# Rise and Fall of Empires



## Ž.J. (Feb 5, 2020)

_*Hi guys! *_
I would love to hear what ideas you have on the concept of Empires. When do empires reach their zenith, when do they fall, how they fall etc. 
Of course first of all in order to begin our discussion I think we need to define what an empire is. In my opinion the shorter way we could define an empire is "A conglomeration of different nations".  
_*May the discussion begin!*_


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## WooHooMan (Feb 5, 2020)

I’ve read before that a government tends to have an average lifespan of 200-300 years.
Of course, the German Empire only lasted 30 years while Imperial China lasted for about 2500 years so it’s all over the place.

I also disagree with your definition since, by that metric; the EU and the UK could be considered empires.
I guess I’d ask you to define “conglomeration” and “nation”.


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## skip.knox (Feb 5, 2020)

I don't find "rise and fall" to be especially helpful in historical analysis. It works great for fiction, though! Also for balloons.

One trouble with definitions is that one winds up in endless loops. Define conglomeration. Define nation. Okay, now define the words you used for those definitions. Argue endlessly. 

In one regard, I'd say the only one that gets to call itself an empire are the ones that call themselves empires. We in the West call the ruler of Japan the emperor, but that's a Latin word, not a Japanese word. I wonder if Japanese find the word adequate. Similarly for China or any other non-Western nation.

Even the Greeks didn't call the ruler emperor, they called him _basileus_. 

For still more fun and games, the original emperor--Caesar Augustus--while _imperator_ was among his collection of titles, actually claimed he was restoring the Republic and not creating an empire at all. Fifteen hundred years later, apologists for Henry VIII of England made the argument that a king was emperor within his own kingdom, so there's that. Or we have the Athenian Empire, which never called itself an empire, but the moniker was bestowed by modern historians upon the Delian League (applied for the era after Pericles swiped, er relocated, the League's treasury to Athens).

I sincerely hope I have properly muddied the waters.


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## Ž.J. (Feb 6, 2020)

skip.knox said:


> I don't find "rise and fall" to be especially helpful in historical analysis. It works great for fiction, though! Also for balloons.
> 
> One trouble with definitions is that one winds up in endless loops. Define conglomeration. Define nation. Okay, now define the words you used for those definitions. Argue endlessly.
> 
> ...



You did gave a nice start to this 

And well...there are many examples of where states called there rulers emperors, while in the same way the particular state didn't fall into the definition of empire. Examples could given with my own home of Bulgaria. Until 1946 our rulers were too called Tsars (a slavinized version if Ceaser). Or Georgian for example. Their rules were titled "King of Kings" way until 1870s, when Georgia itself was a fringe vassal state of Russia.
And to my definition. Well a "conglomeration" in my opinion plays the role of showing that, this particular civilization and its rulers are reigning over many difirent nations. And a nation itself is a conglomeration of different cultural markers (language, religion, food, dresses etc.) that define a given group of people.


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## Ž.J. (Feb 6, 2020)

WooHooMan said:


> I’ve read before that a government tends to have an average lifespan of 200-300 years.
> Of course, the German Empire only lasted 30 years while Imperial China lasted for about 2500 years so it’s all over the place.
> 
> I also disagree with your definition since, by that metric; the EU and the UK could be considered empires.
> I guess I’d ask you to define “conglomeration” and “nation”.



Well aren't they? Isn't Russia, China or the USA empires? They are states with great territorial holdings (except the UK) ruling over many difirent ethical groups. Now the EU could be excluded but in the same way the Holy Roman Empire served a similar role. Now we can argue if the HRE itself was an empire, or it was simply a title. But I dont think that empires need to call themselves empires to be empires.


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## Yora (Feb 6, 2020)

As the Tibetans and Uigurs are concerned, China is definitely an Empire.
Not so sure about Russia and USA though.

China being an empire that lasted 2500 years is a propaganda lie. There were many periods where China split up into multiple independent states for considerable stretches and then ended up to be "unified" by a completely different group. It's much more sensible to treat each dynasty as a different state.
The Yuan dynasty was the time when China was conquered by the Mongol Empire, and for a time China was ruled by the Manchu, who are also not Han.

The Chinese Empire does not have much more persistence than the Persian Empire. Completely different states in roughly the same area that is defined by natural borders.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 6, 2020)

An Empire is a conglomeration of nations where one nation is in charge.

USA is mostly a federation of states, which all _share_ authority.  Same as the EU. 

An argument could be made that the USA is an Empire by virtue of how certain countries like Peurto RICO or Guam or American Samoa  and other territories are controlled by the USA.


