Enclaves

Enclave System — History

For most of Sentry history, Enclaves did not exist.

The Sentries originally operated as a single unified order. Regardless of their planet of origin, all Sentries belonged to the same collective and could be deployed wherever they were needed.

Physical distance itself was not a significant problem. Numinous portal technology allows effectively instantaneous travel between connected worlds. The technology behind these portals remains classified and is not shared outside Numinous.

The real problem was time.

Not every inhabited world exists under comparable gravitational conditions. Some planets have significantly stronger gravity than others, while some orbit close to extremely massive objects. In certain regions, relativistic time dilation is substantial enough to affect Sentry deployments.

A mission that felt relatively short to the Sentry carrying it out could correspond to years—or, in extreme cases, decades—passing on their homeworld.

As the number of protected planets increased, this became increasingly disruptive. Sentries could leave their homes for what seemed to them like an ordinary assignment and return to discover that years had passed for everyone they knew.

Around 1000 BC, the Sentries reorganized.

The Enclave System was established.

Each inhabited world with a Sentry presence received its own Enclave. That Enclave was also assigned responsibility for other protected worlds with sufficiently similar gravitational and relativistic conditions.

This minimized extreme differences in experienced time and allowed Sentries to remain connected to their homeworlds while still protecting multiple planets.

When Nehem became Earth's first Sentry around 2500 BC, no Earth Enclave existed. He belonged to the original unified Sentry order.

Only after the reforms of approximately 1000 BC did Earth receive its own Enclave and its own planetary jurisdiction.