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I am currently designing a fantasy world that includes a telekinetic race that can control objects if they are touching its material (they can make flying rocks if they are in the same ground or holding same material). It is way harder for them to control impure materials but they can still control it.

My question is how to imprison them.

Technology a little bit more advanced than Medieval era and magic is mostly used in enchanting.

Edit: their powers are proportional to the amount of matter they touch. So they are more powerful if they have full body armor of that material compared to only a gauntlet of that material.

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    $\begingroup$ Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. $\endgroup$
    – James
    Aug 19, 2019 at 19:18
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    $\begingroup$ If there is magic, Is there a reason you can't just put them in magic anti-telekinetic prisons? $\endgroup$
    – komodosp
    Aug 20, 2019 at 13:33
  • $\begingroup$ Explore Brandon Sanderson's works, especially Mistborn and Stormlight. There are characters in his fantasy universes that are explicit scientists and perform physics experiments on the given universe's magic. It's great for inspiration. $\endgroup$
    – Caleb Jay
    Aug 20, 2019 at 22:47

25 Answers 25

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Opiate them

Telekinesis is a mind power. That justifies doping their minds.

If you use psychodelic drugs they might go tame. They might even become new age hippies. But they will not be functional for most of the time, and most western societies hate this kind of thing anyway. But use narcotics to turn them into helpless, mindless husks that are able to print thousands of plates a day and you get both behaving prisoners and profit for privately owned prison.

If you manage to get them really addicted you don't even need to plug the plate press on the mains. Just have them operate it psyonically and save some money that way. Heck they might even move the generators so you can go off the grid.

Don't forget to make life generally miserable for them so that the addiction to morfine/heroin is as tough as possible. Also give some privileges to the most skillful and obedient psyonics who are willing to snitch, or for those who can act as guards against rebellions.

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    $\begingroup$ The addiction itself makes the life as tough as possible without the drug. That's the whole problem with strong opiates! $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2019 at 10:31
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    $\begingroup$ @VolkerSiegel I think the intent here was to make them seek the escape of opiates to dull the pain of their miserable existence. $\endgroup$
    – Doktor J
    Aug 20, 2019 at 14:20
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    $\begingroup$ @DoktorJ The addiction means that just not having the opiate is a miserable existence. An opiate addiction is hard to get out of not only because you know it feels good taking the drug, but also because it feels bad not taking it. Feeling normal is no longer possible, just the choice between really bad and really good. $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2019 at 14:29
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    $\begingroup$ @VolkerSiegel a number of experiments done on rats and people seem to show otherwise. Rat Park was one of the most famous ones. $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2019 at 14:31
  • $\begingroup$ @Renan Thanks, that's interesting. Let me know in case you have source at hand. $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2019 at 14:33
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There are a lot of methods, actually. They work depending on the purpose of imprisonment.

Penal colony / Reservation area

If you want to isolate them from another part of society.

Leave them on a lonely island. Once a month a supply ship arrives. The ship never docks, the supplies are delivered by boats. The ship is escorted by a few frigates, they open fire if the ship (somehow) becomes captured. You cannot escape an outlying island without an ability to navigate the sea.

Special suits

If you want hard constraints (studies, experiments, intimidation).

Make a full body suits they have to wear. Anything they touch they do through that suit. Use any convenient material for this suits, but don't use this material for anything else in the prison. The suits should have locks or some kind of mechanism preventing you to doff it by yourself.

A convenient prison

If you want a correctional facility.

Don't make any "special" prisons, just brand the convicted and declare escape from prison as the most serious crime.

No prison

Until ~XVII century there were no prisons (as penitentiary facilities) at all. There were only jails (short-term). Usual punishments were corporal (physical) ones, public executions, mutilations, torture, forced hard labor, fines. You said your "technology a little bit more advanced than Medieval era", so it is logical to assume there are no prisons in this world yet.

But actually, that would be the least serious problem

Imagine people who always carry AK47 with them. Everywhere. You cannot confiscate or disable this weapon. They have their weapons at the ready when shopping, walking, going to theater. Children carry these guns when playing with other children.

