The Sector Protectorate - alias, Space Feds.
The Sector Protectorate gather for an overpriced group photo at Cosmic Con 2, about a week into the War on Jobs.
Charting and defending the starfields with pomp and circumstance, this military-industrial complex declared itself the federal government of the Sectors several years ago. Admiral Edward James Almost's stern speeches from "the Cosmic Con" rallied sci-fi fans everywhere to his cause; their long-suffering life partners followed suit. Much of local space has joined up and got to work, while other worlds didn’t care enough to return their calls. The medieval planet of Naughtyham sent a mounted messenger several light-years from home to blow a raspberry at Admiral Almost.
Hermie Twinkman calls in a trollium tanker for a fill-er-up. He's got half a tank, he just really likes phonecalls.
The Sector Protectorate's might comes from the mining of trollium, the lifeblood of their engineering. Trollium is highly volatile; rather than being "excited", particles are constantly "trolled" by highly obnoxious quantum-scale lifeforms which regale them with horrible takes on local nano-gossip. Space-Feds workers with experience in online fandom refine the substance by engineering Alternating Laughable Takes: "ALTs". These disingenuous opinions take neither side of an argument until observed, at which point they appear to disagree with the observer.
A trollium tanker makes a dropoff at Colony One. Admiral Almost poses for a photo-op with Director Bimble, who stages repeated takes in a devious scheme to embezzle countless 100-dollar bills.
The Scabelot Corporate Union for Mining (S.C.U.M.) puts the "industrial" in "military-industrial complex". Formerly unscrupulous asteroid miners, the Space Feds provided them with the knowledge of trollium and secured entire planets for strip-mining; this ensured their utter monopoly over energy in the Sectors. Now, they trade solely with the Protectorate in exchange for the Space Feds' protection against rival business and upstart Kommies. More on S.C.U.M. to C.U.M. in a future thread.
Navy Science on Colony One. L to R: Trophy Vault holding artifacts of the Illuminati War and the Caz Hazard. Dr. Hunkel guides the design of the Drony. Captain Martin tends to the wounded alien Toro. Isis and Trudy Tective notice the camera as the Starboat prepares for launch.
As the Space Feds are the dominant military force in the known universe, existential threats to the Sector Protectorate are usually of an occult or technologically-alien nature. Admiral Almost, grateful for the exoskeleton that keeps his heart beating, gives Navy Science carte blanche in all such affairs, with the galaxy's keenest minds blazing trails as Sector Inspectors. Their ranks have included Father of Trollium Dr. Jed Hunkel, rumored quantum-surfer Captain Martin, the late lightning-slinging ninja Jay, and the moody Trudy Tective, who only flies with their dearest friend Isis the Crocodile.
The nefarious Steve Jobs surveils the rapid sprawl of the Zone from the Ergonomikart.
Threats to the Sector Protectorate are often of their own making. Most recently, after discovering the incoherent rambles of Illuminati Guy concerning the effects of "5G", the Space Feds sought to harness this power for their Sectornet communications. While effective, Navy Science's treacherous Steve Jobs opened a rift in spacetime - The Zone. True to his name, Jobs spreads this altered state of reality across the Sectors; in the name of capitalist expansion, he hopes to discover the secrets of the arcane "6G" in The Zone that will enable even faster exchanges of NFT news and Skibidi Toilet fanfilms, and even more Jobs Opportunities for his workforce of customer-support chatbots.
The deployment of the 5G Patrol at the outbreak of the War on Jobs led to the first of many deaths and castrations for John Dick.
The failure of the 5G Patrol was analyzed, their technology reworked into the Hazard Marines, seen here at the last stand of Ice Station Isis on Krysto. Though effective, their tech-forward tactics are immune to neither lightsabers nor Italians.
The Space Feds' many units and their hierarchy is always evolving. Further information will be added to this thread as more information becomes available through the Sectornet. Stay tuned, citizens!
