How do you think a high security area - in this particular instance a jail - would ensure they don't go postal? In my universe, approximately 1% of the population possesses some form of basic elemental manipulation - think Avatar for the closest approximation. You can confiscate somebody's gun in a jail without running afoul of the 2nd, but you can't exactly remove someone's superpowers short of lobotomizing them. You can't let a fire-slinger run around willy-nilly, but you can't ban superhumans from basic governmental institutions either. So how do you think an alternate modern USA with superhumans would solve this issue?
To be honest I think they'd either be put to death or put in some sort of frozen state because how could you control them? Someone with the ability to superheat metal - no lock could keep him in, ditto someone frozen. If they could stop bullets, no gun would threaten them and you'd have to have someone superior constantly stopping them/watching them. He couldn't watch a thousand men constantly testing their abilities. It's bad enough when ordinary men commit crimes but men with abilities. That's a whole new level of evil. Imagine how crime would elevate, even the small stuff like cops being called to a domestic. Maybe if they had some band - kinda like the house arrest thing that nullified their powers.
That's a classic explanation, but the problem in my setting is, they don't know how powers actually work. Symbiotes in their bloodstream were put there by aliens, and the symbiotes draw from extra-dimensional energy, but no one knows that, it's just speculation. So I'm not sure how they'd come up with a way to nullify powers.
1% of the population means there's seventy-seven million super people in the world. That's plenty for the government to just create a security firm or military branch that hires super people, who would in turn be the guards/overseers/police for other supers. If some prisoner decides he's John Wick with fireballs and tries to set his cell on fire, there'll be ten rent-a-guards there to open the earth up around him until he calms down. Also, they'd probably have special elemental cells, like pools or airless rooms, to keep supers from using their powers. Also, the world is basically a digitally enforced police state- credit cards and flying drones with face recognition technology and website logs all linked to worldwide personnel databases- so supers would be 100% monitored at all times through their cellphone GPSs and cameras.
whats the source of their power? if we're using Avatar as a closest example... the waterbenders were strongest on a full moon. The firebenders draw their power from the sun. Earthbenders were imprisoned on a metal ship with no earth to bend. Even Superman gets stronger when he is closest to the sun (Batman/Superman: Apocalypse). I think, once the government knows their weaknesses/source of their power, it would become relatively easy to nullify it. A fire starter who gets his power from sunlight would be locked in a room with artificial light, for example. If Batman has taught me anything, is that superhumans are not super invisible; everything has a weakness that can be exploited
Perhaps I should elaborate further. My MC is a bounty hunter who is bringing a skip into a county jail. She's a photokinetic mutant though, and therefore a walking hazard. I imagine the deputies want to disarm her inside the jail just to be on the safe side.
Iron Man and Dr. Strange have taught me that to be superhuman, you need: a) Lots of money b) a moustache
Maybe a way to preserve the mystery of the symbiotes while still having an old and reliable nullifier is some sort of metal? I'm thinking the symbiotes maybe react oddly to a very specific metal, like the atomic structure interferes with their connection to their home dimension or some such. No one would know why it works, just that it works. Not sure which metal though. Something mildly radioactive?
How long have the aliens been visiting earth? Could they have been the basis of various mythological creatures? That would allow you to use some folklore weaknesses like silver, or running water ect. If not, I would go for the plastic walled bubble in a vacuum.
They got kicked off the planet ~30,000 years ago. But I do like the silver idea, since they did in fact form the basis of myths. Not sure the scientific justification though...
The government would either develop something to suppress their powers or build special wings of prisons specifically for certain abilities to be held there. So someone who controls fire would be placed in a completely fire resistant environment. Think tempered layered glass and metal or other heat resistant materials. Someone who controls water would be best placed in a prison of glass. Glass doesn't rust or rot when in contact with water. It only gets mouldy. If it's only 1% of the population then they wouldn't bother building an entire holding site specifically for powered individuals, they'd just build specialised wings in preexisting prisons and keep the inmates separated.
Hey folks, after a bit of thinking, I'm going to roll with the silver idea. I think it adds a nice bit of mysticism to a modern setting. Apparently the whole thing of silver having evil-warding properties comes from it being a strong anti-microbial, which dovetails nicely with my setting's explanation of powers. Maybe the deputies force her to wear a locked silver bracelet or some such?
That seems like a decent solution, especially in the context of how it relates to your MC, though some people might have the skill-set to break out of them and forcing a superpowered character into one could be tricky. When it comes to keeping prisoners in line, some sort of silver implant or lacing food/drink with trace amounts of silver might be more reliable. If you take silver's properties further and say these powers can't influence silver objects at all...that opens up some interesting possibilities. Especially related to how governments and normal people could counter superpowers. You could also take a multilayered approach to security. So for this prison, maybe: Superpowered visitors are asked to put on a silver bracelet/collar/whatever for safety reasons and denied entry if they refuse. Superpowered prisoners have their food and drink laced with some sort of drug. These prisoners are fitted with silver collars or bracelets or implants in case they realize they're being drugged and stop eating to try and get around it. Guards are equipped with special silver-coated ammunition in the event that prisoners get around the other failsafes and try to escape.
You should watch the TV series Powers, it deals with exactly this scenario. People with superpowers are required to register with the government and forbidden from using their powers in public, with the exception of some who are government employees or contractors. The police have a "Powers Division" dedicated to enforcing these rules, and one of the things that the government is working on is a field that nullifies the superpowers. It only went two seasons, but had a lot of potential. At the beginning, the field generator is a bulky thing that mounts in a building, but they develop a portable one for use in stopping Powers (that's what the show calls people with superpowers. "He's a Power, man, don't get him angry.") One guy named Simons (plural) has the power to copy himself. There can be ten or fifteen Simons, all wandering around independently, who can then merge back into the original. My favorite line from the show: "Simons' sexuality is...indescribable."
For the really dangerous have a capsule full of silver implanted with a detonator- if they get out of range of the prison, it goes boom and floods their blood stream with a lethal dose. If they have that, they may relax their policing inside the complex. Have the main have an in with the doctor who does the implants to switch contents to something harmless.
Some type of "shock collar" that shocks the criminal if he/she starts to go postal? Really, this issue has been dealt with in the comics universe - the X-Men in the Marvel Universe where the USA government is trying to get the mutants to register their powers and there is a whole battle by the X-Men against that intrusion into their lives. D.C. universe had the suicide squad with the mini bombs implanted into the character's heads and if they stepped out of line, "click" **** "BBBBOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!" Bye-bye, non-complaint criminal. The trick is getting these people to cooperate. I guess if they sleep, that's when you get them. In the Marvel universe, the problem with the mutants is that there was no warning of whom would become a mutant and acquire powers at puberty....one day little Susie goes to bed, the next morning she opens her eyes and .....ZAP! Laser eye beams blast away the ceiling and roof above her and perhaps a passing airplane as well....that'd be incredibly scary... If the person who gets the powers is inclined to be a baddie.....well, that'd be one hell of a scary world to live in!
