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S@tanicoaldo
2017-07-12, 05:31 PM
So, I’m running a si-fi camping and I mentioned once an unimportant NPC at a prison planet, somehow the whole group is planning to go there to free him, not on my planes, when i created this planet I didn't put much tough on it.

So now I need help with ideas, my first one was a harsh planet (maybe desert maybe ice) where you just thrown people there and the prisoners have to survive, there is no way to escape it.

Or a more organized dystopian "big brother is watching" type of planet.

What you guys think?

InvisibleBison
2017-07-12, 05:58 PM
So, I’m running a si-fi camping and I mentioned once an unimportant NPC at a prison planet, somehow the whole group is planning to go there to free him, not on my planes, when i created this planet I didn't put much tough on it.

So now I need help with ideas, my first one was a harsh planet (maybe desert maybe ice) where you just thrown people there and the prisoners have to survive, there is no way to escape it.

Or a more organized dystopian "big brother is watching" type of planet.

What you guys think?

If you've established a prison planet, you presumably don't want the prisoners to die (or you'd have just executed them). The question is, do you want to be able to retrieve the prisoners? If so, a harsh environment works best - if the prisoners can't survive outside of the camp, they won't wander off into the wilds and never be seen again. If you don't care about retrieving prisoners, a more survivable environment is best, because the prisoners being able to live off the land saves you the cost and effort of supporting them.

The more dystopian style planet is a huge amount of work, and is probably only worth it if you both expect the prisoners to abuse or kill each other and don't want this to happen.

Dr paradox
2017-07-12, 10:04 PM
It's an interesting problem. If it's a planet, it would have to be a vast population of high-value prisoners to be worth sacrificing a livable world. A classic "penitentiary" is impractical at that scope, but you have to consider two sides of the equation - internal security and external security.

Sure, dump someone on even a fertile planet and they will never be able to leave, but if this is a planet of high-value prisoners, it's not unreasonable to think they might have people who want to rescue them (for example, a party of Adventurers). How do you police a planet in a cost-effective way? How do you keep prisoners from killing each other? How do you retrieve prisoners when their Ransom is paid or their sentence expires?

Here's my thought. They get dumped on a fairly hospitable world, in one of several fertile valleys surrounded by artificially produced wasteland (nothing fancy, just nuked from space.) Inmates are fitted with subcutaneous disintegrators which activate if they

A). Leave the planet's gravity well.
B). Come within twenty feet of a humanoid life form without an active disintegrator. Especially bizarre or uncategorized life forms might get past this, to allow for indigenous species to not annihilate the prison population.
C). Come within ten feet of a strong "energy" signature (robots, drones, ships, what have you. This one depends a fair bit on the bones of your setting.)

Inmates get a fifteen second "warning buzzer" if they are in violation of these rules. Disintegrators are placed perilously close to Major arteries, so that removing them with non-modern tools will almost certainly cause the inmate to bleed to death. Modern tools are practically guaranteed to set off the disintegrator.

With several hundred valleys and little to no "on the ground" infrastructure, anyone looking to stage a breakout has several challenges. First, they need to find the target, for which they need both the register of inmates, and a transponder to ping the associated disintegrator. After that, they need to find a way to remove the disintegrator without detonating it, or else find a way to fool it's sensors.

hifidelity2
2017-07-14, 04:07 AM
I used a prison asteroid and given the universe there were in it was privately run so needed to make a profit
Note that only very dangerous prisoners where sent here but you could divide the planet into low, medium and high security islands

On the asteroid the conditions were very harsh (think solitary confinement / bread and water) BUT you could take part in “tournaments” where if you won you got paid in “script” that you could spend on better conditions

Tournaments went from glorified paintball to fighting wild animals to fighting people condemned to death. Also come corporations used it to test new weapons and train their troops by having them fight real live (and motivated) people

Anonymouswizard
2017-07-14, 04:22 AM
It depends on the system.

My Interstellar Commonwealth setting has a government run penal reform system. Depending on the prisoner, the crime, and the planet they can either go to a prison like one of ours today, become a first stage colonist on a new world, be pressed into years of labour on a colony world, or stuck on an asteroid with tutor programs and occasional visits. The idea being that generally they'll either learn useful skills or at up a decent life for themselves before the end of term. The more times you're convicted the more likely you're to get a harsher punishment, but resources to improve your life are made available.