That is how this telekinetic race looks like to ordinary people. They always have a dangerous weapon with them that we can not control.

"How to imprison them" would be the last question. The first question is — how to let them live? And how can we live with them?

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The walls, floor, and ceiling of the cells are too massive to move or break. The door to the cell is more than two tons and must be slid out of the way for the occupant to get in and out. There is a window to allow passage of meal trays and such.

The door is made of metal embedded in concrete. The concrete is too massive to break apart and that is the only way to get to the metal portion from inside the cell.

The metal is accessible from the outside of the cell (but nowhere near the window, so no reaching of arms) so it is impossible for the prisoner to open the door because s/he can not touch the metal portion. But there are metal handholds on the outside of the cell so guards (who also are telekinetic) can slide the door open (if not all guards are, that's okay, as long as there are a few on every shift).

I recommend similar doors throughout the prison (modern prisons of course have multiple secured doorways). This is far more secure as the prisoner will need to break through multiple security points to escape. An important part of security is the ability for guards to periodically inspect the cells.

Multiple security points also allow prisoners the ability to go take showers, socialize with other prisoners, exercise, etc. Isolation for anything but very brief periods is extraordinarily cruel and destroys the mind; if you want prisoners to be able to function in society after serving their sentences, you need to treat them like human beings and rehabilitate them. This requires movement outside their cells.

For the most difficult prisoners, have cells with doors impossible for one person to move. This requires at least two guards every time the door is opened or closed.

In many societies, including the United States, there are some low-security prisons that are easy to escape. There's also home imprisonment, work release (where the prisoners sleep in the prison), and so forth. It works because the prisoners know when they're caught they will have longer sentences in a less comfy environment. And because they don't want to be on the lam for the rest of their lives; it's mentally exhausting and they will never see their loved ones or lead a normal life. Much easier to just serve your time and be done with it. Of course that isn't the same for people with life (or very long) sentences.

Prisoners who have shown they can not be trusted will be held in more secure prisons, including isolated cells if required.

The most direct security measure is a bunch of guards with guns watching each potential escape route carefully. You may want to incorporate this anyway.

Guns don't have to be ordinary bullets, if that doesn't work on your prisoners, or if you don't want them dead. They can be tranquilizer darts. Or a hallway full of anesthetizing gas. Drag them to a new cell. Start over.

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    $\begingroup$ Add bars to doors of different exotic materials that doesn’t exist in cells. Plus concrete, being an amalgamation would constitute an impure material and would be difficult for the TK to manipulate. $\endgroup$
    – EDL
    Aug 18, 2019 at 0:59
  • $\begingroup$ "Concrete" does not really fit in the "little bit more advanced than Medieval era" requested by the OP. $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2019 at 9:14
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    $\begingroup$ @TomášZato of course it does... The Romans for example had opus caementicium (aka Roman Concrete) which is similar in properties to modern concrete. The history of concrete goes back even further. It'd be an expensive option, but not an infeasible one. $\endgroup$
    – Baldrickk
    Aug 20, 2019 at 10:09
  • $\begingroup$ @TomášZato It fits well. While Medieval Europe had lost the technique, we don't have to go by what Europe did. The technology was definitely present in multiple places across the world well before Medieval times. nachi.org/history-of-concrete.htm $\endgroup$
    – Cyn
    Aug 20, 2019 at 16:04
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Bronze door with steel locking bar

All you need is

  • a bronze door that's too sturdy to just rip out (since the telekinetics CAN touch and move the door itself. Doesn't have to be bronze, ideally something "impure" but strong.)
  • secured by a steel locking bar (or some other strong material that's not available inside the cell)

The inmates can try to push on the door directly, but can't move the locking bar. So unless the construction is weak enough to rip it out by brute force (but if they can do that, any window bars or wall pieces would be fair game too^^) they have no way to unlock the door from the inside.

Basically you'd have the same situation as any current jail door: The inmate can try to break down the door by brute force, but has no way to open the locking mechanism.

