 Do I even need to explain what an evil empire is? It's some sort of big, powerful country that probably likes to take over new territory and probably likes to violently oppress its subjects, of which the hero is one. They exist in just about every fantasy story out there, and a pretty substantial portion of science fiction ones too. And I have absolutely no problem with that. It's a fun trope with a lot of room for variation. It gives a sense of scale to the conflict, and allows the heroes to fight a variety of different foes who are all part of the same organization. There can even be some moral ambiguity if you're into that sort of thing. So it might surprise you to learn that the term empire is actually really loose. We use it pretty colloquially in common speech to describe polities that didn't refer to themselves as empires at all. Hell, we even call a bunch of businesses controlled by a single person, empires, sometimes. The official definition for empire is, an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, but that doesn't actually tell us much, so here are a couple of common characteristics of empires. One, they're ruled from a single authority, usually a monarch. Two, they contain a variety of different racial, ethnic, religious, and or linguistic groups. Three, one of those groups is in charge and usually has favored social and or legal status. That still leaves a lot of wiggle room to develop things though, and if you look at real empires from the Aztecs to the Romans to the Assyrians to the British, there's a lot of variation in the way empires were founded, governed, and in how they fell. So let's go over some of those aspects and see how we can work them into our fantastical settings. Part one, forms of control. The place where just about every writer screws up when making fictional evil empires is its political structure. For most, it's as simple as, do what the emperor says or you die. And while that was often true to an extent, it leaves out exactly how the emperor, and his empire for that matter, held onto their power. Do they control a particular resource or region that serves as a power base? Is the army loyal to them for religious reasons, or maybe just for money? Do the elites of the empire rely on the emperor's favor to keep their power? And if you're Aegon the Conqueror from Game of Thrones, nobody can stand against you because you have fucking dragons. And in that world, there really isn't a counter for dragons. Essentially, if the ruler is an absolute despot on paper, then there needs to be a way for him to hold onto power other than people listening to him just because. And if he isn't an absolute ruler, if he's somehow restricted by nobles or the citizens, then you should figure out exactly how that system works, and how it helps, and or hinders the empire as a whole. If the empire has a political system that remains stable, and all its neighbors are wracked by constant civil wars between rival claimants to the throne, then it would be able to conquer or exert influence over them without much trouble, just as an example. But then consider the issues of communication and transportation. A single despot might be able to rule a small nation with an iron fist, since news of any rebellion would reach him right away and he could mobilize his army and crush it fast. But in a much bigger nation, where a rebellion on the fringes could operate for months unmolested, that would be a harder system to maintain. A common solution to this was to split the empire into different provinces and let the local rulers have some level of autonomy. Maybe let the old nobility of your newly conquered territories keep control of their lands, but as vassals of the emperor. Or maybe give their lands over to some of your loyal followers. The Achaemenid Persian Empire is a great example of this. Achaemenid? Achaemenid? Acha... the Persians. There was a king that ruled the country and every province was governed by someone called a satrap. The satraps could keep things under control and handle smaller local problems, which allowed the king to turn his attention to bigger issues. And in this case the satraps were all appointed by the king and could be removed at his pleasure, meaning that he still retained control over them and they would do their best to stay on his good side. This system lasted over 200 years, only collapsing when it was conquered by Alexander the Great. All empires exist on a spectrum between totally centralized and totally decentralized. The Aztec Empire is one of the most decentralized ever. The core of the empire was made up of an alliance of three city states that, by working together, were able to dominate all of their neighbor cities one by one. But they didn't claim superiority over them really, they just forced them to pay tribute. Tribute is a payment made on a regular schedule in order to avoid being attacked. In this case it was mostly food, humans for sacrifice, and soldiers for their other wars of conquest, but it can take pretty much any form you want. Beyond paying tribute, the other cities could govern themselves pretty much however they wanted. What I'm saying is that there are a lot of different ways around this problem and a lot of different methods of control. Feel free to use your imagination. Now of course, the better the communication and transportation networks, the more centralized