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Interstellar Patrol. The Interstellar Patrol was created by Edmond Hamilton (Captain Future, Rab Crane, Brian Cullan, Ethan Drew, Stuart Merrick, Jan Tor, Dr. Whitney) and appeared in eight stories in Weird Tales from 1928 to 1934, beginning with “Crashing Suns” (Weird Tales, Aug. 1928).

100,000 years in the future the Interstellar Patrol is the military arm of the Federation of Stars, a galactic government whose headquarters is a planet in the Canopus system. The Patrol, whose adventures are quintessential space opera, take on whatever threats appear to the Federation and to galactic peace. In their first appearance the forces of the Patrol are represented by Captain Ran Rarak, who is assigned a science fleet to investigate a "dark planet" which is approaching the galaxy. The planet is manned by alien, tentacled, cone-shaped creatures who plan to capture one of our suns. Rarak and a Federation war fleet destroy the cone creatures’ forces. In their second appearance the Patrol investigates the "Orion Nebula," whose imminent explosion will destroy the inhabited planets of the galaxy. They discover that the explosion is being caused by amoeboid creatures from a black planet on the interior of the nebula. The Federation agents stop the explosion by destroying the planet, saving the galaxy but dooming the amoeboids.

In their third appearance the Patrol, represented by Earthman Dur Nal, Korus Kan (a "metal-bodied Antarean") and Jhul Din (a "lobster-man from Spica") are on patrol when they encounter an invasion fleet entering from intergalactic space. The invaders are from a galaxy so far away that its light cannot be seen on telescopes, and after a long series of battles the invaders are defeated. In the fourth Patrol story an enormous red comet is on its way to the heart of the galaxy, and its gravitational pull will wipe out all the inhabited planets in its path. The Patrol discovers, after much fighting, that the comet is hollow and contains a planetary system of its own, complete with a warrior civilization. The Patrol manages to stop the comet empire at much cost.

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