The Galactic Patrol was an intergalactic organization in the Lensman science fiction series written by E. E. Smith. It was also the title of the third book in the series.
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Overview
In the Lensman novels, the Galactic Patrol was a combination military force and interstellar law-enforcement agency, charged with the defense and preservation of Civilization. The Lensmen were the elite of the Galactic Patrol, and Lensmen tended to hold the majority of the senior-executive positions in the Patrol, although non-Lensmen personnel were essential to the organization's success, and garnered almost as much respect as their Lens-bearing superiors. The organization had large numbers of non-humans serving in all roles, although many of the leadership positions seem to be occupied by humanity.
Leadership
The full range of executive leadership positions for the Patrol is less than clear. What is clear is that nearly all these positions were held by Gray Lensmen. Four distinct positions can be discerned:
The first three positions generally operated from Prime Base on Tellus. By necessity, the Galactic Coordinator was based on Klovia. Other apparent positions include the following: Admiral and Lieutenant-Admiral of the First Galactic Region (the area surrounding the Sol system), Marshal and Lieutenant-Marshal of the Sol system, and General and Lieutenant-General of Tellus. (Notably, these ranks are apparently intended to be in descending order, but draw upon ranks from several different branches of the military service.) These posts were only mentioned in First Lensman, and it is unclear if they are still active as of the events of Galactic Patrol.
Prime Base
Prime Base is the tremendous military base that first grew from "The Hill", a man-made, flat-topped, steel sheathed mountain that was the main base of first, the Triplanetary Service, and then of the new Galactic Patrol on Tellus. During the time of the First Lensman when it was still "The Hill", it was attacked by pirates working for Boskone, but thanks to the efforts of its fleet and its own very strong defenses, it survived without coming to any harm. Later in First Lensman Prime Base was moved to New York Space Port. If it remained there is not revealed in First Lensman or in the later books. At the beginning of the third book, Galactic Patrol, it is referred to only as the "Prime Base of Tellus", but its location is not stated.
Prime Base has a large number of functions including housing the office of the Port Admiral, facilities with the ability to construct warships for the Galactic Patrol, and a variety of scientific labs for scientists that work there. It is hinted within the series that, rather than a Military-Industrial Complex such as evolved in our society, almost all military research and production is managed by civilian employees of the Galactic Patrol, rather than by independent contractors. Earth's financial contribution to the Galactic Patrol is paid by a 3.6% income tax "in the highest brackets," distributed across the entire planet, making the financial resources of the Patrol—even in wartime—roughly equivalent to 10% of Earth's GDP; (in 2008 terms that would be almost $1.5 trillion from the Earth alone.)
Internal evidence in the series may lead the modern reader to believe that The Hill/Prime Base is the evolved form of North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado. However, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, initiated in 1961, postdates the publication of the Lensman novels, and is location in a different region of the USA. A passage in Triplanetary says The Hill is in "the heart of the Rockies", just "over the western ranges of the Bitter Roots"
With the discovery of Lundmark's Nebula (the "second Galaxy"), the Galactic Patrol built Ultra Prime base on Klovia - a far stronger version of Prime Base, though it never replaced Prime Base in terms of overall importance.
Ultra Prime
Ultra-Prime is the immensely well-protected fortress that is the Galactic Patrol's base on Klovia. It was built to be even tougher than Prime Base on Tellus, and has considerably better defenses. Built in the latter stages of the war against Boskone, it was never attacked, but provided the perfect lure with which to draw out the Boskonian Grand Fleet in order to destroy it.