The care and feeding of a Magical Girl in the mid-21st Century Most Ladies still come from Japan, and perhaps 60% from Tokyo-E proper. That's where Her Majesty lives, and so that's where the focus of the Earth Magic is centered, lending powers to new youths each year. Some are born abroad, of course, and Her Majesty offers no-questions citizenship to any that desire it. Most take that offer - T-E is the center of gravity in the 21st century - but about 5% of all Ladies live seperately from T-E. Other governments want their own MG's, and research facilities love to have one on hand for study, so these folks make a good life for themselves. After the catastrophic end of the Ningyo War, there were only about seventy people left in the Hierarchy. In the following ten years, particularly as the Hierarchy was able to manage them, the "second-wave" MG's brought the number up to 350-ish. Around 2015 this surge petered out, and by 2025 the MG population was only growing by about five (net) per year. It stayed at this level for eight years, until 2033, when the current "third wave" kicked in, adding about 25 per year, matching the post-war surge. Those who think about these things for a living are justifiably worried. The Queen has found that she is able to "create" an MG about once a year, and reserves that honor for the best and the brightest or as a reward for extreme heroism. In 2039, as the game begins, there are 642 known MG's. A quarter of them are newbies. Less than sixty are survivors of the Ningyo War. Soon after the Ningyo war, with some prompting from Princess Sakura, the Queen established intermediate ranks in order to better organize the Hierarchy. The fundamental levels of Lady/Princess/Queen still exist, but built on top of those are organizational ranks. As time passed, these organizational tools seemed to affect the magic itself, to the point now where the new kids actually have the magical identity of "Junior Lord/Lady XXX" when they come on the scene, and self-upgrades fit into the scheme. Ranks: Queen: The top of the heap. Everyone obeys her. She who rules the world. Sort of. There is only one Queen. Of the Earth, anyway - there's a Queen of the Sea as well, and they often meet for cookies, light banter, and global terraforming. Duke/Duchess: These are (generally) the Queen's oldest and most senior confidants. Just about every MG at cabinet/ministerial rank has this title. There are less than ten Duchesses. Prince/Princess: Very senior MG's, and those of extraordinary combat ability typically fit into this rank. Usually promotion to Princess is not given purely for social or societal reasons - in fact, Her Majesty has only "given" four promotions to this rank since the Ningyo War - there has to be something special about this person to get this status. There are about forty Princesses. Senior Lord/Lady: Most MG's who have significant status or rank fall into this category, as well as the veteran MG's of the Ningyo War who have not made Princess status. In terms of magical potency, the Seniors almost universally have more staying power than normal Ladies, though their attacks are usually not more powerful. There are more than 100 Senior Ladies. Lord/Lady: The majority of MG's - the average Lady of the Line. It is not too unusual for these ordinary Lords and Ladies to be given authority over a group or in certain contexts even outrank a Senior Lady. Ladies have relatively limited magical and combat abilites - which isn't to say they can't cause huge amounts of damage, just that they mostly can not sustain magical combat for extended durations. However, with their regeneration capabilities, they make incredible mixed-mode combatants and the SDF has been organized to maximize that usefulness through deep-strike. There are around 350 Ladies. Junior Lord/Lady: Most new MG's - the age at which they "become" has risen slightly in the last four decades, but only to the average of 16.4 years (90% 14-19) (not counting the ones the Queen "makes") - are Juniors. This status lasts until about two years after they have completed their official MG training. (The BA in government studies, or equivalent degree in another field for those selected for alternate studies.) This is typically around the age of 24. There is an occasional spontaneous promotion, and some rate a promotion on merit even during their training, but most reach the next rank through the standard post-grad social promotion. Juniors are usually somewhat less powerful than Ladies, and frequently will develop additional combat magic as they learn and age into the role. It wasn't too long ago that Juniors were relatively uncommon - during the slow-growth period in the 20's there were sometimes fewer than 30 - but that has changed dramatically in the last few years. Virtually all of the Ladies found in the current surge of becomings are still Juniors, about 150 of them. The effects of rank have not changed dramatically in the last forty years. Those of lower rank are compelled to obey those of higher rank when transformed, especially when the Lady of higher rank deliberately gives an "Order". The compulsion is occasionally effective when the Ordered MG is not transformed, and it is expected that she will obey anyway. MG's that use their normal forms to work against