"The Protectorate" remains an odd thing to have called the superhero organization because it's kind of the inverse of what I understand a protectorate to be. The Protectorate being that which is protected, I.E. the civilian body, vs that which does the protecting. It makes sense if you treat it as an extension of what they were going for with the Wards Program, for whom the pitch is very much "if you join you will be a protected ward of the government." Like if the Protectorate is called that because of a safety-in-numbers pitch, I'd get it. Thematically that's pretty rich for the same reason the Wards are rich, and more, too, because it also foreshadows the rank-closing, ass-covering behavior The Protectorate so freely displays during the events of the story proper. But that's also kind of an odd thing to bake into the branding so foundationally in-universe. "Here's our nationwide superhero franchise, known as The Guys Who We're Protecting." Cause now you're inviting the question of who's protecting them, and what from. (I wonder if that observation caught on as rhetoric for the conspiracy crank set on PHO.)
