Slavery In the Star Wars Universe

[Jedi Master Spock]

While the status of droids is interesting - and the status of clones as well, although I must say there is no doubt in my mind that clones, whether heavily brainwashed or not, are deserving of civil rights - what I find more telling is the use of human and alien servitors and slaves.

At the very least, the Republic seems to turn a blind eye towards arrangements that amount to abject slavery, outright slavery is common without its borders, and the Empire seems to not care at all if aliens are enslaved. The discussion and treatment of the Twi'lek in particular - who, since Oola in ROTJ, seem to have been destined to provide slaves for the rich and powerful - makes it clear that sapients, sentients, sophonts, and any other generalized non-species-specific categorization you might want to make are OK to put in conditions of permanent humble servitude.

That said, droids in SW for the most part seem like people that just happen to be wearing metal skin and not have any civil rights. As in the grand literary tradition, there are willing and unwilling servants, loyal and disloyal servants, et cetera.

In a society that only considers human and alien slavery merely uncouth, rather than terribly wrong, it is no surprise that droids have no rights. To be surprised at it would be rather like being surprised to see a murderer beheaded after having watched dozens of petty thieves hung.

[Mike DiCenso]

Roondar, Mike,
After reading the definition for Sentience and Sapience on Wikipedia, I have to concede that the droids in SW do indeed seem possessed of sentience, and even sapience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapience

It seems, as Inigo Montoya once said, that:
"I do not think the word means what you think it means!"

:)

I already linked to those articles in the OP, Praeothmin. :-)
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Yes, the Clone army was a form of slavery, but they were brought into existence for the very purpose of serving the Republic, and were "programmed" not to be independent or even fully sentient, as they couldn't really think for themselves. They had to follow orders, it is what they needed to do, maybe even wanted to do. These measures were taken to make it easier on the clone as well as easier for purchaser.

Yes, it was a form of slavery, but it was, perhaps, more humane than most. Also, it must be remembered that it was brought into being being by Dooku and Palpatine, not by the Republic. When it presented itself, Palpatine forced it upon the Senate with his emergency powers, so, it wasn't really sanctioned by the Republic. The Jedi, however...

That is a bit different.

The problem is that you could go around "purchasing" a human or other sentient/sapient army like that, no one, not the Kaminoans, or Obi-Wan or anyone showed the slightest bit of disgust or dismay at such a thing. Oh sure, since then we have seen a few isolated bits of humanity towards the Clone troopers in TCW, but as a whole, no one has even suggested that after the war was over that the Clones might be allowed to go do other things with their lives, or how to recompensate them for the ten or so years they lost because of their accelerated growth in order to have them ready to fight.

Morally pre-programming anything be it humans or droids capable of sentience or sapience to follow orders or react certain ways or whatever is just repugnant.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

In a society that only considers human and alien slavery merely uncouth, rather than terribly wrong, it is no surprise that droids have no rights. To be surprised at it would be rather like being surprised to see a murderer beheaded after having watched dozens of petty thieves hung.

In fairness, at least one person from the Galactic Republic, Amidala, showed shock and dismay over Anakin and others on Tatooine being held as slaves, and even mentions the Republic laws which supposedly ban such institutions, to which Qui-Gon Jinn replies that the Republic's reach does not extend far enough to do anything about it, which I guess is supposed to show us how far the Republic falls morally when they do institute the use of the Clone trooper under the influence of Palpatine/Darth Sidious. Still, that there was so little opposition or moral indignation to the creation of the Republic's Grand Army that way says something more, I think.
-Mike

[GStone]

While the status of droids is interesting - and the status of clones as well, although I must say there is no doubt in my mind that clones, whether heavily brainwashed or not, are deserving of civil rights - what I find more telling is the use of human and alien servitors and slaves.

On this point, I think it might depend on the nature of the clones themselves. When it comes to the republic army, how much of them was altered. Was it just simply being more compliant? But, even if it was just that, how compliant are they made to be? Yes, some have shown that they distaste the way clones are treated. However, just how extensive is that feeling amongst all clones? The few we have seen might just be the result of the fallability error in the process. They know it may crop up from time to time, but the level of discontent on the issue amongst them might be acceptable.

