Super Prisons without Super Tech

[tinman]

My campaign world hasn't had time to realise any truly impressive technological benefits from the existence of metahumans. I'm looking for ideas on how to contain high-threat metas without the use of drains or force fields or such like.

 

One idea I've been considering is sending them to dreamland. There is a metahuman in my world who is in a permanent coma, but who's powers pull everyone who comes closer than 500 meters to him into his dream world more or less permanently (it takes a mentalist or someone with a monstrously high EGO to escape).

His life support needs are minimal, and the government could simply build an enclosure around his radius of effect to prevent anyone from accidentally wandering into it. Metas that are beyond the ability of conventional prisons to contain could simply be dropped into the zone of effect and the problem obligingly goes away. Even a rescue attempt by the meta's allies wouldn't be a problem because they would inadvertently enter the zone of effect and become trapped themselves.

The government would have to keep the nature of their prison a secret of course, lest someone try to kill the metahuman generating the effect.

 

Anyone got any ideas on more conventional means of holding high-threat metas without the use of super tech?

[OddHat]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Sever the spine.

 

Allow a medical procedure to do this in a reversible manner.

 

Cut the tendons, and again allow surgery to repair the damage.

 

Full frontal lobotomy, reversible if you need it to be.

 

Chemical lobotomy.

 

Rule that most supers can't use their powers when on "Drug X", and dose all prisoners with that drug or combination of drugs (this is one of my prefered solutions).

 

Cold sleep boxes.

 

Smash their joints and put out their eyes. Cut off whatever body parts give them their powers.

 

Rule that all Super Powes come from the "Quantum Gland" in the human brain, and that Super Prisoners have that gland chemically de-activated or surgically removed.

 

It depends on how powerful your villains are, and how severely society reacts to their crimes. As the GM, you can rule that anything you'd like works.

[tinman]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Rule that most supers can't use their powers when on "Drug X"' date=' and dose all prisoners with that drug or combination of drugs (this is one of my prefered solutions).[/quote']

 

I like this one a lot

[Dominique]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

The ACLU, and any other human rights organization would have a field day with most of those suggestions.

[Iuz the Evil]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Depends also on whether the court system gets involved, or if they're just being 'disappeared' by shady government types. If you're dealing with the United States legal system, get ready for some serious courtroom battles regarding 'cruel and unusual punishment' if you attempt to implement mutilation or surgical modification of prisoners without consent. Even capital punishment gets reviewed under that clause.

 

If the villains are potent enough, I can see you having serious problems managing to do that to them anyway.

 

Maybe radio triggered anesthetic ankle bracelets or (if you're not worried about the aforementioned clause) subdermal implants along those lines? You could do that with current technology.

[tinman]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

The ACLU' date=' and any other human rights organization would have a field day with most of those suggestions.[/quote']

 

Yep. The blocker drug may be the least rights-abusive of the bunch, especially if it is couched in terms of disarming the prisoners.

[tinman]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Depends also on whether the court system gets involved' date=' or if they're just being 'disappeared' by shady government types. If you're dealing with the United States legal system, get ready for some serious courtroom battles regarding 'cruel and unusual punishment' if you attempt to implement mutilation or surgical modification of prisoners without consent. Even capital punishment gets reviewed under that clause.[/quote']

 

The dream prison would likely be a secret disappearance (or at least an obfuscated one), so it would have to be the option of last resort short of assassination. A blocker drug would be a nice middle ground for those metas that it worked on.

[tinman]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Of course there would also likely be a lot of incidents where criminal metas simply "refuse to surrender" and wind up dead. Especially if they've killed cops in the past or broken out of prison a lot.

[tinman]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Metas with high-level but otherwise straightforward powers (bricks, energy projectors and such) could likely be contained in cells made out of tank armour of varying thickness. A cell for a mentalist could consist of a bubble within a bubble, with the intervening space filled with a nutrient solution and living frog brain tissue or something. Too simple to manipulate, but too pervasive to get around.

[Wanderer]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Rule that most supers can't use their powers when on "Drug X", and dose all prisoners with that drug or combination of drugs (this is one of my prefered solutions).

 

Cold sleep boxes.

 

These two (and the close, slightly more realistic, cousins of cold sleep, immersive virtual reality and drug-induced coma), are the only solutions humane enough to have any chance whatsoever of surviving civil and human rights review by the courts in any democracy. Even more so taking into account that greenlighting them will be made by the courts of the guideline of the most humane solution possible that still allows custody of the prisoner, and the availability of these solutions will bar the more inhuman methods (as CU, intelligently, acknowledges).

 

Sever the spine.

 

Allow a medical procedure to do this in a reversible manner.

 

Cut the tendons, and again allow surgery to repair the damage.

 

Full frontal lobotomy, reversible if you need it to be.

 

Chemical lobotomy.

 

Smash their joints and put out their eyes. Cut off whatever body parts give them their powers.

 

Rule that all Super Powes come from the "Quantum Gland" in the human brain, and that Super Prisoners have that gland chemically de-activated or surgically removed.

