Alvium

The Alvish Imperial Republic (, Alvūskem Scharrmoxevich), more commonly known as the Alvish Republic, Alvish Empire, or simply Alvium, is a multi-racial star state comprised of 36 inhabited systems and 174 outlying stations. The nucleus of the Republic is the Arrowhead, a cluster of seven densely-populated systems all located within five light-years of each other. These seven systems dominate the economy and politics of the Republic, and comparatively few Alvish live outside of these seven. Formally, the Arrowhead contains more than five-hundred autonomous nations, including four empires, forty-six kingdoms, and several hundred republics, duchies, and knightly orders. Outside the Arrowhead, authority is exercised either by the nations or the dynasties, or directly by the central government. The capital of the Imperial Republic is Rhapsel, which resides on the planet of Gōzich, by far the largest and most populous in Alvium.

The namesake and predominant race of the Republic are the Alvish, who evolved on a small moon called Kauen. Early in their evolution, the Alvish developed psionic abilities, and their civilization organized itself around those traits, coming to be ruled by a caste of psionic warlords and merchants. Following the rise of the Zusian Empire and the subsequent Long Peace, the institution of the Zockensian Heterodox Church regulated the psionic caste and introduced a new class of theocrats into the nobility, establishing the precedent of an evolving aristocracy.

The scientific revolution brought about massive societal upheaval as a new class of scientific professionals was absorbed into the old aristocracies. Accompanying the rise of industry were increasingly powerful currents of nationalism and populism, which shook the foundations of Alvish civilization in the Age of Revolutions. A series of devastating global wars, the collapse of the revolutionary powers, and the invention of nuclear weaponry contributed to the Industrial Terminus, the unchallenged domination of the syncretic-aristocratic system across the planet, and the persistence of the so-called Princely Order. The Alvish League was established to ensure world harmony and defuse tensions: nonetheless, nationalistic rivalries continued to thrive during the First Proliferation, when the Alvish states colonized their solar system. During this time the five major Alvish empires emerged, each driven by ethnic-nationalist designs: the Zusian Empire, Vandish Freehold, Doesian Empire, Nerotysian Empire, and the Gildish Federation. Alongside these empires rose the Svindic Republic, officially a federation of independent cities, and the largest multi-ethnic state in Alvish history.

In the midst of this colonial era, the Eldritch Cataclysm killed most of the Alvish population and annihilated their colonies and homeworld. An obscure Zusian dynasty, House Azach, discovered and developed a terrestrial wormhole called the Evergate, which offered an avenue of escape to a different galaxy. Following the exodus, the Alvish proliferated rapidly across the gargantuan world of Gōzich. The Azachs accumulated massive wealth and prestige, eventually spearheading the creation of the Alvish Union, the prototype of the modern republic, and electing one of their own princes as the first Zaesir, loosely drawn from a mythological title meaning "Emperor of Emperors." Regardless, the first several decades after the Cataclysm were marked by incessant civil turmoil and warfare, as the various old nations struggled to reconstitute themselves on the new homeworld of Gōzich, and jostled for power against each other, and the Azach-led Union. The Forward Unity Movement, allied with Zaesir Ondivald the Great, eventually absorbed or defeated all opposition and established a highly-federalized Union with a weak central government. The next century saw an unprecedented expansion of Alvish civilization, spurred by a booming population and a prosperous economy. In the course of this expansion, the Republic absorbed or conquered several new races, including the Therians and Dauvish.

Presently the Alvish Republic suffers from persistent instability due to the extreme federalism of the state, the inexact division of powers between the Voltentaug, Zaesir, and the Alvish nations, and a fractured political climate. Additionally, the absorption into the Republic of several new races, most notably the Therians, has spurred racial tensions and the concurrent rise of the radical pan-Alvish Black Fang Movement. The Republic has suffered five electoral crises since the Cataclysm, and recently emerged from the species' worst civil war since the Founders' Period: the Fifty Days' War.

Nevertheless, the Alvish Imperial Republic is currently one of the richest and most powerful nations of the Spordic arm, possessing several massive starfleets and a large, rapidly-growing population. Alvium is a center of scientific and cultural innovation, including some of the most impressive architecture of the Spordic arm. Alvium also has a richly developed literary canon; the Alvish regard the written word as highly powerful. Scientific innovation is spurred by the political system and the centrality of the Konspecktum to Alvish society, a massive table of ranks purportedly sorting all citizens according to their intelligence, determined by a complex mix of cultural and academic achievements. The current monarch of the Republic is Zaesir Gildomir I of the Kaisach dynasty, and the current leader of the Voltentaug is Kalzir Ingald zu'Galtzung, of House Azach.

