SW The Old Republic: Sith Warrior

[SabreMau]

And I never got the fascination with Malavai Quinn. He's literally Paul Bäumer (literally, when it comes to his looks even aka actor Richard Thomas) in the 1979 movie "All Quiet on the Western Front" and boring as fuck.

He's polite, professional, keeps the ship running at peak efficiency, aside from a one-time blemish he's well-devoted, and he writes the warrior a cute email later in the game. And it's not like the Paul Bäumer Richard Thomas look is unattractive or anything.

[abki]

As I recall his argument was that for anything you'd trust a slave with a droid would do it better and cheaper, and they rebel much less often.

So now I'm thinking about this, since it's kinda an interesting question.
(The presumed actual answer is "slaves are a concept almost everyone GETS, understands is bad, and has a long history in the sort of stories Star Wars draws from", but we're going to talk about the implications of this: why are there still slaves if droids exist)

So the simplest answer would be finding some area where droids cannot in fact replace a sapient being. And within the context of Star Wars this is... rare. Droids are routinely shown to possess extremely sophisticated AI, so while they may be poorly suited to academic roles or the like, well... so are slaves, and for regular thinking-on-your-feet task our modern computers just cannot do droids seem perfectly adept.
Most of the droids we see do seem to have either limited limb articulation OR be highly specialized units with dozens of find-manipulation limbs, so it's possible there's a limited set of manual dexterity tasks that a slave might be somewhat more suited for, but even then the cost-benefit ratio doesn't seem great.
The Star Wars galaxy is pretty big with vastly disparate development levels from planet to planet, so I guess on paper a world far enough out on the rim might have a severe enough lack of advanced repair facilities suitable for specialized droids that restricting use of droids in favor of slaves might have merit? But I'm reaching here.

Honestly the only time we see a slave in Star Wars where "just use a droid" doesn't seem like a simpler solution is Twi'lek dancing girls. So, sex slaves and similar. While the old EU DID have human replica-type droids who were confirmed as "fully functional" (Guri from Shadows of the Empire), they were also depicted as sufficiently costly and rare as to approach uniqueness, so... well, that's one thing.

But that's also obviously not the only use of slaves in Star Wars. I mean, Shmi Skywalker could have been used in that role at some point I suppose but she uh... seemed PRETTY confident about that whole "there was no father" bit, and obviously the fact that her son was also declared a slave puts a damper on that being the only routine use of slaves in the Galaxy.

Honestly looking at her case, and the way Watto talks about her and Anakin, my theory is this: most slaves in Star Wars are simply legacy slaves. At some point when hyperspace travel was more dangerous, droids were rarer, harder to repair, and less sophisticated, and more of the Galaxy was freshly-colonized wilderness, use of slaves made sense (in as much as it possibly can). However, because the children of slaves are also slaves, there were always more slaves. The Republic never fully cracked down on the practice (as happened in Earth history), and without outside pressure forcing the issue, slave owners had no impetus to simply give up large portions of their assets.

In other words, a droid would be safer and more efficient, but you'd be giving up a huge amount of wealth to free a slave, and if you owned a slave to start with you aren't the sort of person who's going to do that. So slaves are essentially a symbol of wealth and status and a hard asset to sell if things come to that.

So yeah, based on in-universe evidence, people basically keep slaves because without anyone forcing them to stop, they're not going to eat the economic loss. Or are a nasty enough customer that a sexual object they can kill on a whim appeals to them.

For the prequel era I can't say, but for the Sith Empire I always had the impression (head cannon?) that slaves were used as they were connected to the force, so the negative emotions of the slave labour would feed into the dark side of the force in some manner. We know from KOTOR II that destruction on a sufficiently large scale can cause dead places in the force, so it seems reasonable that it may be possible to strengthen or weaken a given side of the force through a sufficiently large group of individuals.

