Camp 9

"... Many of you come here still hoping that you will somehow fool fate.​ That it will be different for you, that you will somehow make it out of here quickly​ and everything will be alright.​

''If so, I have one piece of advice for you. ​Leave these foolish, optimistic notions behind you at the gate.​ Your names, your lives, your families, none of these things matter here. You are just a number, the purpose of your existence is to suffer for your crimes.​ This isn't some holiday resort like Kessel.''​

This is Camp 9.​

This is where hope comes to die..."

General Information
Military Base Name: Officially, Special Detention Facility #9, although it is most often referred to as Camp 9, or Penal Colony 9

Classification: Triple-Maximum Security Prison

Location: Kalidan

Affiliation: Eternal Empire

Population
One of the most fortified penal facilities in the Eternal Empire, Camp 9 is heavily guarded at all times, with a large security garrison being present in order to deter any potential riots or escape attempts. The garrison consists of a number of different units. In addition to the security forces, a large cadre of officers and specialized personnel is also present. Overall, the ratio of personnel (including security forces) to inmates, is about one-to-one
 * One Ultranaut Regiment, regularly rotated
 * Additionally, a squad of Pyronauts is present at the facility at all times
 * Blackwatch, the Eternal Empire's secret police, maintains a large detachment of special security personnel, consisting of two companies
 * A team of Psi Corps Operatives is also stationed here 24/7, for the purposes of special interrogation, torture and secure communications

Demographics
Camp 9 houses a wide assortment of inmates, divided into several categories. The largest, by far, is the number of prisoners of war, which are housed here for the purpose of military experimentation, interrogation and for use as sacrifices in the dark rituals of the Empire's sorcerers and alchemists.

Another important category, are criminals and other detainees, usually awaiting trial or execution, which are held here until they can be processed by the imperial judicial system. Due to the harsh conditions at the facility, the cruel punishments regularly applied by the security personnel and the state's disregard for their wellbeing, it is estimated that a number between ten and thirty percent of these inmates, do not survive their detention.

Lastly, political prisoners and VIPs are also detained here, held in a special wing under constant monitoring and heavy surveillance. This category of inmates tends to suffer the worst conditions, being subjected to near round-the-clock torture ranging from physical and psychological, to supernatural, although special attention is sometimes paid to some of them, in order to insure their physical survival. Those who manage to survive their incarceration within this wing, tend to often emerge traumatized, suffering long-lasting consequences for the horrors to which they are subjected.

Description
Located near Kalidan's south pole, Camp 9 is an extremely isolated and remote facility, far away from any population centers and separated from the rest of the world by icy wastes and lifeless, radioactive zones. This location was not picked by accident, as the harsh conditions make it extremely unlikely for any convicts to make it far, even in the off-chance that they manage to escape the prison.

The detention facility is connected to the rest of the planet by a single road and railway line, access being possible only via truck, train or by shuttle and being located in the lowlands region of the planet, the base is subjected to the full fury of Kalidan's extremely harsh weather. Temperatures here rarely rise above minus thirty and can reach as low as sixty below zero and the facility is often hit by the super-blizzards that are so common in the lowlands, wind speeds regularly reaching up to six hundred kilometers per hour, making access by speeder nearly impossible and requiring the use of heavy transport trucks specially designed to cope with the harsh meteorological conditions. Description: Built around a layout which resembles the classic star forts of antiquity, Camp 9 is an unusual facility as far as imperial fortifications go, in the sense that it is built out in the lowlands near the south pole of the planet, unlike the far more common bases and settlements that are built up in the mountains, where they are sheltered from the super-blizzards which scour the open plains.

Thick, sloping walls built to withstand the brunt of the immensely powerful winds of the super-blizzards, surround an inner compound of squat, sturdy duracrete prisoner wards, storehouses, garrages, barracks and armories arrayed in a circle around a small hangar facility for shuttles, which also serves as the access point into the base, as the only way in and out other than via the shuttles, is through a tunnel which contains both a road and a railway line, that runs between the hangar facility and the northernmost outer wall.

For security reasons, the tunnel is separated into several segments by a series of checkpoints, massive blast doors and guard posts which are dispersed evenly throughout its entire length. It is under constant heavy guard against both internal and external threats and for security reasons, no more than one set of blast doors is allowed to stay open at any time, requiring each arriving and departing vehicle to undergo a lengthy series of searches and procedures at each checkpoint along the way, before being allowed to pass through.

Large, well-lit open courtyards divided by electrified razor-wire fences separate the buildings of the inner compound, which are constantly watched by the many heavily-armed soldiers manning the numerous guard towers interspersed throughout the compound.

Perimeter Wall
For dual purposes of security and protection against the extreme weather of the planet's lowlands region, Camp 9 is surrounded by a massive, thick perimeter wall. The outermost edge of the wall is sloped at a 75% angle in order to deflect the force of the wind, a vital characteristic during the super-blizzards which can engulf the planet, as gales of wind can regularly reach speeds of up to six hundred kilometers per hour. The foundations of the wall are dug deep into the bedrock, supporting the massive edifice with the added benefit of making attempts to tunnel out of the prison extremely difficult and unlikely.

