An alternate take on Harmonium bureaucracy

Here was what I wrote before I saw the Government thread.

*face smack*

Feel free to mine.

The Symphonic Ministries ("The Symphony")

The Orthorian Central Authority is an organization that is headed by the Octave and Council of Ortho. However, the fifty nine representatives of the 19 Provinces can hardly manage the Bureaucratic functions of an entire world's federal government. Even with the Triads of Authority in each province, the vast majority of the work has to be handled by a huge collection of Ministers that manage the various gears of government.

The Symphonic Ministries are treated with something of a mixture of scorn and appreciation from the average citizen of Ortho. They are amongst the only members of the society that successfully achieves membership in the Harmonium and voting citizenship without actually having to serve in the military. The ground based members of the Harmonium tend to view the Symphonic ministers as paper pushers and number crunchers rather than true Champions of Order. However, almost none of the soldiery believes they could handle the vast workload that the Symphonic Ministers manage without making the slightest bit of noise. Thus, the bureaucracy of the OCA is left largely to it's own devices.

This is exactly how The Symphony likes it.

In truth, the Symphonic Ministers wield a disproportionate amount of power in the OCA. Because the bureaucracies of the military and the Federal government are not separated, the Symphonic Ministers are able to 'interpret' the information that flows between them with a great deal of latitude. The average member of the Symphony would never dream of disobeying an order or changing its content but he could certainly phrase it in ways that are open to interpretation. A great deal of the frustration between the Higher and Lower Houses with the military is often the result of getting imprecise information from the Symphonic Ministry.

Unfortunately, it's gotten to the point that the Symphonic Ministries have actually started stacking the decks of government. While many of the Provinces on Ortho are ostensibly Democracies, the Ministries have lengthy procedures for determining who and can be a candidate. Individuals with controversial policies, much less radical, are frequently faced with an insurmountable wall of paperwork to prevent them from expressing their views. The Ministry has a fondness for dull witted but good hearted military veterans and the more experienced bureaucrats frequently run circles around the appointees of the Octave.

The Ministry performs its manipulations do this in order to keep the engines of government running smoothly and also to avoid any possible conflict within the ranks. Given they also control what the average citizen reads and hears, they have managed to seriously misconstrue the entire Multiverse for much of Ortho's populous. This is, ironically, not the result of a larger conspiracy at work but decades of tradition that focus themselves on making sure that there is no serious dissension amongst the people or within the halls of power.

The Three Great Ministries

The Three Great Ministries are those that are organized at the Federal Level of the OCA in Harmony's Glory. The Three Great Ministries employ literally tens of thousands in their main offices alone while that number increases several dozen times when counting all those spread across the whole of Ortho. Indeed, most of the Great Ministries branch off into Lesser Ministries that serve a variety of useful and useless functions. The Symphonic Ministries is the second largest employer in the whole of Ortho (the first being the Army).

The Hierarchy in the Ministries is extremely strict but so byzantine that only the Symphonic Orchestrators can actually divine it (though the Fraternity of Order finds it quite "quaint"). Suffice to say, everyone answers to someone until it reaches the Grand Ministers of the Great Ministries that are appointed by the Octave. Ironically, The Grand Ministers are usually completely at the mercy of their secretaries in the politics of the Symphony.

The Ministry of Providence

The Ministry of Providence handles the vast majority of infrastructure on the planet Ortho. Lesser Ministries under the Ministry of Providence include The Ministry of Commerce, The Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Taxation, The Ministry of Transit, and so forth. The Ministry of Education used to be controlled by the Ministry of Providence but was recently claimed by the Ministry of Purity for doctrinal conflict over the prominence of The Lords of Order over other gods.

The Ministry of Providence, bluntly, controls the entire sum of Ortho's wealth. While the Octave and Lower House dictate how it’s spent, they are only dimly aware of how much of the financial structure is at the mercy of individuals with no oversight. Ministers of Providence are extremely wealthy at high levels of position and are prone to giving themselves ample pay raises. There's little overt corruption with the ranks, because there's really no need for it. The Merchants of Ortho must store their money with the Ministry of Providence and pay their large tariffs in order to sell their wares. There's no way around this and most have long since learned to cultivate good relations, gifts rather than bribes, to get the waivers necessary to become wealthy in a rigidly controlled economy.
Ironically, the public is largely supportive of the Ministry of Providence. The Ministry is the one that handles the Daily Provender and often supports large scale social works projects. Many consider the Ministry of Providence to be too charitable; unable to grasp just how much is removed from their pay vouchers before they ever receive them.

The Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice handles the problems of crime within the ranks of Ortho's populace. The Ministry of Purity attempts to portray the Ministry of Justice as having very little to do within the actual borders of Ortho proper. This is certainly not true and the Ministry of Justice is constantly overworked in trying to deal with the vast number of criminal activities that the Byzantine legal code of Ortho fosters.
The Ministry of Justice is divided into three Lesser Ministries with all activity being handled by one of their departments. These are the Ministries of Judgment, The Ministry of Incarceration, and the Ministry of Retribution. The Ministry of Judgment handles all judicial decisions from both the criminal and civil courts. The Ministry of Incarceration handles not only the imprisonment of offenders but the manner in which they are reformed. The Ministry of Retribution, however, is reserved for those criminals who manage to achieve the impossible and get away. These later berks are given warrants to pursue these criminals across the ends of the Multiverse and deal with them in an appropriate manner. The "Justicars" are one part Federal Agent, one part Bounty Hunter, and one part Mercykiller.

Justice is swift on Ortho. Appeals are rarely granted and most judgments are final. The idea of an independent attorney is a rather bizarre concept to most members of the Ministry with all defense lawyers being chosen from within their ranks. It's not uncommon for a warrant to be issues for the arrest of a felon and his trial to be handled by the same judge in a single day. The law is not especially harsh by comparison to some worlds but it a strong case can be made that the Ortho Legal Code is slanted in favor of Harmonium members and natives.

The Ministry of Purity

The Ministry of Purity is the most publicly beloved and privately disdained ministries. Its Lesser Ministries include The Ministry of Censorship, The Ministry of Education, The Ministry of Ethics, The Ministry of Information, The Ministry of Morale, The Ministry of Propaganda, and The Ministry of Truth. It is disliked amongst the military for needlessly interfering with operations and only marginally more popular with the other Great Ministries.

The Ministry of Purity handles the publication of The Grand Trumpeter, Ortho's world spanning newspaper. It is a paper that is actually locally published in the various provinces but one that often shares many editorials and articles in advance. The paper extols the virtues of specific candidates, the glorious victories of the Harmonium, and whatever approved local news has been selected by their appointed editors. Most Ortho citizens trust the Grand Trumpeter as unbiased, since they rarely have to put much spin on their works. The organization also sets the curriculum for all state-approved schools on Ortho. All independent schools are shut down almost immediately after opening.

The Ministry of Purity forbids the publication of books, burns 'pornographic' material, has dissenters arrested as insane, and routinely relies on the other two Great Ministries to make trouble in for people they don't like. The Ministry of Purity has slightly more trouble getting the Church and Military to cooperate with their desires as both consider the Puritans to be interfering with their internal business. Nevertheless, some priests find that Ministry of Purity support can lead to great cathedrals being created for them and their words being spread all over Ortho. They only have to state what the Ministry of Purity wishes them to say.

The group has no power to arrest individuals on their own and all those they bring in must be tried by the Ministry of Justice but this doesn't stop many from desiring more power than they currently have.