If I were you, instead of ranting about imaginary slavery in a video game, I would donate to Anti-Slavery Organisations and do other things to help victims in real life. But no, "Remove slavery from this video game, I FeEl OfFeNdEd!!!"
If you consider slavery to be a problem to the point where it needs to be censored from video games, why not make a difference and do something about it in real life? You're not helping those 40+ million people by acting offended because the concept exists in video games.
Well, you are not me. I donate to charities and prioritize reduction of human suffering, but I also have a house and family to feed. I can afford to do this. I can't afford to single handedly stop slavery on earth.
I'd totally support any CG that meant to punish those who participate in slavery. It would be very interesting with vast implications for the game imo and we shouldn't shy away from considering such things.
It's imo much better than ret-conning something just because I had workplace training and just discovered slavery is bad.
Point taken. I therefore withdraw my earlier proposed solution, as I severely miscalculated the value of lore immersion to the community, and to be honest, it was a quick fix, and inelegant. Apologies.
I instead propose to Frontier that, in the fullness of time (and perhaps in conjunction with a Post-Odyssey release (that will likely correct mistakes and rebalance the inevitable unintended chaos) that they mount a realistic and long-term campaign through a series of linked CGs and accompanying Galnet releases (appropriately depicting the suffering of the victims of slavery in the Elite universe that engenders something approaching empathy) that pits a well positioned revolutionary leader (I'm thinking Aisling?) against the remaining slaver powers and factions. The intent is to place them into economic chaos and use the leverage to force them to stop trading in slaves. Goals could be associated with the acquisition of assets that would enable our protagonist (or antagonist if you support slavery) to steal the underlying technology used to develop the power play modules provided by slaver organizations, and offer those as the top 75% rewards for the CGs (perhaps with some engineering augment as well in order to provide an incentive to people who already have them) to those who support the protagonist's agenda. The antagonist offers the vanilla module, but also some extra credits, thereby preserving the debate intention of Elite's design.
There could be a sequence of CGs required, starting with data acquisition (submitting settlement data packages), then materials (to support the cause and build modules), and then combat (to force the institutional slave traders into a position where they are forced to negotiate but without completely undermining the power play mechanics in the galaxy), with the module being the final reward to anyone who participated in any of the three at an appropriate level. If all are successfully completed, that power would stop trading slaves, and the practice would become illegal and not appear as a commodity at a station in their controlled systems any longer. Then, this sequence could be repeated until broadly institutionalized slavery is wiped from the galaxy.
The funny thing about the comments about slavery being a fact of life, and the proposition that I am being unrealistic, is that it presupposes that there are no inspirational leaders, no heroes, no revolutionaries who step up and stop it. That is also unrealistic, as we have also learned from history. If a major superpower institutionalized slavery today, there would be global outrage. The media would assault that nation. There would be severe economic sanctions, isolation, and probably war over the issue. But 1300 years from now, nope, it's still a thing, and no one can do anything about it.
So if Frontier is unable to do anything about it directly due the negative repercussions to community immersion, let the community decide and do something about it in the game. And maybe add some additional fun at the same time.
So there you go, a small, infant idea that could fix the issue. And with that, I'm done defending myself or trying to make suggestions. That's my best effort at trying to bridge the gaps.
![[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/234/234580.jpg?1612617334){kind=avatar}
