Titan penal colony

The penal colony on Titan is used by Mega-City One to incarcerate bent Judges. It was also a working mining colony, sending metallised hydrogen and other minerals back to Mega-City One - with the inmates being surgically altered to do this work without any spacesuits. "Twenty on Titan" is a feared sentence back in the city.

Security has been provided by Trustees taken from the inmates (sometimes).

History

While Titan would become the mandatory sentence for corrupt Judges, in 2079/80 only a few were sent there and the majority were civilian prisoners from various mega-cities. The "Titan treatment" - being disfigured and modified to breath the atmosphere without a spacesuit - was only done to prisoners as a punishment. Rico Dredd and a bus load of prisoners and guards were trapped on the moon after a hailstorm, with Rico helping get the survivors free. Corrupt guards began killing prisoners on their march to safety in order to preserve oxygen for themselves and Rico was left as the only survivor, after killing the remaining guards. While he was rescued soon after, the prison officials had him modified on spurious grounds: he'd survived on the moon surface and they wanted to discourage other prisoners from believing this could be done to escape.

Rico arrives on Titan

For the rest of his sentence, he received 'personal' treatment from the guards: the lack of crooked judges in the early days meant any caught were put through hell.

Rico discovered a crashed escape pod with an alien prince inside and sent out the pod's escape signal; in exchange for this and keeping an eye on the pod, he asked that the alien fleet destroy the Earth when they arrived. He only told the truth to Jude, another prisoner, but rumours of "Rico's Rock" containing a great treasure would circulate through Titan for decades.

A journalist visited Titan in the 2080s and had sex with Rico, producing Vienna Dredd. Sometime afterwards, Titan began castrating the inmates.

Sometime after Rico's time, convict Judges could become guards ("trustees") after ten years if they had a clear record.

Psychotic prisoners join Grice's riot

By the 2110s, to cut down the number of dying prisoners, new arrivals no longer got the full "Titan treatment" but instead got a filtration systems inserted over the nose to let them breath. Mines were now under the prison with a heating system. Conditions within the prison become much harsher under the monstrous Governor Khurtz: prisoners were given cybernetic breathers without anaesthetic, subject to random brutality by the guards and Khurtz himself, and even experimented on. Chief Judge McGruder approved the testing of the "meat virus" weapon on prisoners. In 2115, Judge Grice led a brutal, destructive uprising and personally killed Khurtz before an army of convicts stormed to Mega-City One.

After Grice's rebellion, most of the prison was destroyed. Mega-City One outsourced the remaining Cell Block M to a private firm and the old mines were now open plan. The new Titan used obnoxious marketing to 'convince' the prisoners that conditions were better, with chirpy morning broadcasts and renaming guards "redcoats". (One big change was workers now had spacesuits and new ones weren't given nose filters) In order to bolster revenue, Titan took in non-Judicial prisoners from other megacities including notorious figures like Euro-City's fattie mobster the Grudfather. Large groups of Cal-Hab, Brit-Cit, Texas City, and Simba City inmates joined the Mega-City One population. All of this began to concern MC-1.

Once they'd served their time, the inmates found it hard to re-enter society; a number would end up selling their skills to the mobs. Few inmates returned to Mega-City One, many instead ending up on off-world colonies. The Special Judicial Squad secretly ran a "welcome wagon" for any returning Titan convicts: a series of escalating harassment, ending in arranging for gang assaults, to 'convince' the returnees to leave the city. Those who didn't would commit suicide, or potentially be killed and their murder faked as a suicide. Judge Buell ended this "tradition" when he took over the SJS but it would be revived when he lost office.

In the early 2120s, the MC-1 authorities discovered an alien warfleet coming towards Titan. Word was sent by Justice Department: a prisoner who found "Rico's Rock" would be pardoned.

In September 2124, Titan governor Stacey Dolan had thirty prisoners killed in 'an explosion' once they discovered the Rock. Mega-City One sent Judge Mordin (and Dredd undercover) to investigate and to ensure the Rock was found. When Dolan realised Mordin was close to the truth, she attempted to kill her and put Titan under lockdown - accidentally giving the Grudfather a chance to start a prison uprising. While the prison fell into convict hands, the alien warfleet arrived and - following a homing beacon inside the prisoner - took the prison themselves, killing guards and convicts. Pretending to be Rico, Dredd was able to reach the alien prince and told them Earth no longer needed to be destroyed. All the guards were left dead, the prison wrecked, and Governor Dolan was made a prisoner for her crimes by Dredd - he left her a flare gun to kill herself with. Jude, now oldest prisoner, became the Acting-Governor.

When Titan was back under Justice Dept's control, inmates were once again mining without spacesuits and had greater mutilation. Drugs were used to knock out people for the 'treatment' but not enough to fully end the pain, so they'd wake up feeling that something horrible had happened.

In 2130, Judge Ramos of the Council of Five was sent to Titan for old vigilante murders; corrupt Judge Carl Masterson, deputy head of Vice, was sent with him. A cover story was put in place.

Former Chief Judge Martin Sinfield was sent to Titan in 2132. Once arriving on Titan, Sinfield became the centre of attention, with many of the inmates loathing him (several had been sent there because of him).

In 2136, ex-Judge Aimee Nixon led a convict rebellion. A vote was held and a large minority, who appointed Sinfield as their advocate, did not join in the rebellion - part of Nixon's plan, as she was hoping to bait Hershey or Dredd into bombing the colony and killing innocents (as well as her). Dredd was captured while investigating and tortured to get him to break, but was kept back from the brink. (Due to the events of Chaos Day and the Luther rebellion, Hershey lacked the firepower to recover Titan by force)

The colony was severely damaged by Nixon's plan and the convicts moved to Enceladus. Titan was taken over by Justice Department again. Unable to afford to rebuild it themselves, MC-1 asked other cities like Brit-Cit for help.

Titan inmate Kyle Asher returned to Mega-City One in early 2143 and suffered the attentions of the SJS "welcome wagon". Judge Dredd ran into him on patrol and began investigating why Asher was in the city, as well as the existence of the SJS scheme.

Worlds of 2000AD RPG

The 2019 Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000AD RPG has a book for Luna-1 adventures, which contains an appendix for Titan.

• The hierarchy is the Chief Warden, Deputy Warden, Quatermaster, and Doctor.

• The guards are former Judges from the North American megacities, who have retired to take the post and get paid; this pay goes into an account, with interest, for when they retire. They're armed with primitive Lawrods and Lawgivers. A prisoner close to the end of their sentence and showing good behaviour can be made a guard (as it saves Titan money), but only after going through brainwashing to keep them loyal.

• Khurtz was appointed by Chief Judge Silver, and it was also Silver that brought in the 'trustee' system.

See also

Aspen Penal Colony from the 1995 Judge Dredd movie.