Explorer Corps

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This article is about the ComStar organization. For the sourcebook, see Explorer Corps (sourcebook).

The ComStar Explorer Service or Explorer Corps was formed by Primus Adrienne Sims in 2959 to publically chart and catalog the worlds beyond the Periphery, but covertly to locate lost Star League caches and Kerensky's lost Exodus fleet for ComStar's benefit.

Motivated by visions of previous Primuses referring to the space outside the borders of the Inner Sphere as the only true threat to ComStar, Sims requested funding for the branch based on the mystery of Exodus fleet and the threat to ComStar's position and technological superiority if the fleet ever returned.

Using long range scout JumpShips such as the Magellan and lightly armed DropShips to investigate old Star League naval charts, the Corps travel in every direction to re-establish contact with lost and forgotten worlds and locate old SLDF era caches. Most of the contacts on inhabited worlds was diplomatic and cool, while some were outright hostile, with response to ComStar's mystical ways and technology as mixed as the Inner Sphere without the threat of a Interdiction to cow people into line. If locating a former abandoned SLDF cache or base of value, the Corp either stripped it's resources for return to the Inner Sphere, or restored it to operation. While some of the lesser or stripped finds were reported to the Inner Sphere governments, the Explorer Corps retained many for the use of ComStar operations in the Periphery, some of which were used in the Jolly Roger Affair.

Prophetically, Primus Sims fears of destruction from beyond came true not in spite of but because of the Explorer Corp, when in 3048 the Explorer Corp vessel Outbound Light found the Clan Smoke Jaguar world of Huntress, their arrival giving ammunition to Crusader Clans to launch Operation Revival, the Clan Invasion of the Inner Sphere.

With threat of the Clans, the majority of Explorer Corps resources were directed to locating the Clan Homeworlds, but ComStar's covert agents had more success finally pin-pointing their location. After the Great Refusal, Explorer Corp vessels have returned to the goal of pure exploration and making contact with long-lost Periphery colonies.