Crematoria (The Chronicles of Riddick)

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Crematoria is a triple-max security prison planet featured in the film The Chronicles of Riddick, one of the very few triple max prisons in the Riddick universe.

Crematoria orbits very closely to its parent star in the Igneon system. As a result the daylight side of the planet has temperatures in excess of 700 degrees. The night side of the planet is extremely cold (-300 degrees, according to one character). This might imply that these values are on the Fahrenheit scale, as -300 Celsius is below absolute zero and hence impossible. The surface appears to consist mainly of melted-looking rocks, and somehow the planet has breathable air.

Sunrise on Crematoria is spectacular; the instant the sun becomes visible temperatures in exposed areas rise sharply. It is not possible for a human to withstand direct exposure for more than a few seconds, as surfaces become blistering hot in moments, hot enough to where practically anything disintegrates within mere seconds. Although Riddick in The Chronicles of Riddick movie had used water as a damper on the exposure he would receive as he was close to the "Visible Thermal Front."

There is an approximately 20 minute buffer zone between the light side and the dark side of Crematoria in which a person can survive on the surface, depending on the planet's position in orbit, but at least at this time during the movie when Crematoria is mentioned the orbit creates a 20 minute buffer. This area is known as the "VTF" or "Visible Thermal Front" where one can see the Igneon system's star about to come out for daybreak on the planet of Crematoria. Similar to an Aurora of any kind or the Northern Lights in appearance. As the "VTF" comes into full effect, and daylight is seen, a human cannot survive for long, even if they could hide from the light and most of the heat exposure, there is a line of extreme heat and explosions of fire that would surely kill any person on the ground, this line of explosions takes much longer than the first light to reach someone but is definitely a far more dangerous aspect.

As Toombs, a mercenary who pursues Riddick, describes it, "If I owned this place and Hell, I'd rent this place out - and live in Hell". (This is a paraphrase of a remark once made by General William T. Sherman about Texas.)

Crematoria has only two known artificial structures: an underground prison and, about thirty kilometers distant, a landing strip and hangar. If the main rail cart from the hangar to the prison is disabled, a secondary series of access tunnels which run just below the surface can be taken. These tunnels also offer retractable pillboxes with which the surface can be surveyed. The underground prison itself is considered one of the most terrible jails within the Riddick Universe, including extremely deplorable conditions and guards who release bloodthirsty, tiger-like creatures into the prison, apparently for their own amusement and possibly to eliminate the weaker prisoners from the population. From what is seen in the film the prison consists of a wide, vertical central shaft cut down into bare rock. Along this shaft are cut openings for various walkways, chambers, and cells. Above this, the guards watch the prison from a climate controlled chamber which "caps" the top of the rocky shaft. The guard's portion of the prison is movable, during the Crematoria "day" siting just below the planet's surface. But during the VTF period this chamber(s) rises on giant metal screws, allowing it to rise to ground level so as to switch out stale air for fresh from the atmosphere. Various details about the prison and its workings are further explained in "The Chronicles of Riddick" novelization by Alan Dean Foster. Including the fact that huge screw drives are used to lift the guard quarters because, in Crematoria's extreme conditions, hydraulic systems would have likely melted. In The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick, Kyra and a party of escapees from the prison must reach the hangar and the only ship available for escape from the planet, before the prison guards (escaping along an underground passage) and the deadly sunrise.

This Crematoria scene represents exactly how effective Riddick's goggles are since he is extra sensitive to light and the light on this planet is far more powerful than that of any known planet.