Asherons Call: Loremaster Question of the Week

At the climax of the Olthoi story arc, Nuhmudira committed two act of incredible betrayal: She arranged for Asheron to be trapped on his own island as well as had Oswald the Vagabond King attempt to assassinate High Queen Elysa Strathalar, both seemingly in the interests of making her the only person who could defeat the Ancient Olthoi Queen. Of course, the assassination failed, but what if it didn't? What if, in a precedent-setting instance in AC, Nuhmie completely succeeded in her plans and killed the High Queen. Furthermore, what if she was unable to pull a President Clark and have herself installed as Queen, Malika, or whatever immediately after? What then?

That's this week's Loremaster Question: How would you have handled the power vacuum in a post-Elysa Dereth? Would you have gone for a new type of government, or simply replaced one Queen with another (or a King, for that matter)? And which available AC figure(s) would you have involved in such a new power structure? ("Available" meaning alive and capable of quickly assuming power; Lilitha is rather occupied at the moment, and as far as we can tell, Bael'Zharon and Martine are a bit on the dead side, so it would be hard for any of them to take up a new career in government.) So, what would you do if we had suddenly found ourselves Queenless?