Penal Colony - in Fiction

In Fiction

• Halo Evolutions: Blunt Instruments: The Yanme'e are held in a penal colony accidentally released by the Spartan:Black Team.
• Botany Bay is a historical fiction story written by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall about the trials and tribulations of the first European settlers of the Australian continent.
• In the Penal Colony is a short story by Franz Kafka upon which the movie La Colonia penal (1970) is based.
• More than one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, including Desolation Island and The Nutmeg of Consolation include scenes set in and around New South Wales.
• "For the Term of His Natural Life" by Marcus Clarke is a 19th Century novel dealing with the main characters deportation to the Port Arthur penal colony in Hobart, Australia in 1830. There are several movie versions, such as the 1983 TV movie starring Colin Friels.
• "Morgan's Run" by Colleen McCullough is a 20th Century novel dealing with the main characters deportation to the Australian penal colony.
• "Our Country's Good" a play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, focuses on the story of deportees to a penal colony.
• The events that Sherlock Holmes investigates in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s "The Sign of Four" are set in motion by the background story of Jonathan Small, who had served time in the Andaman Islands penal colony. While there Small befriended an aboriginal Andamanese, Tonga, who helped Small escape and then accompanied Small when he returned to England.
• The 1979 musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" written by Stephen Sondheim and based upon Christopher Bond's 1973 play of the same name, begins with its protagonist, Sweeney Todd, returning to London in 1846 having spent fifteen years in an unnamed British penal colony in Australia.

The concept of remote and inhospitable prison planets has been employed by science fiction writers. Some famous examples include:

• Kessel, a prison planet which specialized in spice mining in the Star Wars universe.
• Robert Sheckley's Omega
• Salusa Secundus in Frank Herbert's Dune,
• Fiorina 'Fury' 161, the penal colony in Alien 3 that was an abandoned leadworks,
• The CoDominium series of Jerry Pournelle showed several planets, such as Tanith and Haven, that were used as dumping grounds for criminals and dissidents,
• Rura Penthe, a Klingon colony where prisoners mine dilithium in the Star Trek universe.
• The Doctor Who serial Frontier in Space features a lunar penal colony in the 26th century; a lunar penal colony of the 2002nd century is also mentioned in the episode "Bad Wolf",
• In several episodes the TV series Stargate SG-1, whole planets are used as penal colonies, generally by the goa'uld, e.g. Hadante in episode 25 (season 2)
• Crematoria is the sun scorched prison planet in The Chronicles of Riddick,
• "Hawksbill Station" by Robert Silverberg is a 1970 novel where political prisoners are sent to the pre-Cambrian period via a one-way time travel machine.
• The Moon in Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
• The planet Shayol appears in Cordwainer Smith's stories.
• In episode 1–2 Trust of the Starhunter series, the planet Mercury is a fully automated prison.
• In an episode of The Outer Limits, the rulers of Zanti used Earth as a penal colony for their criminals and misfits.
• On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, New Zealand is mentioned as the location of the Federation's minimum security Penal Settlement. In the pilot of Star Trek: Voyager, the character Tom Paris is recruited from said Penal Settlement.
• On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5 episode 15 (515 – Power Play), they encounter a planet which they later find out is used as a penal colony.
• In Children of Men, the British Isle of Man is used as a penal colony for political dissidents of the authoritarian dystopia.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, the Wall serves as a prison colony/military order for convicts.
• Austar IV is a former prison planet and the setting of The Pit Dragon Trilogy. In the books, it has a history and climate similar to that of Australia.