[Poipoi]

I always thought the slave part was more a symbol of power. If you are important enough, you have a slave. If you are very important, you have alot of slave. Without some artifact or device, the slaves hate and misery can't really help a Sith much. Well, there is something it can do. It can amuse their Sith masters

[Darmani]

As I recall his argument was that for anything you'd trust a slave with a droid would do it better and cheaper, and they rebel much less often.

So now I'm thinking about this, since it's kinda an interesting question.
(The presumed actual answer is "slaves are a concept almost everyone GETS, understands is bad, and has a long history in the sort of stories Star Wars draws from", but we're going to talk about the implications of this: why are there still slaves if droids exist)

So the simplest answer would be finding some area where droids cannot in fact replace a sapient being. And within the context of Star Wars this is... rare. Droids are routinely shown to possess extremely sophisticated AI, so while they may be poorly suited to academic roles or the like, well... so are slaves, and for regular thinking-on-your-feet task our modern computers just cannot do droids seem perfectly adept.
Most of the droids we see do seem to have either limited limb articulation OR be highly specialized units with dozens of find-manipulation limbs, so it's possible there's a limited set of manual dexterity tasks that a slave might be somewhat more suited for, but even then the cost-benefit ratio doesn't seem great.
The Star Wars galaxy is pretty big with vastly disparate development levels from planet to planet, so I guess on paper a world far enough out on the rim might have a severe enough lack of advanced repair facilities suitable for specialized droids that restricting use of droids in favor of slaves might have merit? But I'm reaching here.

Honestly the only time we see a slave in Star Wars where "just use a droid" doesn't seem like a simpler solution is Twi'lek dancing girls. So, sex slaves and similar. While the old EU DID have human replica-type droids who were confirmed as "fully functional" (Guri from Shadows of the Empire), they were also depicted as sufficiently costly and rare as to approach uniqueness, so... well, that's one thing.

But that's also obviously not the only use of slaves in Star Wars. I mean, Shmi Skywalker could have been used in that role at some point I suppose but she uh... seemed PRETTY confident about that whole "there was no father" bit, and obviously the fact that her son was also declared a slave puts a damper on that being the only routine use of slaves in the Galaxy.

Honestly looking at her case, and the way Watto talks about her and Anakin, my theory is this: most slaves in Star Wars are simply legacy slaves. At some point when hyperspace travel was more dangerous, droids were rarer, harder to repair, and less sophisticated, and more of the Galaxy was freshly-colonized wilderness, use of slaves made sense (in as much as it possibly can). However, because the children of slaves are also slaves, there were always more slaves. The Republic never fully cracked down on the practice (as happened in Earth history), and without outside pressure forcing the issue, slave owners had no impetus to simply give up large portions of their assets.

In other words, a droid would be safer and more efficient, but you'd be giving up a huge amount of wealth to free a slave, and if you owned a slave to start with you aren't the sort of person who's going to do that. So slaves are essentially a symbol of wealth and status and a hard asset to sell if things come to that.

So yeah, based on in-universe evidence, people basically keep slaves because without anyone forcing them to stop, they're not going to eat the economic loss. Or are a nasty enough customer that a sexual object they can kill on a whim appeals to them.

For the prequel era I can't say, but for the Sith Empire I always had the impression (head cannon?) that slaves were used as they were connected to the force, so the negative emotions of the slave labour would feed into the dark side of the force in some manner. We know from KOTOR II that destruction on a sufficiently large scale can cause dead places in the force, so it seems reasonable that it may be possible to strengthen or weaken a given side of the force through a sufficiently large group of individuals.

