Rhomanian Empire
Constantinople, the City of the World’s Desire, is a city which combines the traditional and the modern with the city having ultra-modern skyscrapers and palaces built a thousand years ago a few hundred meters apart with the city having many traffic jams, a common sight, I am told, in the cosmopolitan capital of the country who’s leader I am about to interview.
Eventually, after a few hours of sitting through traffic, I arrive at the Blancharnae Palace, which was once at the suburbs of this city but is now the core of the “Government District” of Constantinople, which contains the main government buildings of the Empire. I give the taxi driver a tip and go down to business as the soldiers of the Imperial Guard, armed with Eveningstar Assault Rifles, which I would later learn would be to this world what the AK-47 was to many other universes.
Empress Sophia Staurakia is waiting for me in the throne room of the Blancharnae Palace, where the Emperors and Empresses of the Rhomanian Empire have sat for the past millennium even if the Blancharnae Palace is unrecognizable to Alexios I Komnenos, the Emperor who first reigned from the Blancharnae Palace in this universe and many other universes, many of which have seen the Rhomanian Empire fall to Turkic, Latin, or Slavic invaders, something which has not happened here.
However, that thought of how her empire had fallen to foreign invaders in other dimensions is far from my mind as I meet her in the throne room of the Rhomanian capital as the 24-year old Empress, even if she had been coronated just a few months earlier after her father’s death from a sudden heart attack, looked every bit the ruler of the Rhomanian Empire.
Empress Sophia I greets me while sitting on the throne before standing up and shaking my hand. I begin my interview by asking her about the “Rhomanian System”.
“The Rhomanian System which my world is famous for combines the best aspects of a democracy and a monarchy, therefore avoiding the tyranny which “pure” democracies and monarchies possess as they devolve into despotism,” the Empress began her interview. She knows about how I am someone who is a bit skeptical of the Empire’s political system and felt that she must start the interview by justifying why said Empire has adopted such a system. “In our system, the powers of the Senate, which represents the people of our Empire, are balanced with the powers of the monarchy in such a way that both of them have equal power over the running of the Empire.”
The Rhomanian Empire is one of the oldest world powers in this world, having origins in 27 BCE when the Roman Empire was formed by Octavian, who was proclaimed Augustus with the Western half of the Empire eventually fell to Germanic invasions and the East would see most of its territory taken by the Arab and Slavic invasions with the Turks invading Anatolia after the catastrophic defeat of the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
The Komnenian Restoration was something which temporarily stopped the rot of the Empire but the Angeloi would push the Empire close to collapse until the Laskarids overthrew them in 1204 in a bloodless but brutal coup which saw the entire Angeloi family massacred. Theodore Lascaris, the new Emperor of the Rhomanian Empire, would seek to restore the Empire to its former state and would be successful in ensuring a stable imperial system which would last through the Mongol Invasions of the 13th Century, reclaime Bulgaria in the late 13th Century and Serbia in the mid-14th Century, and gradually push back the Turks out of Anatolia, taking advantage of the Mongol Invasion leading to the disintegration of the Sultanate of Rum.
By 1500, the Empire had essentially reclaimed its borders prior to the Battle of Manzikert, even if there were some hiccups like the overthrow of the Lascarids in the early 15th Century and the rise of the Phantes Dynasty, under Ioannes Phantes. However, said empire would have to face many dangers with the 16th Century and 17th Century being periods of relative decline but the early 18th Century would be a disaster for the Empire with the “Crisis of the 18th Century” being what would result in the modern system of the Rhomanian Empire.
I asked Empress Sophia what brought about the Crisis of the 18th Century from her perspective as it was something which brought about the modern system of the Rhomanian Empire.
She then replies “The Crisis of the 18th Century was brought about by the incompetent rule of the last Phantes Emperors as Emperor Nicephorus IV and Emperor Constantine XIII were both incompetent and Emperor Belisarius II was a brutal tyrant and an utterly debauched figure. All three would lead to the Empire dissolving into anarchy and chaos with 1745 seeing the final collapse of order in the empire as an outraged mob stormed the Blancharnae Palace and hacked Emperor Belisarius II to bits.”
The death of Belisarius II would be the nadir of the Crisis of the 18th Century, which lasted from 1721, with the Hungarian invasion of Serbia, to 1768, when the Treaty of Trebizond ended the last of the Reclaimation Wars. In those 47 years, the Rhomanian Empire saw great chaos and strife with up to five emperors feuding at one point for the throne in Constantinople, a Hungarian army (and a coalition of local collaborators ranging from Prince Andronicus to Bulgarian rebels) camping within eyesight of Constantinople, widespread degradation of the economy, and the Mahdavid Empire of Persia invading as far west as Ankara.
