[belaran]

Hi,

So I'm preparing a "prison break" scenario, where my team of player is going to free a lieutenant of Nightmare, the Helloweener gang leader, from one of Seattle's prison. The lieutenant happens to be a mage, which made me think ... how do you actually put a mage in prison ?

Is there anykind of securtiy tools (handcuffs) that prevent magic to be use ? What about invoking spirits ? Astral confiment is fairly easy to implements with wards, which are anyway needed to keep both astral-capable prisonners in, and intruders doing reckon from the outside, but except for that, I'm a bit clueless on how does Lone Star (or other security corp) actually managed to get mage "under control".

Back in 2nd, I'm pretty sure this was covered by either the Lone Star guide or the Corporate Security Guidebook, but I don't have them handy

[farothel]

in 4th edition you had magecuffs (block astral projection by shocking a target back in his body) and a magemask (mages need line of sight, so block that and they can't do much, mostly used for short-term imprisonment).  They are in Arsenal p66 (I'm not sure if I can copy the information here so I won't).

[Herr Brackhaus]

Page 214 and 215 of Street Grimoire deals with mystic restraints such as the magecuff and magemask.

[belaran]

OK, but those are "short term" solution. I know Shadowrun universe is not "nice", but does really Lone Star commit Mage with "full time" Magemask ? Is there somekind of "anitmagic" spells than can cast and set like a ward ? (or something else)

(btw, thanks, magemask and magecuff are already a nice piece of info I had overlooked)

[Jack_Spade]

The Manastatic spell can drastically increase the background count in a given area, making casting attempts hard. Magecuffs that deliver a severe shock whenever the mana sensitive bacteria register active magic should be enough in most cases since the mage will likely go unconscious before he can do anything constructive.

[belaran]

Ok, so a prison section, designed to hold mage criminal would have probably a ankle monitor version of the magecuffs, and semi permanent manastatic cast on the premise. Plus ward, but more to prevent intruders from getting in the zone... Anything else ?

[Jack_Spade]

A bound spirit with counterspell ability or just a bunch of watchers to detect any spell casting attempts surely wouldn't be out of place.

[belaran]

Never realized some spirit had counterspell, good to know. And agreed, the prison would be on watch with many spirits, ordered to immediatly reports (and stop) any magical activity on prisonner behalf.

[farothel]

Since there are very few mages in the Shadowrun, I assume that the number of long-term magical prisoners is rather low.  So for instance for the UCAS one prison on a location with a very high background count can also work.  For instance mages could be shipped to an orbital facility.
And maybe UCAS and CAS (and some of the megas) work together on this (to reduce costs of course).

[belaran]

Yep, I am probably going to rule out that only the prison on the Outremer Island (forgot the name) has indeed "mage capacity". It would indeed make sense that with mage/shaman/adept being 1 to 3% of the population, only one (or two) jails has the facility to store "awakaned criminal".

That being said, magecuffs doing most fo the job, an awakened could be temporarly stored anywhere.

[Reaver]

Traditionally, any mage that is convicted and senctenced to a long term stay at a correction facility is burned out through the use of drugs and surgery.

Mages ARE constantly armed if allowed to keep their magic abilities, thus any that get sent "up river" are usually burned out for the protection of everyone else.

Short term stays are generally done through the constaint use of mage cuffs and a mage mask, with their celks equiped with lights and sound generators to keep them constantly disorentated... (but this is only for stays of less then a couple months.)


And it was the 2nd edition Lone Star book that covered this all before. (Cause you asked )

[Herr Brackhaus]

What Reaver said. And if you think that sounds harsh, keep in mind that heavily augmented individuals get their implants removed for long-term stays.

[MijRai]

For those who don't forcibly burn out their prisoners (for whatever reason), there's other options; building their Awakened prisons on Mana lines is a good example.  Blackstone Prison is in Sioux lands.  That prison is a kilometer-wide Rating 16 Mana Warp known for causing severe psychological trauma to non-Awakened staff if over-exposed.  The inmates are probably worse off. 

The humanity/morality of either option is arguable.  Keeping them magically intact makes them useful at a later point, however.  Even if they're insane. 

[Tym Jalynsfein]

Well, to be honest, knock 'em out (a VR Environment) and keep them knocked out, along with Ankle Mage Cuff. Put 'em in a Matrix Prison and never let them leave the Matrix for the duration of their stay. Small nursing staff to keep them clean and attended too, and never worry about them breaking out.

Of course, Forcible Burnout is the other method of choice.  

[belaran]

And it was the 2nd edition Lone Star book that covered this all before. (Cause you asked )

Nostalgia:On
I knew it must have been in this one ! Gosh I remember when I tried to find the Lone Star Guide back in the day. Somehow, it never reached France, and it quickly went out of print (or whatev). I found it in some shop several years ago, when I was not playing Shadowrun anymore - but I still bought it.

I have to finish reading all the 5ed material, I have, but as soon as I'm done, I'm going to go back to some "oldies" like this one...
Nostalgia:Off

OK, so let me share a bit more about my intrigue, that might help skew the answers (and hopefully gave me some more cool tips) in the right direction. The imprisoned Halloweener Mage has just been arrested, so he is definitely in temporary custody for trial (so he is not burned out yet). He is actually the only one who knows where is a Yakusa Oyabun or Mafia Don (to be determined) now place in Witness Protection.

The runner employers actually want to extract this guy, thanks to the Info of the Halloweener Mage, to use him as leverage against his criminal organisation ("if you don't comply, the guy will reappears and testify against you...").

Back to the technical details of the Mage incarceration. I like the idea of having him wired to VR, on top of Magecuffs, as it seems a good idea to (cheaply) ensure he is harmless. However, I also want to leave the option for my character to simply infiltrate the prison and extract the information from him...

Actually, maybe they could do that by infiltering the "off line" node he is connected to ? He, he, good stuff