Obviously you'd have to be VERY careful of any pies the inmates receive - but a simple magnet (lodestone?) should be enough to determine whether they contain a file... erh, piece of steel. Do also make the locking bar heavy enough that a small steel pebble isn't enough to empower a telekinetic to move it.

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    $\begingroup$ Simple and effective. I was going to go with "lock tumblers of different material, too small to slip a finger in", but this works as well and is even lower tech. Also was going to note that the guards should wear different materials than the prisoners wear. Food dishes should also be different, and accounted for to prevent the dreaded "plate"d warrior :). $\endgroup$
    – Iiridayn
    Aug 20, 2019 at 0:22
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Another idea, if your world have giant spiders: spider silk is extremely strong, but also very light.

their powers are proportional to the amount of matter they touch

If they are suspended in air and cocooned in spider silk, the only thing they can touch is the spider silk - and the amount of that material is maybe not enough to give them any meaningful strength to manipulate it?

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  • $\begingroup$ I guess that being cocooned in spider silk might be equivalent to wearing an armor of that material, and so I strongly doubt that it doesn't give enough power to at least break the cocoon. $\endgroup$
    – Zoma
    Aug 21, 2019 at 9:25
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Don't use a mechanism to lock them in at all: Weld the door shut.

The telekinetic abilities have a maximum force level. If there's no locking mechanism to manipulate, then they will have no means of escape other than brute force. If the technology level doesn't permit welding equipment, the same effect can be accomplished with a hot fire and bellows but it will be much slower.

Of course this means that opening and closing the door to the cage will require welding equipment every time, so the cage they are locked in will have to be large enough to live in for 100% of the time. Don't think of it as a jail cell, think animal zoo habitat size.

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    $\begingroup$ good think I also have pyrokinetics in the world. $\endgroup$ Aug 18, 2019 at 5:57
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    $\begingroup$ Won't they just use their telekinesis on the welding equipment in the guards' hut instead? $\endgroup$ Aug 18, 2019 at 14:29
  • $\begingroup$ @HenningMakholm I'm assuming the telekinetic powers have a limited range (not infinite), perhaps line of sight or within a kilometer or so. Unfortunately, the OP did not specify. $\endgroup$ Aug 18, 2019 at 16:43
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    $\begingroup$ @AIwithstick pyrokinetics wouldn't need to have the door welded shut. Unless they are also telekinetics. In that case, they could be sedated for the welding. $\endgroup$
    – VLAZ
    Aug 19, 2019 at 8:26
  • $\begingroup$ @VLAZ: Maybe the pyrokinetics are the ones doing the welding? $\endgroup$
    – Vikki
    Aug 20, 2019 at 3:38
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Impure materials.

From OP:

It is way harder for them to control impure materials but they can still control it.

Riff on this. I am not entirely sure what impure materials are - some sort of alloy or weird amalgam? But I like it. The cell holding these telekinetiks is maximally impure - maybe made of brick like loaves of metals dust, wood chips, sand, bone, shells, and lots of other things. Different structures would have different impure materials according to what the builders had handy and ease of construction.

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    $\begingroup$ So... like a gingerbread house? :-D $\endgroup$
    – ChatterOne
    Aug 18, 2019 at 12:33
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    $\begingroup$ @ChatterOne perfect - it can serve as their food! With a limited sentence, the walls might be made as thick as needed, so the prisoner will eat through them around the time they would need to be released. $\endgroup$
    – VLAZ
    Aug 19, 2019 at 8:25
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Can they levitate themselves?

If not, dig a pit and put them in it.

Can't get a lot more impure material than soil and dust.

...you might now be imagining a small hole in the ground. Dig a deep pit.