They could be social machines. Since they haven't had their minds totally fucked with, there's still a social aspect that needs fulfillment, which also goes with the military structure of their lives. It helps to not totally screw with their minds.

At the very least, the Republic seems to turn a blind eye towards arrangements that amount to abject slavery, outright slavery is common without its borders, and the Empire seems to not care at all if aliens are enslaved. The discussion and treatment of the Twi'lek in particular - who, since Oola in ROTJ, seem to have been destined to provide slaves for the rich and powerful - makes it clear that sapients, sentients, sophonts, and any other generalized non-species-specific categorization you might want to make are OK to put in conditions of permanent humble servitude.

It could stem from the soverignty of the planet they come from. There could be other reasons why they were allowed to join initially or the issue of slavery might not have even been a concern then, depending on how things initially progressed.

That said, droids in SW for the most part seem like people that just happen to be wearing metal skin and not have any civil rights. As in the grand literary tradition, there are willing and unwilling servants, loyal and disloyal servants, et cetera.

In a society that only considers human and alien slavery merely uncouth, rather than terribly wrong, it is no surprise that droids have no rights. To be surprised at it would be rather like being surprised to see a murderer beheaded after having watched dozens of petty thieves hung.

Well, our planet has had a long history of slavery based on being endentured, prisoners of war, children of slaves, etc. and there are many that are willing to sell modern technology to people with slaves.

[Airlocke_Jedi_Knight]

In a society that only considers human and alien slavery merely uncouth, rather than terribly wrong, it is no surprise that droids have no rights. To be surprised at it would be rather like being surprised to see a murderer beheaded after having watched dozens of petty thieves hung.

In fairness, at least one person from the Galactic Republic, Amidala, showed shock and dismay over Anakin and others on Tatooine being held as slaves, and even mentions the Republic laws which supposedly ban such institutions, to which Qui-Gon Jinn replies that the Republic's reach does not extend far enough to do anything about it, which I guess is supposed to show us how far the Republic falls morally when they do institute the use of the Clone trooper under the influence of Palpatine/Darth Sidious. Still, that there was so little opposition or moral indignation to the creation of the Republic's Grand Army that way says something more, I think.
-Mike

Well, droids at least, were given personalities to provide companionship to their masters. They were created for a certain purpose, and a personality and thinking process was programmed in for them to help with their job. It is known that regular memory wipes and reformats are necessary in order to keep them functioning properly, and to keep them from developing sentience of sapience, however, most personal owners do not follow these regulation s and allow the droids to develop their sentience. Only the military and government droids(and presumably those of big corporations) are given the necessary wipes and such. Most droids are treated as a member of the family and are serviced and taken care of with great care.

The thing with droids, is that they don't need to have sentience or sapience, but they are allowed to have it and in exchange they work with humans. But seriously, what is a droid going to do with freedom? It has been stated that droids cannot be programmed to truly feel emotion, that those few who can had to develop the ability over many years. Since they cannot feel emotion, they cannot feel fun, they do not need to eat, and they could live outdoors just fine. They have no needs that would allow them to do anything at all with their freedom. They have nothing that they could spend their money on, assuming that pay comes with freedom. In all likelihood, they would stay in their current charges, accrue a large amount of money that they would rarely use(aside from an upgrade here or there) and continue to serve humans and aliens.

The slavery of clones is bad, even if they were generally treated civilly, but the servitude of droids is different. It gives them purpose, without it, they would simply float along doing NOTHING. They cannot feel emotion, and have no curiosity to fulfill, as they are programmed with all the knowledge available int the galaxy, their freedom would accomplish nothing. Every droid wants to serve, needs to serve, because there is nothing else for them. It is a design flaw that may not be able to be fixed.

