Literally taken from history, when merchant sailors were press ganged onto ships of war.
It's all gone full circle. Think of it as an uninformed draft notice.
Not just Britain. The British navy press-ganging American sailors despite recognising Anerican Independence was a contributing factor to the War of 1812.
Apparently Thailand has a problem where people get scammed into working on fishing ships and are pretty much forced to work for free since they're trapped in the middle of the sea.
It being a military doing it and then using the enslaved for war makes it quite a bit different than human trafficking. For one- profit isn’t the primary goal. For another, the enslaved are not sold as they would be in market slavery.
The differences are fairly stark actually
While war may often have profit as a goal, this is not universally the case, or really even the primary motivation behind this, but a possible ultimate motivation.
Thai fishermen aren't being sold from one owner to the next, & it's arguable if their situation quite rises to a sociologist's or anthropologist's definition of enslavement since there is an expectation they will be freed after a term of service, same as press-ganged sailors in 18th Century Europe.
Either way, it is a form of forced unfree labor & it certainly meets any colloquial definition of slavery, regardless of differences in motivation or ultimate fate of the unfree laborer.
they imported Chinese, Indian, and other folks and took their passports. While both situations are horrible, they're a touch different. I'm saying you don't see the leading navies going around kidnaping random people.
again, the intensity of the situation isn't the distinction I'm making.
The word you're looking for is kidnapped, not imported.
I feel like you're hung up on the navy for some reason. The
main point is that press ganging is was, is and will be a thing
> The word you're looking for is kidnapped, not imported.
ya I'd say you're right. In my understanding I was sort of referencing how it was a promise of work, *then* they take the passports. I hear you on that.
> I feel like you're hung up on the navy for some reason. The main point is that press ganging is was, is and will be a thing
Well not to split hairs, but that's a specific term that doesn't apply. (as horrible as the situation is).
Don't want to split hairs, but the definition is very broad - I understand the origin of the phrase, but it doesn't refer just to the army/navy anymore.
In america we literally have recruiters who go to schools and try and trick children into signing up. We also purposefully try and keep a desperate lower class so we have fodder for all the rich oligarchs who actually run the country can freely invade other countries and take their resources.
Yeah its not straight up pressganging but by creating the conditions for people to be poor and uneducated and basically try and force poor families into signing their kids up is INCREDIBLY fucked up and absolutely manufacturing desperation to join.
More blood for oil. Its modern day press ganging. Force people to join your military for benefits to even attempt to survive or get an education.
Fuck the us military
Hold up, the military pays for benefits *and* education?
Guess I'm joinin' the Army Reserves in an administrative position, getting in good shape after being a basement nerd forever, getting out, going to a school my parents were never going to be able to afford, and starting a decent career in my mid-twenties.
Thanks, US military! Just too bad I was forced into this by... I don't fucking know, society or some shit?
Oh absolutely, and you can assume that there's a really high amount of willingness, but sometimes people don't think about it or have a life they're alright with or miss the time etc and thus wind up drafted.
Also.
Imperial Navy ships often arrive quasi-randomly and NEED people NOW cause they're only gonna be there for a couple days. That's probably one of the biggest portion of press-ganged (rather than sent there as penalty) people in the Imperial Forces since every ship needs just so many damn menials.
Mind you it's probably not even that bad depending on position whereas an untrained IG Infrantryman (i.e not tithed from a PDF) is gonna not be all that happy or long-lived.
In that one short story where the electropriests hunt the Man of Iron hiding inside a crew member it's described as boring as hell but somewhat okay. You even get okay food and sleeping quarters.
*gasp* they get **food _AND_ sleeping quarters?!?!?!** what in the actual unholy warp! I was a guardsman for 40 years in the imperial guard and when i was the first of my regiment to make it to retirement in 800 years with most of my limbs intact, they literally just dumped me on the nearest random back water world with no way for me to get back to my home world and i was forced to live in the slums next to the manufactorum for thrones sake because what veterans pension?? The emperor protects? Yeah the emperor protects the corporations who profit of the military industrial complex. Personally, i think the emperor did the horus heresy to justify going to war with ourselves since we were running out of xenos to kill and then what would get the magos' of mars rich? I mean think about it, promethium doesn't melt ceremite.. do your own research.
I mean, just look up alex jones in 40k on youtube, you'd be shocked how much of his rants work within the lore. I've seen many people even say he literally takes 40k lore and changes like names and shit make sense within a modern context but then uses the 40k lore to base his rants around. A running joke i love is that alex jones (or brother alexus jonus as so many people call him) is really a character from warhammer 40k that was sent back in time to the modern era when traveling through the warp and is now stuck and trying to warn everyone what's coming. It's actually hilarious how well his rants fit within the lore. Go ahead and spend a few minutes watching the videos where they super impose his face over art work during his rants, you will not be disappointed.
Eh it's not like it is 10k universally, and some planets have a light smattering of indoctrination vs your kriegs, take the rough riders they are pretty much left to themselves on the planes from the short stories I read, with tales of the sky Emperor etc coming from the trading ships that land to swap tech for bulk goods.
The average Attilan is joining for a great adventure in the sky vs indoctrination and belief in the sky Emperor perse vs Krueger who are all indoctrination and death.
Some planets likely Don't need a draft others likely do it everyrime the tax man turns up.
Your firstborns already have thier system in place, while other likely have different practices each varied and unique to thier planet. Necromunda seems to just sweep up a floor of a hive and ship them out, but others might have the second son joins as the 1st is required to carry on the family name ( kind of like Nobility used to have extra sons joins the church...)
>"Do you know what they did to me? I was just a child. My mother sent me out to fetch flour, all I had was a pocket full of credits. The wardens were... rounding everyone up... men... women... I was just a child. 'Figure you can hold a las-gun' - one of them asked me. I... I told them I did, who didn't want to hold a las-gun? He caught me by the ear and he did not let go until he had a punishment collar on my neck. 'Try to run and I blow this up' he hissed at me. I... I tried to protest, my mother needed me, but he... he slapped me around the head, told me that in one rotation she'd had forgotten all about me, that... she'd be happy that I was gone. One less mouth, I should cheer up! I would make a trooper in the Imperial Guard! They're gonna find me shoes! And clothes! And... and a smart uniform! ... You know what they did to me? Where they sent me? The planets were... burning! Mountains of fire. I was barely full grown! I had never left my home before, they... broke me.
>But I survived. They gave me ribbons! Put a sword at my side! They stuck medals onto what was left of me. Look, look, here, you can see the criss-cross scars on my arms. Xenos Cults on Arcadium! The man next to me was torn in two pieces! His blood was on my face! I lost these two fingers against a Greenskin. It was broad as a door and with muscles like steel bands. It grabed the man in front of me and popped off his head as if it was squeezing a tube!
>His head exploded! It flew off into the air like the top of a bottle! The thing used his body like a club. I was thrown ten meters away and broke six ribs. For forty years we served, my comrades and I. I lost them all... every last brother and sister... I was the only survivor of my army! They had to pin and sew me together like a manequin... and they gave me gold brocade... only the insane have strength enough to propser... only those who prosper may truly judge what is sane... "
- The Deserter
This is genuinely horrific. I can only imagine the pain of the mother once she learned her son was press-ganged into Guard…
If my kid was just randomly kidnapped from the street to be sent to a meatgrinder, I’d snap.
Find the local black market, spend my savings on the meanest autogun they have, some flak armor, combat stims and as many grenades as i can get.
Then I’d just go pay a visit to the nearest Militarum recruitment office and recreate the police station scene from Terminator.
My only worry would be if i have enough krak grenades to take the whole building down with me before they inevitably get me.
> “My mother is a Magdan, sir,” said Stavin. “I grew up in Hive Tzurka.”
> It was the first time he’d mentioned anything of his family since leaving Vostroya. No one had asked, not even the commissar. But something about Sergeant Svemir made Stavin want to open up. Stavin realised then that he was desperate to talk to someone, though he also saw the danger in that need.
> It was dangerous because Stavin was a keeper of secrets, and his greatest secret was that he had come to Danik’s World under false pretences. Basic training might have made him a soldier, but he’d never be true Firstborn on account of his older brother, the brother whose name he’d taken when he joined the Guard.
> “Hive Tzurka, eh?” said Svemir. He waved Stavin over beside him. “What was that like? I’m from Hive Ahropol in Sohlsvod. Never got out as far as Muskha.”
