In the Golden Empire, the Resource Council was an agency of the Ministry of Energy and Resources responsible for accurately cataloguing the natural resources of all member systems of the Empire. The resultant, enormous database was available to the Sovereign for consultation at her leisure, and could be used as a quick reference in case the Empire found itself suddenly in need of a certain resource. Since a system's resources did not often change once catalogued, the Resource Council consisted of a fairly small number of beings, numbering only in the thousands. Most of these were surveyors.