Plot Problem

[Entice]

I've been laying out a plot for a story in my head for the past couple of years. I write a little in my spare time but I haven't ever seriously worked on something until recently. I decided to write down an outline for my story, but I've run into a few problems.

This is going to be extremely vague (because details won't matter unless the plot is good and you don't need the information to help me), but basically, the story revolves around a general in the Imperial guard and a medic. The general is a personal friend of the Emperor. The Emperor is assassinated, and a new Emperor is appointed by the Imperial Council. The new Emperor is almost the political opposite of the old Emperor, and therefore does not trust the general. The assassination prompts a war between the Empire and a neighboring country- and the new Emperor sends the Imperial guard to fight with the regular army and forms his own police force to replace them. This naturally angers the general, but he realizes that he has little choice in the matter. His forces are utterly crushed in battle as the enemy country proves to be more advanced than the army anticipated- and it soon becomes apparent that the war cannot be won and that the Empire has lost most of it's former military superiority. What's worse is that the new Emperor is giving increasing amounts of power to the military and himself in the belief that expansion will save the Empire from economic collapse. This is causing enormous amounts of social unrest. The general and some other soldiers begin to realize what is happening and form a plot to overthrow the Emperor. They surrender without permission and head towards the capitol. Before the Emperor can meet with the generals they meet up with the small group of rebels that has been forming in the capitol city, raid the armor near the Emperors fortress and sweep into his fortress. It's more complicated that/I've put more thought into the politics and such but that's the basic outline.

The first problem I'm having is this medic character. She is supposed to be a lower class woman that joins the army in favor of going to jail and is put into the Imperial guard under the new Emperor's legislation. The general of the Imperial guard is an experienced soldier, also from the lower class. The medic's role in the story was to become a close friend/love interest of the general that eventually ends up changing his cold, militaristic world view. Now that I look at it, she's not really needed in the story if the new Emperor eventually angers him enough to make him want to join the rebellion and fight against the system that he's served for most of his life. I'm also not sure how they're supposed to become friends in the first places. I decided that the medic would join the army involuntarily because with her planned personality it wouldn't make sense any other way. Criminals usually aren't allowed to join the Imperial guard at all because it's a specialized branch of the military, however, since the new Emperor doesn't trust the general and forms a new guard force I thought that it would make sense for him to pass legislation that would "punish" the Imperial guard (such as allowing criminals to join). Maybe she would attract the general's notice both because of her complete lack of military experience and the fact that she's a former petty criminal. But I don't know, I'm not very good at imagining situations like this.

The second problem I'm having is- what do the general and the rebels do after overthrowing the Emperor? Forming a democracy would be a bit of a stretch considering that the former government was a primitive republic with a powerful military class (the story takes place in the technological equivalent of the mid-late medieval ages but the universe, countries, etc. are entirely fictional). I'm not sure what I'll do at all, do I even have to give a detailed description of what happened, or will the plot be complete without it?

Anyways, I'd appreciate any criticism regarding what I've posted here so far.