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## Prince of Spires (Feb 6, 2020)

skip.knox said:


> I sincerely hope I have properly muddied the waters.


You forgot to examine what exactly the zenith of an empire is, when it's rising and how to define when it has fallen.

After all, the roman empire ended in 476, except that it also did so in 1204, 1453 and 1461. It depends on what you count as which empire. Same with the empire of Alexander the great. Did it end with his death in 323 BC or in 31 BC, when the romans conquered Ptolomaic Egypt?

As for the rise and fall in general (avoiding all this definition stuff), in my non-academic view there's two types of empires. There's those who are more or less founded by a single emperor who is responsible for a great and fast expansion and then there's those who grow gradually, being added to by different rulers. 

The first type is empires like that of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. They tend to last for the life of the founder and then fragment into separate kingdoms or empires as the strong ruler disappears, people argue about who the rightful successor is and opportunistic groups take advantage of the vacuum of power that appears. Some of these parts can still last a long time (like the aforementioned Ptolomaic Egypt). 

The second type grows much slower and usually dies a slow and dragged out death or slide into obscurity. The roman empire is a great example here, starting in 753, very slowly growing in size, technically only becoming an empire in 27 BC or so, reaching its largest size in 117AD (does that count as the zenith?) and then gradually shrinking until the fall of Rome in 476. Except of course that somewhere in there, someone split the whole thing in two and half of it continued as Byzantium for another 1000 years or so. The British empire is another one, which started somewhere in the 16th century or so, grew until it covered 24% of the total land area in the world in 1920 and since then has gotten smaller until now, 100 years later little of it remains and it's probably no longer an empire.


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## WooHooMan (Feb 6, 2020)

I’m going to suggest something crazy but bear with me: what if we consider the real-world concept of an “empire” as being somewhat distinct from the fiction archetype of an empire?
I think “empires” are common enough in fiction that we can consider it a narrative convention or archetype in the same way we talk about archetypes like knight errants or dark lords and so forth.

Going on this train of thought: I think empires would best be understood as an extension of a monarch (or monarchs are embodiments of the empire) who demonstrate expansionist and authoritarian behavior.  They tend to be antagonist but can be benevolent.


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## Ž.J. (Feb 6, 2020)

WooHooMan said:


> I’m going to suggest something crazy but bear with me: what if we consider the real-world concept of an “empire” as being somewhat distinct from the fiction archetype of an empire?
> I think “empires” are common enough in fiction that we can consider it a narrative convention or archetype in the same way we talk about archetypes like knight errants or dark lords and so forth.
> 
> Going on this train of thought: I think empires would best be understood as an extension of a monarch (or monarchs are embodiments of the empire) who demonstrate expansionist and authoritarian behavior.  They tend to be antagonist but can be benevolent.



Well, i dont really get the cliché that empires should inherently be evil and serve as antagonists in the nerative. 

Monarchs (and nations) being expansionistic and in this way forming their own empires isn't something that's an exception in our history. Mongols, Timurids, Ottomans, Seljuks etc. all of these empires were formed thanks to expansionism.


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## WooHooMan (Feb 6, 2020)

Ž.J. said:


> Well, i dont really get the cliché that empires should inherently be evil and serve as antagonists in the nerative.
> 
> Monarchs (and nations) being expansionistic and in this way forming their own empires isn't something that's an exception in our history. Mongols, Timurids, Ottomans, Seljuks etc. all of these empires were formed thanks to expansionism.



I said they tend to be antagonistic but can be benevolent.  I didn't press that they need to be evil or are automatically bad.  The tendency for empires to be portrayed as evil in fiction is a trend that I think may be worth exploring rather than dismissing the idea .
I also didn't intend to suggest that the archetype of an empire was totally divorced from or unlike historical empires.  Likewise, fictional monarchies/kingdoms, dictatorships and so forth can fall under the archetype of an empire without being defined in-universe as an empire.

I put the disclaimer that it was a crazy idea because I know it can be hard to separate the real-world concept of an empire from the narrative archetype.  But considering that we are all writers here, I think we should keep the narrative use in our minds and not get completely bogged-down in the real-world definition or history of the concept.

To expand on your first post, using the "empire archetype" rather than the real-world political concept...
_When do empires _(in fiction)_ reach their zenith_: it seems that a fictional empire reaches its peak under a good (morally good or politically effective) monarch who brings about peace, prosperity or military glory.
_when do they fall_: when there is an evil or incompetent ruler who needs to be defeated to "free" the people under their empire's control.  Alternatively, it could be when the people (particularly the upper class) prove to be too decadent or selfish to effectively rule.
_how they fall_: military defeat is the most common way, it seems.  Be that against rebels in a civil war who overthrow the monarch or when a country they attempt to dominate or subjugate fights back and win.  In any case, the fall of a fictional empire nearly always corresponds with the morality or competency of the empire/its ruler(s).