During this period, in 1752, General Nicephorus Staurakius would be proclaimed Emperor of the Rhomanian Empire in Smyrna by both his troops and the local people as a result of how he, effective ruler of much of Western Anatolia, was considered to be an efficient and fair ruler. He did not demur, almost immediately moving to take Constantinople and spending the next few years dealing with the other “petty rulers”/warlords before turning his eyes on the Hungarians, Georgians, Armenians, and Persians who had taken large swathes of territory from the Empire with the Wars of Reclaimation. After the Wars of Reclaimation ended, Emperor Nicephorus V, who would be known as the “Restorer” would enact several reforms which would result in a radical restructuring of the Empire with said reforms providing the basis for the Empire’s government to this day.
The Nicephoran Reforms would produce the basis for what would be called the “Second Principate” or the “Rhomanian System”. The Nicephoran Reforms, enacted between 1768 and Nicephorus V’s death in 1784 would transform the Rhomanian Empire into a constitutional monarchy, albeit one where the monarch has a strong prescence in politics. These reforms included empowering the Senate (which would now be elected via the suffrage of all men over 21 who either owned their own land or paid a certain amount of taxes) and enacting reforms to the succession law, which would ensure that there are no tyrannical Emperors as the Emperor, just as in the days of the initial empire, appoints his successor. However, the Senate can veto said succession or even provide alternative successors to said Emperor. In addition, the civil service and the bureaucracy was restructured along meritocratic lines as well.
After the death of Nicephorus V, his dynasty had maintained his Empire until the present day with the Empire being amongst the main world powers in the world with the systems used by the Yuan Dynasty of North China, the Kingdom of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Srivijaya, and the Empire of Atlantis being amongst the main countries under government systems inspired by the system adopted by Rhomania as the Rhomanian system has seen some refinements like the gradual adoption of universal suffrage and the institution of the Autonomous Exarchates of Turkey, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Serbia in the mid-20th Century, even if secessionism remains strong in the Autonomous Exarchates.
I asked her about what the Second Principate meant regarding the powers of the monarch of the Rhomanian Empire.
She replies “Under the constitution of our Empire, I have the power to lead the armies of the Empire in war and peace, which I did as Crown Princess in the Srivijaya-Ma-I Conflict as a fighter pilot two years ago in support of Srivijaya where I became an ace with eleven kills even if my wingwoman Pyrrha Nikos was shot down towards the end, conduct foreign policy, appoint and dismiss the Proedros, be one of the two sources of sovereignty of the empire, appoint the high judges of the Imperial Legal Council, pass laws by decree, dissolve the Senate, and act as a neutral arbiter in political disputes”
I ask her “Wouldn’t this system have a possibility of reverting to absolutism if a power-hungry monarch takes over? After all, you can dissolve the Senate and command the military to eliminate your political opponents at the snap of your fingers.”
She answers that “The constitution for the Empire allows for the Senate to depose an Emperor or Empress who abuses his or her powers. Besides, from a young age, the heir to the throne is taught about the responsibilities and duties of the monarch and how he or she has limits on their powers to ensure a perfect balance between the people and their representatives and the Emperor to ensure that the Empire never becomes an autocracy again.”
I then question her on how the monarchy is famously wealthy with reports indicating she is probably the richest person in the world she is from.
“I understand that I am fairly wealthy, arguably the richest person in the world, and I live a life which is quite luxurious, but I also understand the duty I have to the people of the Empire, who I am the shield of. As a result, upon becoming Empress on my father’s death, I pledged to donate a large sum of wealth to charitable institutions. The Empire is also the responsibility of myself and as its custodian, it is my task to ensure that the Empire never falls into chaos and tyranny.”
I then ask her one last question about how she intends to rule the Empire that she had just inherited.
To this, she replied: “With a just and fair hand. I will ensure that the peoples of the Empire are people who can express themselves freely and that they can live free and prosperous lives. However, I will be a ruler who respects the will of the people, whether they want a government under the League for Tradition, the Coalition for Freedom and Justice, the People’s Congress, the Alliance of Workers, the National League, or the Federation Party, even if I would work best with the People's Congress or the Coalition for Freedom and Justice, for those two parties are closest to my personal politics."
The two of us then shake hands before I leave the meeting hall/throne room.