Alvish people
The Alvish are the founders and dominant race of the Imperium, known for their small size, long lifespans, and preference for settling moons rather than planets. They evolved on a lush moon called Kauzen, which orbited the now-destroyed gas giant of Bissen. The Alvish are deeply spiritual creatures, and have followed a remarkably complex pantheon of Gods and creatures since before recorded history. Additionally, soon after the rise of agriculture, the Alvish experienced a religious transformation known as the Great Revival, which saw most of the species adopt Zockensianism as their primary belief structure: this transformation coincided with the rise of the psion-priesthood in most Alvish societies. The Alvish developed writing very early in their evolutionary history, and regard the written word as sacred and uniquely powerful. Alvish commonly express the belief that every consciousness is not one individual, but two - the one which speaks, and the one which writes.

Biologically, the Alvish are remarkably similar to humans and similar primates, which remains an unanswered conundrum of both Alvish and human xenobiology. Alvish eyesight functions similarly to human eyesight, despite the darker conditions in which the Alvish evolved; however, Alvish pupils tend to be larger than that of humans. Additionally, due to Kauzen's thicker atmosphere and colder temperatures, the Alvish never developed significant skin pigmentation, as they had little need for protection from ultraviolet radiation.

Founders’ Chaos (7751 OM – 71 AC)
The exodus from Kauzen to Gozich during the Cataclysm wrought vast social and political turmoil on the new homeworld. The refugee Alvish sought to quickly settle and re-establish their old ways of life, frequently causing tensions with the long-settled colonists. Old national allegiances reasserted themselves, and ethnic lines sprouted almost immediately: for example, the city of Stauckel, later to be the home of the Heterodox Church, was dominated by ethnic Zusians and a minority of ethnic Vandish. Between the first and fourth year AC (after the Cataclysm), thousands of ethnic riots were reported across Gozich. It was also during this chaotic period that the terms “Prestellar” and “Interstellar” emerged, referring to the perceived differences between the old world and the new.

Initially, the prestellar political structures of Kauzen reasserted themselves as many Alvish sought a return to stability. The old governments of Zusea and Vandary established themselves and declared their commitment to preserving the Alvish League, however, they conspicuously dropped any reference to Alvish internationalism in their statements, infuriating the Azach dynasty and the pan-Alvish movement. Several old powers also reasserted themselves and broke with the Zuseo-Vandish consensus, proclaiming their independence of any higher governing body. The leaders of this “post-international” movement included Nerotysia, Dotzary, and Gildary, and the failure of the hastily-called Evergate Council to address these issues led to war between the states. Despite the ideological conflict, the wars quickly turned to a scramble for territory as more refugees arrived and the various states coalesced into newly functional powers. However, the Supernational Movement emerged as a coalition of pan-Alvish parties and groups, and Supernational insurgencies sprouted on all sides. The Azach government, which fled to the island of Rhapsel to escape genocide, coordinated with the Supernationals and constructed their own military.

This chaotic period marked the beginning of the Fifty Years’ War, during which the various Alvish states vied for power and attempted to suppress the Supernational movements within their borders. Wartime devastation radicalized the Supernationals, and also fueled the re-emergence of the so-called Old Radicalisms, most notably, populism and unionism. Ideological fragmentation was deepened with the collapse of the First Zusian Empire in 31 AC as it was overtaken by the unionist Thousand Fists Clique, which itself helped spur the Vitschel Coup in 33 AC as radical populists overtook the Vandish government. By 34 AC, another series of uprisings rocked the Zusian capital of Sanktau, leading ultimately to the Kurbenau Coup: the overthrow of the Thousand Fists by the Zusian military, and the installation of the revolutionary-nationalist general Aldamir zu'Kurbenau as Emperor.

The outbreak of revolution across Gozich led the Zockensian Churches to throw their support behind House Azach and the Supernationals: the Great Yogg famously declared that “unification is now our final defense against anarchy and barbarism.” This shifted the tide of the war decisively in favor of the Alvish Imperium, which embarked on its famous Global March, a military campaign designed to finally end the war. As part of the March, the Supernational Movement reconstituted itself as a unified political party, the Forward Unity Party, and launched riots across the planet, targeting especially the radical governments of Vandary and Torgaria. With the backing of the Churches, pan-Alvish supernationalism exploded in popularity across Gozich, and various anti-radical riots were bolstered by pan-Alvish forces. These conditions all helped precipitate the success of the Global March and the final end to the Fifty Years’ War in 60 AC, a stunning victory for the Azach dynasty and the imperial government.