things can be. In the Stormlight Archive, Alathcar is a huge country, but they have devices called span reads which allow them to instantly send messages from place to place, meaning that the king can be aware of any problems and respond to them quickly. Whatever the technology level of your setting is, find out roughly how big the empire is, it doesn't have to be exact, just a rough estimate, then determine approximately how long it would take for three things to get from one end to the other, messages, trade, and armies. Messages should usually take the least amount of time and armies the longest, but that can vary depending on what sort of magic or technology you decide to put in. An absolute ruler sounds great on paper and can make for an intimidating villain, but if you want it to make sense then you have to build a foundation that supports that. Part 2, Conquest and Expansion If you know anything about Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, then you probably know that they conquered one of the largest empires in history and that it collapsed almost immediately afterwards. Let's take a second to examine exactly why the Mongols did so well. Before the time of Genghis, they were just a collection of stateless nomadic tribes that wandered the steppes of Central Asia raiding and hunting. Many settled peoples at the time would have called them uncivilized barbarians, but the thing is that by constantly riding horses and shooting bows, they got really good at both. Once they were united, they were basically just a giant army of cavalry that could move faster and fight better than just about everyone else. They conquered everything from China to Iraq to Ukraine, and within a few generations it had fallen to pieces. So yes, being good at fighting is the best way for an empire to take over new territory, but it has its limits and it's not going to help keep that empire together. Pretty much any evil empire will have to take over new areas since expanding and taking new resources is one of the best ways to grow your wealth in an ancient or medieval world. Please note that this is not the case in a modern world with a modern economy and modern militaries because all of those are so much more expensive and warfare tends to destroy all of them. Let's say that there's an empire called Merica. The common people love the emperor of Merica because he makes sure that they're treated fairly under the law and not subjected to the whims of nobles, and they make up the bulk of the army so he doesn't have to worry about any uprisings. He's still has to juggle the demands of a dozen factions, but things are stable for the moment. Now let's say that the emperor decides to conquer the neighboring kingdom of Dijorno to take control of its iron mines. So the army marches, crushes Dijorno in short order, and Merica annexes it. But the work is far from over. See, the people of Dijorno resent being taken over and are ready to rebel at the first opportunity. The Mericans can't just have their army occupy the new territory forever. If you watched my video on how to world build fantasy armies, then you know that there are different categories that armies fall into, and prolonged occupation requires a professional standing army, which is expensive. If the occupational force was big, then pretty soon they would be spending more money on the occupation than they could extract from the territory. And even if the people weren't interested in rebelling, then Merica would have to guard its new borders against invaders. If they let others launch raids on their new province and kill their people, then it will prevent them from mining the iron properly, and they'll start to lose money. And if their new overlords can't protect them, then the people of Dijorno would be resentful and move closer to rebelling. And that's not even counting more mundane issues, like language barriers and tax collection. Setting up a bureaucracy takes time and effort, especially if you do it properly so as to prevent corruption or incompetence. If Merica doesn't collect enough taxes, then it can't maintain things like roads and armies, which leaves it weakened and vulnerable to outside attacks. All of this together means that conquering new areas is difficult, expensive, and time consuming, which is why in many cases empires would only not take over places because it wasn't worth the cost, not because they felt they couldn't do it. And sometimes it's simple geography that keeps them from taking an area. The Mongols tried invading Vietnam, but their horses weren't very good at galloping through thick jungles. But even if they'd been able to beat the inhabitants militarily, the landscape would slow travel and trade and tax collection. If you want to make an empire that's stable or on the rise, then make sure its governing bodies can properly run all of its territory and extract the necessary resources to make keeping them worth it. If you want to show an empire on the decline, then make it have an inept or corrupt system that prevents the government from getting what it needs to function, e.g. the tax collectors steal the money that they collect, and so the emperor can't pay for a proper army. Of course, also note that empires do have more than two settings, you know, people tend to think of them as just rising and then falling, but there's plenty of times where they can be in