Microstory 651: Boils on Slavedrivers

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While on the waypoint of Earth, our ancestors discovered a remote island teeming with life that the rest of the world did not know about. A subspecies of humans had evolved there from a separate evolutionary branch. They barely had language, and in fact, had no name for themselves. They were so isolated that they practically considered their one small island to be the extent of the universe. We don’t have all the information, but ancient aliens likely saved them from extinction, and placed them in a more controlled environment, where they could thrive, despite having few genetic advantages. We’re not sure why they would go through the trouble of doing this, but we suspect they wanted to study evolution and biology, and at some point later, abandoned their experiments. Feeling sorry for these poor souls who lived such uncivilized lives, we decided to take them with us to Fostea. We knew that they could contribute positively to society in their own special way. We called them Arkeizen, and adopted them as what we refer to as thralls. Thralls are not slaves; they are servants. Most jarls take very could care of their thralls, providing them with homes and food, which they would not be capable of procuring if left to their own devices. They are stunted in their development, unable to move past basic communication skills, and instruction-following. They can easily carry out manual labor tasks, but they are simply not smart enough to make decisions without the aid a regular human. We give them what evolution, and the ancient aliens, failed to: a chance. There are those of us, however, who do mistreat their thralls. Though arkeizen are undoubtedly inferior to humans, that does not give us the right to treat them however we want. All life has value, for all life is capable of experiencing the Light. Of course, it’s not illegal to treat an arkeizen poorly, though. What people do with their rightfully owned thralls is entirely up to them, and it is not for others to judge. Some more hateful people in the galaxy, however, still despise these types of thrall-keepers, and refer to them as the more harsher term of slavedrivers. The Sacred Savior predicted that apparently some of this unofficial class of citizens would suffer from a terrible skin condition to fulfill one of the taikon. Just as the survey team on Kesliperia were finishing their full verification of earlier taikon, they received word that this is exactly what happened. A pathogen broke out at an arkeizen farmer conference, targeting primarily some of the more...aggressive farmers in attendance. There was nothing particularly special about the pathogen. It was merely an accident that could have easily been prevented. But it happened, doctors came into to provide them with cures, and everyone was fine.