As counter intuitive as the royals & nobles thing feel at first glance it’s not entirely meant in that fashion. I didn’t have a chance to put it up yet but I was seeking to have two different types of leadership in the Empire.

Imperials who are long term leaders that set the foundation, serve as motivation, help growth, assure everyone has basic infrastructure / base live and let live is followed & represent the Empire more as symbols. They’re the backbone and staff of the Empire. Rather than being elected they arrive at their positions via Merit & things they’ve done to grow the Empire.

Elected Ones are shorter term elected leaders, directly elected by the citizens of the Empire. These are the Presidents, Governors, Mayors, Senators et al. They are the ones who actually run cities, regions and countries. Some serve globally. Unlike the Imperials who are staff these leaders help shape policy, will write laws and handle the actual governance of their area.

Sadly we do not have enough people yet to actually hold elections, but will in the future.

In all cases the Elected leaders will work with the Imperials & vice versa – complementing each other. Neither is higher than the other, in fact it can be argued that while both serve the People, the Imperials often do so more as they’re going to be the ones to assure everyone has enough to eat, locations have ample infrastructure, handle gaining resources and assuring laws are fair and just. Imperials will also do a lot of cultural stuff, run games & activities, further the language, host events, etc.

Since traditional countries do not have this complementary administration type I had to get creative :).