Civil Service

Team Leader: Jonathan Kidger (they/them)

The Civil Service team are the in-character bureaucrats that make all the mechanisms of state function so the players can pull their levers without having to do lots of tedious paperwork. We're a subset of the Field NPC Team, who are in turn a part of Empire's plot crew.

Whilst in-character the team comprises dozens, if not hundreds of individuals who do work all across the Empire, including the Constitutional Court, in practice the team comprises only the civil servants who directly support the Imperial bodies of state at Anvil.

As such the team has five "departments", each with their own Imperial title:

• Senate - the Speaker for the Senate
• Synod - the Tribune of the Synod
• Conclave - the Prefect of the Conclave
• Military Council - the Herald of the Council
• Bourse - the Agent of the Bourse

Also included within the team is the Overseer of Imperial Elections, in charge of ensuring all elections are handled and processed properly.

All of these titles are effectively filled by multiple individuals - which is IC fine and the only practical way to get anything done. Each department makes and keeps its own documentation, and takes care of its own bit of the game, but we all work together.

There are also various other individuals on the field who are civil servants, but sit outside of the Civil Service team organisationally:

• The Constitutional Court - Abraham (Matt Pennington), Gerard (Graeme Jamieson) and Leontes (Andy Raff) from the Game Team, and Stanislav (Jon Creek) and Cosme (Nat Saunders) from the Magistrates
• Kaya (Clare Evans), with the title Cultural Liaison to reflect her co-ordination with the egregores, who is also on the Game Team
• The Attendants of the Gateway, or PLV Team, who sit within the Plot Team
• War Scouts and Prognosticators, who sit within the Plot Team
• Other supporting civil servants, such as Jenny (Steve Kirkbride)

Leadership

The team is OC led by Jonathan Kidger (they/them). If you have any questions about the team, have any issues with how things are being run, or want to collaborate on anything, please reach out to them at jonathan@profounddecisions.co.uk. At events, they primarily support the Synod team and can usually be found on the Hub, and almost always on radio channel 14. In-character, they play Leonardo, the Secretary General of the Civil Service, who is pathologically allergic to any suggestion that they're in charge, but is very keen to solve everyone's problems.

Synod

The Synod is the body of state responsible for religious matters.

This is the largest department by headcount, driven by the Synod being very easy to access (about 10% of the playerbase is in it) and having a multiplicative effect as it gets bigger (because everyone gets to raise things, and also vote on a bunch of stuff).

The Synod has no official meetings. There are various player-run meetings, but they aren't official and we don't support them in any way. Instead, Synod operates asynchronously, being open for large portions of the event for Synod players to submit judgements and vote on them.

Learn more about the Synod team here.

Bourse

There are two remaining aspects to the Bourse:

• The Auction of the Seats, held 2pm-3pm in the Senate building/tent
• The Tally of the Votes, held c. 3:30pm-6:30pm in the nation camps

Tally of the Votes

The process for dealing with an individual election is:

1. Announce which title is now to be elected, and ask all candidates to step forwards
2. Give each candidate a claim slip
3. Ask them to complete the slip, including the number of votes they are claiming, and return this secretly to you
4. Once everyone has handed in, announce that this is the last chance for anyone to submit a claim, and give it a moment for stragglers
5. Secretly observe all of the claims. Identify the highest claim.
   • (If there are 2 or more claims of equal and highest value, you will need to follow the process below for all of them.)
6. Ask the citizen with the highest claim to step forward and present their voting bonds. Critical: Do not tell anyone how much the claim is.
7. Count their votes, double-checking as needed. Critical: Do not confirm to anyone the total of your count.
   1. If the counted amount is less than the claim, tell the citizen they have presented fewer votes than claimed, and ask if they've forgotten to give you any.
   • (If the counted amount is equal to or higher, just proceed)
   1. If they give you any more, add them to your count, but don't accept any more additions regardless of the total.
8. Validate whether the total amount you have counted is greater than any other claim.
   1. If the counted amount is higher than any other claim, announce them as the winner and confirm the total number of votes recorded
   2. Visibly and obviously destroy all the voting bonds they submitted
   3. Record the citizen's name and PID on the paperwork, along with the total winning vote and the margin to the next biggest claim/total
   4. Move onto the next title
9. If you don't have a conclusive winner yet -
   1. Put the stack you've just counted securely to one side
   2. Ask the citizen you've just processed to step back and ask the citizen with the next highest claim to step forward and present their voting bonds.
   3. Repeat the above steps until you have a validated number of votes that is greater to any other claim or confirmed total, that person wins.