Who are the Orions?
Or “How Much is the Slave Girl in the Window?
One of the more controversial members of the Star Trek
universe is the Orions with their odd penchant for selling their women as
slaves, especially as sex slaves. John Normanesque fantasies aside, there is a
certain illogic to selling off your women. It is not conducive to the long-term
longevity of a society.
Of course, it could be that the Orions are exploiting
another race or species. In the animated Star Trek series, we saw Orion pirates
who were orange skinned, so obviously not all Orions are green. In the
Enterprise TV series, we met a green Orion woman who was quite adept at
intellectual pursuits – so clearly not all green women are space bimbos. The
Orion Colonies are the last remnants of the most recent of 12 Orion-dominated
interstellar states to occupy the territory now claimed by the Federation. The
orange Orions are the pirates, the green skinned slaves they sell might well
belong to another race or species they have been exploiting. By selling off the
women (and creating a market for them by touting their erotic skills), the
Orions can cost effectively oppress and control their slaves by limiting their
numbers and keeping them from forming natural, family attachments which could be
used as the nucleus of a rebellion.
Could such a society be a member of the Federation? It’s
doubtful that the Federation could accept such a stratified and exploitive
society as a member. Of course, we know that the slave trade is in the ‘Orion
Colonies’ so perhaps the situation is akin to the Civil War era United States
where the Orion homeworld is a free society that has long since abolished
slavery and become a Federation member while a number of secessionist colonies
maintain the institution of slavery for economic, political or cultural reasons.
Assuming this to be the case, the question arises, why
slavery? Slavery is first and foremost an economic institution. Societies keep
slaves to perform labor that cannot be automated nor performed in a cost
effective manner by free labor. Using the example of the British Empire, slavery
existed until the beginning of the industrial revolution. Once basic
mechanization was available to farmers and manufacturers, a machine run by a
small crew of free workers could do the work of hundreds of slaves. It was far more
economical to pay that crew a basic wage than undertake to feed, house, clothe
and guard the hundreds of slaves the machine crew replaced and just as logically
the institution of slavery went the way of the dinosaurs.
Even in the United States, the institution of slavery was
doomed regardless of the outcome of the War Between the States and for the same
reason it was abolished in the British Empire. So why would a high tech,
space-faring society like the Orions maintain such a backward institution?
Looking at slavery in industrial society, we find very few
examples. The Nazis used slave labor to aid their war effort, reasoning that
every slave worker represented one or two Germans freed for military service.
The downside was many of the slave laborers hated the Germans even more than the
Allied militaries did and much of their production was sabotaged or
sub-standard. Most telling of all is the simple fact that free Western labor
crushed the German slave labor with the quantity and quality of its output.
However, there is no evidence that the Ruddy Orions are trying to exterminate
the Greens – indeed, slaves are seen as a very valuable commodity not pests in
need of eradication, so this Nazi model seems to not fit the Orions very well.
Another technological society that used slave labor
extensively was the Soviet Union, the system of gulags provided the Communist
regime with a vast slave labor pool for use in dangerous, often defense related
work. Unlike the German slaves, Soviet slaves were not conquered people whom
their masters intended to exterminate – instead they were political dissidents
and opponents of the regime but they were still Soviet citizens. Soviet slave
labor was not intended to be a critical component of the economy (there were
plenty of nominally free Russians to attend to the labor needs of the Soviet
Union) but rather was a tool of political control. Since the Orions are not a
major power by any estimation, the Soviet model seems to be a poor fit as well.
Again, keeping with modern examples of slave holding
societies, we can look at Africa and the Middle East. Slavery exists in much of
the Islamic world, even so-called ‘moderate’ states like Saudi Arabia. In
Arabia, it is legal to own a slave provided the slave is not a Muslim but the slave trade has been outlawed (in
1979!). The institution of slavery in Saudi
is largely about status. Slaves are generally used for menial labor (if male) or
sexual service (if female) in the houses of the wealthy.
The Saudi model of a slave holding society, particularly
as it existed in the 1960’s and 1970’s (when the slave trade was legal in Saudi
Arabia) seems to fit the Orions best. Once could easily imagine the Orion
Colonies as sitting on huge reserves of dilithium or another scarce but vital
resource and parleying that economic leverage into forcing the Federation to
turning a blind eye to the rights abuses in the Colonies. Green Orions, being a
racial and possibly religious minority, have been the traditional slave class
but any non-Ruddy Orion can be a slave. It is only out of political expediency
that the Hetmen of the Colonies have banned trading in Human (and Klingon,
Vulcan, etc.) slaves fearing military retribution from one or more of the great
powers if they started preying on their citizens.
Because slaves are more of a status symbol than an
essential part of the economy most Orions do not own slaves. Indeed, most cannot
due to the expense and other legal restrictions. Surplus slaves are often sold
to non-Orions where the slave trade is legal (and sometimes, even were it is
not). The Klingon Empire is known to be a major market for Orion slaves as is
the Cardassian Union and the Ferengi Hegemony.
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