 

Not only these would never survive review by the courts, but they would have the very real side effect of moving supercriminals to ever-higher degrees of murderous and indiscriminate brutality against super-heroes, law enforcement, the government, and civilians, since they would have nothing to gain from pulling punches, avoiding capture or leaving witnesses would the overriding priority, and maximum indiscriminate brutality would become the wisest choice. Plus, a government and society that does them would move any superhuman with a grudge against society toward armed rebellion. A society that does these things against its criminal members isn't really punishing crime, it's the majority waging a no-holds-barred civil war againt a minority, and the minority will retaliate with equal brutality.

 

There are very compelling reasons why societies do not punish all but the most terrible crimes with death anymore, and have forsaken torture and mutilation entirely, and not all of them are due to bleeding-heart liberalism. Using these methods would in all likelihood cause pretty much *all* supervillains to adopt Al-Quaeda-like mentality and practices, and with much more psychological and ethical justification to go bombing. Picture a world-wide Iraq, only 1000 times worse.

 

No, I suggest to stick to power-nullifying drugs, cold sleep, immersive VR rigs, and drug-induced coma.

[tinman]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

A cycle of escalating hostility between governments and metahumans is definitely something I want to avoid.

[OddHat]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

The ACLU' date=' and any other human rights organization would have a field day with most of those suggestions.[/quote']

 

Look at the effect of the 9/11 attacks on how the United States treats those that authorities suspect of any connection to international terrorism. Look how little public outcry there has been in the USA, and how little effect protests have had on government policy. In a "serious" campaign, after the first Supers battle that levels a few city blocks in a major city, Super Criminals and suspected Super Criminals will have next to no civil or human rights. In a more four color game, where destroying large chinks of a city doesn;t actually result in many deaths, you won't need extreme measures to hold Super Criminals. It comes down to a question of how the storyteller sees the world.

[OddHat]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Not only these would never survive review by the courts' date='[/quote']

 

Survival of review by the courts is not a serious an issue in a world where the public is terified that a single Super Criminal can destroy a city block if he goes free. If your campaign tone / storytelling style would prevent that from becoming an issue, go for the less severe options.

 

but they would have the very real side effect of moving supercriminals to ever-higher degrees of murderous and indiscriminate brutality against super-heroes, law enforcement, the government, and civilians, since they would have nothing to gain from pulling punches, avoiding capture or leaving witnesses would the overriding priority,

 

Agreed up to here.

 

Plus, a government and society that does them would move any superhuman with a grudge against society toward armed rebellion.

 

Agreed with this, but not with what follows. Most of that is in the hands of the storyteller, and will vary accordingly.

 

No, I suggest to stick to power-nullifying drugs, cold sleep, immersive VR rigs, and drug-induced coma.

 

These are the methods I tend to use in my campaigns.

[OddHat]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Additional: Here is the Amnesty International report on what we, the people of the United States, are accused of doing right now to suspected "unlawful combatants".

 

Some people think that this report is accurate, some that it is anti-American propaganda. Most Americans will never know much more about it that whatever they hear in spun talk-radio sound bites.

 

With an ongoing real world situation so hotly debated, I'm fine with the idea that a story teller is justified in choosing what is really going on in his world's prison system, and how much the public actually knows and cares about it.

[Mentor]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

I have to go along with X Drug as well. Cold/hot sleep is OK too, IMHO. The other methods seem too anti-heroic. Our campaign world uses a judges to sentence the Supes to our Super Prison, but the occasional escape has not been ruled out.

[Wanderer]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Look at the effect of the 9/11 attacks on how the United States treats those that authorities suspect of any connection to international terrorism. Look how little public outcry there has been in the USA' date=' and how little effect protests have had on government policy[/quote']

 

And look at how effective Abu Grahib and Guantanamo have been as Al-Quaeda propaganda and recuitment tools among Muslim youth worldwide. And it is humiliation, psychological torture, and interment without trial. Nothing in comparison to lobotomy and mutilation. Now substitute muslims with superhumans, increase the recruitment appeal of the violent metahuman suprematicist groups that are sure to form a thousandfold, and substitute homemade bombs with superpowers. CU gives a realistic 40/60 law-abiding to law-defying superhumans, in a democratic, human-rights-mindful society. In such conditions, the rate would likely shift to 20/80 or worse. I have severe doubts that civilization might survive in a world-wide 100-times-worse, superpowered Iraq, and if it does, it would quickly go the Authority/Kingdom Come/Squadron Supreme/Days of Future Past route.

 

You can certainly run a superhuman RP story here, but it ain't "superheroes vs. supervillains" anymore, it's "super freedom fighters battling fascist goverment, murderous super-tech robots and jackbooted goverment secret police supers" at best, or "murderous rebel thugs battling murderous goverment thugs", at worst. It can be done, and has been done well in genre, both in comics and RPG, but if one wants a more traditional setting, the ST must steer clear from the knife and butcher block when delaing with criminal supers.

 

If you don't want to have super-tech "power negators", cold sleep, power-negating drugs, immersive VR and drug-induced coma are all increasingly realistic options which would be recognized as reasonably humane by society, superhumans at large and supercriminals. Another slightly less-realistic but reasonable and good solution is confinement in a pocket dimension or interdimensional or temporal or intertplanetary exile.

