Fiction:Motive/Government

IRON AXIS - GOVERNMENT - OVERVIEW [2.1]
Our understanding of Motive’s political structure is that it constitutes an oligarchic federation with possible theocratic overtones. However, a full overview of its government with our current intelligence is impossible for three reasons: We know almost nothing about Motive’s interstellar government. Our knowledge centers on the organization of its federated states, known internally as Junctions. Even then, the civilian organization of these Junctions bears little resemblance to any conventional form of government, and instead appears to be a vastly expanded corporate hierarchy. Indeed, state governance seems to be only a small subsection of their overall administrative structure.
 * 1) Its secrecy. Motive refuses to share any knowledge of its internal structure beyond the most basic outlines. Motive has given no adequate explanation for this behavior.
 * 2) Its complexity. Motive’s bureaucracy is enormous and labyrinthine. We have yet to fully or satisfactorily chart its organization; current models are reliant on best-guess statistical analysis.
 * 3) Its unconventional structure. See below.

Interstellar
Very little about how Motive organizes itself as a cohesive interstellar civilization is known. For all intents and purposes, the Monitors alone seem to serve as Motive's national government, uniting the Junctions under a single motive will. No non-Monitor authority is known to hold jurisdiction beyond a single Junction.

Stellar
All further Motive governance is located on the stellar level. Every star in Motive territory constitutes an individual, partially autonomous federated state, the Junction.

Junctions are best understood as the archaic concept of the company town taken to a vast extreme. The development of a Junction requires the conversion of all available mass within a given star system into an enormous artificial ecumenopolis, which is in turn given over almost entirely to industry. Junctions are not a single, coherent structure; they are a complex, interconnected aggregation of structures in a state of continuous expansion.

After a certain point in their growth, Junctions become known as Terminals. The exact criteria for this change are unknown, but it signifies that the former Junction has achieved a level of industry and productivity that allows it to bring forth a new Monitor into the galaxy. This, in turn, means that the former Junction has become one of Motive's prime power bases. It takes many centuries for a Junction to become a Terminal, and it may take centuries more for a Terminal to construct its patron Monitor.

Why it takes centuries for a Terminal to build a new Monitor when it only takes decades for a Terminal to rebuild a destroyed Monitor is yet another bothersome Motive mystery (as is why it takes decades for a Terminal to rebuild a destroyed Monitor when their shipyards only take days to construct the largest Motive warships).

Role of the Monitors
Motive's "ruling class" are the Monitors. At least 108 Monitors are known to exist. Their control over Motive is absolute; Motive universally considers the Monitors to be infallible, and their authority is treated with a reverence and/or fear bordering on the deific.

The internal structure of the Monitor "council" is unknown, if indeed any exists. However, given that democracy appears to be a concept foreign to Motive, it is commonly believed that the Monitors have a hierarchy based on seniority: the older the Monitor, the higher its rank. Imperial Intelligence stresses that this is purely conjecture.

Every Monitor has a home Terminal, the seat of its power, responsible for its repair, maintenance, and reconstruction should it somehow be destroyed. Not all Terminals have Monitors; most do not. Furthermore, the authority of the Monitors extends far past their home Terminals (though their home Terminals appear to be under their patron Monitor's exclusive jurisdiction, barring cases when a Terminal is rendered bereft of its Monitor).

The Monitors appear to have a presence at every level of Motive government. It is said that a micrometeorite cannot enter Motive space without the Monitors logging its presence; while this is an exaggeration, its spirit is accurate. The Monitors record all project proposals, if not formulating them in the first place; they may lend their considerable intellect towards particularly high-value scientific endeavors (many of Motive's more arcane technologies are believed to be derived primarily from Monitor intelligence); they command and approve the development of new star systems.

This in-depth micromanagement is one of the largest reasons for Motive's overwhelming productivity. Fear of the Monitors is another.

BRANCHES OF FUNCTION [2.3]
Collated intelligence indicates that Junction administration is divided into six branches: Operations, Production, Logistics, Infrastructure, Labor, and Military.