Four years of negotiations followed as a new pan-Alvish government was formulated. Representatives from across Gozich converged on Rhapsel, aiming to compose a single document from which Alvish governance could spring. This became known as the Four Years’ Congress, and is widely celebrated as the birth of the Alvish nation. The end of the Congress is still marked by the annual Festival of Peace on the Alvish secular calendar.

In 65 AC the Congress published two documents: the Charter of the Alvish Nations, which established the structure of the new imperial government, and the Declaration of Principles, which established the rights and privileges of the Alvish people, and their national governments, within the new imperial framework. House Azach was firmly entrenched on the imperial throne: the centuries-old Siptzang, which would remain a princely assembly of all the Alvish nations, was accompanied by the newly-created Volthaug, a popular legislature elected by all the Alvish people equally. The two legislatures were each assigned their own powers: the Zaesir was empowered with authority over the imperial military, any pan-Alvish security forces, and the Kruttenstalt, which was responsible for issuing and regulating a new unified currency, the Krum. The new imperial government thereafter held a number of conferences to determine the new and final borders of the Alvish nations, and a variety of governing apparatuses emerged in the process. By 71 AC, the Founders’ Chaos had finally come to an end, and stability returned to Gozich.

Interstellar Golden Age (72 – 155 AC)
The Second Proliferation is usually seen to have begun immediately following the end of the Chaos. The new imperial government, under Ondivald the Great and the Forward Unity Party, strictly centralized spacefaring authority within themselves and consolidated all space programs under the purview of the central government. Additionally, the cultural belief of “Klarrschvalz,” or “destiny of survival,” emerged forcefully in Alvish society and government. It was regarded as both necessary, and indeed predestined, for the Alvish to expand beyond their homeworld and thereby secure their own survival. As such, by 90 AC, the largest item on the imperial budget was the interstellar colonization program.

The technology of the Evergate was refined and engineered so that individual spacecraft could be equipped with wormhole engines: the major breakthrough came in 84 AC out of research led by Echibod Trenz and Persimir zu’Scherbach. The colonization of Zeheiderau, a rather small terrestrial planet also in the Vichtalla system, had already begun by then: the massive improvement in wormhole technology allowed for a rapid increase in the rate of colonization, such that direct links could be established between the two planets. The imperial government also sponsored the construction of both private and public colony ships, outfitted with wormhole engines, to escape the Vichtalla system and colonize ever more new worlds. This also spurred the proliferation of the so-called “Arrowhead idea:” Alvish astronomers had long before noted that six systems resided very close to Vichtalla in galactic space, and that when projected onto a two-dimensional map, these systems roughly formed an arrowhead (in three-dimensional space, the systems deviate too widely from the galactic plane to form a coherent shape). Nonetheless the closeness of the Arrowhead systems made them ideal targets for colonization, and as such the imperial government, and many private colonists, focused their efforts on those.

Nearly half of the Arrowhead systems had been colonized by the early decades of the 2nd century AC. However, settlement of the new colonies did not advance rapidly until roughly 120 AC, when Gozich’s population passed 14 billion and the planet saw signs of overdevelopment and overcrowding. Furthermore, as a solution to overpopulation on Gozich, and in pursuit of the Klarrschvalz, the imperial government relaxed controls on settlement: whereas before all colonization had proceeded strictly under the purview of the Imperial Spatial Authority, the government now allowed individual nations to conduct their own colonization programs, and additionally, promised exclusive rights to any planet so long as the nation could prove it settled the land first. This system not only decentralized authority, it also granted colonial hegemony to the superpowers, which could nearly always outpace any smaller nations in the race to prospective habitable worlds. By the time the Arrowhead had been fully colonized, only four planets (Gozich, Zeheiderau, Varbantzau, and Auxem) remained shared worlds, divided between the various Alvish nations. The Zusian Empire, meanwhile, claimed exclusive control over the Klōve, Tritzen, and Sol'skige; the Dotzi Commonwealth claimed Dotzagen, and the Nerotysian Empire claimed Melnag.

