Best and Worst Societies to be taken captive by?

Best: China during the early Tang dynasty.

Mixed: Vikings, as long as I wasn't born as a thrall.

Worst: Aztec/Maya civilizations. Getting your heart taken out of your ribcage for sacrifice isn't a good experience at all.
 
Mixed: Vikings, as long as I wasn't born as a thrall.
What does this even mean? If you're taken captive by vikings you become a thrall, that's how it works. You might also be sacrificed, they did that too, it wasn't just a Mesoamerican thing. And it's not like everyone captured by Mesoamerican civilizations was sacrificed, Maya didn't have sacrifices on the same scale as the Aztecs and the even the Aztecs needed slaves too, in addition to finding some people too lowly to bother sacrificing.
 
Best: captured as a soldier in a modern war by Western powers.

Worst: pretty hard to answer, what kind of rape, mutilation, torture or work to the death are the worst. If you was a male African captured and sold to non-African, the likelihood of you living long enough to produce children was better among Europeans (and the likelihood of you being castrated was alsofar smaller), if you was female African captured your children would be more likely to end up free if you ended up in a Muslim country. If you was captured by Assyrians they would torture in creative and painful ways.

Fundamental you’re best off being captured in limited conflicts between cultural similar groups with clear rules of engagement in armed conflicts.

Abu Ghraib prisoners would like to speak with you...
 
Abu Ghraib prisoners would like to speak with you...

Was any of the prisoners executed by a spike being inserted in their anus? Was any of them castrated?

Abu Ghraib was inexcusable, but it’s a exception and only a scandal because it’s a Western country committing the actions. As example let’s take a look at the accusation of how the Turkish government treated the detainees from the coup attempt. Those accusation are pretty similar to the Abu Ghraib scandals, but have been mostly ignored.
 
Not all American Indian societies were kind toward captives. In the Pacific Northwest, the locals had a well-defined tradition of slavery which they extended toward captives they took in war and most notoriously, toward castaways and other people who shipwrecked on their shores, as evidenced by American, English, and Japanese accounts. They're pretty much a raider society as OP describes. It wasn't so bad to be a slave there, if you compare it to the Caribbean/US South, since they did the same work the commoners did, but slaves had no rights and thus could be married to whoever their owner decided, raped when their owner wanted (for women), traded to a new master if required, or sacrificed when needed. Commoners were not subject to this. Slaves had no hope of rising far in society. If a slave had no useful talents (unlike the accounts of some people taken as slaves by these American Indians), they'd likely not have a good life. While there's a lot worse (again, Transatlantic slave trade, blackbirding, etc. existed), being a slave to these Indians would not be a pleasant experience.
 
Viking captives became slaves. They were the primary source of income from viking raids, capturing people to sell as slaves abroad or keep as slaves at home. And the children of their thralls would likewise be slaves. And even if they were freed they'd still be basically serfs to their master for generations. Also, they did have human sacrifice, for one example if a woman who was kidnapped became the favorite "wife" (funny joke, they'd be a slave) to a viking chief then when he dies she'll be accompanying him into the grave.

There’s a reason Vikings were so well known to the Muslim chroniclers. They were prodigious slave merchants...
 
Best: China during the early Tang dynasty.

I would have to agree. Especially considering that a foreigner of low birth could literally become Prime Minister through merit alone (and many did), as well as rise high in the ranks of the new aristocracy of scholar-bureaucrats.

Though the Tang were big on the slave trade, especially of foreigners. Granted, that seems to be mostly foreign merchants coming to sell other foreigners to the Chinese, as opposed to the Tang deliberately going out there to catch slaves. They mostly profited through taxation on slave sales...(though not every government official condoned the slave trade. But like every Chinese effort to ban slavery, it never worked).
 

Kaze

Banned
Worst - Ancient Celtic tribes. Possible Human sacrifice.
Best - Anglo-Saxons. You are a slave now, but your children if lucky might not be.
Middle. Tang Dynasty.
 
Better: Societies that adopt a lot people, for example, the Mongols, Native Americans in general and the Iroqouis in particular.
On what planet is being ritually tortured to death, enslaved, or forced to marry your captor preferable treatment? Go read what they did to Brebeuf. It's not the sort of thing that falls into the "better" category.

The French Canadians were also good at treating prisoners well.
Provided you're an Iroquois or a free white. Black, panis, or indentured white and they'd keep you as a slave.
 

Anawrahta

Banned
Worst - Ancient Celtic tribes. Possible Human sacrifice.
Best - Anglo-Saxons. You are a slave now, but your children if lucky might not be.
Middle. Tang Dynasty.
Just wondering. How did Pytheas of Massalia manage to travel through heavy celtic areas all the way to Britain without getting jumped, mugged or worse, shanked?
 
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