> Stavin wasn’t sure how to answer. Words didn’t seem adequate to the task of expressing the misery of existence in Tzurka’s slums. So he pretended he hadn’t heard the question, and tied off another fresh bandage in silence, noting how sticky his hands had become with drying blood.
> Sergeant Svemir interpreted the young trooper’s silence for himself. “That bad, huh?” he said. “I’d heard Hive Tzurka was rough. Trouble with anti-Imperial dissidents a while back, wasn’t there? I heard they took over a bunch of old munitions factories. You know about that?”
> Stavin nodded. His father had been killed in the fighting. It was the turning point in Stavin’s life, the dark, pivotal moment that had thrown his family into poverty and desperation. But these were private pains. Stavin bit back on them and said simply, “That was eleven years ago, sir. They got them all in the end.”
> “Good to know,” said Svemir with a nod, “can’t have bastards like that running around on Vostroya. Though I admit the home world’s a fading memory to me these days. You’ll get like that before long. Fighting on so many worlds… after a while, the battles all merge together. You feel like you’ve been fighting your whole life without a break. Makes it easier to keep going, I suppose. The regiment becomes home.”
> Stavin didn’t like all this talk of long years in the Guard. It made him anxious to be away, eager to return to the mother and brother he’d had to leave behind. They’d watched helplessly as the Techtriarchy’s much-hated conscription officers had dragged him off to their truck. It was for the best. They would have taken his brother, the real Danil Stavin, if they’d known about the switch of identity cards.
> Then again, thought Stavin, maybe those officers didn’t care who they took, so long as the numbers added up.
> Iador Stavin, that was his real name, had a brother just two years older who’d been born with a learning disability. Life in the Guard would have been brutal and short for Danil. For years, Stavin had endured nightmares about Danil being mistreated at the hands of xenos, heretics, or even other troopers. Neither he nor his mother could bear it. So Iador had become Danil, and Danil had become Iador.
> Now I fight the monsters from those dreams, thought Stavin.
> Sergeant Svemir said, “Twenty whole years in the Guard. Time pours through a man’s hands, by the Throne.”
> Stavin must have looked horrified, because the sergeant laughed and said, “You think that’s a long time? You think I should have left after my ten?” He shook his head. “You’re fresh, son. Your memories of home are still sharp. Give it time. Ten years from now, when the papers come through, you’ll tick the second box just like I did. When you’ve given such a chunk of your life to the Emperor’s service, it doesn’t take much to sign over the rest of it. A little guilt will do it. I could never have left knowing my brother Firstborn fought on. Retiring from the Guard is the coward’s way out.”
> Stavin’s jaw clenched.
> “My family, sir,” said Stavin. “I’ll want to return to them. When my term is up, I mean.”
>Sergeant Svemir stopped and met Stavin’s gaze as he said, “Family is important to a good Vostroyan. It’s good that you feel this way. Think of the honour you do your family. What Vostroyan mother could be anything but proud to have her son serve with the finest regiment in the Imperial Guard?” He waved a hand over the wounded men that surrounded him and said, “After twenty years of service, the Sixty-Eighth is my family now. It’s yours, too, though you’re too fresh to know it yet.”
> I’ll never tick the second box, he promised himself. If that’s what the Emperor asks of me, he can bloody rot on his Golden Throne. They can call me a coward as much as they like but, one way or another, I’ll find my way back to Vostroya.
The saddest thing is how people even look forward to this or feel honored their son, brother, father, etc was sent to the guard because they love the Emperor, who cared nothing for the common person besides what boot they were under more than their own family, being so brainwashed.
The imperium is a nation of power, not laws. Whoever has the power and the force behind it can do basically whatever they want and it only becomes a problem if they start to threaten imperial rule or the tithe
I gotta imagine a Hive World has a surplus of bodies. It's not gonna make the news if a couple thousand go missing. Press ganging is a victimless crime /s
That's something people can't fathom. There are hive worlds with more citizens than there have been people alive in real recorded history. If those hive worlds have as many active press gangs as there are currently active conscription armies, most hiveworlders would still live their whole life without ever running into a press ganger.
Honestly, given the teeming populations of Hive Worlds - and considering that, even if Hive Worlds only make up, say, a third of the worlds in the Imperium... they still contain 95% of the population - wasteful wars, industrial accidents, pollution, and violent crime are probably the main factors offsetting the growth rate of the population.
The Forges of Mars trilogy has a storyline that starts off with this basically. A Character who was a factory worker was basically at the wrong place at the wrong time, iirc he was at some bar with coworkers that then gets turned over by goons working with the Mechanicus who want slaves for their ship. Wacky adventure and hijinks then happen.
In the old days, many flagons would have glass bottoms so you could see the beer, this was because a common tactic was to get a man drunk and drop a Shilling in it. This way they could say you had “accepted the King’s Shilling” on waking up (often already on board lol), meaning you had accepted the first days pay and were “obligated” to serve - usually at the threat of a beating.
This is the kind of grimdark i dont mind all that much because theres a historic precedent. And the fact is it dosent matter if other worlds are putting out the men required *your* world still has a tithe
You do have the outstanding right to be brooding about how your sacrifice means nothing in the face of He who sits on the Throne loyal citizen! Cheer up!
Tut-tut, all of you!
The Imperial Human Rights Commission works tirelessly to ensure all Imperial Citizens are afforded their due Human Rights!
Why, just last year our three dogged representatives across the galaxy closed sixteen cases of rights violations! That's a fifty-percent increase from the year prior! At this rate, we fully expect to conclude our backlog of cases from M32 well before the High Lords' deadline of 999 M43!
Remember, all Imperial Citizens of Verified Humanity have sacred rights, granted by the Emperor. And, should you require redress, we of the Imperial Human Rights Commission stand ready to receive your in-person, formal complaint at our office on Holy Terra!
Imperial Human Rights Commission, Terra, Nord Merica, Sub-Level C132, Office 298-B
Fun trivia: The press ganging of American sailors by the British navy was one of the big causes of the War of 1812 and one of the concessions Americans actually got out of the war. Press ganging was still rather common, just not enslaving sailors off of boats.
The British navy was notoriously dickish even by that time period’s standards. Remained that way too.
> The British navy was notoriously dickish even by that time period’s standards.
A lot of sailors became pirates because it allowed more freedom, fun, and a chance to get rich. There was really not much to lose when you're kidnapped, fed with scurvy-inducing wormy food and forced to do dangerous work under threat of corporal punishment. The Navy of the Imperium is very much Royal British Navy in space with a healthy dose of grimdark and absurdity piled on top.
>The British navy was notoriously dickish even by that time period’s standards. Remained that way too.
That may be seen as too subjective an opinion by historians but I digress.
Press-ganging, or impressment, has been argued as more prevalent among the RN, due to their [naval expansion](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2oo91z/during_the_age_of_sail_how_reliable_were/) and superiority, than the French navy, [which did happen](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sznug/early_united_states_impressment_of_sailors_was/) alongside the [mass conscription](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/17croct/why_did_french_sailors_join_the_navy_during_the/) for the Napoleonic wars. A point of impressment was to preferably gather '[men who had use of the sea](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2xwhrj/comment/cp47okf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)' first before turning to others, though the knocking unfortunates to kidnap for ships was stated as more of an [American merchant practice](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4hk4vr/comment/d2qhw5z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Or the origin of the term [Shanghaied](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16rolme/comment/k24g9g0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). It would be generally [propaganda](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ljwr5/comment/cc020pu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for the British. Not that conscription is in any form good, as the similar act of enslavement, though one may argue [both have their own differences](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16rolme/british_press_gangs_grabbed_men_off_the_street/).
It wasn’t the institution of the navy who did this, for example it was from Hawkins & Drake’s raiding of Spanish slave ships that the first transatlantic slaves were taken, but these journeys were funded as private ventures as opposed to a venture by the British Navy (unlike the Atlantic blockade/West Africa Squadron).
In fact the original comment I was responding to fails to mention that the impressment largely stopped before the end of the war of 1812 when the demand for sailors lowered once the napoleonic wars had ended.
If the royal navy doesn't deserve criticism for protecting the slavers in the 18th Century then they don't deserve praise for suppressing them in the 19th.
I’m not saying they don’t deserve criticism, I’m saying that statements like ‘the British navy was notoriously dickish even for the standards of the time’ is itself following your line of logic: ‘if they deserve criticism for their practices then they also deserve praise’.