The thing about people is there always going to be cheaper and much more versatile than Androids. At least for certain definition just make sure that they stay within a certain radius feed them and they more or less take care of themselves. They are also better at customer service and more better with fiddly parts. Remember the first time you see droids being sold they have to deal with a tire packages of droids that may or may not have compatible capabilities. Simply put this isn't like getting a empty second-hand laptop this is like getting the fully functional console or device that only does a certain number of things and has a certain set personality that you only have limited amount of capability in order to modify. Contrast and compare that to a person and chances are you're going to be able to either bring them up to be a champion racer or it might turn out they might have a talent for mechanics or they could do sums or they could do all of this or none of this. Plus you don't have to worry about the weird interface issues or the threat of them getting too big for their britches so long as you have their detonation device

[Mecha82]

I have impression that slaves are thing in SW universe because no one has ever bothered to stop practice of selling and owning slaves. Mostly by human supremacists from core worlds don't seem to bother because most slaves belong to other species that they consider inferior. Also lot of Sith are human so it makes sense that they might share that way of thinking. Interesting enough Twi'leks are most popular species to use as slaves in SW universe with Twi'lek females being extremely popular choice for slaves even during Sith Empire.

[LordUltimus]

I think it was established somewhere that the Hutt's started the slave trade because they wanted people to do stuff they were too fat for.

[Steve]

The slave market in the SW galaxy always did seem to be mostly for purposes of projecting power than the traditional need for slave labor (when you need a lot of labor to develop an area and can't acquire it through voluntary employment and immigration). The need for such a labor force that was used to tropical climates and resilient against Eurasian diseases is why European colonists turned to African slave labor, for instance. Even as late as the early 19th Century there was an attitude that access to slaves allowed for cheap and quick development and settlement of an unsettled frontier (as seen in the efforts to bring slavery north of the Ohio River in America, since for the first two decades the slave-allowing territories south of the Ohio - Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi - were developing more quickly than the Indiana Territory was).

This may have once been part of it, but all evidence now is that slavery exists because the Hutts gain prestige by having large numbers of subordinate workers and/or slaves. While in the Sith Empire, likewise, having slaves gives Sith people to lord over. Plus the Sith Empire itself is constructed as a totalitarian regime and slave labor can be used as punishment for criminal activities or dissent.

[Wargriffin]

The slave market in the SW galaxy always did seem to be mostly for purposes of projecting power than the traditional need for slave labor (when you need a lot of labor to develop an area and can't acquire it through voluntary employment and immigration). The need for such a labor force that was used to tropical climates and resilient against Eurasian diseases is why European colonists turned to African slave labor, for instance. Even as late as the early 19th Century there was an attitude that access to slaves allowed for cheap and quick development and settlement of an unsettled frontier (as seen in the efforts to bring slavery north of the Ohio River in America, since for the first two decades the slave-allowing territories south of the Ohio - Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi - were developing more quickly than the Indiana Territory was).

This may have once been part of it, but all evidence now is that slavery exists because the Hutts gain prestige by having large numbers of subordinate workers and/or slaves. While in the Sith Empire, likewise, having slaves gives Sith people to lord over. Plus the Sith Empire itself is constructed as a totalitarian regime and slave labor can be used as punishment for criminal activities or dissent.

Yeah Slaves seems to just be another aspect of Wealth for the Hutts, like owning large herds of cattle

The EU constantly alludes that the Empire used slave labor' namely Wookiee for their shipyards and large construction projects

Slavers make easy allies for Sith and Mando since the two largely don't care about those left over in the attacks

[Steve]

The Republic's long failure to end slavery is probably for the same reasons we haven't completely wiped it out in the Third World today, or for that matter enforced human rights in other countries. Economic and political factors make it impossible. For instance, the strong Hutt influence in the galactic economy would make tangling with them difficult. The Republic can in some circumstances put pressure on them, but they can do the same if the Republic pushes too hard, so the Republic's ability to put an end to slavery among the Hutts is negligible.

[Karha of Honor]

I always thought the slave part was more a symbol of power. If you are important enough, you have a slave. If you are very important, you have alot of slave. Without some artifact or device, the slaves hate and misery can't really help a Sith much. Well, there is something it can do. It can amuse their Sith masters

I always thought it's because Star Wars is a space fairy tale that does not completely make sense.

I am glad i can suspend my disbelief on this.