Glory Road2006

Glory Road:
The Emperor is sole source of Imperial law, sole judge, sole executive - and does very little and has no way to enforce his rulings. What he or she does have is enormous prestige from a system that has worked for seven millennia. This non-system holds together by having no togetherness, no uniformity, never seeking perfection, no Utopias - just answers good enough to get by, with lots of looseness and room for many ways and attitudes. Local affairs are local. Infanticide? - they're your babies, your planet. PTAs, movie censorship, disaster relief - the Empire is ponderously unhelpful.