Hypothetical? Obviously. Offensive? I am not your daddy. But there is no mention of sex or rape, though both slavery & torture are alluded to without description.
So here’s the sitch. Six months ago, eddies in the space-time continuum ripped you out of your comfy chair and into an alternate Earth where slavery is both legal and widespread. Luckily for you, you had your Rhymer Enterprises hyperspace cell phone with you when you made the transition; unluckily for you, said phone was confiscated before you could use it and you got put in chains for having the wrong color hair.
There is no need to describe the next few months of your life; let’s just say it was H-E-double hockey sticks. But there was one bright spot: ANDREW, a fellow slave who befriended you and through whose efforts you experienced a lot less bastinado (But not NO bastinado) than you would have otherwise. On more than one occasion, Andrew took a punishment you had “earned” by the rules of the sick slave-owning society because he judged (probably correctly) that you were not strong enough to survive it. You have never repaid Andrew for these favors.
Months pass. One day, with Andrew’s help, you manage to get to the confiscated technomagic cell phone and call Rhymer Enterprises for assistance. For once, there are no unforeseen complications; the person on the help desk— let’s say it’s Gregory House, slumming from his usual medical research duties – immediately recognizes you, acknowledges that you have a coupon for a free rescue on file, and instantly teleports your ass out of there and into a mundane hospital. Whatever injuries you may have incurred, however horrific, were not exotic enough to require RhE medics, so comment-sense security measures thus mandated that you be returned to your own world.
But “instantly” may have been too quick. You didn’t want just yourself say it, after all; there was your friend Andrew to be thought of as well, given that he saved you from a lot of torture and may well be being punished for helping you even as we speak. Moreover, the whole sick slave-owning society really needs to be dealt with. The place is at about a 1970s level technology, so you figure Rhymer Enterprises, with its array of Star Trek type devices and super powered agents, can put the joint in order inside of a week if they so desire.
House agrees. RhE is well aware of this particular Earth, it has refused to sell super-weapons to The governments there partly because they are obnoxious but mostly because they didn’t offer enough platinum. It is within the good doctor’s authority to send a super-agent to rescue Andrew and/or a USS-Defiant type starship to topple the corrupt government – just as soon as your credit clears. When you protest, citing your coupon, Dr. House says:
“Oh, but you don’t have a free rescue left. You just used it. End it would not have covered your boyfriend anyway, as he is not a RhE client. And, despite the fact that this organization is no longer called Evil Enterprises, we are neither superheroes nor on the side of hugs & puppies. If you want us to do shit like that, it will be cash on the barrel.”
Dr. House quotesYou some prices. Sending a task force to rescue Andrew will cost every penny you have in every financial account you have, plus also requiring you to sell off your major assets. And as for freeing the slaves en masse, that will require putting yourself into hock to RhE for the rest of your life — and believe me, you do NOT want to deal with their debt collection department. It would be less painful just to stab yourself in the heart with a rusty spoon.
So what do you do? Impoverish yourself to rescue just the guy who saved you? Ruin yourself to uphold the moral principle that slavery is wrong and should be opposed by all right-thinking persons? Or leave well enough alone?