Laid out in the rough shape of a four-pointed star, with bastions extruding from the corners to maximize firing angles and eliminate blind spots, the colossal wall is lined with watch towers, defensive emplacements and guard posts both on the inside and the outside. Heavy armament is spread out along the wall, both to deter potential invaders such as the roving tribes of raiders which eke out a meager survival on the planet and to defend against the fairly frequent attacks by wild Tyrant Dragons, which plague the planet ever since the nuclear war that decimated most of its civilization and destroyed its ecology.

Within the wall itself, which is mostly solid duracrete with heavy reinforcements and armor plating fashioned out of Impervium-334, a kind of durasteel alloy usually reserved for starship construction, there is a network of tunnels, storage facilities, garages, armories and barracks which are separate from the facilities of the inner compound for security reasons. The facilities built into the wall house the base's regiment of Ultranauts and are connected to the rest of the base via a tunnel which links into the hangar bay that forms the central hub of the prison, allowing for the quick deployment of reinforcements, should a prison riot successfully overpower the Blackwatch personnel guarding the inner facility.

Central Hub
Located at the center of the base sits a larger building which serves as a hangar bay that can house shuttles or small freighters, beneath which are loading docks and processing facilities for the single rail and road connection to the outside world. The hub is the only means by which access to Camp 9's other facilities is possible, which are laid out like the spokes of a wheel around this central building.

Beneath the building, two tunnels go off in diverging directions, one connecting the hub to the other facilities located within the wall, while the main tunnel passes under it and leads to the outside world. Both tunnels feature a series of massive blast doors, of which only one set per tunnel is allowed to be open at any given time, forcing each incoming and departing vehicle to perform several stops as the doors behind close and the ones in front open. Multiple heavily armed checkpoints are dispersed throughout these tunnels, which are manned by a heavy guard presence and vehicles are thoroughly searched at each one, to insure no contraband is smuggled in and no intrepid convicts attempt to smuggle themselves out. There have been multiple escape attempts through this route and as of yet, none have been successful.

Detention Facilities
Inside the walls of the base and spread out around the central hub, there is a collection of squat duracrete buildings which house the various facilities of the prison proper. The largest of these buildings, are the inmate wards themselves, along with the guard barracks, but there are also garages, offices and housing and medical facilities for other base personnel.

The buildings are separated by wide, well-lit courtyards which are partitioned off by electrified razor wire fences, with guard posts and checkpoints at the entrances and heavily armed guards constantly monitoring from the watchtowers peppered throughout. Conditions within the detention facilities are extremely harsh, the cells being small, damp, dark and cold, the inmates being frequently afflicted by disease due to this, the slop which they are given as food and the lack of medical care awarded to them, except in the form of a blaster bolt to the head, if an inmate becomes too ill. Resources within the Eternal Empire are carefully rationed due to their scarcity and criminals are not considered priority recepients of medicine and food by the government, especially since most of them are only here for brief periods, either awaiting trial, or execution, the exception being prisoners of war, which are held here for the purpose of experimentation and use as sacrifices in the rituals of the Empire's sorcerers.

Interrogation chambers also exist in great numbers and inmates are tortured daily by means of various electronic devices, as well as, on occasion, by supernatural means by the Psi Corps operatives stationed at this base.

A special, 'VIP' detention ward exists separately from the facilities which house the other inmates, intended for political prisoners and high-value individuals such as captured enemy officials. Condition within this VIP ward are even worse than in the facilities dedicated to regular inmates. Those detained here, are tortured nearly around the clock, receive almost no food and water and are under constant, heavy guard by trigger-happy Blackwatch security personnel who will not hesitate to administer brutal beatings at the first sign of behavior they forbid, such as talking. For those incarcerated here, the odds of survival decrease dramatically with each passing day and very few who spend more than a few months here, make it out alive.

Other buildings include a number of medical labs, if they could be could be called that, where prisoners of war are experimented on by military personnel and sorcerers, who frequently test new chemical weapons on them, or attempt to develop new kinds of Sithspawn and push the limits of Sith Alchemy and Necromancy. Captured Jedi are especially likely to be selected for these experiments and usually suffer horrific and gruesome ends and the hands of their tormentors.

Pre-War Ruins
Situated roughly a hundred kilometers north-west of the prison facility, lies a ruined city that is partially encased in a glacier. Although its name has been lost to history, the city bears the hallmark architecture of the Tygerii civilization which existed on the planet in the days before the War of False Tyrants. Despite the fact that very little historical information exists about this ruined city, the cause of its demise was easy to deduce, the high radioactivity of the ruins being a smoking blaster pointing to this city being annihilated in the nuclear exchange which devastated the planet.

