Quote:
Originally Posted by dcarson
Just because they are fighting with the locals doesn't mean thy are fighting with all the locals or any of them all the time. So you can have the locals learn how to grow tobacco and trade for high tech goods.
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Absolutely.
Even though they are, well,
literal Nazis, some of them will be mostly normal people, albeit ones living in a society with values that we would deplore. Quite likely the more successful
Treckbauers would treat their slaves with paternalistic affection and learn enough of native ways to be able to deal with them. There would be shocking inequality and brutality, from the perspective of our modern society, but anyone indulging in cruelty would learn that without the military might of the main settlements to back them up, they need the 'native' Aryan class and even the better type of slaves to be at least minimally content.
The society of the
Treckbauers would probably evolve into one where the second class citizens descended from 'civilized' Natives (with sufficiently Aryan features) could do quite well, even if those who could trace their descent to the Earth-born original settlers would become, effectively, a class of frontier nobility, or at the very least landed gentry, having rights and privileges beyond any Native, no matter how wealthy, simply by virtue of their superior citizenship.
And for the
Treckbauers, at least, their slavery could well evolve into something closer to what thralldom became in Viking frontier areas like Iceland, i.e. something that was imposed on battle captives from foreign cultures, but didn't persist among descendants who spoke the same language and had the same customs. The main settlements and the industrial areas of the Antarctic Space Nazis can get away with chattel slavery of shocking brutality, because they can transform recalcitrant slaves into
Kadavergershamer automatons who are incapable of rebellion, but that option wouldn't remain open to anyone who struck out on their own.
The
Treckbauer might buy such slaves, yes, but they'd be more like farm equipment than people, and, in any case, such slaves really require access to power plants for best results.* As the Treckbauer will probably be TL5, with access to TL6-7 gadgets only by purchase (and will not make use of many higher TL skills, either), it's probably simpler to rely on a work force that is at least marginally content.
*Why, yes, they do in fact not eat as ordinary people do, but instead require energy in easily drainable form.