The Imperial Ruling Council
Remember those guys in funny hats from Return of the Jedi that Palpatine dismisses to turn his office into a father-son death match arena? That is the Imperial Ruling Council, the group of advisors and political ministers that answered to no one but Palpatine himself, and were tasked with the administrative work of managing the vast reaches of the Galactic Empire.
Vader also technically sat on the Ruling Council as the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial military forces, but it was led in part by Palpatine’s closest advisor, the Grand Vizier Mas Amedda, and a legion of advisors and bureaucrats. The Ruling Council acted as the final administrative link between the Moffs that controlled the various Imperial Sectors and Palpatine himself, and were by and large the actual people who kept the engine of Empire ticking along, as Palpatine obsessed over Sith relics and his desire to achieve immortality.
The Battle of Endor, and the deaths of Palpatine and Vader, threw the Ruling Council into disarray. It effectively imploded, as Mas Amedda found himself besieged on Coruscant by the nascent New Republic and eventually became the face of the eventual provisional government that officially lead the Imperial Remnant at the end of the Galactic Civil War. Other advisors on the Ruling Council scattered, attempting to carve out regions of the Empire as their own personal kingdoms.