the orders they are given are subject to sanctions and in extreme cases, a permanent Order that prevents them from using their transformed form. Orders may be passed downwards through the chain of command with no loss of magical potency. The few places things have changed have much more to do with the social aspects of rank and the Lord/Lady same-rank interaction issue. As the hierarchy came into being, it was natural that it organized itself by the ranks that its members had. A Lady experiencing spontaneous promotion to Princess would often immediately be given administrative duties, on the theory that her rank meant she was suited for such loftier things. ...as one might expect, that did not always work out very well. In the postwar period, the rigid view of Hierarchy rank matching duties and authority began to soften considerably as those who had seen the problems and suffered under the old system came to power. It is not terribly unusual now to find a Princess below a Lady in a bureaucratic or military chain of command, or a Lady in charge of many other Ladies. If such a situation is to be a long-term assignment, the powers that be will often promote the Lady as far as possible, usually to Senior rank. The Queen is somewhat leery of making too many Princesses for reasons she has not disclosed. When a jumbled-up Hierarchy rank situation occurs, the standard procedure is for someone (this usually ends up being a Duchess) to give Orders setting the chain of command within the context of that chain. Such a context is deliberately limited in most cases - there are many examples where a Lady may give orders to a Princess in their day job, say, a diplomatic context, while taking orders from that same Princess in a military context. When things get too tangled, the system can break down as the parties involved argue over their differing understandings of context. In the earliest days of the Hierarchy, there were a few scary examples of how the Lord/Lady rank imbalance could cause serious problems. A male MG was usually able to give an Order to a female MG of the same rank, and make it stick. This was disruptive to the expected chains of command and also led to several coerced sexual abuse/assault situations. After the Ningyo War, as the Hierarchy and especially the Queen had a little more freedom to experiment with their powers, it was worked out that this was more a case of the Earth Magic adapting itself to cultural artifacts than the way the Earth Magic really worked. Attitude towards the opposite sex and knowledge of the magic had a lot to do with how well a Lord could Order a Lady as well as how well a Lady could resist such Orders. The culture of T-E, now dominated by the Queen and her Ladies, is edging towards a more matriarchal cant. The Queen has also exerted herself to change the expression of the Earth Magic. Then there's the education system that has been put in place: Besides the sensitivity training, there are actual labs in the Ladies' cirricula on learning to resist. Between these factors, the Lord/Lady rank imbalance has mostly been eliminated. There is still an occasional case of undue influence, but there have been no recorded cases of outright abuse in the last two decades. Lifespan: The Earth Magic seems to value keeping its avatars around for longer than their normal lifespans... sort of. What happens is that the magical forms age seperately from their normal forms, as if each MG has two seperate bodies that can be switched at will and held in stasis when not in use. Sort of, that is, since the status of one is carried over to the other when they switch. Additionally, the magical forms seem to have an extended lifespan. Obviously there has not been time for proper longitudinal studies, but as of 2039 it is believed that the Lady form will live to about 120 years of age on average. Princess forms (Princesses and Duchesses) age slower still - the estimates are rougher, but it is thought they will last to nearly 220 years. The Queen's magical form ages even slower still, and as the sample size is small (both in terms of numbers of beings studied (one) and the small fraction of her life that her doctors have observed to date) estimates vary between 350 and 500 years, with most falling into the higher half of that range. And most, barring severe trauma, will get all of those years out of the magical form since it is immune to disease and regenerates injury at a frighteningly high rate. Mercifully for the MG's who become at a relatively young age, both forms age concurrently until age 19-21, thus preventing them from getting "stuck" in an adolescent body for an unusual length of time. For example, if this were not the case, the Queen's apparent age might still be only 17 or 18 rather than the 25ish that she seems now. So, conservatively (since the healing effects of transforming tend to cure just about any non-genetic injury or disease), Ladies will have a total lifespan of at least 180 years, Princesses at least 280 years, and Her Majesty might have a chance to see her six hundredth birthday. This slowed adult aging has had a range of consequences in the social behaviors of MG's. More than anything else, this factor tends to isolate them from the general population of T-E. It's pretty easy for someone to