Deep Patrol, An Essay

Having revealed the secret history of the Deep Patrol, the titular organisation of my space opera serial, in the chapters In Mitigation for the Crime of Mutiny and  A Robot Told Us To Do It, there's still a few things I haven't mentioned about it. So here's a brief piece on how they took the Ironheart Oracle's warning and turned it into an organisation.

The Ironheart Oracle offered some advice to the founders of the Deep Patrol, but left the details to them. Their principles pushed the organisation in several different directions.

Decentralisation was a key point. The officer or crew on the spot would have all the authority they needed to deal with any situation.  The carriers, self-sufficient mobile bases capable of building all the equipment of the Patrol, including replicating themselves, would make a good basic unit.

This would also help to protect the Patrol as a whole. A threat that overwhelmed one carrier group would leave the others intact to react to it. It would make the Patrol as a whole more resilient, even as individual parts might be more vulnerable.

In addition it would allow the Patrol as a whole to scout larger volumes, for captains and commanders to investigate where they wished and deal with situations in their preferred manner. In other words, to fulfil their promise to the Ironheart Oracle by going where they were not supposed to and interfering where they should not be. The Patrol would seek to escape from destiny by exploring beyond all possible precognition boundaries.

This led to certain difficulties. By dividing the Patrol into autonomous cells, separated by distance and experience, it meant that one unit could not learn from another. Units, already having to travel great distances to support one another in a crisis, would find that they had radically different ways of dealing with situations. Ways that might lead to them acting at cross-purposes.

More insidious still was the possibility of a Patrol division going rogue. The irony of this being a concern amongst a group busy severing ties with the organisation that had founded them was not lost on them, yet the difference between an aggressively interventionist policy and that of a conquistador was one they desperately needed to preserve.

Loose patrol-wide structures were formed – the promotion boards, the technical and strategy bureaus, the education department. In addition exchange programs, where personnel from one ship, or later base, would move to another bringing new insight and experience, were mandated. Oversight officers were appointed, to observe a unit they were attached to while being responsible to another command structure. And regular communications and updates were put at the very heart of the Patrol’s mission.