[OddHat]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

if it does, it would quickly go the Authority/Kingdom Come/Squadron Supreme/Days of Future Past route.

[snip]

You can certainly run a superhuman RP story here

[snip]

It can be done, and has been done well in genre, both in comics and RPG, but if one wants a more traditional setting, the ST must steer clear from the knife and butcher block when delaing with criminal supers.

 

I've snipped down to the parts I agree with; the other bits I'm OK with disagreeing on.

 

The system you decide on for holding Super-Criminals depends on the type of story you want to tell. If you want lower-tech but optimistic, by all means go for the more humane approaches. If you want a world where Super Criminals are "disapeared", and no one knows what happens to them beyond the government's cover stories, then you can go as severe as you'd like, and it becomes a plot point that some day the truth will come out. You can even run a world where everyone knows that captured Supers face torture and mutilation, with all the attendant conflict. These are some of the choices the ST has to make.

[Wanderer]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

I've snipped down to the parts I agree with; the other bits I'm OK with disagreeing on.

 

I'm fine with it, too

 

The system you decide on for holding Super-Criminals depends on the type of story you want to tell. If you want lower-tech but optimistic, by all means go for the more humane approaches. If you want a world where Super Criminals are "disapeared", and no one knows what happens to them beyond the government's cover stories, then you can go as severe as you'd like, and it becomes a plot point that some day the truth will come out. You can even run a world where everyone knows that captured Supers face torture and mutilation, with all the attendant conflict. These are some of the choices the ST has to make.

 

A and C are fine to me, provided the ST is aware of the kind of story he wants to run. About B, IMO it is only (barely) believable on a very short term basis, months at best. Afterwards, truth will unavoidably leak. It's a good optiont to run a story or two, not a setting assumption for an entire chronicle. (For a comparison, how much time it took for the truth about Abu Graib to circulate ? And it weren't human rights violations so severe as the ones we are discussing here). Any such a program affects hundreds, if not thousands, of very public figures, many of them with associates hell-bent to know (and spread) the truth. And unless society has devolved to full-fledged dictatorships, the very first whiff of government using torture, lobotomy and mutilation will raise newshounds, civil liberties and metahuman sympathetic groups on the government's track like hell. And if the government is dictatorial, then the setting is already effectively "X-Men vs. Sentinels" option C, supers at war with government, by another name (if nothing else because the vast majority of players would want to play super rebels in such a scenario).

[OddHat]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

A and C are fine to me, provided the ST is aware of the kind of story he wants to run. About B, IMO it is only (barely) believable on a very short term basis, months at best.

 

B would be for a V for Vendetta / Dark Knight / Defenders of the USSR type of game, where the PCs are either rebels or dupes who will learn the Hidden Truth.

[freakboy6117]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

no super tech how about this first you build the prison in the middle of no where surrounded by anti air craft systems tack on a few 20mm cannon etc to deal with the heavy hitters.

 

lace the building with ultra sonics and strobes these will disrupt the concentration of any mentalists engage them randomly through out the day.

 

finally if any one does escape have them hunted down by THE SCREW pretty much a basic martial brick with high mental and power defense regeneration and global range tracking sense he just keeps coming doesn't matter where you go where you hide eventually he will bust down your door crack your head and haul you back.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

I have to agree that simply executing/lobotomizing (both of which really mount IMO to death; lobotomization is simply the execution of one's personality) supervillains would have catastrophic effects on the willingness of supervillains to surrender. Hostages and killing potential witnesses would become a huge problem. You have to give them the option of surrendering. Knowing they'll be killed or lobotomized would make most supervillains fight to the death.

 

This is the same reason we don't execute kidnappers and child molesters/rapists anymore: Because when we did, they never left their victims alive. Why leave a potential witness alive to testify if your conviction means automatic death?

[Iuz the Evil]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Gotta say, if things go this way (a la 'forced lobotomization & surgical maiming') in an Iron Age style campaign, I'm pretty much lining up with the 'bad guys' lickety split. Then again, at that point I'm pretty clear the authorities ARE the 'bad guys' from a storyline PoV. And then it's going to depend a lot on what the campaign power level is.

 

EDIT: God help the authorities if they try this type of stuff in 'Seeds of Change'. /shudder

[lemming]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

In the universe I ran, superpowers came out during WWII. I had an english hero who had the ability to make things nigh invulnverable. Good for walls and such, not so much for machines. Had an inertial effect as well. (Forget the psuedo science for it...)

The germans had a version of cold sleep.

After the war cold sleep was usually used if the subject was of the non-brick like powers.

[Saxondog]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

Custom based on the super. Many bricks, martial types, mentalists, etc without lots of life support or swimming could just be lowered 2000' (or whatever is the limit these days) with a 6" x 12" tube connecting to the serface. MREs dropped down the tube 3 times a day. Sure, they can rip open the sub but ....... pressure is really bad down there. Add the swim time to the surface to weed out those who can take the crush and..... few escapes.

 

I suspect passenger service to orbiting platforms would be more common.

[yamamura]

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

 

A prison run by by a warden with powers and a staff also with powers and have it warded by magic and no tech need....