The Protectorate

Faction Ideology
The Protectorate is initially optimistic and idealistic, viewing the aliens as likely to be both friendly and a way to help solve humanity's problems. Eventually, the Protectorate becomes more cynical and manipulative, turning into a propagandistic collaborator organization complying with the aliens to the letter and beyond.

Faction Leadership
The Protectorate is a group primarily composed of government officials, diplomats, and various leaders united by their desire to start a diplomatic exchange with the aliens and use their knowledge to help solve humanity's problems. As the Protectorate's goals shift, many of its members become disillusioned and desert, with executive power in the faction ultimately being concentrated in the hands of three individuals.

Chief Security Officer Lavrentiy
Advisory board member of extraterrestrial origin who joins the Protectorate sometime between the landing of the first UFO and the first diplomatic exchange. Lacks cultural awareness.

Unnamed commissioner
Operational leader of the Protectorate, representing the player's perspective.

Story
Kiran and his colleagues are the first to arrive at the UFO landing site, having an explicit goal to get an alien as a member of their organization. They get what they want, cover the traces of the alien's escape, and spend the next few months covering up abductions and other covert actions performed by aliens.

When it becomes obvious that aliens aren't friendly, they decide to organize a public diplomatic meeting with aliens. Lavrentiy is allowed to organize it. The meeting goes not according to plan; Lavrentiy tries to enthrall the diplomats, but some of them turn out to be resistant to pherocytes, which leads to some attendees getting killed and many others escaping the ensuing struggle. Kiran mourns the loss of life but refuses to blame Lavrentiy for the incident.

The Protectorate manages to apprehend everyone that survived the events of the meeting, and prevent word of the incident from reaching the public. The next diplomatic exchange happens remotely without any aliens in the room. The aliens declare their demands: to turn over all of humanity's weapons of mass destruction, to build military platforms on Earth's orbit, and to provide soldiers for alien military operations on demand. Despite the loud protests of most attendees, Kiran accepts all the demands on behalf of the organization.

The aliens start sending blueprints and materials for Sentinels, orbit-to-land weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, members of the Protectorate start defecting, sabotaging the construction, and leaking information to other factions. Kiran grows increasingly paranoid and starts concentrating executive powers in his hands.

When the construction of the Sentinels finishes, the Protectorate decided to do a demonstration of them to the UN. It is agreed that Sentinels discharge into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; however, one of them fires at New York, where the remaining members of the Protectorate's advisory board are meeting with the UN delegation. During the ending cinematic Kiran talks about successfully ensuring humanity's survival and the importance of sacrifice to protect the things you value. After that, he thanks the unnamed commissioner for saving humanity, and claims that the destruction of New York is a malfunction, but he already prepared a PR campaign to cover up the truth of the incident, remarks that tens of millions of soldiers leaving Earth will help solve overpopulation, and retires to India, leaving Lavrentiy and the unnamed commissioner in charge.

Factions with Similar Ideology
The Servants see the Protectorate as power-hungry opportunists, while the Protectorate sees the Servants as lunatics.

Aliens and Protectorate have the same goal. Despite this, as of 0.3.29, aliens may occasionally commit acts of aggression towards the Protectorate, although it's unclear whether this is intentional or not. Alien administration always accepts alliances with Protectorate-led nations.

Factions with Conflicting Ideology
The Initiative calls the Protectorate quitters, regardless of current diplomatic status, while the Protectorate sees the Initiative as 'ignoble vampires' and 'leeches'.

Exodus sees Protectorate as irrelevant.

The Academy and Protectorate agree on their goals to protect humanity via diplomacy, but the Academy disagrees that the ends justify the means.

Anti-alien factions consider the Protectorate to be collaborators, traitors, and scum.

Faction features
If the Protectorate isn't seen by aliens as a threat, it may receive resources from them for free. This includes exotics.

Protectorate has access to Dominate Nation mission if it owns at least one Sentinel module. This mission allows them to take over one control point in any human nation, regardless of its size, protection, councilors protecting the region, and orbital defenses. If this mission fails, CP ownership change happens anyway, but the country loses some population and GDP. This mission has 30 noise, which means that councilors performing it are almost guaranteed to be revealed to other factions, making them vulnerable to assassinations.