Sci-Fi Slaves

The Sci-Fi Slaves: The Dracs, a reptilian species that reproduce asexually.

The Situation: Dracs and humans have been at war for decades - both civilizations have space-faring technology and thrive in the same atmospheres, so fierce battle is waged over inhabitable worlds. Humans have no use for Drac prisoners of war, though, and rogue groups of slavers frequently capture them and force them to work on mining planets where their reptile biology is advantageous. In Enemy Mine, an underrated cult classic from 1985, a human fighter pilot and his Drac counterpart are stranded on a distant planet together and learn to understand each other - until other humans show up and wreck the whole deal.

How Bad Do They Have It? Pretty bad. Mining is one of the worst jobs in the universe, and their status as enemy combatants means nobody cares about human rights abuses.

The Sci-Fi Slaves: Humans. You all know what a human is, right?

The Situation: In a dystopian future, our primate ancestors have evolved speech and advanced intelligence and subjugated us to their wills. Of course, this is a surprise to a time-traveling astronaut who winds up there in the original film. The few humans that remain are either hunted for sport or used for the most demeaning manual labor. Last year's Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes posited the spark that ignited this blaze of simian rebellion as an Alzheimer's drug developed by James Franco.

How Bad Do They Have It? Fairly bad. The work is grueling and humans are second-class citizens, but the worst part is having damn dirty apes put their hands all over you.

The Sci-Fi Slaves: Humans again. This may become a theme.

The Situation: I'm still not exactly sure how it happened, but at some point robots gained sentience and managed to take just about every human on Earth, strap them into energy-sucking pods and use them for battery power. This, of course, poses a lot of questions - I know you can get electricity from a potato, but from a person? To keep us ignorant, the machines created a vast virtual reality simulation known as the Matrix, so the vast majority of the population has no idea they're enslaved.

How Bad Do They Have It? Not so bad. In fact, you could say that life in the Matrix is exactly as bad as life in the world we live in today. Maybe slightly better, as we've never seen Glenn Beck in the Matrix.

The Sci-Fi Slaves: The Vortigaunt, an extra-dimensional species used as labor by the Combine.

The Situation: In the Half-Life universe, you first meet the Vortigaunts as adversaries when they invade the Black Mesa base under the command of the Nihilanth, a grotesque giant alien. Once Gordon Freeman destroys it, their life changes drastically - the alien Combine invade both Earth and Xen, enslaving the residents of both worlds. Many Vortigaunts work in the resistance alongside Freeman and his human allies, but a large number are still shackled in slave collars and made to do menial labor such as janitorial work.

How Bad Do They Have It? Sort of bad. The thing about the Vortigaunts is that they went from being slaves of an extra-dimensional space god to being slaves of an extra-dimensional corporation, so they're used to it by now.