Sick and Tired of Slave Smuggling Missions

[Roberto]

Why do you want to perpetuate human misery by shipping battle weapons, narcotics and nerve agents if you're so worked up about slaves?

There is no such thing as a 'noble' black marketeer. Either your character bites the throw pillow and deals in whatever illegal substance is commercially viable, or do something else and stop whining that organized crime pays.

Exactly. It makes no sense.

One suspects the OP is "virtue-signalling": saying, "Look at me; I'm anti-slavery!" As if the rest of us are Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained or whatever. And he's noticeably not saying, "Look at me; I'm anti-drugs!", because drugs (even though the drugs trade causes untold suffering the world over) are cool.

And yeah, as you point out, Zeta, it's just a game!

 

[tafkabb]

Slaves are people. People are simply self-loading cargo. Get in the hold, people.

 

[Bill Clement]

There’s another angle to this. DBOBE has stated on many occasions that he likes to place moral dilemmas before players. If slave trading wasn't lucrative then there would be no dilemma- people would still trade or smuggle the most lucrative commodity, side stepping the moral dilemma placed before them. Expect new dilemmas in future patches- rare commodities obtained by murdering alien animals, possibly sentient alien animals, is a thing he discussed with Lave Radio recently. There are likely to be others as the game develops.

We have the choice, people. I’ve never traded a single slave; there are commodities I will not trade. Not making huge wads of cash hasn’t, as far as I can tell, ruined my game experience yet. In fact, I’m having as much fun now- possibly more?- as when I first started playing. I’m not puritanical; I smuggle on occasion and don’t object to hunting or being hunted by fellow players, human as well as AI. But I’m not affected by another player making what my commander would consider a very poor moral judgement, no matter how rich it makes them. The price for my conscience is being ‘forced’ to play other game options. Those wicked souls at FD have made it their mission in life to put a huge amount of content in my way and leave me no other choice than to churn through it all. Oh, the humanity! I even hear the evil baskets intend firing more of it at me every season, for at least eight more years…

OP- there's a ton of things to do in the game that don't involve slaving. Believe it or not, out in the real world, our ancestors managed to turn their backs on the vast profits offered by the trans Atlantic slave trade. The British taxpayer even compensated the reprehensible scum doing it to end the trade a little sooner than another round of legal battles would allow- the entire nation paid to end the trade! To say nothing of the brave men on the West African Station; tens of thousands of sailors, Royal marines, soldiers and civil servants risked their life and health to combat it. I fully understand your refusal to play as a slaver, but if our forefathers could do so much, our just ignoring a get rich quick option in a video game seems an easy thing to do by comparison?

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

Skimmed through/read the responses since I stepped away and I have a few comments.

Yes, I am against human trafficking in real life as I suspect most people here are as well, however I was referring to my character also being against the notion. I do RP a bit and that is one thing I chose not to do. No, I'm not trying to be some         white knight saying "look at me I'm         noble hurdur noot noot." I accept I am a speck of dirt in this vast galaxy and am just trying to point out how unbalanced smuggling is and for some reason in favor of slavery over all else.

Why do I smuggle narcotics/weapons but not slaves? Well considering I've killed thousands of ships in CZ's, murdered traders and civilians in supercruise for powerplay, and assassinated countless celebrities for missions, if I was against trading drugs and weapons it would be a bit erm... out of character I suppose.

777Driver I'm not saying that I have never found missions like the ones you listed but I do feel the vast majority of them involve slaves and I have to have a bit of luck to get missions like the ones you show.

No I don't play this game to make the most money, in fact I don't even own anything larger than a clipper because I hate grinding. However I've tried many ways to make money and really, for me, the only thing that is worth my time is smuggling. When I have to make money for whatever reason, that is usually what I do. I've done mining, bounty hunting, combat zones, trading, missions, salvaging, and exploring and they all pale in comparison to smuggling. Even trading which is the second most lucrative thing is only the most lucrative if you trade in legal slaves.

 

[Roberto]

I still don't get why your character would be OK with killing, directly or indirectly, thousands of people, many of them innocent, but balk at transferring others from one position of servitude to another – very probably helping to perpetuate misery in most cases, but not extinguishing life. I guess it might make sense if he's a former slave himself?

Frustration at the relatively high frequency of slave-smuggling missions I can understand, though.

 

[Manticore]

Don't worry about it too much for the moment. Slaves, cobalt, palladium, silver, biowaste.. to me it's irrelevant. I just see numbers of x, and then see z profit at the other station.

I agree.

I much prefer trading on the black-market and smuggling as criminal enterprises rather than piracy. I don't pirate other players or NPC's; there's no need if I can smuggle goods (and also pick up some UC credits for exploration along the way).

If I can ship the goods and make a profit I will do it.

As a smuggler I really like being able to outrun interdictions and get away with it and make my credits. It's fun!

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

I still don't get why your character would be OK with killing, directly or indirectly, thousands of people, many of them innocent, but balk at transferring others from one position of servitude to another – very probably helping to perpetuate misery in most cases, but not extinguishing life. I guess it might make sense if he's a former slave himself?

Frustration at the relatively high frequency of slave-smuggling missions I can understand, though.

Perhaps think of it this way; would rather A) have someone live a life of servitude and abuse, or B) put them out of their misery?

 

[Roberto]

You not killing slaves, though. You're putting non-slaves out of their non-misery And I'm not sure most slaves would want to be put out of their misery, if indeed it is misery in all cases, or misery without the prospect of eventual freedom. And who are you to make that decision for them anyway?

 

[Quantis Trap]

I agree. I too hate that slave trade jobs largely droun out any other illegal smuggling jobs on the boards. I equally sick of it. I bet Frontier could very easily adjust the game so more of the other smuggling jobs would show up!