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## Ž.J. (Feb 6, 2020)

WooHooMan said:


> I said they tend to be antagonistic but can be benevolent.  I didn't press that they need to be evil or are automatically bad.  The tendency for empires to be portrayed as evil in fiction is a trend that I think may be worth exploring rather than dismissing the idea .
> I also didn't intend to suggest that the archetype of an empire was totally divorced from or unlike historical empires.  Likewise, fictional monarchies/kingdoms, dictatorships and so forth can fall under the archetype of an empire without being defined in-universe as an empire.
> 
> I put the disclaimer that it was a crazy idea because I know it can be hard to separate the real-world concept of an empire from the narrative archetype.  But considering that we are all writers here, I think we should keep the narrative use in our minds and not get completely bogged-down in the real-world definition or history of the concept.
> ...



Excuse me for my outburst in my answer earlier. Didn't wanted to sound agresive.

All of your answers seem quite realistic. The only thing I would like to add is that, maybe the higher class of society (high-nobility) would want to keep the empire weak so that they can abuse it for their own personal gain. This dosen't make them incumbent, just creedy.

The cycle of the Chinese dynasties is a clear example of this. One dynasty becomes corrupt and stagnated thus a new one comes on its place. Of course this cycle was broken by outside forces.


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## skip.knox (Feb 6, 2020)

Since rise and fall aren't helpful, neither is zenith. Except in astronomy. And old televisions.

In fiction, I'm happy with an empire as long as the emperor rules over kings. Otherwise, it's just the author picking "emperor" because it sounds more important. I think at the start the OP suggested an empire was a conglomerate of nations. I'm happier saying it's a conglomerate of kingdoms.

In history, I tend to be strict in interpretation. It's an empire if the term is used in the sources. Translating from another language is tricky. Someone mentioned the Persian Empire, but in fact the title was King of Kings. Or Shah. We regularly speak of the Emperor of Japan or of China. I suppose if the Japanese are content with the term, I should be as well, but it'd be interesting to know the connotations and reverberations of the original. It's also curious, though maybe not significant, that we speak of the Chinese Empire, but we translate the Chinese term not as the MIddle Empire but as the Middle Kingdom, which makes me wonder about titles there. And for a final curiosity, the Brits used to speak of the British Empire, but I'm pretty sure the title Emperor accreted only after they acquired India and was never formally used outside that context.

I do think the trope of empire as not only evil but as more or less overbearingly powerful can be traced directly to Star Wars. We don't hear much about evil empires prior to that.


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## skip.knox (Feb 6, 2020)

>(high-nobility) would want to keep the empire weak so that they can abuse it for their own personal gain.
The HRE (the so-called Holy Roman Empire) is a good example of this. Emperors were sometimes elected specifically because they were not particularly strong in their own right--the first Wittelsbachs are an example, but so is the first Hapsburg.


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## Ž.J. (Feb 6, 2020)

Well....the best way that I can show you what I think of empires, is I to probably tell you about the one in my own setting. 

Its called _The Empire of the Seven United Kingdoms_ and it's an elective monarchy devided into administrative regions of 3 kinds. 
The 7 original kingdoms that formed the empire in the first place, are now know as  the 7 Heartland Principalities (ruled by prince-electors). The 2nd type is a simple Imperial Provice ruled by a Governor and the 3rd are The Free marches, that basically serve as borderlands for The Empire. Furthermore every Principality and Province can be devided into _Themes. _Every Theme is ruled by a Stratygos, and they served as the landed elite of the Empire.
 The Empire has a legislative assembly known as _The Imperial Senate _formed from 10 delegates from every Principality, so combined to 70 imperial delegates. The Provinces themselves are represented into The Grand Consule. A legislative body working in a similar famous to the Senate, tho holding less influence. 
On top of all sits the emperor, who is democratically elected from the Imperial Senate, all 70 delegates.


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## FifthView (Feb 6, 2020)

skip.knox said:


> I do think the trope of empire as not only evil but as more or less overbearingly powerful can be traced directly to Star Wars. We don't hear much about evil empires prior to that.



Hah, yeah.

Does the negativity also spring from American propaganda? Or at least the American mindset? After all, the U.S. became the U.S. by fighting against that sort of thing, and through the years this antipathy has only increased. (I mean, against the idea of empires, not against Britain.)

Star Wars has always seemed to me to be a bloated expression of this antipathy against empires.

Since you are considering various historical realities and phrasing...what about something like "United Kingdom" or "Commonwealth?"  Are these terms meant to soften the past, or soften the reality? Heh.