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    $\begingroup$ That could also mean they are touching a lot of soil so they could still be quite powerful in manipulating soil (it is impure but they have very big amount of it). That could be big problem. They can take soil from top and move it under their feet so they move back to top. Another problem is that they could use the soil to attack world around. $\endgroup$
    – jiwopene
    Aug 20, 2019 at 20:44
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I'm thinking of leveraging these three details:

can control objects if they are touching its material

and

It is way harder for them to control impure materials but they can still control it.

and

magic is mostly used in enchanting

So a cell where they can't reach the walls and the ceilings. (because it's too high, and there is a rift/pit between the ground in the center where they are kept, and the walls on the side.) It can be maybe a natural cave from maybe a rare mineral in your world, in the belly of a mountain. The ground of their platform is fully covered by a material that's not otherwise present in the cave - some sort of intentionally impure metal alloy maybe. So they can only touch the metal, nothing else in their prison. The metal is enchanted with let's say a shock elemental protection spell/rune, that stuns whoever tries to move/bend or manipulate in other physical way the metal structure.

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    $\begingroup$ I just noticed your comment under the OP question: "what ı mean with impurity is ,as an example, flesh has all that minerals like sodium magnesium potasium calcium etc so it is way harder to maniplate (like water-mineral water iron ore-pure iron iron-stell) " -- So I guess if the ground is fully covered by animal leather, it's difficult for them to manipulate? $\endgroup$
    – Zsolt Bán
    Aug 18, 2019 at 20:10
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    $\begingroup$ Animal leather would be way harder for them and shock rune idea is brilliant $\endgroup$ Aug 19, 2019 at 6:26
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House only a few TK in each cell so they can’t work together on the same cell door and locks

alternate construction materials of adjacent cells so groups of cellmates can combine their abilities

As Cyn, described, cell door is massively heavy

Locking mechanism on doors are bars made of different materials, none of which exist inside any cell.

Bars are nested and interpenetrating forming a complex problem like a chinese puzzle box, each lock requiring a unique solution.

The locks and bars are setup such that guards stand on a segment of the lock and have significant mechanical advantage so if they are standing in the right spot, no bars of the locks can move.

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Suspend your prisoners in the air. If their power is proportional to how much they can touch, then not allowing them to touch anything ought to make them totally inert. Their are a couple ways to keep someone totally suspended.

  1. Magnets. Water is slightly repelled by magnetism, so with a strong magnet you can push something into the air without touching it.
  2. Fans. Have powerful fans beneath your prisoners forcing them into the air.

Either one of these works, but the hard part after this is handling their basic needs. I assume since you are bothering to imprison rather than kill that you will want to feed them. Inevitably giving them food will grant them some power, but hopefully it is impure enough that it is relatively harmless. You would have to float it down to them so they couldn't touch anything else.

Good luck keeping your prisoners contained!

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    $\begingroup$ -1, this answer suggests a concept ("suspend prisoners in the air"), then goes on to point out one reason why it's not really feasible (how do you care for their basic needs?). Additionally, the two suggestions for suspending the prisoners aren't very elaborate and have obvious problems: tech is "a little bit more advanced than Medieval era" - where do you find magnets strong enough to levitate a person (do these even exist? what do they do to a creature exposed to such power?)? How will fans be operated? what prevents a prisoner from curling into a ball and crashing on the fans? etc. etc. $\endgroup$
    – G0BLiN
    Aug 18, 2019 at 12:53
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    $\begingroup$ @G0BLiN thats a good point, I missed the tech requirements. I'll put some thought into how this basic idea could work given that constraint $\endgroup$
    – rtpax
    Aug 18, 2019 at 15:28
  • $\begingroup$ OP indicated the world had magic... why not have levitation runes on the ground and repulsion runes on the walls? To give them food, just toss it in the room and the runes will push it toward the prisoner who's basically stuck in the center. When they have to go to the bathroom, send in a small leather bag to evacuate into, with a small chain cinch on it. A nearby TK standing (or laying) on a metal plate can pull the cinch tight and withdraw the bag against the runes, but the meager amount of metal in the chain will give the prisoner little to work with, while the leather is too "impure". $\endgroup$
    – Doktor J
    Aug 20, 2019 at 14:30
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Manacle to them to something solid with sharp or pointy-lined manacles, so that attempting to remove them with force will result in limbs being lopped off.

