Princes Proclamation On Evolution Of The Assembly

[MonMarty]

A copy of this letter is delivered to /all/ Noble Estates, The Regalian Palace, All Vassal Houses, Inside the locker of every Guardsman, and a public letter is also pinned to all public boards across the city and ESPECIALLY Common Taverns. This letter is partially dictated from the Princes words, partially composed by the College of Princes and the Grand Ekhein of the Imperial Palace. ((OOC Summary at the Bottom for ease of reference))

​

It is the second nature of the Empire, beyond being the salvation of the world from all evils and destruction, to have an ever changing government as the will of the Everwatcher is guiding the hand of regency to a more perfect state of autocracy. As part of a cross-faction dialogue between various members of the College of Princes, many have contributed to a new and experimental form of indirect rule from the Emperor, and indirect input from the Commoners that should satisfy the need of the Modern Human to have relevancy to governance, even if direct input is only at the behest and the approval of His Imperial Holiness.

Representing the desire of the common folk to have relevance to the government, Princeroyal Raymond and Noor and Shelia-Manon convened. Representing the Emperor's divine will and rule in government, Princeroyal Aliandre and William-Friso and Justinian convened. Representing the will for cooperation and compromise with the Peerage, Princeroyal Constantine and Cedromar and Xander convened. Princeroyals Frederick and Reynaud and Henry stand in opposition to the decree, wishing for their opposition to be noted on principle. The changes to the government are to be considered as followed, while one must obviously assume that the Lower House Assembly and Upper House Assemblies are no more, and Ministeries are entirely unaffected:

​

To represent relevance to the government, the Lower House Assembly is replaced with the process of the Emperor's Ears. The Emperor's Ears is a simplified format where the Regald of the Emperor, Lady Amaryllis, and the Lord Keep of the Assembly, Lord-Protector von Drachenburg, will hold open office to hear any proposals. They shall hold open office to any who wish to proceed in, and make their case. They will record the proposal and the case to be made, and present a full list of all proposals made directly to the Emperor at the Palace. This system is believed by the Princeroyals to benefit the common man, because the common man may simply propose their proposal without the need to defend it during a debate, or to have it struck down by an arbitrary and unreliable process, like a detestable vote as if Regalia is a ""democracy"".

​

To represent the need to compromise and cooperate with the Peerage, the Upper House Assembly is replaced by the process of the Imperial Audience. The Imperial Audience is a hosted Event every two weeks in which the Emperor holds court at the Imperial Throne. This should normally occur every Saturday at the time slot previously aligned with the Assembly ((though with some potential delays depending on my availability)). During the Imperial Audience, one of two things happen. Firstly, the Regald and Lord of the Keep present the Emperor's Ears papers to the Emperor directly for him to arbitrate on. When a proposal is called, the Emperor shall decide in favor or against without further debate purely on the merit of the proposal. Secondly, in between proposals being voiced, or after all are voiced, the Nobility may make use of their presence to request a so called Appeal. During an Appeal, a Noble or Vassal, may make a direct appeal to the Emperor on basis of ideology, principle, or belief. This appeal does not strictly need to be a proposal, it can in fact simply be the airing of grievances, a discussion on a particular topic, or an expression of preference or belief to a particular ideal. The point of the Appeal is to try and convince the Emperor of a particular sentiment without expressly coming up with a proposal, and deferring the actual deciding on a solution and implementation to the Emperor's divine will, should he agree. This system is believed by the Princeroyals to benefit the noble in that they are no longer politically pitted against each other in debate, and can simply make a case on their own belief without being shouted down, ridiculed, or argued against, or worry about their presentation. It will be a public discussion between the Emperor and them, but none may interrupt them.

​

To represent the need for the Emperor's divine will and rule in government, the Imperial Palace will publish a bulletin every 2 weeks called the Emperor's Bill. The Emperor's Bill is a ((forum thread)) with ongoing issues in the four directions of the Empire. The four Directions are roughly corresponding to the Regions of the Archipelago. For example, Drixagh, the wider North-Chain, Gallovia and the Albas are the Northern portion of the Archipelago, while the south includes Vultaro, San Girobalda, San Selin, Bragacao, Hellatia, Atolia, and the many southern islands, and so forth. The Emperor's Bill will present a problem or situation for each of these wind directions. Then, in the week following up to the Emperor's Bill, Political Parties may sign up to be that week's Arbitrator. An Arbitrator is chosen from the sign-ups and is then cordially and privately invited by the Emperor to send three individuals who will sit with the Emperor personally, and address the Emperor's Bill point by point, allowing for their input, and their suggestions to the Emperor's decisions how to handle these situations. This system is believed by the Princeroyals to benefit the noble in that they no longer have to bother showing up for Assemblies and care for proposals they have no interest in. If a particular regional problem does not concern them, their political party may simply choose to ignore this week and not attempt to gain the Emperor's favor to be involved in matters they care for, while rewarding those who wish to have a heavy hand in the Emperor's personal decisions.

​

Finally, to create fair representation of the Ithanian homeland, the Emperor decrees the creation of the Ithanian Political Party. The Emperor shall henceforth make an exception in that the Ithanian Political Party may have Commoner families as a part of it, though only if they are Ithanian-born or Ithanian Citizens by birthright. This shall be the only Political Party that will permit Commoners (or Ithanian Noble Families) to be a member, and operate within the framework of the above government apparatuses.