deal with the fact that one's boss is an MG and will outlive them by a century. It's quite another thing to deal with one's friend or lover or even parent being around long after you are gone. Or from the MG's perspective, outliving those one cares for. That drives MG's to tend to socialize with MG's whenever possible, and to some degree exclude the "normals". This is not to say that there are not relationships between "normals" and MG's. In fact, there almost have to be given the fact of the gender imbalance within their ranks. With less than one Lord for every eight Ladies and given that the culture they come from tends to program them for monogamous heterosexual orthodoxy, Ladies are forced to find mates among "normal" men. The results of these relationships and marriages tend to fall to one extreme or the other, either rock-solid over the long term (the men certainly are less likely to stray as the Lady stays young and fit and *ahem* well-formed for decades) or short and very unhappy (Even with the largely female government and matriarchal rhetoric that it spawns, this is still Japan and centuries of historically male-dominated family life have not prepared either partner to deal well with the woman not only taking the role of primary provider but also coming from a work setting in which they are often expected to dominate the social environment.). (Lords, conversely, find themselves in the opposite scenario. They are so in- demand that avoiding marriage to one of their female peers (or superiors) becomes difficult. The few that do usually manage it through determined serial polygamous relationships, or complete social isolationism.) Finding themselves in a long term, loving relationship with a "normal" is a recognized risk factor for MG's. There have been several documented cases of suicide among MG's as a spouse or child dies and the MG can not deal with the thought of having perhaps two centuries ahead of them without the loved one. There is some speculation and some vague statistical data that suggests that as they age, the Ladies are becoming more open to homosexual options, particularly within the MG peer group. There is only anecdotal evidence of this so far - everyone "knows someone" that's gone that route, but if you ask the Ladies individually, more than 85% still prefer men exclusively. Another reason that many Ladies try marriage with "normal" men is their desire for children. They have the same natural programming as all other human beings, and making babies is on the usual percentage of "things to accomplish within one's lifetime" lists. Artificial insemination or not marrying the baby's father is possible, of course, but Ladies tend to have very, *very* busy working lives and being a single parent is borderline impossible on the schedules they keep without hiring someone to do most of the childrearing. The children of MG's (regardless of whether one or both biological parents are MG's) seem to have a higher chance of becoming than children of normals, but the rate is still very very low, less than one in eighty. On the other hand, more than half of these children do have some sort of magical talent. This talent is, in raw power, never comparable to the parents' MG powers, but is wider and much more malleable. They use spells and castings of their own choosing, rather than set powers, and are capable of much more finessed uses. Many have been able to adapt their powers to healing, a trick which only a handful of MG's have ever been able to accomplish. It has become accepted practice among MG's to try to age one's normal and magical form at matching rates. There's not much reason why it has to be done that way, nor is it much discussed. It simply is considered gauche to have obviously varying apparent ages between forms. Education: Since MG's are, at least to a large degree, a ruling class, it is considered necessary to educate them for that role. Just as there are multiple aspects to their careers as MG's, the educations they receive are multifaceted, with different institutions created to deal with different phases and forms of education. Where an MG starts in this system is variable, depending on age of becoming and educational standing at that point. The vast majority are at least in high school before becoming, but those few who are still in junior high are simply given a mentor/tutor that helps them adjust to their new future and helps instruct them in academics. As their future is to a large degree set, they do not need to worry about education towards the usual testing, instead focusing on any fundamentals that they are lacking and encouraging studies in fields of their choice. They are Ordered not to reveal their becoming to anyone but their parents. If they've already spread the news, then they may need to be removed from their current school. Usually, though, they are left where they are. A teen that becomes when she is in high school (and of course the junior high MG's once they reach high school) are enrolled at the earliest convenient moment (usually between terms) at Takeuchi Second Memorial High School. Unlike its Ningyo War-era predecessor, this is a serious institution of learning. It is very much a prep school, though once again it takes a more holistic view of learning and does not merely