Or, put them inside a prison with hollow walls full of acid, poison gas or other similar material, so breaking out will kill them.

Or, do it the easy way: word of honour or'parole'. They promise not to escape, and you promise not to annihilate their entire family with whatever magic you have at your disposal.

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Weld the door shut

If the entrance is sealed then telekinesis won't help. When they want to get out, they need to be cut out using tools that the prisoner doesn't have access to.

The prisoner would have the door welded or forged shut or completely bricked in.

You leave some small holes for food, water, sewer and air

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If you want something approximating a prison cell, I think you'd benefit from the use of layers of different materials.

The innermost layer should be something very strong+hard, heavy, and "impure" in nature -- perhaps stone or concrete? Strong+hard so that it resists physical attack. Heavy (>2T) so that they cannot use some other material to apply telekinetic force to it and move it, and impure so that the prisoner cannot use it to their benefit by touching it. The floors, walls, and ceiling should all be made of this.

That layer should be an appropriate thickness to provide the necessary strength. Outside that, there should more layers of additional materials. As you get further from the innermost layer, you can use more pure materials if there are strength benefits to doing so. For example, a few layers out, you could use iron or steel. Just make sure that the prisoner doesn't have anything in their cell made of the same material.

Does anything exist in your world that can block telekinesis? Like the way lead interfere's with Superman's X-ray vision? If so, definitely include a layer of that somewhere.

Could there be a magical enchantment that would suppress or attenuate their power? If so, I think it'd be good to include it, but I would not rely solely on that. You always want multiple points of security.

What is the range of their power? Surely it's limited, right? I'd think of this like signal attenuation: When a TK projects their powers through the air, their strength reduces to zero over some distance; more powerful TKs might have longer reach than others. But if the powers must pass through some other material, that might attenuate it more aggressively than air, or it might act as an antenna or conductor and actually work to extend the range. There are some interesting possibilities you could play with there.

What happens when multiple TKs combine powers? Is it additive? Multiplicative? Exponential? Consider this, and decide whether you need to separate them completely, and consider the minimum separation necessary.

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Depending on your geography, mountain caves/mines would be very useful here. Rock tends to form in layers and when tectonic plates smash into each other, the layers crinkle up and form mountains. Mountains are good for mining because layers that are normally buried deep underground are now close to the surface.

If you house your prisoners in a mountain cave or old mine, they will be surrounded by layers of different types of rock. At most, they'd be able to touch and control only the material in the innermost layer, and that's not nearly enough to be useful in an escape. The only thing you'd need to construct would be small sections of walls/doors to separate things off into individual cells. Use a wooden door that locks with a crossbar made of something that isn't found anywhere else in the prison.

For extra security, make each door's crossbar out of a "unique" alloy (e.g., a DIY exotic material). Start with a simple, cheap alloy like bronze (copper and tin), and add two more metals (zinc, lead, nickel, iron, silver, etc) to the alloy when smelting it. Each 'extra' metal - along with its concentration - is selected by a different blacksmith who adds it to the pot secretly. The end result is a custom bronze alloy that no person knows the recipe to. The resulting crossbar will be made of a material found nowhere else, so even a prisoner who's very skilled at manipulating "impure materials" has no opportunity to obtain a sample of it and control it.

An underground prison gives you some relatively cheap security options as well. Make sure there's a long, straight hallway between the cell area and outside. This exit tunnel is supported by pillars. If any prisoner attempts to escape, the guards flee and pull down the pillars on their way out. The roof caves in, sealing all the prisoners inside permanently. Even if a prisoner makes it out of their cell, they have no way of covering that much ground before they get buried alive. Knowing this will make escape attempts less likely. There's actually an incentive for prisoners to try and stop other prisoners from escaping. A variation would be a steep entrance tunnel and a floodgate that leads to a lake above; instead of caving in the mine, open the floodgate and let it flood.

In the exceedingly rare event that someone does manage to escape completely, don't underestimate the stopping power of a trained pack of dogs. You can probably fight off one or two by using your powers to create makeshift weapons. When two dozen German Shepherds are after you, though, good luck. You can't outrun them, and you can't really defend yourself against that many independent, simultaneous attackers.