For that matter, I wonder whether those in power, across history, viewed their empire in different ways than those out of power or at the periphery.  "King of Kings" might seem to acknowledge the kingdoms of others, but those kings under the thumb of Persian rule might have felt differently. (And for that matter, King of Kings might also have been a way of debasing those other kingdoms...)


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## WooHooMan (Feb 6, 2020)

FifthView said:


> Hah, yeah.
> 
> Does the negativity also spring from American propaganda? Or at least the American mindset? After all, the U.S. became the U.S. by fighting against that sort of thing, and through the years this antipathy has only increased. (I mean, against the idea of empires, not against Britain.)



I don't think so or at least not entirely.  I think following WWI, the idea of imperialism was just kind of tainted in the mind of the west.  The war was basically republics vs. empires and led to the dismantling of several of the world's mightiest empires.  Plus, it corresponded with the end of the Russian Empire, Imperial China and (to some extent) the British Raj.
So, I think it's just a modernity thing.  March of progress and all that.  The idea of empires became seen as "inferior" or obsolete to the idea of republics starting from the English Civil War (or possibly as early as the Renaissance) to the end of WW2.  The American revolution was just part of that progression.  I think WWI was when it was cemented that empires are "bad" - that was when the idea was locked-in.

And most fiction that we have to look towards was made in the west following WW1.  I've always maintained that modern fantasy began with the pulps which were written in post WW1 America.


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## Prince of Spires (Feb 7, 2020)

It's also just an easier story to tell. A story relies on conflict and high stakes. There's not that much conflict in a story where a large empire crushes some rebellion. It's a lot easier to tell the story of a little guy with a group of friends taking on a large, all powerful empire. There's immediate conflict and high stakes there. Add to that that we like the underdog and it's clear to see why you get evil empires and not evil rebellions. 

Part of it might also stem from WW2. The resistance movements throughout Europe were seen as hero's after the war (and during probably). Little guy against evil empire is then just retelling that story in a different setting with different characters. 

I've seen only a few stories with a good empire that work. The third book in the Attila trilogy by William Napier is the only one that comes to mind. And that works because the empire in question is an empire on the verge of defeat (end of the roman empire) and they're facing a larger outside threat in Attila the Hun. This gives the stories conflict and high stakes.


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## skip.knox (Feb 7, 2020)

WWII added nails to that coffin. Not only because Hitler had proclaimed a Third Empire (Third Reich), and Il Duce had explicitly invoked imperial forms, but also because in the aftermath of that war there were a couple of decades of movements of independence from European empires. So it was easy to view empires as relics of the past and as oppressors, while rebels were symbols of progress and freedom.


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## Yora (Feb 7, 2020)

Name one empire that wasn't evil? And by evil I mean habitualy invaded it's neighbours to steal their resources and enslave the population.

The reason that the Tenno of Japan is called an emperor is because Chinese was the lingua franca of the day, and the Tenno demanded that court documents refer to him with the same title as the Emperor of China.
I do not know if there is record what the emperor of China thought of that. It was totally ridiculous.


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## skip.knox (Feb 7, 2020)

>Name one empire that wasn't evil?
No empire is evil. It's a political form. People can be evil; things aren't evil. Others are free to disagree with that, but for me it's axiomatic. As a historian, I can investigate the actions of people, but I cannot assign motive and purpose to a library or to a representative democracy. Or an empire.

Given that axiom, I can point to good things people have done in an empire and bad things people have done in an empire. There's the aqueduct <insert rest of sketch here>.


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## Kevin Beck (Feb 7, 2020)

skip.knox said:


> >Name one empire that wasn't evil?
> No empire is evil. It's a political form. People can be evil; things aren't evil. Others are free to disagree with that, but for me it's axiomatic. As a historian, I can investigate the actions of people, but I cannot assign motive and purpose to a library or to a representative democracy. Or an empire.
> 
> Given that axiom, I can point to good things people have done in an empire and bad things people have done in an empire. There's the aqueduct <insert rest of sketch here>.


I would have to disagree to a point, The Nazi's were very much designed as an evil empire. The party actually built a mythology around themselves to define their own mythical history. They also created propaganda based on this history that reinforced their own perceptions of their superiority. This vision defined everything that they did as a nation. Including the holocaust which was the most evil act ever perpetrated by modern human beings in my view.


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## skip.knox (Feb 7, 2020)

Yep, I have to grant that one. Evil, harmful philosophy lay at the very core of National Socialism, and Hitler explicitly proclaimed his government an empire. To dispute just a bit, I'd still want to argue that there is nothing inherently evil in empire as a political form. But there can be no disputing that that particular empire was as deliberately wicked as anything the world has seen.