Generally speaking, droids who seem unwilling to serve, are simply unwilling to serve their current masters. If freed, they would tag along and find new masters. That is what a droid does.

[Mike DiCenso]

Every droid wants to serve, needs to serve, because there is nothing else for them. It is a design flaw that may not be able to be fixed.

Generally speaking, droids who seem unwilling to serve, are simply unwilling to serve their current masters. If freed, they would tag along and find new masters. That is what a droid does.

I'am not sure I quite agree with this premise. The droid may be initially responding to a set of programming in it's interactions with humans or other organic-based species, but that does not always mean that it will remain that way any more than a human being would stay a babbling child operating only on genetically "programmed" instincts over time. The fact is, as demonstrated by Artoo and to a somewhat lesser degree by Threepio, that droids can and do grow beyond their initial limitations, even if unintentionally.

In the Expanded Unverse material there are the IG-88s and LOM, who, even in the movies alone, were clearly not normal droids serving mindlessly, as they were on the Executor as bounty hunters to hunt for Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon and in turn collect on the substantial reward Vader was offering for them.
-Mike

[mojo]

sorry if this has been brought up already, i scanned the posts for it and didn't see it.
i know you guys don't usually use the eu that much, but i'm sure air will remember that early in the vong series there was a bit where c3po spends a couple of books trying to figure out the purpose of his existence. we even get looks into his mind - and he's desperately trying to find a philosophy that will allow him some peace of mind as he goes along on all these adventures. i could be wrong about the placement - i've read a lot of these books and it's possible it wasn't in the vong series - but i definitely remember reading it because it seemed a bit weird. it seems to me that anything that wrestles with that question - why am i here? - MUST be sentient.
it's possible to argue that his constant terror of being destroyed could be a bit of clever programming to induce a survival instinct, but we know they are learning machines, and i can't imagine that a programmer would bother to code a droid to struggle with the purpose of it's existence.

[Mike DiCenso]

We have been making reference to the EU material here, see my posting before this one which references IG-88 and LOM-4. However, it is interesting to here this bit about Threepio. Can you maybe tell us specifically where this introspection on his part comes from?
-Mike

[mojo]

oh, man. i almost didn't post that because i knew someone was going to call me on it, and i've read about 50 of those books. i'll take a quick look through them and try to find it.

[Praeothmin]

i almost didn't post that because i knew someone was going to call me on it, and i've read about 50 of those books.

Always follow your first feelings... :)

[Mike DiCenso]

i almost didn't post that because i knew someone was going to call me on it, and i've read about 50 of those books.

Always follow your first feelings... :)

Be mindful of your sources, young Padewan. ;-)
-Mike

[Airlocke_Jedi_Knight]

The novel MoJo is looking for is Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial. I think he may be slightly misremembering, however. C-3P0 was worried about what would happen to him if he died, not about his purpose. C-3Pas always been quite happy to serve Han and Leia, even though they are always dragging him into to danger.

The Yuuzhan Vong were specifically targeting droids, and C-3PO was worried that he would be destroyed. Han eventually agreed to store his memories and personalities in a computer bank, so that if he DID die, the could just plop his mind into a new chassis.

Also, in the same novel, Chewbacca's funeral was told from C-3PO's POV, and it was describing his slow of emotions. As I have already said, I believe that R2-D2 and C-3PO are exceptions rather than the rule, I mean, they have had nearly one hundred years(closer to seventy or so) to evolve. I find it unlikely that other droids last this long since they are mostly used by the military or by corporations and bib businesses. They would see a lot of work and would most likely have a short life.

[Mike DiCenso]

Thanks for the information, Airlocke. I don't suppose we can trouble you for a quote? :-)
-Mike

[Airlocke_Jedi_Knight]

: ) I'm afraid a quote will not be possible. This all takes up about 15-35 pages of the book, and there really isn't a small enough quote to summarize the entire thing.

Also, I would have to actually look the quote up, instead of just being able to recite it from memory. I'm not sure if I want to spend 5 minutes looking for a quote...just too much of an investment...;0