Oh, I really like Nostaloma. They could be Nostalomans. Here's some extra ideas in case more is better: Kriegenstein (Kriegens), The Conglomerate for Prosperity ("Gloms?"), Tiamel (Tiamelens). For the Conglomerate, I'm not really sure what folks from there would call themselves, or be called by others...probably some cultural thing, like how most of the world calls folks from the U.S. "Yankees," or "Americans," neither of which totally makes sense. I'm happy with Nostaloma if you are ^.^
I think I was imagining that the drones aren't all that precise. They'd likely have laser beams that could damage whatever is being mined, so the cheaper option is to have physical labor. I'm sure that there are robots and drones that could do the job, but they might just be more expensive than the basic food and rec needs of prisoners. I think it would be more expensive to have a work force, but for prison laborers it's almost free: all you need is space and food. The drones would probably be fairly dangerous too, so I don't know that they would let prisoners pilot them. This does raise an interesting question, though. What does the general populace do? Automation probably took over most of the labor needs from corporations, so for 'free' citizens, how do they 'make a living?' Are we talking UBI? Maybe it's a poverty level UBI and people are getting fed up with their lack of power and representation.
On the chip, eventually we might need to think about how the black market functions. Since all transactions with the chip are not only traceable; but for folks with warrants, escaped prisoners, etc they're not going to be able to use their funds without getting the authorities tipped off to their whereabouts. The black market would probably, then, be a barter system; or at least some alternative economy entirely. Or maybe they just have hacked terminals that can take your funds without being traced, but with markup. After all, governments are intentionally complicit in black markets--black markets are necessary for almost all economies to survive. We might not need to answer this question for now, unless there's a black market presence on the prison.
Interesting idea on the private prison outside government control. That makes me think that this is some sort of system where corporations can repossess not only your property, but your body as well. If folks don't pay their loans, or what have you, then they can be "repo'd" and forced into whatever the corporation wants. Spiraling out from there, the corporations could be running with that concept and imprisoning folks who don't even actually have loans, but also any corporate enemies that they can quietly capture. They report to the government that they have assessed some large loan amount that the prisoner owes, but behind the books it's "payment for damages." This means that a corporation could assess an amount owed for whatever they feel like for whatever perceived "damages" they like. Perhaps this high security prison is such an operation, specifically for folks who the corporation deemed to be enemies and assessed "payment for damages" for all the folks here. Corporate enemies, spies, activists, or even competitors just disappear from social society when their "collection agents" "repo" them. So they may have to report to the government that they've 'repossessed' someone, but they probably don't have to report specifically which prison they've gone to or anything like that unless the government requested that info for some investigation or another. There are probably laws about minimal treatment of prisoners, but being so unregulated the corporations might only follow those laws to whatever extent they like, and they can probably cook the books a lot too. That also makes me think that bounty hunting is a legitimized and booming business. The "collection agents" are just bounty hunters who track down these types of folks for corporations, and they'd have scanners that could read peoples' chips for identification and bounty claiming.
I could go either way on the translator. I think there are lots of interesting situations that could happen due to language barriers, and that might be an interesting place to start. Maybe we have outdated software, and a recent...acquisition...of a star system by our government has resulted in some prisoners who speak a language that our translators don't know. The guards know that the old prisoners can't converse with the new folks, and so they use that to their advantage because they know that we can't organize with them. If we want to include them in any uprising, we'll need to steal the update from a guard station. Maybe they're from a planet called our second favorite name from above, and our government acquired them through some kind of war; be it physical, economic, or some other form of tension with another nation.
I think minimal staff makes sense. I guess on guards, is it appropriate for me to use a character in fiction that I don't identify with or haven't really unearthed in myself? I could play some guards, but I don't know how authentic that character would be for now. Although, who knows, maybe this is how to unearth them. I can write a fictional character for sure, but I don't know if that's appropriate to the character centric intention of these stories.
I like the situation of Anya having been there for some time, and XJ joining her. I was certainly thinking of her as a sort of "beast-human." If that suits the setting, she would have some hyena characteristics; the ears and tail thing being part of that; although I do want to avoid going into anime-cat-girl territory at least somewhat. At least a hyena tail is not exactly cat like. nor are the ears. I think she has bare skin for the most part, which is a tan olive color; however she has spots of much darker skin on her shoulders and back, and her thick, curly hair is somewhat mane-like. I wonder if the planet we're from has two separate, sentient species from different world regions. They'd likely have to be from separate biomes or continents, but then were able to eventually coexist peacefully as they matured into a space-faring civilization. Perhaps one race is similar-to-us-humanoid and one race is beast-person with some variations, but they can't usually reproduce. Maybe Anya is one of the 'rare' half-beasts that biologists can aid in creating for two folks who want to have an inter-species child (and therefore why she isn't covered in fur). I don't think I want to do like a bigotry thing about it. I think in our planet's past there was bigotry around inter-species love and such, but that's long behind us. Half-beasts like Anya are probably rare in the way that redheads are rare on Earth. I also don't think that they are sterile like mules are, but I think that their sex cells only take after one or the other species. Does that fit into the setting you were thinking?
I think being from the same planet, either or both of XJ and Anya probably learned each others' languages, but then also have the translators... If anything with the translators happens, then we'll be able to still talk. Does that feel right? Maybe one species was a little more diplomatically dominant early on, and so today the more isolationist species would typically learn the other to fit in. Or maybe the two species truly coexisted and united, and it's simply a bilingual planet.
I'm really looking forward to starting
