Corp
Overview
The Corp is an order of warrior monks, whose members are known as Corpers. They maintain training monasteries on hidden planets or moons, possibly more than one. Orphans of the galactic wars are brought there and raised in order to become new Corpers.
Training is based on a close personal bond between teacher and apprentice. The teacher is called a tutse and the apprentice a peda. These terms are used exclusively within the Corp and are unknown to most external observers.
Knowledge and Mission
The Corpers have inherited, from unknown origins, and preserve exceptional scientific knowledge, which they pass down from generation to generation. They visit and observe countless planets of different technological and social levels, from societies resembling ancient Earth to modern worlds and highly advanced interstellar cultures.
Often disguised, the Corpers gradually introduce knowledge, especially to underdeveloped societies, such as watermills, roads, bridges, paper, glass, metal extraction, and herbal medicine. For less developed communities, they write manuscripts in the form of epic stories that combine moral inspiration with practical knowledge.
They also promote the idea of self governance, that societies must approve their own laws, and that leadership is a service to the community rather than an act of domination.
Cycles of Life
The life of a Corper is understood as a succession of cycles rather than a linear path. They recognize three main cycles.
- The first cycle is apprenticeship. It has two subcycles. The first is the collective cycle. Classes of children and adolescents are trained for many years in martial arts, sciences, history, astrography, and the Code. The second is the individual cycle. A young Corper becomes a peda to a tutse, meaning an apprentice to a teacher who often takes them along on missions. Apprenticeship has no fixed duration and is completed only when the tutse judges it so.
- The second cycle is active service. The Corper undertakes missions, oversees planets, usually as part of a loose group but sometimes alone, and intervenes according to the Code. The majority of Corpers are in this cycle.
- The third cycle is departure. The aging Corper withdraws from active service. Some remain on the home planet of the Corp, teaching the young or living quietly. Others choose to leave for distant worlds, to live the end of their lives away from missions and responsibilities.
The cycles are not imposed. Some Corpers never complete all cycles.
Methods
In societies characterized by violence or tyranny, the Corpers enter into covert confrontation with rulers, coercing them to behave more justly. Their threats, torture or death for the rulers or their families, have at times been carried out.
Violence is considered a last resort and is used only when all other interventions fail or when human life is under immediate threat.
Technology
The ships of the Corpers are controlled by a collective AI. Each ship carries an AI representative, and all communicate directly through a network of space relays. These relays are embedded within the beacons deployed by the Explorers, but only the Corpers and the Explorers are aware of this.
If a ship travels too far, communication is lost. On uninhabited planets, they maintain automated facilities for the construction of ships, war machines, and vehicles.
When confronting advanced but imperialistic civilizations, they subjugate them militarily using robot soldiers and impose peace, later maintaining blockades to prevent renewed aggression.
Leadership
At the top stands the First Corper, the supreme leader. They live for many years, and after their death the AI, using its own criteria, selects the successor, who may come from any world. The new First undergoes harsh training. Their role is to supervise and improve the AI code but never to choose their own successor.
The First Corper holds a mythic status among the overseen planets. One First founded the Honor Guard of the First, a group of young men and women who serve for one or two years in isolated outposts, where they are trained by Corpers and robots in martial arts, swordsmanship, ship handling, and governance.
Keepers
On certain planets, the Corp has been revealed to a few families. These are the Keepers, living vessels of memory. At times they are hosted aboard Corper ships, where they witness the Corp’s power. They preserve knowledge across generations and even centuries without contact, safeguarding the traditions of self governance.
Structure and Governance
The Corp operates according to a written Code of principles that defines when and how Corpers intervene. The Code is not public, and its details remain unknown to most worlds.
Responsibility for overall oversight lies with a council of elder Corpers, among whom is Soreth. The council does not govern but allocates zones of responsibility and determines which Corpers oversee clusters of planets or specific regions. Many members of the council are in the third cycle.
The First provides high level oversight but rarely intervenes directly. Corpers assigned responsibility for a region act autonomously, following the Code and their own judgment. In difficult situations, they may call for assistance from other Corpers or form small groups or fleets for limited durations and specific missions.
Tutse and Peda
Within the Corp, the relationship between tutse and peda forms the core mechanism through which knowledge, values, and experience are transmitted from one generation of Corpers to the next.
The tutse is a teacher and guide, responsible not only for the training of the peda but also for shaping judgment, restraint, and understanding of law and collective life.
The peda is an apprentice Corper, learning through observation, action, and participation in missions, though such participation is neither constant nor guaranteed.
A tutse does not always take a peda along, but only on missions deemed to hold educational value or when the apprentice is considered ready to face the consequences of power, violence, and responsibility. This selective inclusion is itself part of the teaching, reinforcing the principle that knowledge is not acquired through haste but through timing, maturity, and awareness of one’s actions.
Dual Faces of the Corpers
Fear and Coercion
- They appear silently, often at night
- They coerce rulers who oppress their peoples
- Their presence inspires fear and awe
- They threaten violence and sometimes enact it
- Their sword and their gaze are enough to bring down regimes
- They are legends that turn into nightmares for the powerful
Saviors and Civilizers
- They appear openly in times of need
- They help societies solve problems of water, food, and knowledge
- Their presence brings hope and admiration
- They spread wisdom and inspiration, not only fear
- Their sword becomes a symbol of protection
- They are legends that inspire myths of gods who came to teach
Moto
“We do not want to save you. We want to see if you can save yourselves”.
Known Corpers
Category: Organization