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"My feeling is that the chance of our surviving into the twenty-first century as working civilization is less than fifty percent but greater than zero."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Orbiting Penal Colony | ||
| A prison placed in orbit (better than Alcatraz). |
Better than an island prison? Given that space travel is not an easy option for anyone, you would just need to control ship access very carefully. Then, relax; where can they go? Alcatraz was created with a similar idea in mind; put the prison in some sort of void that is difficult to traverse (San Francisco bay). Of course, the ultimate island prison - Australia.
| Up in the orbiting penal colony he slept, unaware of anything. Time had passed, days and weeks and then months and years, and he kept sleeping that long sleep. Suspended in a coffin like plastic cubicle in the great orbiting prison that passed endlessly around the Earth, passing over Greater Los Angeles again and again. |
| Technovelgy from Tekwar,
by William Shatner. Published by Ace/Putnam in 1989 Additional resources -
|
Forced hibernation added to the security; prisoners can't riot or harm each other if they are asleep.
Compare to the asteroid prison from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson, the Alcatraz of Space from Reunion on Ganymede (1938) by Clifford Simak, the Moon as prison from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert Heinlein, zero-time jail from A World Out of Time (1976) by Larry Niven and Brainlock from Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson.
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'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
'Then she looked up with a smile and moved closer to the camera.'