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The alternative option is that you don't imprison them

As you can see from the other answers, imprisoning someone is going to be complex and expensive. It's also high maintenance and high risk. This is amplified by the lack of industrial base in a medieval society. Generating vast quantities of steel and concrete isn't really practical for your average kingdom.

Execute them

You're only going to imprison high value people, and only for as long as their value exceeds the cost of trying to keep them imprisoned. Any low value persons are simply executed on capture or never captured in the first place.

This now leaves the imprisonment option open:

Maintain the threat of execution

Since we're now talking about high value prisoners, they tend to be rather attached to their own wellbeing. They're also aware that you'd rather have them alive but having them dead is better than having them at large. A high value prisoner is likely to have a fairly open regime, they're not normally kept in chains in a locked dungeon, they're normally kept in a private suite of rooms with access to servants and the threat of being chained in a dungeon if they don't cooperate. Since chaining them in a dungeon has been practically excluded, it comes down to stay put or be summarily beheaded.

High value prisoners are a special case, they tend to be political prisoners and in many cases that just means they're currently out of favour but may come back into favour with some event, change of government, or season. However that only applies if they behave honourably while confined. For as long as that's the case and appropriate quarters and guards are provided, they may well stay put on being informed that they're to remain confined at the monarch's pleasure.

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"[they] can control objects if they are touching its material (...). It is way harder for them to control impure materials but they can still control it."

Build any cell you'd like, as long as its walls and doors are solid, then coat it carefully and thoroughly in a thin layer of the most impure material you can get (think paint), so that the prisoners cannot touch anything that is not the 'impuritum'. Make sure that this layer is bonded to the material beneath for added difficulty in manipulating it, and that there are no large deposits of it nowhere near, except maybe for other cells.

Depending on the application method, you could make that layer just a few atoms thick (electroplating, for example, creates a layer "typically less than 0.1 μm thick" according to Wikipedia), which would not only make using such little amounts impractical, but also severely hamper any ability to manipulate it at all, even if it wasn't impure (after all, if manipulation is easier with more material, it has to be harder with less of it). [thanks computercarguy for this paragraph!]

You can then increase the safety of the cell by combining this method with any other presented already, or coating the cells' walls with a few layers of different impure materials to avoid the prisoners making a small hole to the stone beneath.

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    $\begingroup$ Depending on the application method, the layers could be only a few atoms thick, but the "right" material would be tough enough to make damaging the layer extremely hard to do. $\endgroup$ Aug 19, 2019 at 22:32
  • $\begingroup$ @computercarguy That was exactly what I had in mind, though forgot to put into words. Do you mind if I incorporate your comment into my answer? $\endgroup$
    – Mark
    Aug 20, 2019 at 12:41
  • $\begingroup$ Go right ahead! Don't forget to mention that because it's so little material, the incarcerated person can't do anything with it even if it wasn't "impure". $\endgroup$ Aug 20, 2019 at 15:33
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Suspend them mid-air using tight metal ropes, but coat them using some form of rare (impure) material. This does three things:

  • reduce the amount of area they contact, limiting their power
  • they can only contact impure materials, reducing their powers more
  • reduce the amount of stuff they have control over

Combined, they only have very little control over very few objects.

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I would suggest a large open stockade, enclosed by a large wooden walls. Painted on the ground roughly 60 yards from the walls are lines. If a prisoner crosses the line he is pin cushioned by archers on the walls. There would be no guards inside the stockade and prisoners are left to get on with it. All food is brought in by hand and left at the line.

I am not clear how high the prisoners can 'fly' but I assume the further from the ground they are the harder it is to lift. I am also unsure how far they could fling a boulder if the dug into the ground of the stockade but 60 yards is quite a distance.

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You have people with power. Just remove their power.

The simple way is to have a material that react badly to magic. Put that in their brain or in a neck collar.

You can now use simple prison. Anyone trying to use power to escape or bully others will be dead.

