Galactic Surveyor's Guild

The Galactic Surveyor's Guild is an Organization Dedicated to the re-charting of explored space, and reconnecting interstellar civilization. The Surveyor's Guild is responsible for building and maintaining the Jump Gate Network, carrying a large amount of long distance correspondences along that gate network, surveying systems at the edges of explored space, and launching long range expeditions into parts of the galaxy that were either never explored or only partially explored. As a result of the necessary, and very difficult work that the Guild does, it maintains good relations with nearly every state in explored space, to the point that Guild courier ships are given a state of near immunity from the law Furthermore the currency it uses for its own operations, the G-Credit, has become an international medium of trade. Its methods of surveying and its system of categorization have also become the galactic standard, particularly within known space.

Structure

The Galactic Surveyor's Guild is an extensive organization that maintains vast operations that require a good deal of organization. At a basic level the Guild can be loosely organized into three discreet sections, the Courier Service, the Survey Corps, and the Galactic Archive. There is also a deceptively simple system of ranks that can be climbed as well within the hierarchy of the Guild.

Sections of the Surveyor's Guild

The Courier Service. The bread and butter of the Guild's economic operations, the Courier service is responsible for the maintenance of the Jump Gate Network, the building of new jump gates, as well as carrying express messages, and certain forms of express cargo along this network and through any international barriers that might exist. The courier service is also responsible for the logistics and maintenance of the guild's own network of bases, and its fleet of ships. Members of this section are generally called Couriers.
The Surveyor's Guild. Responsible for carrying out surveying and exploration operations the Surveyor's Guild is effectively responsible for re-establishing contact, and clearing the way for the courier service to perform their duties. The Surveyor's Guild also mounts long range exploratory operations and archaeological expeditions to seek out new worlds, and in particular possible extraterrestrial technologies, with main goal of rebuilding civilization, and restoring Earth to its natural state. Members of this section are generally called Scouts or Surveyors.
The Galactic Archive. The Galactic Archive collects and stores information and artifacts obtained by the other two sections in the Central Archive on Luna or in various datastores found at most Guild Waystations in explored space. The galactic archive also possesses a modest research and development department tasked with figuring out the purposes of retrieved artifacts and attempting to innovate on alien technology. The Galactic Archive also masterminded the The Universal Identification System, which has become the galactic standard for categorizing information, and manage the G-Credit monetary system's routine functioning. Members of this section are generally referred to as Archivists.

Ranks of the Surveyor's Guild

The Surveyor's Guild has a relatively simple rank structure that upholds the whole structure of the organization. The rank structure works as follows:
Apprentice Surveyor. A person who has just mustered into the Guild, apprentice Surveyors are generally responsible for relatively mundane or menial tasks while learning the skills necessary to be a member of the guild. An apprentice can advance past this rank within four years if they have performed their duties well. Apprentices in the Courier Service are called Apprentice Couriers, and those in the Archive are known as Apprentice Archivists.
Surveyor. Somebody who has passed through the training period and become full members of the guild, these sorts perform most of the tasks necessary to keep up operations. The bulk of members of the guild are surveyors. Those with some experience may be placed in roles of greater responsibility, especially shortly before promotion further up the rank structure. Those who are in the courier service are called Couriers, and in the Archive are called Archivists.
Senior Surveyor. Usually after a minimum of sixteen years of meritorious service to the Guild, a Surveyor can be promoted to Senior Surveyor. Senior Surveyors head up entire departments, lead expeditions, captain ships, and perform other leadership duties in the Guild. Most advance no higher than Senior Surveyor, though the Chiefs are elected from a pool of this rank. Those who are serving in the Courier Service are called Senior Couriers, and those in the Archive as Senior Archivists.
Chief Surveyor. The head of a whole section of the Guild, the Chief Surveyor, as well as the Chief Archivist and the Chief Courier form the Executive Council of the guild, responsible for making the major policy decisions and deciding the direction of the Guild. They also elect from their number the Director-General when the previous one retires or dies.
Director-General. The head of the whole Guild the Director-General is fires and foremost, responsible for carrying out interstate level negotiations on behalf of the Guild, as well as serving as first among the Executive Council, resolving disputes and proposing policy initiatives.