Now, of as a government you aren't interested in keeping them alive you can always just dump them in deep space or shoot them into a start, bit of they're already on a prison planet then we need to do some work.

An idea is that it's just a new colony world where they need labour, and so prisoners get shipped there (think the Ivets from the Night's Dawn trilogy). Another idea is a world with a relatively small habitable zone. Sure, you can run away from the camp, but soon it'll great up and you'll be dehydrated (or freeze to death, depending on the planet).

Starshade
2017-07-14, 04:47 AM
Some of the real life planets found by NASA and other science institutions is within the zone for life, but impossible to sustain humans, since some of them is way to big. A prison planet with 5 times our gravity would make a prison needing antigravity just to keep people alive.

Thrawn4
2017-07-14, 05:02 AM
Unless you have hospitable Planets to spare, Three should be an excellent reason why you use one as a prison. Maybe surviving conditions are harsh, but then you would still need some means to prevent an escape. Ion storms in the atmosphere might do the trick: you can drop Prisoners with capsules and parachutes but without engine nobody will be able zu come back.
Another idea is the Good old mining colony where Prisoners have to work in order to get food.

Martin Greywolf
2017-07-14, 06:07 AM
A potentially interesting idea, as well as a decent reason why this particular planet is a prison planet is a high gravity world - an average human can take about 5 to 9 G before loosing consciousness, so that's your ballpark.

The way it works is that there are some prison facilities that have artificial gravity, and you have portable generators with very limited battery life. This way, no prisoner will be able to both escape and evade local highly aggressive (because of course it is aggressive) fauna for long.

legomaster00156
2017-07-14, 07:38 AM
If the imprisonments on this planet are long-term, you need also to consider that the inmates will soon form societies of their own. This could be as small as tribal communities, ranging all the way up to bustling metropolises where the inmates have developed their very own governments and the like. Of course, any economy will be extremely insular (since it is unlikely outside worlds would trade with them, or even acknowledge the government's legitimacy), and any space travel capabilities will be very strictly watched by the government dropped prisoners onto the world.

Hunter Noventa
2017-07-14, 08:11 AM
The old Star Wars EU had a pretty good design (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stars%27_End) for a space prison.

zlefin
2017-07-14, 09:00 AM
are you familiar with various prison planets from fiction? that's a useful place to start, though I'm not sure how muhc detailed info there is on each of them.
salusa secundus from the Dune series (where the sardaukar come from).

there was an anime, i can't recall the name of, it's sort of a prison planet/death world (ultra dangerous flora/fauna, huge axial tilt which makes for horrible winter)

LibraryOgre
2017-07-14, 09:24 AM
A game one of my space-nerd friends ran had us imprisoned on the Moon. We were mining, and the entire system was run internally... no guards, just prisoners making sure everyone worked if they could.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-14, 09:43 AM
Two ideas -

1. If they're not human, have species split and growing crops which they cannot eat themselves. In my sci-fi setting each prison population is by design not self-sustaining, making them continually reliant upon the absentee guards.

2. If you want the guards to be bad guys - try reading the short story Borders of Infinity - part of The Vorkosigan Saga. It's a good read - and it's all about around 10,000 POWs in a sci-fi setting and their captors' plan to break them while following the rules of war. Not a whole prison planet - but you could expand the operation.

legomaster00156
2017-07-14, 09:49 AM
Another thing to consider is whether males and females will be kept separate, and how. If they cannot be kept separate, there must be some governmental oversight into children produced by prisoners, and how they're handled. Are they taken from the planet immediately and put in an orphanage/other childcare system? Are they kept on the planet with their parents until one/both of them serves out their sentence? Are they just kept until adulthood? What rights do they have as far as citizenship is concerned?

Dragonexx
2017-07-14, 11:02 AM
There's also belsavis from SWtoR. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Belsavis

The planet is used as a prison, with limited hospitable zones keeping the prisoners under control. The prisoners aren't divided by gender, so there are children born there, who are kept as prisoners same as their parents. They also conduct experiments and forced war games on the prisoners.

Anonymouswizard
2017-07-14, 11:14 AM
Another thing to consider is whether males and females will be kept separate, and how. If they cannot be kept separate, there must be some governmental oversight into children produced by prisoners, and how they're handled. Are they taken from the planet immediately and put in an orphanage/other childcare system? Are they kept on the planet with their parents until one/both of them serves out their sentence? Are they just kept until adulthood? What rights do they have as far as citizenship is concerned?

