Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
So what is your favourite interstellar polity in SF and why?
Mine is Imperium of Man, for a simple reason: it is based on Empire from Warhammer fantasy, which itself is based off the Holy Roman Empire. And due to original lineup of Games Workshop having been historical nerds, the Empire - and thus Imperium of Man - is a much closer and more faithful reproduction of the Holy Roman Empire in particular and feudal state in general than most examples seen in historical fiction (or even histories).
Basically, Imperium of Man is a feudal state throughout and throughout. Rather than a modern idea of a unitary state, IoM is a confederation of several major organizations and a million settled worlds. Worlds are allowed to govern themselves - basic policy is "pay the tithe, send your psykers over, and don't make me come over there". Most worlds have their own culture, laws, government, social order and ideology, with only worship of the Emperor being mandatory - essentially, Imperium affords more freedom to its constitutents than European Union does. Planets pay tithe, which if taken literally would mean a tax rate of 10% - about the same as US federal tax, I believe, so even that is not very much. On the flip side, it does have tendency to murder xenos - but even that has relaxed significantly since the Great Crusade era, as modern-day IoM does not have resources to do anything but defend against various threats (and fact is that most xenos - with the exception of Eldar - truly are a potentially existential threat, so even Imperium's "kill xeno on sight" policy is far more than just sheer speciesism).
In fact, when I thought about my ideal interstellar state (I might make a thread about it someday), it ended up basically Imperium of Man without me aiming for it: mostly self-governing worlds with full internal autonomy, and imperial government only taking care of defence, interstellar services (security) and interplanetary judicial matters (disputes etc).
Mine is Imperium of Man, for a simple reason: it is based on Empire from Warhammer fantasy, which itself is based off the Holy Roman Empire. And due to original lineup of Games Workshop having been historical nerds, the Empire - and thus Imperium of Man - is a much closer and more faithful reproduction of the Holy Roman Empire in particular and feudal state in general than most examples seen in historical fiction (or even histories).
Basically, Imperium of Man is a feudal state throughout and throughout. Rather than a modern idea of a unitary state, IoM is a confederation of several major organizations and a million settled worlds. Worlds are allowed to govern themselves - basic policy is "pay the tithe, send your psykers over, and don't make me come over there". Most worlds have their own culture, laws, government, social order and ideology, with only worship of the Emperor being mandatory - essentially, Imperium affords more freedom to its constitutents than European Union does. Planets pay tithe, which if taken literally would mean a tax rate of 10% - about the same as US federal tax, I believe, so even that is not very much. On the flip side, it does have tendency to murder xenos - but even that has relaxed significantly since the Great Crusade era, as modern-day IoM does not have resources to do anything but defend against various threats (and fact is that most xenos - with the exception of Eldar - truly are a potentially existential threat, so even Imperium's "kill xeno on sight" policy is far more than just sheer speciesism).
In fact, when I thought about my ideal interstellar state (I might make a thread about it someday), it ended up basically Imperium of Man without me aiming for it: mostly self-governing worlds with full internal autonomy, and imperial government only taking care of defence, interstellar services (security) and interplanetary judicial matters (disputes etc).
