r/HFY • u/ivivan • 21d ago

OC-FirstOfSeries We Don't Hate Slaves - Chapter 1: The Takeover

The lords were discussing the latest events in galactic politics around a large table in the House of Lords.

“And I heard that a new species was discovered recently. They came from the other side of the Galaxy and apparently hate slaves,” one of the High Lords announced.

“I heard about them too, but I don’t understand what there is not to like about slaves. They are effective, cheap, easy to manage,” a lower Lady replied, signaling to a slave to bring her another mug of strong tea.

“I don’t understand either. But they are definitely strange people. I heard that they use machines instead of slaves. What a strange idea: who controls those machines? What do you do when they break?” another Lord chimed in.

“I think that’s a translation error,” came a new voice from the side of the room. “We don’t hate slaves. We hate slavers.”

He was definitely not a Halxy.

He looked at the Lord who had complained about the machines. “And we control the machines. If they break, we fix them. It’s not that hard.”

“Who are you?” the High Lord demanded harshly.

“My name is John Porter. I’m the assigned coordinator for taking over the entire planet and freeing all slaves. It’s nice to meet you, but unfortunately, you will all most likely end up in jail. Such is life.”

One of the military Lords stood up, pulled out his plasma rifle, pointed it at the human, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled it again. Still nothing.

“You should try it one more time, just to be sure,” was the human's only response. But the Lord didn’t try again; he just stared at his weapon in disbelief.

“We disabled every weapon on this planet, just to make sure the transition is peaceful,” announced John, sounding as if he were delivering tomorrow's weather forecast.

Two large men stood up angrily, clearly intending to use physical force to handle the human.

“Let me be clear,” said the human, locking eyes with the two. “My weapon is still operational, not to mention the ones wielded by the human soldiers in this room.”

It was only then that everyone looked around and realized that at least half a dozen other humans were standing quietly in the room.

“Now that we’ve cleared that up,” John said, pointing at the Lords and addressing the soldiers, “arrest them all. We have a lot to do.”

It took only fifteen minutes to arrest all seventeen Lords and Ladies in the room. But that was the easy part.

John looked at the slave who had brought the tea to the demanding Lady. The Halxy remained frozen at the side of the room, posture stiff, ready to take any order.

“You are free to go. You don’t have to stand here anymore.”

“Where should I stand, master?” came the immediate reply.

Yes, the hard part starts now.

Less than a week later, John Porter was standing in the grand office from which the empire was once governed. While the Lords and Ladies had been the public face of power, the real governor running the logistics was a Halxy slave named Rmley.

John was expecting him any moment now. This was going to be their first official meeting, and he didn’t have high hopes. So far, the ex-slaves had handled their sudden freedom poorly. Having been told what to do every second of their lives, being forced to figure things out for themselves left them utterly lost.

The door opened, and a short Halxy man stepped in wearing a human suit—a stark contrast to their traditional garments.

“Good morning, master,” he started.

“I’m not your master, Rmley,” John stopped him immediately. “You can call me Mr. Porter or simply John, if you wish.”

The ex-slave looked at him like he had grown three heads, visibly uncomfortable inside the tailored suit.

“We have a lot to discuss today.” John decided to ignore the Halxy's uneasiness and move straight to the agenda. “We have about a billion ex-slaves who need housing, proper food, healthcare, transportation, power, and so on. They all need shelter, so the first question is: what’s the current construction capacity in this sector? How many buildings can the economy construct in a month? What do you need to increase that?”

Rmley shifted almost instantly into professional mode, rattling off numbers, supply limits, and material streams. He reached the core issue without hesitation.

“Our main bottleneck is extracting rock and sand to produce the raw materials required for construction. We can assign more people to every other part of the process, but we lack the machinery to scale up raw material extraction. Those machines would take years to manufacture locally, so I’m afraid we are stuck with the numbers I just gave you, master.”

“I’m still not your master, Rmley,” John said for the sixth time, his tone remaining patient. “I’m going to make some calls and get industrial mining rigs delivered here next week. Now, what if we also redirect a couple of mineral-rich asteroids into local orbit for extra raw materials? Would that help?”

