All rise for Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Basillike I Yaroslavovna, Empress of Rome

With the matter of structure of the Roman Empire in this new era settled, we shall presently turn to the structure of the Byzantine Senate itself.

First, however, a few words on the Senate and its history. The Senate has played various roles since Alexios I Komnenos restored it to relevance, waning and waxing in power, prestige, and reputation. In the end, however, I feel its presence was a net positive to the empire. It was contentious, disorganized, and often quite indecorous- but it was the foundry in which many of the ideas that made the Komnenian Golden Age a Golden Age, and while they were executed by Saint Valeria, Trajan II, Valeria I, et al., the Senate without a doubt deserves some share of the glories of the Byzantine era— hence its designation by Prince Hugh as the Byzantine Senate.

And the Senate also, by and large, demonstrated its fidelity to Rome in the stormy days of the yearly Yarloslavovich era. Most critically, the majority of the Senate remained loyal to my ancestor Dobrava I Komnenova rather than siding with the usurper Komitas I Branas. Now, in what is likely the twilight of the House of Yaroslav, I am giving the Senate its due reward:

Senators will once more be free to create and lead their own political parties or factions.

OOC: This is going to be slightly complicated, and probably super annoying for me to keep track of, so please try to follow the directions I’m about to give.

As the empress has said, the Senate is once again able to form its own parties. But what will those parties be?

You can ##create or ##join a party. You can also ##leave a party, or ##disband a party you created.

##Instructions for creating a party

Here’s what your party needs:

1.) A name and a 128×128 icon. You can either create an entirely new party, or try to revive one of the parties (or subparties, intra-party groups, etc.) that existed earlier in the LP, with the following exceptions:

a.) The Old Romans and New Byzantines cannot be recreated, since the main dispute between them has been resolved– we are the Roman Empire, but one that was revived by many of the core tenets of the New Byzantines. You can, of course, make new parties that claim to be the heirs of the ORs or NBs, or espouse your interpretation of their ideology, or whatever, but I’m taking the names and icons out of the play.

b.) The Yaroslav-era Committees of State (Varangian, Phanariote, Venetian, etc.) are going to be governmental bodies separate from Senate parties. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with them, but at least flavor-wise I know I want them around in their current form, even though their procedure role will be different.

c.) The Black Chamber still exists and is super not a political party. Your party can favor the Black Chamber, or call for a particular use of the Black Chamber, but it can’t be the Black Chamber.

If you create a party, please give it a non-joke name. I know this seems like I’m acting like the no-fun patrol, but not every update is goofy like the wikipedia one or the Steppewolfe update, and I’d like the party names to not look out of place in serious narrative posts.

2.) A concise in-character explanation of what your party believes.

3.) An even briefer out-of-character explanation for the sort of gameplay your party might favor.

4.) Optionally, an in-character name and portrait for the founder of the party.

Here’s an example:

From there, you can (and probably should) go on and provide more details and say why your fellow Senators should join your party, but that’s what you need at the bare minimum.

##Instructions for joining a party

When you join a party, you should post the following.

1.) Which party you’re joining (duh)
2.) Its icon.
3.) Optionally, an in-character name and portrait for your Senator.

##Instructions for changing parties

The parties with the most members (probably the five largest, but that number might move up or down depending on how many parties are created) will become the main parties. The leaders of the smaller parties will be given a chance to choose a main party to affiliate with as a subparty.

Whew! That’s kind of a lot to take in. But hopefully the result will be a bunch of cool parties which hatch cool plots and schemes in EU4.

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Unitas: 2
Mongols and Merchants: 1
New Marians: 10
Hellenic Restoration: 2
Monternos: 16
Da Qin: 2
Inclusionists: 4
Fraternalists: 2
The Faithful: 2
Komnenian Restoration: 2
Adventurer Merchants: 8
Ecclesiastical Movement: 2
The Guiding Light: 1
The Craftsmen’s League: 2
RINO: 1
Roman Enotita: 1
True Religion: 1

COALITIONS:
Cartographers: 3 (RIP)
Neo-Milvians: 6
Novus Mercator: 14
Marian-Monternos: 26

LEADERBOARD
-Marian-Monternos: 26
1. Monternos: 16
-Novus Mercator: 14
2. New Marians: 10
3. Adventurer Merchants: 8
-Neo-Milvians (6)
4. Inclusionists: 4

Because the three coalitions with total memberships larger than the winning parties are radically different in composition, they’re being handled in three different ways:
1. The Neo-Milvians, made up of three parties each too small to be a major party in its own right, will function as a major party under the joint leadership of the leaders of its constituent parties: AJ_Impy, Lord Cyrahzax, and YF-23. By default, all leadership decisions (eg, forming a caucus with another party, occasions when I ask party leaders for input, etc.) can be achieved with a 2/3 vote. Like any other party, you are free to put in place whatever procedures you want for changing leadership, appoint a single spokesperson, or whatever else, as long as you make it clear for me who’s speaking for you.
2. The Adventurer Merchants are a single major party with numerous smaller parties supporting it. It will take the form of a single major party under the leadership of Funky Valentine. I’m calling this party the Adventurer Merchants for now, but let me know if you’d rather it be called Novus Mercator.
3. The Marians and the Monternos are already both major parties, so their “coalition” is just whatever ways their leaders choose to cooperate.