Regional Organization

In addition to the sections of the Guild, the organization is also divided into a number of regional organizations that maintain some level of autonomy in day to day operations. At the lowest level are individual ships, which of course perform the duties that would be expected of a ship of that type, and are led by their captains, who are usually members of the Guild with some Seniority, about to, or having recently been promoted to the rank of Senior Courier or Senior Surveyor. Above them are Guild Bases, which often provide services to a fairly extensive network of ships that operate regularly within a certain operational area these are led by Senior Couriers or Senior Archivists that have gains some experience and respect within the Guild. Above them are national and sector commands, which consist of a major waystation, a large central base of operations, and subsidiary bases, a waystation is directed by a veteran Senior Courier or Senior Archivist often with decades of experience, that is often a serious candidate for the position of Chief. At the highest level is the Guild Central Executive, which sets the overall policy direction of the Guild and is managed by the Executive Council and the Director-General.

Public Agenda

The Galactic Surveyor's Guild's agenda is fairly simple; divided into two objectives. The first of these objectives is the preservation of interstellar civilization, to this end it has assumed responsibility for facilitating faster than light travel, archiving vast quantities of knowledge, and maintaining and restoring contact with the many disparate systems of explored space. The second objective is the restoration of Old Earth from its status as a death world, to this end it explores as much of the galaxy as it can for any means of achieving this goal.

Assets

The Galactic Surveryor's Guild is one of the most powerful, and economically influential organizations in explored space. The Surveyor's Guild maintains an extensive fleet of courier ships, and courier tenders, as well as large constructor ships that provide the backbone of high speed communications and travel that are necessary to properly maintain interstellar society. It is also nominally the owner and operator of roughly eighty percent of all jump gates in known space. The Guild also operates a smaller but but still sizable fleet of Surveyor ships, Research vessels and Deep Space exploratory ships that are responsible for carrying out the Guild's exploratory and archaeological and paleontological operations at the fringes of charted space. The guild also maintains a network of small bases, and major waystations throughout the whole of charted space that service the needs of Guildmembers and allow the guild to keep in contact more effectively over vast distances.

History

The Guild was founded in the early days following the Great Cataclysm with the primary objective of keeping the light of interstellar civilization alive through the Age of Technobarbarism and with the secondary objective of finding some way to restore Earth to life following its destruction in the Scourging of Earth. Despite the loss of many of jump gates, and the virtual impossibility of using Jump Drives outside the gates in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, the Guild managed to maintain routes to and from the sectors surrounding sol, and therefore managed to keep interstellar travel going, though in a reduced state. In order to fund these efforts, the Guild introduced the G-Credit and mandated its use to pay for messages sent along the Gate network, and especially in the early years after the Cataclysm, cargo travelling on Guild ships, quickly making the G-Credit the standard for international trade.
After jump travel became more feasible and the shocks of the Cataclysm began to fade the Guild continued its work, replacing the badly damaged and ancient jump gates, and slowly rebuilding the network. Though trade in cargo began to decline as jump travel relied less and less on the few extremely advanced ships left in the galaxy. However, the loss of contact with vast sections of space, meant that the Guild shifted operations to recontact systems that had gone silent during the years following the Cataclysm. As new societies emerged from the fallout, the Guild continued its duties regarding the jump gate network, but did make some concessions, allowing certain states to build gates, particularly at the fringes of explored space.
The Guild in recent years has begun to additionally begin to work in earnest towards achieving the second of its stated goals. As society has begun to rebuild the Guild has been able to shift from simple maintenance to finally being able to expand its operations, beginning to partake in further surveying of worlds at the fringes of charted space, and explore beyond it. The Guild has also begun to explore beyond the bounds of charted space, pushing well into the Galactic Core. This effort has been undertaken to discover a possible solution for the restoration of Earth from its state as a Jred infested wasteland.

Scientiam Conserva Civilizationem Conserva

UOP - Galactic Surveyor's Guild 44583

Founding Date

AC 10

Type

Guild, Professional

Alternative Names

Scout's Guild, Courier's Guild,

Currency

G-Credit

Location

Sol System

Related Professions

• Scholar
• Surveyor

Articles under the GSG