I'm trying to make a space opera setting. Besides an empire

None of today's or yesterday's government systems can rule a complex space empire. Galactic governments are impossible without AI.

>>55346256
Whatever would allow sectors/systems/planets to operate mostly independently while having fealty and a cultural connection to a mostly hands-off power centre. So either some feudal or federal system I guess. You can't micromanage that many people from the middle (and depending on your ftl rules may be mostly impossible) so you need to be able to trust them to run themselves sensibly while still meeting their tithes and military obligations

>>55346256
another option is an anarcho-communist situation where they all try to avoid unnecessary hierarchies and have councils and quorums to vote on everything. No central government unless they decide to convene one.

>>55346256
Depends on a couple factors: Can you communicate FTL without sending your message via starship? What is the speed of the average courier?
If you can communicate without ships, what is the speed, and how expensive is the equipment?
Same thing with ships: how expensive, and how fast?
At one end
>FTL Comms faster than ships
>Ship speeds measured in LY/Hour or greater
>Cheap Comms
>Cheap Ships
You can see a very active political situation, with everyone chiming in.
To the other end
>No FTL Comms
>Slow Ships
>Expensive ships
where you can barely maintain an empire, which relies upon a decentralized system of trouble shooters (who were probably born into it), and everyone else barely communicates beyond their neighbors.
Pick somewhere in the middle, but remember: how would someone work around the limitations the FTL rules put on them?

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It should be like the empires of old when it took months or even years to get or send messages to anywhere.

>>55346256
A federation, similar to the Holy Roman Empire or the original United States. A bunch of separate nations and governments with their own cultures and laws loosely held together by a "federal government", but mostly doing their own thing.

>>55346256
Some sort of absolute monarchy is always a classic. Especially if the monarch is some sort of quasi-divine figure.
Theocracies are ok if you're into that sort of thing.
Some sort of corporate or mercantile themed nation can serve as a good flexible neutral party, especially if they're one of the smaller factions.

>>55346256
Maybe an asteroid belt or Gas Giant + dozen or so moons run by a corporate federation of hydrogen and mineral barons and their nations of laborers.

the whole thing is built on an economy of mass production, the vast majority of the products being shipped to your empire and/or federations, but an entire internal economy of producing the things necessary to continue to mine minerals from the moons and gases from the planet efficiently.

I'm talking drill-bit manufacturers and processing plant owners being the Old Money of the region, producing and innovating incredibly specialized fields of technology generation after generation.

It's basically a merchant nation, only instead of rich old silk/spice merchants, you've got OBSCENELY rich nickel/hydrogen merchants.

>>55346256
Religious democracy. The empire is democratic and heavily decentralized, but held firmly together by a common faith and common religious authority.

Plutocratic merchant planet positioned in a route that's crucial to trade. Serving on merchant/navy ships is a rooted tradition and held in highest regard.

I don't think there's any material or good that could justify interstellar commerce unless interstellar travel and FTL is essentially free and it doesn't take decades or centuries to get anywhere. Interplanetary commerce is fine.

I don't see how democratic governments would work. How do you pull an election? How do you visit every planet in your lifetime? How do you stop the enormous layers of bureaucracy that such system would held? Any system like this is going to be inherently oligarchic and autocratic.

>>55347022
Nuh uh.

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Dyson Sphere city states each artificial habitat is it's own nation.

>>55346256

Read Hyperion Cantos

>>55346256
Technocracy.
Theocratical democracy.
Dictatorship.

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Ecological fundamentalists.

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>>55346256
Sentient ecosystem that relies on a custom-made servant species to spread it.
This species see the ecosystem as a god and puts great care in terraforming and seeding other celestial bodies with seeds from the ecosystem, creating new ones to continue to expand. In return they get to live pretty carelessly in a lush paradise-world.
Governing is done locally in the largely self-governing servant-communities but the different ecosystems are connected and can coordinate on a grand scale if needed.

>>55346256
Fanatical theocracy built around the worship of the most important thing in the universe: Our Sun.

It's not the biggest, it's not the brightest, but it's ours. A little larger, and we would burn. A little smaller, and we would freeze. It is exactly as we need it to be, to nurture and thrive. In our age of celestial mastery, it is the grandmother of our kind. It bore the base Earth, our cradle, and when we outgrew its embrace we spread to every world under our Holy Star's light.
The Fire of our Empire.
The Wind in our Sails.
The Warmth in our Hearts.
The Light of our Souls.

The Cult of Sol finds its center of faith on Mercury, a planet that has been transformed from a scorched rock into a shrine to Mankind and our Golden God. It was the cult that ensured the final death of fossil fuels use in astronomics, with the invention of hyper-efficient solar cells and virtually infinite hydrogen fusion cells.

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AI overlords and their post-humans rule over everything.