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## The Dark One (Feb 7, 2020)

Empires have usually been regarded as self-evidently benevolent by the master nation and evil by the subjugated.

For the sake of a story you might say the zenith is when the empire controls the most territory / resources with the least resistance.

The fall comes with revolution.


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## skip.knox (Feb 7, 2020)

The Dark One said:


> Empires have usually been regarded as self-evidently benevolent by the master nation and evil by the subjugated.
> The fall comes with revolution.


I've been trying to think of an empire that has been brought down by revolution. Not the Athenian Empire. Not Rome. Not the Carolingian. Not the HRE. Not the Byzantine. Not the Second Reich, nor the Third. Not the British. Oh wait, the Russian (I was going chronologically). Most of them were ended by war.

Who says violence never solved anything? <g>


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## The Dark One (Feb 8, 2020)

For the sake of a formula I was being deliberately permissive in my use of the term. Permissive in the sense that political revolution within a single nation is just one aspect of the term.

Revolution within the community of nations then.

That's the trouble with formulae when applied to history and politics...they don't really work.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 8, 2020)

skip.knox said:


> >Name one empire that wasn't evil?
> No empire is evil. It's a political form. People can be evil; things aren't evil. Others are free to disagree with that, but for me it's axiomatic. As a historian, I can investigate the actions of people, but I cannot assign motive and purpose to a library or to a representative democracy. Or an empire.
> 
> Given that axiom, I can point to good things people have done in an empire and bad things people have done in an empire. There's the aqueduct <insert rest of sketch here>.



I think it is reasonable to describe an empire as evil if it’s actions as an empire could fairly be described as evil.

The nazis obviously qualify.  The Aztecs would have to be up there.  The Spanish definitely went through a pretty bad period.  The Assyrians make the Nazis look good.  The Soviets were nearly as bad as the Nazis.  The Japanese Empire of the 20th Century was pretty terrible.

Given how difficult it is to morally justify territorial conquest, just about every Empire at least starts out evil.  The Roman Empire committed a _lot_ of genocide on the way to getting as big as it did, but there wasn’t anything particularly out of line with how the Byzantine Empire was conducting itself by the 15th century.  Same with the British Empire - more than a bit of genocide and other morally unjustifiable acts throughout its run, but pretty mellow by the time the 20th century rolled around.


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## skip.knox (Feb 8, 2020)

Passing moral judgments on past empires is one thing, but it's not what the OP asked, so I'm going not going to keep on the moral theme and shall return to the OP.

One aspect that was not asked but was implied is, how do empires originate? Since my own world is based on history, I don't have too much to add save for one item. The Roman Empire never fell in Altearth. There are (human) emperors in the West right the way through. But there is a non-history empire in Altearth and it belongs to the orcs. 

When orcs appeared in Altearth, they quickly imitated the Roman Empire, but with a major wrinkle. We don't know exactly who was the first orc emperor, because of course the orcs claim they always had emperors and it's the humans who copied *them*. That accounts for the presence of quaestors, praetors, and aediles in the orc empire as well. The major wrinkle derives from orc religion. They are duo-theistic. Two gods, one representing the physical world, the other representing the spiritual. Both co-equal and co-eternal. The orcs have a powerful priesthood; indeed, orc society is profoundly theistic. Their priesthood is rigidly hierarchical, with a pontifex maximus at the top (they claim that term, too). The high priest is theoretically the peer of the emperor (the priest represents the spiritual and the one god; the emperor represents the worldly and the other god). In practice, the priest is the most powerful. Anyway, what we have in Altearth is empire by imitation.


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## Yora (Feb 8, 2020)

Gray-Hand said:


> Same with the British Empire - more than a bit of genocide and other morally unjustifiable acts throughout its run, but pretty mellow by the time the 20th century rolled around.


Empires stop being evil when they become too weak to do evil on a bigger scale than regular countries?
I don't entirely disagree, but maybe that means they stop being evil when they stop being empires in anything but name,

I realized everything I said about the evil of empires does not apply to the Holy Roman Empire. But then, many historians say it never was an empire in anything but name.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 8, 2020)

The British Empire was still the most powerful entity on Earth in the early twentieth century, and it was only eclipsed by the USA which wasn’t being particularly evil at that time.

a lot of Empires probably start mellowing out after they cease their territorial expansion and subsequently don’t have to rely on and glorify violence as much.  After awhile, the most influential people are no longer the people who are capable of and enjoy the most violence.  The empire stabilises and the culture is able to develop in other areas.

Of course, that ‘stability’ can easily become stagnation, and they can get overtaken by younger, more energetic nations.