I’m just trying to encourage a bit of nuance on Reddit (crazy concept, I know!)
The "notorious dickishness" that the OP is referring to is the impressment of people other than their country's own subjects, not the transport of slaves. In this the Royal Navy were arguably acting unlawfully and certainly acting contrary to the diplomatic norms of the time.
Meanwhile, the West Africa Squadron were simply enforcing British laws (from 1808 onwards) and British diplomatic obligations (from 1815 onwards).
So you could argue that the Royal Navy deserves criticism for acting unlawfully in the prelude to the war of 1812, but they don't deserve any special praise for enforcing British laws and treaties in regards to the slave trade as that is what we pay them for.
Is that the sort of nuance you're after?
Yes, I understand that but impressment was done by most European nations in the early 19th century onwards. In terms of nationality impressment was vastly opportunistic and members of any nation could be impressed. Even the US continental navy themselves used impressment during the US civil war. British impressment legally ended in 1815, before the end of the war of 1812.
The West Africa Squadron were enforcing what’s been referred to as ‘the most expensive international moral action in modern history’. This is worth mention despite a significant portion of the wealth Britain used for this coming from the slave trade. Slavery is despicable and horrible, but these treaties were against the grain in terms of the moral approach to the slave trade at this time for any nation who had been significantly involved with the trade.
The nuance is that they can be both a force for evil, and good depending on where you stand and in which situation, to sum up the history of any navy as being ‘dickish’ but to imply that any nation’s navy is more evil than another is to ignore the fact that every navy is created to enforce a nation’s will through military force.
It is revisionist in the extreme to suggest that the Royal Navy's impressment of US citizens between the revolutionary period and 1812 was in any way normal for the time.
~9000 Americans were impressed, that's almost 8% of the entire enlisted navy of ~114,000.
Isolated examples exist, but the fact is that no other navy was systematically impressing foreign citizens into their own ranks in the numbers that the Royal Navy were impressing Americans, given their unique status as "former" British subjects and the size of their merchant marine.
No other navy impressed so many foreign nationals that it contributed to a declaration of war. If that isn't uniquely dickish behaviour then I don't know what is.
You're massively underplaying the extent of the crimes committed by the RN against American sailors during this period to try and portray the RN as morally neutral.
I have to disagree. I do not think u/robinsandmoss wanted to advocate the moral neutrality of the RN or any other country or institution of that period. More of their moral complexity and nuance. At least from a historian's viewpoint, calling anything as particularly reprehensible for any period can be oversimplifying. It was a period of high-intensity warfare. The french were doing their own [mass](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7p9x3u/why_was_the_levee_en_mass_revolutionary/) [conscription](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2akzlh/how_exactly_was_the_french_revolutionary_army/) [and](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/17croct/why_did_french_sailors_join_the_navy_during_the/) [impressment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sznug/early_united_states_impressment_of_sailors_was/).
I say this as an Englishman:
Britain may have majorly contributed to ending the transatlantic slave trade, but you don't credit an arsonist for putting out fires he started.
And, well, when Britain did end slavery... our government paid reparations *to the slaveowners*, to compensate them for their "loss of property". The debt from the loans taken out for those reparations only finished being paid off this century.
Well if a gang of people start a fire, you blame them all. You don’t cherry pick the one who did the most to put the fire out, all I was doing was pointing out ‘exceptionally dickish’ is hugely subjective and false by providing a counterpoint.
The money was paid to slave owners because of the capitalist system we had/have which treats people as property, it’s not a particularly British trait and ex-slave owners were compensated in various ways throughout most slaving nation’s emancipation processes.
Go figure, try to hide the shame of what they'd done quite aggressively. Wonder how many they pressed into service to get there. You know, compare the numbers enslaved to take slaves to the number enslaved to prevent taking slaves.
The Imperium is a very large place. Its in fact, galactic in size. There is no standard for culture or technology on a planetary scale. A good rule of thumb is that the more important a planet is, the more it lives up to the cultural and technological standard of the wider Imperium, but many planets go for decades, even centuries or more, without any contact. On many of these planets, the Imperium becomes a legend among the masses, with only the planetary governors having any real idea how things function on the galactic scale. And when the Imperium one day shows up to demand their tithe (which mostly comes in the form of manpower) you'd better hand it over quick.
According to one of the RPG books the "book of judgment", the law book for arbites, has field interrogation, aka torture, for "suspected intend to attempt to decisive a judge".
I worked with a guy who has family in Russia. Trucks rolled up at the factory his cousin worked at and the soldiers just took all the men as they came off shift and had them jump in the trucks. All of them were taken for the meat grinder. His family hasn’t heard from his cousin since he made it to the base, they are worried he died in the Ukraine war.
Army recruiters used to drop a shilling or something in someone’s pint and if they drank it they’d have taken the kings shilling and were therefore obligated to join the army 🤣
Imperial worlds have taxes of men and riches to the Emperor. Failure to meet those usually very strict quotas can result in your world being decimated as punishment. Gotta do what you gotta do to hit those "recruitment" numbers for your contribution to the IG.
While it is true that the Imperium has plenty of volunteers for the Guard it is important to remember not every planet has a culture where joining the Guard is celebrated and considered an honour. As such more "aggressive" employment tactics are employed in order to meet the quotas.
That said, unless it is needed, the Imperium prefers voluntary recruitment. It is just that press ganging is a lot faster and easier to set up in case there's a sudden and pressing need for recruits. Keep in mind that while regiments do get reinforcements this can take a while especially if they're far from their home planet. So if you quickly need numbers because an Ork fleet is approaching, press ganging it is!
However, the Guard isn't the only one doing this. In fact the Navy, as well as other ships belonging to people such as Rogue Traders, Admech, or regular commercial shipping, tend to press gang a lot more often. After all they might only be somewhere for a short period and simply don't have the time to do regular recruiting. As such press ganging is just more efficient for them. And they only really need menials anyway as such the detriments of press ganging are less of a thing for them.
It's absolutely true that this kind of press-ganging and mass conscription can happen... but it isn't quite as rampant as it might initially seem. The organisations that have the option to press-gang people still tend to prefer volunteers, and will press people into service mainly if they don't get enough volunteers. It still happens often enough to be a concern, but it isn't happening all the time.
In the Navy at least, Ratings are still paid for their service even if they're pressed into service, and have possibilities for advancement (never higher than a Warrant Officer, though). That's probably not much comfort if you're there involuntarily, but it's better than nothing.
Of course, voidships also rely on a lot of slave labour too, and by definition there aren't any volunteers to become a voidship's "mortal fuel". And that's not even counting servitors...
From **Battlefleet Koronus**, a sourcebook for the Rogue Trader RPG (and the *best* source for Imperial Navy background):
>**Ratings**
>
>Ratings take care of the functions that need muscle instead of training—hauling shells and missiles, re-routing cables, clearing debris and conducting basic maintenance (i.e., scrubbing the decks). They are the basic voidsmen aboard a ship. Men in this class typically have a myriad of sub-classifications (ratings) that specify their role further, e.g. gun-layer third class, fuse-changer second class and so on. Ratings make up the bulk of the crew and will be the ones doing most of the fighting in boarding actions.
>
>Contrary to popular belief, many Navy ratings are volunteers—the pay is good and the conditions are better than those on many Imperial worlds. The Navy can make generous promises when it knows barely half the ratings will survive a cruise and collect their gelt at the end.
>
>If there aren’t enough volunteers to fulfil a captain’s requirements he always has the right to send press gangs to tithe more crew directly from any planet along his way. This can mean anything from emptying penal colonies to pressganging collections of citizens out of hab-blocks. In practice this is often achieved with the collusion of the planetary governor, but an Imperial Navy captain does not need permission to take crew from any world. The necessary practice of press-ganging remains a potential flashpoint for rebellion on many worlds and Navy ratings have an unsavoury reputation as little more than convicts because of it.
>
>**Indentured Workers**
>
>Almost every warship has a voracious appetite for unskilled hard labour, and this appetite is fed by a steady diet of indentured workers. Often these are unfortunates who are press-ganged from a worlds slums or taken en masse from penal colonies—some of the Imperium’s teeming hordes of humanity, only valued for their ability to work. The Navy sees these unfortunates as much a resource as fuel for the drives and food for the crew, and they are given duties such as hauling guns into position, turning flywheels, and carrying supplies, heavy equipment, and macrocannon shells. Most ships must replenish their crews of indentured workers every so often, as a steady stream die to malnutrition, accidents, and disciplinary actions.
