Crime is a fact of life in any civilization (well, almost), be it a wretched hive of scum and villainy or the upstanding Federation. And where there’s crime, there’s laws preventing it and punishments for breaking those laws. But with all this futuristic technology at our disposal, surely we can come up with something a little more interesting than steel bars and heavy fines, right? So here are 4 ways to deal with the convicts of the future, ensuring that they serve out their time… although whether these forms of sci-fi punishment are actually worse than rotting in a jail cell today is up for debate.

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Life’s hard in a dystopian world, and sometimes you really just need any escape you can get. That’s why there’s no shortage of new and exciting drugs being created in these kinds of places–or at least, they always sound exciting. A lot of the time, these futuristic drug offerings aren’t quite what you’re promised, and come with some major downsides. The next time someone offers you a first hit for free, pause and think over the points below before you wind up the latest victim of a half-baked narcotics fad.

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It’s that time again: the Subjectively Obscure Sci-Fi Primer is here to introduce you to our next little-known sci-fi series. This month’s subject is the cyberpunk-esque series TekWar, based on a series of novels by Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner. Naturally, that means Shatner has a role in the show, but it was 1994 and he was a little past the action hero days by then. Set in 2045, TekWar is a cop show (Shatner originally thought of it as “TJ Hooker in the future”). It started off as a series of TV movies, four in all, before being adapted to a single-season series. While the show didn’t last long, TekWar spawned a franchise of sorts and has comics running even now. We’re going to look at both the TV movies and the series for this, as they share the same cast (and may or may not be in continuity–I’ll get to that later).

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