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Who wants to see a Sci fi prison show with aliens.

Want it?

  • Yes with aliens

    Votes: 8 44.4%
  • Yes, no aliens

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Not with aliens

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Just no.

    Votes: 10 55.6%

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .
I'm not sure a Space Alien Prison could maintain a whole Series. There's been many episodes of Space Operas or movies set in prisons with Aliens, and that works fine, but, pushing the premise beyond a single episode/Movie/storyline seems like it could run out of juice, really quick.

Place the prison in a space station orbiting a dead world. The world has ruins and digs trying to unearth the secrets of the long dead civilization. The prison population is used as labor.

You have your prison gangs, human supremacists, alien gangs, etc. The pilot can show an uprising on the station and the warden deals with it by purging the air and opening the cell block to space.

The inevitable escape plot will be hatched. Some convicts will want to know what is on the world, and if it is valuable.

Think of it as the anti-Babylon 5.
Sure, but, how long can you keep it in the prison? Once you escape, it's no longer a Space Prison show. Even Prison Break couldn't stay inside the Prison Walls beyond about 20 episodes, I believe
 
I'm not sure a Space Alien Prison could maintain a whole Series. There's been many episodes of Space Operas or movies set in prisons with Aliens, and that works fine, but, pushing the premise beyond a single episode/Movie/storyline seems like it could run out of juice, really quick.

Place the prison in a space station orbiting a dead world. The world has ruins and digs trying to unearth the secrets of the long dead civilization. The prison population is used as labor.

You have your prison gangs, human supremacists, alien gangs, etc. The pilot can show an uprising on the station and the warden deals with it by purging the air and opening the cell block to space.

The inevitable escape plot will be hatched. Some convicts will want to know what is on the world, and if it is valuable.

Think of it as the anti-Babylon 5.
Sure, but, how long can you keep it in the prison? Once you escape, it's no longer a Space Prison show. Even Prison Break couldn't stay inside the Prison Walls beyond about 20 episodes, I believe
Prison Break was only good and had the right amount of tension while they were in prison.
 
I'm not sure a Space Alien Prison could maintain a whole Series. There's been many episodes of Space Operas or movies set in prisons with Aliens, and that works fine, but, pushing the premise beyond a single episode/Movie/storyline seems like it could run out of juice, really quick.

Place the prison in a space station orbiting a dead world. The world has ruins and digs trying to unearth the secrets of the long dead civilization. The prison population is used as labor.

You have your prison gangs, human supremacists, alien gangs, etc. The pilot can show an uprising on the station and the warden deals with it by purging the air and opening the cell block to space.

The inevitable escape plot will be hatched. Some convicts will want to know what is on the world, and if it is valuable.

Think of it as the anti-Babylon 5.
Sure, but, how long can you keep it in the prison? Once you escape, it's no longer a Space Prison show. Even Prison Break couldn't stay inside the Prison Walls beyond about 20 episodes, I believe

You assume the escape will be successful. A prison show should be about the society that develops behind bars. I never watched Prison Break, so I can't say what did or didn't happen there.
 
Prison Break was about a guy (Michael Scofield) who deliberately gets sent to prison so he can bust out his brother who is on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Michael comes up with an elaborate escape scheme that has contingencies on top of contingencies, and to remember it all, he has the details coded in a full-body tattoo.

The first season was a minor masterpiece as the plan unfolded. In the second season, the gang of good guys and miscreants that Michael assembled for the break-out is on the run, and it was still fun but not nearly as clever. After that, the show got steadily worse. So it was never really about the society in the prison - that's more Oz's thing.
 
I wonder whAt species SHOULD THE GUARDS BELONG In SUCH A PRISon.

I mean different aliens, different challenges.
 
The guards should be androids so that they have no loyalty to any of the species in the prison. Or, there could be a species for which crime is simply unthinkable, and the guards come from that species.
 
The guards should be androids so that they have no loyalty to any of the species in the prison. Or, there could be a species for which crime is simply unthinkable, and the guards come from that species.

The guards should be nanites. Monitored by overseers outside the cell blocks, these nanites are injected into each inmate upon arrival.

They track location, allow for language translation, check physical well-being, and possibly emotional state. And if necessary they can attempt to take control of an inmate, to either subdue him/her, or use the inmate to perform a beat-down to suppress another inmates actions.

There would probably be blind spots where the nanites don't function, and wouldn't function outside the confines of the prison station at all.

Cell blocks would also be configured to house inmates of specific atmospheres and gravity, so one race of guard would be impractical.
 
Good idea with the nanites. This being TV, ideally there should be a way to visualize/personalize the nanites so they are more than just some unseen entity. Perhaps that's the job of the actors - under certain conditions, the nanites are "authorized" to totally take over the inmate and then they begin behaving strikingly differently. There are legal and moral barriers to doing this all the time, but it might be necessary in case of break-out, prison riot, etc.

Or: the nanites could assemble themselves to mimic any species. Maybe there's one species that is known for being authoritative and intimidating. Or maybe species are more likely to recognize the authority of their own species vs other species or artificial life forms. It could be that the prisoners are unaware that the guards are artificial life forms.
 
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