THE DIABLOS OF D-BLOCK

In Corregidor, if you want to be a badass motherfucker you’d better be the baddest motherfucker of all, the toughest bastard because this mothership is packed with motherfuckers and you can rest assured that the competition is going to be fierce. But it’s not just that you need to be a badass to survive on the streets of Corregidor: you need to be a badass to survive the Law.
If you pursue a criminal career and get caught by the Alguaciles Corps, they won’t simply put you in a cell; it doesn’t work that way in Corregidor. If you’re a gangbanger with the maras, you’ll be given the choice of joining the Jaguar program or jumping out of an airlock without a vacuum suit. If you’ve committed a serious crime, you’re fucked, because you won’t get a choice. Corregidorans don’t believe in providing for dangerous criminals with the tax money of the hardworking Nomad citizens. You’ll be sentenced to death, and it will come quickly, because within a couple of days after your trial, you’ll be tossed out of an airlock so you can enjoy a last spacewalk. Unless of course, you’re one of the most dangerous sons of bitches out there, a really vicious and violent bastard. Then, you’re in luck because you won’t be killed—at least not right away.

Instead, you’ll be put in D-Block, home to the Diablos, the block for those who are too dangerous to be placed with the rest of the inmates, but who isn’t executed because they can still be of use to the mothership. Here in Corregidor, all inmates are subject to a system of mandatory work, either in maintenance tasks for the mothership or serving some Nomad corporation as a quasi-slave labor force. On this ship, everyone has to pay for the air they breathe, and inmates are no exception. This is why Corregidor has the death penalty; it’s a way to limit the number of inmates they have to deal with, and also a measure to get rid of the bad apples. However if you’ve exhibited a special talent for extreme violence and destruction, then you could be useful to the Corregidor Jurisdictional Command.

Technically, your fate will be similar to that of the other inmates—you’ll serve a sentence of forced labor. It’s forced because you will have no choice but to do it, unless you want to face the death penalty that your stay in D-Block has suspended. The Corregidor Jurisdictional Command will enlist you in a penal battalion operating as a frontline shock unit, and you’ll always be deployed into the thick of combat. This isn’t what you’d call a suicide-attack unit (what a nasty term!), but it’s certainly the kind of force characterized by a very high mortality rate. So it’s very likely that you’ll end up meeting the Grim Reaper sooner rather than later.

Faced with such a prospect, it may cross your mind to try to escape. Good luck with that. Anticipating such a bright idea, the Alguaciles Corps will have probably put a safety implant in you: a capsule that can be remotely activated to release a neurotoxin into your bloodstream and end your life in a matter of seconds. So, the best way to live another day is to keep doing exactly what got you into this fucked-up situation: to be such a devious and violent son of a bitch that you’ll survive every mission by beating the shit out of anyone who crosses your path. 

Needless to say, this shouldn’t be difficult for you, since not only was it one of your specialties in your previous life as a thug, but you’re also perfectly equipped for it. All the Diablos of D-Block, including yourself, fit the same profile: you have a long history of violence and you’re equipped accordingly. This includes shoddy subdermal armor, muscle grafts, powerful yet clunky cybernetic enhancements... gangbanger stuff, essential to survival on your streets and to becoming the alpha motherfucker of your module. You’re a badass street cyborg, loaded with technology that’s ugly and clunky, but effective and brutal.

It’s illegal technology that has messed
with your minds, triggering a psychopathy that, let’s face it, was always there. But you must be crazy to endure all the pain and violence that comes with the life you’ve chosen. This is why D-Block exists, and why the Jurisdictional Command always has a few Diablos deployed in dangerous hot spots. We may not want you at barbecues when we’re celebrating or in the promotional holovideos, but we know you can knock out anyone who stands in your way because you’re the toughest motherfuckers from the toughest ship in the entire Human Sphere. And that’s why we let you live—until the enemy kills you.

Emiliano Guevara, Vortex agent, and Black Hand officer, during an appraisal interview for admission to D-Block. Supermax Correctional Module. Praesidio. Corregidor.