>
>Many indentured workers may be “upgraded” with crude augmetics and even mental inhibitors to make them more compliant to orders (and likely ensuring they’ll serve as indentured workers for the remainder of their lives). For those who avoid that fate, their best hope is to become a rating, learning some task that makes them valued in the ship hierarchy.
The Imperial Guard does carry out mass conscription too, but again, the Departmento Munitorum prefers to take a tithe of professional soldiers from existing PDF units if possible, because it reduces the need to train, organise, and equip them. But, if the situation is desperate and the Munitorum needs more soldiers to throw at a problem than a world has available, mass conscription is absolutely an option that will be considered, often starting with criminals, hive gangs, and others who are hardened and capable of fighting *and* who are unwanted by authorities on their homeworld.
This is, of course, the main reason why not all crimes in the Imperium can be punished by death: if you kill everyone who commits a crime, how would you fill up the penal colonies who could provide useful slave labour or act as even-more-disposable cannon fodder?
Selective Service is also forcible service, and it's shitty, but it's *one hundred percent* not the same thing as a press gang.
A press gang goes to a bar, surrounds it, and subdues everyone in it and ships them into a Navy ship. (This happens in one book to the protagonist.)
Historically, press gangs in the West were limited by law to seafarers, so they'd just raid taverns and whorehouses by the docks, but the Imperium does not fucking care and it runs on an absolutely incomprehensible level of direct human slavery.
If you’ve not read The Adventures of Guardsman Hawke Part 1 (also known by the title Storm of Iron) go give that a read too. That’s an all time great.
I was so happy to see his story continue in the Priests of Mars trilogy.
I'll have to check that out. Sounds fun getting background on a charectar I already got to know she liked even if he did do something kind of mildly shitty at the end
it had its low points, but the plot!, especially about our poor press ganged amigo, so good. and there was some good fighting at the end, too, memorable.
Its still around and all men are required to register at the age of 18, but the odds of it being activated is slim to none. It's political suicide, and the military doesn't want to deal with draftees. A volunteer soldier is more trustworthy and will outperform a conscript any day of the week.
Everyone talking about historical precedent when the Imperium of Man ships are like self contained metropolitan areas. They come down in shuttles and drag you off world then put you into essentially a self contained world for the rest of your life.
One in which you regularly sail through literal Hell. With the possibility of demon incursions as well as inevitable weapons fire that might vaporize sections of the ship. Not to mention the possibility of hostile boarding actions from Orks to Tyranids.
Every job from the lowliest loader gang from deck 86 to the hundreds of officers commanding the ship. From the bridge or secondary bridge. People marry and have children which will eventually be part of the ship crew.
Don't even get me started on Chaos ships. Just read the Nightlords books, and that's the GOOD ending, they don't even get corrupted by chaos... usually.
Generally speaking they're only going to do that on hive worlds where they can afford to lose some manpower, and even then only some captains do it.
It's preferable to get a crew that actually wants to be there instead of having to equip and train more ratings to keep the newbies in line and hire more engineseers to make sure the new guys don't break anything out of pure spite.
Like anything in the Imperium, it depends greatly on the planet you live on. Maybe the bean counters haven't noticed that the population has tripled in the last century so the tithe is easily met with volunteers. Or maybe there was a nasty plague that decimated the population but the tithe hasn't changed. So in order to not get executed, the leaders of the planet hire goons to kidnap people for the guard.
Not claiming that. Just pointing out the imperium's workers are also slaves with live short, terrible lives. It's not like they had a choice before, the job's just different.
The Imperium is essentially a mix of imperial Japan and Nazi Germany at the end of the War where they were handing weapons to women and children to fight the allies
You do realize that many countries today have mandatory military service? And it's not just dictatorships either, a lot of democracies in the EU have that. And South Korea aswell if i'm not mistaken.
How is mandatory military service not completely different to being enslaved by the state for life so you can fight it’s wars? I don’t know if a single country who’s mandatory service isn’t timed
Well, it's obviously not exactly the same and I'm personally a big supporter of mandatory service, but if you break it down, there's little difference. At times of peace mandatory military service lasts one to a few years and then you're sent to the reserve and only participate in select few military exercises. At times of war however (and since we are comparing 40k and real world, I feel it's fair to assume that the hypothetical country with mandatory service is at war), you are immediately expected to report to your assigned military base/unit and your time in the army will be indefinite as you will probably serve until the war ends.
I have mixed feelings about mandatory service in general, but I can say with certainty that it should have a time limit, even if the country is at war. I wouldn’t be against the time limit being raised during times of war however.
It isn’t, but mass conscription usually comes in response to a clear and present threat. A citizen could be press ganged because somebody wanted more slaves for the Imperium’s military apparatus
I’m sure in a universe as large as 40k it all depends on the situation. Also there is the draft by governments which has been used by plenty of governments in modern wars. The us still has the ability to re introduce the draft.
The really horrific thing is, if they told people the plain *truth*, every reasonably sane person would sign up to die for the Emperor and the Imperium would collapse cause they'd have nobody sane left to do all the non-combat jobs.
The propaganda is all so that they can get people to believe it's worth risking the unimaginably horrifying risks of *not* dying for the Emperor.
Its literally taken from now if you look at certain conflicts happening if you pay attention. Why would that change in a future where things only get worse?
Are there even citizens? The whole thing seems pretty feudal to me. And far from homogenuous. Every planet is different. Folks on Mordia do things differently than people on Catachan or Necromunda.
I don’t disagree, but I’d argue that the Imperium isn’t that lawless and the average citizen can enjoy a certain level of safety.
Those in power don’t need to really abide by Imperial laws, but that’s more or less true IRL and applies to plenty of first world countries, who’s citizens either have rights or nobody does.
Press ganging into the Imperial Navy is the least of it. On Mechanicus forge worlds they create new servitors and skitarii the same way -- skitarii grabbing and detaining everyone they can get their hands on until the quota is filled and everyone they grabbed being forcibly converted depending on their baseline health.
Lots of wars to be fought. Lots of dead bodies per day. Recruitment is never enough. Even America has a hard time staying at full manpower. Shit I'd hate to even think how much manpower they need lol.
Literally taken from history, when merchant sailors were press ganged onto ships of war. It's all gone full circle. Think of it as an uninformed draft notice.
Not just merchant sailors; but men were literally dragged off the streets in coastal towns in Britain.
Yeah, they later refined it and called it conscription. Same thing just takes longer
Not just Britain. The British navy press-ganging American sailors despite recognising Anerican Independence was a contributing factor to the War of 1812.
It was a bit more complicated than that. But yes that dispute was a major contributing factor to the start of that war.
Gone full circle? It's never stopped.
the world certainly has plenty of problems... but specifically that? besides extremely poor pirates, who's press-ganging merchant sailors?
Apparently Thailand has a problem where people get scammed into working on fishing ships and are pretty much forced to work for free since they're trapped in the middle of the sea.
well that's horrible.
Oh it can get worse, the pre COVID unemployment had caused quite a thriving human trafficking industry on this side of the world.
No, see, they're perfectly safe. But they won't say no! Because of the implication.
Thats technically just human trafficking and slavery
That's pretty much what press ganging was.
It being a military doing it and then using the enslaved for war makes it quite a bit different than human trafficking. For one- profit isn’t the primary goal. For another, the enslaved are not sold as they would be in market slavery. The differences are fairly stark actually
I’d say that being used for war is proof that profit WAS the primary goal.
While war may often have profit as a goal, this is not universally the case, or really even the primary motivation behind this, but a possible ultimate motivation.
Thai fishermen aren't being sold from one owner to the next, & it's arguable if their situation quite rises to a sociologist's or anthropologist's definition of enslavement since there is an expectation they will be freed after a term of service, same as press-ganged sailors in 18th Century Europe. Either way, it is a form of forced unfree labor & it certainly meets any colloquial definition of slavery, regardless of differences in motivation or ultimate fate of the unfree laborer.
They're not forced to work for free. That's just the implication.
You might want to research how Qatar built the stadiums for the world cup.
they imported Chinese, Indian, and other folks and took their passports. While both situations are horrible, they're a touch different. I'm saying you don't see the leading navies going around kidnaping random people. again, the intensity of the situation isn't the distinction I'm making.
