Imperial Moot

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Imperial Moot: The only deliberative body of the Imperial government of the Third Imperium, an Imperial Assembly presided over by a member in an appointed position known historically as either the President or Chancellor of the Moot. The Moot has few powers and even more rarely exercises them.

  • In theory, the Moot includes all Imperial nobles belonging to the Imperial Peerage: i.e. those members of the Imperial Nobility among the Imperial Baronage, as well as all of those nobles of the rank of marquis or higher status. In practice, most nobles do not find it convenient to travel to Capital/Core (Core 2118), and so many of those seated hold or delegate proxy votes.
  • Large blocks of these votes can be wielded by a single influential Noble under the reformed proxy system of 622.


Description (Specifications)[edit]

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Technically, the Moot is supreme in the Third Imperium, but its power is extremely limited. In practice, its deliberations are advisory to the Emperor, and he is wise to heed them. The Moot has only one power: to dissolve the Third Imperium. When this power is brought to bear, it compels compromise between opposing factions[1]. As a natural consequence of this power, when an Emperor dies, abdicates, or otherwise becomes unfit for office, the Moot becomes important as the validating body for the new Emperor. It has the power to examine the qualifications and credentials of the heir apparent and, in unusual situations, to reject him; otherwise, the collective will of the Moot can declare the Imperium dissolved rather than submit to the authority of an unacceptable occupant of the Iridium Throne.

Factions & Politics (Leadership)[edit]

The nobles meeting in the Moot on Capital are divided into a number of political factions. The various factions are traditionally identified with colors named after the color-bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, including: [2]

  • Sparkle Party: Conservative-Reactionaries: Traditionalists concerned with frustrating the agents of change. [3] Often considered a sub-faction on the far right-wing of the Moot Monarchist Bloc.
Moot Monarchist Bloc: The majority of regular Moot attendees are of the conservative Moot Monarchist Bloc and supporters of the political-right Imperial Monarchist Movement. The majority are Conservative Monarchists, though a minority subfaction consists of the Parliamentary Monarchists.
» The subfactions of this Bloc include:
  • Indigo Party [4]: Conservative Monarchists: The majority subfaction of the Moot Monarchist Bloc and leaning to the political right-side of the movement, supporting rule by a hereditary monarch entitled to rule for life. Conservative Monarchists staunchly support the Alkhalikoi family dynasty.
  • Olive Party [5]: Parliamentary Monarchists: A moderate minority subfaction of the Moot Monarchist Bloc that wants to retain the hereditary monarchy entitled to rule for life but which also wants to expand the powers of the Moot.
» Brown Party [6]: Liberal Parliamentary Monarchists: A minor wing on the left-side of the Parliamentary Monarchist subfaction who also desire to vest executive authority in a Council of Ministers headed by a Chancellor of the Moot with expanded powers as "First" or "Prime Minister", in addition to expanding the Moot's lawmaking powers, placing them closer to the Life-Term Elected Monarch sub-faction of the Imperial Republicans on the political spectrum.
  • Orange Party: Imperial Statists: Center-right party that supports the centralization of power in the overall governing apparatus of the Imperial State and the authority of the Imperial State as an Institution.[2]
  • Red Party: Centrists, who generally ascribed to gradual political change and liberal ideals and moderating positions along the broad political ideological spectrum. [2]
Republican Faction: A minority but vocal Moot faction dating from the era of the so-called Imperial Republic, members of the Republican Faction want to amend the Warrant of Restoration in order to abolish the Iridium Throne's hereditary monarchy in favor of an Elected Executive.
» The subfactions of this Bloc include:
  • Cerise Party [7]: Elected Monarch (Life-Term): The moderate minority of the more conservative elements support a Moot-elected Emperor (the Elected Monarch) with a lifelong term of office for the monarch.
  • Aglow Party [8]: Elected Monarch (Limited-Term): The more progressive majority support a Moot-elected Emperor (the Elected Monarch) with a limited term of office for the monarch.
  • Nearir Party [9]: Executive Council (Elected Oligarchy): The more radical left-wing elements agitate for the abolition of the Monarchy in favor of a Moot-elected Executive Council (or Elected Oligarchy) composed of elected Moot-members with term-limited tenures in office.

