literature

Protectors of the Galaxy: The Space Cadets

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​The Space Cadets are the military wing of the Protectorate of Mankind, given the purpose of enacting the Protectorate's edicts across the galaxy. Once the proud army of a growing galactic power, the Space Cadets are a shadow of their former selves, forced to take in outlaws and criminals for recruits. Space Cadets are deployed throughout the galaxy, often placed in impossible situations which they have to resolve with wit, guile, and firepower.

The Space Cadets were formed from the disparate militaries of the early Protectorate of Mankind, a political union of disparate planetary and system governments that arose from the ashes of the War of the Cog Lords. The Space Cadets' purpose was simple: to expand the Protectorate and defend it from hostile forces. Armed with relatively advanced weapons for the time - transatomic weapons, disintegrators, death rays - the Protectorate easily defeated their neighbors, most of whom had only recently achieved spaceflight. Space Cadets were trained primarily to convince other sapients to join the Protectorate, while hunting down Cog Lords and other machine opponents. After several brutal wars against the dyn and the krovstvo, Space Cadets were instructed to terminate non-human civilizations upon encountering them.

The Protectorate succeeded in taking over much of the Expansion Region, winning victory after victory. Space Cadet recruitment grew to keep up with the expansion, but as a consequence, the quality of individual Space Cadets went down. Upon encountering the Third Empire, a state of comparable size to the Protectorate itself, the two societies went to war. Both wanted to be the sole galactic government, and neither was willing to concede this claim. The Empire's massive military placed tremendous strain on the Space Cadets, which had to further loosen recruitment standards to keep up with the Empire's conscription. Eventually, criminals were given a choice: serve on the front lines, or serve out a brutal sentence. This choice was itself phased out, and criminals were conscripted into the Space Cadets.

The Protectorate Wars, as the Empire calls them, ended in a stalemate and a compromise. The Empire would maintain its political cohesiveness, but it would become a member of the Protectorate. Through its membership, the Empire took over the political organs of the Protectorate and stripped them of all power, transferring them to the Imperial throne. The Protectorate became little more than a debate club for the galaxy, with the Empire having the loudest voice. The Space Cadets were a major casualty of these reforms, as the Empire did not want a serious challenger to the Imperial military. The Protectorate's power to levy taxes on any member state other than that of the Protectorate's embryonic government was removed, and with it the ability to fund the Space Cadets with anything but grants from the member states. By this point, most of the Protectorate's original members joined the Empire, and the Imperial government made limited contributions, all hobbled by conditions that limited how the funding could be used. The Space Cadets were thus reduced from a galactic military force to a police force. This situation only worsened after the Federation became a Protectorate member in the aftermath of the Third Federation-Imperial War. With the Federation and Empire both disinterested in giving the other power via the Protectorate, both hobbled its capabilities.

The Empire did allow the Protectorate to have some powers that were of importance to every human society in the galaxy: protection from alien civilizations and enforcement of the Uniform Machine Code. Protection from aliens was a political concession by the Empire, as by this point in galactic history, the only alien empires that could threaten humanity were safely contained. Even if they weren't, the Imperial military would do the brunt of the fighting, not the Space Cadets. Eager to find ways to make themselves relevant, Space Cadets turned to finding smaller alien civilizations and exterminating them, reasoning that they are stopping threats to mankind from arising in the future. By far, their most important responsibility was enforcing the Uniform Machine Code. This began as wars against the machine civilizations that populated the Crazed Core, but Space Cadets found themselves in enforcement actions against humans violating the Uniform Machine Code. This evolved into the a major role of the Space Cadets today: serving as the investigatory arm of the Protectorate's bureaucracy. With the Tournament of Shadows, Space Cadets have also been granted the privilege of enforcing treaties conducted through the Protectorate, such as demilitarized zones on planets divided between the great powers.

In modern times, the Space Cadets recruit from two major pools: volunteers from across the galaxy, and those citizens born on Protectorate worlds and stations. The latter, consisting of only about fifty billion people, is tiny, but they tend to be loyal and believe in the Protectorate's goals. These tend to make up the officers of the Space Cadets. The vast majority of Space Cadets are volunteers, which are a mixed bag of idealists and individuals who join the Space Cadets for less noble reasons. Some have failed in their lives and believe that serving in the Space Cadets might give them purpose, others have been refused military service for some reason or another, and others still are running away from the authorities. Some Space Cadets are criminals "volunteered" by their governments to serve, as a means of getting rid of them. These Space Cadets are given extensive training and neurological conditioning to turn them into proper soldiers, but this process is imperfect.

At any one time, there are about ten million Space Cadets in the entire galaxy. This is all the Protectorate can afford, as Space Cadets take years to train and have equipment which is expensive for the Protectorate to produce, maintain and replace. Raw recruits are often sent to investigate reported major violations of the Uniform Machine Code, particularly if the accused does not volunteer information and examples of the technology for Protectorate investigation. More skilled Space Cadets are tasked with more intense missions, such as helping local forces fight off alien invasions or serving as guards and mediators in areas where the great powers cannot agree to settle the dispute themselves.

Space Cadets are typically equipped and armed with ancient designs, dating back to the days of the Protectorate's war with the Empire. This is because the Protectorate has its access to modern technology limited by the Empire, limitations that persist to this day. Nevertheless, Space Cadet equipment is effective, and in some ways superior to modern equipment. For example, Space Cadet disintegrators are far more powerful than modern blasters or phasers, but are more expensive to maintain. The Space Cadets use them primarily because the threats they face are myriad, and disintegrators are more likely to be effective against a larger class of targets. The aesthetics of the Space Cadets is also reminiscent of the expansion era, a purposeful decision intended to evoke a more optimistic age for mankind.
It's been three years to the day since I first posted the Space Cadet thread, and I hadn't even made an update for the Space Cadets themselves. 
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Did you intend for them to be more important, given that the series was named after them or is their lake of importance part of the joke.