How do you explain a space, alien or human, kingdom ruled by an absolute monarch?

How do you explain a space, alien or human, kingdom ruled by an absolute monarch?

It was hereditary.

Our knowledge of the progression of societies is an incredibly tiny snapshot. A few tens of thousands of years of one species on one world.

There is no rational basis for assuming absolute monarchies could not survive into, or emerge into an advanced, space faring civilisation.

Should you put some thought into justifying it? Sure. But the idea that they'd be ruled by a Monarchy is no more ridiculous than assuming democracy, oligarchy or any other ruling system you can care to imagine. Who knows what strange new kinds of governance could possibly exist, over much longer time frames and significantly larger numbers of worlds?

It's the most probable type of governance to exist. It's basically rule of the strongest.

with aliens its really easy. They have a predetermined queen, much like ant colonies. As they have evolved, the queen's responsibilities have lessened, and now she is more so the go-to advisor then an actual leader.

Ask the same question about anything. Government is bullshit and space anarcho-capitalism is the best option for a fun game full of diverse experiences.

Their ancestor was a cunt with enough people following them they could subjugate a large slice of population. When they died their offspring kept the rule. When the offspring died theirs kept the rule. After enough offspring it became tradition and people started referring to the original cunt as a "unifier" or somesuch.

Because a guy hopped over the wall.
And so the republic was born.

The monarch is a hyper-advanced artificial intelligence that makes decisions based on models and current data from across its civilization. The royalty aspect is just its subject being cute.

It's functionally a military dictatorship where the noble houses just happen to occupy the highest ranks. Think the relation between the House of Saud and the Saudi Arabian military, only without the Wahhabists as a player.

True absolute monarchy, a la Louis XIV, is actually very hard to maintain, historically, though who knows how future tech will change that.

The Foundation series explained the reason for a single governing Galactic Empire the best. Basically the various worlds would descend into war with the strong and large planets picking on the smaller weak planets. A strong central government can prevent all this.

Usually what I see are space Constitutional monarchies. Planetary government rests on the head of the Monarch who has a senate who do something. I guess write the laws?

These Space Kings and Queens also tend to lead the military often from some form of command station with the princes right in the thick of it.

How do you explain a space, alien or human, republic ruled by an elected council?

It's really quite simple: It's a space, alien or human, kingdom, and it's ruled by an absolute monarch.

>True absolute monarchy, a la Louis XIV
And even then its absoluteness is dubious. He never managed to truly unify French law in the same way Napoleon did for example, because he still had to respect the local rights of cities to make their own laws [while Napoleon just needed the approval of this new construct called "the French people"]. He also could only implement limited tax laws without the Three Estates approving, and generally his actions needed to be backed by the Conseil du Roi. Whenever the king declared that he made a decision "car tel est notre bon plaisir" (because it is our fancy), it sounds like the king has decided it on a whim but this exact phrase means that he has the approval of the Royal Council and he wouldn't use this phrase if he did not have their support. In fact, when looking purely at internal affairs, one could make the case that a current French president has less obstacles than an absolutist king.

Absolute monarchies had a lot of power concentrated in the figure of the monarch, but they weren't totalitarian dictatorships (as a lot of people seem to anachronistically think).

In a game.
Literally the only way to make anarcho-captalism work.

>tfw Lucas had no female wear a bra in episode 4
>tfw Ford tapped that thrice

unlimited power

I mean, her stepdad wasnt even a king, so maybe People's princes.

Shut up and build me more statues.

Why would I need to explain it? Democracy isn't some inevitability, just look at any place that isn't Europe or North America.

Fair point. Royalty seems to work differently in that setting.

Honestly, that seemed like something you'd get in an RPG where the GM quickly modifies something on the fly when they realise the implications of something they've encountered before. Episode 2 rolls around and it's "oh, Amidala's not a Queen queen, it's an elected position with a name that doesn't make sense". I had something similar happen in a campaign a while ago when the GM realised that my character was going to object to slavery. "Oh, he's not a real slave-owner, they all obey him out of gratitude and they wear collars because otherwise they'd be harassed or enslaved by someone else". I didn't press the matter.

It would be the best form of government if the monarch is highly intelligent, benevolent, and long-lived. Advanced technology can make help with the first and third requirements.

>just look at any place that isn't Europe or North Americ
And even then it's been around in its modern form since 1919 at earliest. Some places in Europe haven't had democracy until 1990. The idea that it is some inevitability (or, as some very arrogant "thinkers" put it, the end of history) relies on a teleological interpretation of history that we've seen before in another ideology that deemed itself the end result of all human political thought: communism.

Did Leia get raped on the Doomstar?

Nice try megasatan, but democracy exists wherever you can get more money out of your educated wealthy people than you can out of your raw materials. It's all about how you pay the army; do you do it by appeasing the people you tax, or do you just keep the guys who run the diamond mine on your side?

Automation means that eventually the masses will be obsolete, so by your own argument democracy will be obsolete.

The alien species is ruled by extra dimensional beings who incarnate as an Avatar once every 50 years. It is mostly an oligarchy though because the supreme leader doesn't mind much and is mostly a religious figure head who tells them where to do battle.

This is all well and good for the species because war is profitable and since the chosen leader is so powerful and wise all coup attempts are pointless and no dares try to go against an war proclamations.

This will all come to end soon though because the entire dimension where the beings belong is soon going to be completely destroyed by the BBEG throwing the multi-solar system empire into strife.

No, but in Legends she admits that torture was severe enough that even without Alderan she still might not have forgiven Vader.

Ah, pulled like a schindlers list scenario out of his arse. And I never saw the point in two, they could literally have whipped out a little sister or cousin or something and have her give up the crown, would've been fine.

