Dacian Quee-Paddox
Character
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a civilian team of explorers that work for the High Republic
- Image Credit: Image generated through Grok AI
- Role: civilian explorers for the High Republic
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: The High Republic
- Group Name: High Republic Exploration Corps Team
- Affiliation: The High Republic (sponsored by Lucerne Labs, Lucerne Personal Defense, and Lucerne Biological Systems - organization bought from company, and decided to sponsor them afterwards)
- Classification: Explorers / Scientists
- Description: The Exploration Corps is the High Republic's scouting service, tasked with exploring deep space and star systems they might find in the process of those charting ventures. The smallest functional unit with this Corps is the "Team", an eclectic mix of about dozen people including scouts, explorers, scientists, academics, esoteric specialists, and support personnel. Typically, this group travels in a small transport or corvette until they reach a terrestrial location worth exploring in person. Assisted by probe droids, sensor beacons, and scanners, this group is capable of exploring, surveying, and investigating any interesting finds that they might uncover. While much of their work is mundane and unglamorous, every now and then a team uncovers a new valuable world, ancient ruin, or previously unknown life form which can contribute greatly to the High Republic's cause.
- Unit Size: Small
- Unit Availability: Uncommon
- Unit Experience: Expert
- Equipment: Enviro-suits, Fenwolf-series Reinforced Uniforms, EnhanceScan General Purpose Scanner, SE-Vigilant Automated Sensor Beacon, CS-33 Firespray Stun Rifles, Tauntaun series Modular Backpacks, Paean-series Medical Backpacks, Thrinx-class Utility Speeders, L2 Excursor Probe Droids, Vaynai Emergency Rations, ThinHuts
- Specialization Function: About a dozen individuals make up each Exploration Corps Team, with the exact number being dependent on the mission itself. Each team includes veteran scouts and highly intelligent scientists, but it's not uncommon for other personnel ranging from military liaison officers and corporate benefactors to diplomats and nobles of the great houses to accompany these professionals on their missions. Typically, a small number of scouts are responsible for the initial exploration and surveying of an area before specialized scientists and other academics focus on specific areas of interest to the mission itself, whether it's cataloguing the flora and fauna of an otherwise unknown world or studying the runes and glyphs of a lost civilization's temple. While such missions are usually well designed with carefully assembled teams that should meet any potential surprises, there are times when they need to call in other specialists or ask for specialized assets. This patience and understanding of the limits of their expertise is something that is encouraged within the Exploration Corps as a whole, which rewards safety and deference to expertise. With that said, there are an underlying currents of unsaid mores which permeate the Exploration Corps internal culture, which takes a great deal of the pacificist streak traditionally found in the Naboo. The Corps has little problems interacting with the Jedi, diplomats, and nobles of the High Republic, but tends to regard the Grand Army of the Republic and Republic Intelligence Service with a range of attitudes ranging from polite distaste to outright skepticism. Still, the Exploration Corps creed to explore and study new areas for the benefit of the Republic as a whole overrides any personal feelings about the other branches of the government, and if absolutely needed, the Exploration Corps will at least minimally cooperate with the latter services. As a civilian branch, the Exploration Corps reports to the bureacrats of the government, and by extension, to the Republic Senate. Consequently, these organizations direct the activities of the Exploration Corps itself, which depending on the political priorities of the Senate range from exploring new worlds and charting new hyperspace routes to investigating vague rumors and conducting archaelogical digs and specimen hunts.
- Force Abilities (Force User Units Only): N/A
- Explorers: As their name suggests, Explorer Corps members are seasoned scouts and explorers, veterans who have trekked on dozens of little known worlds in the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Members of the team are quite skillful in exploring remote wildernesses and alien ruins alike, and finding "needles in haystacks" when searching for specific finds.
- Scientific Minds: Most exploration team members are not mere scouts, but also professional academics in scientific disciplines such as biology, geology, zoology, and other similar fields. They can frequently bring this expertise to make discoveries and solve problems they encounter on the field.
- Lightly Armed: Exploring frequently takes these teams into areas with dangerous wildlife and unexpected, but due to politics, Exploration Teams are only armed with stun rifles. While useful in some self defense situations and for capturing some smaller animal specimens, the stun rifles typically are not effective against hostile aliens, militaries, and large predators which the team may encounter.
- Small Team Size: Exploration Teams operate in small numbers, which is often necessary due to costs and leaving a small footprint, but it something goes wrong, there is usually not extra help or redundant equipment to help offset mishaps.
Exploration has been the purview of both private and public organizations for many years. Private explorers are known for often seeking fame and fortune, and with those motivations, often take the spotlight in the eyes of the galaxy. But the truly galaxy-changing work is often performed by government-back scouts far from the eyes of public, with their findings often only reported in official bureaucratic channels. The High Republic's Exploration Corps is an example of one of these latter organizations. Its missions include rediscovering lost worlds, especially those with connections to the Republics of old, discovering new worlds with sapient beings in which contact may benefit the High Republic, cataloging worlds with valuable resources or colonization potential, surveying systems for High Republic Star Charts, and plotting new hyperspace routes. All of these missions can bring great benefits to the High Republic, but they are also often low chances of initial success: it is more common for an Exploration Corps team to arrive in a previously unknown star system and find little of note except for worthless uninhabited balls of rock and gas far from well travelled space lanes. But when the discoveries do happen, they can have a momentous impact that often far outstrips the worth of a dozen individuals and a small starship than was initially deployed. These occasional but important discoveries have kept the Exploration Corps members going and have ensured the funding of their service for years to come.
