Lore

The Golden Planet

Facility

People were too afraid to act out, to rebel, because the guards had no programming for emotion or sympathy. They did not go beyond their basic functions: to escort the prisoners through The Facility and monitor them for any signs of hostility. Hostility equaled being restrained and being restrained meant it would hurt like hell. Those metal monsters that called themselves guards could crush a human arm as easily as if it were a loaf of bread. And it didn't matter to the warden because the prisoner could be patched up again. Fixing broken bones was cheap, altering memory was even cheaper. The annual assessment of the facilities conditions was always superficial; they flipped through records, matched files to faces and made sure the inmates were intact. If anything was obviously amiss then they ran the risk of violating universally accepted human rights standards, and because of that, they didn't look at any one thing too closely. The warden was the only administrator that could have been considered inherently evil. He was the only non-machine with administrative duties and enjoyed seeing reports of inmate injuries, always making sure he had at least one monitor tuned into the surgery room's feed. At least that's what Neil had heard in the holding cells before he had been assigned. Returning offenders would scare new inmates with stories of robots ripping through bodies and crushing prisoners who refused to obey. Neil had listened to these with skepticism. Even though it had been centuries since its conception, the eighth amendment still stood for the most part, especially now that it was part of the universal creed. And he had been partially right, the guards in the facility weren't aware of the harm they were caused when they restrained people. Unlike The Facilities robotic doctors and nurses who were designed to have gentler handling of the body, the guards were made to restrict even the strongest inmates.

The Facility spanned across the entire planet. It would have been the largest prison in existence if it weren't for it being the only prison. Boasting a population of two billion - about a 30th of the galaxy's inhabitants - it held criminals, the extremely dysfunctional, the mentally ill and every other population that interfered or deterred their planet's peaceful and fast paced lifestyles.
The Facility's criminal population was the only one which actually had to live in prison like conditions; the other populations lived in other branches of the behemoth building, branches which were purportedly virtual Edens. Neil didn't resent them for it, they occupied this cast off planet because of reasons out of their control. He on the other hand had clearly committed a crime, and understanding that there'd be repercussions for his actions had begun preparing for them days before he had committed the crime.

He resented the facility itself with its mass murderers, smugglers, human traffickers, and his first night after he had been assigned had been hell. He remembered feeling sick with the presence of so many robots around, feeling irritated by the clinical smell of the facility and feeling disgusted by the taste of the suspicious pill he hadn't swallowed. The robots had then tried to forcibly make him swallow it but had broken his jaw in the process, resulting in him being sent to the surgery room, an experience he never wanted repeat again. He had lain in bed that night in a fetal position, crying and hating everything and everyone in The Facility, but trying not to because it would mean a visit from the guards. He dreamt of sunlight and diamonds that night, and saw the shining mineral sparkling in his mothers eyes.

Dining area

The men ate in forced calm, regulating their breathing, measuring their bites. That was one of the things that got to him, they all had to sit together during meal times, work alongside each other and during recreation they had to find ways to interact without speaking to one another. This was the silent compound. They could use their telepathic interfaces but that type of sharing was too intimate for strangers and too uncomfortable to consider using long term. So for the most part, they served their sentences quietly, allowed only to hear the luxury of other voices through the broadcasting screens and the only time that they heard their own was when they were back in their soundproofed cells. It seemed so childish, the enforcement of what they had once called the silent treatment, but it served a purpose. It kept the prisoners from inciting violence through verbal harassment and distanced them from each other. It tortured by denying them the chance to interact with something that wasn't a machine and made them more introspective. This treatment only lasted half their sentence after which they were moved into the rehabilitative part of the facility, where inmates interacted with each other with an unnatural degree of verbosity and politeness, as if words were as precious as water and could run out at any moment. Breaking away from his depressing reverie after seeing a guard inching toward him, Neil slipped onto one of the benches and laid out his tray in front of him, today's breakfast consisted of dried apple slices, water. He slowly gave the guard a thumbs up - any faster and his movements would be interpreted as hostile and he did not want to start off his day with broken arm...again. He scanned his eyes along the other benches; a jumpy inmate with nervous pale blue eyes had sectioned himself off in one corner away from the others and he was eating too quickly, two guards were hovering next to him, one with its hand on his shoulder, ready to disable him if he got too panicky. Another inmate was watching him with a cruel smile tugging at his lips - there were malicious types everywhere, but in prison they came at a surplus; along the side of the room one guy was sitting against the wall with a vacant happy expression on his face; he was the same one who had jumped onto one of the guards as it weaved between the tables on patrol, and now, judging from his expression, his mind had been with tampered with. They had probably prodded his amygdala and affected other parts of the brain in the process. Despite all their advancements, all the technology that they could implant into their bodies, the mind was the one thing that refused to give up all its secrets. Even the telepathic interface only relayed unspoken thoughts but it couldn't for example, access a person's memories - a thing that had frustrated peace councils as they tried to give fair trials but were limited to gathering physical evidence. They wanted to understand the intentions that motivated people to commit crimes but with just a person's personal history and own words, they couldn't form a reasonable defense and even after the offender had served their sentence, the council couldn't be sure of whether criminal intent had fully been purged during then offenders time at The Facility. You could wipe a person's mind, but not completely, and you couldn't be sure whether they would behave once they were free. Neil looked at his empty tray, the smell of Nutella lingered, hanging onto the crumbs like algae in a pool. Speaking of algae, he hoped seaweed wasn't a menu option for lunch, the stuff was still foreign to him, despite being one of earths main food exports along with dried fish. He idly played with the crumbs until it was time, then he stood and followed the group to the work stations.