The Alvish underwent explosive population growth throughout this entire period, the continuation of a trend that had begun on Kauzen before the Cataclysm. The increasing prevalence and technical prowess of the so-called Baby Laboratories, in which children could be developed outside of the mother’s womb, thereby greatly relieving the stresses of pregnancy, led to a skyrocketing birthrate. The adaptation of the Laboratories for nonstandard sexual couples in the 160s furthered this trend. The total fertility rate among the Alvish, which had stood at 2.87 prior to the Cataclysm, increased dramatically to 4.2 following the end of the Chaos, and did not begin declining again until the end of the 2nd century AC: the total Alvish population boomed from just over 11 billion in 100 AC, to nearly 135 billion a century later. As a result, the Arrowhead was rapidly settled and populated in the middle decades of the 2nd century AC, and the city-moon of Varbantzau began experiencing the first signs of ecumenopolization.

The first half of the century also saw the Alvish encounter an intelligent alien race for the first time since the Cataclysm. In 102 AC, Alvish astronomers working on a research station orbiting the Klōve fired a volley of nanoprobes at a nearby planet, Volmau-III, which had been theorized could harbor intelligent life. The researchers, led by Tilden zu’Kaisach, announced the discovery of the Dauvish species later that year, which had been observed inhabiting the mountainous regions of Volmau-III, living in complex societies but lacking any modern technology: zu’Kaisach suggested their living standards approximated those of the feudal Alvish. Immediately the Dauvish were placed under observation, and Volmau-III under strict quarantine: however, following further economic and social liberalization in 148 and 149, House Kaisach privately funded Alvium’s first “uplift program” with aid from the Zusian and Dotzi governments. The Dauvish, a squat reptilian species, responded well to the program and the Alvish generally: by 170 AC, Dauvish civilization on Volmau-III had risen to modern levels and the Alvish determined them to be ready for “integration.” In 176 AC, the Alvish imperial government signed a formal migration treaty with the Dauvish, and soon, the Klōve received an influx of Dauvish migrants. Volmau-III was renamed in imperial records as “Flower of Liberty,” a rough translation of the Dauvish term for their own homeworld.

Wars of the Gates and Expansion (156 – 184)
Alvish explorers first entered the Seiben system in 142, and immediately made contact with an advanced alien race known as the Therians, who had already established a small interplanetary empire: however, they had thus far failed to leave their home system. The explorers initially received a warm reception, however, after several diplomatic conflicts and xenophobic panics both in Alvish and Therian society, several Alvish scientific vessels were destroyed by ground-based missiles from the Therian homeworld of Elaamus in 153. This prompted outrage in the Alvish Imperium, and the fledgling military component of the Imperial Spatial Authority was sent to retaliate. In 156, the first of the Wars of the Gates began, as the ISA fleet destroyed all Therian stations outside their atmosphere, killing tens of thousands, and later blockaded the planet and issued a list of demands. The Therians responded with missile barrages, which prompted a limited withdrawal by the Alvish fleet.

This first war lasted only a few years and essentially stalemated, as the Therians found their interplanetary empire destroyed and their civilization confined to Elaamus, but the Alvish found themselves unable to effectively invade or disable Elaamus’ defenses, and refused to engage in indiscriminate bombing to force a capitulation. The so-called Cold Peace ensued, with the Alvish fleet remaining in Seiben but refusing to attack the Therians directly, instead merely enforcing a total blockade to prevent renewed Therian expansion. The Alvish also began construction of the Fortress of Seiben, the precursor to the modern Gate of Seiben, as a fixed military installation to further prevent the Therians from ever posing a threat to the Alvish. Expansion proceeded far beyond the Arrowhead, and the Cold Peace persisted for decades.

In 168 the Alvish encountered another advanced alien race: the Narbadi. Unlike the Therians, the Narbadi had already mastered interstellar travel and established colonies, and they did not receive the Alvish warmly. Instead, a First-Contact War broke out, which the Alvish quickly won due to technological and tactical advantages, partially learned from the war with the Therians. This time, the Alvish did not refrain from bombarding Narb, the homeworld of the Narbadi, and soon forced total capitulation. The Narbadi state was annexed wholly by the Imperium: the Narbadi themselves were placed under strict population and migration controls, their syncretic partners the Okrecki were repurposed and engineered to meet Alvish needs, and millions of Alvish migrants flocked to Narbadi worlds.