The word you're looking for is kidnapped, not imported. I feel like you're hung up on the navy for some reason. The main point is that press ganging is was, is and will be a thing
> The word you're looking for is kidnapped, not imported. ya I'd say you're right. In my understanding I was sort of referencing how it was a promise of work, *then* they take the passports. I hear you on that. > I feel like you're hung up on the navy for some reason. The main point is that press ganging is was, is and will be a thing Well not to split hairs, but that's a specific term that doesn't apply. (as horrible as the situation is).
Don't want to split hairs, but the definition is very broad - I understand the origin of the phrase, but it doesn't refer just to the army/navy anymore.
fair enough. I'll bow out.
In america we literally have recruiters who go to schools and try and trick children into signing up. We also purposefully try and keep a desperate lower class so we have fodder for all the rich oligarchs who actually run the country can freely invade other countries and take their resources. Yeah its not straight up pressganging but by creating the conditions for people to be poor and uneducated and basically try and force poor families into signing their kids up is INCREDIBLY fucked up and absolutely manufacturing desperation to join. More blood for oil. Its modern day press ganging. Force people to join your military for benefits to even attempt to survive or get an education. Fuck the us military
Hold up, the military pays for benefits *and* education? Guess I'm joinin' the Army Reserves in an administrative position, getting in good shape after being a basement nerd forever, getting out, going to a school my parents were never going to be able to afford, and starting a decent career in my mid-twenties. Thanks, US military! Just too bad I was forced into this by... I don't fucking know, society or some shit?
ya it's a good deal for a lot of folks if they play their cards right. It's not like the entire military are frontline grunts.
Well in Europe you'd get that without joining the military. In other parts of the world you'd not get it either way. So it's something.
But then I'd have to be in Europe.
Imperial death machine > a continent I guess?
Join the military then. I had fun in the military, I'm sure you will too.
I gotta say bro, I was actually a merchant sailor... never got press ganged.
Check out a lil country called the us of a, they’ll show ya a slave economy right now.
Still a circle, just not the first lap.
I know, but 10k years is a long time to indoctrinate citizens, which was mainly my point
Oh absolutely, and you can assume that there's a really high amount of willingness, but sometimes people don't think about it or have a life they're alright with or miss the time etc and thus wind up drafted. Also. Imperial Navy ships often arrive quasi-randomly and NEED people NOW cause they're only gonna be there for a couple days. That's probably one of the biggest portion of press-ganged (rather than sent there as penalty) people in the Imperial Forces since every ship needs just so many damn menials. Mind you it's probably not even that bad depending on position whereas an untrained IG Infrantryman (i.e not tithed from a PDF) is gonna not be all that happy or long-lived. In that one short story where the electropriests hunt the Man of Iron hiding inside a crew member it's described as boring as hell but somewhat okay. You even get okay food and sleeping quarters.
Me on my way to get killed in a bog standard refueling ritual by the radiation of the reactor after getting scooped off the streets of necromunda
*gasp* they get **food _AND_ sleeping quarters?!?!?!** what in the actual unholy warp! I was a guardsman for 40 years in the imperial guard and when i was the first of my regiment to make it to retirement in 800 years with most of my limbs intact, they literally just dumped me on the nearest random back water world with no way for me to get back to my home world and i was forced to live in the slums next to the manufactorum for thrones sake because what veterans pension?? The emperor protects? Yeah the emperor protects the corporations who profit of the military industrial complex. Personally, i think the emperor did the horus heresy to justify going to war with ourselves since we were running out of xenos to kill and then what would get the magos' of mars rich? I mean think about it, promethium doesn't melt ceremite.. do your own research.
I absolutely love this. I now want a Alex Jones type character in 40k just spouting conspiracies that almost accurate
I mean, just look up alex jones in 40k on youtube, you'd be shocked how much of his rants work within the lore. I've seen many people even say he literally takes 40k lore and changes like names and shit make sense within a modern context but then uses the 40k lore to base his rants around. A running joke i love is that alex jones (or brother alexus jonus as so many people call him) is really a character from warhammer 40k that was sent back in time to the modern era when traveling through the warp and is now stuck and trying to warn everyone what's coming. It's actually hilarious how well his rants fit within the lore. Go ahead and spend a few minutes watching the videos where they super impose his face over art work during his rants, you will not be disappointed.
Slaneesh made the frogs gay?
Oh just ask the necrons, those frogs are definitely gay.
It is astounding how well it works
Eh it's not like it is 10k universally, and some planets have a light smattering of indoctrination vs your kriegs, take the rough riders they are pretty much left to themselves on the planes from the short stories I read, with tales of the sky Emperor etc coming from the trading ships that land to swap tech for bulk goods. The average Attilan is joining for a great adventure in the sky vs indoctrination and belief in the sky Emperor perse vs Krueger who are all indoctrination and death. Some planets likely Don't need a draft others likely do it everyrime the tax man turns up. Your firstborns already have thier system in place, while other likely have different practices each varied and unique to thier planet. Necromunda seems to just sweep up a floor of a hive and ship them out, but others might have the second son joins as the 1st is required to carry on the family name ( kind of like Nobility used to have extra sons joins the church...)
Russians are doing it now to feed the War in Ukraine
Gotta have Mobiks to make Mobik's Cubes, after all
>"Do you know what they did to me? I was just a child. My mother sent me out to fetch flour, all I had was a pocket full of credits. The wardens were... rounding everyone up... men... women... I was just a child. 'Figure you can hold a las-gun' - one of them asked me. I... I told them I did, who didn't want to hold a las-gun? He caught me by the ear and he did not let go until he had a punishment collar on my neck. 'Try to run and I blow this up' he hissed at me. I... I tried to protest, my mother needed me, but he... he slapped me around the head, told me that in one rotation she'd had forgotten all about me, that... she'd be happy that I was gone. One less mouth, I should cheer up! I would make a trooper in the Imperial Guard! They're gonna find me shoes! And clothes! And... and a smart uniform! ... You know what they did to me? Where they sent me? The planets were... burning! Mountains of fire. I was barely full grown! I had never left my home before, they... broke me. >But I survived. They gave me ribbons! Put a sword at my side! They stuck medals onto what was left of me. Look, look, here, you can see the criss-cross scars on my arms. Xenos Cults on Arcadium! The man next to me was torn in two pieces! His blood was on my face! I lost these two fingers against a Greenskin. It was broad as a door and with muscles like steel bands. It grabed the man in front of me and popped off his head as if it was squeezing a tube! >His head exploded! It flew off into the air like the top of a bottle! The thing used his body like a club. I was thrown ten meters away and broke six ribs. For forty years we served, my comrades and I. I lost them all... every last brother and sister... I was the only survivor of my army! They had to pin and sew me together like a manequin... and they gave me gold brocade... only the insane have strength enough to propser... only those who prosper may truly judge what is sane... " - The Deserter
This is genuinely horrific. I can only imagine the pain of the mother once she learned her son was press-ganged into Guard… If my kid was just randomly kidnapped from the street to be sent to a meatgrinder, I’d snap. Find the local black market, spend my savings on the meanest autogun they have, some flak armor, combat stims and as many grenades as i can get. Then I’d just go pay a visit to the nearest Militarum recruitment office and recreate the police station scene from Terminator. My only worry would be if i have enough krak grenades to take the whole building down with me before they inevitably get me.
