OK, here's a throneroom that I have had in my mind for a while now...
The Hall of Vision: Throneroom for the Sept Tul
Baronical family
Peniel (Dagudashaag/Darlinki 1129 B664747-C)
Description of the throneroom:
A circular room, with a diameter of ten meters. The walls of the throneroom is built of dark blue stone blocks, speckled with glittering impurities of about 20 cm height, 50 cm length. The 'cement' between the stone is a light source, hot to the touch: this cement provides the main light souce for the room. The color of the light is along a blue-white-yellow-orange-red-dark red spectrum: the room will become too hot for human habitation if the lights are left in blue or white for too long....
The room has a monolithic domed roof, similar in visual design to those of Rome ('The First Terran Imperium'): the dome starts when the walls are six meters high. The dome is a smooth black to the eye, with local constellations etched out with white silver lines connecting yellow golden stars. At the base of the dome is written (in raised letters of solid Irridium) is a 8,000-year-old Vilani adige: "The dance of the stars flows thru our bones, the song of space in our hearts. Our traditions can blossom only with the light of a myriad of living suns." (Loosely translated)
The room has a raised floor (a dias) in the middle of the room: this is where a single red/silver throne resides. When it is occupied, 20 red/silver swords (of a style originating in the subsector) encircle the one sitting on the Vision Chair (as the throne is called). Their airborne patterns are pre-programmed, and are keyed to the sitting individual, responding to the various sensors on the throne. They are able to strike and kill at a word, but usually just make interesting 'orbital' patterns around the throne. When the throne is not occupied, the swords lay down around the throne in a preset pattern, points outward.
(Incidentally, the "Twenty red/silver swords around the Imperial starburst" pattern is replicated on the Family Standard, shield, and household insiginia.)
The throne itself has only a small holographic projection screen built in, and no mobile ability. The acoustics of the room is designed to amplify the voice of the one sitting on the throne.
The floor is covered with a simple (TL 10) filmscreen, which usually just projects the same colour as the 'cement'. Embeeded on top of the filmscreen is a 10-cm-thick "red line" and "blue line", both of solid marble. The red line marks out the blind spots of the throne, where only family members, selected security personnel, and high nobility (Ducal plus) may enter: all others who breach the line are subject to death. The blue line is the area between the red line and the 'frontal cone' of the throne. The region between the blue line and the red line is usually occupied by liveried guards, friends of the family, and trusted aides.
Use of the Throneroom -
Imperial thronerooms have a number of uses: public ceremonies (patriotic, religious, familial), some government proclimations (ie: the annual "Speech from the Throne" outlining government objectives for the year), handling public relations with other governments (recieving ambassadors, etc.) Also, thronerooms may be used as a court of judicial appeal. All thronerooms are, by definition, "public places" in the sense that they are stages for actions held in 'the public square'.
The Hall of Vision is a small throneroom, sufficent for the limited needs of the Sept Tul noble house. This "culturally deviant" Vilani family - a rare bird in itself - keeps itself aloof from local democratic politics, and views their Imperial responsibilities as an unwanted burden, rather than an honour or an opportunity to generate wealth and power. As such, the throneroom is normally used for ceremonial occasions, to formally recieve high-ranking visitors on Imperial business, as a hall of Imperial Justice for local legal cases (affecting Imperial security, interstellar trade, or interstellar relations), and finally as a 'negotiation site' for certain diplomatic initiatives between the local worlds.
Over the last year (1102), the Hall of Vision was in use on 22 seperate occasions. The number in the Hall usually numbered in the high thirties, (with two-three security personnel)
Notes:
* "Darlinki" is subsector J of Dagudashaag
* Usually, there is no grav-equipped robot or guard in the throneroom. Occasionally, a robot with holoprojection abilities is brought in, for presentations.