This is a good point, while my setting works under the assumption that either the genders are kept apart to remove/reduce this risk, or that they're effectively colonists and having kids is what they're supposed to do, it depends on the crime.

If you're just throwing prisoners on a planet and not having guards (which is a theoretical way to colonise a planet, throw a bunch of prisoners on there with enough technology to start building, come back in 100 years to conquer them or make a trade deal) the either you're separating the genders or just letting them raise the kids. If you have guards then I suspect in most settings they'll be put up for adoption.

There's also the idea of not separating the sexes, but using some form of reversible birth control (I suggest either some form of contraceptive implant and this new male injection thing). Sure, it won't be 100% effective, but it'll massively reduce the number of children you have to fill out paperwork for. I mean yeah, you can always sterilise them instead, but doing that should be reserved for the bad guys, something reversible is much more humane and acceptable.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-14, 11:24 AM
(which is a theoretical way to colonise a planet, throw a bunch of prisoners on there with enough technology to start building, come back in 100 years to conquer them or make a trade deal)

Modeled on Australia? :smallbiggrin:

(Though of course - a lot of those were debters rather than criminals as we generally think of them.)

Burley
2017-07-14, 11:37 AM
Modeled on Australia? :smallbiggrin:

(Though of course - a lot of those were debters rather than criminals as we generally think of them.)

Real-talk, though: Australia is kinda a great example of a prison colony. Australia is a difficult and dangerous place to live, to be sure, but it's also arable, with reefs for fishing and plenty of space to build towns and farms.

If there is a criminal worth removing from a population for unsavory crimes (perhaps debt or drug use or something) perhaps removing the value of those things is the answer.
Maybe there's a planet that's just okay, y'know? A planet of Massachusetts and Virginia. Drop the prisoners off and say: "There's a farm over yonder that you can work at for a while, or you are welcome to go live in the woods. Don't cause trouble and we'll be back to check on you in three years."

As stated before, dangerous criminals would, presumably, be summarily executed or frozen in carbonite or something. Give your prisoners the opportunity to actually reform and become productive members of society. If they are left to become citizens and govern themselves, they will, ideally, reform, flourish and attempt to aid in the reformation of others.

So, less Riddick, more Pocahontas.

Anonymouswizard
2017-07-14, 11:47 AM
Modeled on Australia? :smallbiggrin:

(Though of course - a lot of those were debters rather than criminals as we generally think of them.)

Roughly, and also inspired by the fact that criminals help settle planets in the Night's Dawn trilogy, which I'm certain I've mentioned on this page before. I also understand they weren't all criminals as we'd understand them, but that means the football chant no longer scans.

(Of course, I'm assuming that being a colonist is generally a choice, colonise this planet or spend X years in prison. Criminals deemed dangerous to colonisation are not offered, although my personal setting doesn't have the death penalty*)

Burley has the idea, my setting's penal reform system is based on the idea that if you give criminals opportunities to better themselves or make a life, once they've finished they are less likely to reoffend. Maybe ten years after becoming a colonist John returns to his home planet to negotiate a trade of raw materials for completed technology (the ship sent to check on them agreeing to take him along).

* For personal reasons, influenced by the fact my country doesn't have it. It's the same reason my settings tend to restrict firearms more than modern America does, because my personal experiences reflect the settings I develop.

ElFi
2017-07-14, 07:49 PM
I agree with the multiple suggestions that the prisoners are kept regulated by being kept in limited areas of livable land surrounded by hostile wasteland (where, you should point out to your players in case they need more options, it is possible to survive, just exponentially more difficult than in the safe zones).

As for the guards and regulation, my thoughts automatically drift to making it some kind of space Alcatraz. The guards, staff, and their families live in large habitat-ships (which serve as homes, hospitals, living spaces, maybe even stores and shops if they're particularly fancy) that encircle the planet and provide housing for the prison staff while also allowing them to monitor space for any potential rescuers (so the PC's are will be looking for a rough fight if they try to blast their way in). The only contact between guards and prisoners are the weekly supply-drop ships that deliver food and gear to the prisoners down below. These drop ships aren't manned, but occasionally carry prison staff for health check-ups and contraband searches.