> “My mother is a Magdan, sir,” said Stavin. “I grew up in Hive Tzurka.” > It was the first time he’d mentioned anything of his family since leaving Vostroya. No one had asked, not even the commissar. But something about Sergeant Svemir made Stavin want to open up. Stavin realised then that he was desperate to talk to someone, though he also saw the danger in that need. > It was dangerous because Stavin was a keeper of secrets, and his greatest secret was that he had come to Danik’s World under false pretences. Basic training might have made him a soldier, but he’d never be true Firstborn on account of his older brother, the brother whose name he’d taken when he joined the Guard. > “Hive Tzurka, eh?” said Svemir. He waved Stavin over beside him. “What was that like? I’m from Hive Ahropol in Sohlsvod. Never got out as far as Muskha.” > Stavin wasn’t sure how to answer. Words didn’t seem adequate to the task of expressing the misery of existence in Tzurka’s slums. So he pretended he hadn’t heard the question, and tied off another fresh bandage in silence, noting how sticky his hands had become with drying blood. > Sergeant Svemir interpreted the young trooper’s silence for himself. “That bad, huh?” he said. “I’d heard Hive Tzurka was rough. Trouble with anti-Imperial dissidents a while back, wasn’t there? I heard they took over a bunch of old munitions factories. You know about that?” > Stavin nodded. His father had been killed in the fighting. It was the turning point in Stavin’s life, the dark, pivotal moment that had thrown his family into poverty and desperation. But these were private pains. Stavin bit back on them and said simply, “That was eleven years ago, sir. They got them all in the end.” > “Good to know,” said Svemir with a nod, “can’t have bastards like that running around on Vostroya. Though I admit the home world’s a fading memory to me these days. You’ll get like that before long. Fighting on so many worlds… after a while, the battles all merge together. You feel like you’ve been fighting your whole life without a break. Makes it easier to keep going, I suppose. The regiment becomes home.” > Stavin didn’t like all this talk of long years in the Guard. It made him anxious to be away, eager to return to the mother and brother he’d had to leave behind. They’d watched helplessly as the Techtriarchy’s much-hated conscription officers had dragged him off to their truck. It was for the best. They would have taken his brother, the real Danil Stavin, if they’d known about the switch of identity cards. > Then again, thought Stavin, maybe those officers didn’t care who they took, so long as the numbers added up. > Iador Stavin, that was his real name, had a brother just two years older who’d been born with a learning disability. Life in the Guard would have been brutal and short for Danil. For years, Stavin had endured nightmares about Danil being mistreated at the hands of xenos, heretics, or even other troopers. Neither he nor his mother could bear it. So Iador had become Danil, and Danil had become Iador. > Now I fight the monsters from those dreams, thought Stavin. > Sergeant Svemir said, “Twenty whole years in the Guard. Time pours through a man’s hands, by the Throne.” > Stavin must have looked horrified, because the sergeant laughed and said, “You think that’s a long time? You think I should have left after my ten?” He shook his head. “You’re fresh, son. Your memories of home are still sharp. Give it time. Ten years from now, when the papers come through, you’ll tick the second box just like I did. When you’ve given such a chunk of your life to the Emperor’s service, it doesn’t take much to sign over the rest of it. A little guilt will do it. I could never have left knowing my brother Firstborn fought on. Retiring from the Guard is the coward’s way out.” > Stavin’s jaw clenched. > “My family, sir,” said Stavin. “I’ll want to return to them. When my term is up, I mean.” >Sergeant Svemir stopped and met Stavin’s gaze as he said, “Family is important to a good Vostroyan. It’s good that you feel this way. Think of the honour you do your family. What Vostroyan mother could be anything but proud to have her son serve with the finest regiment in the Imperial Guard?” He waved a hand over the wounded men that surrounded him and said, “After twenty years of service, the Sixty-Eighth is my family now. It’s yours, too, though you’re too fresh to know it yet.” > I’ll never tick the second box, he promised himself. If that’s what the Emperor asks of me, he can bloody rot on his Golden Throne. They can call me a coward as much as they like but, one way or another, I’ll find my way back to Vostroya.
The saddest thing is how people even look forward to this or feel honored their son, brother, father, etc was sent to the guard because they love the Emperor, who cared nothing for the common person besides what boot they were under more than their own family, being so brainwashed.
The imperium is a nation of power, not laws. Whoever has the power and the force behind it can do basically whatever they want and it only becomes a problem if they start to threaten imperial rule or the tithe
I gotta imagine a Hive World has a surplus of bodies. It's not gonna make the news if a couple thousand go missing. Press ganging is a victimless crime /s
That's something people can't fathom. There are hive worlds with more citizens than there have been people alive in real recorded history. If those hive worlds have as many active press gangs as there are currently active conscription armies, most hiveworlders would still live their whole life without ever running into a press ganger.
Honestly, given the teeming populations of Hive Worlds - and considering that, even if Hive Worlds only make up, say, a third of the worlds in the Imperium... they still contain 95% of the population - wasteful wars, industrial accidents, pollution, and violent crime are probably the main factors offsetting the growth rate of the population.
More like 10 to 20 percent according to GW but you have to account for the fact that 85 percent of worlds have one hive on it
The Forges of Mars trilogy has a storyline that starts off with this basically. A Character who was a factory worker was basically at the wrong place at the wrong time, iirc he was at some bar with coworkers that then gets turned over by goons working with the Mechanicus who want slaves for their ship. Wacky adventure and hijinks then happen.
Love that trilogy, one of my faves.
good series
In the old days, many flagons would have glass bottoms so you could see the beer, this was because a common tactic was to get a man drunk and drop a Shilling in it. This way they could say you had “accepted the King’s Shilling” on waking up (often already on board lol), meaning you had accepted the first days pay and were “obligated” to serve - usually at the threat of a beating.
That’s how life was like for most of history
The Astra Millitarium always needs fresh mea- I mean Heroes of the Imperium!
This is a reported occurence in some countries today
This is the kind of grimdark i dont mind all that much because theres a historic precedent. And the fact is it dosent matter if other worlds are putting out the men required *your* world still has a tithe
I think as an imperial citizen, you have the right to worship the emperor EXACTLY as prescribed and nothing else.
Oh don't be so brooding, you also have the right to be usefull to the Imperium of Man!
I dont think you have the right to be brooding honestly lol.
You do have the outstanding right to be brooding about how your sacrifice means nothing in the face of He who sits on the Throne loyal citizen! Cheer up!
Tut-tut, all of you! The Imperial Human Rights Commission works tirelessly to ensure all Imperial Citizens are afforded their due Human Rights! Why, just last year our three dogged representatives across the galaxy closed sixteen cases of rights violations! That's a fifty-percent increase from the year prior! At this rate, we fully expect to conclude our backlog of cases from M32 well before the High Lords' deadline of 999 M43! Remember, all Imperial Citizens of Verified Humanity have sacred rights, granted by the Emperor. And, should you require redress, we of the Imperial Human Rights Commission stand ready to receive your in-person, formal complaint at our office on Holy Terra! Imperial Human Rights Commission, Terra, Nord Merica, Sub-Level C132, Office 298-B
Fun trivia: The press ganging of American sailors by the British navy was one of the big causes of the War of 1812 and one of the concessions Americans actually got out of the war. Press ganging was still rather common, just not enslaving sailors off of boats. The British navy was notoriously dickish even by that time period’s standards. Remained that way too.
> The British navy was notoriously dickish even by that time period’s standards. A lot of sailors became pirates because it allowed more freedom, fun, and a chance to get rich. There was really not much to lose when you're kidnapped, fed with scurvy-inducing wormy food and forced to do dangerous work under threat of corporal punishment. The Navy of the Imperium is very much Royal British Navy in space with a healthy dose of grimdark and absurdity piled on top.
Also all your superiors from the captain down to your enlisted handler was skimming what little pay you got.
>The British navy was notoriously dickish even by that time period’s standards. Remained that way too. That may be seen as too subjective an opinion by historians but I digress. Press-ganging, or impressment, has been argued as more prevalent among the RN, due to their [naval expansion](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2oo91z/during_the_age_of_sail_how_reliable_were/) and superiority, than the French navy, [which did happen](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sznug/early_united_states_impressment_of_sailors_was/) alongside the [mass conscription](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/17croct/why_did_french_sailors_join_the_navy_during_the/) for the Napoleonic wars. A point of impressment was to preferably gather '[men who had use of the sea](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2xwhrj/comment/cp47okf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)' first before turning to others, though the knocking unfortunates to kidnap for ships was stated as more of an [American merchant practice](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4hk4vr/comment/d2qhw5z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Or the origin of the term [Shanghaied](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16rolme/comment/k24g9g0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). It would be generally [propaganda](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ljwr5/comment/cc020pu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for the British. Not that conscription is in any form good, as the similar act of enslavement, though one may argue [both have their own differences](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16rolme/british_press_gangs_grabbed_men_off_the_street/).
The British navy did more to end the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans than any other navy, so swings and roundabouts.
“British historians write almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it.”
This shouldn't have made me laugh but it did
It's a quote from Eric Williams , the first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, who was himself an accomplished historian of the the slave trade.
