The Elven Imperial Navy considers itself the link between all the scattered elven nations of the Material Plane. The heart of their organization is an uncountable multitude of ships, which makes contact with the various known elven nations once a year or so.
They are highly organized and led by the Council of Admirals, headed by a Grand Admiral. They are elders even by elven standards. Their debates span multiple human lifetimes, but once committed to a decision, it is irrevocable, and they will follow it unwaveringly. How they will react is also difficult for other races to predict. At times, a perceived slight may be met with a simple withdrawal; at other times, it may lead to an entire fleet arriving to forcefully correct the issue.
The Council rules from a hidden base called Lionheart, whose location is changed every few years. It is made up of a ring of linked ships.
The ships of the Elven Imperial Navy are often constructed to resemble butterflies. Their smaller ships are made of a light ceramic material that is quite delicate compared to the ships of other spacefaring factions but allows for their ships to be quite mobile and maneuverable.
The Imperial Navy answers to the elven sovereigns of various planets and will intervene on their behalf in order to defend them. However, if the admirals feel that the Navy is not needed or if a given call for help appears to be an attempt to mobilize a fleet in a preemptive or overly aggressive fashion, the admirals will make some excuse and avoid getting involved. Many groundling elven nations have a “court astrologer” who is positioned as a diplomat that communicates with the space elves.
Not long ago, the Navy engaged in a brutal war against the spacefaring orcs and several goblinoid races, which is why their numbers in space today are so low. This war between the elves and orcs/goblinoids is remembered by the humans as the "Unhuman War."
The space elves do not generally deal directly with other races. They do, however, maintain embassies in most human settlements.
There are a number of exiles who have defected from the Imperial Navy to pursue their own idea of how elves should behave in space.