I think that provides your players with a few potential ways to get this prisoner off the planet (the aforementioned firefight, sneak down with the drop-ships, land in one of the wasteland sectors) while still making sure all of those potential solutions carry their own risks.

halfeye
2017-07-14, 08:40 PM
There is so much Sci-fi about this:

Dune (almost),

Fangnis (short story, "Waiting Place" by Harry Harrison),

I'm pretty sure there are dozens more, but I don't remember the names or authors.

DuctTapeKatar
2017-07-15, 12:07 AM
We are all assuming that the planet has some form of wilderness on it. Considering that this planet has a prison that is famous enough for the entire thing to be named a "prison planet" we also have to assume that, if the entire planet isn't completely controlled, they will at least be watching the wilderness around the prison if not every single continent on the planet.

We also have to take into consideration who is going to this prison. If it's for the hardest of criminals, willing to toss in murderers and gangsters in the slammer together, they'll have a tougher security force than, let's say, one whose occupants mainly consist of those caught guilty of tax-evasion.

All things considered, the prison should be fairly large, say taking up an entire continent with support factories split onto other continents, with one for each major need (farms, munitions, managerial offices, etc.). Patrols of ships would be constant, flying both above the atmosphere and inside it, making sure no unauthorized vehicle makes it in without being noticed. The support facilities would be closely guarded, with background checks on every employee and several levels of security clearance, but once inside, it would be easy to sneak something inside the prison.

The prison itself, however, is the real mystery, because, like I said before, we don't know if it is meant to house the most sociopathic monsters in the galaxy or just your average criminal scumbags or even political prisoners.

Mastikator
2017-07-15, 02:18 AM
Why not a prison moon? The prison is a moon base orbiting a well developed planet, the prisoners are from that planet only. Anyone who tries to escape will just find themselves in the death of vacuum but the prison is not so far off that it's impractical to bring prisoners there.
The prison won't be self sustaining but it doesn't have to be, it gets resources from the planet it orbits.

You could also house other facilities on the moon, labs and and hotels and reservoirs and stuff that could be well out of the way.

goto124
2017-07-15, 02:39 AM
And the labs could use the prisoners as text subjects!

I meant to write 'test subjects'.

Either way, there must be a reason to spend so much resources to turn an entire planet into a prison - cost of security, shipping, etc. Are the prisoners too strong or smart for regular prisons? Or are there just so many prisoners that they can't fit on the native planet?

TheYell
2017-07-15, 10:55 PM
There's some reading you might want to do

Dune - Emperor's barren and harsh "hellworld" prison planet is actually an army recruitment base for terror troops

Foundation - Trantor the Galactic capital is one big city - and chock full of internal security forces

Gateway - Not a prison planet, but a barren asteroid where everybody's air is taxed and unemployment is eventually fatal

Ringworld - A giant construct around a distant sun, it was never meant to be a prison planet, but its civilization was collapsed by alien biowar and now nobody can get off it

Any of those could work as a setting.

Weirdlet
2017-07-16, 02:50 AM
Check out Freedom's Landing, Freedom's Choice, and Freedom's Challenge by Anne McCaffrey. Very possibly modeled after Australia- rather than waste time doing their own dirty work, a conquering alien race grabs a whole bunch of rebellious humans and dumps them on a fertile, unworked planet with the coveralls on their backs and a few crates of things like axes. They're then left there, completely untended, with no ships and nothing to do but try and survive, while also breaking the ice/doing the initial gruntwork of establishing a colony. The prisoners have nowhere to go but out into the wilderness, where they can find all of the planet's natural hazards face-first.

Deliverance
2017-07-17, 01:12 AM
For a radically different and very logical take on the prison planet concept, complete with obligatory successful rescue mission, I recommend Lois McMaster Bujold's short story the Borders of Infinity.

Firest Kathon
2017-07-17, 06:25 AM
In David Weber's Honorverse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse) there is a prison planet named Hell with the following security features:

The location is almost completely unknown (only to a small part of the security services), preventing resuce from the outside.
As the planet is not inhabited (except for the prisoners and guards), prisoners are distributed over smaller, separated camps. Distances are too large to reach other camps by foot, so prisoners cannot team up.
Local flora and fauna cannot be digested by humans, so prisoners cannot grow their own food. Rations are deployed monthly by the guards. Punishment for revolting camps includes withdrawal of rations.