and of course there's always the barbarians at the gates....pirates....and anarchists!

General outline works. Sort of a galactic wide low key civil war of sorts...with the proponents generally generated from the internal crash of the empire, tech levels would be an even keel 0 for development I assume? Or a bump one lower one sort of thing?

Was reading a book with a similar concept to this....Empire or Emporer of the Dawn or such title.  The legitimate emporer and his family were assassinated by another noble/group of fleet officers...the one guy they missed ran for a stronghold waiting for order to be restored...various system commanders went conquistador, though only one of them did so for the empire and not hisself...and of course there were the aliens at the borders trying to take advantage of things too.  Sounds a lot like what you're generally outlining Dan. 

First on the list of things to flesh out... the "cybroid" forces of Magistrate Fuzhen Hitt:

Hitt rose to prominence during the wars, having been governor of one of the outlying provinces. While many of his counterparts were content to stay out of harm's way, citing the need to protect their own borders in order to resist Imperial calls for assistance, Hitt not only responded to his liege, he personally led his forces into battle. It was he who directed the defense of Thellas Minor in CR 2288, where his entire retinue was all but annihilated protecting the evacuation of thousands of Imperial troops.

For many years, Hitt was thought to have been killed at Thellas, hailed throughout the Empire as a fallen Hero. But in CR 2291, after the evacuation of the capital, Hitt resurfaced at the Second Battle of the Rim, at the head of his mechanical army -- the origin of which is still a mystery. Hitt and his armies played a crucial role in driving the Invaders out of the galaxy. Once victory was assured, only the treachery of one of his most trusted Generals prevented Hitt from claiming the Imperial throne for himself -- giving the Assembly time to consolidate its power.

Hitt is one of the few Successors who openly refutes the Assembly's right to rule -- he claims to act on behalf of the Emperor in exile, even though his forces have fought with the Golden Legions on several occasions. As a result, he has few allies; and there are few other powers in the galaxy whose differences are so great as to preclude them from joining forces against Hitt when necessary.

That'd be a no...

Hittites, maybe.

So, rather than develop SFO, we're writing a new setting?

Might SFO be a PART of this new setting? The government you describe isn't that far away.

That looks so much like it should be something spelled backwards, but Lancre Crowrawk doesn't mean anything to me.

And why are we doffing a cap to Mr .Pratchett?

Given what you've said about SFO, and of the various interpretations of it, I think I'll just do a web-comic "re-interpretation" when I get some time.

So, this is post-invasion....

I would assume that the strength of whatever central cohesive force/nation(s) has been spent repelling the threat.

FWIW, I'd say that at least one of the main players in the old empire has been "bombed back to the stone age" - that would give us the removal of a main player so that it's collapse is more believeable.

The secondary powers are no the ones that are attempting to keep the new government weak, so that "the playing field is level".

I"d have robotic types being led by normals, but having implants is commonly done afte war injuries. Hitt's okay, but I'm not that enamored of some of the details.

I can't see an "Emperor" actually existing. Kingships are based on "The Divine Right of Kings", and their assumed superiority. Historically, it's a religious construct.

The UN or NATO without US firepower.....

Will ponder.....

..okay...

Someone posted something about a guy named "Hitt", you even made a pun about it. That needs some work.

I had assumed that it would die out. Today's culture is so secular, that I assumed the trend would continue.

One would hope that Faith had as much a role in the future as the past - that you would consider not sidelining it complicates things, but gives us more story-hooks - Interesting ones, to be sure.

Fair enough, I can see you're attached to the idea, and see no major problems with it - other than it's perhaps overused.

It was good enough for Herbert....

Pretty common thing in the Middle Ages, no modern equivalent that I can think of...

I think selecting the "Ratings" of your forces from Vassals would be more stable, as you minimize the Nobility's influence on the Military. If you give the enlisted ranks a decent education, or one that's superior to what they get on their Homeworld, you engender their loyalty.

The Nobility might be in the Military, but they are carefully placed to avoid their death or bad influence on the troops.

To me, todays culture is still very religious. There are lots of things that indicate it is religious. However, I don't want to start an argument, especially as this is a polite forum by some forum's standards, so I'm not going to even go there...

"Old Republic"--probably should stay away from that; I think it's trademarked by Lucasfilm.

Military arm cooperation: don't know, yet. But I am leaning towards the idea of an "aristocratic" officer class that owes its allegiance to the Assembly itself, with the rank-n-file contributed by member states. The effectiveness of this setup varies with the quality of the officers...

Another thought would be to have a core of "elite" Assembly troops, supported by contributed state troops.

Varies ... but not by much. Merely being part of the Empire conferred a technological benefit, through trade, cooperation, etc. At the same time, the lack of (or reduced) inter-factional competition likely retarded advancement to some extent.

Yeah... not so sure about naming factions after stuff from other peoples' work, even if it is backwards.

Heh...granted...

I'd go with both....

Basic armed forces are usually led by more-or-less loyal commisioned nobles, with the occasional 'peasant' rising to the officer corp through bravery, ability, or whatever...

The Assembly also has some 'elite' troops, like our Airborne, SEALs, etc.

..and conversely, quite a bit of diversity amongst the hardware, I'd imagine.

What about the bad guys? and the thing that broke the Empire?

Should we start posting factions? Noble Houses?