exist to educate to testing. Even if its students do not score perfectly on the juken, they are almost assured of admission to any college in Tokyo-E (and most of Japan) on the recommendation of the school, which is signed by the Queen herself. This school is quite small - graduating class sizes are never more than sixty. It is coeducational, though there are always more girls than boys attending. Obviously, TSM has (between the waves, at least) had many more "normals" attending than MG's. It exists *for* young MG's, but part of that education, at least at this level, is that they are not treated any differently within the school. They get the same education, except for the mentoring program, and they have to meet the same requirements. Fortunately the Earth Magic generally picks well-motivated teens, though said motivations are not always in purely academic directions. The students are even Ordered not to tell their fellow students whether or not they are MG's. By senior year some things are painfully obvious, but there are always a lot of surprises. The "normals" at TM are a mix, but a fairly elite one. Some fraction are the smartest and most exceptional of the children of MG's. Some are normal children who have caught the approving eye of the Hierarchy - particularly the upper echelons who have clout in this field - one way or another. At least ten slots in every class are guaranteed to finalists in a specially-developed testing/interview/vetting process applied to all willing junior-high students. And five slots - every year - are determined by pure random chance. This "lottery" system is a close-kept secret amongst the Ladies, enforced by Orders from the Duchess of Education. Almost every year, one of the randomly-chosen teenagers becomes. The Queen has admitted publically that there are several ways in which she allows serendipity to assist her reign, but this is the only one that anyone lower than Princess knows about. The principal of TSM is always a Princess, and there are usually a few Ladies teaching classes. One of their secondary tasks is to watch out for the best and brightest of the "normals". In years when the Queen does not award her elective becoming to someone for heroism or exceptional service, she will use it on the person chosen by the TSM faculty. It's important to note that (since the Ningyo Treaty) there is no serious combat training given to formative MG's before they graduate from TSM. Their mentors' duties include finding out what their combat magic is, and even helping them practice it regularly, but that is conducted on purely a magical-tutoring basis. Once they graduate, however, they are pushed directly into the SDF. Let's call it what it is - a draft. One year of mandatory full-time training in fighting with their powers, as well as the physical, mental, and mechanical arts of war. MG's have many physical advantages, and with some training, they quickly reach the level of elite "normal" troops. Those MG's who become after they have graduated from high school are cycled into the SDF with the next graduating class. Over the years this has become a larger and larger percentage of new MG's and there is some concern about how to preserve continuity of culture with less of the incoming MG's going through the old alma mater. Then again TSM is nothing at all like its predecessor, the original Takeuchi Memorial, so the real old-timers (who hold most of the reins of the schooling system) tend to pooh-pooh that concern. After the year of SDF training, the Juniors are expected to be able to perform as an entry-rank officer or a mid-level noncommissioned officer. All of them, unless involved in a combat role within the various security agencies, will be expected to spend at least forty days a year in reserve training for the rest of their adult careers. A very few - perhaps one in twenty - is asked to stay in the SDF full-time at this point. Another small group, usually the very smartest 8-10%, are given the option to go into pure science studies at schools around the world. It was pointed out very early on that there was much merit in creating a very long-lived core group of professors and scientists to build institutions of learning and hopefully some kickass scientific study around. So far this is working out decently, as three Ladies have won Nobel Prizes (Physics, Biology, Peace), but the long-term consequences will take generations to fully play out. Next up is a practical college in government and political studies. This is a three-year course which confers a BA in "how the hell Tokyo-E is run". The professors are all at least Senior Ladies, and even the Duchesses and the Queen get in on the classroom instruction at least for a couple of weeks a year. There is a lot of practicum work in the various Ministries, both to get these students controlled exposure to the "real world" but also to give them a taste of what the various groups are like, since after they graduate they will (usually) get a choice of working in one of them. Even after graduation, Her Majesty expects her Ladies to continue their education. This takes very different forms in all the different Ministries - Duchess Squeegee has her minions put through mindboggling economics theory training for at least a year per decade. Duchess