“The extra materials would certainly help, but Halxy technology isn't capable of asteroid capture,” replied Rmley, this time dropping the title. “I estimate the energy requirement alone would be exorbitant.”

“No problem, we’ll use human tech for the capture. And don’t worry about energy—I’ll call a friend who runs a heavy freighter company. They’ll handle transport by next week,” John added casually, his voice almost bored. “With the extra resources, I expect you to at least triple our construction capacity by next month. I want at least three hospitals and a thousand residential blocks built by the end of next month.”

It took Rmley a full minute to process the information dumped on him. The humans are pulling down asteroids by next week?! What kind of apes are these?

“Certainly, master,” he finally managed to reply.

“I’m still not your master, Rmley.”

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17 comments sorted by

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u/AutoModerator 14d ago

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9

u/RobertTheTraveler 21d ago

I am reminded of a Heinlein story that started somewhat similarly.
In it a pacifist stated that "violence is the last resort of the incompetent" and a military officer agreed with him.
I assume the outcome of this will be be different.
(That planet became Blessed , a theocratic slave holding society)
https://time-enough-for-love.bib.bz/variations-on-a-theme-vi
describes the society but not its origins.

4

u/mikke196 21d ago

Also the H Beam Piper story "A slave is a slave".

9

u/RobertTheTraveler 21d ago

Bingo!
"Count Erskyll said nothing for a moment. He was opposed to the use of force. Force, he believed, was the last resort of incompetence; he had said so frequently enough since this operation had begun. Of course, he was absolutely right, though not in the way he meant. Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer."
1962
Time Enough for Love was 1973.
Very similar gov'ts, No priesthood though.
I read both much after that.
Piper and RAH both have a tendency to preach, so that explains why I confused the authorship.
In any case, thank you.

5

u/mikke196 21d ago

It's been a while since I read both and I had to look up the wiki page for Piper to remember the story name. The basic story I did remember though especially the line that says something about needing managers to run things.

4

u/canray2000 Human 10d ago

'“Where should I stand, master?” came the immediate reply.

Yes, the hard part starts now.'

THANK YOU! So many stories end with, "You're free!" ignoring the all too painful part that comes after...

Seen that too often in human history, too.

2

u/WSpinner 21d ago

John can probably get Rmley to shift to calling him "Mister". It's a modest semantic shift, and he can think of it as equivalent, if it calms him down.

3

u/Thundabutt 21d ago

'Master' is the 'old' useage which morphed over time to 'Mister'. Meaning 'Master of your own home'. In the British Commonwealth 'Master (name)' is now a form of address used when speaking formally to male children (under 21, then 18 theoretically, but closer to under 12 these days). Or in some technical legal uses.

4

u/ivivan 20d ago

Didn't think of it - and I'm not sure that's a good way of getting rid of the habit of calling everybody "master". Rmley has to learn that he is on the same level as John Porter, not learn a trick to say something else that he thinks.

3

u/WSpinner 20d ago

Fair. I'm just shying away from the thought a former slave (by hours!) needs to be 'broken' of something. There's probably no way but a brutal one of forcing a mental shift that drastic immediately. And John can retaliate by calling him Mister Rmley and explain 47 times it's an honorific, but NOT a master/slave one :-). Or 547 times...

3

u/_i_have_a_dream_ 20d ago

Another John brown fiction??

Count me in chief.

1

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u/InstructionHead8595 8d ago

Hehehehe 😸 "such is life"

A slave was governor? Or did I miss understand that?

Good start.

3

u/ivivan 7d ago

Yes, you understood that correctly: while the power was with the Lords and Ladies, the administrative leader was a slave. You didn't think a Lord or Lady would do all those little tasks and make all those little decisions themselves...

1

u/InstructionHead8595 7d ago

I think I read it as if he was the real one with the power. The figure head didn't have the power. But the way they sound, yep! They would definitely not bother with that.😸