Serfs
"We can't all be admirals." True, serf. Quite true.
Not all brought to the colony could be an admiral. Not all could be officers, or even marines. For there will always be a need to lift boxes. To dig latrines. To get sand out of things that shouldn't have sand in them (everything, all the time).
No one wants these jobs. No one says "I want to shipped off to a foreign continent to labour in a climate i'm dangerously ill suited for under the auspices of imperial taskmasters who are negligent at best" (well perhaps some do - if they are out there, my hat is off to them). And yet for a Tordassian colony the serf is a vital and basic instrument. In the hierarchy of labours, the elite must be held in reserve, lest their fortitude and morale be squandered.
Perhaps, one day, if the Tordassian colony in Korash is ever established, the serfs will have earned their right to become freemen. They will finally be able to raise families, build homes, harvest vapour and grow crops. But until that day comes, serfs they remain. Firmly above prisoners, though firmly below diplomats of the Korashi tribes: such dignitaries may be foreigners, but they are foreigners of rank. And the empire respects rank above all else.
Many where convicts. Some simply, tragically, just needed the money, the advances going to their families. Some are desperate folk looking for any way to leave Tordassia, or their coloured past, behind. Though the unluckiest of all where pressed-ganged. The practice is barely legal in Tordassia proper - in the colonies, however, any local person can be pressed into the service of the navy, packed up and shipped out to the colony of anywhere else. Such is the lot of the conquered.
Original lineart by Dattan Porto, background composited by Eskalat
Iron Sun
Not all brought to the colony could be an admiral. Not all could be officers, or even marines. For there will always be a need to lift boxes. To dig latrines. To get sand out of things that shouldn't have sand in them (everything, all the time).
No one wants these jobs. No one says "I want to shipped off to a foreign continent to labour in a climate i'm dangerously ill suited for under the auspices of imperial taskmasters who are negligent at best" (well perhaps some do - if they are out there, my hat is off to them). And yet for a Tordassian colony the serf is a vital and basic instrument. In the hierarchy of labours, the elite must be held in reserve, lest their fortitude and morale be squandered.
Perhaps, one day, if the Tordassian colony in Korash is ever established, the serfs will have earned their right to become freemen. They will finally be able to raise families, build homes, harvest vapour and grow crops. But until that day comes, serfs they remain. Firmly above prisoners, though firmly below diplomats of the Korashi tribes: such dignitaries may be foreigners, but they are foreigners of rank. And the empire respects rank above all else.
Many where convicts. Some simply, tragically, just needed the money, the advances going to their families. Some are desperate folk looking for any way to leave Tordassia, or their coloured past, behind. Though the unluckiest of all where pressed-ganged. The practice is barely legal in Tordassia proper - in the colonies, however, any local person can be pressed into the service of the navy, packed up and shipped out to the colony of anywhere else. Such is the lot of the conquered.
Iron Sun
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