User blog comment:Yuy168/Feudalism./@comment-5135903-20140102143501

I think that what you're trying to get at is a system of Viceroyalty. Especially in the Spanish Empire, a Viceroy (vice- in place of; -roi king) would rule a colony on behalf of the King, allowing the colony to respond more quickly to local problems. However, be careful not to be too human-centric when employing governmental systems. It is likely that humans and extraterrestrials would have very different phychologies, so the administrative problems that a feudal system was designed to combat may be less pronounced in an alien culture (on the other hand, they could be more pronounced).

Also, feudal systems tend to become less efficient as they get larger. For example, imagine each figure in the feudal system is in charge of 10 people on the rank below them and each person of the lowest rank administers a region with a population of 10,000. If a civilisation has a population of 100 billion, then there are 10 million people on the lowest rank of the feudal system, requiring 7 ranks from the commoner to the Emperor. If 90% of the orders being passed down a rank are fulfilled successfully (the other 10% get lost due to human error, red tape, etcetera), then an order from the Emperor only has a 0.9^7 = 0.478 = 47.8% chance of reaching the commoners. More than half of the Emperor's commands are lost in transit!

You could combat this problem by having less ranks, but then each higher ranking person would have more lower ranking people to command. The Emperor would have a tough time shouting over 50 different Kings all trying to get a word in! Smaller administrative groups are generally more cohesive and easier to keep track of.

What I propose is to have a multiple-track feudal system. You don't just have Emperor-King-Duke-Count, but you also have Emperor-General-Lieutenant-Major and Emperor-Primeminister-Minister-Councillor. Each hierarchy is another track through which an order can reach the bottom, increasing the chances of things actually getting done.

I advise you look into the Chinese administrative system, which is very hierarchical and has three tracks; Political, Social and Enterprise. This talk, though the subject is not necessarily about hierarchy, gives a good description of how the Chinese political system works partway through (try playing from the 9-minute mark).