weren't called for when dealing with slavers, except under rare circumstances. Slaver crews were too small to put up any significant resistance, once they were overtaken by a military vessel. So, they usually surrendered outright.
Although . . . that depended on the identity of the arresting vessel. The navies of most civilized powers subscribed to the theory that the slave trade constituted an offense against humanity. The Solarian League had certainly taken that position for centuries, and had pursued an official policy directed toward its eventual eradication for just as long. The Solarian approach was based on an entire network of interlocking bilateral treaty agreements with its independent neighbors, coupled with bureaucratic fiat within its own territory or that under the jurisdiction of the OFS. Since it would have been extremely difficult to get a significant number of independent systems (especially those already keeping an uneasy eye on Frontier Security) to agree to allow the SLN to police their space on any pretext, the treaties in question were negotiated on a basis which granted the SLN authority to intercept slavers flagged to the independent systems only outside the smaller nations' territorial space. And although League law equated slavery with piracy for its own citizens, which made it theoretically punishable by death, the fact was that the Solarian League had never executed a single slaver whose ship had been seized under one of the treaties. Solarian nationals had—on rare occasions—been sent to prison, sometimes for quite lengthy sentences. But the League as a whole was too "enlightened" to actually impose the death penalty, even in relatively extreme cases.
In the case of those who were not Solarian nationals, the options were even more limited. The ships themselves were impounded and destroyed, but since the other parties to many of the treaties didn't equate the two crimes in the same fashion (officially, at least), the most the League could often do was return "alleged" slavers to their systems of origin for trial.
Over the years, however, slavers had
Although . . . that depended on the identity of the arresting vessel. The navies of most civilized powers subscribed to the theory that the slave trade constituted an offense against humanity. The Solarian League had certainly taken that position for centuries, and had pursued an official policy directed toward its eventual eradication for just as long. The Solarian approach was based on an entire network of interlocking bilateral treaty agreements with its independent neighbors, coupled with bureaucratic fiat within its own territory or that under the jurisdiction of the OFS. Since it would have been extremely difficult to get a significant number of independent systems (especially those already keeping an uneasy eye on Frontier Security) to agree to allow the SLN to police their space on any pretext, the treaties in question were negotiated on a basis which granted the SLN authority to intercept slavers flagged to the independent systems only outside the smaller nations' territorial space. And although League law equated slavery with piracy for its own citizens, which made it theoretically punishable by death, the fact was that the Solarian League had never executed a single slaver whose ship had been seized under one of the treaties. Solarian nationals had—on rare occasions—been sent to prison, sometimes for quite lengthy sentences. But the League as a whole was too "enlightened" to actually impose the death penalty, even in relatively extreme cases.
In the case of those who were not Solarian nationals, the options were even more limited. The ships themselves were impounded and destroyed, but since the other parties to many of the treaties didn't equate the two crimes in the same fashion (officially, at least), the most the League could often do was return "alleged" slavers to their systems of origin for trial.
Over the years, however, slavers had