Peacekeepers of the Vast/Empire of Varris
The Empire of Varris is Voting Member of the Interstellar League. In fact, the Empire of Varris is one of the founding members of the League and was a major player in the informal alliance that preceded the creation of the League. The Empire of Varris is rich, technologically advanced, and holds jurisdiction over large portions of League space. No species within the Empire of Varris has a claim to being the original or dominant species of the Empire, it is a union of dozens of vassal states and species all with different political systems and cultures, subject to the powerful central government which they all are a part of.
The Imperial Government mixes features of an democracy, an oligarchy, and an elective executive monarchy. The Imperial Government has exclusive control over the Empire's foreign policy, conflicts between vassal states, the spacy, and the interstellar merchant spacy. It also directly administers the capital world of Varris and Imperial Academy. Through the constitutionally calculated general levy and fees from the merchant spacy trade, the Imperial Government funds a robust series of ministries with influence on all sectors of policy, using funding and expertise as levers of control over the vassal states.
The Imperial Government is headed by the Emperor of Varris who is elected through The Selection until their death. Emperors may only retire early by being clinically dead during a special ritual, and being revived after the office has left them. Once the Emperor dies, the entire government enters an interregnum period, after which all existing ministry heads entire retirement. The Selection begins in adolescence (or the species equivalent), where teenagers are taken from the many vassal states and sent to Varris to be trained at the Imperial Academy. Of these youth, a third are chosen by their governments, a third are chosen by the Academy's headmaster, and a third are chosen by lot from the entire population. Which of these one is supposed to be held secret, although students often draw suspicions. This forms an Imperial Cohort. Only children born or raised on Varris are automatically ineligible to join the Cohort, although they are automatically eligible to attend the academy for at least a year completely gratis. Finally, other students who were not chosen for the Cohort may still attend Academy classes by paying exorbitant fees, but remain ineligible to join the Cohort.
The Cohort then goes through a series of winnowings over the course of their education. During each winnowing, those who would qualify to advance by merit are identified and then some are removed from the Cohort by lot. This continues until graduation or the death of the Emperor. Once an Emperor dies, the next oldest viable Cohort (viable meaning it has enough living members) is gathered for the final Selection. The candidates are winnowed by lot to five candidates, and a population-wide instant-run-off election is triggered to select the new Emperor. Members of the Cohort who made it to the final selection but were not crowned Emperor are instead crowned Princes, a title they hold until their or the Emperor's death. Princes can be shuffled between ministries depending on the desires of the Emperor. Many Princes without portfolio enter one of the uniformed Imperial Services, are appointed diplomats, or become teachers at the Imperial Academy.
Being winnowed bars one from becoming Emperor or even Prince, but having an Imperial Academy education gives one the credentials and connections to do quite well in the Empire's thriving private sector, and there is no stigma associated with not having made the cut. The cultural norm is to assume that a former Cohort member entered the Academy on merit and exited by lot. There are a number of constitutional safeguards for regencies and combining Cohorts if the next Cohort in line is too young. However, those laws have not been visited in centuries. The last update to the election law changed the ancient method of physical lots and votes to a computerized system of recording votes on cryptographic tokens.
Quadrant's Notes: Ripe for a Black Swan event by the UE.