Sexual torture? Like do you think vader made the stormwarriors shove things up her butt and later when he found out it was his daughter he felt bad for having a roborection when she was pooping out 12 inches of imperial steel and crying like Han Solo after Chebeko rapped him

Interesting point, but capitalism isn't going to make everyone unemployed, any more than a fire can burn itself down. If automation produces consumer goods, then people must be able to buy those goods, or they have no value. Capitalism can work against its own best interests, but it can't disappear up its own asshole.

Dictatorships happen all the time. Whether the dictator calls himself a king or not is a minor enough detail.

It can cause its own collapse. Countries are already starting to experiment with basic income.

I ran a space setting that had human monarchy in space. The premise was various royal families on Earth were still pretty damn rich. Even if they didn't own their own crown jewels they typically still own plenty of land. When humanity started its early colonization phase they cashed out their Earthly goods and left to create new worlds with a return to the good old days where being royal meant power.

Colonies are by their nature extremely controlled environments, people relying on their administrators, their rulers, for survival. If you're careful and smart and don't mind being a manipulative asshole culture can be, well, cultivated over generations and as the colony expands. They set the education programs, they selected the entertainment. People believe what they're fed. The royals basically made themselves a blood cult split up among houses or clans. It was old school divine rule but by nature of superior breeding. They set up the notion they were the pinnacle of human capability. If they weren't, well, how did they get to be so powerful? It's an easy con to pull off given their children had the best of the best in terms of money, education, status, and technology - and control of media. They also weren't above secret genetic manipulation to give their children a further edge. It wasn't like they were just avoiding the whole inbreeding issue. They set up a system called Merit which allows even a filthy commoner to prove the superiority of their blood by great devotion or deed to king, queen, and colony. It sets up the dream that anyone can earn their rank and status and cement the rise of their children by earning the right to marry into lower levels of royalty. Still it wasn't like you earn so many points and get a free pizza, the royals determine what Merit you earn and can engineer the rise or fall of useful people.

I found it useful since players could join the royals and earn their rise by deed, or decide to tear down the system.

We all know that galaxia would be much bettee than an empire though.

it did a good job

Because the emperor controls the spice.

No, but Jabba fucked her.

Because it's literally not a kingdom without one?

They were blessed with nothing but good rulers, so they never saw the need to change. Much more explainable this way if it's an alien race that has a stronger sense of unity than humans as the odds of corruption go down. You've gotta get, like, King Alienface the 176th. Huge dynasties.

Always figured it had something to an absolute ruler is more able to make an immediate action. Then throw in just how large the space farrring empire might be and whether or not FTL exists, you need a government to be able to make immediate actions/ruling because of how long it can take to actually implement it.

Hereditary right to rule, genetically engineered competence to go with it.

This. His main thing was that he was powerful enough to get away with the pretension of absolute power and rich enough to reconfigurate the nation's nobility into becoming his orbiters.

But he ain't got shit on 19th and 20st century polities.

>You will never live to see humanity rule 25 million worlds.

No. Gaia can go suck Branno's hairy cunt.

Ask the Brits. I'm quite sure that even in the far far far future they still have a King/Queen.

But that's the continuation of capitalism, not its collapse. Capitalism allows a person to profit from owning something, but in order to profit it must be possible for others to own something as well. Capitalism needs customers. It doesn't care whether people work to acquire currency, it only cares that it is possible for some people to exploit their property to acquire more currency than other people.

Put another way, slavery is bad for business, and every step that increases the resources that the lowest rung of society have available to spend increases the robustness of a capitalistic society. The concept of bankruptcy, aka the ability to refuse to be considered to possess less than nothing, aka the abolition of slavery, is good for capitalism. A minimum wage (legally enforced or not) is good for capitalism. Basic income is/would be good for capitalism.

A monarchic system, or an equivalent political system where leadership is passed on hereditarely, is one possible way to ensure a smooth transition when the leader dies.

If there is no system in place to determine the next leader (heirs, elections, batchalls), the nation might fall into civil war and that is usually not good for all involved. After all, the nobles and people in position of power want to rule over something, not be the king of the ruins. This doesn't always work but a monarchy is one of the more stable political systems and therefore would stay in place longer.

What you're describing is socialism, not capitalism.

Constitutional Monarchy.

Having a basic income =/= having part on the means of production.
Companies will still compete with each others for the gibsmedats of the people. Taxed profits of every company will go to the pockets of the most succesful one in the end.

A lot of people have made arguments that it is possible in the far future, but I think that Carl Schmitt (from what little I know of him) had an interesting theory to justify it. He believed, like Hobbes, that all men were inherrently evil and that they would all turn on eachother to push eachothers shit in because that's what humans do. Both desired a powerful state to keep the man down, but unlike Hobbes, Schmitt elaborated on this. He believed three elements of governance were absolutely neccessary for a state to keep existing.

>Inequality
Inequality is a neccesity, and not something the state should try to fix. I fact, a state that doesn't care about solving inequality and lack of social mobility is probably more stable.

>Sovereignity
The sovereign needs to be able to do everything that is neccessary to keep the system running as it is.

>Enemy
An enemy is neccessary to unite the people. Rather than oppress the destructive desire of man, seek to control it or seek to erase it, a government should seek to re-direct it to a more productive end. For this an enemy that unites the real is needed, and this enemy must be defeated but never truly vanquished so it remains a constant, looming threat.

Extra bonus: Schmitt was a prominent member of the Nazi party. You here have your political theory for justifying a totalitarian space monarch:
>Don't solve inequality
>Make sure there's constant war with an enemy the monarch has no intention of ever truly defeating
The royal family and their cronies may even actively provoke Borgs or the Zergs or whatever savage/unthinking warrior race du jour is within striking range to give their people a reminder for why the graceful, wise and benevolent monarch is a neccessity.