So, with that in mind– the parties of the Byzantine Senate!

MONTERNOS PARTY

LEADER: Senator S. Emilia Hira (StrifeHira)

MEMBERS: 16
Senator Mira Kalmarova (Rubix Squid)
Adept Nightingale
Vander
Lost Season
cokerpilot
mcclay
Freudian
JT Jag
Talky
Senator Demetria Demetriou (D3m3)
Alexey
Clayren
Senator Eric Metaxas (LJN92)
ChrisAsmadi
Ghostwoods

ADVENTURER MERCHANTS

LEADER: Senator Enrico “Moneybeard” Valentinius (FunkyValentine)
MEMBERS: 14
Merchant Adventurers
Gyra_Solune
occipitallobe
Senator Samule Romano (Pyroi)
lenoon
Frozen_flame
Senator James Kirkos (Technowolf) (A missed opportunity for “Tiberios”, alas)
Aeromancia

Fraternalists
Rejected Fate (Founder)
FOUNDER: Senator Constantine Ischyrós (Jimmy4400nav)

Mongols and Merchants
FOUNDER: Senator Metiga Sallajer (Blackunknown) (Founder)

Roman Enotita
FOUNDER: Senator Abydos Felicious (AdventFalls)

Craftsmen’s League:
FOUNDER: Senator Matthias Vounómou (Meinberg)
Arbitrary Coin

NEW MARIANS

FOUNDER: Mars family (NewMars)
MEMBERS: 10
Senator Merarch Altan Üzüntü (WeaponGradeSadness)
Horsebanger
Senator Samuel Vallion XI (Samuel)
Dux Supremus
Skyfinder
Gnooble
Vagon
Sparq
nothing to seehere (well, you said “new martians” but i think you meant this)

NEO-MILVIAN COALITION

MEMBERS: 6
The Faithful
LEADER: Theophilus AJ Impy (AJ_Impy)
Senator Epiktetos HiHo XP (HiHo ChiRho)

Unitas
LEADER: Lord Cyrahzax
sniper4625

Ecclesiastical Movement
LEADER: YF-23
Unwise_Cashew

INCLUSIONIST PARTY

FOUNDER: TheMcD
MEMBERS: 4
Gurgen II Qutuzid (Luhood)
WilliamAnderson
Soup du Jour

And also…

THE DISCORDIANS

Some senators don’t play well with others. With Yaroslav’s old committee system dissolved, malcontents are again free to flock together and plot the downfall of the whole rotten system– to roll the dice of fate, and hope Fortuna provides them with something better, something brighter, something new.

In addition, certain events (“events” in the sense of “things that happen in the thread or in-game”, not the game mechanic of “events”) may increase the pressure on the existing institutions of state. Think of it as a sort of meta-stability, maybe?

The total number of Discordian senators plus the current pressure is the Discordians’ strength. If the strength is ever greater than the ruling party (or caucus of parties– you might want to consider banding together if things get bad) the current system will fall apart and something different will happen.

Press button to blow up empire.

LEADER: NONE
MEMBERS: This could be you!
PRESSURE: 0
STRENGTH: 0

Leaders of the other parties (Hellenic, Da Qin, Komnenian, Guiding Light, Rome in Name Only, True Religion’s Advocates) will now have the opportunity to either ##join any other party or coalition as a subparty, ##join the Discordians, or simply dissolve their parties. Whichever you pick, everyone who joined your party comes with you until the next round of elections, so this might affect which parties have power in the first few updates.

Leaders of major parties: Initially, the founders of parties are their leaders. Parties are free to adopt whatever procedures they wish for changing leaders, as long as it’s clear to me who’s in charge. If a leader goes MIA and the party doesn’t pick a successor, whoever calls dibs first gets to be the leader.

Leaders have the following abilities:
They arrange caucuses between parties: This is the important one.
On occasion, the Emperor might ask only the leaders about something: A sort of emergency ad-hoc upper house, in times of dire strife. Or an emperor or empress who just fucking hates the Senate. Either way.
Leaders can expel members from their party, but this sends them to the Discordians by default (they can join another party in the next election), so mind the strength.

Parties are free to delegate whatever other powers they wish upon their leaders with respect to internal things (what legislature can be proposed, co-leadership, rules of conduct, whatever), but those are the ones that matter in the interactions between the Senate and the imperial government.