​

The College of Princes would like to express that this will no doubt not be the final form of Imperial invested government, or a perfect form, but wishes to also express that as part of the modern age, change and experimentation with new formats is not only useful, but crucial, in determining a more perfect form of rule.

OOC Summary:

• The Lower House is replaced by an open appeal process. Any Commoner or Noble can just walk into an office and propose something to the Regald and Lord Keep on a particular date (probably fridays?, TBD based on availability of staff). They remove any meme-tier proposals or downright impossible proposals, and send the rest through to the Emperor.
• The Upper House is replaced by the return of the Imperial Audience where the Emperor sits on the throne and receives the proposals and decides on them in real time. Additionally, during this time, Nobles can step forward and appeal to the Emperor to convince him of their idea, ideology, plan, or request. These do not necessarily need to actually be proposals, they can literally just be a noble whining at the Emperor over a problem, and then asking the Emperor to come up with a solution.
• To supplement the Imperial Audience, every second week, the Emperor's Bill will be made to create problems in the Empire to solve. One at least for each wind direction in the Archipelago. For a week, political parties can sign up, and at the end, one will be chosen to send 3 representatives to discuss the solutions with the Emperor in private, having a great deal of impact on how the Emperor decides.

Q/A: Do Political parties still matter without an Assembly?
Yes, because they become a form of regulation on how often a group is invited to talk to the Emperor. While sign-up obviously matters, the Emperor can only choose a single party to send representatives. It is however important to play fair, so each time a party is chosen to represent, the chances of them being picked next time will decrease exponentially, meaning a party can be picked a second time, maybe a third time, but never a fourth time.

Q/A: I'm a Commoner, and have never done this before. WYD?
Government is actually pretty simple. You can do literally anything, from asking the Emperor to outlaw pants on thursdays, to asking him to legalize Vampires (he is unlikely to do so). Point is, proposals to the Emperor's Ears are only limited by the limit to your own imagination. It does not guarantee it will be approved, but so long as the proposal is not a meme, or entirely outside of the realm of canon lore, at the very least the Emperor will consider it without anyone present to argue against it.

Q/A: The Emperor just accepted a dumb proposal at the Audience. What do I do?
You walk up and make an Appeal to the Emperor and talk about that particular proposal and debate against it in hindsight. It is possible for the Emperor to reverse a decision during the Audiences, because they only become law after the Audience is completely over. The Appeal process can also be used to just have a more casual chat with the Emperor, though be careful not to waste His time. Finally, it is important to state that Commoners are not welcome at the Audience. Only Nobles and their Vassals and Imperial Guards and Ministers (if they are Commoners).

Q/A: So smaller parties is more beneficial?
Yes. But Parties were limited to at least 2 Families in the past, this number is increased to 3 again. 3 Family parties are the ideal number, 4 is okay, 5 is kind of going touch-and-go, 6 families is quickly becoming diminished returns, because you can only send 3 people to an Arbitration, and having that many families in one party will result in the party being chosen once or twice, but then locked out of showing again a couple of times. The ideal political party has 3 or 4 families supporting it, or about 15 members.

Q/A: How do I join the Ithanian Political Party?
You have to be a Commoner or Ithanian Noble Family. If you are a Commoner, you also have to have a Character who was born in Ithania, or have two Ithanian born parents (both Ailor, or Nelfin) (thus a right to citizenship). To join the Party, as family head or matriarch/patriarch, send in a ticket to Rp Com Discord Ticket Bot, and request to join the Party with a link to your Family Thread and your Character Application. What happens after that we haven't quite decided yet. We may pick an OOC leader out of the pool after enough people have joined, or ask one of the lore staff to run a membership discord to organize. This Political Party is the only one that can accept commoners, but can do anything a regular political party can.

Q/A: How are the events hosted?
One week it will be Arbitration (so the Emperor inviting nobles) and the next week will be the Imperial Audience. After that, the back and forth resets, and so forth, so there is a 2 week period in between each. The Emperor's Bill will be synchronized with the Progressions, meaning, the Emperor's Bill will be published after the Progression Week cycles are complete, allowing a 1 week sign up to become Arbitrator. Sometimes I may be forced to skip a week or ask another lore staff to preside, as my sleep schedule is not 100% reliable all the time.

Q/A: What should I take into account during the sign up to be Arbitrator?
You shouldn't just say "pick me pls". Generally speaking, the issues are announced a week before the sign up closes for the Arbitrator to be selected. As a result, you should style your sign up to convince the Emperor to pick your party. For example, a trade issue erupts in the Shoenn region (which for the sake of illustrating, we will say is East). The Preservers of Unity might immediately sign up with the addendum of: "We have a Mac Conall Finance Minister, House Howlester has family ties to Grand Magistrate Dianne Black, and we have a great deal of financial experience when dealing with House Delmotte's bribes" or something to that effect. The point is to provide the Emperor with a short and sweet reason why he should pick that party to represent that week, over the other parties that sign up.

Other questions? Please send in a ticket to Rp Com Discord.