Senator

Title held by the administrative and judicial leader of a province in the Eternian Empire. Currently, there are seven Senators in the Eternian Empire.

As a member of the The Ennead, every Senator has an array of responsibilities they must uphold in addition to their usual duties, including acting as council to the Emperor, enforcing Eternian law and confirming new Magistrate appointments.

Most importantly, Senators are also the ones who effectively select and confirm the new Monarch. Under normal circumstances, in the final year of a Monarch's rule, an election will be held in which the members of the The Magistrate Assembly vote for their new Monarch. The Magistrate are theoretically allowed to vote for whomever they choose-- however, since the The Ennead are the ones who appoint Magistrate within their Province, it is extremely unusual for a province's Magistrate not to either vote in favor of their own Senator or for one of their Senator's allies. Once the The Magistrate Assembly's votes have been collected by the Minister of Security, they are carefully tallied and the individual with the highest number of votes is announced as the Crown Candidate. As the Provinces with the highest numbers of appointed Magistrate (and historically the strongest alliances with other neighboring Provinces), most Crown Candidates tend to be the former Senators of the Diurnan Valley, the Lunar Highlands, or the Solar Sanctum.

After a new Crown Candidate has been chosen, they are presented to the public and given a Dokimasia, or a "coronation period". The Dokimasia is not one single event, but rather a long-lasting process that includes several festivals, rites, ceremonies that the Crown Candidate has to celebrate first, before he or she is allowed to wear the crown. It is customary for Dokimasia to last for one year, but records show that in the past there have been Dokimasia that were either significantly longer or shorter for certain rulers; no formal justification has ever been recorded for this variance. The time spent in Dokimasia is not traditionally counted in a Monarch's Regnal Year Count, for they are not considered to have "truly" begun their rule until after the Dokimasia has been completed.

During Dokimasia, it is customary for each of the The Ennead to issue a trial to the Crown Candidate-- either to prove or to challenge their worthiness. While the trials are intended to be designed to evaluate the candidate's suitability as a leader, there are no formal regulations on what the trial should or should not be. Therefore, if the candidate is highly favored by the Senator, they are free to decree an extraordinarily simple task-- or the inverse, should the Senator wish to see the candidate fail. Even so, the trials are also meant to serve as an opportunity for the candidate to show off and earn public favor, so setting too easy of a task can backfire as it may imply that the candidate is incapable of greater accomplishment or needs assistance, or that the Senator is undemanding and easy to impress. Likewise, it is a risk for a Senator to appoint a highly challenging task that they intend for the candidate to fail, because if the candidate manages to overcome the odds they are far more likely to gain public support and the Senator will then have a great deal of pressure on them to support the candidate regardless of their personal feelings-- not to mention these kinds of rigged trials are often seen for what they are and strongly disliked by the public, which may result in the Senator either resigning or being forcibly replaced.

Once the Dokimasia has been completed and the The Ennead has given their final approval, the Crown Candidate is confirmed by and for their public in an elaborate ceremony that marks the official start of their rule. In Vergehen, this final step of confirmation is called "ascension".

Senators tend to wear white and gold, and are each given a gold signet ring and a circlet to denote their status.