NEGASI–LUWAM CORRECTIONAL EXCLUSION ZONE (NLCEZ)

“No fences are needed—until the inmates from off-world arrive.”

— Giorgia Neli, former NLCPC warden

1. OVERVIEW

The NLCEZ is a massive, square, scorched patch of the northeastern Great Desert measuring approximately 80 km x 80 km¹.

At its exact center lies the Negasi–Luwam Correctional Penal Camp (NLCPC), a hellish high-security desert labor complex that functions as:

• A penal colony
• A deterrent spectacle
• A source of political leverage
• A future economic engine once the stargate is operational

The region's name comes from two First Wave colonists, Dr. Mebratu Negasi and Dr. Sabri Luwam, early penal theorists who thought Chendiuria's harsh environment was the ideal prison.

The government listened.

And then made it worse.

2. THE EXCLUSION ZONE

The NLCEZ does not have a conventional fence. The desert is the fence.

Anyone attempting escape faces:

• The daily Chendiurian simoom (skin-shredding sandstorm)
• No water
• No shade
• Lethal distances
• The Exclusion Perimeter (where death comes without delay)
• Explosive collar-radius detonation protocol

Perimeter Defense Network (“The Quadrants”)

Every 8 km, a 55-meter-tall AI-controlled turret rises from reinforced ceracrete² plinths. There are 40 towers total.

Each tower contains:

• A retractable sixteen barreled 20 mm rotary cannon with a 50,000-round ammo drum and smart-round capability
• An armored bay on top of the tower houses the cannon and ammo drum
• LIDAR + RADAR + thermal + seismic detection
• Independent fusion micro-reactor
• Atmospheric stabilizer dish (prevents sand buildup)

Engagement Rules:

1. At 80 km, a warning tone is broadcast toward the target.
2. At 50 km, verbal warning in the six major colonial languages: Mars patois, Standardized English, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Hindi.
3. At 30 km, targeting lock.
4. At 20 km, lethal fire destroys anything larger than 5 cm.
5. At <20 km, automatic barrage until object is vaporized or unrecognizable.

The towers shoot:

• Drones
• Fliers
• Vehicles
• Livestock
• People
• Random blowing debris

Bedouin travel routes detour hundreds of kilometers around the NLCEZ.

3. STRUCTURE OF THE NLCPC

Designed along brutal concentration-camp geometry, the NLCPC is a compact square fortress roughly 3 km x 3 km, comprising:

Administrative Core (“The Stack”)

A 9-story ceracrete tower that houses:

• Warden staff
• Surveillance AI nodes
• Medical ward
• Interrogation level
• Drone garages
• Armories

Its top floors are windowless because winds would sandblast glass to opacity in months.

Prisoner Blocks (“The Pallets”)

Ten large, blocky structures with:

• Uncooled dormitories
• Multi-tier bunks
• Heat-recovery vents
• Collapsed titanium-graphene spider-weave ceilings
• No air conditioning
• Minimal shade

Temperatures often exceed 55°C inside.

Labor Yards

Two vast work areas:

1. Rock Belt: prisoners smash basalt, sandstone, and fused desert glass into aggregate for government use.
2. Trash Belt: prisoners sort unrecyclable First City trash; “malfunctioning” recycler drones dump dry loose waste indiscriminately.

Work shifts run 18 hours daily. Five-minute hydration breaks occur only when guards feel generous.

Augment Suppression System

All prisoners, augmented or not, wear:

• The Collar
• micro pulse EMP generator
• kills all augments
• detonates if tampered with
• detonates if outside the 40 km collar-radius boundary

Explosive yield: enough to separate the head completely. Guards regularly bet on how far the

Radiotelemetry shows several collars have detonated twice because of sandstorm static discharge.

4. GUARD AND SUPPORT PERSONNEL

The NLCPC is operated by four rotating groups of security and support staff. Each group is assigned:

• 3 months at the NLCPC
• 3 months at secondary jails in First City, Esperón Ridge, and the Solace Complex
• 3 months home leave
• 3 months training and psych screening

Groups:

1. Alpha Guard Cadre–oldest, most experienced, notoriously cruel.
2. Basilisk Cadre–advanced drone operator specialists.
3. Cinder Cadre–medical + behavioral enforcement (they administer punishments quietly).
4. Krait Cadre–rapid strike teams, often ex-mercenaries.

Turnover is low because pay is high, fatalities and suicides are common (a steady source of entertainment for the guards), and prisoner morale is nonexistent.

Guard mental health screenings show:

• 47% develop insomnia
• 31% become chemically dependent
• 18% suffer acute desert hallucinations

Within the past 30 local years, two wardens have died by suicide.

