Galaxy-wide state security organization

[Jester85]

So, one of the primary races of my series has a militaristic Empire that rules various other worlds. They do not rule the entire galaxy, but they have worlds and moons scattered throughout under their control.

Their state security apparatus is called the CSO--Central Security Office--which is organized into various sub-branches and is responsible for maintaining order in the Empire (along with spying on its citizens, disposing of "enemies of the state", arresting "blood traitors", that sort of thing). Think SS/Gestapo, only obviously on a much broader scale.

For narrative purposes, it is necessary that the primary villain is one of the highest-ranking officials in the CSO. Not quite at the top--though he is slowly rank-climbing over the course of the series--but no more than a few rungs down the ladder.

The way I originally had it organized was that the largest continent on the Imperial homeworld is divided into four sectors ruled by a CSO General, and that these are the "big four" directly beneath the head director himself. My chief villain General Fen is one of these sector generals, and governs the sector which contains this race's capital city (all the better to eventually enact the coup he is plotting).

But I got thinking: what about sectors of space? Logically, sectors of Imperial-controlled space would have assigned CSO commanders as well, but who do they answer to? Are there also big CSO Generals who govern, say, a quadrant? A solar system? In that event, General Fen only governing a corner of the homeworld's main continent suddenly seems less important than I want/need him to be.

So now I'm pondering. Is General Fen Sector General Northeast as originally envisioned, or is he CSO commander of the entire homeworld (or more?).

Looking for thoughts on how an organization like the CSO would most logically be organized in regards to these questions. If there's any confusion, they are entirely separate from the military. Fen is titled a "General", but it's not a military rank. They work independently from and alongside the military, and there is a bit of a rivalry/jealousy between them over who really has more power, and some CSO officials (with Fen leading the charge) want the Emperor to grant them the authority to take command over army units in "emergency situations" (of course, Fen has ulterior motives).

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Then re-write so that each of these Generals controls a sector of space, and a section of the homeworld.

Perhaps the command of a homeworld continent is seen as largely symbolic, and they are supposed to have their real power base out in the sectors (and thus away from the Emperor, just in case of treason). But Fen has been slowly changing that in his sector and continent...

 

[thaddeus6th]

Someone on the homeworld would have easier access to the most powerful men in the empire, and be able to manipulate them much more easily. That's intangible, but could be worth a lot as a matter of prestige.

 

[JonH]

I'd want to consider population as well. If the home world has 10 billion people on it and an average colony has 1 million, one sector of the home world = 2,500 colony planets. Economically, it might weigh even more than that.

 

[farntfar]

It reminds me of the situation of the UMC in Stephen Donaldson's GAP series.
Of course the UMC was officially a company and not an empire, but the idea was much the same.
The "overlords" were therefore directors and not generals. The directors had areas of responibility, rather than geographical/spatial areas, and the big boss was the managing director.
Maybe something similar would work in terms of titles, moving away from a purely military hierachy. If you haven't read it, it's an awful lot to read to find out.
Or maybe an aristocratic type naming. (Barons/ dukes/archdukes type thing)

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

To me it would seem that you're talking about a young empire. One that has spread out from a single homeworld but in which none of the other worlds have yet amounted to much. So as JonH pointed out the other moons and colonies don't yet have large populations. They probably aren't yet as advanced as the homeworld. And none have yet sought to become completely independant worlds - presumably as part of the Empire.

I'm thinkng here that this will mirror the Roman Empire in many ways. The seat of power is Rome / homeworld. Soldiers wishing to make names for themselves go out and fight barbarians etc. But when they have secured some victories they return home to Rome where power is held. This scenario can work just as well for a security organisation as a military one. To acertain extent it works for multinational coorperations.

Two points I would add. First that if they are non-military the use of the word "general" as a rank is confusing. Something more in line with policing would seem more appropriate. Commissioner? And second I don't like the use of the word "Office" in CSO. If they're an arm of the state, even an empire state, shouldn't they be a department or a ministry or something along those lines? Offices are generally small things. Andthey don't sound small.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[JonH]

It occurs that KGB might be a better parallel than SS. I believe they were technically a branch of the military, but in practice reported through a different chain of command.

If this is so, it's worth asking about another parallel. It was said that the Soviet Union was run by three organs of power: the Red Army, the KGB and the Communist Party. These formed a tripod, and if any leg had been sawn off, the union would have fallen. After Stalin, two branches could always hold off a third.

So what is the third branch of power in this empire? It doesn't sound like they'd have an independent judiciary. Do they have an aristocracy? Of course, it might not be stable. Putsch attempts and purges might be commonplace.

 

[Mirannan]

This might be a useful idea for you - of course I don't know anything else about your setting. How about religious ranks for your security people? It doesn't have to be Christian hierarchical stuff; there are plenty of other religious names out there.

There is precedent; the Inquisition had a pretty effective intelligence/security organisation in its day, and some say the Jesuits still do.

 

[Jester85]

For someone who asked, yes the empire has a very powerful aristocracy.

I do kind of like the idea of calling them Inquisitors or High Inquisitors.

 

[ralphkern]

A potential idea is to model things around the current US Navy structure. They have many commands, some of which have no remit in the US at all.

