Slave Auction

This picture was done at the behest of my friend George. (Don't blame me, it's George's fault. That's him as the auctioneer. When he saw this he said I didn't have to draw him so heavy. I informed him that he was indeed that heavy. If anything, I drew him thinner than he was in real life.) I myself neither condone nor support slavery in any fashion. But sad to say it seems to be a part of our human condition that will not die, even in these modern times.

This drawing actually illustrates a scene from a story I'm writing concerning a genetically-engineered race designed for heavy labour and military purposes. (I know. it's been done before, but there's never really anything new under the sun.) It's based very loosely on the Czech play R.U.R. The creatures in question (known as altered or "alts" for short) are a combination of human, animal and synthetic DNA (produced from artificially assembled TNA, which then progressed to artificial RNA precursors).

The need for an indentured workforce first came about in the middle of the 21st century. A number of practical and inexpensive methods of getting into space were discovered. Magnetic rail launchers were able to place cargo pods in orbit at a fraction of the cost of conventional chemical rockets, allowing the construction of huge space stations. A few years later the nuclear hydrogen ion drive allowed people to transverse the solar system with relative ease. The first permanent colonies were started on the moon a few years later. Shortly thereafter colonies were started on Mars and the moons of the outer planets. With the colonies there were vast amounts of wealth to be made, and as a result huge numbers of people abandoned the planet hoping to cash in on this treasure trove as well. Soon the formally 11 billion inhabitants of Earth dwindled down to less than 1 billion.

The next great step in technology was the invention of the International Virtual Reality Net. The IVR Net was a total immersion experience, in that it offered a complete virtual world almost indistinguishable from reality. By passing a mild electrical signal through a subject's temples, it put a person into a sort of "waking dream". Sensors built into the VR helmet transmitted and received signals from the subject's brain that are translated into aural and visual stimuli that are interpreted as reality by the brain. Since the subject is technically asleep, their bodies don't move around in response to the stimuli from the VR helmet. As it became established, more and more workers started telecommuting via the IVR (later simply known as "The Net" like its predecessor, the internet.) As of a result to this, it was therefore cheaper and easier for Earth's remaining workers to log onto the net from home and work in a virtual office, rather than trying to physically commute to a brick and mortar office building. This phenomenon also affected the education industry as students could take classes and do their labs from home without commuting to a school on the other side of the country. This allowed much larger class sizes, yet still allowed instructors to give each student as much attention as they needed. With most of Earth's population off planet and the rest immersed in their virtual offices, this resulted in a severe labour shortage. There was literally no one left to perform hands-on labour. This then led to the development of the alts.

In order to discern exactly what an alt was, it was decided in the industry that their DNA matrix was to consist of 50% artificial DNA, 25% human, and the remaining 25% was to be made up of various species of animal DNA. Although the various corporations that developed the different alt species said the animal DNA was incorporated into their design to give them certain advantages in their assigned tasks, most alt’s rights activists believed it was included to ensure that no one ever saw these beings as anything resembling a human being. Since they were in no way human, they therefore had no human rights.  Although it was later determined that the human DNA wan included to give them human-level intelligence. To classify these various new alt species a simplified non-Linnaean form of taxonomy was used; reduced to just Kingdom, Order and Genera. A new kingdom called “Beastaria” was established differentiate them from non-modified animals or humans. The order was their animal source DNA, and the genera was the company that designed them. For example, a wolf alt might be: “Beastaria Canis Acceleratedgeneticsi” and a rat alt would be: “Beastaria Rodentia Genutechi”.

The first generations of alts were grown in tanks, while the following generations were born and raised on factory farms. The genetics laboratories responsible for their design, engineering and growth owned them outright and leased or sold them to various industries and later to militaries around the world. If there is an industry judged too toxic and dangerous for humans to work in, then alts are sent in to do it. (After all, who cared if the whole lot died in the process, that's what they're designed for, right? They weren't really human were they? Nor did families have to send their cherished loved ones off to die on the battlefield when you can just send in legions of alt cannon fodder to die in their place.)

When human birth rates began to plummet on Earth during the latter half of the 21st century, the production of alt workers exploded to keep up with the demand for workers. Alts soon started appearing everywhere. They washed dishes and waited tables in restaurants, cleaned buildings in janitorial positions, washed cars, and picked up trash in cities. If there was a service that needed to be done, an alt was there to do it. Humans for the most part ignored them except to give them orders. As time passed, alts started doing more technical services, such as machinery or computer repair, or even veterinary services. (Only on fellow alts, of course, since no alt was technically a "person" in official eyes, none were allowed access to traditional doctors.)