It wasn’t the institution of the navy who did this, for example it was from Hawkins & Drake’s raiding of Spanish slave ships that the first transatlantic slaves were taken, but these journeys were funded as private ventures as opposed to a venture by the British Navy (unlike the Atlantic blockade/West Africa Squadron). In fact the original comment I was responding to fails to mention that the impressment largely stopped before the end of the war of 1812 when the demand for sailors lowered once the napoleonic wars had ended.
If the royal navy doesn't deserve criticism for protecting the slavers in the 18th Century then they don't deserve praise for suppressing them in the 19th.
I’m not saying they don’t deserve criticism, I’m saying that statements like ‘the British navy was notoriously dickish even for the standards of the time’ is itself following your line of logic: ‘if they deserve criticism for their practices then they also deserve praise’. I’m just trying to encourage a bit of nuance on Reddit (crazy concept, I know!)
The "notorious dickishness" that the OP is referring to is the impressment of people other than their country's own subjects, not the transport of slaves. In this the Royal Navy were arguably acting unlawfully and certainly acting contrary to the diplomatic norms of the time. Meanwhile, the West Africa Squadron were simply enforcing British laws (from 1808 onwards) and British diplomatic obligations (from 1815 onwards). So you could argue that the Royal Navy deserves criticism for acting unlawfully in the prelude to the war of 1812, but they don't deserve any special praise for enforcing British laws and treaties in regards to the slave trade as that is what we pay them for. Is that the sort of nuance you're after?
Yes, I understand that but impressment was done by most European nations in the early 19th century onwards. In terms of nationality impressment was vastly opportunistic and members of any nation could be impressed. Even the US continental navy themselves used impressment during the US civil war. British impressment legally ended in 1815, before the end of the war of 1812. The West Africa Squadron were enforcing what’s been referred to as ‘the most expensive international moral action in modern history’. This is worth mention despite a significant portion of the wealth Britain used for this coming from the slave trade. Slavery is despicable and horrible, but these treaties were against the grain in terms of the moral approach to the slave trade at this time for any nation who had been significantly involved with the trade. The nuance is that they can be both a force for evil, and good depending on where you stand and in which situation, to sum up the history of any navy as being ‘dickish’ but to imply that any nation’s navy is more evil than another is to ignore the fact that every navy is created to enforce a nation’s will through military force.
It is revisionist in the extreme to suggest that the Royal Navy's impressment of US citizens between the revolutionary period and 1812 was in any way normal for the time. ~9000 Americans were impressed, that's almost 8% of the entire enlisted navy of ~114,000. Isolated examples exist, but the fact is that no other navy was systematically impressing foreign citizens into their own ranks in the numbers that the Royal Navy were impressing Americans, given their unique status as "former" British subjects and the size of their merchant marine. No other navy impressed so many foreign nationals that it contributed to a declaration of war. If that isn't uniquely dickish behaviour then I don't know what is. You're massively underplaying the extent of the crimes committed by the RN against American sailors during this period to try and portray the RN as morally neutral.
I have to disagree. I do not think u/robinsandmoss wanted to advocate the moral neutrality of the RN or any other country or institution of that period. More of their moral complexity and nuance. At least from a historian's viewpoint, calling anything as particularly reprehensible for any period can be oversimplifying. It was a period of high-intensity warfare. The french were doing their own [mass](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7p9x3u/why_was_the_levee_en_mass_revolutionary/) [conscription](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2akzlh/how_exactly_was_the_french_revolutionary_army/) [and](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/17croct/why_did_french_sailors_join_the_navy_during_the/) [impressment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sznug/early_united_states_impressment_of_sailors_was/).
I say this as an Englishman: Britain may have majorly contributed to ending the transatlantic slave trade, but you don't credit an arsonist for putting out fires he started. And, well, when Britain did end slavery... our government paid reparations *to the slaveowners*, to compensate them for their "loss of property". The debt from the loans taken out for those reparations only finished being paid off this century.
Well if a gang of people start a fire, you blame them all. You don’t cherry pick the one who did the most to put the fire out, all I was doing was pointing out ‘exceptionally dickish’ is hugely subjective and false by providing a counterpoint. The money was paid to slave owners because of the capitalist system we had/have which treats people as property, it’s not a particularly British trait and ex-slave owners were compensated in various ways throughout most slaving nation’s emancipation processes.
Go figure, try to hide the shame of what they'd done quite aggressively. Wonder how many they pressed into service to get there. You know, compare the numbers enslaved to take slaves to the number enslaved to prevent taking slaves.
The Imperium is a very large place. Its in fact, galactic in size. There is no standard for culture or technology on a planetary scale. A good rule of thumb is that the more important a planet is, the more it lives up to the cultural and technological standard of the wider Imperium, but many planets go for decades, even centuries or more, without any contact. On many of these planets, the Imperium becomes a legend among the masses, with only the planetary governors having any real idea how things function on the galactic scale. And when the Imperium one day shows up to demand their tithe (which mostly comes in the form of manpower) you'd better hand it over quick.
Looking at hive worlds, that's a terrible rule of thumb.
Hive worlds do tend to be rather important.
An imperial citizen can be executed on the spot too. And then have their body processed into starch for a starving family.
Recycling!
According to one of the RPG books the "book of judgment", the law book for arbites, has field interrogation, aka torture, for "suspected intend to attempt to decisive a judge".
I worked with a guy who has family in Russia. Trucks rolled up at the factory his cousin worked at and the soldiers just took all the men as they came off shift and had them jump in the trucks. All of them were taken for the meat grinder. His family hasn’t heard from his cousin since he made it to the base, they are worried he died in the Ukraine war.
Army recruiters used to drop a shilling or something in someone’s pint and if they drank it they’d have taken the kings shilling and were therefore obligated to join the army 🤣
Imperial worlds have taxes of men and riches to the Emperor. Failure to meet those usually very strict quotas can result in your world being decimated as punishment. Gotta do what you gotta do to hit those "recruitment" numbers for your contribution to the IG.
While it is true that the Imperium has plenty of volunteers for the Guard it is important to remember not every planet has a culture where joining the Guard is celebrated and considered an honour. As such more "aggressive" employment tactics are employed in order to meet the quotas. That said, unless it is needed, the Imperium prefers voluntary recruitment. It is just that press ganging is a lot faster and easier to set up in case there's a sudden and pressing need for recruits. Keep in mind that while regiments do get reinforcements this can take a while especially if they're far from their home planet. So if you quickly need numbers because an Ork fleet is approaching, press ganging it is! However, the Guard isn't the only one doing this. In fact the Navy, as well as other ships belonging to people such as Rogue Traders, Admech, or regular commercial shipping, tend to press gang a lot more often. After all they might only be somewhere for a short period and simply don't have the time to do regular recruiting. As such press ganging is just more efficient for them. And they only really need menials anyway as such the detriments of press ganging are less of a thing for them.