this stable middle ground where they're not really doing either one. And also keep in mind that plenty of empires throughout their history went through multiple stages where they rose and then fell and then rose and then fell some more. If nothing else, just remember, if the government has no money and no way to get money, then it falls apart. Part 3. Evilness. Too many fictional empires are just straight up evil. And I don't mean that in the sense that most pre-modern countries were oppressive and authoritarian by modern standards, I mean that the writers go out of their way to make them as brutal and war-crimey as possible. Take a look at the empire from Star Wars. They built a moonsize space station, probably coming close to bankrupting themselves in the process, then used it exclusively on their own citizens. They destroyed Jetta City, Scarif, and Alderaan, which killed billions of their own tax-paying citizens. And why did they do it? To kill rebels, and, in the case of Alderaan, to show off that they don't keep their promises. Imagine if there was a terrorist cell in Houston, Texas, and the American military destroyed all of the south with a barrage of nuclear missiles. That's the closest scenario I can think of that captures the ridiculousness of what the empire did. And it's not like this was the only war crime they ever committed. They were well known to execute anyone who breathed dissent or was just not very good at their job. Destroying Alderaan was the final straw for many people to join the rebellion. Think about evil empires you found in all sorts of fiction. Zeon, the Marshall Empire, the Red Line, the Final Empire, Caesar's Legion, and a whole bunch of others. Now think about how many atrocities they commit against their own people and others. No one would want to be a part of them and no one would want to be an ally. They might be able to inspire fear, but if you saw a couple of dudes execute soldiers who surrendered, would you be encouraged to surrender? And for that matter, would you want to be their friend? But let's also remember that propaganda is a thing. If Murica didn't want people to be angry about their war crimes, then they would just have to come up with some sort of counter. Maybe they spread rumors that their enemies are even worse, or they tell their soldiers and citizens that their crimes were exaggerated, or that they were necessary, or something. Maybe DeGiorno has weapons of mass destruction. Who knows? If you burn down a peasant village in your quest for the chosen one, then you're going to push people to be more sympathetic towards him. And there has to be a counter to that if you want to keep your population under control. The manner in which this takes depends totally on the available technology, so it's difficult to give a generic template. Just think about how they could get their bullshit out as fast and to as many people as possible. Remember, even the fucking Nazis had a PR department. You can't keep many people under control through violence alone, nor can you just conquer every country that doesn't like you. And even setting that aside, if you kill your own taxpayers, you're going to run out of money sooner or later. Notice a common theme yet? Part 4. The Fall. This last part should be over quickly. How do empires collapse? In short, a shitload of reasons have contributed to real-life empires falling. Natural disasters, civil wars, taking over too much territory and being unable to run it properly, rival empires taking them over, and incompetent leadership causing them to lose influence. Nowhere on that list did I say a teenager kills the emperor in one-on-one combat and the whole thing collapses overnight. The death of an empire's ruler can and has resulted in instability or even war, but it's never caused the empire to collapse unless there were some serious underlying problems to begin with. And then consider something else. Does the empire fall apart into different component nations, or is it just changed into a new country? Maybe the American emperor is overthrown and replaced by an elected legislature turning the empire into a republic? Or maybe all the people they conquered rise up and the empire splits into a dozen tiny kingdoms? Or maybe the whole thing is overrun by necromancers from DeGiorno and everyone dies? Either way, no more empire. Just don't have everything collapse with the death of one person for the love of every god. Conclusion. Empires are all over the place both in fiction and in history, but they're often put in without much thought. Fictional ones, I mean the real ones have thought behind them, I assume. And while the term empire can be slippery, any sort can be a great addition to a setting or story, but just like everything else it has to be done correctly or it'll fail to be intimidating, or fail to inspire wonder, or just seem weird. Uh, I wish I had a better conclusion. I just want to give a huge huge shout out to all of my patrons, without them this wouldn't be possible. Uh, and of course this month's patron shout out is Desbrennan! Woo, yeah. So if you want to be featured in this list here, or have me shout out your name, or any of the bunch of other goodies that I have, then check out my page and consider becoming a patron. And if you don't want to do that, then you could always just subscribe and like this video and, you know, all that other stuff.