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Dig catacombs.

I'm not suggesting burying them alive individually, as another answer does. What I'm suggesting is a relatively spacious dungeon, deep underground. It might be useful to divide the space into rooms, but it would not need doors; indeed, the goal is to have as little loose or movable material inside as possible, so that your telekinetic prisoners would not have many objects to grab hold of. It might be best to carve the catacombs into stone, so that it wouldn't be easy to dig up loose soil and get loose material that way.

The catacombs would have a single exit, heavily guarded. Food and supplies would be delivered periodically through this exit, perhaps by other telekinetics so that there could be minimal packaging (again, you want as little loose material as possible for prisoners to grab). The effect might be somewhat like the underground prison from The Dark Knight Rises, though prisoners trying to escape from the exit would very much not be free to leave.

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Enchant the cells

magic is mostly used in enchanting

You don't need lots of science here, simply enchant the walls of the cell against TK. The stronger someone tries TK, the more pain they feel.

That could also lead to a breakout story, where one guy finally pushes through that pain barrier (perhaps at the cost of his life) to break the walls down despite the enchantment.

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If you have magic, presumably reasonably powerful mages could inscribe runes of repulsion, that push living things away from them?

Have a spacious cell with these runes inscribed on all six walls pointing inward. Toss in the offending TK, and they instantly get pushed to the middle of the room. With a little practice and a large enough room, they could probably still have some mobility (think "swimming" like astronauts... inefficient, but it's something).

If the runes only target living matter, then guards can come through a door in the corner and toss food to the prisoner, and the prisoner can drop the remnants (bones, seeds, etc, all of which should be too impure for them to use practically anyways) which the guards can sweep up later using a broom on a long pole.

For bathroom business, you can perhaps have the floor sloped downward toward a drain (if the drain would break the floor's rune, you might need multiple smaller runes placed around the drain instead). Then the prisoner just has to orient themselves so their waste goes downward (and not all over themselves), and guards could hose any remainder away.

If you want to give the prisoner a means by which to anchor/orient themselves, you could have chains attached to the walls, inscribed with powerful shock runes. A thin mixed-fiber rope (cotton, wool, and whatever other non-leather materials are available) would be tied between the two chains so the prisoner could use the rope to orient/move themselves more efficiently, but can't reach the wall (the chains should be at least six feet from wall to rope... between the shock runes on the chains and the repulsion effect of the runes getting stronger as they get closer, it will be impossible for them to touch the wall without getting blasted). Of course the rope could still present a security risk in the hands of a powerful-enough, motivated-enough, and clever-enough telekinetic...

Prisoner garb should also consist of this same mixed fabric (whether the rope/chain idea is implemented or not), and guards should ONLY be allowed to wear leather and metal, so their clothes can't be manipulated.

Perhaps as a last ditch security protocol, distilled spirits could be stored in large reservoirs above the prison (and amply insulated, vented, and periodically resupplied). Each cell would have a control valve and several tiny nozzles in the corner of the room -- pulling the valve would activate small shock runes to make an arc near the nozzles, as streams of alcohol come spraying out... boom, flambéed TK. If you want to make sure bored/miscreant guards don't do this for "fun", maybe the valve handles are out of reach on the ceiling, and made of pure iron, and a small number supervisory TK guards have iron rods at their hip so they can activate the valves. If the only TK guards were these few privileged supervisory ones, there would be easier accountability for "accidents".

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im not sure is this can work or not but i suggest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_coffin

enter image description here

BURRIED THEM ALIVE

with one hollow pole or air tube to give them hole to breath and eat or drink, im not even sure you need coffin for them. since you say they can control 2 ton at best just dig deep enough to surpass 2 tons.

this will bind their body in place, cant struggle, or see, all they can do is shout and its better that they dont.

