I know how the prisons on the black ships are and im guessing a hive world has enough riches to afford the highest security but how about other imperial worlds, the ones who can afford the fancy rare anti psyker jail cells how do they guard one of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy?
psyker prison?
There are drugs which suppress Psyker powers, but they're likely just as exotic, if not as expensive. Equally, smaller, and less sophisticated psy-jammers can be fitted in null collars and attached directly to the psyker.
A more sensible approach is to keep the Psyker (if there's only the one) either in stasis or a permenant medicated coma.
Or just burn the witch. Easier, safer, and saves on food expenses, too.
Nobody would want to keep an unsanctioned psyker incarcerated unless a Black Ship was going to swing by to pick them up. They're just too damned dangerous. Unless a Black Ship arriving to take them away was a sure thing, it's far safer just to kill them in whatever way is most expedient, or send them off to wherever a Black Ship actually will be.
Now in the case of a temporary prison, where they are stored until they can be taken away to Terra, it likely varies by planet. Any of the above mentioned by Grendel would work if the planet had the resources, and I'm sure places that both get regular amounts of psykers and get regular visits from the Black Ships likely have more resources to detain them, regardless of the actual wealth or population of the planet (regularity of both being the key modifiers).
However, for the "average" Imperial world, a Black Ship showing up is a once in a blue moon sort of thing, so my guess is that they don't even bother with trying to keep them penned up, and just kill all the ones they find (or exile them if their families are wealthy).
Edited by Crow EyeIn the two novels that were written for Dark Heresy, the first starts with an actual prison for psykers awaiting the arrival of a Black Ship. From what I understood, it seemed that most planets have formal prisons somewhere to house psykers until a Black Ship makes it arrival to the planet.
~ alemander
Most Hive Worlds or otherwise technologically advanced planets do have such holding facilities, although even then most psykers are kept drugged or otherwise "pacified" while they are kept there. This not a universal thing however, as is the case with many things in 40k. Take that one Hive World from the Core Rulebook (I think Juno but I may be wrong) that drops its Psykers in the pit of an ancient mining facility with little to no oversight or supervision.
Dangerous? Definitely.
Cheap? You bet.
Juno does not in fact store all of their Psykers in the Bleak Pits (it's a plot-point coming up in my Dark Heresy campaign, muahaha).
The Bleak Pits of Juno
The so-called Bleak Pits are a series of gaping depressions carved into the surface of Juno during ancient promethium mining operations. With regular cells often overflowing between Black Ship visitations, these have been repurposed to house the world’s ever-increasing population of psykers, literally casting them into the pits along with the countless thousands of others found suspect or undesirable. With psyker rates at unprecedented levels, the pits have become so overpopulated that the very air overhead burns with unrestrained psychic force, and the sleep of all within dozens of miles is haunted by the insanity that boils within them. Uncontrolled Warp-energy discharges are common in the seething pits, forcing the guards to purge them with fire when the terrors of the beyond threaten to burst through. None can imagine the stark horror of even a single day of existence in the Bleak Pits, nor the doom that might befall Juno should their occupants ever break out in force.
Keep in mind, it isn't a Hive World. Juno is the Sector Capital. There are faculty and minders by my interpretation of that paragraph, but nowhere near what is needed (the Bleak Pits are the overflow, not the primary). Basically, they separate them and have some kind of watchers who get ready to shoot anyone who starts floating, glowing, or doing anything suspicious.
Here's the sector's take on the Black Fleets, by the way.
The Black Fleets
The Black Ships of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica ply the space lanes of the Imperium in an endless circuit, laying over at its worlds to collect those psykers swept up in the regular culls every planetary governor is required by most solemn obligation to enact. None can say how many Black Ships exist, and none can predict when one will next arrive in any given volume of space. At times when a world’s psyker population grows so unmanageable the authorities are threatened with being overwhelmed, a governor may order a pogrom. This is a risky gamble indeed, for should the Black Ships arrive and find no psykers rendered up, the governor might forfeit his life as punishment.
This has not stopped many of Askellon’s worlds from lethally culling suspected psykers, for in recent times their numbers have grown to dangerous levels and overflowed the iron cells customarily used in Askellon for imprisonment. Some worlds have not been visited for several generations, cut off as Warp routes in Askellon dry up or change paths; unchecked psyker populations can only cause the Immaterium to grow ever more turbulent and give the Ruinous Powers easier access to reality.
How does say Mechnicus deal with pyskers - do they have like a practiced strategy or methed or weapon mentioned in novels?
I ask because my new campaign deals in rogue admech types cultivating their own world of artificially created psykers - and like the "alien gray conspiracy" the populace is unaware of the Admech masters - as far as they the populace can tell they live in a cybpunk-esk world albeit with the ability to planet hop within their own star system (analogs shadowrun, cyberpunk, and mutant chronicles)
Advise?
I always thought that compliant worlds are obliged to "store" their unsanctioned psykers until a black ship arrives by Lex Imperialis, no matter how long that takes. I mean, the psykers are part of the planets tithe, property of the Emperor Himself. You don't just burn property of HIM!
If there is no actual reference in the literature, maybe a particular Forge World places their psykers into Stasis Pods until Black Ships arrive. Less of a hassle to guard them or deal with any riots, etc.
So yes, that would be almost literally "storing" them. Like walls full of stasis pods, like a warehouse.
Edited by GridashThat is true, eltom. I quoted the core book's reference to that in the last two paragraphs. It seems you can get leeway if you do it for the right reasons, but they better be good.
That is true, eltom. I quoted the core book's reference to that in the last two paragraphs. It seems you can get leeway if you do it for the right reasons, but they better be good.
Yes, sorry. I had not really read your post till the end when I entered my comment, which was rather meant as a reply to posts further upthread.