As we all know, the current internal politics game of Stellaris is bare bones, and by bare bones I mean practically non-existent.



Factions are rarely little more than a nuisance. Their potential to rebel is typically very low if the player is paying attention, and even then they don't typically pose much of a threat. There's typically only two types of factions separatists and unionists (and unionists are practically they same as separatists, except that they want union with a neighboring empire instead of independence). They will nominate candidates for office, but stopping their election with your influence is all too easy.



Speaking of elections, they're kind of a joke right now as well. There candidates are said to be from various groups, ala "loyalist fringe" or "loyalist establishment", but these labels seem meaningless, or their meaning is very obscure. How pops pick a candidate to support also seems very opaque and pretty random at times. In any case, it doesn't really matter since I can rig all the elections by dumping influence on them.



One idea I thought up for how to solve these issues is to create another game mechanic influenced by ethos, and that is...



Regimes



Regimes would not represent your government type. Rather, they represent the goals and ideals of the current administration. This would mean that it changes each time you elect a new leader. Right now, we have the mandates system, which is ridiculously simplistic. Here, candidates would be broader than a single issue.



Any given regime would be based around one ethos. An empire or a pop will have multiple ethos, but a regime, representing specific goals and interests, has one. The different regimes would give minor bonuses and penalties different from governments and pops. For example, a military regime gives a minor bonus to fleet capacity and upkeep and a minor penalty to relations- after all, regimes are temporary, and don't represent the character of your empire as a whole, so their bonuses and penalties would be less significant.



Another notable feature would be policy. Rather than being able to change your policy practically at will, your ability to change policy would be limited based on your type of regime. For example, without a militarist regime, you couldn't achieve the higher levels of war economy.



Of course, pops would have to have some reason to support or oppose a particular regime. This brings us to the second part of my proposed system, political parties and improved factions.



Political Parties



Like regimes, political parties are guided by a single ethos. Every leader and pop would be part of a political party. Their names would be random and based on your species, for example, the aforementioned militarist party might have the name "[empire name] Defense League" or "[species name] Imperial Party". The type of regime a government has is taken from the party the leader was elected from.



Pops would join political parties logically. They would be more likely to join a political party that shared one of their ethos, and would never join a party with any opposite ethos. However, they could join a party with an ethos they're neutral to under the right circumstances.



For example, the spirtualist-xenophile-pacifist pop will never join the militarist party, but a spiritualist-xenophile-individualist pop might if the threat of a neighboring empire is great enough. Is ethics divergence a major problem in your empire? Loyal pops may support the spiritualist party even if spiritualist isn't one of their ethos, just to stop those damn kids disrespecting the social order. Alien immigrants limiting the growth of your founding species, stealing their jobs and collecting their welfare? Non-xenophile pops might join the xenophobe party.



And yes, there could be special parties as well, such as separatist parties.



This leads into the final part of my proposed system- when a party's members radicalize into a faction.



Factions 2.0



If the members of a party are very dissatisfied with the current regime, they may radicalize into a rebellious faction. This would always occur if the party possessed a fanatic ethos that was an opposite of the government's (NOT the regime's), but can also occur if you anger them repeatedly. For example, the members of the pacifist party might ironically radicalize if your're ridiculously jingoistic with your wars. Factions would also be made much more of a threat, simply by making them gain support faster if not addressed, similar to how real-life radical movements can sometimes explode seemingly overnight.



Unlike political parties, factions seek the overthrow of your system of government as a whole, replacing it with one more in line with their ideals. For example, militarist rebels in an indirect democracy will want to overthrow the government and establish a military republic.



Pops with a fanatic ethos would be more likely to radicalize, unless the government shared that ethos. If pops who share a government's ethos (but is fanatic, while the government is standard) do radicalize, it is in either a democracy or a oligarchy, and their goal is to "move up the scale" towards a more authoritarian form of government.



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That's about all I have to say. I'm not saying this system wouldn't have flaws- far from it- but I think it would be an improvement that would help make internal politics meaningful. This system is obviously very rudimentary as well, but I'm hoping it might serve as a starting point for some serious discussion on how to improve Stellaris's internal politics game. Thanks for reading!