Further exploration of the ruins has been proposed several times, but the harsh weather conditions, high levels of radiation and the infestation of these ruins by Tyrant Dragons, make any prospective expeditions extremely dangerous. This, along with a low priority given by the government to the excavation of ruins deemed unimportant and the remoteness of these ruins, has caused them to remain mostly untouched.

Defenses
Security Rating: Maximum - Special Detention Facility #9 is officially listed as a triple-maximum security prison within the records of the Kalidani government. As such, it has formidable defenses and a large contingent of troops. In addition to the soldiers, the base is protected by an impressive array of heavy weapons. The base also contains one of the shield generators for the Arx Aeterna-class planetary shield which surrounds Kalidan.
 * 1x Ultranaut Regiment
 * 1x Squad of Pyronauts
 * 2x Blackwatch Death Squad Companies (200 Soldiers)
 * 2x Psi Corps Operatives
 * Hypervelocity Cannons
 * Heavy Turbolasers
 * KC-208 'Phalanx' Cruise Missile Launch Tubes
 * KT-505 'Tigris' Repeating Turbolasers
 * Ion Cannons
 * KC-101 'Basilisk' Interceptor Missile Launchers
 * Laser Cannons
 * Flak Batteries
 * KC-M5 Heavy Machineguns and KC-249 General Purpose Repeating Blasters mounted in fixed positions within defense towers or bastions extruding from the walls
 * Base Shield Generator

The relatively nearby pre-war ruins are also infested by Tyrant Dragons, which are extremely aggressive and dangerous and may attack unprepared assault forces, although they pose a similar hazard to the base defenders as well.

History
As attested by ruins discovered in the area, the history of the southern polar region of Kalidan begins with the initial Tygerii colonists which first settled the planet. Although the exact details have been lost to time, it is clear that at some point, the colonists expanded their civilization south, likely for the purpose of exploiting the marine life which existed here, before the nuclear winter caused much of the planet's water to freeze and the ocean levels to drop, turning the region into a barren, frozen desert.

Once the Tygerii colonists split into three factions, in the decades leading up to the War of False Tyrants, the region came under the control of the Rivain Hegemony, one of the three great houses involved in the apocalyptic conflict, which led scholars to conclude that the ruined city discovered nearby, must have belonged to them.

When the cataclysmic conflict known as the War of False Tyrants erupted, the southern polar region found itself the target of numerous nuclear strikes, likely due to the high population density which the planet's southern hemisphere had at the time. Although the planet never truly recovered from the nuclear winter caused by that catastrophic war, the southern hemisphere has fared much worse than the north. Consisting of mostly flat, open flood plains which likely saw massive tides due to the gravitational influence of the asteroid ring orbiting the planet, the southern hemisphere dried up when the sea levels dropped due to glaciers trapping most of the planet's water in ice, leaving a greatly diminished ocean behind and a frozen wasteland beyond it, which is swept by frequent super-blizzards which have discouraged any attempts at resettling, following the war.

In recent years, the arrival of the Eternal Empire has succeeded to do what the War of False Tyrants failed to accomplish, unifying the planet under a single, centralized government. This new government's harsh, totalitarian policies have led to the decision to construct a well-defended and isolated penal facility to hold prisoners of war, political dissidents and detainees awaiting trial or execution.

During the initial survey, several potential locations were evaluated, those initial explorations leading to the discovery of pre-war ruins in the area, although the high population of Tyrant Dragons and the levels of radiation have, so far, proven to be an obstacle in the path of any effort to excavate the ancient city.

The construction of the facility was extremely difficult and came with a high cost in lives lost to accidents, the weather or attacks by Tyrant Dragons, although with the resources of the now-unified planet pouring into it, the project was eventually completed, establishing a permanent settlement of sorts in the region, for the first time in the centuries since the cataclysmic war which devastated the planet.

Since its construction, Special Detention Facility #9, or Camp 9 as it has become more commonly known, has gained a sinister reputation as one of the worst prisons in the entire galaxy, with the harsh conditions and treatment of the inmates leading to a very high mortality rate amongst those unfortunate enough to find themselves incarcerated there, even for the brief periods of time for which most prisoners are held by the Eternal Empire's judicial system, which does not employ imprisonment as a punishment, preferring torture and executions instead. The exception to this, are prisoners of war, captured enemy officials and dissidents guilty of 'political crimes against the state', which are held here for indefinite periods of time, most of them never making it out alive again.

Rumors have also begun to circulate about the existence of 'medical' and sorcerous laboratories at the facility, where long-term detainees are supposedly experimented on in horrific ways, or used as sacrifices in dark rituals to create Sithspawn and other atrocious weapons that the militaristic state employs in its various conflicts, special attention supposedly being given to captured Jedi.

To this day, there have been numerous escape attempts at the facility, although none have been successful as of yet, or at least none that are known of, as the prison's records are highly classified and closely guarded secrets of the imperial government.