Sakura lets her agencies take a wide variety of courses, since investigative work requires many, many types of knowledge. The long-term effects of this system are just beginning to show, but Tokyo-E is becoming one of the most professionally-run nation-states in the world. Ladies and their duties: The official lives of Tokyo-E's corps of MG's is awfully full. All of them have full-time official jobs within the government, beyond which virtually all of them have large demands on their time through their SDF Reserve commissions. Beyond *that*, most of them are active in the legislature on some level, though only fifteen or twenty percent attend with any regularity. Every Lady is employed by part of the government in some capacity. This ranges from teachers and professors to scientists and ambassadors to policemen and soldiers to agency heads and entertainers. At the beginning of their careers they are given only marginal choice in what they are doing, but with seniority and increased comfort with their role in society they are given opportunities to branch out and find their preferred niche. With so much life ahead of them and the preferential treatment they recieve it is expected that most Ladies may have five to ten seperate careers in their lifetime. Besides military, which is almost universal, the most common jobs for MG's are ambassador (about 15% operate in that capacity) and employment in the Tokyo-E Ministry of Security (which has national guard, intelligence, paramilitary/police, and investigative branches, taking up 25% of the MG workforce). Participation in private enterprise and endevour is somewhat discouraged. One of the Tokyo-E Charter rules prohibits Ladies from ownership of any part of any business or corporation, save through a blind trust managed jointly by the Queen's household and extra-national auditors. Besides limiting their investment opportunities, this means that they are unable to start their own business, or even their own charity. They are able to work as employees, but for a maximum hourly rate no more than 20 times the current minimum wage. That does sound like a lot, but finding the hours during the day to work at any length to generate large-scale wealth is nigh-impossible without some sort of special dispensation. The few with such dispensations tend to fall into the entertainer and athelete categories, and are all Ladies with at least twenty years' service, and have all agreed to some sort of duration or cycle for their activity. Most Ladies make extra cash through product sponsorship, which is thinly tolerated. All sponsored products are reviewed, and anything even faintly objectionable is off limits. Public enterprise is also discouraged, mostly because it it assumed that Ladies have enough on their plates to drive most "normals" insane. Ladies are supposed to try to excel within the government roles they are given, and not stray too far outside those unless they are witness to some form of gross mismanagement or injustice. Ladies looking to build their own celebrity and wanting to blow off some steam are gently pushed towards some of the public recreation outlets that have evolved for Ladies. These are creations of the local media, but the Hierarchy has grown to embrace them as part of their scene. Most notable is the very long-running television series "Idol Princess", in which a dozen MG's compete to see who makes the best pop star. There are also a few semi-pro MG-only sporting leagues, in which about 130 MG's participate annually. The baseball and ice hockey leagues are the most popular. They play transformed, which makes for inhuman levels of competition, which is of course the attraction of the leagues. They will occasionally put on a scrimmage game with championship "normal" teams, and win about 80% of those. (Note that MG's have only recently gained entrance to international sports, and tolerance of them is spotty over the various federations. In no sport, though, are they permitted to play in their transformed state.) Ladies are expected to report for and perform their duties in their transformed state, but not in "costume" except for T-E ceremonial occasions. Though there is no reason why many of their day jobs could not be handled untransformed, their presence their is officially in their MG identity, and it would be somewhat rude to their colleagues to come in with two differing faces. Once a Lady comes of age, (considered to be graduation from TSM) her normal identity is no longer considered a secret, but neither is it made available by the Hierarchy. MG's that have a high public profile are often identified as much by their names and government roles as their Hierarchy title, but there are some Princesses who have managed to keep their names private for decades. If a Lady tells her name to someone, and that person manages to remember it, it will get out since there are lots of people that are interested in that information. Normals are expected to address MG's by their title, and generally show a minimal amount of respect when they are transformed. "Disrespect to a Peer" is a misdemeanor, punishable by a mild fine or a couple of days in a district jail, though it is rarely prosecuted. The MG has to have proof - witnesses or recordings - of both the offender's knowledge