Destroying communications can unravel an interstellar state

In the Castle Federation setting, the defeated polity begins to unravel after a coordinated strike destroys every quantum-entanglement communications relay. Isolated member worlds retain local governments, while the federal centre loses the infrastructure needed to coordinate them. A military leader then avoids accountability, seizes the legislature, and uses it as a rubber stamp while ordering the fleet and communications network rebuilt. Roman precedents help describe a system held together by coercive force instead of restored legitimacy. When that leader dies, the structure loses its principal source of unity. Communications infrastructure, institutional consent, and state capacity all become operational vulnerabilities.