The Symphonate is an imperial polity in Connected Space. It is a constitutional [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacerdotal_state|sacerdotal state]], with supreme executive power [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonia_(theology)|jointly vested]] in the Presidents of the [[CS/College of Priests|College of Priests]] and [[CS/College of Lords|College of Lords]]. Legislative and judicial power is shared between the Priesthood of the [[CS/Great Religion|Great Religion]] and lay leaders, most of whom are feudal military potentates who also have significant commercial interests. The Symphonate is of considerable antiquity, though it has undergone many dynastic changes, religious controversies, difficult accessions of new species, etc. On the whole, it has been a remarkably stable institution of galactic civilization, being credited with the [[CS/Pax Symphonia|general peace]] of the last fifteen centuries. 

=== Origins ===

The Symphonate replaced another, similar system of interstellar government about two thousand years ago, unifying with three other major polities to become the uncontested hegemon. It was a multi-species empire from its inception; single-species empires are not competitive on the galactic scene as they utilize the space they control inefficiently. The innovation of the Symphonate was in constitutional sharing political power with the Great Religion, a much older social institution that predates the Symphonate by millennia. This spared the Symphonate some of the power struggles that had characterized past interstellar states.

=== Factors Favoring Stability ===

In one analysis, the Symphonate is a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire|hydraulic empire]] which owed its outward stability to its carefully-guarded monopoly on bulk antimatter. There is certainly something to be said for this analysis, which explains why the Symphonate is so eager to provide newly-contacted species with the infrastructure to use antimatter and become dependent on it, not only for space travel, but for planetside use. However, the Symphonate is not particularly despotic, and to the extent that it interferes with matters of its constituent polities, it is mostly to enforce the rights of its subjects (e.g. preventing local warlords from robbing interstellar travelers) and to make sure the technological restrictions promulgated by the Great Religion are followed when there is doubt about the stringency of local authorities. This relatively hands-off approach is undoubtedly a factor contributing to the Symphonate's stability.

=== Antimatter Supply ===

The Symphonate controls an [[CS/Antimatter Spigot|unusual antimatter-producing hyperstructure]] orbiting the star Hamarsus, believed to have been made by the [[CS/Builders|Builders]]. Of the Symphonate, as of previous interstellar empires, it is said that "the state which controls Hamarsus, is ''the'' Empire."
The Symphonate distributes antimatter from Hamarsus throughout connected space.

Not long ago, the imperial monopoly has been shattered by the discovery of a second "antimatter spigot," one of the major causes of the civil war.