This is a subject that is hard to talk about in general terms because the circumstances of the rise and fall of each empire are usually unique and are almost always due to multiple factors.


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## The Dark One (Feb 8, 2020)

If an empire loses its vision and mission, it will soon fall. Back to my revolution theme, you could say the Roman empire fell apart after a Christian revolution whose golden rule sentiment weakened the previous pantheon-approved expansionism.

The British empire was similarly eroded from within - losing the will to expand and exploit due to a whole range of humanist sentiment including emancipation and the growing nationalism of subjected states. After the opium wars in particular, the British conscience was pricked. It was all downhill for the empire after that.


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## TheKillerBs (Feb 8, 2020)

Gray-Hand said:


> Same with the British Empire - more than a bit of genocide and other morally unjustifiable acts throughout its run, but pretty mellow by the time the 20th century rolled around.


Yeah, maybe you should ask the Irish or Indians about that. Winston Churchill isn't remembered nearly as fondly there as in other places.


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## WooHooMan (Feb 8, 2020)

skip.knox said:


> I've been trying to think of an empire that has been brought down by revolution. Not the Athenian Empire. Not Rome. Not the Carolingian. Not the HRE. Not the Byzantine. Not the Second Reich, nor the Third. Not the British. Oh wait, the Russian (I was going chronologically). Most of them were ended by war.
> 
> Who says violence never solved anything? <g>


I think the idea of heroic revolutions bringing down evil empires is basically a myth that mostly exists in fiction.  Probably because clear standards of heroism and evil is more prominent in fiction than history.  This kind of ties into what I was saying early about the fictional archetype of "empire" versus historic empires.
I'd also argue that internal collapse probably does more to end an empire than anything.  An empire can usually remain after losing a war but if you throw war on top of internal issues (civil unrest, economic failure, etc.), that's when the empire ends.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 8, 2020)

TheKillerBs said:


> Yeah, maybe you should ask the Irish or Indians about that. Winston Churchill isn't remembered nearly as fondly there as in other places.


I checked.  

While plenty of subjects of the British Empire during the early twentieth century could and did feel rightly aggrieved by the way they were treated, such bad conduct didn’t descend to the level that it could really be called _evil. _Certainly not compared to say the Aztecs, Third Reich, Assyrians etc.


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## The Dark One (Feb 8, 2020)

Define evil...


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 8, 2020)

The Dark One said:


> Define evil...


Probably a lot of ways you could define it, but I tend to set the bar up at: Committing extreme acts of violence or cruelty on a wide scale out of proportion to any morally justifiable objective.


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## TheKillerBs (Feb 8, 2020)

Gray-Hand said:


> Probably a lot of ways you could define it, but I tend to set the bar up at: Committing extreme acts of violence or cruelty on a wide scale out of proportion to any morally justifiable objective.


Such as killing over 2 million in the Bengal famine?


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 8, 2020)

TheKillerBs said:


> Such as killing over 2 million in the Bengal famine?


Pretty damn disgraceful, but was the result of badly thought out policies and incompetence in the context of the war against a dangerous enemy rather than deliberate infliction of cruelty against the victims.


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## WooHooMan (Feb 9, 2020)

Gray-Hand said:


> Pretty damn disgraceful, but was the result of badly thought out policies and incompetence in the context of the war against a dangerous enemy rather than deliberate infliction of cruelty against the victims.


I noticed in fiction (and history kind of) that an incompetent government is usually given more leeway and sympathy than a malicious government.  Even if the incompetent government kills hundreds while the malicious government kills dozens.

In any case, I don't think ascribing the term "evil" to a country makes it an empire.  In fiction or history.


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## Prince of Spires (Feb 10, 2020)

I have some issue with the idea of declaring evil empire in real history. The attachment of the term evil to empire suggests that somehow the opposite isn't evil. As in, regular countries aren't evil. This is clearly not always the case. Just look at Pol Pot in Cambodia, Argentina under Videla or Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But it goes further then that. How many countries exist today that haven't at some point in their history fought someone else? 

And how do you declare an empire evil anyway? Is it that it has to have done something evil at some point in its history? How about the USA then, they're the only country that has used nuclear weapons on civilians. Sounds pretty evil to me. But does that make them evil overall? Or even in the WW2 period? Most people consider them to be the good guys there. But can they still be considered the good guys after bombing Dresden?

And what is evil anyway? Is there some universal Truth we can measure evil against? And what is it? And if a country doesn't know about this universal truth and thus performs evil acts does that make them evil or just ignorant? How big a percentage of its time should a country have been performing evil deeds for it to be deemed evil? An interesting example is slavery. It's pretty evil by today's standards. But in Roman times it was pretty widely accepted. It makes it evil by our standards. But if it's completely normal for them, then does that still count as evil or is that just our own feeling of cultural supremacy talking?

