Dwarves were predominantly used for resource extraction. Hardly anyone intended to develop a heavy gravity planet beyond what was needed to rob its immense supply of valuable exotics and other minerals.
Why should the people in power waste any effort trying to develop these planets past this point?
Why should the 'true humans' work so much to better the lives of their miners?
To many people in the ruling classes, there was no benefit to providing further opportunities in this tailor-made heavy gravity mining race!
It didn't help that heavy gravity variant humans inherited many of the traits associated with fictional dwarves. Everyone considered them to be so good at mining and manual labor that they could hardly envision these strong and stocky humans as scientists or administrators!
The abuses had gotten very bad over the years. Dwarves were being increasingly treated as subhumans. This meant that the vast majority of humanity basically kicked out their shorter cousins outside of their group!
Part of the reason to do so was to make it easier to exploit the dwarves. Enslaving humans had become taboo as the Age of Stars made way for the Age of Conquest, but what if the slaves weren't 'human'?
It was a sad truth of human race that they were capable of committing countless horrors on others as long as they no longer recognized their victims as their own people!
Once the mainstream branches of humanity no longer regarded dwarves on the same level, the abuses that ensued resulted in a very shameful chapter in the long history of human civilization!
"It should have been better these days." Ves inwardly muttered.
Even though Ves had traveled a bit in the past for this Mastery experience, dwarves like Rion Aaden should still enjoy the rights of actual human in this day and age!
To see that greedy groups like House Kantis still employ this out-of-fashion method of exploiting heavy gravity planets by enslaving an entire population of dwarves was very perplexing.
From a rational perspective, this decision made little sense.
Keeping dwarves on Desala X and forcing them to mine all day without their consent was not really needed.
As long as House Kantis paid them a meager but decent salary and gave them the option to exit the planet freely would not cost them all that much.
While Ves wasn't very knowledgeable about the planetary mining industry, he had seen enough mining equipment at Outpost 35 to know that all of the hardware was a much bigger expense than manpower to House Kantis!
Paying the dwarves nothing as opposed to paying them minimum wage would not increase the total expenses all that much.
Desala X would still be able to turn a healthy profit for the nobles.
Yet… it was undeniable that the bottom line would be impacted. Even if the drop in profits was modest, for some reason the greedy nobles couldn't stand such a minor loss!
As a result, Desala X became home to another egregious abuse of human rights. Ves continually wanted to shake his head at this idiodic decision.
House Kantis would incur a lot of outrage and possibly sanction if their exploitation of dwarves became known!
Yet… from what Ves had observed so far about this entire arrangement, it seemed that no one really cared what was being done to the local dwarves.
House Kantis operated a slave mine with complete impunity.
The Paramount Kingdom which should have been receiving a share of the proceeds of the planet in the form of taxes also didn't show any intentions to stop the abuses.
The MTA's Smiling Samual Branch shouldn't be ignorant to what was going on inside the star sector. Desala X was a huge planet that orbited its star on a stable orbit. There was no way to hide this huge satellite from the many forms of observation at the Association's disposal!
Yet just like in the Komodo Star Sector, the local MTA branch seemed to be taking a lax approach towards the enforcement of its rules.
"This isn't even a coincidence anymore." Ves frowned.
He always thought that the MTA in his home star sector was just being lazy, but to see the same thing taking place seventy years in the past was an eye-opener to him. Had the MTA started to rot from within? How long ago did the mighty organization stop standing up for the weakest and most vulnerable populations of humans?
"Gion Greybeard is rather smart to realize that the MTA will remain apathetic to his pleas."
The MTA predominantly consisted of tall folk, after all. Ves had already experienced how high-and-mighty they acted towards space peasants.
This was also why the batch of Timpala Steel was the key to reversing the fortune of the dwarves. As long as the dwarves managed to shock the MTA and attract some genuine attention, there was a very good chance that it would finally meet its obligations!
It was too bad that Ves could not allow this wondrous exotic to slip out of his grasp. Vulcan may be a generous god, but he didn't work for free!
For now, Vulcan made an agreement with Gion Greybeard and his rebels. The God of Dwarves, Mechs and Craftsmanship promised to help their plan succeed in exchange for the Timpala Steel they excavated.
As for how to convince the MTA to intervene? The god promised to take care of it. With his divine powers, it should be as easy as cake to attract the MTA's attention!
"What is a cake?"
"A yummy food."
"What is yummy?"
"Imagine a nutrient pack that you actually enjoy eating."
The dwarves in Vulcan's presence blanked out.