Despite the Therians and Narbadi, the Alvish did not only conflict with alien races: upon encountering the pacifist traders of the Oltorzi, the Alvish eagerly signed a nonaggression pact and established positive relations. Before long, Alvish Zockensian missionaries arrived on Taurab, the homeworld of the Oltorzi, and began conversion efforts, which had been explicitly legalized by the nonaggression pact. The Oltorzi, originally a materialist culture with a decaying spirituality, proved eager converts: by 179, only two decades after the Alvish and Oltorzi had made first contact, nearly half of all Oltorzi were Zockensians, and less than a decade later, nearly two-thirds were. The conversion process was greatly accelerated after an early Oltorzi convert, Ivvi Qamvis, began preaching a revised Zockensian theology which centered the Oltorzi and their mythology within the preexisting Alvish context: Ivvi later established the Reformed Zockensian Church, which rapidly overtook Oltorzi society. Following this conversion, the Alvish and Oltorzi governments signed the Pact of Ramzau in 185, incorporating the Oltorzi political structure into Alvium as a vassal state. Under the terms of the agreement, the Oltorzi were left mostly autonomous, however, they agreed to dismantle their few military vessels and forswear future military construction, and stay out of intergalactic politics. In return, they were granted the protection of the Alvish military and state, and given the right to travel and trade freely within the Arrowhead (for context, the Narbadi were forbidden from ever entering the Arrowhead, save for a few exceptions).

In 171, after more than two decades of the Cold Peace, the Second War of the Gates began when Alvium’s largest-ever starfleet approached Elaamus and demanded unconditional surrender from the Therians, on pain of orbital bombardment. By now, the ISA had been reorganized as the Alvish Imperial Starfleet, with the military component having subsumed the whole organization, and Alvish space-warfare technology had advanced considerably after their conflict with the Narbadi. By now the imperial government had committed to realizing the so-called General Project, a plan to fully secure the Arrowhead against invasion by constructing a ring of interdiction fortresses around the seven systems. The continued existence of the “Therian problem” presented a major obstacle to the General Project.

Unbeknownst to the Alvish, the Therians had also greatly advanced their anti-spatial weaponry, and the Alvish fleet suffered heavy casualties as it attempted to enter orbit and take control of the space around Elaamus. Furthermore, a sprawling “bunker society” had sprouted on the planet following the end of the previous war, and orbital shelling proved less effective than the Alvish had anticipated. Nonetheless, the shelling continued for almost a year, and the Therians eventually conceded defeat, fearing food shortages and, in the far-future, the Alvish deploying bunker-buster weaponry and wiping out their species. The Treaty of Seiben was signed in 173, placing Elaamus firmly under the control of the Imperium and opening the planet up to Alvish migration and trade. However, the Alvish also made some concessions, including allowing Therians reciprocal access to the Arrowhead.

Great Desolation (185 – 190)
In 184 the Alvish financial sector collapsed, and a year later, the Alvish economy entered a recession. After decades of unbridled and often explosive growth, interrupted by only a scattering of small recessions, the economy cratered deeper than it ever had since long before the Cataclysm. Settlement and migration virtually stopped overnight; unemployment skyrocketed; several major banks folded, placing immense stresses on the largest nations; and tax revenues declined. The collapse mostly came about as the result of a debt crisis: the Torgarian Empire defaulted on its debts in 185, as it found itself unable to properly respond to its domestic crisis due to its lack of control over monetary policy, which was instead overseen centrally by the imperial government, and not the nations’ fiscal bureaucracies. Many more nations defaulted thereafter, which contributed to rapidly inflating interest rates.

The recession quickly earned the title of “Desolation,” the rough Alvish equivalent to human depressions. This was the first Desolation of the Interstellar era, and as such the imperial government was forced to resort to untried and unproven solutions. Meanwhile, social and political chaos engulfed the Imperium: the Volthaug was overtaken by radical Zusian supremacists and ultrapopulists, and only the Siptzang retained its traditional moderate parties. Zaesir Tassimir IV, who at seventeen was the youngest ever to take the throne, immediately declared a state of emergency and imposed military rule on Gozich: the move quickly backfired, sparking numerous riots and forcing the imperial family to relocate to Rhapsel from their urban palaces. Meanwhile, the Volthaug remained gridlocked, and all of the Siptzang’s proposals for economic reform failed. It became clear that either massive centralization or federalization was necessary: the current division of economic authority was dysfunctional and guaranteed to produce more catastrophic crashes in the future.