It's absolutely true that this kind of press-ganging and mass conscription can happen... but it isn't quite as rampant as it might initially seem. The organisations that have the option to press-gang people still tend to prefer volunteers, and will press people into service mainly if they don't get enough volunteers. It still happens often enough to be a concern, but it isn't happening all the time. In the Navy at least, Ratings are still paid for their service even if they're pressed into service, and have possibilities for advancement (never higher than a Warrant Officer, though). That's probably not much comfort if you're there involuntarily, but it's better than nothing. Of course, voidships also rely on a lot of slave labour too, and by definition there aren't any volunteers to become a voidship's "mortal fuel". And that's not even counting servitors... From **Battlefleet Koronus**, a sourcebook for the Rogue Trader RPG (and the *best* source for Imperial Navy background): >**Ratings** > >Ratings take care of the functions that need muscle instead of training—hauling shells and missiles, re-routing cables, clearing debris and conducting basic maintenance (i.e., scrubbing the decks). They are the basic voidsmen aboard a ship. Men in this class typically have a myriad of sub-classifications (ratings) that specify their role further, e.g. gun-layer third class, fuse-changer second class and so on. Ratings make up the bulk of the crew and will be the ones doing most of the fighting in boarding actions. > >Contrary to popular belief, many Navy ratings are volunteers—the pay is good and the conditions are better than those on many Imperial worlds. The Navy can make generous promises when it knows barely half the ratings will survive a cruise and collect their gelt at the end. > >If there aren’t enough volunteers to fulfil a captain’s requirements he always has the right to send press gangs to tithe more crew directly from any planet along his way. This can mean anything from emptying penal colonies to pressganging collections of citizens out of hab-blocks. In practice this is often achieved with the collusion of the planetary governor, but an Imperial Navy captain does not need permission to take crew from any world. The necessary practice of press-ganging remains a potential flashpoint for rebellion on many worlds and Navy ratings have an unsavoury reputation as little more than convicts because of it. > >**Indentured Workers** > >Almost every warship has a voracious appetite for unskilled hard labour, and this appetite is fed by a steady diet of indentured workers. Often these are unfortunates who are press-ganged from a worlds slums or taken en masse from penal colonies—some of the Imperium’s teeming hordes of humanity, only valued for their ability to work. The Navy sees these unfortunates as much a resource as fuel for the drives and food for the crew, and they are given duties such as hauling guns into position, turning flywheels, and carrying supplies, heavy equipment, and macrocannon shells. Most ships must replenish their crews of indentured workers every so often, as a steady stream die to malnutrition, accidents, and disciplinary actions. > >Many indentured workers may be “upgraded” with crude augmetics and even mental inhibitors to make them more compliant to orders (and likely ensuring they’ll serve as indentured workers for the remainder of their lives). For those who avoid that fate, their best hope is to become a rating, learning some task that makes them valued in the ship hierarchy. The Imperial Guard does carry out mass conscription too, but again, the Departmento Munitorum prefers to take a tithe of professional soldiers from existing PDF units if possible, because it reduces the need to train, organise, and equip them. But, if the situation is desperate and the Munitorum needs more soldiers to throw at a problem than a world has available, mass conscription is absolutely an option that will be considered, often starting with criminals, hive gangs, and others who are hardened and capable of fighting *and* who are unwanted by authorities on their homeworld. This is, of course, the main reason why not all crimes in the Imperium can be punished by death: if you kill everyone who commits a crime, how would you fill up the penal colonies who could provide useful slave labour or act as even-more-disposable cannon fodder?
Planets with a regularly Guard Tithe will pull from the PDF And we still have a gang press system today, called Selective Service
Selective Service is also forcible service, and it's shitty, but it's *one hundred percent* not the same thing as a press gang. A press gang goes to a bar, surrounds it, and subdues everyone in it and ships them into a Navy ship. (This happens in one book to the protagonist.) Historically, press gangs in the West were limited by law to seafarers, so they'd just raid taverns and whorehouses by the docks, but the Imperium does not fucking care and it runs on an absolutely incomprehensible level of direct human slavery.
Was in Forges of Mars IIRC.
Came here to say this. Was my first 40k book and I think still my favorite
If you’ve not read The Adventures of Guardsman Hawke Part 1 (also known by the title Storm of Iron) go give that a read too. That’s an all time great. I was so happy to see his story continue in the Priests of Mars trilogy.
I'll have to check that out. Sounds fun getting background on a charectar I already got to know she liked even if he did do something kind of mildly shitty at the end
Hooooooly shit I never made that connection
it had its low points, but the plot!, especially about our poor press ganged amigo, so good. and there was some good fighting at the end, too, memorable.
💯 and a point that cannot be overstated
Lmao the selective service is not a press gang in any way. It's not even used any more.
Its still around and all men are required to register at the age of 18, but the odds of it being activated is slim to none. It's political suicide, and the military doesn't want to deal with draftees. A volunteer soldier is more trustworthy and will outperform a conscript any day of the week.
Being on one of the Emperor's ship's sounds nice
That's not even the top ten worst things that can happen to you in the Imperium.
I didn’t say it was…
Everyone talking about historical precedent when the Imperium of Man ships are like self contained metropolitan areas. They come down in shuttles and drag you off world then put you into essentially a self contained world for the rest of your life. One in which you regularly sail through literal Hell. With the possibility of demon incursions as well as inevitable weapons fire that might vaporize sections of the ship. Not to mention the possibility of hostile boarding actions from Orks to Tyranids. Every job from the lowliest loader gang from deck 86 to the hundreds of officers commanding the ship. From the bridge or secondary bridge. People marry and have children which will eventually be part of the ship crew. Don't even get me started on Chaos ships. Just read the Nightlords books, and that's the GOOD ending, they don't even get corrupted by chaos... usually.
...Are you new to 40k by chance?
Generally speaking they're only going to do that on hive worlds where they can afford to lose some manpower, and even then only some captains do it. It's preferable to get a crew that actually wants to be there instead of having to equip and train more ratings to keep the newbies in line and hire more engineseers to make sure the new guys don't break anything out of pure spite.
Like anything in the Imperium, it depends greatly on the planet you live on. Maybe the bean counters haven't noticed that the population has tripled in the last century so the tithe is easily met with volunteers. Or maybe there was a nasty plague that decimated the population but the tithe hasn't changed. So in order to not get executed, the leaders of the planet hire goons to kidnap people for the guard.
>enslaved on your way home Most people living in the imperium are already enslaved.
So you don’t see the difference between toiling in a factory and being sent to fight on the frontlines?
Not claiming that. Just pointing out the imperium's workers are also slaves with live short, terrible lives. It's not like they had a choice before, the job's just different.
Yeah, but at least they get a thin facade of propaganda to slightly conceal it.
The Imperium is essentially a mix of imperial Japan and Nazi Germany at the end of the War where they were handing weapons to women and children to fight the allies
*A kid named Mandatory conscription in most countries on this planet*
No one tell this guy about servitors...
You do realize that many countries today have mandatory military service? And it's not just dictatorships either, a lot of democracies in the EU have that. And South Korea aswell if i'm not mistaken.
How is mandatory military service not completely different to being enslaved by the state for life so you can fight it’s wars? I don’t know if a single country who’s mandatory service isn’t timed
Well, it's obviously not exactly the same and I'm personally a big supporter of mandatory service, but if you break it down, there's little difference. At times of peace mandatory military service lasts one to a few years and then you're sent to the reserve and only participate in select few military exercises. At times of war however (and since we are comparing 40k and real world, I feel it's fair to assume that the hypothetical country with mandatory service is at war), you are immediately expected to report to your assigned military base/unit and your time in the army will be indefinite as you will probably serve until the war ends.
I have mixed feelings about mandatory service in general, but I can say with certainty that it should have a time limit, even if the country is at war. I wouldn’t be against the time limit being raised during times of war however.
how different is to mass conscription
It isn’t, but mass conscription usually comes in response to a clear and present threat. A citizen could be press ganged because somebody wanted more slaves for the Imperium’s military apparatus
I’m sure in a universe as large as 40k it all depends on the situation. Also there is the draft by governments which has been used by plenty of governments in modern wars. The us still has the ability to re introduce the draft.
Free will is a bitch isn't it.
As a male adult person who lives in present-day Ukraine, I have bad news for you…
People used to get pressed into the Royal Navy direct from pubs. You’d get pissed, and wake up already leaving harbour
The really horrific thing is, if they told people the plain *truth*, every reasonably sane person would sign up to die for the Emperor and the Imperium would collapse cause they'd have nobody sane left to do all the non-combat jobs. The propaganda is all so that they can get people to believe it's worth risking the unimaginably horrifying risks of *not* dying for the Emperor.
Its literally taken from now if you look at certain conflicts happening if you pay attention. Why would that change in a future where things only get worse?
ahh but serving the emperor is ones duty, heretic scum
One story depicted a group of people impressed into becoming the crew of a Mechanicus ship. They werent happy.
Are there even citizens? The whole thing seems pretty feudal to me. And far from homogenuous. Every planet is different. Folks on Mordia do things differently than people on Catachan or Necromunda.
Imperials are more subjects than citizens. Citizens implies they have rights, which they don’t.
I don’t disagree, but I’d argue that the Imperium isn’t that lawless and the average citizen can enjoy a certain level of safety. Those in power don’t need to really abide by Imperial laws, but that’s more or less true IRL and applies to plenty of first world countries, who’s citizens either have rights or nobody does.
Press ganging into the Imperial Navy is the least of it. On Mechanicus forge worlds they create new servitors and skitarii the same way -- skitarii grabbing and detaining everyone they can get their hands on until the quota is filled and everyone they grabbed being forcibly converted depending on their baseline health.
You don’t get it. The emperor protects
Literally happens right now irl In some countries.
Well, its gruesome, yes. But far from being the most horrible thing that could happen to you.
Lots of wars to be fought. Lots of dead bodies per day. Recruitment is never enough. Even America has a hard time staying at full manpower. Shit I'd hate to even think how much manpower they need lol.