[Near Space] Daegox 4 Quandaries and Thoughts

[Metaphysician]

So, reading through Near Space, and looking at Daegox 4. . . okay, the first thought I have is that the Daegox Corporation absolutely does *not* meet the minimum ethical standards for a prison operation. "Send people to the prison planet" is certainly genre appropriate, but the fact that children of prisoners are also prisoners, into perpetuity? Not so much, such that anyone with a "G" in their alignment should not be doing business with Daegox.

Now, this is not actually a problem for the setting. There are plenty of governments and other organizations which would find no moral issue with sending Daegox their castoffs and condemning countless unborn generations too. As long as one keeps in mind that this means the Daegox Corporation is terrible, this can work fine. However, aside from the moral issues, it also brings up a *pragmatic* issue: population growth. The more time passes, the more the "inmate count" of Daegox 4 will grow, especially since the environment of Daegox 4 mitigates against high rates of prisoner violence. Eventually, the count of Daegox 4 residents who are native born will vastly exceed any plausible prisoner intake rate. That is a lot of prisoners for the corporation to have to manage, even with their various means to keep involvement down, and would seem to make the whole thing way too expensive to be worth it.

. . . assuming, that is, that Daegox's long term goal *is* "Make money by running a prison". What if "take prisoners from other governments" is not actually the long term goal? Rather, the Daegox Corporation has a long term goal of "Colonize planets". By running a prison, they get colonists for their new colony, and get *paid* to accept them. Newly acquired prisoners are, of course, feisty and problematic, but that is why the system is designed to encourage good behavior via transfer to looser, semi-self governing portions of the "prison": its designed to transition the majority of prisoners from "inmate" into "subject". Advance forward several generations, and you have an entire populace that is acclimated to living under a broadly authoritarian regime, and for whom that's normal and workable.

Long story short: Daegox's multigenerational prison sentences aren't utter callousness. They are the secret point, so that Daegox Correctional Services can transform into The Daegox Empire.

[Garretmander]

Metaphysician wrote:

So, reading through Near Space, and looking at Daegox 4. . . okay, the first thought I have is that the Daegox Corporation absolutely does *not* meet the minimum ethical standards for a prison operation. "Send people to the prison planet" is certainly genre appropriate, but the fact that children of prisoners are also prisoners, into perpetuity? Not so much, such that anyone with a "G" in their alignment should not be doing business with Daegox.

Now, this is not actually a problem for the setting. There are plenty of governments and other organizations which would find no moral issue with sending Daegox their castoffs and condemning countless unborn generations too. As long as one keeps in mind that this means the Daegox Corporation is terrible, this can work fine. However, aside from the moral issues, it also brings up a *pragmatic* issue: population growth. The more time passes, the more the "inmate count" of Daegox 4 will grow, especially since the environment of Daegox 4 mitigates against high rates of prisoner violence. Eventually, the count of Daegox 4 residents who are native born will vastly exceed any plausible prisoner intake rate. That is a lot of prisoners for the corporation to have to manage, even with their various means to keep involvement down, and would seem to make the whole thing way too expensive to be worth it.

. . . assuming, that is, that Daegox's long term goal *is* "Make money by running a prison". What if "take prisoners from other governments" is not actually the long term goal? Rather, the Daegox Corporation has a long term goal of "Colonize planets". By running a prison, they get colonists for their new colony, and get *paid* to accept them. Newly acquired prisoners are, of course, feisty and problematic, but that is why the system is designed to encourage good behavior via transfer to looser, semi-self governing portions of the "prison": its designed to transition the majority of prisoners from "inmate" into "subject". Advance forward several generations, and...

That sounds like an adventure path right there.

[Ixal]

As long as a large part of the inmates you get are genetically compatible and you can ensure a good male-female ratio it sounds like a good racket.

[Ascalaphus]

Or they just need lots of sapient sacrifices..

[avr]

Prisoners can have a positive value to the imprisoning organisation IRL. Exponential growth becomes a feature rather than a bug if so.

[Metaphysician]

avr wrote:

Prisoners can have a positive value to the imprisoning organisation IRL. Exponential growth becomes a feature rather than a bug if so.

Oh, true. Its just that, in the case of Daegox, past a certain point they gain all their value from their not-really-prisoners, to the point that continuing to pretend they are in the business of running a prison kind of becomes impossible.