[Author's note 18 Sept. 2024: This essay updated to more accurately reflect names and other minor pieces of lore that differ in print from what was originally presented here]
The Benevolent
and Protective Order of Explorers (BPOE, a/k/a "the Order" or
"The Bolt Patrol" (pej.))is an interplanetary organization whose
charter mission is to catalog all objects within the influence of Sol's gravity
and maintain a detailed ongoing analysis of same. Specific attention is paid to
those items known or discovered to be hazards to intra-solar navigation. The
Order is also charged with rendering aid or assistance to all spacecraft in the
course of discharging that primary duty.
The BPOE was
founded by a mandate of the Coalition of Human Worlds* (which at the time was comprised of
the Earth, Luna, and Martian governments)in the early 2200s. The mandate, one of the first
unanimous votes by the Council, was issued after several craft were lost or
damaged by high relative-velocity impact. The impactors were both man-made and
naturally occurring debris. The initial surveys found these objects littered
within the most advantageous routes between the worlds of the inner solar
system.
The original
mandate was only for the surveying and maintenance (removal of navigational
hazards to safer orbits) of existing routes. It has since expanded to include
the entirety of Sol's gravitational influence due to vastly increased growth of
space travel for purposes of business, infrastructure construction
(terraforming efforts), and pleasure.
Per mandate
23.358, the Inner Worlds Terraforming Alliance of Mars and Future Venusians
maintains a joint sovereignty over Saturn and its moons for the purpose of
harvesting these natural resources for use on the more hospitable inner rocky
worlds. The BPOE does not maintain a constant human presence in this area, but
does perform routine sweeps of the area from automated listening posts in the
Jovian Trojans.
Uranus,
Neptune, and the outer limits of the Kuiper Belt and Oort cloud are still up
for grabs. Technology and human patience have not advanced far enough to
expand to these worlds in any real capacity. Given this, only the BPOE travels this far up
Sol's gravity well for the purpose of conducting survey missions of those outer
elements so that they will be well understood when the rest of humanity does
come out his far. These survey missions were multi-year cruises before significant advances in drive technology circa 2318. All BPOE
crew who are assigned to Deep Space Survey duty are given extensive
psychological screenings and post-screening training to prepare for the
extended isolation.
*The Coalition of Human Worlds has grown since its inception to include settlements on Ceres and the Jovian moon Callisto.