Fiction:Valian Empire/Government

The Valian Empire is a near-absolute monarchy- at least officially. Millennia of wars, restructuring and reforms have changed its nature over the course of Volanti history, much diluting the actual power of the Emperor and complicating its government. Today it has aspects from all ends of the spectrum: royalty, nobility and gentry, deliberative councils, a senate-like assembly, and separate bureaucracies that battle to get their way. As overall head of state and government, however, its officially the Emperor who rules over the the Rose.

The Empire's government can be split into two general branches: those that do the ruling Emperor's bidding, and those who don't. The former includes the imperial monarchy, the Imperial Council, and the system of planetary, sector and province-overseeing officials who report to it. The latter is made up of the cabal of nobles and gentiles (the nobility and gentry) and the Valian Diet, an assembly separate in theory but much abused in practice by the Emperor himself.

Imperial Crown
By law older than living memory, the supreme ruler of all Volanti and their domains (and by extension most of civilized Rohse), is the Emperor or Empress seated on the Paragon Throne. The Valian Empire has an extensive tiered system of nobles and gentiles as well, but in theory the imperial family outdoes them all. In practice, the Empire is quite fractured when it comes to loyalties. The crown has a virtual chokehold on the central regions of the Empire, where its oldest founding planets lie, but as one leaves the Maze behind heading coreward in any direction, its pull diminishes considerably.

The existence of an imperial ruler is one of the oldest traditions of Volanti culture, with the system existing in one form or another for nigh on 120,229 ninterrupted years- since the very founding of the Old Empire. Pre-Founding Volanti nations had been confederacies, kingdoms and other forms of government; the first empire took its name (and pride) from having conquered them all.

Imperial Council
Since the time of Emperor Garem the Brutal's reign at the start of the Beil'Eche Period, there has also been an Imperial Council to supplement the monarch, and counsel and relay his will to the galaxy at large.

Scirits and Gentry
Aside from the Emperor and his immediate relatives, there exists an enormous and confusing structure of nobility and minor gentry throughout the galaxy. The most important are typically linked to a planet in the Central Cluster or the Maze, with ancient lineages going back hundreds of generations. These, the scirits, or major houses, have the greater say in Volanti decision-making. The Emperor must always belong to one of these six, which make up the actual "noble" class of the Empire. Once a certain house has managed to gain control of the Paragon Throne, the youngest descendants of its male patron succeed the ruling monarch upon his death.

It is a defining characteristic of Valian government to cycle through family dynasties that last from tens to hundreds of thousands of years, with the transition from one ruling house to another typically being violent. These periods of stability and conflict have shaped the Empire profoundly; during the last altercation, the Stygian Schism, all of Rohse was devastated to the point of the empire being reformed, with a more centralized imperial structure and its noble houses severely diminished.

Thos nobles that aren't part of a scirit are considered the empire's gentry. The actual term, uyumars, meaning vassals, is rarely used. Though higher than any Volant of the Commonship, most of them possess titles that are only planetary, or given on a non-hereditary basis. They excerside their power on a much smaller scale, and should they want for better fortunes, must become merchants or politicians.

Valian Diet
"You want it legitimate, got to the Diet. You want it to happen, don’t."

- Anonymous Volanti

The Valian Imperial Diet is a national deliberative assembly that functions as the Empire’s legislature- at least in name. It has little actual power and is swayed heavily by the scirits, but it still must rubber-stamp any decree proposed by the monarch for it to become law. The Diet is made solely of non-noble, elected members, because membership, unlike other posts in the government and military, is neither hereditary nor at the Emperor’s discretion. 800 Volanti delegates, whose formal address is baneri, make up the Diet’s ranks and commune regularly at the massive central chamber of the domed Senate Palace on Volaris, built originally as an imperial home by the Riguran Dynasty of the Old Empire.

The Diet functions almost separately from the rest of the imperial bureaucracy- and is nefarious for its drawn-out sesssions and almost eternal deliberations. Planetary governors, or Seths, sector-overseers, Consuls, and provincial Prefects' report directly to the Imperial Council (and by extension, the crowned monarch), while the Diet, occupied not with actual governance but with debate and lawmaking, is little more than an appendage of the imperial courtesans.

Regional Powers
Because of the immense expanse of colonized worlds in the Empire and its increasingly loose power structure, localities are often radically different from one another as far as daily lifestyle. Ever-present signs and statues of the Emperor, for instance, are everywhere in the inner regions of the galaxy, but become more rare in any rimward direction. Likewise, the regional hegemony of the nobility’s hubs, including Veruna, Arcel, Velasco, Bellye, Tharys, and Serina, is inexistent a few parsecs from their turf. Some of them, like Kanto, have learned to perch precariously between the interests of different groups, and between the galaxy's centre and its outskirts.

Usually, affluence alone can pave the way for individual Volanti. Merchant worlds, sometimes growing into economic juggernauts that tower over their rivals, are some of the most important leaders in the galaxy and have enough pull to spar with the likes of Veruna and Tharys: their families and leaders, regardless of birth or station, can occupy as prestigious a position in the government as any duke or countess. Many are delegates of the Valian Diet.

The Triad
Just outside of the nobles’ hive, otherwise known as the very center of the galaxy, lies a very different (and informal) socio-political region. It is dominated not by court intrigue, titles or blue-bloods, but rather by the simple pursuit of wealth- and three of the planets most successful at it in the history of the Empire. This is the domain of the Triad, three celebrated planets sitting at the corners of the triangle formed by four of the Galaxy’s largest hyperroutes: the Kanto Trade Spine, the Valmar Corridor, the Stem and the Royal Road. Valmar, its unquestioned leader, is the only world in the galaxy to stand atop not two, but three of its largest trade routes; one of them is even named after the it. There is fierce competition between Valmar and its two rivals, Rian and Antos, but that hasn’t stopped them from pooling their influence into one of the most powerful groups in the galaxy when convencience (in this instance, credits) so ordains. All three are ruled by merchant families, whose galaxy-wide undertakings (along with the advantage of their geographic location), has steeped their homeworlds in obscene amounts of treasure.

Agri-World Barons
In the north, the possession of innumerable blossoming agri-worlds has given rise to a governing hierarchy of agrarian oligarchs, a landed gentry of sorts, who along with the core’s industrialists, political panderers and prominent nobles, either go themselves or send representatives (depending on their wealth) to occupy seats in the Great Chambers and lobby for their interests. And although the crown and the major houses in theory hold allegiance of all the empire and its moons, it is in fact the smaller houses of the gentry-and even individuals- who hold power in these regions of the universe, with planets so far apart from the capital farther from each other.