5. NOTABLE INMATES

The NLCPC was designed for up to 5,000 inmates. It currently houses fewer than 100. All inmates wear bright fluorescent green jumpsuits, heavy open toed sandals, and an air-filtering breathing mask.

Four inmates are especially infamous:

1. Kirov “Bonebreaker” Mullin (deceased)

• First Wave colonist
• Murdered five co-workers during water allocation disputes
• Died of exposure during a simoom when he refused to return indoors³
• Body found stripped to bone by the wind and scavengers

2. Imani Sabri (life sentence)

• Descendant of early BuCol terraform technicians
• Convicted of orchestrating the “First City Silo Massacre”
• Considered a philosophical existential nihilist extremist
• Very old due to anti-aging treatments, but still physically imposing⁴

3. Hao Jun “The Candle Man” (life sentence)

• Killed using improvised thermal accelerants with an oxidizer due to low oxygen in the Chendiuria atmosphere
• Displays pathological pyromania
• Kept under near-constant surveillance
• Started more than 40 fires in NLCPC municipal trash sorting piles, none surpassed the smoldering stage
• Only prisoner permanently assigned an AI-controlled walking fire extinguisher drone

4. Dr. Ramos Qadir (life sentence)

• Brilliant geneticist
• Only prisoner not on hard labor and housed in The Stack
• Ran an illegal black-lab modification ring using stolen medical nanites
• Considered “too valuable to kill”
• Forced to work in the medical station under explosive collar supervision

Other Inmates

Most are violent offenders from First City, but NLCPC is so lethal that even Chendiuria’s hardy criminals fear being sentenced there.

6. ESCAPE ATTEMPTS

None have succeeded. Several have been attempted.

Documented Attempts:

• Running into the desert: all died from simoom exposure within 1–3 hours.
• Stealing recycler haulers: shredded by turret towers.
• Tunneling: impossible due to collar-radius detonation protocol.
• Drone hijack attempts: towers opened fire instantly.
• One inmate swallowed a locker key and ran: the collar exploded after crossing 41.7 km.

Turret towers have impeccable kill records. Even scavengers avoid the zone.

7. POLITICAL RELATIONSHIPS

Planetary Governor Jhanae Afolayan

• Mother: Obsidian Jaguars lineage
• Father: Red Dragons Tong ties
• Reputation: beautiful, charismatic, feared, connected, political lightning rod

Jhanae supports the NLCPC for three reasons:

1. Revenue Potential: If the stargate becomes operational, Chendiuria could house inmates from dozens of colonies.
2. Political Leverage: She brandishes the NLCPC as proof Chendiuria “handles its own criminals” a bargaining chip in Mars Federation talks.
3. Fear Factor: Her political rivals avoid challenging someone who controls a prison that doubles as a torture machine.

She personally visits the NLCEZ only once every five local years⁵, escorted by full paramilitary guard rumored to be ex-Shedim mercenaries.

"Do your job well. Leave no ghosts wandering."

— Governor Jhanae Afolayan speaking to NLCPC staff

First City Governor Linus Adewale Petrov

Petrov is more pragmatic but no less ruthless.

His interest lies in:

• maintaining order, commerce, and production
• reducing First City’s prison burden
• using the NLCPC as a dumping ground

He has authorized* “clean transfers”*secret shipments of inconvenient political dissidents labeled as violent offenders. Only Afolayan knows and she approves.

“The NLCPC is a necessary scar.”

— Governor Linus Adewale Petrov

8. DAILY LIFE FOR INMATES

• 18 hours of forced labor
• 2 hours of rest
• 4 hours in sweltering dorms
• No recreation
• No privacy
• No hope

Medical care is excellent only to prolong suffering.

Inmates are treated for:

• dehydration
• thermal burns
• silicate lung damage⁶
• broken bones⁷
• simoom lacerations
• psychological breaks (with limited success)

Many inmates beg to die. None are granted release.

Inmates who survive more than 10 local years suffer:

• chronic hallucinations
• insomnia
• paranoia
• dissociation
• muscular dystrophy
• early-onset immune collapse

The record for survival is 17.8 local years before suicide.

“Those inmates that survive they're the stubborn ones.”

— Governor Linus Adewale Petrov speaking at a black tie fund raising gala

9. WHY THE NLCEZ EXISTS

Chendiuria is a hard world. It breeds hard people.

But its ruling class knows the truth: Fear keeps colonies alive. The NLCPC is fear, industrialized.

The NLCPC is not meant to rehabilitate, or to punish, it is meant to erase.

Erase criminals (as Chendiuria defines them), problems, threats, and most importantly erase hope.