of who she was and the actual disrespect... and she also has to have the inclination to bother. There are only a few dozen MG's (notably including a couple of the old-school Princesses) who have even tried using this law, and the vast majority of prosecutions these days originate from the Ministry of Security, where it is occasionally useful for holding onto a hostile suspect for an extended period. Princess Power: In the post-Ningo War era, the surviving MG's had a lot of incentive to find useful ways to use their magics in the rebuilding of Tokyo. At first, it seemed like they just could not scale up far enough to make any real difference in the effort. This changed over the course of one fateful month in 2006 - Her Majesty discovered that in addition to her direct abilities to manipulate the Earth around her, she could cause changes on a much larger scale indirectly through meditation and what could be best described as "creative prayer", if she kept at it consistently over a span of weeks. Once she began to get the hang of this talent, she had several other MG's try it as well. They had varying degrees of success - most Ladies simply got no response from it, and those that did could not manage anything on a scale larger than a square kilometer. Princesses could get as large-scale effects as the Queen, but what they could do was more restricted by their power's "domain". Princess Squeegee could change water levels. Princess Oak could grow almost any sort of forestation. If it flowered, Sakura could populate entire landmasses with it. These talents played a huge role in recovering from the dual catastrophes at the end of the Ningyo War, and indebted the nation to the extent that they were willing to deal with the Hierarchy to form what is now Tokyo-E. In the next decade, those same powers became the new nation's most important export. Nothing was better for large-scale terraforming or environmental engineering. No job was too big - reforestation of the Amazon was about a fifteen-year project, but before it was done T-E had a GNP as large as Korea's. Even today, the vast majority of the Hierarchy's income comes from projects like this, though as elaborated below this is distinct from the general Tokyo-E revenue stream. There is interest in using these skills to terraform other planets as well, especially since the Ningyo have gotten in on the act. Given enough time, the only limitation seems to be the size of the planet, and the constraints of the MG's domain. Not even either of the Queens can do anything directly to the atmosphere, or do anything that has an effect more than three kilometers below the surface of the Earth. Government in T-E: The structure of the government of Tokyo-E is technically that of a constitutional monarchy, though this monarchy retains rather more power than in most modern governments of that type. Tokyo-E's constitution is known generally as the "Tokyo-Earth National Charter", colloquially as "the Charter", and technically as "The Working Charter For the Denationalization of Old Tokyo and Incorporation of the New State". It was written largely by the postwar Diet, with the intention of visibly rewarding the Hierarchy with its own little nation. In order to make the deal palatable to the majority needed, Princess Squeegee allowed three large crippling items to be written into the Charter. First, the actual territory granted to T-E was relatively small, though it did include all of old Tokyo. The Diet felt just fine about giving away Tokyo, since their perception was that Tokyo would probably be invaded again by the Ningyo anyway, and if the girls wanted to be responsible for that mess, well, let them. Second, the rules on finance specified that he Queen's household was responsible for funding all military and paramilitary (above local law- enforcement level) out of its own pocket. The thinking was that this would keep the new nation from developing a serious military force. Finally, far more power was invested in the Queen's role than most democratic nations would consider proper. This was to destabilze the political situation over the long term. Things did not pan out as the Diet had expected - the Ningyo made peace, the Queen's household (which she somewhat liberally defines as the entire Hierarchy) found that they could indeed generate the revenue to field about three divisions (two full Army divisions and a couple of paramilitary brigades for local security) (a seriously outsized force for the amount of territory they protect), and while some in T-E are a little queasy about how much power the Queen and Hierarchy have, the government has functioned fairly enough to satisfy almost everyone. The head of state is the Queen herself. She is technically CIC of the armed forces, chief executive of the state, director of the assorted national security agencies, the head of the nation's finance, the sole authority to negotiate and ratify treaties, and the final judge of all legal issues, all wrapped up into one person. She does delegate authority, largely to her ministers and Duchesses. In terms of the day-to-day running of the country, her cabinet takes responsibility for the vast majority of decisions. There are fifteen cabinet- level ministries, and not all of the Ministers are MG's. The most