Board Thread:Custom Lore Development/@comment-26535281-20170830011512

The Senatum is the overarching legal and administrative branch of the government as well as supervising the judicial and religious branches. It is a massive oligarchy of senators and other elected and non-elected officials that answer solely to the Emperor and are on equal standing with the High Lords.

Senators are either elected by the 'plebs' or appointed by their planetary governors (with the first option being the most common in the Empire) with each world having a total of 50-100 Senators and many thousands of magistrates (Junior-Senators as well as a mix of governor and judge) as well as many other lesser positions, boards, and departments. Beyond these are the millions of servants and scribes helping to both manage the senates records and help the senators themselves. They could be organized into three overarching classes:

- Paters/Maters are the defacto leaders of the Senate being the oldest and 'wisest' senators as well as having much more experience within the realms of politics. They generally are either part of one of the major political factions or the heads of them.

- Senex are the 'Senators' are the more experienced of the younger senators having held some political offices and are leading memebers of political parties and some times the main voice of said parties.

- Pedarii are the youngest of the Senators with many being magistrates they are the main body of the senate and are seen to be easily swayed to one of the major parties only striking out on their own later in their career

Out of these classes the Senate as a whole elects it's leaders who number 12 in total with 2 of these being the 'Rex' of lords of the Senate and the other 10 being advisors with each lord receiving 5 of these individuals. The voting only happens once one of the said members dies then another is voted into his place from the body of the senate.

Senators are also 'technically' forbidden from engaging directly in economics although may find ways of cheating and thus have influence in both the Senatorial and Economic realms. Senators are also expected to be rather rich as they have a minimal state salary not one big enough to live the lavish lives a Senator is expected to.

Senators are also not allowed to leave the Empire without Imperial permission or to dabble in the military realm (unless elected to be a Consul) and are expected to serve for life with it being rare for a senator to retire.

The Senate constantly has new Senators being elected in (usually from new worlds for to replace one's killed in the internal strife of the Senate) many Senators don't even serve the world from which they come, for example a feral, feudal, or dead world may have Senators, but all under the thumb or on the pay roll of those from neighboring sectors/worlds. This leads to plenty of strife and conflict within the Senate with the more prominent Senators having their own private armies and assassins to defend their assets. 