And if an empire is deemed evil are then all its inhabitants evil? Back to Pol Pot. He was in power around 10 years or so and was responsible for the death of about 25% of the population of Cambodia. About as evil as we can claim. But what does that mean for 90+% of the people of Cambodia who suffered through it? Are they evil as well?


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## Pemry Janes (Feb 10, 2020)

To the ancient Greeks, the Persian empire was pretty evil. If the empire is looking to add you and yours to their dominion, it's reason enough to declare them evil. I think this term should be seen as subjective. The empire itself isn't going to think it is evil, it will instead point out all the benefits or being part of the empire or claim instead that they were the ones threatened.

A lot of Roman wars were 'defensive', for example.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 17, 2020)

I don’t think anyone is saying that Empires are inherently evil.  There is a decent case to be made though that territorial conquest is evil.  So an Empire that is still in its expansion phase is likely to be committing evil by way of territorial conquest.

Empires can expand in other ways of course - the Emperor could marry the Queen of another country or could inherit a country upon the death of a relative.  A weaker country could glom onto an Empire in order to seek protection from other external threats.

I suppose territorial conquest could escape being tagged as evil if the infliction of violence was limited to only the ruling elite and possibly its army?  If the only noticeable change to the daily lives of the civilian population is having a different guy’s face on the coinage, then that’s just the tough and tumble of the sport of kings.

As to whether an empire could be fairly tagged as an ‘evil empire’, that probably comes down to how it is been behaving lately and how it plans to behave in the future.  Just because an empire did something bad once, doesn’t mean it is evil now - especially if it isn’t even the same people running the place.

If it did something that could be described as evil back so long ago that it can’t really be shown to be negatively affecting the wellbeing of anyone today in any way that is reasonably rectifiable, then it’s probably best thought of as water under the bridge.  If a bad acts were committed (say, an unjustifiable invasion) but action was taken to make amends later (helped to defend from a different enemy), then that could clean the slate.  An acknowledgement of wrongdoing and an apology often helps.

As to whether the ‘evil’ tag applies to every citizen - well, no probably not.  The extent to which any individual is stained by the deeds of their empire is dependent on how much influence and support they gave to those deeds.  

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that countries can’t be evil.


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## Prince of Spires (Feb 18, 2020)

Gray-Hand said:


> There is a decent case to be made though that territorial conquest is evil.


But that case can only be made from our current point of view. We in the present day have defined this as evil. But that is just our definition. If you believe that you are bringing civilization to a region or that you have some god give right to rule over a region then in your eyes you're doing the right thing.

Even the whole idea of belonging to a nation seems to be a fairly recent thing. For most people it mattered little who the face on the coin was. 

Territorial conquest is simply one of the most common ways a country comes into existence. I'm not sure it really counts as evil or not, it's more just a fact of life for a country. But somehow, we always paint the losers of the fight as evil and the winners as the good guys. WW1 feels like that to me. Lot's of people fighting all over the place, and a lot of different causes, but somehow the germans are always painted as the bad guys there.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 18, 2020)

Yeah, but if we are writing about an empire, we are writing for a modern audience, so will have to come up with reasons to justify the territorial conquest that aren’t evil by today’s standards.


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## Prince of Spires (Feb 20, 2020)

Gray-Hand said:


> Yeah, but if we are writing about an empire, we are writing for a modern audience, so will have to come up with reasons to justify the territorial conquest that aren’t evil by today’s standards.


I disagree that this is a must. It can be important to the story. But there are plenty of examples of protagonists that do horrible things which in the real world we jail people for and in stories we root for the protagonists. 

It's very obvious in movies and series. There's plenty on thiefs (like Oceans 11), murderers (dexter), basic human rights violations (torture is pretty common in Hawai 5-O) and con-men (catch me if you can). Same with history, a lot of people like the roman empire, ancient greece, there's a reason why a lot of boys are named Alexander. In all of these the viewers root for the protagonist, and they all do some horrible things when you stop to think about it. 

But people never do. People root for the protagonist of a story. They want him to succeed, especially if he's a likeable character. What he actually does is less important.