By beginning of the 22nd century large cities and industrial complexes had been established throughout the solar system. But as of yet and there was no real government to control these various cities and population centers. Most of these were still controlled by the companies that first established them years earlier. When they were first being established the United Nations had set down some basic civil rights laws, and as long as the controlling corporations follow them they kept their hands off. Of course being that the United Nations was still headquartered on earth and had no real power in space or the colonies what could they do? As a result when various mining territories or resources were in contention by two different companies there was no real system set up for negotiation of said resources. A number of companies try to set up what they referred to as “corporate counsels” for arbitration purposes, but they had no real power and most meetings wound up as heated arguments with few things ever resolved. Competition for resources and territories heated up until finally companies started taking potshots at one another. These conflicts grew into we had the first corporate war. Since these corporations were vastly wealthy, and manufactured all of the gear that you would need in a war making actual war wasn't too great a step. Back on Earth and no one really noticed or cared much about what was happening in the outer colonies. As long as what happened “out there” didn't affect what was going on “down here”. But war is inherently a messy thing, and once most of the space colonies no longer had the ability to continue fighting, it did indeed eventually reach Earth.

Since Earth no longer had any real standing military forces remaining able to defend itself against such an invasion,, alts were chosen to form the core of an Earth defense force. The vast numbers of alts were rushed into training and thrown into battle as soon as possible. Millions of them died on the battlefield and still more were sent into training to replace them. But during all of this death and destruction, no one ever asked the alts what they wanted. The question occurs, does anyone ask their PC what it wants? People do occasionally ask their pets or draft animals what they want, but how many actually care? People treated the alts no differently. Alts, weary of the wholesale slaughter of their species finally revolted, bringing about the Third World War here on Earth that everyone thought they'd avoided earlier in the century. Since alts made up such large sections of nearly every military on the face of the planet, it was more of a global civil war, rather than nation against nation. The global economy crashed as vast numbers of cities vanished in an instant in the silent flash of an anti-matter burst, or an old-fashioned neutron bomb explosion. This was further compounded when most of the existing power plants, factories and the infrastructure were destroyed to prevent them from falling into the hands of the other side. Hundreds of millions of humans died and no one would ever know how many alts, as nobody ever bothered to count them.

Still, humanity and alts did manage to survive the war. Most of the world was now severely polarized into either human or alt nations. Most alts were willing to allow humans to live alongside them, but the rest of humanity was unwilling to do the same. (There were a few exceptions to this, notably Australia and New Zealand, mostly due to their low numbers of alts prior to the war. The alts that were there were integrated into society with few dissenters.) World technology has degenerated into a roughly 19th century level, due to the large numbers of neutron and EMP bombs wiping most unshielded solid-state electronics. But the economy was starting to build itself up again. Although the national power grids were destroyed, single town or limited area power stations based on small hydro-electric, steam or salvaged wind turbines were started. Local ironworks started up, first smelting scrap steel, later refining raw ore. Glass factories started manufacturing vacuum tubes to compensate for the severe lack of tube-based electronics at the end of the 22nd century. Since most road vehicles were non-functional (with burned-out electronics, or even fuel, for that matter), there arose a lively business in converting them to steam, or simple diesel. Since all of the refineries had been destroyed, most vehicles ran on coal, wood, or vegetable oil.

Here in the former continent of North America, two nations rose out of the ashes of the former United States, Canada and Mexico. The alt nation called itself the “Confederation of Beastaria”, and consisted of the former states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, and the Canadian province of British Columbia and the Yukon territory, as well as the Mexican states of Baja California and Sonora. The remainder of the three nations were re-organized a human nation, and called themselves Pax Humania. The alt nation retained a bit of manufacturing capability which they used to build machinery, as well as two of the last high tech manufacturing facilities left in the world. Since the alts basically control the west coast of North America they were able to reestablish trading routes with other nations by salvaging ships and converting them to auxiliary sail. As a result they were close to becoming a wealthy nation. Pax Humania’s response to this was to make frequent raids into Confederation territory to capture as much tech and as many alts as they could and force them into slavery. And even though the war ended over 50 years ago, humanity has not forgotten the fact that they created the alts and still feels superior to them. Needless to say no one wants another war, but the Confederation feels it may have little choice if Pax Humania doesn’t stop its raids into their territory.

The scene above illustrates the end result of one of these raids. The female on the left was designed for industrial heavy labour and heavy infantry/shock troop duty, classification: “Beastaria Felis Northcentralgeneticsi”. The other was designed for general labour and light infantry duties, classification: “Beastaria Lagomorpha Newhavenlaboratoriesi”. The town portrayed is typical of those that sprouted up after the war, with facilities for both pack animals and vehicles.