Interstellar Government Options?

[Lord Baal]

Giving this more thought, the central, imperial government should impose/force/preach strongly a creed/education/school of thought where the citizens of every level are taught to believe in working for something larger than life. The patrol routes (that I would like to incorporate to this "feudal" like idea of mine, if you don't mind) would be endless belts that would transport Nobles, colonists and enforcers to the colonies and bring resources back. Of course, even with enhanced lives, one could see the longest trips as one way only, besides lower people (colonist, serfs) could not be given the extended life time medical treatment/implants/modification/gene therapy/etc.. hence the importance of believing in the system.

The central government would be rather blind or poor sighted about the actual status of the colonies, the only way to enforce the constant rule would be by the "telepresence" I suggested with regular oversight in the from of patrol fleets. It would be cumbersome, slow, resource intensive and vulnerable to external threats system, however barring a advanced (FTL) alien invasion, is a interesting system. Central government appoint nobles trough wealth, influence, hereditary system, a combination of any and assign them a planet/system (maybe a system per family). In turn the nobles muster enough colonists (by force, servitude, volunteering, pick one or several) from their lands on capital system or any other draft mechanism and when enough are gathered the central government provides them enforcers (robots) and means of transport and colonization. In return, they are expected to return the investment with valuable resources, etc.... any variation of this could serve too. Maybe the nobles get send to colonies as a punishment or an award. Maybe they don't muster the colonist either. This could fit a lot of combinations.

If by any chance another empire like this (be it alien or a faction of it) is encountered/spawned then a dota-on-steroids like war would occur. Each will have to make long arse calculations about the next move of the adversary and start pumping out fleet after fleet as fast as possible, grinding each other slowly, or maybe sending massive fleets directly to the throat of the opponent, but that would be a risk movement filled of what if's (as pretty much everything on this scenario). Also, once you send off your fleets, coordination between them will be difficult (as war would make the patrol routes highly unstable and dynamically change them), there's the question of how to contact patrols to warn them that a their next target has been overrun by enemy forces for example... I would avoid a total war on this scenario, since it would fall from it's own weight.

Sorry for the double post, I tried to put this on the last one but when I tried to save the post I didn't let me.

[Number Theoretic]

I like your idea of coupling this "patrol fleet based Empire" with noblesse.
Depending on the technology level of your colonies (which you might want to not surpass the central goverment's tech level) you also could reward loyal and resourceful colonies with access to some high tech, for example longevity treatments or
various results or applications of industrial nanotechnology. Limiting acces to anti-matter could also prove useful.

How this system would react, if war is imminent is an interesting question. Because a possible enemy would almost by definition be a culture/empire/dominion/power that can afford to do interstellar war at all. Chances are high, that they are either also a multi-solar system dominion or that they are some sort of "wandering big fleet", living a nomadic life and moving from star to star. In this case, organization matters are easy, because everyone is relatively close to the government. More of interest would be any possible altermative to the "patrol fleet model". If not, then their chances of winning aren't that good, because the patrol fleet system allows for a more flexible (and powerful) defense than the attacker is anticipating (suppose, he doesn't know
about this model of running an empire which may be unlikely).