In 187, in response to the disastrous Guhlentorf Riots, the Siptzang finally affirmed the Kirsch Plan, negotiated between the two parties and various nations of the assembly by Gildobold zu’Kirsch. Under the terms of the plan, the Siptzang would pass an amendment to the Imperial Charter which would enable the Central Imperial Bank to assume the debts of the constituent Alvish nations, and furthermore centralize fiscal and monetary authority in the Imperial Bank. This would allow the central government to respond more effectively to future recessions, and prevent another Desolation. However, in return, the nations of Alvium demanded that the Imperial Starfleet should be greatly reduced in size, and that the nations be allowed to build and maintain their own autonomous militaries. Politically, the nations claimed this would help prevent the government from using its newfound financial powers to enact tyranny: functionally, it was a compromise between the nations and the Imperium.

However, Tassimir IV, most of his court, and the Azach dynasty was implacably opposed to the Kirsch Plan from the moment it was proposed. Tassimir expressly refused to consider it, and even threatened to forcibly dissolve the Siptzang if it “continued with such nonsense.” Many Centralists and pan-Alvish nationalists regarded the splintering of military power between the nations as the death knell of the union: the Azachs shared this view, especially Tassimir. However, the Kirsch Plan continued to gain traction as the crisis deepened, which also had the effect of tarnishing the legitimacy of the Volthaug, which remained paralyzed by gridlock and unable to agree to the Plan. Political splintering was worsened with the creation of the Black Fang Society in 189, a radical pan-Alvish supremacist party which began draining votes from the other unionists of the Volthaug.

The mounting disorder culminated with the Udaui Massacre in late 188, in which the Udaui Guard, the personal bodyguards of the Zaesir, mutinied against their officers and took the imperial family hostage, demanding that their salaries be paid and their families rescued from poverty. Negotiations with the Imperial Starfleet broke down, and the mutineers murdered the imperial family in the early days of 189, instead crowning one of their captains as the new Zaesir. This triggered an invasion of Rhapsel by imperial marines: the palace suffered billions of Krums in damage, and hundreds of marines and Udaui alike were killed.

In the aftermath, the Siptzang shockingly elected Vosmir zu’Vortmundausel to replace Tassimir, revoking the throne from House Azach and their Centralist allies. This marked the birth of the Savage Peace myth, which claimed that the allied races of the Imperium, mostly the Therians and Oltorzi, had conspired to murder Tassimir, bribed the Udaui to revolt, and bribed the princes to elect a member of the populist-leaning House Vortmundausel as the new ruler. Nonetheless, Vosmir III was crowned Zaesir, and immediately agreed to the Kirsch Plan. To the outrage of unionists, the Volthaug was bypassed through a quirk of the Charter’s language, the reforms passed the Siptzang and were accepted by the nations without ever reaching the popular assembly. Yūrga Firnikau, the founder and leader of the Black Fang, called it “the worst betrayal of the Alvish people in history: the triumph of the Savage Peace.”

Voltentaug
First established as the oversight council of the meagre Alvish League, the Evergate Reforms transformed the Voltentaug into a sovereign congress of nations with broad powers to regulate international and interstellar relations, disputes, commerce, and colonization, as well as a pan-Alvish military and foreign policy. Before the Kirsch Plan, the Voltentaug governed Alvium as a tricameral legislature drawn from and elected by the Alvish aristocracy (comprising just over one-third of the population). However, the creation and empowering of the Common Council, a popular assembly elected by all Alvish citizens, expanded the democratic mandate of the Voltentaug, and legitimized an expansion of its powers to include oversight of a new pan-Alvish bank, the Central Imperial Bank. In addition to formulating and approving policy, the Voltentaug also elects the Zaesir, the Alvish monarch and head-of-state.

The Voltentaug is composed of four chambers. The oldest is the Septzang, an assembly of Alvish heads-of-state or their envoys, with representation apportioned equally to every realm, regardless of size or population. The Septzang constitutes the de-facto upper house of the Voltentaug, and retains certain legislative powers, such as a veto on declarations of war. Crucially, however, the Septzang also elects the Zaesir from the members of the second-oldest chamber, the Imperial Conclave. The Conclave consists of the heads of the so-called Great Dynasties, the ruling houses of the seventeen largest Alvish realms, and functions as enhanced representation for the largest nations, while also ensuring that the Zaesir will always be an aristocrat of suitable prestige for the title. The Conclave possesses no other powers besides nominating candidates for the throne, to be voted upon by the Septzang.

