Just sign here... (Concordant setting)

[gridlore]

Getting away from the blimps for a second, I was thinking about making indentured servitude part of the setting.

Historically, this was a common way for those too poor to pay the cost of passage to the New World to make the trip. A formal agreement for a period of time where the indentured person worked for the family that paid his/her way over. I could see this becoming big as we move into space.

It would of course be tightly regulated (and an entire arm of the legal profession would spring up around it) but it could make for some fun plot points.

Any opinions?

Comments

[kengr]

Unless you've got a *very* uniform legal system, the way contract language is interpreted on different worlds may lead to some surprises.

And seemingly minor differences in language could lead to really different results.

Silly example is the contract in "Pirates of Penzance", where rather than "until the age of 21" it says "until he has his 21st birthday". Normally not a problem, unless you were born on Feb 29th. :-)

[caraig.livejournal.com]

Any code of laws can and will be circumvented by people who are inethical enough and think they can get away with it. Likewise, indentured servitude will also be taken advantage of. The more complicated you make the laws, the more loopholes there will be. And any charge of law will be appealed, and re-appealed, and counter-appealed, ad nauseum....

Which is just too darn bad for the player characters, now, isn't it? ^_^

[murphymom.livejournal.com]

Sounds like what Schwarzenazi wants to do to us teachers...(bitter, moi?)

[10binary-cats.livejournal.com]

R.A.H./Friday: The transportees could take whatever they could pack into their (small) cabins and carry in their arms.

What would you take?

In a high tech society you could put a lot of useful basic homesteading tools in a reasonably compact kit. At least enough to raise a house on a frontier world...

do new worlds start with a centralized high tech centers for low tech hinterlands (you shoot your skronk with hand loaded rounds, drag it back to the cabin with your g/horse[gengineered horse], cook it on a wood fired stove, but reheat the leftovers in a microwave oven)? A mix of technology from offworld and locally made.

i seem to be rambling, but ideas pop up from the darndest places.

(a skronk is ummm.. hexapedal omnivore somethingorother...them's good eating tho'!)

ideas?

Two comparison models for you

[capplor.livejournal.com]

There are, in current society, such things as "au pairs" and "human traffiking" which might be be similar.

Note that au pairs have a bit of a sweeter deal than an indentured servant, and victims of traffiking tend to be told they're becoming servants, and end up being less (without the ability to complain, usually because they don't speak the local language or understand the local society).