The Royal Diplomatic Academy was a facility located on Tershin in the Unknown Regions. It was tasked with training officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Integration, including the Royal Integration Corps, and the Ministry of Diplomacy.
History[]
After the defeat of the Tetrarchy of Mezlagob, the Golden Empire acquired eighty-three member worlds, far more than could be addressed by Rin Sakaros and her personal staff alone. When she established the Grand Council of the Golden Empire in 103 ABY, and the Ministries of Diplomacy, Internal Affairs, and Integration with it, she saw the need for a single facility to train those charged with recruiting and integrating member systems, as well as seeing to their needs. In keeping with her desire to balance favor between her new worlds and those which had served her before the Great Liberation, she selected Tershin as the home of the new Royal Diplomatic Academy.
When the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Integration combined into a single unit, it and the Ministry of Diplomacy continued to share control of the Academy.
Training programs[]
After the language became thoroughly disseminated to all member systems after the Great Liberation, demonstrated proficiency in Orhyo was mandatory before enrolling in any of the Academy's programs.
Royal Integration Officers went through a six-month training program designed to develop their pride of service and in the Golden Empire itself. They studied the economic, political, and military systems of the Empire in great depth, as they were required to explain them to the governments of new member worlds. RIOs were also prepared for their interactions with the Educational Expansion Corps, the Resource Council, and local Consuls and the various bureaucratic and operational aspects of their work. Recruits were continually analyzed for calm, collected bearing and grace under pressure, as not all new member worlds were happy to be so.
Diplomats and envoys from the Ministry of Diplomacy had a shorter course of four months, but were required to meet higher entrance standards, including tertiary education in politics, history, and economics. At the Academy, they received further detailed education about those subjects in the Golden Empire specifically, as well as examining non-member cultures and differences, doing case studies of recently admitted systems, practicing the use of protocol droids and other translation aids, and learning about different agencies in the government and how they could be of use to new member worlds, particularly the Educational Expansion Corps.
Non-RIC officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Integration, usually designated mediators charged with resolving intersystem disputes, had a much shorter course of two months, mostly focusing on conflict resolution techniques.
Staff[]
Officers of both the MIAI and the MD were allowed to serve as instructors at the Royal Diplomatic Academy. While they were paid by their home departments, they were expected to have a universal view of their topics, and most had extensive field experience in their respective departments. Whenever possible, the Academy tried to appoint people who had actually served in one Ministry, then transferred to the other.
Though it was rare, Centurions of the Order of Keltrayu were sometimes allowed to serve as instructors, with the consent of the Sovereign. The Dronos Chindal and the Duros Corr Shaasa were examples of such Centurions.