here a movie that depict the feel/horror of being buried alive Buried and this video Buried alive (so i doubt someone can still feel rage or hatred because such behaviour wont save them, and they more likely get traumatised instead, which help in manipulate them to be obedient) and even if you can punch through the coffin like in this movie kill bill 2 i heard including myth buster, realistically the soil that come through should have suffocate or crush her instead. (example like from this link)

also depend on the dirt or field density i think you can remove the pole if you consider it dangerous while keeping gap of hole in the dirt. but if he dare to move his tube or pole it mean he just lose the hole for him to breath and enjoy his burried life.

also as soon the guard feel the hostility they can torture them by just pouring anything hot into the hole or just cover it to make them unable to breath, or just leave them burried like that for long or forever that kind of thought will increase their survival instinct or trauma and have more chance for obedience upon release, if they goes mad then its easier to end their life and not require to make new burrial so it cost effective and simple and cheaper doesnt require industry method to create huge amount of metal.

theres also no way to get out or door to open except tiny hole for the pole which wont be enough to pass through nor dig out of, and any movement to it will only result of the soil to crumble and filling the coffin or their mouth, and worst case it can result in plugging their only hole to get oxygen, unless the dirt or soil is taken out they wont go anywhere.

regarding evacuating their bowels/bladder they can just do their bussiness there, they are prisoner after all no one care about sanitizing regarding jail anyway. it even better to torture their dignity and comfortability, i also doubt there will be a big pile of poop and piss if the guard give the prisoner food to barely enough to make them stay alive.

reasons i suggest this

if you dump them to far away desert islands like australia or alcatraz theres no guarantee they wont build their own kingdom like australia or create flying object or any transportation to invade back.

just put them in a hole or pit without any roof or an exit in the roof doesnt guarantee they dont just dig it out from other place or find material to fly off (since it have no roof chance for outside material to be possessed is big like from intruder/spy)

putting them in cell with impure material doesnt change that you can picklock or manipulate with viewer pure material or smaller controlable impure material to open it or corrode it from acid like piss,sweat,or create salt from your body, or doing similar principle like water breaking a rock.

and especially if you put them in group will only result in disaster.

drug is double edge sword it doesnt guarantee rival kingdom or the people that not captured wont grow their own drug to sway them over, besides its not like drug is irresistible they can just resist the urge by sheer will or hatred alone and just pretending to make an opening to revolt.

just because the people can or cant use telekinetic it doesnt mean they cant use their body parts to manipulate object.

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    $\begingroup$ As a side note, this would be exceptionally cruel. If the prisoner is supposed to be released, I'd expect (at least some of) them to want to take revenge. It might be more humane to just euthanise them at this point. $\endgroup$
    – VLAZ
    Aug 19, 2019 at 8:29
  • $\begingroup$ i more expect them to get traumatized rather than wanting revenge, im not even sure they still can mantain their sanity, in my opinion this method can break their will so they wont easily rebel due to their traumatic experience. $\endgroup$
    – Li Jun
    Aug 19, 2019 at 8:42
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, a traumatised person can retaliate as a result of the trauma. Maybe not all - perhaps some would rather flee after release but others would be angry. Angry and traumatised, so they won't necessarily have the clearest thinking. They can also slam people and things using their mind with a force of at least a ton. All in all, very bad combination. $\endgroup$
    – VLAZ
    Aug 19, 2019 at 8:49
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    $\begingroup$ I'm talking about after release. If the prisoner gets released, then they can seek revenge. If they are never intended to be released, then the inhumane torture/imprisonment makes even less sense - it will be vastly easier for everybody if they are executed. $\endgroup$
    – VLAZ
    Aug 19, 2019 at 11:42
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    $\begingroup$ And where are they going to evacuate their bowels/bladder? $\endgroup$
    – Doktor J
    Aug 20, 2019 at 14:43
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Anti-psychic Magic Spell

Make a magic spell to neutralize any telekinetic activity. Put such a magical object in a protective cell on top of the prison, and disperse the energy to affect all prisoners. Maybe use more of such objects for full effect.

Spiritual music

Place speakers in your prison and play spiritual music of love and compassion. Slowly the sound of spiritual music will cleanse the hearts of all prisoners and they will stop thinking of any negative act. I think this is the best.

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