An organization as large as the Scouts should probably have some explicit functions beyond training and personal preparation. My theory is that it's acceptable to impinge on some traditional state functions because we are trying to divert some of the psychic focus traditionally rendered to the state. Here are some possibilities:

The more I think about it, the more potential I think there is in having Ecological Restoration as a high-profile scout function. Restoring Craterrock and Sundown would be a very long-term project capable of absorbing effort from a lot of people. Yes, resources too, but any realistic plan for focusing one third of the psychic energy of the Linked Worlds is going to be expensive. (And we have access to resources.) Keeping such projects in the public eye should be a straightforward publicity exercise.

Ciernan was worrying the other day about how you structure the Scouts to achieve the level of focus we need. I'm not fixating on that question because I know you've been thinking about it; but I am thinking that one way to generate focus would be to take point on a string of extremely high-profile projects that could otherwise be in the government arena, but aren't yet.

If you wanted to go for more big game in this arena, you could think about things like jumpgate construction, planetary survey in the dust nebula, building more domes on Vircus, etc. I haven't done any serious thinking on timetables for these things (though I get the impression that jumpgate construction, for example, is a decades-length project), but it seems possible to me that a 1000-year or 1500-year plan could be implemented as a cornerstone of the Scout Service.

-Hippocrates