vital ministries are run by Duchesses (Security, Defense, Finance, World, etc.), and this group makes up a semi-official "Inner Cabinet". Second-tier Ministers are a mix of Duchesses, a couple of Senior Ladies and Princesses, and a usually at least four "normals". The Inner Cabinet has been more or less fixed since the creation of Tokyo-E, while there is a decent amount of rotation in the other posts. The Queen appoints whoever she wants to these posts, without any legislative confirmation. Ministries are internally organized in various ways, though all of them are required to have a Deputy Director/Minister that serves as second in command and can take over the Ministry if something happens to the Minister - or if she goes on vacation. It has become an unofficial tradition to have a "normal" in this role, and usually about 13 of the 15 deputies are at any given time. Below the deputy minister level, pretty much anything goes, since every ministry's needs are different. Ministry of Defense, save for their Ningyo liason wing, is a monolithic structure with a unified chain of command. The Ministry of Security, on the other hand, has five major divisions/agencies that do very different sorts of things. In theory, the different agencies work in the same chain of command but that rarely is evident unless there is a crisis that involves multiple groups. The Ministry of Finance is something of a hybrid - the "Ministry of Finance" itself is a monolithic group, but attached to it are the Revenue Agency and Accounting Agency, which do not report to the main Ministry at any level short of the Deputy Director. Beyond the Queen's extensive range of powers there is also a two-house national legislature. The "Representative Body" is generally considered the lower house. It alone has the right to propose taxes on the nation and government spending of the revenues generated by those taxes. It consists of two directly-elected members from each district (of which there are about one hundred). The term of office is four years, with no term limit. Redistricting occurs every eight years, but the only changes allowed under the charter are for a district to be split into two new districts and for two districts to be combined. This has had the general effect over time of increasing the number of districts - originally there were seventy, and the increase in districts has been slightly less than proportional to the increase in Tokyo-Earth's population. The upper house is called the "House of Ladies", and every MG (including Lords, despite the name) is considered to be a voting member, though the Queen is obviously able to Order an MG not to participate. The House of Ladies is mostly unable to propose legislation, except for laws that do not (directly) require funding. Political factions within the Hierarchy do exist, though from the general citizens' point of reference they are hard to get a handle on. Whereas the Representatives tend to argue about practical points of policy and funding, the debates the Ladies hold (in closed sessions) tend to be about their place in the world and how the legislation coming up from the Reps will nuance that. It would be a mistake to think that the House of Ladies is merely a rubber-stamp for the Queen, but it is pretty rare for them to pick a real political fight with her. There is nothing restricting a Lady from sitting in both houses of the legislature. A goodly number have attempted to run for Rep, but only a dozen have successfully been elected, and only four have ever managed consecutive terms. Most Ladies do not have the time to sit in on legislative sessions. They are nominally required to read the transcripts, though typical practice is for secretaries or assistants to put together summaries of the day's itenerary. Voting mostly is via proxy, which means the twenty or so proxy holders are the real power players in the House of Ladies. Legislation passing both houses with a simple majority in each goes to Her Majesty for approval. She can make it a royal order, thus enacting the law. She also has the option to resubmit it to the legislature with official comment. This would seem to be useless, but it does provide a way to streamline negotiations and circumvent the lengthy process of restarting the process after an outright veto. She can "veto" legislation - technically she witholds her royal order, but it amounts to the same thing - which then is given back to the Houses, who do have the ability to override her, but only with a 4-1 "super- supermajority" in each House. This has never happened, though they came within 10 votes in each House when they tried to block the Ningyo Treaty through legislative means. The judiciary is considered to be a part of the executive branch. The Queen herself acts as the highest court, though for the most part she does not actively function in that role. Below her is the National Court - a ten-judge panel that as the authority to make rulings on any matter of Tokyo-E law brought to them. The National Court's decisions can technically be appealed to Her Majesty, but she seldom deigns to get involved. National Court vacancies are filled by nominations from the House of Ladies, and approved by the Representative Body. It is well known that the Queen generally must sign off on a