Triplanetary incorporates the early history of that breeding program on Earth, illustrated with the lives of several warriors and soldiers, from ancient times to the discovery of the first interstellar space drive.

It details some of the interactions and natures of two distinct breeding lines, one bearing some variant of the name "Kinnison", and another distinguished by possessing "red-bronze-auburn hair and gold-flecked, tawny eyes".

Samms and Roderick Kinnison are members of the two breeding lines and they are both natural leaders, intelligent, forceful, and capable.

The Arisians further promise him that no entity unworthy of the Lens will ever be permitted to wear it, but that he and his successors will have to discover for themselves most of its abilities.

The Lens gives its wearer a variety of mental capabilities, including those needed to enforce the law on alien planets, and to bridge the communication gap between different life-forms.

Using the Lens as a means to test mental qualities and identify individuals able to help him, Virgil Samms visits races and species in other star systems, recruiting the best of them and forming the nucleus of a Galactic Patrol.

Their opponents are discovered to be a widespread civilization based on dominance hierarchies and using organized crime to assume control of new planets.

Kimball Kinnison meets and marries the product of the complementary human breeding program, Clarrissa MacDougall.

They are the only beings of Civilization ever to see Arisia as it truly is, and the only individuals developed over all the existence of billions of years able finally to penetrate the Eddorians' defense screens.

After undergoing advanced training, they are described as "third-stage" Lensmen, transcending humanity with mental scope and perceptions impossible for any normal person.

The Children of the Lens, together with the mental power of unknown millions of Lensmen of the Galactic Patrol, constitute the Arisians' intended means to destroy the Eddorians and make the universe safe for Civilization.

The Galactic Patrol, summoned to work together in this way for the first time, contains billions of beings who in total can generate immense mental force.

The Arisians remove themselves from the Cosmos in order to leave the Children of the Lens uninhibited in their future as the new guardians of Civilization.

Originally, the series consisted of the four novels Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensman, Second Stage Lensmen, and Children of the Lens, published between 1937 and 1948 in the magazine Astounding Stories.

The TV series adaptation by Mitsuru Miura was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine and then reprinted in three tankōbon pocket volumes.

In 2008, Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and Universal Pictures began negotiations with the author's estate for rights to film the Lensman series.

[5] At the WonderCon convention in San Francisco in February, J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, confirmed that Howard had acquired the rights and also hinted that he was involved in the project.

[9] In the DC Comics universe, the Green Lantern Corps bears many parallels to the Lensmen, though the original editor (Julius Schwartz) denied any connection.

[10] Later writers would add characters that directly referenced the Lensman series, such as the extraterrestrial Green Lanterns Arisia and Eddore.