On several counts, the Jesuits are ideal sci-fi/fantasy protagonists: mystical, adventurous, scientifically inclined. The Society was founded just under five hundred years ago by St. Ignatius of Loyola; thanks to its expeditionary spirit and its founder’s soldiering past, the Jesuits are sometimes called “God’s Marines.” A famous “fourth vow”—above and beyond poverty, chastity, and obedience—commits some of them to “special obedience to the sovereign pontiff” when it comes to missionary work.

In other words, the Jesuits are expected to boldly go, even at great personal risk. As Russell’s Father General muses in The Sparrow, “Jesuits have been hanged, drawn and quartered in London. Disemboweled in Ethiopia. Burned alive by the Iroquois. Poisoned in Germany, crucified in Thailand.”

For the Jesuits, famously, that saving passion also powers a strong scientific tradition. In a 2013 TEDx talk, Consolmagno called himself “living proof that you can be—at the same time—both a fanatic and a nerd. I’m a fanatic about my science, actually, and a bit of a nerd about my church.” It’s a harmony embedded in Jesuit schools around the world; in the turn-based strategy game Civilization 5, “Jesuit Education” is a bonus that lets you spend faith points to set up research facilities. The astronomers at the Observatory are all members of the Society, as were pioneers in everything from botany to germ theory. Even Pope Francis, the first of his order to hold his office, worked briefly as a chemist.