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## TheKillerBs (Feb 20, 2020)

Prince of Spires said:


> I disagree that this is a must. It can be important to the story. But there are plenty of examples of protagonists that do horrible things which in the real world we jail people for and in stories we root for the protagonists.
> 
> It's very obvious in movies and series. There's plenty on thiefs (like Oceans 11), murderers (dexter), basic human rights violations (torture is pretty common in Hawai 5-O) and con-men (catch me if you can). Same with history, a lot of people like the roman empire, ancient greece, there's a reason why a lot of boys are named Alexander. In all of these the viewers root for the protagonist, and they all do some horrible things when you stop to think about it.
> 
> But people never do. People root for the protagonist of a story. They want him to succeed, especially if he's a likeable character. What he actually does is less important.


Here's a thought. How many people were in the Death Star when Luke blew it up? How manny of them of them were actually _bad_?. How many of the Storm Troopers on it were doing what they thought was the right thing in supporting law and order in the galaxy? How about the non-soldiers? How many were doctors, technicians, engineers, etc.? Do their deaths not fall on Luke? Does anyone even care?


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## Yora (Feb 20, 2020)

No, nobody cares because Star Wars is a fun space adventures inspired by World War 2/propaganda movies.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 20, 2020)

TheKillerBs said:


> Here's a thought. How many people were in the Death Star when Luke blew it up? How manny of them of them were actually _bad_?. How many of the Storm Troopers on it were doing what they thought was the right thing in supporting law and order in the galaxy? How about the non-soldiers? How many were doctors, technicians, engineers, etc.? Do their deaths not fall on Luke? Does anyone even care?


They were actively operating or providing direct support for the operation of a weapon of mass destruction that had been used to kill billions of people a week or two earlier and was literally seconds away from doing the exact same thing again.  Luke Skywalker wasn’t operating in a morally grey area there.

Also - what Yora said.


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## Gray-Hand (Feb 20, 2020)

Prince of Spires said:


> I disagree that this is a must. It can be important to the story. But there are plenty of examples of protagonists that do horrible things which in the real world we jail people for and in stories we root for the protagonists.
> 
> It's very obvious in movies and series. There's plenty on thiefs (like Oceans 11), murderers (dexter), basic human rights violations (torture is pretty common in Hawai 5-O) and con-men (catch me if you can). Same with history, a lot of people like the roman empire, ancient greece, there's a reason why a lot of boys are named Alexander. In all of these the viewers root for the protagonist, and they all do some horrible things when you stop to think about it.
> 
> But people never do. People root for the protagonist of a story. They want him to succeed, especially if he's a likeable character. What he actually does is less important.





Prince of Spires said:


> I disagree that this is a must. It can be important to the story. But there are plenty of examples of protagonists that do horrible things which in the real world we jail people for and in stories we root for the protagonists.
> 
> It's very obvious in movies and series. There's plenty on thiefs (like Oceans 11), murderers (dexter), basic human rights violations (torture is pretty common in Hawai 5-O) and con-men (catch me if you can). Same with history, a lot of people like the roman empire, ancient greece, there's a reason why a lot of boys are named Alexander. In all of these the viewers root for the protagonist, and they all do some horrible things when you stop to think about it.
> 
> But people never do. People root for the protagonist of a story. They want him to succeed, especially if he's a likeable character. What he actually does is less important.


Those examples you give all support the notion that we have to write a story that justifies the deeds of the protagonist.

The Oceans 11 crew steal from bad people who are so rich that they don’t miss what is stolen from them.

Dexter targets murderers who have evaded the law and the few times he harms innocents, it is either by accident or mistake and acknowledged as a bad act requiring rectification.  At times the writers bent over backwards with some pretty contrived attempts to keep Dexter’s hands clean when it came to innocents being harmed.

I have never seen Hawaii 5-O, but I’m willing to bet that the show justifies the protagonists human rights violations by having them committed against bad people, or in pursuit of and within proportion of an righteous endeavour.

The audience is able to get on board with these protagonists in part because their goals are worthy.

So if you want your protagonists yo be engaging in territorial conquest and you want to appeal to a wide audience, that conquest has to be justified.


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## Prince of Spires (Feb 21, 2020)

Gray-Hand said:


> They were actively operating or providing direct support for the operation of a weapon of mass destruction that had been used to kill billions of people a week or two earlier and was literally seconds away from doing the exact same thing again. Luke Skywalker wasn’t operating in a morally grey area there.


Or they were simply had a family to feed, were recruited into the army, given no say over where they were stationed and had little idea about what was really going on. 



Gray-Hand said:


> I have never seen Hawaii 5-O, but I’m willing to bet that the show justifies the protagonists human rights violations by having them committed against bad people, or in pursuit of and within proportion of an righteous endeavour.


Yeah, it's usually something to do with time pressure and terrorists trying to blow up whatever and the only way to get the information is to beat it out of a criminal / terrorist. 

There's always some justification. But that just shows the truth behind the saying that everyone is the hero in their own story.


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