Special Prison For Villain Criminals - Tartarus is a prison distanced from civilization where extremely dangerous Villains are imprisoned and interrogated under the highest security standards possible.
Description#
The high-security prison is located on an island about five kilometers from the mainland, surrounded by giant walls. The only access to the prison is a long bridge connected to a city with the entrance guarded by two or more guards that check every vehicle going in. The gate that stands in front of the mainland side of the bridge is known as "The Bronze Gate". The bridge connecting the prison to the mainland can be made to collapse one section at a time.
Tartarus' interior is heavily armored with blast doors lining narrow, steel-plated hallways. Prisoners incarcerated inside Tartarus are heavily restrained, with the most severe sitting down restrained on a large, high-tech chair with a full-body straitjacket. Though nominally a prison, the facility effectively serves as a dumping ground for individuals who threaten or have threatened public safety to a drastic extent. Regardless of sentencing status, these individuals are incarcerated and heavily monitored in Tartarus.
People with a wide range of Quirks are locked within its walls and divided up among six cell blocks, depending on the danger their Quirks represent and the severity of their cases. The more dangerous the individual, the deeper they're kept within the prison. The deepest level of the prison is B10, located 500 meters below sea level.[1]
Sensors are continuously monitoring the vital functions of prisoners, reacting to even the slightest sign of unusual behavior or attempt to activate a Quirk.[2] The aforementioned sensors are also connected to four ceiling-mounted, automated machine guns that will fire on the prisoner if they suddenly move or have thoughts of activating their Quirk. Tartarus guards also monitor prisoners in a room with several screens displaying the inside of cells, where they are alerted to movement and speaking from prisoners.[3] Conversations between guards are recorded whilst they are on the job and they are also allowed to use lethal force as they carry weapons. In the event of a cell breakout, guards are allowed to open fire on prisoners should they resist recapture.
The prison has visiting rooms where visitors can speak to prisoners from the opposite side of a glass window. These rooms are set up so the prison guards can observe and monitor conversations between prisoners and visitors. These rooms are equipped with a microphone to talk to a visitor, and computers that can detect and display a prisoner's brainwaves, which informs guards of their state of mind during a conversation with a visitor.
The defensive capabilities of Tartarus is such that All For One admitted, even if Tomura Shigaraki's body was 100% complete, and Gigantomachia was with him, they would still struggle to get past its nigh-impenetrable defenses.
Locations#
History#
When society was being sieged by chaos caused by the uprising of Meta Abilities, Vigilantes united and formed the foundation of Heroes to defeat the individuals who are considered to be the most dangerous to society, and with most dangerous Quirks. To that end, a normal prison would not suffice, as their defense perimeter was too weak to handle these dangerous individuals.
Tartarus was constructed to house the "worst of the worst" Quirk users. Some were considered to be so psychotic that a life sentence was implemented to prevent them from wreaking havoc onto communities. Each inmate is considered to be highly dangerous, as the facility is controlled by a collaboration of the Hero Public Safety Commission, law enforcement, and Pro Heroes. Tartarus was also used to house hero defectors who turned on society against the Commission's will, including former Commission Pro Hero and assassin Lady Nagant.
