Roman style slavery seemed to morph into the fuedal (futile) system of the Dark and Middle Ages which persisted in ways in the British Empire (rack renting landlords) of Colonial times. American slavery was simply the latest twist of man dominating man.
YMMV
It was a line that allowed viewers to put in perspective the wrongity* of Soong’s ideals. And Trip helped put it Trek perspective by noting how those subjects of the Khanites no doubt felt.
So, even tho it rankles me that people still link the South of today with the American system of slavery (which the South admittedly was loathe to give up), in this context it works.
(is that a retraction of my comment in my play by play posts? I post so much, it’s hard to tell. )
We’ve also replaced the fine coffee Yeoman Colt normaly serves with a mixture of crushed dilithium, glass shards, and runny targ feces. How will Captain Pike react? Let’s watch…
The thing is, the Augments may have so many genetic differences from the average human that they could qualify as a whole 'nother species. (Much like mutants are considered homo superior in the Marvel Comics universe.)
In which case, their enslavement of normal humans would be on par with our use of pack animals. Nobody other that PETA calls it “slavery” if we enslave cows or horses.
The unbelievable part is not that a technologically advanced civilization would still traffic in slaves - the part that I find hard to swallow is that they could get away with “randomly” kidnapping people from passing ships. That sort of thing is bound to attract the attention of surrounding systems that are gonna be less than pleased. So unless they have complete military dominance in their area, they wouldn’t last for long.
Humans have the ability to learn to communicate with each other.
My point being some species are animals and another is called man.
But this is one heck of a digression. Please pay the nurse.
Humans and dogs can and do communicate with one another, although non-verbally. If you want to discount them, then consider Lucy the Gorilla. Non-verbal again but there’s definite intelligence.
Man is an animal as well. We just have pointier sticks and ways to throw rocks faster and harder.
It may be a digression, but it’s an important one, and hopefully one that will be covered in more detail. Much like the TNG episode “Measure of a Man” established that a sentient android has rights in the federation, I think that an exploration of just what qualifies a species as sentient could make for an interesting episode in the best tradition of science fiction.
As the spouse of a dog trainer, I assure you that dogs do not communicate, they learn that if I say A and they do B, they get a reward. Sophisticated, like the Rottie that was trained to dail 911 when his owner had siezures, and open the door for the med techs, but still only learned behavior.
There are those who discount the signing apes. Koko is the one I’m vaguely familiar with. There is discussion that like Mrs. Plants dogs, she knows that making the sign for food gets an obvious reward. There was also discussion that she could only communicate with the person who trained her to use ASL. That would surely be a test; she should be able to sign to Handy “Help me get out of this cage!”
A dog in Germany was recently in the news because of his incredible vocabulary in identifing his toys by name. Ask him “Where’s the DUCK, Alf?” and he will bring you the duck. But he can’t ask for another duck or say he is tired of teddy bears.
Anyway, Mr. Smart Guy, only humans have written Gilgamesh, MacBeth and Star Trek. Blow that out your Jeffries tubes.
So far as speaking and writing Gilgamesh, Trek, and *MacBeth *goes: 1a) we’re one of only a dozen or so species with paws dexterous enough to write 1b) we’re one of even less species with larynxes specialized enough to use such a wide variety of noises and 2) writing was independently invented by only two or three cultures (Phoenicians and Chinese are the only two that come immediately to mind), so they must be more intelligent than all those before or after by your standards.
And, finally, take a five year old human and a chimpanzee of equivalant age and put them both on a deserted island and see which one lives longer. Which is smarter then?
)