candidate before the Ladies will nominate her. Once confirmed, a justice can only be removed by order of the Queen herself - an order that she has been quite willing to give on the basis of impropriety or gross disregard for precedent and her wishes. Below the National Court are the so-called "Zone" Courts. Districts are grouped into ten administrative zones, and a two-judge panel is appointed for each. The procedure here is exactly the other way around from the National Court - nominations come out of the Representative Body and are approved by the House. District-level courts are organized by each district's own laws, and there is a goodly variety in the way those courts are manifested. As noted before, Tokyo-E's system of government (particularly when considered in context with the Orders which can be given within the Hierarchy) gives an extraordinary amount of power to the Queen. If Her Majesty wishes to make something happen, she usually can, regardless of the wishes of the Representative Body. The largest reason why this has not created political and civil unrest has to do with the way T-E finances are handled. The military apparatii of Tokyo-E are required under the Charter to be financed by Her Majesty's household. As envisioned by the Diet members who wrote it, this would mean that the Queen would have needed to petition her legislature for that household budget every year. Instead, the income from the terraforming powers which are exported by the Hierarchy cover not just the literal military, but also the paramilitary, national law enforcement, and intelligence portions of the Ministry of Security, as well as large portions of other Ministries' internal budgets. The difference this makes in the overall national budget is remarkable. Tokyo-E enjoys the advantages of having a significant, modern, and active military without the disadvantage of needing to fund it through taxes. Her Majesty generally lets the legislature decide on matters of taxation and spending, so long as the budget is kept (nearly) balanced. The net result is that the legislature has more to spend on projects that directly benefit the populace for less tax burden than most modern nations impose. Additionally, the Queen mostly lets the legislature and the district governments do their own thing as long as they don't get in her way or violate her concept of justice. The House of Ladies makes a surprisingly stable upper house as their unique situation makes them immune to most of the corruption and foibles of elected government. With the Queen keeping a lid on things and the Ladies able to look to the long term, political gamesmanship within the Representative Body doesn't pay off. That doesn't mean that there are no disputes - just that they tend to happen in the background because publically alienating allies or opponents in the other house is very, very bad strategy. The extremists of most varieties are seldom happy with the government, but the typical woman-on-the-street not only feels that "Her Majesty is on my side", but will evince pride in the Hierarchy and would be willing to volunteer time and treasure to support the Queen's international agenda. It is hard to quantify this characteristic of the public, but the most telling statistic is that T-E military recruiting has never missed its goals, and in fact has to turn down the majority of its qualified applicants despite overseas deployments that have been nearly continuous over the last decade. A note on language: Throughout this document you will have noted the use of exclusively the female group designant when talking about a level of the Hierarchy. For instance, "There are around 400 Ladies." This sentence means that there are around 400 persons that hold the rank of Lord or Lady, not that there are 400 literal Ladies and some unnamed number of Lords. This is the standard usage in Tokyo-E. If one is talking about the group of all the persons in the Hierarchy, then one would either use the term "the Hierarchy", or if speaking in a more colloquial vein, "MG's". Likewise, in most documents where an indeterminate specific person is being discussed in the third person, the preferred pronoun is the female one. This is official standard usage, though it is only irregularly adopted by Tokyo-E writers as of 2039. Outside of Tokyo-E, there is little support for this usage. Strangely, if (for instance) Lords and Ladies are specifically mentioned within a single clause (as in this sentence), the male pronoun or title is universally placed first in the sentence. ("Gentlemen and Ladies" would be a correct way to address an audience. (Though most speakers in Tokyo-E would be somewhat disturbed at using the term "Ladies" for a group that was not all of that actual Hierarchy rank, and might substitute "Gentlewomen" or "Goodwomen", despite the awkwardness of such a phrase.)) These changes have only been made official within the last half-decade, but have been on the rise in the public vernacular since around 2007, when it became apparent that the Hierarchy (which is predominantly female, and is ruled by a Queen) was taking leadership in Tokyo-E. As with every subtle grammar shift, there are strong proponents and opponents, but the general majority of long-term Tokyo-E residents have adopted these rules.