Protectors

Protectors

The Protectors are an elite organization of Velorians whose mission is to defend their assigned planet with every breath in their bodies. They originated in 1492, Earth count, when Aphro'dite, a Galen regarded as one of the gods by the Velorians, arrived at the Shrine of Skietra on Velor to proclaim a new purpose for the Golden World. It was Aphro'dite who enhanced Vespyr Ten’azi as the first of the Protectors, giving her four times the strength of a normal P-1 female, and she has enhanced every other Protector since.

The Shrine of Sketra became the Academy of Protectors, and was later expanded to meet demand. Offworld combat training was assigned to Erin'lah, a moon originally used for training Companions (Vespyr had served as a Companion on Tazzi's World, but left there to bring warning of the threat of new Arion weapons recently deployed by the Empire), but was later moved to the more forbidding moon of Erin'dor. Some training also takes place on Atlantea, a moon of Daxxan. Protectors are assigned to and serve openly on Enlightenment worlds, also called Disclosed worlds. But some serve secretly on undisclosed worlds, including Earth, and even on alien worlds like Tetra. A team of Protectors also guards the Vauld, a gypsy fleet created by the Vendorians who escaped destruction of their own world by the Empire.

Training and supervision of Protectors was long in the hands of the all-male High Council, which had previously run the Companion program. Every Velorian woman dreams of becoming a Protector, but only women of the Prima caste (specifically P-1) are eligible and indeed obligated to follow that vocation and assume the Mantle of Protector. Some are killed in training and some prove to be insufficiently qualified; these are usually reassigned as Scribes. Protectors are expected to serve for life oin their assigned worlds, and rarely return to Velor. But they stay in contact through the Messengers, also trained at the Academy, who bring them comfort and counsel as well as word from home, in addition to bearing official messengers back and forth.