Inter-Solar System Police

As the single force charged with keeping order across the inhabited planets and moons, the ISSP is the closest thing the setting has to a unified government presence. In practice it embodies the story's noir tone: an institution hollowed out by bribery and staffed with ineffective officers, yet still capable of decisive action when circumstances truly demand it.

Rather than run down every fugitive itself, the ISSP leans heavily on posted rewards, letting any hunter deliver a wanted criminal to any station for payment. That model reflects a force weakened by inept staffing and pervasive corruption, the same rot that drove Jet Black to hand in his badge once he grasped how deep it ran. The organization keeps a central mainframe on Mars and fields patrol cruisers throughout its territory.

Its darker side runs to outright crimes of its own. In 2071 it carried out an assassination-skills enhancement program that surgically and genetically rebuilt a test subject. When the project was scrapped, the altered man, later called Mad Pierrot, was locked away, only to break free and slaughter the senior directors behind it until Spike Spiegel put him down. The force also probed the death cult Scratch after a wave of member suicides, but failed to identify its leadership. For all its corruption, the ISSP can still mount genuine, capable operations when the stakes are high enough.

The ranks have included Jet Black before his departure, alongside officers such as Donnelly, Fad, and Bob, plus an unnamed captain. On Mars the force answers to police chief Hoffman. Its authority splits into regional branches spanning Earth, Mars, Tijuana, Ganymede, Venus, and Io, each handling law enforcement on its own world.