The Imperial Government
The State in Exile
An empire without ground is still an empire if it can say who belongs to it, who speaks for it, and by what authority. The Voltrumite answer to all three has not changed since the founding.
Sovereignty
The Crown
Held by His Imperial Majesty Argus VII, proved by the Imperial Flame, seated at Singapore. The dignity of the Empire rests here and nowhere else.
Administration
The Regency
Dormant. The Grand Regent governs only when the throne is vacant and lays the power down when an Emperor is recognised. Every Regent has.
Membership
The Register
The roll of citizens, reconstructed after the Purge and never closed. Fewer than one hundred names stand upon it.
The Grand Regency
Between Emperors the Empire is governed by the Grand Regent of Voltrum, an office of administration and not of sovereignty, exercising every function of government and none of the dignity. The regency was for the whole of Imperial history the ordinary condition of the Empire, and the Emperor its occasional interruption.
The office is presently dormant, the throne being occupied. It revives upon a vacancy and not before, and its holder is determined by the confederation's own reckoning of strength — which is to say by whoever can bear it — and is reviewed, and has been taken away.
No Grand Regent has ever been styled Emperor. None has ever been recorded attempting it.
The regalia
The Empire kept two artifacts of the old world, both because they still worked, and forged a third anew for each reign. They divide by the question each one asks.
| The Starfinder | Asks who. The instrument of the Search; answered five times across five lifetimes and refused every claimant thereafter. Lost at Voltris in the Purge. |
|---|---|
| The Imperial Seal | Asks by what authority, and has never refused anybody at all. Taken from Chima; the Mandate of Heaven. Lost. Borne today in replica. |
| The Imperial Signet | Asks only is he here. Forged anew for each Emperor and broken at his death. Six forged, six broken; the seventh setting stood empty until the world ended. |
The Imperial Seal of the Voltrumites
The instrument of state presently borne by His Imperial Majesty is a small seal of gold, fifty grams in the hand — a faithful replica of the regalia that passed through six reigns and every regency between them, and was lost with the world that kept it.
It is recorded in the register as a replica. The Empire has never entered a false line in a register in the whole of its history and did not begin at its lowest point. Every instrument of the Imperial Government in exile is sealed by it, and the seal does not confer the authority — it records that the authority was present.
A seal is not a proof of a right. It is a proof that someone with the right was in the room.
The royal line
The descendants of Argus I hold precedence, honour, and the highest offices the Empire confers, and are barred absolutely from the throne by the First Emperor's own instruction. The bar survives the fall intact. The Empire is hereditary in every particular except the one that matters.
Instruments and practice
- Acts are attributed to the body, never to persons. Judgements of the Imperial Government issue in the name of the Crown, and no name is attached to any judgement in the register — a practice older than the Empire, kept from the confederation, and applied even to the examination of the sovereign.
- Every examination is entered in full. Petitions, admissions, and refusals are all recorded. The register does not record opinions.
- The register is never closed. It was not closed through the barren cycles, it was not closed at the Purge, and it will not be closed at any number of citizens, including this one.
- The Empire enters no claim it cannot prove. It holds no ground and says so. It bears a replica and says so. It claims six systems by right and by none by possession, and says that too.
Standing of the Empire on Earth
The Imperial Government in exile is seated at Singapore, upon the world of Earth, and conducts itself there as a guest. It asserts no jurisdiction over any territory of Earth, claims no authority over any person who is not a citizen of the Empire by the register, and issues no instrument intended to have effect in the law of any Earth state.
The Voltrumite Empire is a micronation. Citizenship of the Empire is honorary and does not confer, replace, or affect any nationality, residency, immigration status, tax position, or legal right under the law of Singapore or of any other jurisdiction, and no document of the Empire should be presented to any authority as though it did.