Explorers
Overview
The Explorers are a mysterious technological community with a long standing presence in the galaxy. They exist as a dedicated society focused exclusively on charting and anchoring mapped space corridors.
Territory
They inhabit the temperate planet Charteria. Charteria is a unified state world and serves as the political center of the Commonwealth.
Knowledge and Purpose
No one knows how the Explorers acquired their mapping knowledge or why they are devoted to their work. Their origin and motives remain unexplained.
Propulsion and Travel
The Explorers travel in privately owned vessels that operate at sub photonic speeds close to the speed of light. They choose their own target regions and travel to them in these sub photonic craft.
Mapping Practice
In every region they reach they chart celestial bodies nebulae asteroid belts gravitational anomalies black holes and similar phenomena. They do not explore planetary surfaces.
Beacons and Anchors
Wherever they complete mapping they install beacons which they call anchor points. Once placed the beacons allow hyper photonic travel for ships that move through a space channel linking two beacons. In effect the beacons form a network of space tunnels. Some groups especially military ones refer to them as nav nodes.
Technical Limits
A bubble beacon emits only a periodic signal at a fixed frequency. It does not fold space nor does it move ships through the network.
Temporal Scale and Vessels
Mapping unfolds on a timescale of thousands or tens of thousands of years because all travel is sub photonic. Many missions are multi generational long duration vessels with crews spanning many generations trained for centuries long sub photonic journeys.
Maintenance and Presence
The Explorers are the only technicians who visit operate refuel and maintain the beacons. Only they know the methods of entry maintenance and refueling. At times they leave personnel stationed at a beacon. No other people enter them.
Beacon Form and Status
A typical bubble beacon is about the size of a ten story residential complex. All known civilizations treat them as sacred and show them respect.
Access Policy and Use
The three major powers discovered the beacon network and established contact with the Explorers. They protect the network through mutual agreement. They maintain a joint diplomatic presence on Charteria but do not perform beacon maintenance. The Explorers do not transfer hyper photonic drive technology to other peoples. Those peoples must develop the technology on their own and may then freely use the network.
Detection and Use by Others
Vessels traveling through the network leave detectable traces at the entry and exit points of each beacon. Even pirate or smuggler worlds outside the control of the three powers use the network.
Metaphor
Functionally the beacon network acts like a chain of navigation lighthouses scattered across an immense ocean of space.