Imperial Moot Facilities[edit]

  • Moot Spire: The Moot holds its sessions in the Moot Spire, which, at 1.75 kilometers high, is the tallest building on Capital. By tradition, the Spire is the only building allowed to tower above the Imperial Palace, which is 4.25 kilometers away[1][10].
  • High Moot: At the top of the Moot Spire is the High Moot, where select committees hold the most private deliberations. Elevators with gravitic compensators can speed visitors from the bottom to the top in eighteen seconds[1][10].

History & Background (Dossier)[edit]

The Imperial Moot has long been the traditional advisory and deliberative body of the Third Imperium. The Moot is largely based upon earlier political assemblies of a similar nature, the First Imperium's Igsiirdi and the Second Imperium's Council of Noble Officers. The actual vested powers of the body have waxed and waned over the years. Stronger executives in the office of the Emperor have frequently diminished the power of the Moot. As of 1105, the power of the Moot is greatly diminished while the power of the Emperor is ascendant.

The Moot has about 6,000 participating nobles and about 12,000 total votes. Demographic studies indicate its membership is slightly less than half Human, with the next largest sophont blocs being Vargr and Aslan. Other sophonts are rarely more than half a percent each. Some nobles spend their entire lives on Capital participating in the Moot (and exercising proxies, often at the behest of special interests).[11]

Proxy Voting[edit]

Due to the vast distances involved with interstellar travel in an area as large as the Third Imperium or the even larger region of Charted Space, it sometimes becomes necessary to delegate one's voting franchise to other members of one's party or faction of political affiliation located on a central capital world. This practice used by many polities throughout Charted Space has often led to controversy or even scandal. Some Imperial histories have even attributed the venerable practice of the proxy vote to periods of instability or civil war.

The practice of assigning proxies to the Moot was initially weakly regulated, with proxies bought and sold with little limitations through chains of buyers, sometimes such that the originating noble might not even know who spoke for them in the Moot, if at all. The practice reached its peak in the 700s when a bloc of Cassildan nobles and socialites from Massilia accumulated sufficient proxies through multiple surrogates to, through carefully timed voting, forcibly forward issues of personal and racial interest[12]. The most dangerous of these motions were stopped, but in the incidents' aftermath many nobles were required to visit the Moot in person by order of the Emperor to explain themselves and forcibly reset their proxies. The practice of derivative proxies, the sale through multiple steps beyond the knowledge of the original noble, was banned in 716[13].

History-Era: Rebellion[edit]

Rebellion Era (Click "show" to reveal)
In the resulting turmoil after Strephon’s assassination, Prince Lucan ordered the the Moot dissolved for a year in an effort to prevent any infiltrators from convincing the Moot to approve Dulinor’s claim to the throne.

See also[edit]

Third Imperium

§ == ( Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information: ) == §

Third Imperium


References & Contributors (Sources)[edit]

Smallwikipedialogo.png This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Centrism. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Smallwikipedialogo.png This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Statism. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Marc Miller. Imperial Encyclopedia (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 32.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Marc Miller. Agent of the Imperium (Far Future Enterprises, 2015), 41.
  3. ↑ Marc Miller. Agent of the Imperium (Far Future Enterprises, 2015), 106.
  4. ↑ Speculative non-Canon color-assignment by WHULorigan
  5. ↑ Speculative non-Canon color-assignment by WHULorigan
  6. ↑ Speculative non-Canon color-assignment by WHULorigan
  7. ↑ Speculative non-Canon color-assignment by WHULorigan
  8. ↑ Speculative non-Canon color-assignment by WHULorigan
  9. ↑ Speculative non-Canon color-assignment by WHULorigan
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Gary L. Thomas. The Travellers' Digest 09 (Digest Group Publications, 1987), 28.
  11. ↑ Marc Miller. Agent of the Imperium (Far Future Enterprises, 2015), 107.
  12. ↑ James Kundert, Robert Eaglestone, Matthew Kerwin, Thomas Jones-Low. Imperiallines 8 (Far Future Enterprises, 2025), 4.
  13. ↑ James Kundert, Robert Eaglestone, Matthew Kerwin, Thomas Jones-Low. Imperiallines 8 (Far Future Enterprises, 2025), 5.
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