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If aliens were to enslave humanity, how would these aliens keep their human slaves from being violent towards them and revolting?

For some context:

These aliens are very advanced, about a type 2 civilization on the Kardashev scale. When they came upon Earth they killed most humans and then hunted and captured the rest. They then enslaved the human race and used them as servants, laborer, and sex slaves.

But, as you can expect most humans are bitter towards their alien masters because of their cruel treatment.

My question is: how would these slaves be stopped from organizing a revolution?

Secespitus
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Jayden Harris
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    Please try to use proper punctuation when writing a question, such as using question marks. And you should also try to get used to using markdown. You need two linebreaks in the markdown for a paragraph in the result, or two spaces at the end of a line before a linebreak for a softer linebreak in the result. You can see a help menu when you are using the desktop version of the site that helps you with the most important stuff and there's also a link to the advanced help. – Secespitus Dec 10 '17 at 23:28
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    Why do all historical practices not work? Humans have, unfortunately, a lot of experience of holding their own kind as slaves. Why would not the alias reuse one of those techniques? – Oleg Lobachev Dec 10 '17 at 23:31
  • I never heard of that one – Jayden Harris Dec 10 '17 at 23:39
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    "But, as you can expect most humans are bitter towards their alien masters because of their cruel treatment": then just stop being so cruel. Humans make excellent slaves if they are not treated badly -- see the 3000 years of slave-holding history of Ancient Egypt or of China. – AlexP Dec 11 '17 at 01:39
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    @AlexP even better example see our actual corporation overlords =) – jean Dec 11 '17 at 12:37
  • @OlegLobachev - well, I'd guess because none of the historical methods have really seemed to be stable in the long term... and usually are not great for the slave-holders when they fail. Even those that lasted quite a long time in history, well, they're in history for a reason, which might make them less enticing from a potential slave-holding-aliens' point of view. – Megha Dec 13 '17 at 01:44
  • Aren't they in history because we (as in: humanity) moved beyond slavery? – Oleg Lobachev Dec 13 '17 at 08:00

1 Answers1

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Depends on what you (or these aliens) call slavery.

We've used many definitions over the years. "Work without pay" is the Sunday school definition, but in all cases slaves are compensated with room and board, at least (otherwise they would die of starvation in about 7 days), and sometimes education and extra money for nice things.

In indentured servitude, the slave had a somewhat ambiguous time for when they would buy themselves out of the contract. In both indentured servitude and Dutch/American slavery the "owner" had considerable control over decision making - where they could work, who they could socialize with. Discipline could take any form from cutting extra benefits, reducing room and board, or beating and imprisonment.

In "company towns" where people had no practical alternative to working for some local employer the same powers and discipline applied. Locals, on paper, had freedom to petition their government for grievances, but it was a dead-end practically speaking.

Likewise, in feudalism, serfs could petition the ruler (higher rank baron/baroness or the king/queen) if a local lord was abusing his custom, or badly mismanaging the land. The lord's powers were thus limited by whatever protections people had carved out for themselves, provided the higher level of governments wished to enforce those rules.

In our modern system, an employee may leave an employer - blackballing is a possibility. Some employers are demanding more visibility into what an employee does off the clock and who he/she socializes with, and they discipline employees acting in a way the employer sees as unbecoming. On paper, an employee may move to any employer he or she wishes, or choose no employer at all. But larger economic forces, such as unemployment rates, can drive skilled professionals into minimum wage, abusive jobs because there is "nowhere else to go".

If you choose the last of these systems (and your aliens are certainly smart enough to), you can encourage people to produce a lot, with less than room and board in compensation (people tripling up in an apartment to afford rent). As long as people genuinely believe that they must stay plugged into the system and that one day it will pay off, you keep things under control without the need for any great spending in armed force. In this case, though, the people aren't bitter. They consider themselves to be struggling against forces of nature or fate or mathematics, not against aliens.

James McLellan
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