The two youngest chambers serve as de-facto lower houses, and gradually they have become the most important legislative organs, handling most day-to-day lawmaking and empowered to regulate all non-crucial aspects of the celestial government without the approval of the Septzang. The first is the Princely Council, popularly elected by all titled Alvish, and the second is the Common Council, popularly elected by all Alvish citizens. These two councils possess identical legislative powers and regulate the celestial bureaucracy, and can veto each other. However, they require the assent of the Septzang for declarations of war, amendments to the Declaration of Principles or Celestial Charter, votes of or  against the Zaesir or his ministers, and to exercise the  over the Zaesir. However, so-called Martial Treaties (any agreements committing Alvium to declare war in proscribed situations) require only the consent of the two councils, excluding the Septzang.

Aside from the Zaesir, the Voltentaug elects two other leaders. The Princely Council elects the Grand Prince, responsible for overseeing the various committees and subcommittees of the two councils, as well as convening and representing the Princely Council itself. The Common Council elects the Chief Speaker, who also regulates various committees, and convenes and speaks for his council.

Zaesir
The highest political leader of the Imperial Republic is the Zaesir, the individual sovereign of the celestial state. Zaesir can be translated either as “celestial emperor” or “emperor of emperors,” a title invented by the Septzang to assert the supremacy of the elected, semi-presidential leader over all other Alvish monarchs and leaders. The transformation from president to monarch was formalized when Aldana I styled herself “Great Zaesir, Indisputable President of the Alvish Realms,” placing “Zaesir” first and thus adopting it as her primary title.

The Zaesir possesses supreme authority over the military, acts as the leader of the Supreme Celestial Court with twice the voting power of the other justices, and oversees the imperial bureaucracy. The Zaesir can act unilaterally in matters of war and diplomacy, although the Voltentaug must approve a formal declaration of war. The Zaesir primarily exercises his power through imperial instructions, which are directives issued to the bureaucracies. Formally, he is tasked with keeping bureaucratic activity in line with the policies of the Voltentaug and decisions of the Celestial Court.

The Zaesir is elected by the Septzang and serves a twenty-year term, unless removed by a vote of no-confidence or impeached for a criminal abuse. There are no term limits, and the throne often passes to the officeholder’s dynastic heir upon their death, lending the position a de-facto patrimonialism. However, dynasties also frequently lose control of the throne in times of crisis, despite the fact that the Septzang’s elections are supposed to be apolitical, and based entirely on merit. The Celestial Charter requires that a new Zaesir be elected within a single calendar year of the death or resignation of a sitting ruler.

Syncretic Nobility
The ruling sociopolitical class of the Imperium is usually called the syncretic nobility. Comprising just over one-third of the population, the nobility includes most Alvish psions, scholars, business leaders, political and military leaders, and many highly-trained professional workers and craftsmen. At the top of this nobility are the Great Dynasties and Lesser Houses, which accumulate the greatest wealth and power and grow to subsume many lesser noble families. Rooted in the so-called "psionic nobility" of ages past, the current shape of the aristocracy arose after the scientific revolution and represents the intellectual elite of Alvish society, often divided into two groups: the “robed nobility,” referring to the traditional psionic families, and the “suited nobility,” referring to younger families ennobled due to economic, political, or academic achievement. According to Alvish tradition, the aristocracy preserves the material and cultural knowledge of Alvish society, and also works to expand it: as such, it is also sometimes called a "knowledge-nobility."

The aristocracy is both very large and highly fluid, containing roughly one-third of the population and fluctuating regularly. Citizens enter the aristocracy one of two ways, the first by earning an academic certificate from one of Alvium's Specktochen, a recognized, legitimate institution of higher learning roughly analogous to human universities. The second avenue is to enter the priesthood and complete training as a traditional psion at one of Alvium's many churches.

Due to the automation of labor, there also exists a large underclass, marked by relative impoverishment and, often, reliance on government services to survive. These impoverished lower classes constitute roughly one-fifth of the population, a proportion which continues to grow with the pace of technological progress.

The Zaesir, as the most powerful of all philosopher-kings, is expected to uphold the traditions of the syncretic nobility to the utmost degree. Every Zaesir is expected to be an expert in some scientific or cultural field, and the Zaesiri often take extended breaks from governance in order to pursue these skills and talents. A slight majority of Zaesiri choose to pursue one of the sky-sciences, in order to further enhance their role as master of interstellar matters. Usually this entails either astronomy, astrophysics or some kind of xenobiology.

