Benacian Labour Reserve

Few would deny that the subjects undergoing service in the Benacian Labour Reserve do not endure their share of suffering on the long road to redemption. In spite of strict discipline, violence and abuse amongst the penitent labourers reportedly remains widespread.

The Benacian Labour Reserve is a conscription and penitentiary-based labour reserve of the Benacian Union; enrolment in which is regularly used as punitive measures. Sentences for mundane, non-political, crimes, passed by the various tribunals of the Benacian Union, are frequently commuted to a concomitant period of servitude in the labour reserve. Civic authorities have also been known to use the BLR as a dumping ground for idlers, malingerers, and the so-called unlawful poor.

The BLR is organised into penal labour regiments at the bailiwick-level, with penitent labourers being available to expend either in the furtherance of projects initiated by the civic authorities or else in support of the Benacian Union Defence Force and Benacia Command. These tasks can range from agricultural labour to battlefield obstacle removal work, but most commonly will entail the expenditure of the penitent on any number of ongoing construction projects.

Between 1702 AN and 1703 AN, a number of Auxiliary Labour Battalions were formed to receive an anticipated glut of Umraid prisoners who had refused to sign the Union Covenant and offer sacrifice to the Highest Divinity. In the end this surge did not materialise as the majority were instead deported to Transprinitica under a deal with Hurmu, and by 1716 AN the surviving Umraid detainees had been consolidated into a single regiment assigned to the BUDF for special taskings.

In 1706 AN 1,585,525 subjects were assigned to the Labour Reserve in lieu of punishment. The Labour Reserve forms a mobile contingent within the far larger body of Protected Persons (of whom there were 29,779,203, as of 1712 AN, in the UGB alone) who toiled as bondsmen within their bailiwicks of residence.

From the final month of 1707 AN onwards the illicit narcotics trade, that which occurred outside of Paradise Districts under the monopoly control of the Guild of the Lotus, was made subjected to heightened levels of official repression. Following an initial flurry of theatrical executions to mark the commencement of the newly severe policy, the manufacturers, suppliers, and consumers of illicit substances were to be transferred wholesale into the BLR along with their families, with the majority of these condemned to penal servitude at the Svordson Reform Settlement on Leng.

Notable BLR projects

• Benacian Union Kalgachia Aligned Corridor Exchange
  • Restoration of the Tealsburrow Railway