Worldbuilder Tips and Guides

Civ. Dev. Guide: Empires

            Empires are scene in fiction all the time. They are great devises that leave a lot of flexible room for a variety of stories. But how often are these empires grounded on a functional bases? How often can you look at an empire and say "This can logically exist."? Probably not often. I mean no ill towards those who utilize these dysfunctional empires, but if you would like to take the extra mile in building your empire, lets move on to how we can make our empires not just a great antagonist, but also realistic. 

            The first question we must ask is what makes an empire, well, an empire. The problem here is that even outside of fiction, the term is used rather loosely. Google defines it as "an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress." And lets be honest, that is not much to go on. 

            But, if we look at our own history, we can pull a two "Rules" that can be applied or checked when determining if our faction/civilization is an empire. 

1). Is your civilization ruled from a single authority? (Usually a monarch)
2). Does your civilization contain a variety of different racial, ethnic, religious, or linguistic groups. 

            If you said yes to both, then you are off to a good start. Now, normally the empire will have a singular racial, ethnic, religious, or linguistic group that will dominant the social status and have the most political favor or influence. Past that, we are still given a LOT of wiggle room to develop our empires. 

            Note: In no way is the "Empire" required to contain a specific stretch of territory. So, you don't need to be as large as the Roman Empire to really be considered an empire. In theory, as long as the first two "Rules" are met, you can be considered an empire. To some extent, the USA meets both of those requirements. 

            Now, based on the above, the next objective is to get a rough idea as to how large your empire is. This does not have to be exact down to the last mile, but as close as you can get it. Then, ask yourself this, how long does it take for information, trade, or armies to get from one end of the empire, to the other?

            Also note that magical or technological inventions or devises can aid in all of these. If your empire possesses control of a portal network that can move armies from town to town in minutes, then your going to have no issues moving an army. Or maybe they have a device to instantly send messages across the country. In either case, if your empire possesses anything to improve the speed of any or all three of these, then make note of those. 

            Now, once you have that estimated, the question to be asked is weather this size of an empire is sustainable. If it takes your army longer than a week to move across the country, you already have an issue if your empire relies on a single standing army. Of course a fix for this would be to take a Game of Thrones approach and give power to regional lords to build and maintain their own armies. Granted, again, that can also pose issues to the empires stability, especially from infighting. 

            All in all, you can adapt your empire to solve its issues with maintaining its size with ease, but you should also have a list of problems those adaptations cause. Take my example from above about the Game of Thrones approach and give regional lords power to build and maintain their own armies, you then risk civil war, infighting between lords, ext, that can destabilize the country. 

            As scary as it may be to have an empire ruled by a dude or chick who kills anyone who stands against them, lets be honest, it isn't functional. It is even worse when that dude or chick uses their tyrannical methods on their own people. Unless you can deprive the locals of having the option to fight back and that the only way they can live is to obey, all it does is give the locals a reason to rebel. Well, unless your a necromancer with an un-dead army under your command. At that point you could do whatever you wanted lol. 

            And really, that is all you need. It is not nearly as much work as one might think. About the only time this gets complex is when you decide to dig further into the governmental and social structure of the empire. And let's be honest, an empire that is functional can be evil too.  Just have them sanction slavery. And lets say your empires army has a habit of committing war crimes. If you want your people to support the empire, just use propaganda to either convince them it was not that bad or that the enemy is worse. I mean, even Germany had a PA department in WW2 and most of their own people were not even aware of what was going on at the concentration camps. 

            Okay, so here I rest my case. If you think I need to add more to this or have questions, just ask below and I will get back to you within 24 hours. As always, 

Notice: I highly recommend that you keep copies of all your work for this in multiple locations. As a tip, I always keep a backup on a hidden flash drive (Password Protect your files if you can), A saved copy on google docs (Personal email only, do not save to a public email) and a printed copy. Remember to date and put your name on ALL copies.

A/N:
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