Imperial bureaucracy
Before the Cataclysm there were no pan-Alvish bureaucracies: the first such structures were created by the newly-crowned Aldana the Great, the first Zaesir, in order to ensure the survival of the race. She organized her early ministries in a courtly system, empowering two court councils to oversee interstellar travel and affairs, and warfare, respectively. Later, Ondivald the Great created a third court council, the Nofnungezinde, to oversee the Konspecktum, a table of ranks for all Alvish citizens, which served to normalize succession and inheritance, and became Alvium's first centralized database of demographic information.

However, beyond these three court councils and their ministries, no other central bureaucracy exists in Alvium. Additionally, the Court War Council, known in Alvium as the Nofkaltzinde, is routinely undermined by the relative weakness of the Imperial Starfleet compared to the various regional starfleets of the Alvish realms. Recently, the Nofpockzinde, the Court Rocket Council, has been expanded with the introduction of the Empire-wide welfare program known as the Poschtgaffelsteifelen, however, the decentralized nature of said program has limited even this centralizing influence.

Intertwined with this bureaucracy are the regular court functions, overseen by the Nausir, the Zaesir's personal chief-of-staff. The most prominent features of the Zaesir’s daily functions are the Falzefancke, or "Radiant Forums:" ritualized debates between the Zaesir and another citizen, whether it be a premier or simply a popular speaker. The Falzefancken usually occur once a week, and are the focal point of that week’s ceremonial activities. The Nausir arranges the affairs, requesting guests and assigning seats in the audience. Debating the Zaesir as a guest in a Forum is a high honor in the Imperium, and considered a mark of supreme accomplishment in most fields. Frequently the Forums are non-adversarial, consisting of an expert in some field teaching a subject to the Zaesir, with the sovereign posing questions to broaden his understanding. The Forums are also sometimes adversarial, featuring intense debate between the Zaesir and his guest. Additionally, beginning with Minalda the Great and her son, Hannivald II, the Zaesir's heir is sometimes invited as the guest, giving the Alaxir a chance to flesh out his beliefs and signal his politics to the populace and state apparatus.

Zockensian Church
The Zockensian Church (, Zockenburzau), also known as the Church of Zockoft or the Eastern Alvish Church, is the largest church of the Alvish with more than 52 billion followers in 518 AC according to the Records Office of the Radiant Curia. Frequently cited as the oldest continuous institution in Alvish history, the Church and its mythology have played a formative role in the development of Valckish culture and society, and have helped to shape Alvish civilization more broadly. The Church is headed by the Mettic Gottnogg, otherwise known to aliens as the Great Nogg, who oversees a vast priestly bureaucracy from his seat of power in the clerical enclave of Stockel, a small district on the planet of Gozich.

Demographics
The population of Alvium was recorded as 152,814,617,960 in 518 AC. The Radiant Curia is responsible for collecting demographic and census data; the Curia delegates this duty to its Records Council, which conducts a full census every five Alvish years. The vast majority of people in Alvium belong to the Alvish species; roughly 79% are Alvish, followed by 13% Therian, and 3% Dauvish, with all other sentient species making up the other 4%. Immigration and emigration is essentially nonexistent, barring unusual circumstances, and Alvium's strict border controls are administered by the Court Rocket Council, or Nofpozzind.

The Radiant Curia divides the sentient Alvish population into four categories; citizens, special residents, protected residents, and minors. Citizens are those endowed with full rights under Alvish law and the Alvish Ordinary Complex; more than 97% of the population falls into this category, and all Alvish, Dauvish, and Therian individuals are granted citizenship automatically. Special residents are ammonia-based species which are both sentient and space-faring, but which have not integrated into Alvish culture and society to the standards set by the Radiant Curia. Individual members of these special-resident species may be granted citizenship upon completing a series of examinations, however they are not born into citizenship. Protected residents are those species which are sentient and spacefaring, but which are not ammonia-based. There are fewer than one-hundred million protected residents in the Imperium, all of whom belong to various water-based species inhabiting small or underdeveloped planets. There is currently no path to citizenship for protected residents. Finally, minors are species which are sentient but not space-faring; there are three Alvish-controlled planets inhabited by these minors, and their combined population is estimated at roughly 50 million. Minor species are placed under strict scientific observation; currently, there are no further legal procedures pertaining to minors.