to have a benevolent Lord who was fortunate to have good land and prospects... but I suspect given human nature that type of Lord was in the minority.

I'm just going to say this upfront -- you need to do your own research on middle-age feudalism and serfdom. It's quite clear you lack knowledge on the subject, which is fine, because you can find a lot of that information on the internet and in books actually. I'm not painting any "glowing" picture of serfdom, and I'm not going to continue wasting time with you because you simply do not want to do your own research, but would rather rely on your own vast esoteric knowledge of the subject. To put it simply, a slave and a serf existed separately from each other, and serfdom continued after slavery was abolished. A serf worked only 150 days a year, was fed, clothed, and had half the year off to spend with their family. They were protected under the lord, received wages, and could become freeman if they so chose, sometimes becoming more wealthy than the freeman. They could also rise vertically in society under the military, since feudal and monarchical societies were based on a rigid military caste system, separate from our merchant class system of today.

You do a lot of "imagining" how it would be rather than doing actual research, and therein lies the problem. MIT printed a good article about the life of a serf, which you should probably read. By the way, those types of Lord weren't in the minority actually, since it was illegal for them to hurt a serf or deprive them of sustenance. Also, it wasn't beneficial for the Lord to be cruel to his serfs since his power was based on production and happiness. In reality, the "evil lord" was in the minority.

therippaman is correct. Most landlords were quite easy on their serfs, as if they abused them maliciously, they could be stripped of all power. In Russia, pre-1861 (when their serfdom was abolished), any landlord caught treating their serfs like n'wah dung were stripped of their title and sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor in Siberia.


Serfdom had its flaws, no doubt. It wasn't all sunshine, cotton candy and puppies, but I'm sure it was a million times better than the racial slavery system that existed in the Americas. At least serfs had a chance to move around in society and have a voice in their own treatment. A slave in the Americas? Not so much, I'm afraid.

I've made Abernathy Farm into a prison camp. It looks so very, very haunting. All the inhabitants (two so far) will be wearing Vault 81 suits.

The handler was a dike.

I do wish Raiders could be approached as potential allies or at least customers. All those stories we read on the terminals after mowing down each Raider gang... some potential is there.


But every Raider except a few* are going to attack without hesitation. Whatever clever or cute thing they may be doing at the time (looking out a window, complaining about the Raider life, expressing remorse, burying a comrade) evaporates when they twitch onto your presence. The only backstory is found in their pockets or terminals.

* the ONLY time I've not been automatically attacked was a group of Raiders near Oberland, charging a toll to pass through the underpass.

I had a raider engage me in a machete fight, and as we attempted to strike each other down he goes, "just die already, I've got kids to feed!!!".

Actually felt bad for a minute or two......Unless he was planning on feeding me to his children, then [censored] that lol.

Making a difference in just one child's life is worth all the trouble.

Shoot! I meant Forsworn. (Had The Wheel of Time in my head, I guess.)

I was referring to the whole King in Rags bit in the silver mines of Markarth. Great writing! Mature situation. Voice acting is quite good in places, too! Not so easy to choose sides after that.

It was rosy compared to the modern day.

- There are 11 official US holidays per year. 13, if you want to count Christmas Eve / Day (but I can't begin to tell you the number of times I've needed to work BOTH days.)

+ The Medieval serf of Europe was guaranteed around 80 holidays per year (through the Church) -- often entire weeks off at a time. That does NOT include every Sunday and the winter months.

- Working for the average company in the US, you're lucky to get a free soda on your birthday.

+ Feast days (which were almost every single one of the ~80 holidays listed above) were literal "feasts" (all you could eat and drink) on the lord of your manor. It was required by law for lords to observe this and provide.

- We live in a mobile (ever more global) culture here in the US. People expect to travel, see the world, climb the ladder in their careers, live life to the fullest.

+ In Medieval Europe, where are you gonna go!? Rome collapsed. Society collapsed. The bubonic wiped out 1/3 of the bloody population. Schools and universities closed. There was no standing military. There were no more police. Nature took back most of the larger settlements built during the Pax Romana... Travel was hideously dangerous. Disney World would not be built for nearly 1,200 years. They didn't even believe Japan existed, for crying out loud. Their life consisted of trying to find a safe place to live and ply a trade. Find a good job, and settle down to raise a family. (Sound familiar?)

Taking just these few details from BOTH a serf's perspective and our own, modern perspective, doesn't sound that bad. Yep, it was work. And it could be unfair at times. That's life. On the whole, people in the modern day are treated far more unfairly than people living on a fief. And lords were largely very good to their people. That's how you run a country! There were no major peasant uprisings for nearly 1,000 years. (Because life was so horrible, right?) We have a bloody riot every few years in the US.

^ You're comparing two completely different time periods with two completely different economic structures. Besides, at least we have antibiotics and other meds to combat diseases. Back then, even a simple sniffle could prove deadly, and the infant mortality rate was obscenely high. And you can't really fault them for not knowing about Japan; modern-day GPS wouldn't exist for almost 1,000 years. Not even the richest king likely had the faintest clue about anything outside their own country, their allies and enemies, and trade routes by land and sea.

I read black instead of bad. LOL. I was like that's racist... then I reread it and realized...

I'd like to be able to build a Paradise Falls style slave base. Lure settlers in with the promise of safety, stick a collar on and put them to work. Sell them for a tidy sum to a rich buyer when you're done with them.

Far too simplistic of an interpretation. The West was opposed to Communism for the same reason the monarchies of Europe were hostile towards the rise of Republican France: They felt threatened by what that change could lead to to the established Powers That Be. The French Republicans were all for tearing down the monarchies and give The Mob more power. The Communists were all for taking wealth away from the Very Wealthy and redistributing it according to the wishes of the Party.

The fact that the Soviets utilized the gulag system was merely a fortuitous PR talking point.

This is an interesting perspective. I am of the opinion that if I do something Bad, I should be punished for it. Your speculation doesn't take into account whether or not you actually DID do something that usually draws punishment if caught. Of course NO ONE wants to be punished. So suggesting that NO ONE would want to be punished doesn't mean that the Golden Rule should be applied in ALL cases. If a person is a complete sociopath, his opinion would be more likely that, even if he cold-bloodedly -- which is about the ONLY way sociopaths tick -- murdered scores of people, he shouldn't be punished, at all. But if a person is actually ethical and moral, the question should be:

As an ethical person, do I feel that I should be punished if I should murder someone? If I _did_ murder someone, what would be the appropriate punishment that should be applied to me? Whatever that is, THAT is the punishment that should be applied to ALL murderers.

But be careful! The "appropriate" punishment you describe will describe just how ethical you are or aren't. Too light a punishment and you will seem less ethical and more sociopath. Too severe and you appear to be more like a fundamentalist foaming at the mouth about "righteous retribution!"

They thought they were toasters?

Reminds me of Magnificent Seven: "If God had not meant for them to be sheared, He would not have made them sheep."