Vs. Hero Killer Arc#
After the Hosu Incident, the Hero Killer: Stain was defeated by the combined efforts of Izuku Midoriya, Tenya Ida, and Shoto Todoroki (though publicly attributed to Endeavor), and was sent to Tartarus as punishment for his crimes of murdering and maiming many Pro Heroes.[4]
Forest Training Camp Arc#
The League of Villains sent the Vanguard Action Squad to infiltrate U.A. High School's Quirk Training Camp in The Beast's Forest in an attempt to kidnap some of the Hero Course Students, and although they succeeded in kidnapping Katsuki Bakugo, the Villains Muscular and Moonfish were defeated and sent to Tartarus for their murders, with Moonfish awaiting the death penalty.[5]
Provisional Hero License Exam Arc#
After the Kamino Incident, the villainous mastermind All For One was sent to Tartarus, and placed into the lowest cell in the facility, with the highest possible security focused on him, even despite his extremely decrepit state. About a month later, All Might went to meet him within the prison to discuss unresolved matters between the two.[2]
Shie Hassaikai Arc#
After the Shie Hassaikai Raid, the Villain Overhaul was sent to Tartarus for his role as the Shie Hassaikai's Boss; along the way the escort truck was intercepted by the League of Villains, who amputated both his arms, making him powerless.[5]
Paranormal Liberation War Arc#
After being captured by Gran Torino and the detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, Kurogiri was sent to Tartarus. Once there, he showed no sign of confessing or disclosing any information about the League of Villains.[5] They eventually discover that he is a Nomu made from the corpse of Oboro Shirakumo, an old high school classmate of Shota Aizawa and Hizashi Yamada, and upon interrogating him with the two, they are able to get Oboro's personality to re-merge, who mentions a hospital where the Nomu are made. He was then relocated to Central Hospital for further study.[6]
A few months later, after the vestige of All For One managed to control Tomura Shigaraki's body and escape from the Paranormal Liberation War, accompanied by a small group of Near High-End Nomu, he decides to assault Tartarus to rescue his old body.[7]
Despite the destruction it causes, the prison's defenses are a difficult obstacle to overcome alone, so All For One uses his Quirks to free as many prisoners as he can to cause a riot, which allows both his true body and the controlled Tomura to reunite. They soon hijack an emergency aircraft to assault other prison facilities, freeing more Villains.[1] In the aftermath of the assault, the facility was destroyed by the Near High-End Nomu and Villains who swore allegiance to All For One, and was abandoned after the Villains who followed him escaped.[8]
Prisoners#
The prisoners are criminals for whom the death penalty is not enough.[9] They are kept underground in the prison where they are watched by a multitude of sensors and guards.[3] Outsiders can visit prisoners, although their conversations are monitored and restricted, with visitors not being able to tell prisoners anything about the outside world and having a time limit on their conversation.[2] Pro Heroes and police are also able to talk to Tartarus prisoners to conduct investigations.
Prisoners may be manually kept alive through oxygen masks, IV fluids, and feeding tubes, such as with the case of All For One. Prisoners wear reddish-orange jumpsuits and while they are kept in their cells, more dangerous and violent prisoners can be restrained, such as Muscular and Moonfish, or sedated should they pose a risk of using their Quirks, such as with Kurogiri. Either way, Tartarus is the dark side of Quirk society, and it is said that anyone imprisoned there will never again emerge alive. One of the guards even scoffs at the statement that the prisoners are people, seeing them only as beasts in human skin and believing that they have reached such a low point due to the emergence of Quirks.[1]
Known prisoners included:
- Stain (Escaped, later assisted Heroes; killed by All For One)
- Muscular (Escaped, later recaptured)
- Moonfish (Escaped, later defeated)
- All For One (Escaped, killed by Rewind Drug)
- Kurogiri (Relocated, later escaped; died while assisting Heroes)
- Lady Nagant (Escaped, later recaptured; pardoned after assisting Heroes)
- Overhaul (Escaped, later recaptured)
- Dictator (Escaped, later recaptured)
- Ginji (Escaped, later recaptured)
- Kunieda (Escaped, later defeated)
- Gashly Eijiju (Escaped, later defeated)
- Unnamed inmate (Deceased, killed by Stain)
- Unnamed inmates (Deceased, killed by Moonfish)
- Unnamed inmates (Deceased, killed by Guards)
Guards#
Trivia#
- Seiji Shishikura's father was employed at Tartarus. Furthermore, the main reason Seiji ended up attending Shiketsu High School is because the school provides the students with hats that are very similar to those Tartarus employees like his father wear.[5]
- In Greek Mythology, Tartarus is a dungeon realm in bottom of the Greek underworld where the worst beings (like the Titans) are forever kept to be tortured for their evil deeds.
- The manga and anime say that the prison was named after the god that ruled the underworld. This was changed in the English dub of the anime, as the god in question was named Hades.
- The realm was named after its original master, a primordial Deity who predated both the titans and the Olympians (Greek gods; including Hades). Hades took control of the other sections of the Greek underworld but not Tartarus. These areas became collectively known as Hades.
- Gyges and Briareos are both named after Greek mythology's Hecatoncheires (giants with fifty heads and one hundred arms).
- According to an unnamed guard, the prison has been accused of human rights violations and feared that even a single leak of conversation about the prisoners could mean serious trouble for them.