For example:

6th Fleet, Europe
5th Fleet, Middle East
Pacific fleet
(so on and so forth, in terms of geography)

Also there is:

10th Fleet, Cyber command, which probably doesn't have any ships at all.
Special Warfare Command
Military Sealift

For historical, or current political reasons, some of those commands may be more prestigious than others. For example, if we arbitrarily use quadrants out from your home systems, your empire might have subjugated a challenging race in the 'Northern Quadrant' but now it is relatively stable. Due to the 'Northern Quadrants' history it is viewed as an honored posting.

Likewise, A frontier fleet, far from home and politics may be appealing to some, but seen as a dead end posting for those with political aspirations as they are far out of the picture and largely irrelevant to the home worlds

Your 'Your Southern Fleet' may be engaged in a current war and your Eastern Fleet may be putting down a rebellion. Your Spacelift capacity might face pressure from all these commands demanding more of their capability for operations and your special ops / spy network would underpin them all (although I would imagine they would split themselves down into units (Terrorism, warfare, domestic) and geographically.

Additonally, if these commands have evolved over time from pre-space age navies then they may also traditionally recruit from certain geographical areas. The capital may always provide to the 'Home Fleet'. Frontiersville to 'Frontier fleet' and Northtown to the 'Northern fleet' etc.

This obviously assumes a Navy is is the first service.

As to the intelligence network, you can either have it developed organically out of the Navy or that runs in parallel.

 

[BelgarionOz]

An interesting issue.

The idea of some sort of Sector General makes sense, since that would be a simple and effective way of organising it. The people who control various colonies worlds and bases report to them and they report to the Head honcho. But yes on the surface of it it might seem that those generals controlling the continent might be less powerful but then there are a couple of things I can thing of that you could use to change that.

One might be that there is a certain prestige attached to those four divisions. Probably something historical. They were the first four large scale regions that the Empire established for the CSO and finally managed to bring "peace, security and stability to the Empire" or some other totalitarianist sounding mantra. As such these regions are seen as being rather more important that they might be other wise.

Another might be that in order to progress to certain positions (namely the head of the CSO, but there could be others) people might have to serve for a time in a position in one of these four regions. A lot of military services have a requirement for desk duties in order to progress above a certain rank, it might be something akin to this.

Something else to consider might be that the population of these regions on the homeworld would presumably be fairly high, whilst small colonies and bases elsewhere would have much smaller populations. So it's seen that these Generals have as many people to deal with in just their region of the continent on one planet as some of these Sector generals have over their whole sectors of space. That would increase the perceived responsibility of those Generals, which elevates their position a bit.

Just some thoughts.

 

[BelgarionOz]

Another idea I just thought of, you have this aristocracy.... you might be able to link it to that somehow. In order to be one of these regional generals you have to be a member of the aristocracy or get the approval of them or something. If these aristocrats are in some way involved in running the government then that could elevate them still further as it increases their political power and influence.

Also perhaps they, along with the head of the CSO are the only ones who get to report to the Emperor/Empress or whoever is ultimately in charge.

 

[thaddeus6th]

In Rome the senatorial and equestrian classes (sort of comparable to lords and knights of the medieval era) had naturally senior roles in both the political and military spheres (the two were very closely linked in Ancient Rome).

You could go along those lines, if you wanted to, perhaps splitting an equestrian-type social class off for the intelligence services and having the nobility dominant in the mainstream military/political sphere.

 

[Jester85]

Another idea I just thought of, you have this aristocracy.... you might be able to link it to that somehow. In order to be one of these regional generals you have to be a member of the aristocracy or get the approval of them or something. If these aristocrats are in some way involved in running the government then that could elevate them still further as it increases their political power and influence.

Also perhaps they, along with the head of the CSO are the only ones who get to report to the Emperor/Empress or whoever is ultimately in charge.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Re: the aristocracy, the Carn have a very rigid caste system, with marriages and sex between different castes illegal.

Until very recently, one had to be a member of the aristocracy to join the CSO, but the Emperor has recently issued a decree allowing commoners to join the ranks. This was merely a small political concession to the burgeoning Reformist Party, tossing them a bone in the hopes they'd shut up about bigger issues the Emperor is not willing to change, but hardcore "traditionalists" like General Fen are totally affronted by this.

And yes, the aristocracy completely dominates the government. Pretty much any of the top people in the government are members of the very highest caste (and sometimes are there because of their caste/name/House, not their qualifications or competence), including General Fen.

One of the major conflicts on the Carn side in my series is the "old vs. new" with younger, more progressive-thinking young up-and-comers who are more open to loosening the caste system, breaking the aristocratic stranglehold, being less hostile toward other races (the Carn have a racial supremacist thing and have a reputation for being extremely militarily aggressive), and the "old guard" like Fen who believe the aristocracy is supreme, the Carn are racially supreme, and don't want to lose their "rightful place" (actually Fen wants to go one further, overthrow the "weak" Emperor, and conquer the rest of the galaxy, partly because he's a megalomaniac and racial supremacist, partly more pragmatically because the Carn have ruined their own homeworld and are going to need to move).